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yards ahead, was the entrance of the forward command bunker. The bunker from which he had come. Hendricks watched silently. No motion. No sign of life. Nothing stirred. Klaus slithered up beside him. "Where is it?" "Down there." Hendricks passed him the glasses. Clouds of ash rolled across the evening sky. The world was darkening. They had a couple of hours of light left, at the most. Probably not that much. "I don't see anything," Klaus said. "That tree there. The stump. By the pile of bricks. The entrance is to the right of the bricks." "I'll have to take your word for it." "You and Tasso cover me from here. You'll be able to sight all the way to the bunker entrance." "You're going down alone?" "With my wrist tab I'll be safe. The ground around the bunker is a living field of claws. They collect down in the ash. Like crabs. Without tabs you wouldn't have a chance." "Maybe you're right." "I'll walk slowly all the way. As soon as I know for certain--" "If they're down inside the bunker you won't be able to get back up here. They go fast. You don't realize." "What do you suggest?" Klaus considered. "I don't know. Get them to come up to the surface. So you can see." Hendricks brought his transmitter from his belt, raising the antenna. "Let's get started." * * * * * Klaus signalled to Tasso. She crawled expertly up the side of the rise to where they were sitting. "He's going down alone," Klaus said. "We'll cover him from here. As soon as you see him start back, fire past him at once. They come quick." "You're not very optimistic," Tasso said. "No, I'm not." Hendricks opened the breech of his gun, checking it carefully. "Maybe things are all right." "You didn't see them. Hundreds of them. All the same. Pouring out like ants." "I should be able to find out without going down all the way." Hendricks locked his gun, gripping it in one hand, the transmitter in the other. "Well, wish me luck." Klaus put out his hand. "Don't go down until you're sure. Talk to them from up here. Make them show themselves." * * * * * Hendricks stood up. He stepped down the side of the rise. A moment later he was walking slowly toward the pile of bricks and debris beside the dead tree stump. Toward the entrance of the forward command bunker. Nothing stirred. He raised the transmitter, clicking it on. "Scott? Can you hear me?" Silence. "Scott! This is Hendricks. Can you hear me? I'm standing outside the bunker. You should be able to see me in the view sight." He listened, the transmitter gripped tightly. No sound. Only static. He walked forward. A claw burrowed out of the ash and raced toward him. It halted a few feet away and then slunk off. A second claw appeared, one of the big ones with feelers. It moved toward him, studied him intently, and then fell in behind him, dogging respectfully after him, a few paces away. A moment later a second big claw joined it. Silently, the claws trailed him, as he walked slowly toward the bunker. Hendricks stopped, and behind him, the claws came to a halt. He was close, now. Almost to the bunker steps. "Scott! Can you hear me? I'm standing right above you. Outside. On the surface. Are you picking me up?" * * * * * He waited, holding his gun against his side, the transmitter tightly to his ear. Time passed. He strained to hear, but there was only silence. Silence, and faint static. Then, distantly, metallically-- "This is Scott." The voice was neutral. Cold. He could not identify it. But the earphone was minute. "Scott! Listen. I'm standing right above you. I'm on the surface, looking down into the bunker entrance." "Yes." "Can you see me?" "Yes." "Through the view sight? You have the sight trained on me?" "Yes." Hendricks pondered. A circle of claws waited quietly around him, gray-metal bodies on all sides of him. "Is everything all right in the bunker? Nothing unusual has happened?" "Everything is all right." "Will you come up to the surface? I want to see you for a moment." Hendricks took a deep breath. "Come up here with me. I want to talk to you." "Come down." "I'm giving you an order." Silence. "Are you coming?" Hendricks listened. There was no response. "I order you to come to the surface." "Come down." Hendricks set his jaw. "Let me talk to Leone." There was a long pause. He listened to the static. Then a voice came, hard, thin, metallic. The same as the other. "This is Leone." "Hendricks. I'm on the surface. At the bunker entrance. I want one of you to come up here." "Come down." "Why come down? I'm giving you an order!" Silence. Hendricks lowered the transmitter. He looked carefully around him. The entrance was just ahead. Almost at his feet. He lowered the antenna and fastened the transmitter to his belt. Carefully, he gripped his gun with both hands. He moved forward, a step at a time. If they could see him they knew he was starting toward the entrance. He closed his eyes a moment. Then he put his foot on the first step that led downward. Two Davids came up at him, their faces identical and expressionless. He blasted them into particles. More came rushing silently up, a whole pack of them. All exactly the same. Hendricks turned and raced back, away from the bunker, back toward the rise. At the top of the rise Tasso and Klaus were firing down. The small claws were already streaking up toward them, shining metal spheres going fast, racing frantically through the ash. But he had no time to think about that. He knelt down, aiming at the bunker entrance, gun against his cheek. The Davids were coming out in groups, clutching their teddy bears, their thin knobby legs pumping as they ran up the steps to the surface. Hendricks fired into the main body of them. They burst apart, wheels and springs flying in all directions. He fired again through the mist of particles. A giant lumbering figure rose up in the bunker entrance, tall and swaying. Hendricks paused, amazed. A man, a soldier. With one leg, supporting himself with a crutch. "Major!" Tasso's voice came. More firing. The huge figure moved forward, Davids swarming around it. Hendricks broke out of his freeze. The First Variety. The Wounded Soldier. He aimed and fired. The soldier burst into bits, parts and relays flying. Now many Davids were out on the flat ground, away from the bunker. He fired again and again, moving slowly back, half-crouching and aiming. From the rise, Klaus fired down. The side of the rise was alive with claws making their way up. Hendricks retreated toward the rise, running and crouching. Tasso had left Klaus and was circling slowly to the right, moving away from the rise. A David slipped up toward him, its small white face expressionless, brown hair hanging down in its eyes. It bent over suddenly, opening its arms. Its teddy bear hurtled down and leaped across the ground, bounding toward him. Hendricks fired. The bear and the David both dissolved. He grinned, blinking. It was like a dream. "Up here!" Tasso's voice. Hendricks made his way toward her. She was over by some columns of concrete, walls of a ruined building. She was firing past him, with the hand pistol Klaus had given her. "Thanks." He joined her, grasping for breath. She pulled him back, behind the concrete, fumbling at her belt. "Close your eyes!" She unfastened a globe from her waist. Rapidly, she unscrewed the cap, locking it into place. "Close your eyes and get down." * * * * * She threw the bomb. It sailed in an arc, an expert, rolling and bouncing to the entrance of the bunker. Two Wounded Soldiers stood uncertainly by the brick pile. More Davids poured from behind them, out onto the plain. One of the Wounded Soldiers moved toward the bomb, stooping awkwardly down to pick it up. The bomb went off. The concussion whirled Hendricks around, throwing him on his face. A hot wind rolled over him. Dimly he saw Tasso standing behind the columns, firing slowly and methodically at the Davids coming out of the raging clouds of white fire. Back along the rise Klaus struggled with a ring of claws circling around him. He retreated, blasting at them and moving back, trying to break through the ring. Hendricks struggled to his feet. His head ached. He could hardly see. Everything was licking at him, raging and whirling. His right arm would not move. Tasso pulled back toward him. "Come on. Let's go." "Klaus--He's still up there." "Come on!" Tasso dragged Hendricks back, away from the columns. Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. Tasso led him rapidly away, her eyes intense and bright, watching for claws that had escaped the blast. One David came out of the rolling clouds of flame. Tasso blasted it. No more appeared. "But Klaus. What about him?" Hendricks stopped, standing unsteadily. "He--" "Come on!" * * * * * They retreated, moving farther and farther away from the bunker. A few small claws followed them for a little while and then gave up, turning back and going off. At last Tasso stopped. "We can stop here and get our breaths." Hendricks sat down on some heaps of debris. He wiped his neck, gasping. "We left Klaus back there." Tasso said nothing. She opened her gun, sliding a fresh round of blast cartridges into place. Hendricks stared at her, dazed. "You left him back there on purpose." Tasso snapped the gun together. She studied the heaps of rubble around them, her face expressionless. As if she were watching for something. "What is it?" Hendricks demanded. "What are you looking for? Is something coming?" He shook his head, trying to understand. What was she doing? What was she waiting for? He could see nothing. Ash lay all around them, ash and ruins. Occasional stark tree trunks, without leaves or branches. "What--" Tasso cut him off. "Be still." Her eyes narrowed. Suddenly her gun came up. Hendricks turned, following her gaze. * * * * * Back the way they had come a figure appeared. The figure walked unsteadily toward them. Its clothes were torn. It limped as it made its way along, going very slowly and carefully. Stopping now and then, resting and getting its strength. Once it almost fell. It stood for a moment, trying to steady itself. Then it came on. Klaus. Hendricks stood up. "Klaus!" He started toward him. "How the hell did you--" Tasso fired. Hendricks swung back. She fired again, the blast passing him, a searing line of heat. The beam caught Klaus in the chest. He exploded, gears and wheels flying. For a moment he continued to walk. Then he swayed back and forth. He crashed to the ground, his arms flung out. A few more wheels rolled away. Silence. Tasso turned to Hendricks. "Now you understand why he killed Rudi." Hendricks sat down again slowly. He shook his head. He was numb. He could not think. "Do you see?" Tasso said. "Do you understand?" Hendricks said nothing. Everything was slipping away from him, faster and faster. Darkness, rolling and plucking at him. He closed his eyes. * * * * * Hendricks opened his eyes slowly. His body ached all over. He tried to sit up but needles of pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He gasped. "Don't try to get up," Tasso said. She bent down, putting her cold hand against his forehead. It was night. A few stars glinted above, shining through the drifting clouds of ash. Hendricks lay back, his teeth locked. Tasso watched him impassively. She had built a fire with some wood and weeds. The fire licked feebly, hissing at a metal cup suspended over it. Everything was silent. Unmoving darkness, beyond the fire. "So he was the Second Variety," Hendricks murmured. "I had always thought so." "Why didn't you destroy him sooner?" he wanted to know. "You held me back." Tasso crossed to the fire to look into the metal cup. "Coffee. It'll be ready to drink in awhile." She came back and sat down beside him. Presently she opened her pistol and began to disassemble the firing mechanism, studying it intently. "This is a beautiful gun," Tasso said, half-aloud. "The construction is superb." "What about them? The claws." "The concussion from the bomb put most of them out of action. They're delicate. Highly organized, I suppose." "The Davids, too?" "Yes." "How did you happen to have a bomb like that?" Tasso shrugged. "We designed it. You shouldn't underestimate our technology, Major. Without such a bomb you and I would no longer exist." "Very useful." Tasso stretched out her legs, warming her feet in the heat of the fire. "It surprised me that you did not seem to understand, after he killed Rudi. Why did you think he--" "I told you. I thought he was afraid." "Really? You know, Major, for a little while I suspected you. Because you wouldn't let me kill him. I thought you might be protecting him." She laughed. "Are we safe here?" Hendricks asked presently. "For awhile. Until they get reinforcements from some other area." Tasso began to clean the interior of the gun with a bit of rag. She finished and pushed the mechanism back into place. She closed the gun, running her finger along the barrel. "We were lucky," Hendricks murmured. "Yes. Very lucky." "Thanks for pulling me away." * * * * * Tasso did not answer. She glanced up at him, her eyes bright in the fire light. Hendricks examined his arm. He could not move his fingers. His whole side seemed numb. Down inside him was a dull steady ache. "How do you feel?" Tasso asked. "My arm is damaged." "Anything else?" "Internal injuries." "You didn't get down when the bomb went off." Hendricks said nothing. He watched Tasso pour the coffee from the cup into a flat metal pan. She brought it over to him. "Thanks." He struggled up enough to drink. It was hard to swallow. His insides turned over and he pushed the pan away. "That's all I can drink now." Tasso drank the rest. Time passed. The clouds of ash moved across the dark sky above them. Hendricks rested, his mind blank. After awhile he became aware that Tasso was standing over him, gazing down at him. "What is it?" he murmured. "Do you feel any better?" "Some." "You know, Major, if I hadn't dragged you away they would have got you. You would be dead. Like Rudi." "I know." "Do you want to know why I brought you out? I could have left you. I could have left you there." "Why did you bring me out?" "Because we have to get away from here." Tasso stirred the fire with a stick, peering calmly down into it. "No human being can live here. When their reinforcements come we won't have a chance. I've pondered about it while you were unconscious. We have perhaps three hours before they come." "And you expect me to get us away?" "That's right. I expect you to get us out of here." "Why me?" "Because I don't know any way." Her eyes shone at him in the half-light, bright and steady. "If you can't get us out of here they'll kill us within three hours. I see nothing else ahead. Well, Major? What are you going to do? I've been waiting all night. While you were unconscious I sat here, waiting and listening. It's almost dawn. The night is almost over." * * * * * Hendricks considered. "It's curious," he said at last. "Curious?" "That you should think I can get us out of here. I wonder what you think I can do." "Can you get us to the Moon Base?" "The Moon Base? How?" "There must be some way." Hendricks shook his head. "No. There's no way that I know of." Tasso said nothing. For a moment her steady gaze wavered. She ducked her head, turning abruptly away. She scrambled to her feet. "More coffee?" "No." "Suit yourself." Tasso drank silently. He could not see her face. He lay back against the ground, deep in thought, trying to concentrate. It was hard to think. His head still hurt. And the numbing daze still hung over him. "There might be one way," he said suddenly. "Oh?" "How soon is dawn?" "Two hours. The sun will be coming up shortly." "There's supposed to be a ship near here. I've never seen it. But I know it exists." "What kind of a ship?" Her voice was sharp. "A rocket cruiser." "Will it take us off? To the Moon Base?" "It's supposed to. In case of emergency." He rubbed his forehead. "What's wrong?" "My head. It's hard to think. I can hardly--hardly concentrate. The bomb." "Is the ship near here?" Tasso slid over beside him, settling down on her haunches. "How far is it? Where is it?" "I'm trying to think." Her fingers dug into his arm. "Nearby?" Her voice was like iron. "Where would it be? Would they store it underground? Hidden underground?" "Yes. In a storage locker." "How do we find it? Is it marked? Is there a code marker to identify it?" Hendricks concentrated. "No. No markings. No code symbol." "What, then?" "A sign." "What sort of sign?" * * * * * Hendricks did not answer. In the flickering light his eyes were glazed, two sightless orbs. Tasso's fingers dug into his arm. "What sort of sign? What is it?" "I--I can't think. Let me rest." "All right." She let go and stood up. Hendricks lay back against the ground, his eyes closed. Tasso walked away from him, her hands in her pockets. She kicked a rock out of her way and stood staring up at the sky. The night blackness was already beginning to fade into gray. Morning was coming. Tasso gripped her pistol and walked around the fire in a circle, back and forth. On the ground Major Hendricks lay, his eyes closed, unmoving. The grayness rose in the sky, higher and higher. The landscape became visible, fields of ash stretching out in all directions. Ash and ruins of buildings, a wall here and there, heaps of concrete, the naked trunk of a tree. The air was cold and sharp. Somewhere a long way off a bird made a few bleak sounds. Hendricks stirred. He opened his eyes. "Is it dawn? Already?" "Yes." Hendricks sat up a little. "You wanted to know something. You were asking me." "Do you remember now?" "Yes." "What is it?" She tensed. "What?" she repeated sharply. "A well. A ruined well. It's in a storage locker under a well." "A well." Tasso relaxed. "Then we'll find a well." She looked at her watch. "We have about an hour, Major. Do you think we can find it in an hour?" * * * * * "Give me a hand up," Hendricks said. Tasso put her pistol away and helped him to his feet. "This is going to be difficult." "Yes it is." Hendricks set his lips tightly. "I don't think we're going to go very far." They began to walk. The early sun cast a little warmth down on them. The land was flat and barren, stretching out gray and lifeless as far as they could see. A few birds sailed silently, far above them, circling slowly. "See anything?" Hendricks said. "Any claws?" "No. Not yet." They passed through some ruins, upright concrete and bricks. A cement foundation. Rats scuttled away. Tasso jumped back warily. "This used to be a town," Hendricks said. "A village. Provincial village. This was all grape country, once. Where we are now." They came onto a ruined street, weeds and cracks criss-crossing it. Over to the right a stone chimney stuck up. "Be careful," he warned her. A pit yawned, an open basement. Ragged ends of pipes jutted up, twisted and bent. They passed part of a house, a bathtub turned on its side. A broken chair. A few spoons and bits of china dishes. In the center of the street the ground had sunk away. The depression was filled with weeds and debris and bones. "Over here," Hendricks murmured. "This way?" "To the right." They passed the remains of a heavy duty tank. Hendricks' belt counter clicked ominously. The tank had been radiation blasted. A few feet from the tank a mummified body lay sprawled out, mouth open. Beyond the road was a flat field. Stones and weeds, and bits of broken glass. "There," Hendricks said. * * * * * A stone well jutted up, sagging and broken. A few boards lay across it. Most of the well had sunk into rubble. Hendricks walked unsteadily toward it, Tasso beside him. "Are you certain about this?" Tasso said. "This doesn't look like anything." "I'm sure." Hendricks sat down at the edge of the well, his teeth locked. His breath came quickly. He wiped perspiration from his face. "This was arranged so the senior command officer could get away. If anything happened. If the bunker fell." "That was you?" "Yes." "Where is the ship? Is it here?" "We're standing on it." Hendricks ran his hands over the surface of the well stones. "The eye-lock responds to me, not to anybody else. It's my ship. Or it was supposed to be." There was a sharp click. Presently they heard a low grating sound from below them. "Step back," Hendricks said. He and Tasso moved away from the well. A section of the ground slid back. A metal frame pushed slowly up through the ash, shoving bricks and weeds out of the way. The action ceased, as the ship nosed into view. "There it is," Hendricks said. The ship was small. It rested quietly, suspended in its mesh frame, like a blunt needle. A rain of ash sifted down into the dark cavity from which the ship had been raised. Hendricks made his way over to it. He mounted the mesh and unscrewed the hatch, pulling it back. Inside the ship the control banks and the pressure seat were visible. * * * * * Tasso came and stood beside him, gazing into the ship. "I'm not accustomed to rocket piloting," she said, after awhile. Hendricks glanced at her. "I'll do the piloting." "Will you? There's only one seat, Major. I can see it's built to carry only a single person." Hendricks' breathing changed. He studied the interior of the ship intently. Tasso was right. There was only one seat. The ship was built to carry only one person. "I see," he said slowly. "And the one person is you." She nodded. "Of course." "Why?" "_You_ can't go. You might not live through the trip. You're injured. You probably wouldn't get there." "An interesting point. But you see, I know where the Moon Base is. And you don't. You might fly around for months and not find it. It's well hidden. Without knowing what to look for--" "I'll have to take my chances. Maybe I won't find it. Not by myself. But I think you'll give me all the information I need. Your life depends on it." "How?" "If I find the Moon Base in time, perhaps I can get them to send a ship back to pick you up. _If_ I find the Base in time. If not, then you haven't a chance. I imagine there are supplies on the ship. They will last me long enough--" Hendricks moved quickly. But his injured arm betrayed him. Tasso ducked, sliding lithely aside. Her hand came up, lightning fast. Hendricks saw the gun butt coming. He tried to ward off the blow, but she was too fast. The metal butt struck against the side of his head, just above his ear. Numbing pain rushed through him. Pain and rolling clouds of blackness. He sank down, sliding to the ground. * * * * * Dimly, he was aware that Tasso was standing over him, kicking him with her toe. "Major! Wake up." He opened his eyes, groaning. "Listen to me." She bent down, the gun pointed at his face. "I have to hurry. There isn't much time left. The ship is ready to go, but you must tell me the information I need before I leave." Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. "Hurry up! Where is the Moon Base? How do I find it? What do I look for?" Hendricks said nothing. "Answer me!" "Sorry." "Major, the ship is loaded with provisions. I can coast for weeks. I'll find the Base eventually. And in a half hour you'll be dead. Your only chance of survival--" She broke off. Along the slope, by some crumbling ruins, something moved. Something in the ash. Tasso turned quickly, aiming. She fired. A puff of flame leaped. Something scuttled away, rolling across the ash. She fired again. The claw burst apart, wheels flying. "See?" Tasso said. "A scout. It won't be long." "You'll bring them back here to get me?" "Yes. As soon as possible." Hendricks looked up at her. He studied her intently. "You're telling the truth?" A strange expression had come over his face, an avid hunger. "You will come back for me? You'll get me to the Moon Base?" "I'll get you to the Moon Base. But tell me where it is! There's only a little time left." "All right." Hendricks picked up a piece of rock, pulling himself to a sitting position. "Watch." Hendricks began to scratch in the ash. Tasso stood by him, watching the motion of the rock. Hendricks was sketching a crude lunar map. * * * * * "This is the Appenine range. Here is the Crater of Archimedes. The Moon Base is beyond the end of the Appenine, about two hundred miles. I don't know exactly where. No one on Terra knows. But when you're over the Appenine, signal with one red flare and a green flare, followed by two red flares in quick succession. The Base monitor will record your signal. The Base is under the surface, of course. They'll guide you down with magnetic grapples." "And the controls? Can I operate them?" "The controls are virtually automatic. All you have to do is give the right signal at the right time." "I will." "The seat absorbs most of the take-off shock. Air and temperature are automatically controlled. The ship will leave Terra and pass out into free space. It'll line itself up with the moon, falling into an orbit around it, about a hundred miles above the surface. The orbit will carry you over the Base. When you're in the region of the Appenine, release the signal rockets." Tasso slid into the ship and lowered herself into the pressure seat. The arm locks folded automatically around her. She fingered the controls. "Too bad you're not going, Major. All this put here for you, and you can't make the trip." "Leave me the pistol." Tasso pulled the pistol from her belt. She held it in her hand, weighing it thoughtfully. "Don't go too far from this location. It'll be hard to find you, as it is." "No. I'll stay here by the well." Tasso gripped the take-off switch, running her fingers over the smooth metal. "A beautiful ship, Major. Well built. I admire your workmanship. You people have always done good work. You build fine things. Your work, your creations, are your greatest achievement." "Give me the pistol," Hendricks said impatiently, holding out his hand. He struggled to his feet. "Good-bye, Major." Tasso tossed the pistol past Hendricks. The pistol clattered against the ground, bouncing and rolling away. Hendricks hurried after it. He bent down, snatching it up. The hatch of the ship clanged shut. The bolts fell into place. Hendricks made his way back. The inner door was being sealed. He raised the pistol unsteadily. * * * * * There was a shattering roar. The ship burst up from its metal cage, fusing the mesh behind it. Hendricks cringed, pulling back. The ship shot up into the rolling clouds of ash, disappearing into the sky. Hendricks stood watching a long time, until even the streamer had dissipated. Nothing stirred. The morning air was chill and silent. He began to walk aimlessly back the way they had come. Better to keep moving around. It would be a long time before help came--if it came at all. He searched his pockets until he found a package of cigarettes. He lit one grimly. They had all wanted cigarettes from him. But cigarettes were scarce. A lizard slithered by him, through the ash. He halted, rigid. The lizard disappeared. Above, the sun rose higher in the sky. Some flies landed on a flat rock to one side of him. Hendricks kicked at them with his foot. It was getting hot. Sweat trickled down his face, into his collar. His mouth was dry. Presently he stopped walking and sat down on some debris. He unfastened his medicine kit and swallowed a few narcotic capsules. He looked around him. Where was he? Something lay ahead. Stretched out on the ground. Silent and unmoving. Hendricks drew his gun quickly. It looked like a man. Then he remembered. It was the remains of Klaus. The Second Variety. Where Tasso had blasted him. He could see wheels and relays and metal parts, strewn around on the ash. Glittering and sparkling in the sunlight. Hendricks got to his feet and walked over. He nudged the inert form with his foot, turning it over a little. He

retreated

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

yards ahead, was the entrance of the forward command bunker. The bunker from which he had come. Hendricks watched silently. No motion. No sign of life. Nothing stirred. Klaus slithered up beside him. "Where is it?" "Down there." Hendricks passed him the glasses. Clouds of ash rolled across the evening sky. The world was darkening. They had a couple of hours of light left, at the most. Probably not that much. "I don't see anything," Klaus said. "That tree there. The stump. By the pile of bricks. The entrance is to the right of the bricks." "I'll have to take your word for it." "You and Tasso cover me from here. You'll be able to sight all the way to the bunker entrance." "You're going down alone?" "With my wrist tab I'll be safe. The ground around the bunker is a living field of claws. They collect down in the ash. Like crabs. Without tabs you wouldn't have a chance." "Maybe you're right." "I'll walk slowly all the way. As soon as I know for certain--" "If they're down inside the bunker you won't be able to get back up here. They go fast. You don't realize." "What do you suggest?" Klaus considered. "I don't know. Get them to come up to the surface. So you can see." Hendricks brought his transmitter from his belt, raising the antenna. "Let's get started." * * * * * Klaus signalled to Tasso. She crawled expertly up the side of the rise to where they were sitting. "He's going down alone," Klaus said. "We'll cover him from here. As soon as you see him start back, fire past him at once. They come quick." "You're not very optimistic," Tasso said. "No, I'm not." Hendricks opened the breech of his gun, checking it carefully. "Maybe things are all right." "You didn't see them. Hundreds of them. All the same. Pouring out like ants." "I should be able to find out without going down all the way." Hendricks locked his gun, gripping it in one hand, the transmitter in the other. "Well, wish me luck." Klaus put out his hand. "Don't go down until you're sure. Talk to them from up here. Make them show themselves." * * * * * Hendricks stood up. He stepped down the side of the rise. A moment later he was walking slowly toward the pile of bricks and debris beside the dead tree stump. Toward the entrance of the forward command bunker. Nothing stirred. He raised the transmitter, clicking it on. "Scott? Can you hear me?" Silence. "Scott! This is Hendricks. Can you hear me? I'm standing outside the bunker. You should be able to see me in the view sight." He listened, the transmitter gripped tightly. No sound. Only static. He walked forward. A claw burrowed out of the ash and raced toward him. It halted a few feet away and then slunk off. A second claw appeared, one of the big ones with feelers. It moved toward him, studied him intently, and then fell in behind him, dogging respectfully after him, a few paces away. A moment later a second big claw joined it. Silently, the claws trailed him, as he walked slowly toward the bunker. Hendricks stopped, and behind him, the claws came to a halt. He was close, now. Almost to the bunker steps. "Scott! Can you hear me? I'm standing right above you. Outside. On the surface. Are you picking me up?" * * * * * He waited, holding his gun against his side, the transmitter tightly to his ear. Time passed. He strained to hear, but there was only silence. Silence, and faint static. Then, distantly, metallically-- "This is Scott." The voice was neutral. Cold. He could not identify it. But the earphone was minute. "Scott! Listen. I'm standing right above you. I'm on the surface, looking down into the bunker entrance." "Yes." "Can you see me?" "Yes." "Through the view sight? You have the sight trained on me?" "Yes." Hendricks pondered. A circle of claws waited quietly around him, gray-metal bodies on all sides of him. "Is everything all right in the bunker? Nothing unusual has happened?" "Everything is all right." "Will you come up to the surface? I want to see you for a moment." Hendricks took a deep breath. "Come up here with me. I want to talk to you." "Come down." "I'm giving you an order." Silence. "Are you coming?" Hendricks listened. There was no response. "I order you to come to the surface." "Come down." Hendricks set his jaw. "Let me talk to Leone." There was a long pause. He listened to the static. Then a voice came, hard, thin, metallic. The same as the other. "This is Leone." "Hendricks. I'm on the surface. At the bunker entrance. I want one of you to come up here." "Come down." "Why come down? I'm giving you an order!" Silence. Hendricks lowered the transmitter. He looked carefully around him. The entrance was just ahead. Almost at his feet. He lowered the antenna and fastened the transmitter to his belt. Carefully, he gripped his gun with both hands. He moved forward, a step at a time. If they could see him they knew he was starting toward the entrance. He closed his eyes a moment. Then he put his foot on the first step that led downward. Two Davids came up at him, their faces identical and expressionless. He blasted them into particles. More came rushing silently up, a whole pack of them. All exactly the same. Hendricks turned and raced back, away from the bunker, back toward the rise. At the top of the rise Tasso and Klaus were firing down. The small claws were already streaking up toward them, shining metal spheres going fast, racing frantically through the ash. But he had no time to think about that. He knelt down, aiming at the bunker entrance, gun against his cheek. The Davids were coming out in groups, clutching their teddy bears, their thin knobby legs pumping as they ran up the steps to the surface. Hendricks fired into the main body of them. They burst apart, wheels and springs flying in all directions. He fired again through the mist of particles. A giant lumbering figure rose up in the bunker entrance, tall and swaying. Hendricks paused, amazed. A man, a soldier. With one leg, supporting himself with a crutch. "Major!" Tasso's voice came. More firing. The huge figure moved forward, Davids swarming around it. Hendricks broke out of his freeze. The First Variety. The Wounded Soldier. He aimed and fired. The soldier burst into bits, parts and relays flying. Now many Davids were out on the flat ground, away from the bunker. He fired again and again, moving slowly back, half-crouching and aiming. From the rise, Klaus fired down. The side of the rise was alive with claws making their way up. Hendricks retreated toward the rise, running and crouching. Tasso had left Klaus and was circling slowly to the right, moving away from the rise. A David slipped up toward him, its small white face expressionless, brown hair hanging down in its eyes. It bent over suddenly, opening its arms. Its teddy bear hurtled down and leaped across the ground, bounding toward him. Hendricks fired. The bear and the David both dissolved. He grinned, blinking. It was like a dream. "Up here!" Tasso's voice. Hendricks made his way toward her. She was over by some columns of concrete, walls of a ruined building. She was firing past him, with the hand pistol Klaus had given her. "Thanks." He joined her, grasping for breath. She pulled him back, behind the concrete, fumbling at her belt. "Close your eyes!" She unfastened a globe from her waist. Rapidly, she unscrewed the cap, locking it into place. "Close your eyes and get down." * * * * * She threw the bomb. It sailed in an arc, an expert, rolling and bouncing to the entrance of the bunker. Two Wounded Soldiers stood uncertainly by the brick pile. More Davids poured from behind them, out onto the plain. One of the Wounded Soldiers moved toward the bomb, stooping awkwardly down to pick it up. The bomb went off. The concussion whirled Hendricks around, throwing him on his face. A hot wind rolled over him. Dimly he saw Tasso standing behind the columns, firing slowly and methodically at the Davids coming out of the raging clouds of white fire. Back along the rise Klaus struggled with a ring of claws circling around him. He retreated, blasting at them and moving back, trying to break through the ring. Hendricks struggled to his feet. His head ached. He could hardly see. Everything was licking at him, raging and whirling. His right arm would not move. Tasso pulled back toward him. "Come on. Let's go." "Klaus--He's still up there." "Come on!" Tasso dragged Hendricks back, away from the columns. Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. Tasso led him rapidly away, her eyes intense and bright, watching for claws that had escaped the blast. One David came out of the rolling clouds of flame. Tasso blasted it. No more appeared. "But Klaus. What about him?" Hendricks stopped, standing unsteadily. "He--" "Come on!" * * * * * They retreated, moving farther and farther away from the bunker. A few small claws followed them for a little while and then gave up, turning back and going off. At last Tasso stopped. "We can stop here and get our breaths." Hendricks sat down on some heaps of debris. He wiped his neck, gasping. "We left Klaus back there." Tasso said nothing. She opened her gun, sliding a fresh round of blast cartridges into place. Hendricks stared at her, dazed. "You left him back there on purpose." Tasso snapped the gun together. She studied the heaps of rubble around them, her face expressionless. As if she were watching for something. "What is it?" Hendricks demanded. "What are you looking for? Is something coming?" He shook his head, trying to understand. What was she doing? What was she waiting for? He could see nothing. Ash lay all around them, ash and ruins. Occasional stark tree trunks, without leaves or branches. "What--" Tasso cut him off. "Be still." Her eyes narrowed. Suddenly her gun came up. Hendricks turned, following her gaze. * * * * * Back the way they had come a figure appeared. The figure walked unsteadily toward them. Its clothes were torn. It limped as it made its way along, going very slowly and carefully. Stopping now and then, resting and getting its strength. Once it almost fell. It stood for a moment, trying to steady itself. Then it came on. Klaus. Hendricks stood up. "Klaus!" He started toward him. "How the hell did you--" Tasso fired. Hendricks swung back. She fired again, the blast passing him, a searing line of heat. The beam caught Klaus in the chest. He exploded, gears and wheels flying. For a moment he continued to walk. Then he swayed back and forth. He crashed to the ground, his arms flung out. A few more wheels rolled away. Silence. Tasso turned to Hendricks. "Now you understand why he killed Rudi." Hendricks sat down again slowly. He shook his head. He was numb. He could not think. "Do you see?" Tasso said. "Do you understand?" Hendricks said nothing. Everything was slipping away from him, faster and faster. Darkness, rolling and plucking at him. He closed his eyes. * * * * * Hendricks opened his eyes slowly. His body ached all over. He tried to sit up but needles of pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He gasped. "Don't try to get up," Tasso said. She bent down, putting her cold hand against his forehead. It was night. A few stars glinted above, shining through the drifting clouds of ash. Hendricks lay back, his teeth locked. Tasso watched him impassively. She had built a fire with some wood and weeds. The fire licked feebly, hissing at a metal cup suspended over it. Everything was silent. Unmoving darkness, beyond the fire. "So he was the Second Variety," Hendricks murmured. "I had always thought so." "Why didn't you destroy him sooner?" he wanted to know. "You held me back." Tasso crossed to the fire to look into the metal cup. "Coffee. It'll be ready to drink in awhile." She came back and sat down beside him. Presently she opened her pistol and began to disassemble the firing mechanism, studying it intently. "This is a beautiful gun," Tasso said, half-aloud. "The construction is superb." "What about them? The claws." "The concussion from the bomb put most of them out of action. They're delicate. Highly organized, I suppose." "The Davids, too?" "Yes." "How did you happen to have a bomb like that?" Tasso shrugged. "We designed it. You shouldn't underestimate our technology, Major. Without such a bomb you and I would no longer exist." "Very useful." Tasso stretched out her legs, warming her feet in the heat of the fire. "It surprised me that you did not seem to understand, after he killed Rudi. Why did you think he--" "I told you. I thought he was afraid." "Really? You know, Major, for a little while I suspected you. Because you wouldn't let me kill him. I thought you might be protecting him." She laughed. "Are we safe here?" Hendricks asked presently. "For awhile. Until they get reinforcements from some other area." Tasso began to clean the interior of the gun with a bit of rag. She finished and pushed the mechanism back into place. She closed the gun, running her finger along the barrel. "We were lucky," Hendricks murmured. "Yes. Very lucky." "Thanks for pulling me away." * * * * * Tasso did not answer. She glanced up at him, her eyes bright in the fire light. Hendricks examined his arm. He could not move his fingers. His whole side seemed numb. Down inside him was a dull steady ache. "How do you feel?" Tasso asked. "My arm is damaged." "Anything else?" "Internal injuries." "You didn't get down when the bomb went off." Hendricks said nothing. He watched Tasso pour the coffee from the cup into a flat metal pan. She brought it over to him. "Thanks." He struggled up enough to drink. It was hard to swallow. His insides turned over and he pushed the pan away. "That's all I can drink now." Tasso drank the rest. Time passed. The clouds of ash moved across the dark sky above them. Hendricks rested, his mind blank. After awhile he became aware that Tasso was standing over him, gazing down at him. "What is it?" he murmured. "Do you feel any better?" "Some." "You know, Major, if I hadn't dragged you away they would have got you. You would be dead. Like Rudi." "I know." "Do you want to know why I brought you out? I could have left you. I could have left you there." "Why did you bring me out?" "Because we have to get away from here." Tasso stirred the fire with a stick, peering calmly down into it. "No human being can live here. When their reinforcements come we won't have a chance. I've pondered about it while you were unconscious. We have perhaps three hours before they come." "And you expect me to get us away?" "That's right. I expect you to get us out of here." "Why me?" "Because I don't know any way." Her eyes shone at him in the half-light, bright and steady. "If you can't get us out of here they'll kill us within three hours. I see nothing else ahead. Well, Major? What are you going to do? I've been waiting all night. While you were unconscious I sat here, waiting and listening. It's almost dawn. The night is almost over." * * * * * Hendricks considered. "It's curious," he said at last. "Curious?" "That you should think I can get us out of here. I wonder what you think I can do." "Can you get us to the Moon Base?" "The Moon Base? How?" "There must be some way." Hendricks shook his head. "No. There's no way that I know of." Tasso said nothing. For a moment her steady gaze wavered. She ducked her head, turning abruptly away. She scrambled to her feet. "More coffee?" "No." "Suit yourself." Tasso drank silently. He could not see her face. He lay back against the ground, deep in thought, trying to concentrate. It was hard to think. His head still hurt. And the numbing daze still hung over him. "There might be one way," he said suddenly. "Oh?" "How soon is dawn?" "Two hours. The sun will be coming up shortly." "There's supposed to be a ship near here. I've never seen it. But I know it exists." "What kind of a ship?" Her voice was sharp. "A rocket cruiser." "Will it take us off? To the Moon Base?" "It's supposed to. In case of emergency." He rubbed his forehead. "What's wrong?" "My head. It's hard to think. I can hardly--hardly concentrate. The bomb." "Is the ship near here?" Tasso slid over beside him, settling down on her haunches. "How far is it? Where is it?" "I'm trying to think." Her fingers dug into his arm. "Nearby?" Her voice was like iron. "Where would it be? Would they store it underground? Hidden underground?" "Yes. In a storage locker." "How do we find it? Is it marked? Is there a code marker to identify it?" Hendricks concentrated. "No. No markings. No code symbol." "What, then?" "A sign." "What sort of sign?" * * * * * Hendricks did not answer. In the flickering light his eyes were glazed, two sightless orbs. Tasso's fingers dug into his arm. "What sort of sign? What is it?" "I--I can't think. Let me rest." "All right." She let go and stood up. Hendricks lay back against the ground, his eyes closed. Tasso walked away from him, her hands in her pockets. She kicked a rock out of her way and stood staring up at the sky. The night blackness was already beginning to fade into gray. Morning was coming. Tasso gripped her pistol and walked around the fire in a circle, back and forth. On the ground Major Hendricks lay, his eyes closed, unmoving. The grayness rose in the sky, higher and higher. The landscape became visible, fields of ash stretching out in all directions. Ash and ruins of buildings, a wall here and there, heaps of concrete, the naked trunk of a tree. The air was cold and sharp. Somewhere a long way off a bird made a few bleak sounds. Hendricks stirred. He opened his eyes. "Is it dawn? Already?" "Yes." Hendricks sat up a little. "You wanted to know something. You were asking me." "Do you remember now?" "Yes." "What is it?" She tensed. "What?" she repeated sharply. "A well. A ruined well. It's in a storage locker under a well." "A well." Tasso relaxed. "Then we'll find a well." She looked at her watch. "We have about an hour, Major. Do you think we can find it in an hour?" * * * * * "Give me a hand up," Hendricks said. Tasso put her pistol away and helped him to his feet. "This is going to be difficult." "Yes it is." Hendricks set his lips tightly. "I don't think we're going to go very far." They began to walk. The early sun cast a little warmth down on them. The land was flat and barren, stretching out gray and lifeless as far as they could see. A few birds sailed silently, far above them, circling slowly. "See anything?" Hendricks said. "Any claws?" "No. Not yet." They passed through some ruins, upright concrete and bricks. A cement foundation. Rats scuttled away. Tasso jumped back warily. "This used to be a town," Hendricks said. "A village. Provincial village. This was all grape country, once. Where we are now." They came onto a ruined street, weeds and cracks criss-crossing it. Over to the right a stone chimney stuck up. "Be careful," he warned her. A pit yawned, an open basement. Ragged ends of pipes jutted up, twisted and bent. They passed part of a house, a bathtub turned on its side. A broken chair. A few spoons and bits of china dishes. In the center of the street the ground had sunk away. The depression was filled with weeds and debris and bones. "Over here," Hendricks murmured. "This way?" "To the right." They passed the remains of a heavy duty tank. Hendricks' belt counter clicked ominously. The tank had been radiation blasted. A few feet from the tank a mummified body lay sprawled out, mouth open. Beyond the road was a flat field. Stones and weeds, and bits of broken glass. "There," Hendricks said. * * * * * A stone well jutted up, sagging and broken. A few boards lay across it. Most of the well had sunk into rubble. Hendricks walked unsteadily toward it, Tasso beside him. "Are you certain about this?" Tasso said. "This doesn't look like anything." "I'm sure." Hendricks sat down at the edge of the well, his teeth locked. His breath came quickly. He wiped perspiration from his face. "This was arranged so the senior command officer could get away. If anything happened. If the bunker fell." "That was you?" "Yes." "Where is the ship? Is it here?" "We're standing on it." Hendricks ran his hands over the surface of the well stones. "The eye-lock responds to me, not to anybody else. It's my ship. Or it was supposed to be." There was a sharp click. Presently they heard a low grating sound from below them. "Step back," Hendricks said. He and Tasso moved away from the well. A section of the ground slid back. A metal frame pushed slowly up through the ash, shoving bricks and weeds out of the way. The action ceased, as the ship nosed into view. "There it is," Hendricks said. The ship was small. It rested quietly, suspended in its mesh frame, like a blunt needle. A rain of ash sifted down into the dark cavity from which the ship had been raised. Hendricks made his way over to it. He mounted the mesh and unscrewed the hatch, pulling it back. Inside the ship the control banks and the pressure seat were visible. * * * * * Tasso came and stood beside him, gazing into the ship. "I'm not accustomed to rocket piloting," she said, after awhile. Hendricks glanced at her. "I'll do the piloting." "Will you? There's only one seat, Major. I can see it's built to carry only a single person." Hendricks' breathing changed. He studied the interior of the ship intently. Tasso was right. There was only one seat. The ship was built to carry only one person. "I see," he said slowly. "And the one person is you." She nodded. "Of course." "Why?" "_You_ can't go. You might not live through the trip. You're injured. You probably wouldn't get there." "An interesting point. But you see, I know where the Moon Base is. And you don't. You might fly around for months and not find it. It's well hidden. Without knowing what to look for--" "I'll have to take my chances. Maybe I won't find it. Not by myself. But I think you'll give me all the information I need. Your life depends on it." "How?" "If I find the Moon Base in time, perhaps I can get them to send a ship back to pick you up. _If_ I find the Base in time. If not, then you haven't a chance. I imagine there are supplies on the ship. They will last me long enough--" Hendricks moved quickly. But his injured arm betrayed him. Tasso ducked, sliding lithely aside. Her hand came up, lightning fast. Hendricks saw the gun butt coming. He tried to ward off the blow, but she was too fast. The metal butt struck against the side of his head, just above his ear. Numbing pain rushed through him. Pain and rolling clouds of blackness. He sank down, sliding to the ground. * * * * * Dimly, he was aware that Tasso was standing over him, kicking him with her toe. "Major! Wake up." He opened his eyes, groaning. "Listen to me." She bent down, the gun pointed at his face. "I have to hurry. There isn't much time left. The ship is ready to go, but you must tell me the information I need before I leave." Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. "Hurry up! Where is the Moon Base? How do I find it? What do I look for?" Hendricks said nothing. "Answer me!" "Sorry." "Major, the ship is loaded with provisions. I can coast for weeks. I'll find the Base eventually. And in a half hour you'll be dead. Your only chance of survival--" She broke off. Along the slope, by some crumbling ruins, something moved. Something in the ash. Tasso turned quickly, aiming. She fired. A puff of flame leaped. Something scuttled away, rolling across the ash. She fired again. The claw burst apart, wheels flying. "See?" Tasso said. "A scout. It won't be long." "You'll bring them back here to get me?" "Yes. As soon as possible." Hendricks looked up at her. He studied her intently. "You're telling the truth?" A strange expression had come over his face, an avid hunger. "You will come back for me? You'll get me to the Moon Base?" "I'll get you to the Moon Base. But tell me where it is! There's only a little time left." "All right." Hendricks picked up a piece of rock, pulling himself to a sitting position. "Watch." Hendricks began to scratch in the ash. Tasso stood by him, watching the motion of the rock. Hendricks was sketching a crude lunar map. * * * * * "This is the Appenine range. Here is the Crater of Archimedes. The Moon Base is beyond the end of the Appenine, about two hundred miles. I don't know exactly where. No one on Terra knows. But when you're over the Appenine, signal with one red flare and a green flare, followed by two red flares in quick succession. The Base monitor will record your signal. The Base is under the surface, of course. They'll guide you down with magnetic grapples." "And the controls? Can I operate them?" "The controls are virtually automatic. All you have to do is give the right signal at the right time." "I will." "The seat absorbs most of the take-off shock. Air and temperature are automatically controlled. The ship will leave Terra and pass out into free space. It'll line itself up with the moon, falling into an orbit around it, about a hundred miles above the surface. The orbit will carry you over the Base. When you're in the region of the Appenine, release the signal rockets." Tasso slid into the ship and lowered herself into the pressure seat. The arm locks folded automatically around her. She fingered the controls. "Too bad you're not going, Major. All this put here for you, and you can't make the trip." "Leave me the pistol." Tasso pulled the pistol from her belt. She held it in her hand, weighing it thoughtfully. "Don't go too far from this location. It'll be hard to find you, as it is." "No. I'll stay here by the well." Tasso gripped the take-off switch, running her fingers over the smooth metal. "A beautiful ship, Major. Well built. I admire your workmanship. You people have always done good work. You build fine things. Your work, your creations, are your greatest achievement." "Give me the pistol," Hendricks said impatiently, holding out his hand. He struggled to his feet. "Good-bye, Major." Tasso tossed the pistol past Hendricks. The pistol clattered against the ground, bouncing and rolling away. Hendricks hurried after it. He bent down, snatching it up. The hatch of the ship clanged shut. The bolts fell into place. Hendricks made his way back. The inner door was being sealed. He raised the pistol unsteadily. * * * * * There was a shattering roar. The ship burst up from its metal cage, fusing the mesh behind it. Hendricks cringed, pulling back. The ship shot up into the rolling clouds of ash, disappearing into the sky. Hendricks stood watching a long time, until even the streamer had dissipated. Nothing stirred. The morning air was chill and silent. He began to walk aimlessly back the way they had come. Better to keep moving around. It would be a long time before help came--if it came at all. He searched his pockets until he found a package of cigarettes. He lit one grimly. They had all wanted cigarettes from him. But cigarettes were scarce. A lizard slithered by him, through the ash. He halted, rigid. The lizard disappeared. Above, the sun rose higher in the sky. Some flies landed on a flat rock to one side of him. Hendricks kicked at them with his foot. It was getting hot. Sweat trickled down his face, into his collar. His mouth was dry. Presently he stopped walking and sat down on some debris. He unfastened his medicine kit and swallowed a few narcotic capsules. He looked around him. Where was he? Something lay ahead. Stretched out on the ground. Silent and unmoving. Hendricks drew his gun quickly. It looked like a man. Then he remembered. It was the remains of Klaus. The Second Variety. Where Tasso had blasted him. He could see wheels and relays and metal parts, strewn around on the ash. Glittering and sparkling in the sunlight. Hendricks got to his feet and walked over. He nudged the inert form with his foot, turning it over a little. He

across

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

yards ahead, was the entrance of the forward command bunker. The bunker from which he had come. Hendricks watched silently. No motion. No sign of life. Nothing stirred. Klaus slithered up beside him. "Where is it?" "Down there." Hendricks passed him the glasses. Clouds of ash rolled across the evening sky. The world was darkening. They had a couple of hours of light left, at the most. Probably not that much. "I don't see anything," Klaus said. "That tree there. The stump. By the pile of bricks. The entrance is to the right of the bricks." "I'll have to take your word for it." "You and Tasso cover me from here. You'll be able to sight all the way to the bunker entrance." "You're going down alone?" "With my wrist tab I'll be safe. The ground around the bunker is a living field of claws. They collect down in the ash. Like crabs. Without tabs you wouldn't have a chance." "Maybe you're right." "I'll walk slowly all the way. As soon as I know for certain--" "If they're down inside the bunker you won't be able to get back up here. They go fast. You don't realize." "What do you suggest?" Klaus considered. "I don't know. Get them to come up to the surface. So you can see." Hendricks brought his transmitter from his belt, raising the antenna. "Let's get started." * * * * * Klaus signalled to Tasso. She crawled expertly up the side of the rise to where they were sitting. "He's going down alone," Klaus said. "We'll cover him from here. As soon as you see him start back, fire past him at once. They come quick." "You're not very optimistic," Tasso said. "No, I'm not." Hendricks opened the breech of his gun, checking it carefully. "Maybe things are all right." "You didn't see them. Hundreds of them. All the same. Pouring out like ants." "I should be able to find out without going down all the way." Hendricks locked his gun, gripping it in one hand, the transmitter in the other. "Well, wish me luck." Klaus put out his hand. "Don't go down until you're sure. Talk to them from up here. Make them show themselves." * * * * * Hendricks stood up. He stepped down the side of the rise. A moment later he was walking slowly toward the pile of bricks and debris beside the dead tree stump. Toward the entrance of the forward command bunker. Nothing stirred. He raised the transmitter, clicking it on. "Scott? Can you hear me?" Silence. "Scott! This is Hendricks. Can you hear me? I'm standing outside the bunker. You should be able to see me in the view sight." He listened, the transmitter gripped tightly. No sound. Only static. He walked forward. A claw burrowed out of the ash and raced toward him. It halted a few feet away and then slunk off. A second claw appeared, one of the big ones with feelers. It moved toward him, studied him intently, and then fell in behind him, dogging respectfully after him, a few paces away. A moment later a second big claw joined it. Silently, the claws trailed him, as he walked slowly toward the bunker. Hendricks stopped, and behind him, the claws came to a halt. He was close, now. Almost to the bunker steps. "Scott! Can you hear me? I'm standing right above you. Outside. On the surface. Are you picking me up?" * * * * * He waited, holding his gun against his side, the transmitter tightly to his ear. Time passed. He strained to hear, but there was only silence. Silence, and faint static. Then, distantly, metallically-- "This is Scott." The voice was neutral. Cold. He could not identify it. But the earphone was minute. "Scott! Listen. I'm standing right above you. I'm on the surface, looking down into the bunker entrance." "Yes." "Can you see me?" "Yes." "Through the view sight? You have the sight trained on me?" "Yes." Hendricks pondered. A circle of claws waited quietly around him, gray-metal bodies on all sides of him. "Is everything all right in the bunker? Nothing unusual has happened?" "Everything is all right." "Will you come up to the surface? I want to see you for a moment." Hendricks took a deep breath. "Come up here with me. I want to talk to you." "Come down." "I'm giving you an order." Silence. "Are you coming?" Hendricks listened. There was no response. "I order you to come to the surface." "Come down." Hendricks set his jaw. "Let me talk to Leone." There was a long pause. He listened to the static. Then a voice came, hard, thin, metallic. The same as the other. "This is Leone." "Hendricks. I'm on the surface. At the bunker entrance. I want one of you to come up here." "Come down." "Why come down? I'm giving you an order!" Silence. Hendricks lowered the transmitter. He looked carefully around him. The entrance was just ahead. Almost at his feet. He lowered the antenna and fastened the transmitter to his belt. Carefully, he gripped his gun with both hands. He moved forward, a step at a time. If they could see him they knew he was starting toward the entrance. He closed his eyes a moment. Then he put his foot on the first step that led downward. Two Davids came up at him, their faces identical and expressionless. He blasted them into particles. More came rushing silently up, a whole pack of them. All exactly the same. Hendricks turned and raced back, away from the bunker, back toward the rise. At the top of the rise Tasso and Klaus were firing down. The small claws were already streaking up toward them, shining metal spheres going fast, racing frantically through the ash. But he had no time to think about that. He knelt down, aiming at the bunker entrance, gun against his cheek. The Davids were coming out in groups, clutching their teddy bears, their thin knobby legs pumping as they ran up the steps to the surface. Hendricks fired into the main body of them. They burst apart, wheels and springs flying in all directions. He fired again through the mist of particles. A giant lumbering figure rose up in the bunker entrance, tall and swaying. Hendricks paused, amazed. A man, a soldier. With one leg, supporting himself with a crutch. "Major!" Tasso's voice came. More firing. The huge figure moved forward, Davids swarming around it. Hendricks broke out of his freeze. The First Variety. The Wounded Soldier. He aimed and fired. The soldier burst into bits, parts and relays flying. Now many Davids were out on the flat ground, away from the bunker. He fired again and again, moving slowly back, half-crouching and aiming. From the rise, Klaus fired down. The side of the rise was alive with claws making their way up. Hendricks retreated toward the rise, running and crouching. Tasso had left Klaus and was circling slowly to the right, moving away from the rise. A David slipped up toward him, its small white face expressionless, brown hair hanging down in its eyes. It bent over suddenly, opening its arms. Its teddy bear hurtled down and leaped across the ground, bounding toward him. Hendricks fired. The bear and the David both dissolved. He grinned, blinking. It was like a dream. "Up here!" Tasso's voice. Hendricks made his way toward her. She was over by some columns of concrete, walls of a ruined building. She was firing past him, with the hand pistol Klaus had given her. "Thanks." He joined her, grasping for breath. She pulled him back, behind the concrete, fumbling at her belt. "Close your eyes!" She unfastened a globe from her waist. Rapidly, she unscrewed the cap, locking it into place. "Close your eyes and get down." * * * * * She threw the bomb. It sailed in an arc, an expert, rolling and bouncing to the entrance of the bunker. Two Wounded Soldiers stood uncertainly by the brick pile. More Davids poured from behind them, out onto the plain. One of the Wounded Soldiers moved toward the bomb, stooping awkwardly down to pick it up. The bomb went off. The concussion whirled Hendricks around, throwing him on his face. A hot wind rolled over him. Dimly he saw Tasso standing behind the columns, firing slowly and methodically at the Davids coming out of the raging clouds of white fire. Back along the rise Klaus struggled with a ring of claws circling around him. He retreated, blasting at them and moving back, trying to break through the ring. Hendricks struggled to his feet. His head ached. He could hardly see. Everything was licking at him, raging and whirling. His right arm would not move. Tasso pulled back toward him. "Come on. Let's go." "Klaus--He's still up there." "Come on!" Tasso dragged Hendricks back, away from the columns. Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. Tasso led him rapidly away, her eyes intense and bright, watching for claws that had escaped the blast. One David came out of the rolling clouds of flame. Tasso blasted it. No more appeared. "But Klaus. What about him?" Hendricks stopped, standing unsteadily. "He--" "Come on!" * * * * * They retreated, moving farther and farther away from the bunker. A few small claws followed them for a little while and then gave up, turning back and going off. At last Tasso stopped. "We can stop here and get our breaths." Hendricks sat down on some heaps of debris. He wiped his neck, gasping. "We left Klaus back there." Tasso said nothing. She opened her gun, sliding a fresh round of blast cartridges into place. Hendricks stared at her, dazed. "You left him back there on purpose." Tasso snapped the gun together. She studied the heaps of rubble around them, her face expressionless. As if she were watching for something. "What is it?" Hendricks demanded. "What are you looking for? Is something coming?" He shook his head, trying to understand. What was she doing? What was she waiting for? He could see nothing. Ash lay all around them, ash and ruins. Occasional stark tree trunks, without leaves or branches. "What--" Tasso cut him off. "Be still." Her eyes narrowed. Suddenly her gun came up. Hendricks turned, following her gaze. * * * * * Back the way they had come a figure appeared. The figure walked unsteadily toward them. Its clothes were torn. It limped as it made its way along, going very slowly and carefully. Stopping now and then, resting and getting its strength. Once it almost fell. It stood for a moment, trying to steady itself. Then it came on. Klaus. Hendricks stood up. "Klaus!" He started toward him. "How the hell did you--" Tasso fired. Hendricks swung back. She fired again, the blast passing him, a searing line of heat. The beam caught Klaus in the chest. He exploded, gears and wheels flying. For a moment he continued to walk. Then he swayed back and forth. He crashed to the ground, his arms flung out. A few more wheels rolled away. Silence. Tasso turned to Hendricks. "Now you understand why he killed Rudi." Hendricks sat down again slowly. He shook his head. He was numb. He could not think. "Do you see?" Tasso said. "Do you understand?" Hendricks said nothing. Everything was slipping away from him, faster and faster. Darkness, rolling and plucking at him. He closed his eyes. * * * * * Hendricks opened his eyes slowly. His body ached all over. He tried to sit up but needles of pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He gasped. "Don't try to get up," Tasso said. She bent down, putting her cold hand against his forehead. It was night. A few stars glinted above, shining through the drifting clouds of ash. Hendricks lay back, his teeth locked. Tasso watched him impassively. She had built a fire with some wood and weeds. The fire licked feebly, hissing at a metal cup suspended over it. Everything was silent. Unmoving darkness, beyond the fire. "So he was the Second Variety," Hendricks murmured. "I had always thought so." "Why didn't you destroy him sooner?" he wanted to know. "You held me back." Tasso crossed to the fire to look into the metal cup. "Coffee. It'll be ready to drink in awhile." She came back and sat down beside him. Presently she opened her pistol and began to disassemble the firing mechanism, studying it intently. "This is a beautiful gun," Tasso said, half-aloud. "The construction is superb." "What about them? The claws." "The concussion from the bomb put most of them out of action. They're delicate. Highly organized, I suppose." "The Davids, too?" "Yes." "How did you happen to have a bomb like that?" Tasso shrugged. "We designed it. You shouldn't underestimate our technology, Major. Without such a bomb you and I would no longer exist." "Very useful." Tasso stretched out her legs, warming her feet in the heat of the fire. "It surprised me that you did not seem to understand, after he killed Rudi. Why did you think he--" "I told you. I thought he was afraid." "Really? You know, Major, for a little while I suspected you. Because you wouldn't let me kill him. I thought you might be protecting him." She laughed. "Are we safe here?" Hendricks asked presently. "For awhile. Until they get reinforcements from some other area." Tasso began to clean the interior of the gun with a bit of rag. She finished and pushed the mechanism back into place. She closed the gun, running her finger along the barrel. "We were lucky," Hendricks murmured. "Yes. Very lucky." "Thanks for pulling me away." * * * * * Tasso did not answer. She glanced up at him, her eyes bright in the fire light. Hendricks examined his arm. He could not move his fingers. His whole side seemed numb. Down inside him was a dull steady ache. "How do you feel?" Tasso asked. "My arm is damaged." "Anything else?" "Internal injuries." "You didn't get down when the bomb went off." Hendricks said nothing. He watched Tasso pour the coffee from the cup into a flat metal pan. She brought it over to him. "Thanks." He struggled up enough to drink. It was hard to swallow. His insides turned over and he pushed the pan away. "That's all I can drink now." Tasso drank the rest. Time passed. The clouds of ash moved across the dark sky above them. Hendricks rested, his mind blank. After awhile he became aware that Tasso was standing over him, gazing down at him. "What is it?" he murmured. "Do you feel any better?" "Some." "You know, Major, if I hadn't dragged you away they would have got you. You would be dead. Like Rudi." "I know." "Do you want to know why I brought you out? I could have left you. I could have left you there." "Why did you bring me out?" "Because we have to get away from here." Tasso stirred the fire with a stick, peering calmly down into it. "No human being can live here. When their reinforcements come we won't have a chance. I've pondered about it while you were unconscious. We have perhaps three hours before they come." "And you expect me to get us away?" "That's right. I expect you to get us out of here." "Why me?" "Because I don't know any way." Her eyes shone at him in the half-light, bright and steady. "If you can't get us out of here they'll kill us within three hours. I see nothing else ahead. Well, Major? What are you going to do? I've been waiting all night. While you were unconscious I sat here, waiting and listening. It's almost dawn. The night is almost over." * * * * * Hendricks considered. "It's curious," he said at last. "Curious?" "That you should think I can get us out of here. I wonder what you think I can do." "Can you get us to the Moon Base?" "The Moon Base? How?" "There must be some way." Hendricks shook his head. "No. There's no way that I know of." Tasso said nothing. For a moment her steady gaze wavered. She ducked her head, turning abruptly away. She scrambled to her feet. "More coffee?" "No." "Suit yourself." Tasso drank silently. He could not see her face. He lay back against the ground, deep in thought, trying to concentrate. It was hard to think. His head still hurt. And the numbing daze still hung over him. "There might be one way," he said suddenly. "Oh?" "How soon is dawn?" "Two hours. The sun will be coming up shortly." "There's supposed to be a ship near here. I've never seen it. But I know it exists." "What kind of a ship?" Her voice was sharp. "A rocket cruiser." "Will it take us off? To the Moon Base?" "It's supposed to. In case of emergency." He rubbed his forehead. "What's wrong?" "My head. It's hard to think. I can hardly--hardly concentrate. The bomb." "Is the ship near here?" Tasso slid over beside him, settling down on her haunches. "How far is it? Where is it?" "I'm trying to think." Her fingers dug into his arm. "Nearby?" Her voice was like iron. "Where would it be? Would they store it underground? Hidden underground?" "Yes. In a storage locker." "How do we find it? Is it marked? Is there a code marker to identify it?" Hendricks concentrated. "No. No markings. No code symbol." "What, then?" "A sign." "What sort of sign?" * * * * * Hendricks did not answer. In the flickering light his eyes were glazed, two sightless orbs. Tasso's fingers dug into his arm. "What sort of sign? What is it?" "I--I can't think. Let me rest." "All right." She let go and stood up. Hendricks lay back against the ground, his eyes closed. Tasso walked away from him, her hands in her pockets. She kicked a rock out of her way and stood staring up at the sky. The night blackness was already beginning to fade into gray. Morning was coming. Tasso gripped her pistol and walked around the fire in a circle, back and forth. On the ground Major Hendricks lay, his eyes closed, unmoving. The grayness rose in the sky, higher and higher. The landscape became visible, fields of ash stretching out in all directions. Ash and ruins of buildings, a wall here and there, heaps of concrete, the naked trunk of a tree. The air was cold and sharp. Somewhere a long way off a bird made a few bleak sounds. Hendricks stirred. He opened his eyes. "Is it dawn? Already?" "Yes." Hendricks sat up a little. "You wanted to know something. You were asking me." "Do you remember now?" "Yes." "What is it?" She tensed. "What?" she repeated sharply. "A well. A ruined well. It's in a storage locker under a well." "A well." Tasso relaxed. "Then we'll find a well." She looked at her watch. "We have about an hour, Major. Do you think we can find it in an hour?" * * * * * "Give me a hand up," Hendricks said. Tasso put her pistol away and helped him to his feet. "This is going to be difficult." "Yes it is." Hendricks set his lips tightly. "I don't think we're going to go very far." They began to walk. The early sun cast a little warmth down on them. The land was flat and barren, stretching out gray and lifeless as far as they could see. A few birds sailed silently, far above them, circling slowly. "See anything?" Hendricks said. "Any claws?" "No. Not yet." They passed through some ruins, upright concrete and bricks. A cement foundation. Rats scuttled away. Tasso jumped back warily. "This used to be a town," Hendricks said. "A village. Provincial village. This was all grape country, once. Where we are now." They came onto a ruined street, weeds and cracks criss-crossing it. Over to the right a stone chimney stuck up. "Be careful," he warned her. A pit yawned, an open basement. Ragged ends of pipes jutted up, twisted and bent. They passed part of a house, a bathtub turned on its side. A broken chair. A few spoons and bits of china dishes. In the center of the street the ground had sunk away. The depression was filled with weeds and debris and bones. "Over here," Hendricks murmured. "This way?" "To the right." They passed the remains of a heavy duty tank. Hendricks' belt counter clicked ominously. The tank had been radiation blasted. A few feet from the tank a mummified body lay sprawled out, mouth open. Beyond the road was a flat field. Stones and weeds, and bits of broken glass. "There," Hendricks said. * * * * * A stone well jutted up, sagging and broken. A few boards lay across it. Most of the well had sunk into rubble. Hendricks walked unsteadily toward it, Tasso beside him. "Are you certain about this?" Tasso said. "This doesn't look like anything." "I'm sure." Hendricks sat down at the edge of the well, his teeth locked. His breath came quickly. He wiped perspiration from his face. "This was arranged so the senior command officer could get away. If anything happened. If the bunker fell." "That was you?" "Yes." "Where is the ship? Is it here?" "We're standing on it." Hendricks ran his hands over the surface of the well stones. "The eye-lock responds to me, not to anybody else. It's my ship. Or it was supposed to be." There was a sharp click. Presently they heard a low grating sound from below them. "Step back," Hendricks said. He and Tasso moved away from the well. A section of the ground slid back. A metal frame pushed slowly up through the ash, shoving bricks and weeds out of the way. The action ceased, as the ship nosed into view. "There it is," Hendricks said. The ship was small. It rested quietly, suspended in its mesh frame, like a blunt needle. A rain of ash sifted down into the dark cavity from which the ship had been raised. Hendricks made his way over to it. He mounted the mesh and unscrewed the hatch, pulling it back. Inside the ship the control banks and the pressure seat were visible. * * * * * Tasso came and stood beside him, gazing into the ship. "I'm not accustomed to rocket piloting," she said, after awhile. Hendricks glanced at her. "I'll do the piloting." "Will you? There's only one seat, Major. I can see it's built to carry only a single person." Hendricks' breathing changed. He studied the interior of the ship intently. Tasso was right. There was only one seat. The ship was built to carry only one person. "I see," he said slowly. "And the one person is you." She nodded. "Of course." "Why?" "_You_ can't go. You might not live through the trip. You're injured. You probably wouldn't get there." "An interesting point. But you see, I know where the Moon Base is. And you don't. You might fly around for months and not find it. It's well hidden. Without knowing what to look for--" "I'll have to take my chances. Maybe I won't find it. Not by myself. But I think you'll give me all the information I need. Your life depends on it." "How?" "If I find the Moon Base in time, perhaps I can get them to send a ship back to pick you up. _If_ I find the Base in time. If not, then you haven't a chance. I imagine there are supplies on the ship. They will last me long enough--" Hendricks moved quickly. But his injured arm betrayed him. Tasso ducked, sliding lithely aside. Her hand came up, lightning fast. Hendricks saw the gun butt coming. He tried to ward off the blow, but she was too fast. The metal butt struck against the side of his head, just above his ear. Numbing pain rushed through him. Pain and rolling clouds of blackness. He sank down, sliding to the ground. * * * * * Dimly, he was aware that Tasso was standing over him, kicking him with her toe. "Major! Wake up." He opened his eyes, groaning. "Listen to me." She bent down, the gun pointed at his face. "I have to hurry. There isn't much time left. The ship is ready to go, but you must tell me the information I need before I leave." Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. "Hurry up! Where is the Moon Base? How do I find it? What do I look for?" Hendricks said nothing. "Answer me!" "Sorry." "Major, the ship is loaded with provisions. I can coast for weeks. I'll find the Base eventually. And in a half hour you'll be dead. Your only chance of survival--" She broke off. Along the slope, by some crumbling ruins, something moved. Something in the ash. Tasso turned quickly, aiming. She fired. A puff of flame leaped. Something scuttled away, rolling across the ash. She fired again. The claw burst apart, wheels flying. "See?" Tasso said. "A scout. It won't be long." "You'll bring them back here to get me?" "Yes. As soon as possible." Hendricks looked up at her. He studied her intently. "You're telling the truth?" A strange expression had come over his face, an avid hunger. "You will come back for me? You'll get me to the Moon Base?" "I'll get you to the Moon Base. But tell me where it is! There's only a little time left." "All right." Hendricks picked up a piece of rock, pulling himself to a sitting position. "Watch." Hendricks began to scratch in the ash. Tasso stood by him, watching the motion of the rock. Hendricks was sketching a crude lunar map. * * * * * "This is the Appenine range. Here is the Crater of Archimedes. The Moon Base is beyond the end of the Appenine, about two hundred miles. I don't know exactly where. No one on Terra knows. But when you're over the Appenine, signal with one red flare and a green flare, followed by two red flares in quick succession. The Base monitor will record your signal. The Base is under the surface, of course. They'll guide you down with magnetic grapples." "And the controls? Can I operate them?" "The controls are virtually automatic. All you have to do is give the right signal at the right time." "I will." "The seat absorbs most of the take-off shock. Air and temperature are automatically controlled. The ship will leave Terra and pass out into free space. It'll line itself up with the moon, falling into an orbit around it, about a hundred miles above the surface. The orbit will carry you over the Base. When you're in the region of the Appenine, release the signal rockets." Tasso slid into the ship and lowered herself into the pressure seat. The arm locks folded automatically around her. She fingered the controls. "Too bad you're not going, Major. All this put here for you, and you can't make the trip." "Leave me the pistol." Tasso pulled the pistol from her belt. She held it in her hand, weighing it thoughtfully. "Don't go too far from this location. It'll be hard to find you, as it is." "No. I'll stay here by the well." Tasso gripped the take-off switch, running her fingers over the smooth metal. "A beautiful ship, Major. Well built. I admire your workmanship. You people have always done good work. You build fine things. Your work, your creations, are your greatest achievement." "Give me the pistol," Hendricks said impatiently, holding out his hand. He struggled to his feet. "Good-bye, Major." Tasso tossed the pistol past Hendricks. The pistol clattered against the ground, bouncing and rolling away. Hendricks hurried after it. He bent down, snatching it up. The hatch of the ship clanged shut. The bolts fell into place. Hendricks made his way back. The inner door was being sealed. He raised the pistol unsteadily. * * * * * There was a shattering roar. The ship burst up from its metal cage, fusing the mesh behind it. Hendricks cringed, pulling back. The ship shot up into the rolling clouds of ash, disappearing into the sky. Hendricks stood watching a long time, until even the streamer had dissipated. Nothing stirred. The morning air was chill and silent. He began to walk aimlessly back the way they had come. Better to keep moving around. It would be a long time before help came--if it came at all. He searched his pockets until he found a package of cigarettes. He lit one grimly. They had all wanted cigarettes from him. But cigarettes were scarce. A lizard slithered by him, through the ash. He halted, rigid. The lizard disappeared. Above, the sun rose higher in the sky. Some flies landed on a flat rock to one side of him. Hendricks kicked at them with his foot. It was getting hot. Sweat trickled down his face, into his collar. His mouth was dry. Presently he stopped walking and sat down on some debris. He unfastened his medicine kit and swallowed a few narcotic capsules. He looked around him. Where was he? Something lay ahead. Stretched out on the ground. Silent and unmoving. Hendricks drew his gun quickly. It looked like a man. Then he remembered. It was the remains of Klaus. The Second Variety. Where Tasso had blasted him. He could see wheels and relays and metal parts, strewn around on the ash. Glittering and sparkling in the sunlight. Hendricks got to his feet and walked over. He nudged the inert form with his foot, turning it over a little. He

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yards ahead, was the entrance of the forward command bunker. The bunker from which he had come. Hendricks watched silently. No motion. No sign of life. Nothing stirred. Klaus slithered up beside him. "Where is it?" "Down there." Hendricks passed him the glasses. Clouds of ash rolled across the evening sky. The world was darkening. They had a couple of hours of light left, at the most. Probably not that much. "I don't see anything," Klaus said. "That tree there. The stump. By the pile of bricks. The entrance is to the right of the bricks." "I'll have to take your word for it." "You and Tasso cover me from here. You'll be able to sight all the way to the bunker entrance." "You're going down alone?" "With my wrist tab I'll be safe. The ground around the bunker is a living field of claws. They collect down in the ash. Like crabs. Without tabs you wouldn't have a chance." "Maybe you're right." "I'll walk slowly all the way. As soon as I know for certain--" "If they're down inside the bunker you won't be able to get back up here. They go fast. You don't realize." "What do you suggest?" Klaus considered. "I don't know. Get them to come up to the surface. So you can see." Hendricks brought his transmitter from his belt, raising the antenna. "Let's get started." * * * * * Klaus signalled to Tasso. She crawled expertly up the side of the rise to where they were sitting. "He's going down alone," Klaus said. "We'll cover him from here. As soon as you see him start back, fire past him at once. They come quick." "You're not very optimistic," Tasso said. "No, I'm not." Hendricks opened the breech of his gun, checking it carefully. "Maybe things are all right." "You didn't see them. Hundreds of them. All the same. Pouring out like ants." "I should be able to find out without going down all the way." Hendricks locked his gun, gripping it in one hand, the transmitter in the other. "Well, wish me luck." Klaus put out his hand. "Don't go down until you're sure. Talk to them from up here. Make them show themselves." * * * * * Hendricks stood up. He stepped down the side of the rise. A moment later he was walking slowly toward the pile of bricks and debris beside the dead tree stump. Toward the entrance of the forward command bunker. Nothing stirred. He raised the transmitter, clicking it on. "Scott? Can you hear me?" Silence. "Scott! This is Hendricks. Can you hear me? I'm standing outside the bunker. You should be able to see me in the view sight." He listened, the transmitter gripped tightly. No sound. Only static. He walked forward. A claw burrowed out of the ash and raced toward him. It halted a few feet away and then slunk off. A second claw appeared, one of the big ones with feelers. It moved toward him, studied him intently, and then fell in behind him, dogging respectfully after him, a few paces away. A moment later a second big claw joined it. Silently, the claws trailed him, as he walked slowly toward the bunker. Hendricks stopped, and behind him, the claws came to a halt. He was close, now. Almost to the bunker steps. "Scott! Can you hear me? I'm standing right above you. Outside. On the surface. Are you picking me up?" * * * * * He waited, holding his gun against his side, the transmitter tightly to his ear. Time passed. He strained to hear, but there was only silence. Silence, and faint static. Then, distantly, metallically-- "This is Scott." The voice was neutral. Cold. He could not identify it. But the earphone was minute. "Scott! Listen. I'm standing right above you. I'm on the surface, looking down into the bunker entrance." "Yes." "Can you see me?" "Yes." "Through the view sight? You have the sight trained on me?" "Yes." Hendricks pondered. A circle of claws waited quietly around him, gray-metal bodies on all sides of him. "Is everything all right in the bunker? Nothing unusual has happened?" "Everything is all right." "Will you come up to the surface? I want to see you for a moment." Hendricks took a deep breath. "Come up here with me. I want to talk to you." "Come down." "I'm giving you an order." Silence. "Are you coming?" Hendricks listened. There was no response. "I order you to come to the surface." "Come down." Hendricks set his jaw. "Let me talk to Leone." There was a long pause. He listened to the static. Then a voice came, hard, thin, metallic. The same as the other. "This is Leone." "Hendricks. I'm on the surface. At the bunker entrance. I want one of you to come up here." "Come down." "Why come down? I'm giving you an order!" Silence. Hendricks lowered the transmitter. He looked carefully around him. The entrance was just ahead. Almost at his feet. He lowered the antenna and fastened the transmitter to his belt. Carefully, he gripped his gun with both hands. He moved forward, a step at a time. If they could see him they knew he was starting toward the entrance. He closed his eyes a moment. Then he put his foot on the first step that led downward. Two Davids came up at him, their faces identical and expressionless. He blasted them into particles. More came rushing silently up, a whole pack of them. All exactly the same. Hendricks turned and raced back, away from the bunker, back toward the rise. At the top of the rise Tasso and Klaus were firing down. The small claws were already streaking up toward them, shining metal spheres going fast, racing frantically through the ash. But he had no time to think about that. He knelt down, aiming at the bunker entrance, gun against his cheek. The Davids were coming out in groups, clutching their teddy bears, their thin knobby legs pumping as they ran up the steps to the surface. Hendricks fired into the main body of them. They burst apart, wheels and springs flying in all directions. He fired again through the mist of particles. A giant lumbering figure rose up in the bunker entrance, tall and swaying. Hendricks paused, amazed. A man, a soldier. With one leg, supporting himself with a crutch. "Major!" Tasso's voice came. More firing. The huge figure moved forward, Davids swarming around it. Hendricks broke out of his freeze. The First Variety. The Wounded Soldier. He aimed and fired. The soldier burst into bits, parts and relays flying. Now many Davids were out on the flat ground, away from the bunker. He fired again and again, moving slowly back, half-crouching and aiming. From the rise, Klaus fired down. The side of the rise was alive with claws making their way up. Hendricks retreated toward the rise, running and crouching. Tasso had left Klaus and was circling slowly to the right, moving away from the rise. A David slipped up toward him, its small white face expressionless, brown hair hanging down in its eyes. It bent over suddenly, opening its arms. Its teddy bear hurtled down and leaped across the ground, bounding toward him. Hendricks fired. The bear and the David both dissolved. He grinned, blinking. It was like a dream. "Up here!" Tasso's voice. Hendricks made his way toward her. She was over by some columns of concrete, walls of a ruined building. She was firing past him, with the hand pistol Klaus had given her. "Thanks." He joined her, grasping for breath. She pulled him back, behind the concrete, fumbling at her belt. "Close your eyes!" She unfastened a globe from her waist. Rapidly, she unscrewed the cap, locking it into place. "Close your eyes and get down." * * * * * She threw the bomb. It sailed in an arc, an expert, rolling and bouncing to the entrance of the bunker. Two Wounded Soldiers stood uncertainly by the brick pile. More Davids poured from behind them, out onto the plain. One of the Wounded Soldiers moved toward the bomb, stooping awkwardly down to pick it up. The bomb went off. The concussion whirled Hendricks around, throwing him on his face. A hot wind rolled over him. Dimly he saw Tasso standing behind the columns, firing slowly and methodically at the Davids coming out of the raging clouds of white fire. Back along the rise Klaus struggled with a ring of claws circling around him. He retreated, blasting at them and moving back, trying to break through the ring. Hendricks struggled to his feet. His head ached. He could hardly see. Everything was licking at him, raging and whirling. His right arm would not move. Tasso pulled back toward him. "Come on. Let's go." "Klaus--He's still up there." "Come on!" Tasso dragged Hendricks back, away from the columns. Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. Tasso led him rapidly away, her eyes intense and bright, watching for claws that had escaped the blast. One David came out of the rolling clouds of flame. Tasso blasted it. No more appeared. "But Klaus. What about him?" Hendricks stopped, standing unsteadily. "He--" "Come on!" * * * * * They retreated, moving farther and farther away from the bunker. A few small claws followed them for a little while and then gave up, turning back and going off. At last Tasso stopped. "We can stop here and get our breaths." Hendricks sat down on some heaps of debris. He wiped his neck, gasping. "We left Klaus back there." Tasso said nothing. She opened her gun, sliding a fresh round of blast cartridges into place. Hendricks stared at her, dazed. "You left him back there on purpose." Tasso snapped the gun together. She studied the heaps of rubble around them, her face expressionless. As if she were watching for something. "What is it?" Hendricks demanded. "What are you looking for? Is something coming?" He shook his head, trying to understand. What was she doing? What was she waiting for? He could see nothing. Ash lay all around them, ash and ruins. Occasional stark tree trunks, without leaves or branches. "What--" Tasso cut him off. "Be still." Her eyes narrowed. Suddenly her gun came up. Hendricks turned, following her gaze. * * * * * Back the way they had come a figure appeared. The figure walked unsteadily toward them. Its clothes were torn. It limped as it made its way along, going very slowly and carefully. Stopping now and then, resting and getting its strength. Once it almost fell. It stood for a moment, trying to steady itself. Then it came on. Klaus. Hendricks stood up. "Klaus!" He started toward him. "How the hell did you--" Tasso fired. Hendricks swung back. She fired again, the blast passing him, a searing line of heat. The beam caught Klaus in the chest. He exploded, gears and wheels flying. For a moment he continued to walk. Then he swayed back and forth. He crashed to the ground, his arms flung out. A few more wheels rolled away. Silence. Tasso turned to Hendricks. "Now you understand why he killed Rudi." Hendricks sat down again slowly. He shook his head. He was numb. He could not think. "Do you see?" Tasso said. "Do you understand?" Hendricks said nothing. Everything was slipping away from him, faster and faster. Darkness, rolling and plucking at him. He closed his eyes. * * * * * Hendricks opened his eyes slowly. His body ached all over. He tried to sit up but needles of pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He gasped. "Don't try to get up," Tasso said. She bent down, putting her cold hand against his forehead. It was night. A few stars glinted above, shining through the drifting clouds of ash. Hendricks lay back, his teeth locked. Tasso watched him impassively. She had built a fire with some wood and weeds. The fire licked feebly, hissing at a metal cup suspended over it. Everything was silent. Unmoving darkness, beyond the fire. "So he was the Second Variety," Hendricks murmured. "I had always thought so." "Why didn't you destroy him sooner?" he wanted to know. "You held me back." Tasso crossed to the fire to look into the metal cup. "Coffee. It'll be ready to drink in awhile." She came back and sat down beside him. Presently she opened her pistol and began to disassemble the firing mechanism, studying it intently. "This is a beautiful gun," Tasso said, half-aloud. "The construction is superb." "What about them? The claws." "The concussion from the bomb put most of them out of action. They're delicate. Highly organized, I suppose." "The Davids, too?" "Yes." "How did you happen to have a bomb like that?" Tasso shrugged. "We designed it. You shouldn't underestimate our technology, Major. Without such a bomb you and I would no longer exist." "Very useful." Tasso stretched out her legs, warming her feet in the heat of the fire. "It surprised me that you did not seem to understand, after he killed Rudi. Why did you think he--" "I told you. I thought he was afraid." "Really? You know, Major, for a little while I suspected you. Because you wouldn't let me kill him. I thought you might be protecting him." She laughed. "Are we safe here?" Hendricks asked presently. "For awhile. Until they get reinforcements from some other area." Tasso began to clean the interior of the gun with a bit of rag. She finished and pushed the mechanism back into place. She closed the gun, running her finger along the barrel. "We were lucky," Hendricks murmured. "Yes. Very lucky." "Thanks for pulling me away." * * * * * Tasso did not answer. She glanced up at him, her eyes bright in the fire light. Hendricks examined his arm. He could not move his fingers. His whole side seemed numb. Down inside him was a dull steady ache. "How do you feel?" Tasso asked. "My arm is damaged." "Anything else?" "Internal injuries." "You didn't get down when the bomb went off." Hendricks said nothing. He watched Tasso pour the coffee from the cup into a flat metal pan. She brought it over to him. "Thanks." He struggled up enough to drink. It was hard to swallow. His insides turned over and he pushed the pan away. "That's all I can drink now." Tasso drank the rest. Time passed. The clouds of ash moved across the dark sky above them. Hendricks rested, his mind blank. After awhile he became aware that Tasso was standing over him, gazing down at him. "What is it?" he murmured. "Do you feel any better?" "Some." "You know, Major, if I hadn't dragged you away they would have got you. You would be dead. Like Rudi." "I know." "Do you want to know why I brought you out? I could have left you. I could have left you there." "Why did you bring me out?" "Because we have to get away from here." Tasso stirred the fire with a stick, peering calmly down into it. "No human being can live here. When their reinforcements come we won't have a chance. I've pondered about it while you were unconscious. We have perhaps three hours before they come." "And you expect me to get us away?" "That's right. I expect you to get us out of here." "Why me?" "Because I don't know any way." Her eyes shone at him in the half-light, bright and steady. "If you can't get us out of here they'll kill us within three hours. I see nothing else ahead. Well, Major? What are you going to do? I've been waiting all night. While you were unconscious I sat here, waiting and listening. It's almost dawn. The night is almost over." * * * * * Hendricks considered. "It's curious," he said at last. "Curious?" "That you should think I can get us out of here. I wonder what you think I can do." "Can you get us to the Moon Base?" "The Moon Base? How?" "There must be some way." Hendricks shook his head. "No. There's no way that I know of." Tasso said nothing. For a moment her steady gaze wavered. She ducked her head, turning abruptly away. She scrambled to her feet. "More coffee?" "No." "Suit yourself." Tasso drank silently. He could not see her face. He lay back against the ground, deep in thought, trying to concentrate. It was hard to think. His head still hurt. And the numbing daze still hung over him. "There might be one way," he said suddenly. "Oh?" "How soon is dawn?" "Two hours. The sun will be coming up shortly." "There's supposed to be a ship near here. I've never seen it. But I know it exists." "What kind of a ship?" Her voice was sharp. "A rocket cruiser." "Will it take us off? To the Moon Base?" "It's supposed to. In case of emergency." He rubbed his forehead. "What's wrong?" "My head. It's hard to think. I can hardly--hardly concentrate. The bomb." "Is the ship near here?" Tasso slid over beside him, settling down on her haunches. "How far is it? Where is it?" "I'm trying to think." Her fingers dug into his arm. "Nearby?" Her voice was like iron. "Where would it be? Would they store it underground? Hidden underground?" "Yes. In a storage locker." "How do we find it? Is it marked? Is there a code marker to identify it?" Hendricks concentrated. "No. No markings. No code symbol." "What, then?" "A sign." "What sort of sign?" * * * * * Hendricks did not answer. In the flickering light his eyes were glazed, two sightless orbs. Tasso's fingers dug into his arm. "What sort of sign? What is it?" "I--I can't think. Let me rest." "All right." She let go and stood up. Hendricks lay back against the ground, his eyes closed. Tasso walked away from him, her hands in her pockets. She kicked a rock out of her way and stood staring up at the sky. The night blackness was already beginning to fade into gray. Morning was coming. Tasso gripped her pistol and walked around the fire in a circle, back and forth. On the ground Major Hendricks lay, his eyes closed, unmoving. The grayness rose in the sky, higher and higher. The landscape became visible, fields of ash stretching out in all directions. Ash and ruins of buildings, a wall here and there, heaps of concrete, the naked trunk of a tree. The air was cold and sharp. Somewhere a long way off a bird made a few bleak sounds. Hendricks stirred. He opened his eyes. "Is it dawn? Already?" "Yes." Hendricks sat up a little. "You wanted to know something. You were asking me." "Do you remember now?" "Yes." "What is it?" She tensed. "What?" she repeated sharply. "A well. A ruined well. It's in a storage locker under a well." "A well." Tasso relaxed. "Then we'll find a well." She looked at her watch. "We have about an hour, Major. Do you think we can find it in an hour?" * * * * * "Give me a hand up," Hendricks said. Tasso put her pistol away and helped him to his feet. "This is going to be difficult." "Yes it is." Hendricks set his lips tightly. "I don't think we're going to go very far." They began to walk. The early sun cast a little warmth down on them. The land was flat and barren, stretching out gray and lifeless as far as they could see. A few birds sailed silently, far above them, circling slowly. "See anything?" Hendricks said. "Any claws?" "No. Not yet." They passed through some ruins, upright concrete and bricks. A cement foundation. Rats scuttled away. Tasso jumped back warily. "This used to be a town," Hendricks said. "A village. Provincial village. This was all grape country, once. Where we are now." They came onto a ruined street, weeds and cracks criss-crossing it. Over to the right a stone chimney stuck up. "Be careful," he warned her. A pit yawned, an open basement. Ragged ends of pipes jutted up, twisted and bent. They passed part of a house, a bathtub turned on its side. A broken chair. A few spoons and bits of china dishes. In the center of the street the ground had sunk away. The depression was filled with weeds and debris and bones. "Over here," Hendricks murmured. "This way?" "To the right." They passed the remains of a heavy duty tank. Hendricks' belt counter clicked ominously. The tank had been radiation blasted. A few feet from the tank a mummified body lay sprawled out, mouth open. Beyond the road was a flat field. Stones and weeds, and bits of broken glass. "There," Hendricks said. * * * * * A stone well jutted up, sagging and broken. A few boards lay across it. Most of the well had sunk into rubble. Hendricks walked unsteadily toward it, Tasso beside him. "Are you certain about this?" Tasso said. "This doesn't look like anything." "I'm sure." Hendricks sat down at the edge of the well, his teeth locked. His breath came quickly. He wiped perspiration from his face. "This was arranged so the senior command officer could get away. If anything happened. If the bunker fell." "That was you?" "Yes." "Where is the ship? Is it here?" "We're standing on it." Hendricks ran his hands over the surface of the well stones. "The eye-lock responds to me, not to anybody else. It's my ship. Or it was supposed to be." There was a sharp click. Presently they heard a low grating sound from below them. "Step back," Hendricks said. He and Tasso moved away from the well. A section of the ground slid back. A metal frame pushed slowly up through the ash, shoving bricks and weeds out of the way. The action ceased, as the ship nosed into view. "There it is," Hendricks said. The ship was small. It rested quietly, suspended in its mesh frame, like a blunt needle. A rain of ash sifted down into the dark cavity from which the ship had been raised. Hendricks made his way over to it. He mounted the mesh and unscrewed the hatch, pulling it back. Inside the ship the control banks and the pressure seat were visible. * * * * * Tasso came and stood beside him, gazing into the ship. "I'm not accustomed to rocket piloting," she said, after awhile. Hendricks glanced at her. "I'll do the piloting." "Will you? There's only one seat, Major. I can see it's built to carry only a single person." Hendricks' breathing changed. He studied the interior of the ship intently. Tasso was right. There was only one seat. The ship was built to carry only one person. "I see," he said slowly. "And the one person is you." She nodded. "Of course." "Why?" "_You_ can't go. You might not live through the trip. You're injured. You probably wouldn't get there." "An interesting point. But you see, I know where the Moon Base is. And you don't. You might fly around for months and not find it. It's well hidden. Without knowing what to look for--" "I'll have to take my chances. Maybe I won't find it. Not by myself. But I think you'll give me all the information I need. Your life depends on it." "How?" "If I find the Moon Base in time, perhaps I can get them to send a ship back to pick you up. _If_ I find the Base in time. If not, then you haven't a chance. I imagine there are supplies on the ship. They will last me long enough--" Hendricks moved quickly. But his injured arm betrayed him. Tasso ducked, sliding lithely aside. Her hand came up, lightning fast. Hendricks saw the gun butt coming. He tried to ward off the blow, but she was too fast. The metal butt struck against the side of his head, just above his ear. Numbing pain rushed through him. Pain and rolling clouds of blackness. He sank down, sliding to the ground. * * * * * Dimly, he was aware that Tasso was standing over him, kicking him with her toe. "Major! Wake up." He opened his eyes, groaning. "Listen to me." She bent down, the gun pointed at his face. "I have to hurry. There isn't much time left. The ship is ready to go, but you must tell me the information I need before I leave." Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. "Hurry up! Where is the Moon Base? How do I find it? What do I look for?" Hendricks said nothing. "Answer me!" "Sorry." "Major, the ship is loaded with provisions. I can coast for weeks. I'll find the Base eventually. And in a half hour you'll be dead. Your only chance of survival--" She broke off. Along the slope, by some crumbling ruins, something moved. Something in the ash. Tasso turned quickly, aiming. She fired. A puff of flame leaped. Something scuttled away, rolling across the ash. She fired again. The claw burst apart, wheels flying. "See?" Tasso said. "A scout. It won't be long." "You'll bring them back here to get me?" "Yes. As soon as possible." Hendricks looked up at her. He studied her intently. "You're telling the truth?" A strange expression had come over his face, an avid hunger. "You will come back for me? You'll get me to the Moon Base?" "I'll get you to the Moon Base. But tell me where it is! There's only a little time left." "All right." Hendricks picked up a piece of rock, pulling himself to a sitting position. "Watch." Hendricks began to scratch in the ash. Tasso stood by him, watching the motion of the rock. Hendricks was sketching a crude lunar map. * * * * * "This is the Appenine range. Here is the Crater of Archimedes. The Moon Base is beyond the end of the Appenine, about two hundred miles. I don't know exactly where. No one on Terra knows. But when you're over the Appenine, signal with one red flare and a green flare, followed by two red flares in quick succession. The Base monitor will record your signal. The Base is under the surface, of course. They'll guide you down with magnetic grapples." "And the controls? Can I operate them?" "The controls are virtually automatic. All you have to do is give the right signal at the right time." "I will." "The seat absorbs most of the take-off shock. Air and temperature are automatically controlled. The ship will leave Terra and pass out into free space. It'll line itself up with the moon, falling into an orbit around it, about a hundred miles above the surface. The orbit will carry you over the Base. When you're in the region of the Appenine, release the signal rockets." Tasso slid into the ship and lowered herself into the pressure seat. The arm locks folded automatically around her. She fingered the controls. "Too bad you're not going, Major. All this put here for you, and you can't make the trip." "Leave me the pistol." Tasso pulled the pistol from her belt. She held it in her hand, weighing it thoughtfully. "Don't go too far from this location. It'll be hard to find you, as it is." "No. I'll stay here by the well." Tasso gripped the take-off switch, running her fingers over the smooth metal. "A beautiful ship, Major. Well built. I admire your workmanship. You people have always done good work. You build fine things. Your work, your creations, are your greatest achievement." "Give me the pistol," Hendricks said impatiently, holding out his hand. He struggled to his feet. "Good-bye, Major." Tasso tossed the pistol past Hendricks. The pistol clattered against the ground, bouncing and rolling away. Hendricks hurried after it. He bent down, snatching it up. The hatch of the ship clanged shut. The bolts fell into place. Hendricks made his way back. The inner door was being sealed. He raised the pistol unsteadily. * * * * * There was a shattering roar. The ship burst up from its metal cage, fusing the mesh behind it. Hendricks cringed, pulling back. The ship shot up into the rolling clouds of ash, disappearing into the sky. Hendricks stood watching a long time, until even the streamer had dissipated. Nothing stirred. The morning air was chill and silent. He began to walk aimlessly back the way they had come. Better to keep moving around. It would be a long time before help came--if it came at all. He searched his pockets until he found a package of cigarettes. He lit one grimly. They had all wanted cigarettes from him. But cigarettes were scarce. A lizard slithered by him, through the ash. He halted, rigid. The lizard disappeared. Above, the sun rose higher in the sky. Some flies landed on a flat rock to one side of him. Hendricks kicked at them with his foot. It was getting hot. Sweat trickled down his face, into his collar. His mouth was dry. Presently he stopped walking and sat down on some debris. He unfastened his medicine kit and swallowed a few narcotic capsules. He looked around him. Where was he? Something lay ahead. Stretched out on the ground. Silent and unmoving. Hendricks drew his gun quickly. It looked like a man. Then he remembered. It was the remains of Klaus. The Second Variety. Where Tasso had blasted him. He could see wheels and relays and metal parts, strewn around on the ash. Glittering and sparkling in the sunlight. Hendricks got to his feet and walked over. He nudged the inert form with his foot, turning it over a little. He

thought

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

yards ahead, was the entrance of the forward command bunker. The bunker from which he had come. Hendricks watched silently. No motion. No sign of life. Nothing stirred. Klaus slithered up beside him. "Where is it?" "Down there." Hendricks passed him the glasses. Clouds of ash rolled across the evening sky. The world was darkening. They had a couple of hours of light left, at the most. Probably not that much. "I don't see anything," Klaus said. "That tree there. The stump. By the pile of bricks. The entrance is to the right of the bricks." "I'll have to take your word for it." "You and Tasso cover me from here. You'll be able to sight all the way to the bunker entrance." "You're going down alone?" "With my wrist tab I'll be safe. The ground around the bunker is a living field of claws. They collect down in the ash. Like crabs. Without tabs you wouldn't have a chance." "Maybe you're right." "I'll walk slowly all the way. As soon as I know for certain--" "If they're down inside the bunker you won't be able to get back up here. They go fast. You don't realize." "What do you suggest?" Klaus considered. "I don't know. Get them to come up to the surface. So you can see." Hendricks brought his transmitter from his belt, raising the antenna. "Let's get started." * * * * * Klaus signalled to Tasso. She crawled expertly up the side of the rise to where they were sitting. "He's going down alone," Klaus said. "We'll cover him from here. As soon as you see him start back, fire past him at once. They come quick." "You're not very optimistic," Tasso said. "No, I'm not." Hendricks opened the breech of his gun, checking it carefully. "Maybe things are all right." "You didn't see them. Hundreds of them. All the same. Pouring out like ants." "I should be able to find out without going down all the way." Hendricks locked his gun, gripping it in one hand, the transmitter in the other. "Well, wish me luck." Klaus put out his hand. "Don't go down until you're sure. Talk to them from up here. Make them show themselves." * * * * * Hendricks stood up. He stepped down the side of the rise. A moment later he was walking slowly toward the pile of bricks and debris beside the dead tree stump. Toward the entrance of the forward command bunker. Nothing stirred. He raised the transmitter, clicking it on. "Scott? Can you hear me?" Silence. "Scott! This is Hendricks. Can you hear me? I'm standing outside the bunker. You should be able to see me in the view sight." He listened, the transmitter gripped tightly. No sound. Only static. He walked forward. A claw burrowed out of the ash and raced toward him. It halted a few feet away and then slunk off. A second claw appeared, one of the big ones with feelers. It moved toward him, studied him intently, and then fell in behind him, dogging respectfully after him, a few paces away. A moment later a second big claw joined it. Silently, the claws trailed him, as he walked slowly toward the bunker. Hendricks stopped, and behind him, the claws came to a halt. He was close, now. Almost to the bunker steps. "Scott! Can you hear me? I'm standing right above you. Outside. On the surface. Are you picking me up?" * * * * * He waited, holding his gun against his side, the transmitter tightly to his ear. Time passed. He strained to hear, but there was only silence. Silence, and faint static. Then, distantly, metallically-- "This is Scott." The voice was neutral. Cold. He could not identify it. But the earphone was minute. "Scott! Listen. I'm standing right above you. I'm on the surface, looking down into the bunker entrance." "Yes." "Can you see me?" "Yes." "Through the view sight? You have the sight trained on me?" "Yes." Hendricks pondered. A circle of claws waited quietly around him, gray-metal bodies on all sides of him. "Is everything all right in the bunker? Nothing unusual has happened?" "Everything is all right." "Will you come up to the surface? I want to see you for a moment." Hendricks took a deep breath. "Come up here with me. I want to talk to you." "Come down." "I'm giving you an order." Silence. "Are you coming?" Hendricks listened. There was no response. "I order you to come to the surface." "Come down." Hendricks set his jaw. "Let me talk to Leone." There was a long pause. He listened to the static. Then a voice came, hard, thin, metallic. The same as the other. "This is Leone." "Hendricks. I'm on the surface. At the bunker entrance. I want one of you to come up here." "Come down." "Why come down? I'm giving you an order!" Silence. Hendricks lowered the transmitter. He looked carefully around him. The entrance was just ahead. Almost at his feet. He lowered the antenna and fastened the transmitter to his belt. Carefully, he gripped his gun with both hands. He moved forward, a step at a time. If they could see him they knew he was starting toward the entrance. He closed his eyes a moment. Then he put his foot on the first step that led downward. Two Davids came up at him, their faces identical and expressionless. He blasted them into particles. More came rushing silently up, a whole pack of them. All exactly the same. Hendricks turned and raced back, away from the bunker, back toward the rise. At the top of the rise Tasso and Klaus were firing down. The small claws were already streaking up toward them, shining metal spheres going fast, racing frantically through the ash. But he had no time to think about that. He knelt down, aiming at the bunker entrance, gun against his cheek. The Davids were coming out in groups, clutching their teddy bears, their thin knobby legs pumping as they ran up the steps to the surface. Hendricks fired into the main body of them. They burst apart, wheels and springs flying in all directions. He fired again through the mist of particles. A giant lumbering figure rose up in the bunker entrance, tall and swaying. Hendricks paused, amazed. A man, a soldier. With one leg, supporting himself with a crutch. "Major!" Tasso's voice came. More firing. The huge figure moved forward, Davids swarming around it. Hendricks broke out of his freeze. The First Variety. The Wounded Soldier. He aimed and fired. The soldier burst into bits, parts and relays flying. Now many Davids were out on the flat ground, away from the bunker. He fired again and again, moving slowly back, half-crouching and aiming. From the rise, Klaus fired down. The side of the rise was alive with claws making their way up. Hendricks retreated toward the rise, running and crouching. Tasso had left Klaus and was circling slowly to the right, moving away from the rise. A David slipped up toward him, its small white face expressionless, brown hair hanging down in its eyes. It bent over suddenly, opening its arms. Its teddy bear hurtled down and leaped across the ground, bounding toward him. Hendricks fired. The bear and the David both dissolved. He grinned, blinking. It was like a dream. "Up here!" Tasso's voice. Hendricks made his way toward her. She was over by some columns of concrete, walls of a ruined building. She was firing past him, with the hand pistol Klaus had given her. "Thanks." He joined her, grasping for breath. She pulled him back, behind the concrete, fumbling at her belt. "Close your eyes!" She unfastened a globe from her waist. Rapidly, she unscrewed the cap, locking it into place. "Close your eyes and get down." * * * * * She threw the bomb. It sailed in an arc, an expert, rolling and bouncing to the entrance of the bunker. Two Wounded Soldiers stood uncertainly by the brick pile. More Davids poured from behind them, out onto the plain. One of the Wounded Soldiers moved toward the bomb, stooping awkwardly down to pick it up. The bomb went off. The concussion whirled Hendricks around, throwing him on his face. A hot wind rolled over him. Dimly he saw Tasso standing behind the columns, firing slowly and methodically at the Davids coming out of the raging clouds of white fire. Back along the rise Klaus struggled with a ring of claws circling around him. He retreated, blasting at them and moving back, trying to break through the ring. Hendricks struggled to his feet. His head ached. He could hardly see. Everything was licking at him, raging and whirling. His right arm would not move. Tasso pulled back toward him. "Come on. Let's go." "Klaus--He's still up there." "Come on!" Tasso dragged Hendricks back, away from the columns. Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. Tasso led him rapidly away, her eyes intense and bright, watching for claws that had escaped the blast. One David came out of the rolling clouds of flame. Tasso blasted it. No more appeared. "But Klaus. What about him?" Hendricks stopped, standing unsteadily. "He--" "Come on!" * * * * * They retreated, moving farther and farther away from the bunker. A few small claws followed them for a little while and then gave up, turning back and going off. At last Tasso stopped. "We can stop here and get our breaths." Hendricks sat down on some heaps of debris. He wiped his neck, gasping. "We left Klaus back there." Tasso said nothing. She opened her gun, sliding a fresh round of blast cartridges into place. Hendricks stared at her, dazed. "You left him back there on purpose." Tasso snapped the gun together. She studied the heaps of rubble around them, her face expressionless. As if she were watching for something. "What is it?" Hendricks demanded. "What are you looking for? Is something coming?" He shook his head, trying to understand. What was she doing? What was she waiting for? He could see nothing. Ash lay all around them, ash and ruins. Occasional stark tree trunks, without leaves or branches. "What--" Tasso cut him off. "Be still." Her eyes narrowed. Suddenly her gun came up. Hendricks turned, following her gaze. * * * * * Back the way they had come a figure appeared. The figure walked unsteadily toward them. Its clothes were torn. It limped as it made its way along, going very slowly and carefully. Stopping now and then, resting and getting its strength. Once it almost fell. It stood for a moment, trying to steady itself. Then it came on. Klaus. Hendricks stood up. "Klaus!" He started toward him. "How the hell did you--" Tasso fired. Hendricks swung back. She fired again, the blast passing him, a searing line of heat. The beam caught Klaus in the chest. He exploded, gears and wheels flying. For a moment he continued to walk. Then he swayed back and forth. He crashed to the ground, his arms flung out. A few more wheels rolled away. Silence. Tasso turned to Hendricks. "Now you understand why he killed Rudi." Hendricks sat down again slowly. He shook his head. He was numb. He could not think. "Do you see?" Tasso said. "Do you understand?" Hendricks said nothing. Everything was slipping away from him, faster and faster. Darkness, rolling and plucking at him. He closed his eyes. * * * * * Hendricks opened his eyes slowly. His body ached all over. He tried to sit up but needles of pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He gasped. "Don't try to get up," Tasso said. She bent down, putting her cold hand against his forehead. It was night. A few stars glinted above, shining through the drifting clouds of ash. Hendricks lay back, his teeth locked. Tasso watched him impassively. She had built a fire with some wood and weeds. The fire licked feebly, hissing at a metal cup suspended over it. Everything was silent. Unmoving darkness, beyond the fire. "So he was the Second Variety," Hendricks murmured. "I had always thought so." "Why didn't you destroy him sooner?" he wanted to know. "You held me back." Tasso crossed to the fire to look into the metal cup. "Coffee. It'll be ready to drink in awhile." She came back and sat down beside him. Presently she opened her pistol and began to disassemble the firing mechanism, studying it intently. "This is a beautiful gun," Tasso said, half-aloud. "The construction is superb." "What about them? The claws." "The concussion from the bomb put most of them out of action. They're delicate. Highly organized, I suppose." "The Davids, too?" "Yes." "How did you happen to have a bomb like that?" Tasso shrugged. "We designed it. You shouldn't underestimate our technology, Major. Without such a bomb you and I would no longer exist." "Very useful." Tasso stretched out her legs, warming her feet in the heat of the fire. "It surprised me that you did not seem to understand, after he killed Rudi. Why did you think he--" "I told you. I thought he was afraid." "Really? You know, Major, for a little while I suspected you. Because you wouldn't let me kill him. I thought you might be protecting him." She laughed. "Are we safe here?" Hendricks asked presently. "For awhile. Until they get reinforcements from some other area." Tasso began to clean the interior of the gun with a bit of rag. She finished and pushed the mechanism back into place. She closed the gun, running her finger along the barrel. "We were lucky," Hendricks murmured. "Yes. Very lucky." "Thanks for pulling me away." * * * * * Tasso did not answer. She glanced up at him, her eyes bright in the fire light. Hendricks examined his arm. He could not move his fingers. His whole side seemed numb. Down inside him was a dull steady ache. "How do you feel?" Tasso asked. "My arm is damaged." "Anything else?" "Internal injuries." "You didn't get down when the bomb went off." Hendricks said nothing. He watched Tasso pour the coffee from the cup into a flat metal pan. She brought it over to him. "Thanks." He struggled up enough to drink. It was hard to swallow. His insides turned over and he pushed the pan away. "That's all I can drink now." Tasso drank the rest. Time passed. The clouds of ash moved across the dark sky above them. Hendricks rested, his mind blank. After awhile he became aware that Tasso was standing over him, gazing down at him. "What is it?" he murmured. "Do you feel any better?" "Some." "You know, Major, if I hadn't dragged you away they would have got you. You would be dead. Like Rudi." "I know." "Do you want to know why I brought you out? I could have left you. I could have left you there." "Why did you bring me out?" "Because we have to get away from here." Tasso stirred the fire with a stick, peering calmly down into it. "No human being can live here. When their reinforcements come we won't have a chance. I've pondered about it while you were unconscious. We have perhaps three hours before they come." "And you expect me to get us away?" "That's right. I expect you to get us out of here." "Why me?" "Because I don't know any way." Her eyes shone at him in the half-light, bright and steady. "If you can't get us out of here they'll kill us within three hours. I see nothing else ahead. Well, Major? What are you going to do? I've been waiting all night. While you were unconscious I sat here, waiting and listening. It's almost dawn. The night is almost over." * * * * * Hendricks considered. "It's curious," he said at last. "Curious?" "That you should think I can get us out of here. I wonder what you think I can do." "Can you get us to the Moon Base?" "The Moon Base? How?" "There must be some way." Hendricks shook his head. "No. There's no way that I know of." Tasso said nothing. For a moment her steady gaze wavered. She ducked her head, turning abruptly away. She scrambled to her feet. "More coffee?" "No." "Suit yourself." Tasso drank silently. He could not see her face. He lay back against the ground, deep in thought, trying to concentrate. It was hard to think. His head still hurt. And the numbing daze still hung over him. "There might be one way," he said suddenly. "Oh?" "How soon is dawn?" "Two hours. The sun will be coming up shortly." "There's supposed to be a ship near here. I've never seen it. But I know it exists." "What kind of a ship?" Her voice was sharp. "A rocket cruiser." "Will it take us off? To the Moon Base?" "It's supposed to. In case of emergency." He rubbed his forehead. "What's wrong?" "My head. It's hard to think. I can hardly--hardly concentrate. The bomb." "Is the ship near here?" Tasso slid over beside him, settling down on her haunches. "How far is it? Where is it?" "I'm trying to think." Her fingers dug into his arm. "Nearby?" Her voice was like iron. "Where would it be? Would they store it underground? Hidden underground?" "Yes. In a storage locker." "How do we find it? Is it marked? Is there a code marker to identify it?" Hendricks concentrated. "No. No markings. No code symbol." "What, then?" "A sign." "What sort of sign?" * * * * * Hendricks did not answer. In the flickering light his eyes were glazed, two sightless orbs. Tasso's fingers dug into his arm. "What sort of sign? What is it?" "I--I can't think. Let me rest." "All right." She let go and stood up. Hendricks lay back against the ground, his eyes closed. Tasso walked away from him, her hands in her pockets. She kicked a rock out of her way and stood staring up at the sky. The night blackness was already beginning to fade into gray. Morning was coming. Tasso gripped her pistol and walked around the fire in a circle, back and forth. On the ground Major Hendricks lay, his eyes closed, unmoving. The grayness rose in the sky, higher and higher. The landscape became visible, fields of ash stretching out in all directions. Ash and ruins of buildings, a wall here and there, heaps of concrete, the naked trunk of a tree. The air was cold and sharp. Somewhere a long way off a bird made a few bleak sounds. Hendricks stirred. He opened his eyes. "Is it dawn? Already?" "Yes." Hendricks sat up a little. "You wanted to know something. You were asking me." "Do you remember now?" "Yes." "What is it?" She tensed. "What?" she repeated sharply. "A well. A ruined well. It's in a storage locker under a well." "A well." Tasso relaxed. "Then we'll find a well." She looked at her watch. "We have about an hour, Major. Do you think we can find it in an hour?" * * * * * "Give me a hand up," Hendricks said. Tasso put her pistol away and helped him to his feet. "This is going to be difficult." "Yes it is." Hendricks set his lips tightly. "I don't think we're going to go very far." They began to walk. The early sun cast a little warmth down on them. The land was flat and barren, stretching out gray and lifeless as far as they could see. A few birds sailed silently, far above them, circling slowly. "See anything?" Hendricks said. "Any claws?" "No. Not yet." They passed through some ruins, upright concrete and bricks. A cement foundation. Rats scuttled away. Tasso jumped back warily. "This used to be a town," Hendricks said. "A village. Provincial village. This was all grape country, once. Where we are now." They came onto a ruined street, weeds and cracks criss-crossing it. Over to the right a stone chimney stuck up. "Be careful," he warned her. A pit yawned, an open basement. Ragged ends of pipes jutted up, twisted and bent. They passed part of a house, a bathtub turned on its side. A broken chair. A few spoons and bits of china dishes. In the center of the street the ground had sunk away. The depression was filled with weeds and debris and bones. "Over here," Hendricks murmured. "This way?" "To the right." They passed the remains of a heavy duty tank. Hendricks' belt counter clicked ominously. The tank had been radiation blasted. A few feet from the tank a mummified body lay sprawled out, mouth open. Beyond the road was a flat field. Stones and weeds, and bits of broken glass. "There," Hendricks said. * * * * * A stone well jutted up, sagging and broken. A few boards lay across it. Most of the well had sunk into rubble. Hendricks walked unsteadily toward it, Tasso beside him. "Are you certain about this?" Tasso said. "This doesn't look like anything." "I'm sure." Hendricks sat down at the edge of the well, his teeth locked. His breath came quickly. He wiped perspiration from his face. "This was arranged so the senior command officer could get away. If anything happened. If the bunker fell." "That was you?" "Yes." "Where is the ship? Is it here?" "We're standing on it." Hendricks ran his hands over the surface of the well stones. "The eye-lock responds to me, not to anybody else. It's my ship. Or it was supposed to be." There was a sharp click. Presently they heard a low grating sound from below them. "Step back," Hendricks said. He and Tasso moved away from the well. A section of the ground slid back. A metal frame pushed slowly up through the ash, shoving bricks and weeds out of the way. The action ceased, as the ship nosed into view. "There it is," Hendricks said. The ship was small. It rested quietly, suspended in its mesh frame, like a blunt needle. A rain of ash sifted down into the dark cavity from which the ship had been raised. Hendricks made his way over to it. He mounted the mesh and unscrewed the hatch, pulling it back. Inside the ship the control banks and the pressure seat were visible. * * * * * Tasso came and stood beside him, gazing into the ship. "I'm not accustomed to rocket piloting," she said, after awhile. Hendricks glanced at her. "I'll do the piloting." "Will you? There's only one seat, Major. I can see it's built to carry only a single person." Hendricks' breathing changed. He studied the interior of the ship intently. Tasso was right. There was only one seat. The ship was built to carry only one person. "I see," he said slowly. "And the one person is you." She nodded. "Of course." "Why?" "_You_ can't go. You might not live through the trip. You're injured. You probably wouldn't get there." "An interesting point. But you see, I know where the Moon Base is. And you don't. You might fly around for months and not find it. It's well hidden. Without knowing what to look for--" "I'll have to take my chances. Maybe I won't find it. Not by myself. But I think you'll give me all the information I need. Your life depends on it." "How?" "If I find the Moon Base in time, perhaps I can get them to send a ship back to pick you up. _If_ I find the Base in time. If not, then you haven't a chance. I imagine there are supplies on the ship. They will last me long enough--" Hendricks moved quickly. But his injured arm betrayed him. Tasso ducked, sliding lithely aside. Her hand came up, lightning fast. Hendricks saw the gun butt coming. He tried to ward off the blow, but she was too fast. The metal butt struck against the side of his head, just above his ear. Numbing pain rushed through him. Pain and rolling clouds of blackness. He sank down, sliding to the ground. * * * * * Dimly, he was aware that Tasso was standing over him, kicking him with her toe. "Major! Wake up." He opened his eyes, groaning. "Listen to me." She bent down, the gun pointed at his face. "I have to hurry. There isn't much time left. The ship is ready to go, but you must tell me the information I need before I leave." Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. "Hurry up! Where is the Moon Base? How do I find it? What do I look for?" Hendricks said nothing. "Answer me!" "Sorry." "Major, the ship is loaded with provisions. I can coast for weeks. I'll find the Base eventually. And in a half hour you'll be dead. Your only chance of survival--" She broke off. Along the slope, by some crumbling ruins, something moved. Something in the ash. Tasso turned quickly, aiming. She fired. A puff of flame leaped. Something scuttled away, rolling across the ash. She fired again. The claw burst apart, wheels flying. "See?" Tasso said. "A scout. It won't be long." "You'll bring them back here to get me?" "Yes. As soon as possible." Hendricks looked up at her. He studied her intently. "You're telling the truth?" A strange expression had come over his face, an avid hunger. "You will come back for me? You'll get me to the Moon Base?" "I'll get you to the Moon Base. But tell me where it is! There's only a little time left." "All right." Hendricks picked up a piece of rock, pulling himself to a sitting position. "Watch." Hendricks began to scratch in the ash. Tasso stood by him, watching the motion of the rock. Hendricks was sketching a crude lunar map. * * * * * "This is the Appenine range. Here is the Crater of Archimedes. The Moon Base is beyond the end of the Appenine, about two hundred miles. I don't know exactly where. No one on Terra knows. But when you're over the Appenine, signal with one red flare and a green flare, followed by two red flares in quick succession. The Base monitor will record your signal. The Base is under the surface, of course. They'll guide you down with magnetic grapples." "And the controls? Can I operate them?" "The controls are virtually automatic. All you have to do is give the right signal at the right time." "I will." "The seat absorbs most of the take-off shock. Air and temperature are automatically controlled. The ship will leave Terra and pass out into free space. It'll line itself up with the moon, falling into an orbit around it, about a hundred miles above the surface. The orbit will carry you over the Base. When you're in the region of the Appenine, release the signal rockets." Tasso slid into the ship and lowered herself into the pressure seat. The arm locks folded automatically around her. She fingered the controls. "Too bad you're not going, Major. All this put here for you, and you can't make the trip." "Leave me the pistol." Tasso pulled the pistol from her belt. She held it in her hand, weighing it thoughtfully. "Don't go too far from this location. It'll be hard to find you, as it is." "No. I'll stay here by the well." Tasso gripped the take-off switch, running her fingers over the smooth metal. "A beautiful ship, Major. Well built. I admire your workmanship. You people have always done good work. You build fine things. Your work, your creations, are your greatest achievement." "Give me the pistol," Hendricks said impatiently, holding out his hand. He struggled to his feet. "Good-bye, Major." Tasso tossed the pistol past Hendricks. The pistol clattered against the ground, bouncing and rolling away. Hendricks hurried after it. He bent down, snatching it up. The hatch of the ship clanged shut. The bolts fell into place. Hendricks made his way back. The inner door was being sealed. He raised the pistol unsteadily. * * * * * There was a shattering roar. The ship burst up from its metal cage, fusing the mesh behind it. Hendricks cringed, pulling back. The ship shot up into the rolling clouds of ash, disappearing into the sky. Hendricks stood watching a long time, until even the streamer had dissipated. Nothing stirred. The morning air was chill and silent. He began to walk aimlessly back the way they had come. Better to keep moving around. It would be a long time before help came--if it came at all. He searched his pockets until he found a package of cigarettes. He lit one grimly. They had all wanted cigarettes from him. But cigarettes were scarce. A lizard slithered by him, through the ash. He halted, rigid. The lizard disappeared. Above, the sun rose higher in the sky. Some flies landed on a flat rock to one side of him. Hendricks kicked at them with his foot. It was getting hot. Sweat trickled down his face, into his collar. His mouth was dry. Presently he stopped walking and sat down on some debris. He unfastened his medicine kit and swallowed a few narcotic capsules. He looked around him. Where was he? Something lay ahead. Stretched out on the ground. Silent and unmoving. Hendricks drew his gun quickly. It looked like a man. Then he remembered. It was the remains of Klaus. The Second Variety. Where Tasso had blasted him. He could see wheels and relays and metal parts, strewn around on the ash. Glittering and sparkling in the sunlight. Hendricks got to his feet and walked over. He nudged the inert form with his foot, turning it over a little. He

past

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

yards ahead, was the entrance of the forward command bunker. The bunker from which he had come. Hendricks watched silently. No motion. No sign of life. Nothing stirred. Klaus slithered up beside him. "Where is it?" "Down there." Hendricks passed him the glasses. Clouds of ash rolled across the evening sky. The world was darkening. They had a couple of hours of light left, at the most. Probably not that much. "I don't see anything," Klaus said. "That tree there. The stump. By the pile of bricks. The entrance is to the right of the bricks." "I'll have to take your word for it." "You and Tasso cover me from here. You'll be able to sight all the way to the bunker entrance." "You're going down alone?" "With my wrist tab I'll be safe. The ground around the bunker is a living field of claws. They collect down in the ash. Like crabs. Without tabs you wouldn't have a chance." "Maybe you're right." "I'll walk slowly all the way. As soon as I know for certain--" "If they're down inside the bunker you won't be able to get back up here. They go fast. You don't realize." "What do you suggest?" Klaus considered. "I don't know. Get them to come up to the surface. So you can see." Hendricks brought his transmitter from his belt, raising the antenna. "Let's get started." * * * * * Klaus signalled to Tasso. She crawled expertly up the side of the rise to where they were sitting. "He's going down alone," Klaus said. "We'll cover him from here. As soon as you see him start back, fire past him at once. They come quick." "You're not very optimistic," Tasso said. "No, I'm not." Hendricks opened the breech of his gun, checking it carefully. "Maybe things are all right." "You didn't see them. Hundreds of them. All the same. Pouring out like ants." "I should be able to find out without going down all the way." Hendricks locked his gun, gripping it in one hand, the transmitter in the other. "Well, wish me luck." Klaus put out his hand. "Don't go down until you're sure. Talk to them from up here. Make them show themselves." * * * * * Hendricks stood up. He stepped down the side of the rise. A moment later he was walking slowly toward the pile of bricks and debris beside the dead tree stump. Toward the entrance of the forward command bunker. Nothing stirred. He raised the transmitter, clicking it on. "Scott? Can you hear me?" Silence. "Scott! This is Hendricks. Can you hear me? I'm standing outside the bunker. You should be able to see me in the view sight." He listened, the transmitter gripped tightly. No sound. Only static. He walked forward. A claw burrowed out of the ash and raced toward him. It halted a few feet away and then slunk off. A second claw appeared, one of the big ones with feelers. It moved toward him, studied him intently, and then fell in behind him, dogging respectfully after him, a few paces away. A moment later a second big claw joined it. Silently, the claws trailed him, as he walked slowly toward the bunker. Hendricks stopped, and behind him, the claws came to a halt. He was close, now. Almost to the bunker steps. "Scott! Can you hear me? I'm standing right above you. Outside. On the surface. Are you picking me up?" * * * * * He waited, holding his gun against his side, the transmitter tightly to his ear. Time passed. He strained to hear, but there was only silence. Silence, and faint static. Then, distantly, metallically-- "This is Scott." The voice was neutral. Cold. He could not identify it. But the earphone was minute. "Scott! Listen. I'm standing right above you. I'm on the surface, looking down into the bunker entrance." "Yes." "Can you see me?" "Yes." "Through the view sight? You have the sight trained on me?" "Yes." Hendricks pondered. A circle of claws waited quietly around him, gray-metal bodies on all sides of him. "Is everything all right in the bunker? Nothing unusual has happened?" "Everything is all right." "Will you come up to the surface? I want to see you for a moment." Hendricks took a deep breath. "Come up here with me. I want to talk to you." "Come down." "I'm giving you an order." Silence. "Are you coming?" Hendricks listened. There was no response. "I order you to come to the surface." "Come down." Hendricks set his jaw. "Let me talk to Leone." There was a long pause. He listened to the static. Then a voice came, hard, thin, metallic. The same as the other. "This is Leone." "Hendricks. I'm on the surface. At the bunker entrance. I want one of you to come up here." "Come down." "Why come down? I'm giving you an order!" Silence. Hendricks lowered the transmitter. He looked carefully around him. The entrance was just ahead. Almost at his feet. He lowered the antenna and fastened the transmitter to his belt. Carefully, he gripped his gun with both hands. He moved forward, a step at a time. If they could see him they knew he was starting toward the entrance. He closed his eyes a moment. Then he put his foot on the first step that led downward. Two Davids came up at him, their faces identical and expressionless. He blasted them into particles. More came rushing silently up, a whole pack of them. All exactly the same. Hendricks turned and raced back, away from the bunker, back toward the rise. At the top of the rise Tasso and Klaus were firing down. The small claws were already streaking up toward them, shining metal spheres going fast, racing frantically through the ash. But he had no time to think about that. He knelt down, aiming at the bunker entrance, gun against his cheek. The Davids were coming out in groups, clutching their teddy bears, their thin knobby legs pumping as they ran up the steps to the surface. Hendricks fired into the main body of them. They burst apart, wheels and springs flying in all directions. He fired again through the mist of particles. A giant lumbering figure rose up in the bunker entrance, tall and swaying. Hendricks paused, amazed. A man, a soldier. With one leg, supporting himself with a crutch. "Major!" Tasso's voice came. More firing. The huge figure moved forward, Davids swarming around it. Hendricks broke out of his freeze. The First Variety. The Wounded Soldier. He aimed and fired. The soldier burst into bits, parts and relays flying. Now many Davids were out on the flat ground, away from the bunker. He fired again and again, moving slowly back, half-crouching and aiming. From the rise, Klaus fired down. The side of the rise was alive with claws making their way up. Hendricks retreated toward the rise, running and crouching. Tasso had left Klaus and was circling slowly to the right, moving away from the rise. A David slipped up toward him, its small white face expressionless, brown hair hanging down in its eyes. It bent over suddenly, opening its arms. Its teddy bear hurtled down and leaped across the ground, bounding toward him. Hendricks fired. The bear and the David both dissolved. He grinned, blinking. It was like a dream. "Up here!" Tasso's voice. Hendricks made his way toward her. She was over by some columns of concrete, walls of a ruined building. She was firing past him, with the hand pistol Klaus had given her. "Thanks." He joined her, grasping for breath. She pulled him back, behind the concrete, fumbling at her belt. "Close your eyes!" She unfastened a globe from her waist. Rapidly, she unscrewed the cap, locking it into place. "Close your eyes and get down." * * * * * She threw the bomb. It sailed in an arc, an expert, rolling and bouncing to the entrance of the bunker. Two Wounded Soldiers stood uncertainly by the brick pile. More Davids poured from behind them, out onto the plain. One of the Wounded Soldiers moved toward the bomb, stooping awkwardly down to pick it up. The bomb went off. The concussion whirled Hendricks around, throwing him on his face. A hot wind rolled over him. Dimly he saw Tasso standing behind the columns, firing slowly and methodically at the Davids coming out of the raging clouds of white fire. Back along the rise Klaus struggled with a ring of claws circling around him. He retreated, blasting at them and moving back, trying to break through the ring. Hendricks struggled to his feet. His head ached. He could hardly see. Everything was licking at him, raging and whirling. His right arm would not move. Tasso pulled back toward him. "Come on. Let's go." "Klaus--He's still up there." "Come on!" Tasso dragged Hendricks back, away from the columns. Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. Tasso led him rapidly away, her eyes intense and bright, watching for claws that had escaped the blast. One David came out of the rolling clouds of flame. Tasso blasted it. No more appeared. "But Klaus. What about him?" Hendricks stopped, standing unsteadily. "He--" "Come on!" * * * * * They retreated, moving farther and farther away from the bunker. A few small claws followed them for a little while and then gave up, turning back and going off. At last Tasso stopped. "We can stop here and get our breaths." Hendricks sat down on some heaps of debris. He wiped his neck, gasping. "We left Klaus back there." Tasso said nothing. She opened her gun, sliding a fresh round of blast cartridges into place. Hendricks stared at her, dazed. "You left him back there on purpose." Tasso snapped the gun together. She studied the heaps of rubble around them, her face expressionless. As if she were watching for something. "What is it?" Hendricks demanded. "What are you looking for? Is something coming?" He shook his head, trying to understand. What was she doing? What was she waiting for? He could see nothing. Ash lay all around them, ash and ruins. Occasional stark tree trunks, without leaves or branches. "What--" Tasso cut him off. "Be still." Her eyes narrowed. Suddenly her gun came up. Hendricks turned, following her gaze. * * * * * Back the way they had come a figure appeared. The figure walked unsteadily toward them. Its clothes were torn. It limped as it made its way along, going very slowly and carefully. Stopping now and then, resting and getting its strength. Once it almost fell. It stood for a moment, trying to steady itself. Then it came on. Klaus. Hendricks stood up. "Klaus!" He started toward him. "How the hell did you--" Tasso fired. Hendricks swung back. She fired again, the blast passing him, a searing line of heat. The beam caught Klaus in the chest. He exploded, gears and wheels flying. For a moment he continued to walk. Then he swayed back and forth. He crashed to the ground, his arms flung out. A few more wheels rolled away. Silence. Tasso turned to Hendricks. "Now you understand why he killed Rudi." Hendricks sat down again slowly. He shook his head. He was numb. He could not think. "Do you see?" Tasso said. "Do you understand?" Hendricks said nothing. Everything was slipping away from him, faster and faster. Darkness, rolling and plucking at him. He closed his eyes. * * * * * Hendricks opened his eyes slowly. His body ached all over. He tried to sit up but needles of pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He gasped. "Don't try to get up," Tasso said. She bent down, putting her cold hand against his forehead. It was night. A few stars glinted above, shining through the drifting clouds of ash. Hendricks lay back, his teeth locked. Tasso watched him impassively. She had built a fire with some wood and weeds. The fire licked feebly, hissing at a metal cup suspended over it. Everything was silent. Unmoving darkness, beyond the fire. "So he was the Second Variety," Hendricks murmured. "I had always thought so." "Why didn't you destroy him sooner?" he wanted to know. "You held me back." Tasso crossed to the fire to look into the metal cup. "Coffee. It'll be ready to drink in awhile." She came back and sat down beside him. Presently she opened her pistol and began to disassemble the firing mechanism, studying it intently. "This is a beautiful gun," Tasso said, half-aloud. "The construction is superb." "What about them? The claws." "The concussion from the bomb put most of them out of action. They're delicate. Highly organized, I suppose." "The Davids, too?" "Yes." "How did you happen to have a bomb like that?" Tasso shrugged. "We designed it. You shouldn't underestimate our technology, Major. Without such a bomb you and I would no longer exist." "Very useful." Tasso stretched out her legs, warming her feet in the heat of the fire. "It surprised me that you did not seem to understand, after he killed Rudi. Why did you think he--" "I told you. I thought he was afraid." "Really? You know, Major, for a little while I suspected you. Because you wouldn't let me kill him. I thought you might be protecting him." She laughed. "Are we safe here?" Hendricks asked presently. "For awhile. Until they get reinforcements from some other area." Tasso began to clean the interior of the gun with a bit of rag. She finished and pushed the mechanism back into place. She closed the gun, running her finger along the barrel. "We were lucky," Hendricks murmured. "Yes. Very lucky." "Thanks for pulling me away." * * * * * Tasso did not answer. She glanced up at him, her eyes bright in the fire light. Hendricks examined his arm. He could not move his fingers. His whole side seemed numb. Down inside him was a dull steady ache. "How do you feel?" Tasso asked. "My arm is damaged." "Anything else?" "Internal injuries." "You didn't get down when the bomb went off." Hendricks said nothing. He watched Tasso pour the coffee from the cup into a flat metal pan. She brought it over to him. "Thanks." He struggled up enough to drink. It was hard to swallow. His insides turned over and he pushed the pan away. "That's all I can drink now." Tasso drank the rest. Time passed. The clouds of ash moved across the dark sky above them. Hendricks rested, his mind blank. After awhile he became aware that Tasso was standing over him, gazing down at him. "What is it?" he murmured. "Do you feel any better?" "Some." "You know, Major, if I hadn't dragged you away they would have got you. You would be dead. Like Rudi." "I know." "Do you want to know why I brought you out? I could have left you. I could have left you there." "Why did you bring me out?" "Because we have to get away from here." Tasso stirred the fire with a stick, peering calmly down into it. "No human being can live here. When their reinforcements come we won't have a chance. I've pondered about it while you were unconscious. We have perhaps three hours before they come." "And you expect me to get us away?" "That's right. I expect you to get us out of here." "Why me?" "Because I don't know any way." Her eyes shone at him in the half-light, bright and steady. "If you can't get us out of here they'll kill us within three hours. I see nothing else ahead. Well, Major? What are you going to do? I've been waiting all night. While you were unconscious I sat here, waiting and listening. It's almost dawn. The night is almost over." * * * * * Hendricks considered. "It's curious," he said at last. "Curious?" "That you should think I can get us out of here. I wonder what you think I can do." "Can you get us to the Moon Base?" "The Moon Base? How?" "There must be some way." Hendricks shook his head. "No. There's no way that I know of." Tasso said nothing. For a moment her steady gaze wavered. She ducked her head, turning abruptly away. She scrambled to her feet. "More coffee?" "No." "Suit yourself." Tasso drank silently. He could not see her face. He lay back against the ground, deep in thought, trying to concentrate. It was hard to think. His head still hurt. And the numbing daze still hung over him. "There might be one way," he said suddenly. "Oh?" "How soon is dawn?" "Two hours. The sun will be coming up shortly." "There's supposed to be a ship near here. I've never seen it. But I know it exists." "What kind of a ship?" Her voice was sharp. "A rocket cruiser." "Will it take us off? To the Moon Base?" "It's supposed to. In case of emergency." He rubbed his forehead. "What's wrong?" "My head. It's hard to think. I can hardly--hardly concentrate. The bomb." "Is the ship near here?" Tasso slid over beside him, settling down on her haunches. "How far is it? Where is it?" "I'm trying to think." Her fingers dug into his arm. "Nearby?" Her voice was like iron. "Where would it be? Would they store it underground? Hidden underground?" "Yes. In a storage locker." "How do we find it? Is it marked? Is there a code marker to identify it?" Hendricks concentrated. "No. No markings. No code symbol." "What, then?" "A sign." "What sort of sign?" * * * * * Hendricks did not answer. In the flickering light his eyes were glazed, two sightless orbs. Tasso's fingers dug into his arm. "What sort of sign? What is it?" "I--I can't think. Let me rest." "All right." She let go and stood up. Hendricks lay back against the ground, his eyes closed. Tasso walked away from him, her hands in her pockets. She kicked a rock out of her way and stood staring up at the sky. The night blackness was already beginning to fade into gray. Morning was coming. Tasso gripped her pistol and walked around the fire in a circle, back and forth. On the ground Major Hendricks lay, his eyes closed, unmoving. The grayness rose in the sky, higher and higher. The landscape became visible, fields of ash stretching out in all directions. Ash and ruins of buildings, a wall here and there, heaps of concrete, the naked trunk of a tree. The air was cold and sharp. Somewhere a long way off a bird made a few bleak sounds. Hendricks stirred. He opened his eyes. "Is it dawn? Already?" "Yes." Hendricks sat up a little. "You wanted to know something. You were asking me." "Do you remember now?" "Yes." "What is it?" She tensed. "What?" she repeated sharply. "A well. A ruined well. It's in a storage locker under a well." "A well." Tasso relaxed. "Then we'll find a well." She looked at her watch. "We have about an hour, Major. Do you think we can find it in an hour?" * * * * * "Give me a hand up," Hendricks said. Tasso put her pistol away and helped him to his feet. "This is going to be difficult." "Yes it is." Hendricks set his lips tightly. "I don't think we're going to go very far." They began to walk. The early sun cast a little warmth down on them. The land was flat and barren, stretching out gray and lifeless as far as they could see. A few birds sailed silently, far above them, circling slowly. "See anything?" Hendricks said. "Any claws?" "No. Not yet." They passed through some ruins, upright concrete and bricks. A cement foundation. Rats scuttled away. Tasso jumped back warily. "This used to be a town," Hendricks said. "A village. Provincial village. This was all grape country, once. Where we are now." They came onto a ruined street, weeds and cracks criss-crossing it. Over to the right a stone chimney stuck up. "Be careful," he warned her. A pit yawned, an open basement. Ragged ends of pipes jutted up, twisted and bent. They passed part of a house, a bathtub turned on its side. A broken chair. A few spoons and bits of china dishes. In the center of the street the ground had sunk away. The depression was filled with weeds and debris and bones. "Over here," Hendricks murmured. "This way?" "To the right." They passed the remains of a heavy duty tank. Hendricks' belt counter clicked ominously. The tank had been radiation blasted. A few feet from the tank a mummified body lay sprawled out, mouth open. Beyond the road was a flat field. Stones and weeds, and bits of broken glass. "There," Hendricks said. * * * * * A stone well jutted up, sagging and broken. A few boards lay across it. Most of the well had sunk into rubble. Hendricks walked unsteadily toward it, Tasso beside him. "Are you certain about this?" Tasso said. "This doesn't look like anything." "I'm sure." Hendricks sat down at the edge of the well, his teeth locked. His breath came quickly. He wiped perspiration from his face. "This was arranged so the senior command officer could get away. If anything happened. If the bunker fell." "That was you?" "Yes." "Where is the ship? Is it here?" "We're standing on it." Hendricks ran his hands over the surface of the well stones. "The eye-lock responds to me, not to anybody else. It's my ship. Or it was supposed to be." There was a sharp click. Presently they heard a low grating sound from below them. "Step back," Hendricks said. He and Tasso moved away from the well. A section of the ground slid back. A metal frame pushed slowly up through the ash, shoving bricks and weeds out of the way. The action ceased, as the ship nosed into view. "There it is," Hendricks said. The ship was small. It rested quietly, suspended in its mesh frame, like a blunt needle. A rain of ash sifted down into the dark cavity from which the ship had been raised. Hendricks made his way over to it. He mounted the mesh and unscrewed the hatch, pulling it back. Inside the ship the control banks and the pressure seat were visible. * * * * * Tasso came and stood beside him, gazing into the ship. "I'm not accustomed to rocket piloting," she said, after awhile. Hendricks glanced at her. "I'll do the piloting." "Will you? There's only one seat, Major. I can see it's built to carry only a single person." Hendricks' breathing changed. He studied the interior of the ship intently. Tasso was right. There was only one seat. The ship was built to carry only one person. "I see," he said slowly. "And the one person is you." She nodded. "Of course." "Why?" "_You_ can't go. You might not live through the trip. You're injured. You probably wouldn't get there." "An interesting point. But you see, I know where the Moon Base is. And you don't. You might fly around for months and not find it. It's well hidden. Without knowing what to look for--" "I'll have to take my chances. Maybe I won't find it. Not by myself. But I think you'll give me all the information I need. Your life depends on it." "How?" "If I find the Moon Base in time, perhaps I can get them to send a ship back to pick you up. _If_ I find the Base in time. If not, then you haven't a chance. I imagine there are supplies on the ship. They will last me long enough--" Hendricks moved quickly. But his injured arm betrayed him. Tasso ducked, sliding lithely aside. Her hand came up, lightning fast. Hendricks saw the gun butt coming. He tried to ward off the blow, but she was too fast. The metal butt struck against the side of his head, just above his ear. Numbing pain rushed through him. Pain and rolling clouds of blackness. He sank down, sliding to the ground. * * * * * Dimly, he was aware that Tasso was standing over him, kicking him with her toe. "Major! Wake up." He opened his eyes, groaning. "Listen to me." She bent down, the gun pointed at his face. "I have to hurry. There isn't much time left. The ship is ready to go, but you must tell me the information I need before I leave." Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. "Hurry up! Where is the Moon Base? How do I find it? What do I look for?" Hendricks said nothing. "Answer me!" "Sorry." "Major, the ship is loaded with provisions. I can coast for weeks. I'll find the Base eventually. And in a half hour you'll be dead. Your only chance of survival--" She broke off. Along the slope, by some crumbling ruins, something moved. Something in the ash. Tasso turned quickly, aiming. She fired. A puff of flame leaped. Something scuttled away, rolling across the ash. She fired again. The claw burst apart, wheels flying. "See?" Tasso said. "A scout. It won't be long." "You'll bring them back here to get me?" "Yes. As soon as possible." Hendricks looked up at her. He studied her intently. "You're telling the truth?" A strange expression had come over his face, an avid hunger. "You will come back for me? You'll get me to the Moon Base?" "I'll get you to the Moon Base. But tell me where it is! There's only a little time left." "All right." Hendricks picked up a piece of rock, pulling himself to a sitting position. "Watch." Hendricks began to scratch in the ash. Tasso stood by him, watching the motion of the rock. Hendricks was sketching a crude lunar map. * * * * * "This is the Appenine range. Here is the Crater of Archimedes. The Moon Base is beyond the end of the Appenine, about two hundred miles. I don't know exactly where. No one on Terra knows. But when you're over the Appenine, signal with one red flare and a green flare, followed by two red flares in quick succession. The Base monitor will record your signal. The Base is under the surface, of course. They'll guide you down with magnetic grapples." "And the controls? Can I operate them?" "The controls are virtually automatic. All you have to do is give the right signal at the right time." "I will." "The seat absorbs most of the take-off shock. Air and temperature are automatically controlled. The ship will leave Terra and pass out into free space. It'll line itself up with the moon, falling into an orbit around it, about a hundred miles above the surface. The orbit will carry you over the Base. When you're in the region of the Appenine, release the signal rockets." Tasso slid into the ship and lowered herself into the pressure seat. The arm locks folded automatically around her. She fingered the controls. "Too bad you're not going, Major. All this put here for you, and you can't make the trip." "Leave me the pistol." Tasso pulled the pistol from her belt. She held it in her hand, weighing it thoughtfully. "Don't go too far from this location. It'll be hard to find you, as it is." "No. I'll stay here by the well." Tasso gripped the take-off switch, running her fingers over the smooth metal. "A beautiful ship, Major. Well built. I admire your workmanship. You people have always done good work. You build fine things. Your work, your creations, are your greatest achievement." "Give me the pistol," Hendricks said impatiently, holding out his hand. He struggled to his feet. "Good-bye, Major." Tasso tossed the pistol past Hendricks. The pistol clattered against the ground, bouncing and rolling away. Hendricks hurried after it. He bent down, snatching it up. The hatch of the ship clanged shut. The bolts fell into place. Hendricks made his way back. The inner door was being sealed. He raised the pistol unsteadily. * * * * * There was a shattering roar. The ship burst up from its metal cage, fusing the mesh behind it. Hendricks cringed, pulling back. The ship shot up into the rolling clouds of ash, disappearing into the sky. Hendricks stood watching a long time, until even the streamer had dissipated. Nothing stirred. The morning air was chill and silent. He began to walk aimlessly back the way they had come. Better to keep moving around. It would be a long time before help came--if it came at all. He searched his pockets until he found a package of cigarettes. He lit one grimly. They had all wanted cigarettes from him. But cigarettes were scarce. A lizard slithered by him, through the ash. He halted, rigid. The lizard disappeared. Above, the sun rose higher in the sky. Some flies landed on a flat rock to one side of him. Hendricks kicked at them with his foot. It was getting hot. Sweat trickled down his face, into his collar. His mouth was dry. Presently he stopped walking and sat down on some debris. He unfastened his medicine kit and swallowed a few narcotic capsules. He looked around him. Where was he? Something lay ahead. Stretched out on the ground. Silent and unmoving. Hendricks drew his gun quickly. It looked like a man. Then he remembered. It was the remains of Klaus. The Second Variety. Where Tasso had blasted him. He could see wheels and relays and metal parts, strewn around on the ash. Glittering and sparkling in the sunlight. Hendricks got to his feet and walked over. He nudged the inert form with his foot, turning it over a little. He

escaped

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

yards ahead, was the entrance of the forward command bunker. The bunker from which he had come. Hendricks watched silently. No motion. No sign of life. Nothing stirred. Klaus slithered up beside him. "Where is it?" "Down there." Hendricks passed him the glasses. Clouds of ash rolled across the evening sky. The world was darkening. They had a couple of hours of light left, at the most. Probably not that much. "I don't see anything," Klaus said. "That tree there. The stump. By the pile of bricks. The entrance is to the right of the bricks." "I'll have to take your word for it." "You and Tasso cover me from here. You'll be able to sight all the way to the bunker entrance." "You're going down alone?" "With my wrist tab I'll be safe. The ground around the bunker is a living field of claws. They collect down in the ash. Like crabs. Without tabs you wouldn't have a chance." "Maybe you're right." "I'll walk slowly all the way. As soon as I know for certain--" "If they're down inside the bunker you won't be able to get back up here. They go fast. You don't realize." "What do you suggest?" Klaus considered. "I don't know. Get them to come up to the surface. So you can see." Hendricks brought his transmitter from his belt, raising the antenna. "Let's get started." * * * * * Klaus signalled to Tasso. She crawled expertly up the side of the rise to where they were sitting. "He's going down alone," Klaus said. "We'll cover him from here. As soon as you see him start back, fire past him at once. They come quick." "You're not very optimistic," Tasso said. "No, I'm not." Hendricks opened the breech of his gun, checking it carefully. "Maybe things are all right." "You didn't see them. Hundreds of them. All the same. Pouring out like ants." "I should be able to find out without going down all the way." Hendricks locked his gun, gripping it in one hand, the transmitter in the other. "Well, wish me luck." Klaus put out his hand. "Don't go down until you're sure. Talk to them from up here. Make them show themselves." * * * * * Hendricks stood up. He stepped down the side of the rise. A moment later he was walking slowly toward the pile of bricks and debris beside the dead tree stump. Toward the entrance of the forward command bunker. Nothing stirred. He raised the transmitter, clicking it on. "Scott? Can you hear me?" Silence. "Scott! This is Hendricks. Can you hear me? I'm standing outside the bunker. You should be able to see me in the view sight." He listened, the transmitter gripped tightly. No sound. Only static. He walked forward. A claw burrowed out of the ash and raced toward him. It halted a few feet away and then slunk off. A second claw appeared, one of the big ones with feelers. It moved toward him, studied him intently, and then fell in behind him, dogging respectfully after him, a few paces away. A moment later a second big claw joined it. Silently, the claws trailed him, as he walked slowly toward the bunker. Hendricks stopped, and behind him, the claws came to a halt. He was close, now. Almost to the bunker steps. "Scott! Can you hear me? I'm standing right above you. Outside. On the surface. Are you picking me up?" * * * * * He waited, holding his gun against his side, the transmitter tightly to his ear. Time passed. He strained to hear, but there was only silence. Silence, and faint static. Then, distantly, metallically-- "This is Scott." The voice was neutral. Cold. He could not identify it. But the earphone was minute. "Scott! Listen. I'm standing right above you. I'm on the surface, looking down into the bunker entrance." "Yes." "Can you see me?" "Yes." "Through the view sight? You have the sight trained on me?" "Yes." Hendricks pondered. A circle of claws waited quietly around him, gray-metal bodies on all sides of him. "Is everything all right in the bunker? Nothing unusual has happened?" "Everything is all right." "Will you come up to the surface? I want to see you for a moment." Hendricks took a deep breath. "Come up here with me. I want to talk to you." "Come down." "I'm giving you an order." Silence. "Are you coming?" Hendricks listened. There was no response. "I order you to come to the surface." "Come down." Hendricks set his jaw. "Let me talk to Leone." There was a long pause. He listened to the static. Then a voice came, hard, thin, metallic. The same as the other. "This is Leone." "Hendricks. I'm on the surface. At the bunker entrance. I want one of you to come up here." "Come down." "Why come down? I'm giving you an order!" Silence. Hendricks lowered the transmitter. He looked carefully around him. The entrance was just ahead. Almost at his feet. He lowered the antenna and fastened the transmitter to his belt. Carefully, he gripped his gun with both hands. He moved forward, a step at a time. If they could see him they knew he was starting toward the entrance. He closed his eyes a moment. Then he put his foot on the first step that led downward. Two Davids came up at him, their faces identical and expressionless. He blasted them into particles. More came rushing silently up, a whole pack of them. All exactly the same. Hendricks turned and raced back, away from the bunker, back toward the rise. At the top of the rise Tasso and Klaus were firing down. The small claws were already streaking up toward them, shining metal spheres going fast, racing frantically through the ash. But he had no time to think about that. He knelt down, aiming at the bunker entrance, gun against his cheek. The Davids were coming out in groups, clutching their teddy bears, their thin knobby legs pumping as they ran up the steps to the surface. Hendricks fired into the main body of them. They burst apart, wheels and springs flying in all directions. He fired again through the mist of particles. A giant lumbering figure rose up in the bunker entrance, tall and swaying. Hendricks paused, amazed. A man, a soldier. With one leg, supporting himself with a crutch. "Major!" Tasso's voice came. More firing. The huge figure moved forward, Davids swarming around it. Hendricks broke out of his freeze. The First Variety. The Wounded Soldier. He aimed and fired. The soldier burst into bits, parts and relays flying. Now many Davids were out on the flat ground, away from the bunker. He fired again and again, moving slowly back, half-crouching and aiming. From the rise, Klaus fired down. The side of the rise was alive with claws making their way up. Hendricks retreated toward the rise, running and crouching. Tasso had left Klaus and was circling slowly to the right, moving away from the rise. A David slipped up toward him, its small white face expressionless, brown hair hanging down in its eyes. It bent over suddenly, opening its arms. Its teddy bear hurtled down and leaped across the ground, bounding toward him. Hendricks fired. The bear and the David both dissolved. He grinned, blinking. It was like a dream. "Up here!" Tasso's voice. Hendricks made his way toward her. She was over by some columns of concrete, walls of a ruined building. She was firing past him, with the hand pistol Klaus had given her. "Thanks." He joined her, grasping for breath. She pulled him back, behind the concrete, fumbling at her belt. "Close your eyes!" She unfastened a globe from her waist. Rapidly, she unscrewed the cap, locking it into place. "Close your eyes and get down." * * * * * She threw the bomb. It sailed in an arc, an expert, rolling and bouncing to the entrance of the bunker. Two Wounded Soldiers stood uncertainly by the brick pile. More Davids poured from behind them, out onto the plain. One of the Wounded Soldiers moved toward the bomb, stooping awkwardly down to pick it up. The bomb went off. The concussion whirled Hendricks around, throwing him on his face. A hot wind rolled over him. Dimly he saw Tasso standing behind the columns, firing slowly and methodically at the Davids coming out of the raging clouds of white fire. Back along the rise Klaus struggled with a ring of claws circling around him. He retreated, blasting at them and moving back, trying to break through the ring. Hendricks struggled to his feet. His head ached. He could hardly see. Everything was licking at him, raging and whirling. His right arm would not move. Tasso pulled back toward him. "Come on. Let's go." "Klaus--He's still up there." "Come on!" Tasso dragged Hendricks back, away from the columns. Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. Tasso led him rapidly away, her eyes intense and bright, watching for claws that had escaped the blast. One David came out of the rolling clouds of flame. Tasso blasted it. No more appeared. "But Klaus. What about him?" Hendricks stopped, standing unsteadily. "He--" "Come on!" * * * * * They retreated, moving farther and farther away from the bunker. A few small claws followed them for a little while and then gave up, turning back and going off. At last Tasso stopped. "We can stop here and get our breaths." Hendricks sat down on some heaps of debris. He wiped his neck, gasping. "We left Klaus back there." Tasso said nothing. She opened her gun, sliding a fresh round of blast cartridges into place. Hendricks stared at her, dazed. "You left him back there on purpose." Tasso snapped the gun together. She studied the heaps of rubble around them, her face expressionless. As if she were watching for something. "What is it?" Hendricks demanded. "What are you looking for? Is something coming?" He shook his head, trying to understand. What was she doing? What was she waiting for? He could see nothing. Ash lay all around them, ash and ruins. Occasional stark tree trunks, without leaves or branches. "What--" Tasso cut him off. "Be still." Her eyes narrowed. Suddenly her gun came up. Hendricks turned, following her gaze. * * * * * Back the way they had come a figure appeared. The figure walked unsteadily toward them. Its clothes were torn. It limped as it made its way along, going very slowly and carefully. Stopping now and then, resting and getting its strength. Once it almost fell. It stood for a moment, trying to steady itself. Then it came on. Klaus. Hendricks stood up. "Klaus!" He started toward him. "How the hell did you--" Tasso fired. Hendricks swung back. She fired again, the blast passing him, a searing line of heat. The beam caught Klaus in the chest. He exploded, gears and wheels flying. For a moment he continued to walk. Then he swayed back and forth. He crashed to the ground, his arms flung out. A few more wheels rolled away. Silence. Tasso turned to Hendricks. "Now you understand why he killed Rudi." Hendricks sat down again slowly. He shook his head. He was numb. He could not think. "Do you see?" Tasso said. "Do you understand?" Hendricks said nothing. Everything was slipping away from him, faster and faster. Darkness, rolling and plucking at him. He closed his eyes. * * * * * Hendricks opened his eyes slowly. His body ached all over. He tried to sit up but needles of pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He gasped. "Don't try to get up," Tasso said. She bent down, putting her cold hand against his forehead. It was night. A few stars glinted above, shining through the drifting clouds of ash. Hendricks lay back, his teeth locked. Tasso watched him impassively. She had built a fire with some wood and weeds. The fire licked feebly, hissing at a metal cup suspended over it. Everything was silent. Unmoving darkness, beyond the fire. "So he was the Second Variety," Hendricks murmured. "I had always thought so." "Why didn't you destroy him sooner?" he wanted to know. "You held me back." Tasso crossed to the fire to look into the metal cup. "Coffee. It'll be ready to drink in awhile." She came back and sat down beside him. Presently she opened her pistol and began to disassemble the firing mechanism, studying it intently. "This is a beautiful gun," Tasso said, half-aloud. "The construction is superb." "What about them? The claws." "The concussion from the bomb put most of them out of action. They're delicate. Highly organized, I suppose." "The Davids, too?" "Yes." "How did you happen to have a bomb like that?" Tasso shrugged. "We designed it. You shouldn't underestimate our technology, Major. Without such a bomb you and I would no longer exist." "Very useful." Tasso stretched out her legs, warming her feet in the heat of the fire. "It surprised me that you did not seem to understand, after he killed Rudi. Why did you think he--" "I told you. I thought he was afraid." "Really? You know, Major, for a little while I suspected you. Because you wouldn't let me kill him. I thought you might be protecting him." She laughed. "Are we safe here?" Hendricks asked presently. "For awhile. Until they get reinforcements from some other area." Tasso began to clean the interior of the gun with a bit of rag. She finished and pushed the mechanism back into place. She closed the gun, running her finger along the barrel. "We were lucky," Hendricks murmured. "Yes. Very lucky." "Thanks for pulling me away." * * * * * Tasso did not answer. She glanced up at him, her eyes bright in the fire light. Hendricks examined his arm. He could not move his fingers. His whole side seemed numb. Down inside him was a dull steady ache. "How do you feel?" Tasso asked. "My arm is damaged." "Anything else?" "Internal injuries." "You didn't get down when the bomb went off." Hendricks said nothing. He watched Tasso pour the coffee from the cup into a flat metal pan. She brought it over to him. "Thanks." He struggled up enough to drink. It was hard to swallow. His insides turned over and he pushed the pan away. "That's all I can drink now." Tasso drank the rest. Time passed. The clouds of ash moved across the dark sky above them. Hendricks rested, his mind blank. After awhile he became aware that Tasso was standing over him, gazing down at him. "What is it?" he murmured. "Do you feel any better?" "Some." "You know, Major, if I hadn't dragged you away they would have got you. You would be dead. Like Rudi." "I know." "Do you want to know why I brought you out? I could have left you. I could have left you there." "Why did you bring me out?" "Because we have to get away from here." Tasso stirred the fire with a stick, peering calmly down into it. "No human being can live here. When their reinforcements come we won't have a chance. I've pondered about it while you were unconscious. We have perhaps three hours before they come." "And you expect me to get us away?" "That's right. I expect you to get us out of here." "Why me?" "Because I don't know any way." Her eyes shone at him in the half-light, bright and steady. "If you can't get us out of here they'll kill us within three hours. I see nothing else ahead. Well, Major? What are you going to do? I've been waiting all night. While you were unconscious I sat here, waiting and listening. It's almost dawn. The night is almost over." * * * * * Hendricks considered. "It's curious," he said at last. "Curious?" "That you should think I can get us out of here. I wonder what you think I can do." "Can you get us to the Moon Base?" "The Moon Base? How?" "There must be some way." Hendricks shook his head. "No. There's no way that I know of." Tasso said nothing. For a moment her steady gaze wavered. She ducked her head, turning abruptly away. She scrambled to her feet. "More coffee?" "No." "Suit yourself." Tasso drank silently. He could not see her face. He lay back against the ground, deep in thought, trying to concentrate. It was hard to think. His head still hurt. And the numbing daze still hung over him. "There might be one way," he said suddenly. "Oh?" "How soon is dawn?" "Two hours. The sun will be coming up shortly." "There's supposed to be a ship near here. I've never seen it. But I know it exists." "What kind of a ship?" Her voice was sharp. "A rocket cruiser." "Will it take us off? To the Moon Base?" "It's supposed to. In case of emergency." He rubbed his forehead. "What's wrong?" "My head. It's hard to think. I can hardly--hardly concentrate. The bomb." "Is the ship near here?" Tasso slid over beside him, settling down on her haunches. "How far is it? Where is it?" "I'm trying to think." Her fingers dug into his arm. "Nearby?" Her voice was like iron. "Where would it be? Would they store it underground? Hidden underground?" "Yes. In a storage locker." "How do we find it? Is it marked? Is there a code marker to identify it?" Hendricks concentrated. "No. No markings. No code symbol." "What, then?" "A sign." "What sort of sign?" * * * * * Hendricks did not answer. In the flickering light his eyes were glazed, two sightless orbs. Tasso's fingers dug into his arm. "What sort of sign? What is it?" "I--I can't think. Let me rest." "All right." She let go and stood up. Hendricks lay back against the ground, his eyes closed. Tasso walked away from him, her hands in her pockets. She kicked a rock out of her way and stood staring up at the sky. The night blackness was already beginning to fade into gray. Morning was coming. Tasso gripped her pistol and walked around the fire in a circle, back and forth. On the ground Major Hendricks lay, his eyes closed, unmoving. The grayness rose in the sky, higher and higher. The landscape became visible, fields of ash stretching out in all directions. Ash and ruins of buildings, a wall here and there, heaps of concrete, the naked trunk of a tree. The air was cold and sharp. Somewhere a long way off a bird made a few bleak sounds. Hendricks stirred. He opened his eyes. "Is it dawn? Already?" "Yes." Hendricks sat up a little. "You wanted to know something. You were asking me." "Do you remember now?" "Yes." "What is it?" She tensed. "What?" she repeated sharply. "A well. A ruined well. It's in a storage locker under a well." "A well." Tasso relaxed. "Then we'll find a well." She looked at her watch. "We have about an hour, Major. Do you think we can find it in an hour?" * * * * * "Give me a hand up," Hendricks said. Tasso put her pistol away and helped him to his feet. "This is going to be difficult." "Yes it is." Hendricks set his lips tightly. "I don't think we're going to go very far." They began to walk. The early sun cast a little warmth down on them. The land was flat and barren, stretching out gray and lifeless as far as they could see. A few birds sailed silently, far above them, circling slowly. "See anything?" Hendricks said. "Any claws?" "No. Not yet." They passed through some ruins, upright concrete and bricks. A cement foundation. Rats scuttled away. Tasso jumped back warily. "This used to be a town," Hendricks said. "A village. Provincial village. This was all grape country, once. Where we are now." They came onto a ruined street, weeds and cracks criss-crossing it. Over to the right a stone chimney stuck up. "Be careful," he warned her. A pit yawned, an open basement. Ragged ends of pipes jutted up, twisted and bent. They passed part of a house, a bathtub turned on its side. A broken chair. A few spoons and bits of china dishes. In the center of the street the ground had sunk away. The depression was filled with weeds and debris and bones. "Over here," Hendricks murmured. "This way?" "To the right." They passed the remains of a heavy duty tank. Hendricks' belt counter clicked ominously. The tank had been radiation blasted. A few feet from the tank a mummified body lay sprawled out, mouth open. Beyond the road was a flat field. Stones and weeds, and bits of broken glass. "There," Hendricks said. * * * * * A stone well jutted up, sagging and broken. A few boards lay across it. Most of the well had sunk into rubble. Hendricks walked unsteadily toward it, Tasso beside him. "Are you certain about this?" Tasso said. "This doesn't look like anything." "I'm sure." Hendricks sat down at the edge of the well, his teeth locked. His breath came quickly. He wiped perspiration from his face. "This was arranged so the senior command officer could get away. If anything happened. If the bunker fell." "That was you?" "Yes." "Where is the ship? Is it here?" "We're standing on it." Hendricks ran his hands over the surface of the well stones. "The eye-lock responds to me, not to anybody else. It's my ship. Or it was supposed to be." There was a sharp click. Presently they heard a low grating sound from below them. "Step back," Hendricks said. He and Tasso moved away from the well. A section of the ground slid back. A metal frame pushed slowly up through the ash, shoving bricks and weeds out of the way. The action ceased, as the ship nosed into view. "There it is," Hendricks said. The ship was small. It rested quietly, suspended in its mesh frame, like a blunt needle. A rain of ash sifted down into the dark cavity from which the ship had been raised. Hendricks made his way over to it. He mounted the mesh and unscrewed the hatch, pulling it back. Inside the ship the control banks and the pressure seat were visible. * * * * * Tasso came and stood beside him, gazing into the ship. "I'm not accustomed to rocket piloting," she said, after awhile. Hendricks glanced at her. "I'll do the piloting." "Will you? There's only one seat, Major. I can see it's built to carry only a single person." Hendricks' breathing changed. He studied the interior of the ship intently. Tasso was right. There was only one seat. The ship was built to carry only one person. "I see," he said slowly. "And the one person is you." She nodded. "Of course." "Why?" "_You_ can't go. You might not live through the trip. You're injured. You probably wouldn't get there." "An interesting point. But you see, I know where the Moon Base is. And you don't. You might fly around for months and not find it. It's well hidden. Without knowing what to look for--" "I'll have to take my chances. Maybe I won't find it. Not by myself. But I think you'll give me all the information I need. Your life depends on it." "How?" "If I find the Moon Base in time, perhaps I can get them to send a ship back to pick you up. _If_ I find the Base in time. If not, then you haven't a chance. I imagine there are supplies on the ship. They will last me long enough--" Hendricks moved quickly. But his injured arm betrayed him. Tasso ducked, sliding lithely aside. Her hand came up, lightning fast. Hendricks saw the gun butt coming. He tried to ward off the blow, but she was too fast. The metal butt struck against the side of his head, just above his ear. Numbing pain rushed through him. Pain and rolling clouds of blackness. He sank down, sliding to the ground. * * * * * Dimly, he was aware that Tasso was standing over him, kicking him with her toe. "Major! Wake up." He opened his eyes, groaning. "Listen to me." She bent down, the gun pointed at his face. "I have to hurry. There isn't much time left. The ship is ready to go, but you must tell me the information I need before I leave." Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. "Hurry up! Where is the Moon Base? How do I find it? What do I look for?" Hendricks said nothing. "Answer me!" "Sorry." "Major, the ship is loaded with provisions. I can coast for weeks. I'll find the Base eventually. And in a half hour you'll be dead. Your only chance of survival--" She broke off. Along the slope, by some crumbling ruins, something moved. Something in the ash. Tasso turned quickly, aiming. She fired. A puff of flame leaped. Something scuttled away, rolling across the ash. She fired again. The claw burst apart, wheels flying. "See?" Tasso said. "A scout. It won't be long." "You'll bring them back here to get me?" "Yes. As soon as possible." Hendricks looked up at her. He studied her intently. "You're telling the truth?" A strange expression had come over his face, an avid hunger. "You will come back for me? You'll get me to the Moon Base?" "I'll get you to the Moon Base. But tell me where it is! There's only a little time left." "All right." Hendricks picked up a piece of rock, pulling himself to a sitting position. "Watch." Hendricks began to scratch in the ash. Tasso stood by him, watching the motion of the rock. Hendricks was sketching a crude lunar map. * * * * * "This is the Appenine range. Here is the Crater of Archimedes. The Moon Base is beyond the end of the Appenine, about two hundred miles. I don't know exactly where. No one on Terra knows. But when you're over the Appenine, signal with one red flare and a green flare, followed by two red flares in quick succession. The Base monitor will record your signal. The Base is under the surface, of course. They'll guide you down with magnetic grapples." "And the controls? Can I operate them?" "The controls are virtually automatic. All you have to do is give the right signal at the right time." "I will." "The seat absorbs most of the take-off shock. Air and temperature are automatically controlled. The ship will leave Terra and pass out into free space. It'll line itself up with the moon, falling into an orbit around it, about a hundred miles above the surface. The orbit will carry you over the Base. When you're in the region of the Appenine, release the signal rockets." Tasso slid into the ship and lowered herself into the pressure seat. The arm locks folded automatically around her. She fingered the controls. "Too bad you're not going, Major. All this put here for you, and you can't make the trip." "Leave me the pistol." Tasso pulled the pistol from her belt. She held it in her hand, weighing it thoughtfully. "Don't go too far from this location. It'll be hard to find you, as it is." "No. I'll stay here by the well." Tasso gripped the take-off switch, running her fingers over the smooth metal. "A beautiful ship, Major. Well built. I admire your workmanship. You people have always done good work. You build fine things. Your work, your creations, are your greatest achievement." "Give me the pistol," Hendricks said impatiently, holding out his hand. He struggled to his feet. "Good-bye, Major." Tasso tossed the pistol past Hendricks. The pistol clattered against the ground, bouncing and rolling away. Hendricks hurried after it. He bent down, snatching it up. The hatch of the ship clanged shut. The bolts fell into place. Hendricks made his way back. The inner door was being sealed. He raised the pistol unsteadily. * * * * * There was a shattering roar. The ship burst up from its metal cage, fusing the mesh behind it. Hendricks cringed, pulling back. The ship shot up into the rolling clouds of ash, disappearing into the sky. Hendricks stood watching a long time, until even the streamer had dissipated. Nothing stirred. The morning air was chill and silent. He began to walk aimlessly back the way they had come. Better to keep moving around. It would be a long time before help came--if it came at all. He searched his pockets until he found a package of cigarettes. He lit one grimly. They had all wanted cigarettes from him. But cigarettes were scarce. A lizard slithered by him, through the ash. He halted, rigid. The lizard disappeared. Above, the sun rose higher in the sky. Some flies landed on a flat rock to one side of him. Hendricks kicked at them with his foot. It was getting hot. Sweat trickled down his face, into his collar. His mouth was dry. Presently he stopped walking and sat down on some debris. He unfastened his medicine kit and swallowed a few narcotic capsules. He looked around him. Where was he? Something lay ahead. Stretched out on the ground. Silent and unmoving. Hendricks drew his gun quickly. It looked like a man. Then he remembered. It was the remains of Klaus. The Second Variety. Where Tasso had blasted him. He could see wheels and relays and metal parts, strewn around on the ash. Glittering and sparkling in the sunlight. Hendricks got to his feet and walked over. He nudged the inert form with his foot, turning it over a little. He

protecting

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

yards ahead, was the entrance of the forward command bunker. The bunker from which he had come. Hendricks watched silently. No motion. No sign of life. Nothing stirred. Klaus slithered up beside him. "Where is it?" "Down there." Hendricks passed him the glasses. Clouds of ash rolled across the evening sky. The world was darkening. They had a couple of hours of light left, at the most. Probably not that much. "I don't see anything," Klaus said. "That tree there. The stump. By the pile of bricks. The entrance is to the right of the bricks." "I'll have to take your word for it." "You and Tasso cover me from here. You'll be able to sight all the way to the bunker entrance." "You're going down alone?" "With my wrist tab I'll be safe. The ground around the bunker is a living field of claws. They collect down in the ash. Like crabs. Without tabs you wouldn't have a chance." "Maybe you're right." "I'll walk slowly all the way. As soon as I know for certain--" "If they're down inside the bunker you won't be able to get back up here. They go fast. You don't realize." "What do you suggest?" Klaus considered. "I don't know. Get them to come up to the surface. So you can see." Hendricks brought his transmitter from his belt, raising the antenna. "Let's get started." * * * * * Klaus signalled to Tasso. She crawled expertly up the side of the rise to where they were sitting. "He's going down alone," Klaus said. "We'll cover him from here. As soon as you see him start back, fire past him at once. They come quick." "You're not very optimistic," Tasso said. "No, I'm not." Hendricks opened the breech of his gun, checking it carefully. "Maybe things are all right." "You didn't see them. Hundreds of them. All the same. Pouring out like ants." "I should be able to find out without going down all the way." Hendricks locked his gun, gripping it in one hand, the transmitter in the other. "Well, wish me luck." Klaus put out his hand. "Don't go down until you're sure. Talk to them from up here. Make them show themselves." * * * * * Hendricks stood up. He stepped down the side of the rise. A moment later he was walking slowly toward the pile of bricks and debris beside the dead tree stump. Toward the entrance of the forward command bunker. Nothing stirred. He raised the transmitter, clicking it on. "Scott? Can you hear me?" Silence. "Scott! This is Hendricks. Can you hear me? I'm standing outside the bunker. You should be able to see me in the view sight." He listened, the transmitter gripped tightly. No sound. Only static. He walked forward. A claw burrowed out of the ash and raced toward him. It halted a few feet away and then slunk off. A second claw appeared, one of the big ones with feelers. It moved toward him, studied him intently, and then fell in behind him, dogging respectfully after him, a few paces away. A moment later a second big claw joined it. Silently, the claws trailed him, as he walked slowly toward the bunker. Hendricks stopped, and behind him, the claws came to a halt. He was close, now. Almost to the bunker steps. "Scott! Can you hear me? I'm standing right above you. Outside. On the surface. Are you picking me up?" * * * * * He waited, holding his gun against his side, the transmitter tightly to his ear. Time passed. He strained to hear, but there was only silence. Silence, and faint static. Then, distantly, metallically-- "This is Scott." The voice was neutral. Cold. He could not identify it. But the earphone was minute. "Scott! Listen. I'm standing right above you. I'm on the surface, looking down into the bunker entrance." "Yes." "Can you see me?" "Yes." "Through the view sight? You have the sight trained on me?" "Yes." Hendricks pondered. A circle of claws waited quietly around him, gray-metal bodies on all sides of him. "Is everything all right in the bunker? Nothing unusual has happened?" "Everything is all right." "Will you come up to the surface? I want to see you for a moment." Hendricks took a deep breath. "Come up here with me. I want to talk to you." "Come down." "I'm giving you an order." Silence. "Are you coming?" Hendricks listened. There was no response. "I order you to come to the surface." "Come down." Hendricks set his jaw. "Let me talk to Leone." There was a long pause. He listened to the static. Then a voice came, hard, thin, metallic. The same as the other. "This is Leone." "Hendricks. I'm on the surface. At the bunker entrance. I want one of you to come up here." "Come down." "Why come down? I'm giving you an order!" Silence. Hendricks lowered the transmitter. He looked carefully around him. The entrance was just ahead. Almost at his feet. He lowered the antenna and fastened the transmitter to his belt. Carefully, he gripped his gun with both hands. He moved forward, a step at a time. If they could see him they knew he was starting toward the entrance. He closed his eyes a moment. Then he put his foot on the first step that led downward. Two Davids came up at him, their faces identical and expressionless. He blasted them into particles. More came rushing silently up, a whole pack of them. All exactly the same. Hendricks turned and raced back, away from the bunker, back toward the rise. At the top of the rise Tasso and Klaus were firing down. The small claws were already streaking up toward them, shining metal spheres going fast, racing frantically through the ash. But he had no time to think about that. He knelt down, aiming at the bunker entrance, gun against his cheek. The Davids were coming out in groups, clutching their teddy bears, their thin knobby legs pumping as they ran up the steps to the surface. Hendricks fired into the main body of them. They burst apart, wheels and springs flying in all directions. He fired again through the mist of particles. A giant lumbering figure rose up in the bunker entrance, tall and swaying. Hendricks paused, amazed. A man, a soldier. With one leg, supporting himself with a crutch. "Major!" Tasso's voice came. More firing. The huge figure moved forward, Davids swarming around it. Hendricks broke out of his freeze. The First Variety. The Wounded Soldier. He aimed and fired. The soldier burst into bits, parts and relays flying. Now many Davids were out on the flat ground, away from the bunker. He fired again and again, moving slowly back, half-crouching and aiming. From the rise, Klaus fired down. The side of the rise was alive with claws making their way up. Hendricks retreated toward the rise, running and crouching. Tasso had left Klaus and was circling slowly to the right, moving away from the rise. A David slipped up toward him, its small white face expressionless, brown hair hanging down in its eyes. It bent over suddenly, opening its arms. Its teddy bear hurtled down and leaped across the ground, bounding toward him. Hendricks fired. The bear and the David both dissolved. He grinned, blinking. It was like a dream. "Up here!" Tasso's voice. Hendricks made his way toward her. She was over by some columns of concrete, walls of a ruined building. She was firing past him, with the hand pistol Klaus had given her. "Thanks." He joined her, grasping for breath. She pulled him back, behind the concrete, fumbling at her belt. "Close your eyes!" She unfastened a globe from her waist. Rapidly, she unscrewed the cap, locking it into place. "Close your eyes and get down." * * * * * She threw the bomb. It sailed in an arc, an expert, rolling and bouncing to the entrance of the bunker. Two Wounded Soldiers stood uncertainly by the brick pile. More Davids poured from behind them, out onto the plain. One of the Wounded Soldiers moved toward the bomb, stooping awkwardly down to pick it up. The bomb went off. The concussion whirled Hendricks around, throwing him on his face. A hot wind rolled over him. Dimly he saw Tasso standing behind the columns, firing slowly and methodically at the Davids coming out of the raging clouds of white fire. Back along the rise Klaus struggled with a ring of claws circling around him. He retreated, blasting at them and moving back, trying to break through the ring. Hendricks struggled to his feet. His head ached. He could hardly see. Everything was licking at him, raging and whirling. His right arm would not move. Tasso pulled back toward him. "Come on. Let's go." "Klaus--He's still up there." "Come on!" Tasso dragged Hendricks back, away from the columns. Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. Tasso led him rapidly away, her eyes intense and bright, watching for claws that had escaped the blast. One David came out of the rolling clouds of flame. Tasso blasted it. No more appeared. "But Klaus. What about him?" Hendricks stopped, standing unsteadily. "He--" "Come on!" * * * * * They retreated, moving farther and farther away from the bunker. A few small claws followed them for a little while and then gave up, turning back and going off. At last Tasso stopped. "We can stop here and get our breaths." Hendricks sat down on some heaps of debris. He wiped his neck, gasping. "We left Klaus back there." Tasso said nothing. She opened her gun, sliding a fresh round of blast cartridges into place. Hendricks stared at her, dazed. "You left him back there on purpose." Tasso snapped the gun together. She studied the heaps of rubble around them, her face expressionless. As if she were watching for something. "What is it?" Hendricks demanded. "What are you looking for? Is something coming?" He shook his head, trying to understand. What was she doing? What was she waiting for? He could see nothing. Ash lay all around them, ash and ruins. Occasional stark tree trunks, without leaves or branches. "What--" Tasso cut him off. "Be still." Her eyes narrowed. Suddenly her gun came up. Hendricks turned, following her gaze. * * * * * Back the way they had come a figure appeared. The figure walked unsteadily toward them. Its clothes were torn. It limped as it made its way along, going very slowly and carefully. Stopping now and then, resting and getting its strength. Once it almost fell. It stood for a moment, trying to steady itself. Then it came on. Klaus. Hendricks stood up. "Klaus!" He started toward him. "How the hell did you--" Tasso fired. Hendricks swung back. She fired again, the blast passing him, a searing line of heat. The beam caught Klaus in the chest. He exploded, gears and wheels flying. For a moment he continued to walk. Then he swayed back and forth. He crashed to the ground, his arms flung out. A few more wheels rolled away. Silence. Tasso turned to Hendricks. "Now you understand why he killed Rudi." Hendricks sat down again slowly. He shook his head. He was numb. He could not think. "Do you see?" Tasso said. "Do you understand?" Hendricks said nothing. Everything was slipping away from him, faster and faster. Darkness, rolling and plucking at him. He closed his eyes. * * * * * Hendricks opened his eyes slowly. His body ached all over. He tried to sit up but needles of pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He gasped. "Don't try to get up," Tasso said. She bent down, putting her cold hand against his forehead. It was night. A few stars glinted above, shining through the drifting clouds of ash. Hendricks lay back, his teeth locked. Tasso watched him impassively. She had built a fire with some wood and weeds. The fire licked feebly, hissing at a metal cup suspended over it. Everything was silent. Unmoving darkness, beyond the fire. "So he was the Second Variety," Hendricks murmured. "I had always thought so." "Why didn't you destroy him sooner?" he wanted to know. "You held me back." Tasso crossed to the fire to look into the metal cup. "Coffee. It'll be ready to drink in awhile." She came back and sat down beside him. Presently she opened her pistol and began to disassemble the firing mechanism, studying it intently. "This is a beautiful gun," Tasso said, half-aloud. "The construction is superb." "What about them? The claws." "The concussion from the bomb put most of them out of action. They're delicate. Highly organized, I suppose." "The Davids, too?" "Yes." "How did you happen to have a bomb like that?" Tasso shrugged. "We designed it. You shouldn't underestimate our technology, Major. Without such a bomb you and I would no longer exist." "Very useful." Tasso stretched out her legs, warming her feet in the heat of the fire. "It surprised me that you did not seem to understand, after he killed Rudi. Why did you think he--" "I told you. I thought he was afraid." "Really? You know, Major, for a little while I suspected you. Because you wouldn't let me kill him. I thought you might be protecting him." She laughed. "Are we safe here?" Hendricks asked presently. "For awhile. Until they get reinforcements from some other area." Tasso began to clean the interior of the gun with a bit of rag. She finished and pushed the mechanism back into place. She closed the gun, running her finger along the barrel. "We were lucky," Hendricks murmured. "Yes. Very lucky." "Thanks for pulling me away." * * * * * Tasso did not answer. She glanced up at him, her eyes bright in the fire light. Hendricks examined his arm. He could not move his fingers. His whole side seemed numb. Down inside him was a dull steady ache. "How do you feel?" Tasso asked. "My arm is damaged." "Anything else?" "Internal injuries." "You didn't get down when the bomb went off." Hendricks said nothing. He watched Tasso pour the coffee from the cup into a flat metal pan. She brought it over to him. "Thanks." He struggled up enough to drink. It was hard to swallow. His insides turned over and he pushed the pan away. "That's all I can drink now." Tasso drank the rest. Time passed. The clouds of ash moved across the dark sky above them. Hendricks rested, his mind blank. After awhile he became aware that Tasso was standing over him, gazing down at him. "What is it?" he murmured. "Do you feel any better?" "Some." "You know, Major, if I hadn't dragged you away they would have got you. You would be dead. Like Rudi." "I know." "Do you want to know why I brought you out? I could have left you. I could have left you there." "Why did you bring me out?" "Because we have to get away from here." Tasso stirred the fire with a stick, peering calmly down into it. "No human being can live here. When their reinforcements come we won't have a chance. I've pondered about it while you were unconscious. We have perhaps three hours before they come." "And you expect me to get us away?" "That's right. I expect you to get us out of here." "Why me?" "Because I don't know any way." Her eyes shone at him in the half-light, bright and steady. "If you can't get us out of here they'll kill us within three hours. I see nothing else ahead. Well, Major? What are you going to do? I've been waiting all night. While you were unconscious I sat here, waiting and listening. It's almost dawn. The night is almost over." * * * * * Hendricks considered. "It's curious," he said at last. "Curious?" "That you should think I can get us out of here. I wonder what you think I can do." "Can you get us to the Moon Base?" "The Moon Base? How?" "There must be some way." Hendricks shook his head. "No. There's no way that I know of." Tasso said nothing. For a moment her steady gaze wavered. She ducked her head, turning abruptly away. She scrambled to her feet. "More coffee?" "No." "Suit yourself." Tasso drank silently. He could not see her face. He lay back against the ground, deep in thought, trying to concentrate. It was hard to think. His head still hurt. And the numbing daze still hung over him. "There might be one way," he said suddenly. "Oh?" "How soon is dawn?" "Two hours. The sun will be coming up shortly." "There's supposed to be a ship near here. I've never seen it. But I know it exists." "What kind of a ship?" Her voice was sharp. "A rocket cruiser." "Will it take us off? To the Moon Base?" "It's supposed to. In case of emergency." He rubbed his forehead. "What's wrong?" "My head. It's hard to think. I can hardly--hardly concentrate. The bomb." "Is the ship near here?" Tasso slid over beside him, settling down on her haunches. "How far is it? Where is it?" "I'm trying to think." Her fingers dug into his arm. "Nearby?" Her voice was like iron. "Where would it be? Would they store it underground? Hidden underground?" "Yes. In a storage locker." "How do we find it? Is it marked? Is there a code marker to identify it?" Hendricks concentrated. "No. No markings. No code symbol." "What, then?" "A sign." "What sort of sign?" * * * * * Hendricks did not answer. In the flickering light his eyes were glazed, two sightless orbs. Tasso's fingers dug into his arm. "What sort of sign? What is it?" "I--I can't think. Let me rest." "All right." She let go and stood up. Hendricks lay back against the ground, his eyes closed. Tasso walked away from him, her hands in her pockets. She kicked a rock out of her way and stood staring up at the sky. The night blackness was already beginning to fade into gray. Morning was coming. Tasso gripped her pistol and walked around the fire in a circle, back and forth. On the ground Major Hendricks lay, his eyes closed, unmoving. The grayness rose in the sky, higher and higher. The landscape became visible, fields of ash stretching out in all directions. Ash and ruins of buildings, a wall here and there, heaps of concrete, the naked trunk of a tree. The air was cold and sharp. Somewhere a long way off a bird made a few bleak sounds. Hendricks stirred. He opened his eyes. "Is it dawn? Already?" "Yes." Hendricks sat up a little. "You wanted to know something. You were asking me." "Do you remember now?" "Yes." "What is it?" She tensed. "What?" she repeated sharply. "A well. A ruined well. It's in a storage locker under a well." "A well." Tasso relaxed. "Then we'll find a well." She looked at her watch. "We have about an hour, Major. Do you think we can find it in an hour?" * * * * * "Give me a hand up," Hendricks said. Tasso put her pistol away and helped him to his feet. "This is going to be difficult." "Yes it is." Hendricks set his lips tightly. "I don't think we're going to go very far." They began to walk. The early sun cast a little warmth down on them. The land was flat and barren, stretching out gray and lifeless as far as they could see. A few birds sailed silently, far above them, circling slowly. "See anything?" Hendricks said. "Any claws?" "No. Not yet." They passed through some ruins, upright concrete and bricks. A cement foundation. Rats scuttled away. Tasso jumped back warily. "This used to be a town," Hendricks said. "A village. Provincial village. This was all grape country, once. Where we are now." They came onto a ruined street, weeds and cracks criss-crossing it. Over to the right a stone chimney stuck up. "Be careful," he warned her. A pit yawned, an open basement. Ragged ends of pipes jutted up, twisted and bent. They passed part of a house, a bathtub turned on its side. A broken chair. A few spoons and bits of china dishes. In the center of the street the ground had sunk away. The depression was filled with weeds and debris and bones. "Over here," Hendricks murmured. "This way?" "To the right." They passed the remains of a heavy duty tank. Hendricks' belt counter clicked ominously. The tank had been radiation blasted. A few feet from the tank a mummified body lay sprawled out, mouth open. Beyond the road was a flat field. Stones and weeds, and bits of broken glass. "There," Hendricks said. * * * * * A stone well jutted up, sagging and broken. A few boards lay across it. Most of the well had sunk into rubble. Hendricks walked unsteadily toward it, Tasso beside him. "Are you certain about this?" Tasso said. "This doesn't look like anything." "I'm sure." Hendricks sat down at the edge of the well, his teeth locked. His breath came quickly. He wiped perspiration from his face. "This was arranged so the senior command officer could get away. If anything happened. If the bunker fell." "That was you?" "Yes." "Where is the ship? Is it here?" "We're standing on it." Hendricks ran his hands over the surface of the well stones. "The eye-lock responds to me, not to anybody else. It's my ship. Or it was supposed to be." There was a sharp click. Presently they heard a low grating sound from below them. "Step back," Hendricks said. He and Tasso moved away from the well. A section of the ground slid back. A metal frame pushed slowly up through the ash, shoving bricks and weeds out of the way. The action ceased, as the ship nosed into view. "There it is," Hendricks said. The ship was small. It rested quietly, suspended in its mesh frame, like a blunt needle. A rain of ash sifted down into the dark cavity from which the ship had been raised. Hendricks made his way over to it. He mounted the mesh and unscrewed the hatch, pulling it back. Inside the ship the control banks and the pressure seat were visible. * * * * * Tasso came and stood beside him, gazing into the ship. "I'm not accustomed to rocket piloting," she said, after awhile. Hendricks glanced at her. "I'll do the piloting." "Will you? There's only one seat, Major. I can see it's built to carry only a single person." Hendricks' breathing changed. He studied the interior of the ship intently. Tasso was right. There was only one seat. The ship was built to carry only one person. "I see," he said slowly. "And the one person is you." She nodded. "Of course." "Why?" "_You_ can't go. You might not live through the trip. You're injured. You probably wouldn't get there." "An interesting point. But you see, I know where the Moon Base is. And you don't. You might fly around for months and not find it. It's well hidden. Without knowing what to look for--" "I'll have to take my chances. Maybe I won't find it. Not by myself. But I think you'll give me all the information I need. Your life depends on it." "How?" "If I find the Moon Base in time, perhaps I can get them to send a ship back to pick you up. _If_ I find the Base in time. If not, then you haven't a chance. I imagine there are supplies on the ship. They will last me long enough--" Hendricks moved quickly. But his injured arm betrayed him. Tasso ducked, sliding lithely aside. Her hand came up, lightning fast. Hendricks saw the gun butt coming. He tried to ward off the blow, but she was too fast. The metal butt struck against the side of his head, just above his ear. Numbing pain rushed through him. Pain and rolling clouds of blackness. He sank down, sliding to the ground. * * * * * Dimly, he was aware that Tasso was standing over him, kicking him with her toe. "Major! Wake up." He opened his eyes, groaning. "Listen to me." She bent down, the gun pointed at his face. "I have to hurry. There isn't much time left. The ship is ready to go, but you must tell me the information I need before I leave." Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. "Hurry up! Where is the Moon Base? How do I find it? What do I look for?" Hendricks said nothing. "Answer me!" "Sorry." "Major, the ship is loaded with provisions. I can coast for weeks. I'll find the Base eventually. And in a half hour you'll be dead. Your only chance of survival--" She broke off. Along the slope, by some crumbling ruins, something moved. Something in the ash. Tasso turned quickly, aiming. She fired. A puff of flame leaped. Something scuttled away, rolling across the ash. She fired again. The claw burst apart, wheels flying. "See?" Tasso said. "A scout. It won't be long." "You'll bring them back here to get me?" "Yes. As soon as possible." Hendricks looked up at her. He studied her intently. "You're telling the truth?" A strange expression had come over his face, an avid hunger. "You will come back for me? You'll get me to the Moon Base?" "I'll get you to the Moon Base. But tell me where it is! There's only a little time left." "All right." Hendricks picked up a piece of rock, pulling himself to a sitting position. "Watch." Hendricks began to scratch in the ash. Tasso stood by him, watching the motion of the rock. Hendricks was sketching a crude lunar map. * * * * * "This is the Appenine range. Here is the Crater of Archimedes. The Moon Base is beyond the end of the Appenine, about two hundred miles. I don't know exactly where. No one on Terra knows. But when you're over the Appenine, signal with one red flare and a green flare, followed by two red flares in quick succession. The Base monitor will record your signal. The Base is under the surface, of course. They'll guide you down with magnetic grapples." "And the controls? Can I operate them?" "The controls are virtually automatic. All you have to do is give the right signal at the right time." "I will." "The seat absorbs most of the take-off shock. Air and temperature are automatically controlled. The ship will leave Terra and pass out into free space. It'll line itself up with the moon, falling into an orbit around it, about a hundred miles above the surface. The orbit will carry you over the Base. When you're in the region of the Appenine, release the signal rockets." Tasso slid into the ship and lowered herself into the pressure seat. The arm locks folded automatically around her. She fingered the controls. "Too bad you're not going, Major. All this put here for you, and you can't make the trip." "Leave me the pistol." Tasso pulled the pistol from her belt. She held it in her hand, weighing it thoughtfully. "Don't go too far from this location. It'll be hard to find you, as it is." "No. I'll stay here by the well." Tasso gripped the take-off switch, running her fingers over the smooth metal. "A beautiful ship, Major. Well built. I admire your workmanship. You people have always done good work. You build fine things. Your work, your creations, are your greatest achievement." "Give me the pistol," Hendricks said impatiently, holding out his hand. He struggled to his feet. "Good-bye, Major." Tasso tossed the pistol past Hendricks. The pistol clattered against the ground, bouncing and rolling away. Hendricks hurried after it. He bent down, snatching it up. The hatch of the ship clanged shut. The bolts fell into place. Hendricks made his way back. The inner door was being sealed. He raised the pistol unsteadily. * * * * * There was a shattering roar. The ship burst up from its metal cage, fusing the mesh behind it. Hendricks cringed, pulling back. The ship shot up into the rolling clouds of ash, disappearing into the sky. Hendricks stood watching a long time, until even the streamer had dissipated. Nothing stirred. The morning air was chill and silent. He began to walk aimlessly back the way they had come. Better to keep moving around. It would be a long time before help came--if it came at all. He searched his pockets until he found a package of cigarettes. He lit one grimly. They had all wanted cigarettes from him. But cigarettes were scarce. A lizard slithered by him, through the ash. He halted, rigid. The lizard disappeared. Above, the sun rose higher in the sky. Some flies landed on a flat rock to one side of him. Hendricks kicked at them with his foot. It was getting hot. Sweat trickled down his face, into his collar. His mouth was dry. Presently he stopped walking and sat down on some debris. He unfastened his medicine kit and swallowed a few narcotic capsules. He looked around him. Where was he? Something lay ahead. Stretched out on the ground. Silent and unmoving. Hendricks drew his gun quickly. It looked like a man. Then he remembered. It was the remains of Klaus. The Second Variety. Where Tasso had blasted him. He could see wheels and relays and metal parts, strewn around on the ash. Glittering and sparkling in the sunlight. Hendricks got to his feet and walked over. He nudged the inert form with his foot, turning it over a little. He

moved

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

yards ahead, was the entrance of the forward command bunker. The bunker from which he had come. Hendricks watched silently. No motion. No sign of life. Nothing stirred. Klaus slithered up beside him. "Where is it?" "Down there." Hendricks passed him the glasses. Clouds of ash rolled across the evening sky. The world was darkening. They had a couple of hours of light left, at the most. Probably not that much. "I don't see anything," Klaus said. "That tree there. The stump. By the pile of bricks. The entrance is to the right of the bricks." "I'll have to take your word for it." "You and Tasso cover me from here. You'll be able to sight all the way to the bunker entrance." "You're going down alone?" "With my wrist tab I'll be safe. The ground around the bunker is a living field of claws. They collect down in the ash. Like crabs. Without tabs you wouldn't have a chance." "Maybe you're right." "I'll walk slowly all the way. As soon as I know for certain--" "If they're down inside the bunker you won't be able to get back up here. They go fast. You don't realize." "What do you suggest?" Klaus considered. "I don't know. Get them to come up to the surface. So you can see." Hendricks brought his transmitter from his belt, raising the antenna. "Let's get started." * * * * * Klaus signalled to Tasso. She crawled expertly up the side of the rise to where they were sitting. "He's going down alone," Klaus said. "We'll cover him from here. As soon as you see him start back, fire past him at once. They come quick." "You're not very optimistic," Tasso said. "No, I'm not." Hendricks opened the breech of his gun, checking it carefully. "Maybe things are all right." "You didn't see them. Hundreds of them. All the same. Pouring out like ants." "I should be able to find out without going down all the way." Hendricks locked his gun, gripping it in one hand, the transmitter in the other. "Well, wish me luck." Klaus put out his hand. "Don't go down until you're sure. Talk to them from up here. Make them show themselves." * * * * * Hendricks stood up. He stepped down the side of the rise. A moment later he was walking slowly toward the pile of bricks and debris beside the dead tree stump. Toward the entrance of the forward command bunker. Nothing stirred. He raised the transmitter, clicking it on. "Scott? Can you hear me?" Silence. "Scott! This is Hendricks. Can you hear me? I'm standing outside the bunker. You should be able to see me in the view sight." He listened, the transmitter gripped tightly. No sound. Only static. He walked forward. A claw burrowed out of the ash and raced toward him. It halted a few feet away and then slunk off. A second claw appeared, one of the big ones with feelers. It moved toward him, studied him intently, and then fell in behind him, dogging respectfully after him, a few paces away. A moment later a second big claw joined it. Silently, the claws trailed him, as he walked slowly toward the bunker. Hendricks stopped, and behind him, the claws came to a halt. He was close, now. Almost to the bunker steps. "Scott! Can you hear me? I'm standing right above you. Outside. On the surface. Are you picking me up?" * * * * * He waited, holding his gun against his side, the transmitter tightly to his ear. Time passed. He strained to hear, but there was only silence. Silence, and faint static. Then, distantly, metallically-- "This is Scott." The voice was neutral. Cold. He could not identify it. But the earphone was minute. "Scott! Listen. I'm standing right above you. I'm on the surface, looking down into the bunker entrance." "Yes." "Can you see me?" "Yes." "Through the view sight? You have the sight trained on me?" "Yes." Hendricks pondered. A circle of claws waited quietly around him, gray-metal bodies on all sides of him. "Is everything all right in the bunker? Nothing unusual has happened?" "Everything is all right." "Will you come up to the surface? I want to see you for a moment." Hendricks took a deep breath. "Come up here with me. I want to talk to you." "Come down." "I'm giving you an order." Silence. "Are you coming?" Hendricks listened. There was no response. "I order you to come to the surface." "Come down." Hendricks set his jaw. "Let me talk to Leone." There was a long pause. He listened to the static. Then a voice came, hard, thin, metallic. The same as the other. "This is Leone." "Hendricks. I'm on the surface. At the bunker entrance. I want one of you to come up here." "Come down." "Why come down? I'm giving you an order!" Silence. Hendricks lowered the transmitter. He looked carefully around him. The entrance was just ahead. Almost at his feet. He lowered the antenna and fastened the transmitter to his belt. Carefully, he gripped his gun with both hands. He moved forward, a step at a time. If they could see him they knew he was starting toward the entrance. He closed his eyes a moment. Then he put his foot on the first step that led downward. Two Davids came up at him, their faces identical and expressionless. He blasted them into particles. More came rushing silently up, a whole pack of them. All exactly the same. Hendricks turned and raced back, away from the bunker, back toward the rise. At the top of the rise Tasso and Klaus were firing down. The small claws were already streaking up toward them, shining metal spheres going fast, racing frantically through the ash. But he had no time to think about that. He knelt down, aiming at the bunker entrance, gun against his cheek. The Davids were coming out in groups, clutching their teddy bears, their thin knobby legs pumping as they ran up the steps to the surface. Hendricks fired into the main body of them. They burst apart, wheels and springs flying in all directions. He fired again through the mist of particles. A giant lumbering figure rose up in the bunker entrance, tall and swaying. Hendricks paused, amazed. A man, a soldier. With one leg, supporting himself with a crutch. "Major!" Tasso's voice came. More firing. The huge figure moved forward, Davids swarming around it. Hendricks broke out of his freeze. The First Variety. The Wounded Soldier. He aimed and fired. The soldier burst into bits, parts and relays flying. Now many Davids were out on the flat ground, away from the bunker. He fired again and again, moving slowly back, half-crouching and aiming. From the rise, Klaus fired down. The side of the rise was alive with claws making their way up. Hendricks retreated toward the rise, running and crouching. Tasso had left Klaus and was circling slowly to the right, moving away from the rise. A David slipped up toward him, its small white face expressionless, brown hair hanging down in its eyes. It bent over suddenly, opening its arms. Its teddy bear hurtled down and leaped across the ground, bounding toward him. Hendricks fired. The bear and the David both dissolved. He grinned, blinking. It was like a dream. "Up here!" Tasso's voice. Hendricks made his way toward her. She was over by some columns of concrete, walls of a ruined building. She was firing past him, with the hand pistol Klaus had given her. "Thanks." He joined her, grasping for breath. She pulled him back, behind the concrete, fumbling at her belt. "Close your eyes!" She unfastened a globe from her waist. Rapidly, she unscrewed the cap, locking it into place. "Close your eyes and get down." * * * * * She threw the bomb. It sailed in an arc, an expert, rolling and bouncing to the entrance of the bunker. Two Wounded Soldiers stood uncertainly by the brick pile. More Davids poured from behind them, out onto the plain. One of the Wounded Soldiers moved toward the bomb, stooping awkwardly down to pick it up. The bomb went off. The concussion whirled Hendricks around, throwing him on his face. A hot wind rolled over him. Dimly he saw Tasso standing behind the columns, firing slowly and methodically at the Davids coming out of the raging clouds of white fire. Back along the rise Klaus struggled with a ring of claws circling around him. He retreated, blasting at them and moving back, trying to break through the ring. Hendricks struggled to his feet. His head ached. He could hardly see. Everything was licking at him, raging and whirling. His right arm would not move. Tasso pulled back toward him. "Come on. Let's go." "Klaus--He's still up there." "Come on!" Tasso dragged Hendricks back, away from the columns. Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. Tasso led him rapidly away, her eyes intense and bright, watching for claws that had escaped the blast. One David came out of the rolling clouds of flame. Tasso blasted it. No more appeared. "But Klaus. What about him?" Hendricks stopped, standing unsteadily. "He--" "Come on!" * * * * * They retreated, moving farther and farther away from the bunker. A few small claws followed them for a little while and then gave up, turning back and going off. At last Tasso stopped. "We can stop here and get our breaths." Hendricks sat down on some heaps of debris. He wiped his neck, gasping. "We left Klaus back there." Tasso said nothing. She opened her gun, sliding a fresh round of blast cartridges into place. Hendricks stared at her, dazed. "You left him back there on purpose." Tasso snapped the gun together. She studied the heaps of rubble around them, her face expressionless. As if she were watching for something. "What is it?" Hendricks demanded. "What are you looking for? Is something coming?" He shook his head, trying to understand. What was she doing? What was she waiting for? He could see nothing. Ash lay all around them, ash and ruins. Occasional stark tree trunks, without leaves or branches. "What--" Tasso cut him off. "Be still." Her eyes narrowed. Suddenly her gun came up. Hendricks turned, following her gaze. * * * * * Back the way they had come a figure appeared. The figure walked unsteadily toward them. Its clothes were torn. It limped as it made its way along, going very slowly and carefully. Stopping now and then, resting and getting its strength. Once it almost fell. It stood for a moment, trying to steady itself. Then it came on. Klaus. Hendricks stood up. "Klaus!" He started toward him. "How the hell did you--" Tasso fired. Hendricks swung back. She fired again, the blast passing him, a searing line of heat. The beam caught Klaus in the chest. He exploded, gears and wheels flying. For a moment he continued to walk. Then he swayed back and forth. He crashed to the ground, his arms flung out. A few more wheels rolled away. Silence. Tasso turned to Hendricks. "Now you understand why he killed Rudi." Hendricks sat down again slowly. He shook his head. He was numb. He could not think. "Do you see?" Tasso said. "Do you understand?" Hendricks said nothing. Everything was slipping away from him, faster and faster. Darkness, rolling and plucking at him. He closed his eyes. * * * * * Hendricks opened his eyes slowly. His body ached all over. He tried to sit up but needles of pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He gasped. "Don't try to get up," Tasso said. She bent down, putting her cold hand against his forehead. It was night. A few stars glinted above, shining through the drifting clouds of ash. Hendricks lay back, his teeth locked. Tasso watched him impassively. She had built a fire with some wood and weeds. The fire licked feebly, hissing at a metal cup suspended over it. Everything was silent. Unmoving darkness, beyond the fire. "So he was the Second Variety," Hendricks murmured. "I had always thought so." "Why didn't you destroy him sooner?" he wanted to know. "You held me back." Tasso crossed to the fire to look into the metal cup. "Coffee. It'll be ready to drink in awhile." She came back and sat down beside him. Presently she opened her pistol and began to disassemble the firing mechanism, studying it intently. "This is a beautiful gun," Tasso said, half-aloud. "The construction is superb." "What about them? The claws." "The concussion from the bomb put most of them out of action. They're delicate. Highly organized, I suppose." "The Davids, too?" "Yes." "How did you happen to have a bomb like that?" Tasso shrugged. "We designed it. You shouldn't underestimate our technology, Major. Without such a bomb you and I would no longer exist." "Very useful." Tasso stretched out her legs, warming her feet in the heat of the fire. "It surprised me that you did not seem to understand, after he killed Rudi. Why did you think he--" "I told you. I thought he was afraid." "Really? You know, Major, for a little while I suspected you. Because you wouldn't let me kill him. I thought you might be protecting him." She laughed. "Are we safe here?" Hendricks asked presently. "For awhile. Until they get reinforcements from some other area." Tasso began to clean the interior of the gun with a bit of rag. She finished and pushed the mechanism back into place. She closed the gun, running her finger along the barrel. "We were lucky," Hendricks murmured. "Yes. Very lucky." "Thanks for pulling me away." * * * * * Tasso did not answer. She glanced up at him, her eyes bright in the fire light. Hendricks examined his arm. He could not move his fingers. His whole side seemed numb. Down inside him was a dull steady ache. "How do you feel?" Tasso asked. "My arm is damaged." "Anything else?" "Internal injuries." "You didn't get down when the bomb went off." Hendricks said nothing. He watched Tasso pour the coffee from the cup into a flat metal pan. She brought it over to him. "Thanks." He struggled up enough to drink. It was hard to swallow. His insides turned over and he pushed the pan away. "That's all I can drink now." Tasso drank the rest. Time passed. The clouds of ash moved across the dark sky above them. Hendricks rested, his mind blank. After awhile he became aware that Tasso was standing over him, gazing down at him. "What is it?" he murmured. "Do you feel any better?" "Some." "You know, Major, if I hadn't dragged you away they would have got you. You would be dead. Like Rudi." "I know." "Do you want to know why I brought you out? I could have left you. I could have left you there." "Why did you bring me out?" "Because we have to get away from here." Tasso stirred the fire with a stick, peering calmly down into it. "No human being can live here. When their reinforcements come we won't have a chance. I've pondered about it while you were unconscious. We have perhaps three hours before they come." "And you expect me to get us away?" "That's right. I expect you to get us out of here." "Why me?" "Because I don't know any way." Her eyes shone at him in the half-light, bright and steady. "If you can't get us out of here they'll kill us within three hours. I see nothing else ahead. Well, Major? What are you going to do? I've been waiting all night. While you were unconscious I sat here, waiting and listening. It's almost dawn. The night is almost over." * * * * * Hendricks considered. "It's curious," he said at last. "Curious?" "That you should think I can get us out of here. I wonder what you think I can do." "Can you get us to the Moon Base?" "The Moon Base? How?" "There must be some way." Hendricks shook his head. "No. There's no way that I know of." Tasso said nothing. For a moment her steady gaze wavered. She ducked her head, turning abruptly away. She scrambled to her feet. "More coffee?" "No." "Suit yourself." Tasso drank silently. He could not see her face. He lay back against the ground, deep in thought, trying to concentrate. It was hard to think. His head still hurt. And the numbing daze still hung over him. "There might be one way," he said suddenly. "Oh?" "How soon is dawn?" "Two hours. The sun will be coming up shortly." "There's supposed to be a ship near here. I've never seen it. But I know it exists." "What kind of a ship?" Her voice was sharp. "A rocket cruiser." "Will it take us off? To the Moon Base?" "It's supposed to. In case of emergency." He rubbed his forehead. "What's wrong?" "My head. It's hard to think. I can hardly--hardly concentrate. The bomb." "Is the ship near here?" Tasso slid over beside him, settling down on her haunches. "How far is it? Where is it?" "I'm trying to think." Her fingers dug into his arm. "Nearby?" Her voice was like iron. "Where would it be? Would they store it underground? Hidden underground?" "Yes. In a storage locker." "How do we find it? Is it marked? Is there a code marker to identify it?" Hendricks concentrated. "No. No markings. No code symbol." "What, then?" "A sign." "What sort of sign?" * * * * * Hendricks did not answer. In the flickering light his eyes were glazed, two sightless orbs. Tasso's fingers dug into his arm. "What sort of sign? What is it?" "I--I can't think. Let me rest." "All right." She let go and stood up. Hendricks lay back against the ground, his eyes closed. Tasso walked away from him, her hands in her pockets. She kicked a rock out of her way and stood staring up at the sky. The night blackness was already beginning to fade into gray. Morning was coming. Tasso gripped her pistol and walked around the fire in a circle, back and forth. On the ground Major Hendricks lay, his eyes closed, unmoving. The grayness rose in the sky, higher and higher. The landscape became visible, fields of ash stretching out in all directions. Ash and ruins of buildings, a wall here and there, heaps of concrete, the naked trunk of a tree. The air was cold and sharp. Somewhere a long way off a bird made a few bleak sounds. Hendricks stirred. He opened his eyes. "Is it dawn? Already?" "Yes." Hendricks sat up a little. "You wanted to know something. You were asking me." "Do you remember now?" "Yes." "What is it?" She tensed. "What?" she repeated sharply. "A well. A ruined well. It's in a storage locker under a well." "A well." Tasso relaxed. "Then we'll find a well." She looked at her watch. "We have about an hour, Major. Do you think we can find it in an hour?" * * * * * "Give me a hand up," Hendricks said. Tasso put her pistol away and helped him to his feet. "This is going to be difficult." "Yes it is." Hendricks set his lips tightly. "I don't think we're going to go very far." They began to walk. The early sun cast a little warmth down on them. The land was flat and barren, stretching out gray and lifeless as far as they could see. A few birds sailed silently, far above them, circling slowly. "See anything?" Hendricks said. "Any claws?" "No. Not yet." They passed through some ruins, upright concrete and bricks. A cement foundation. Rats scuttled away. Tasso jumped back warily. "This used to be a town," Hendricks said. "A village. Provincial village. This was all grape country, once. Where we are now." They came onto a ruined street, weeds and cracks criss-crossing it. Over to the right a stone chimney stuck up. "Be careful," he warned her. A pit yawned, an open basement. Ragged ends of pipes jutted up, twisted and bent. They passed part of a house, a bathtub turned on its side. A broken chair. A few spoons and bits of china dishes. In the center of the street the ground had sunk away. The depression was filled with weeds and debris and bones. "Over here," Hendricks murmured. "This way?" "To the right." They passed the remains of a heavy duty tank. Hendricks' belt counter clicked ominously. The tank had been radiation blasted. A few feet from the tank a mummified body lay sprawled out, mouth open. Beyond the road was a flat field. Stones and weeds, and bits of broken glass. "There," Hendricks said. * * * * * A stone well jutted up, sagging and broken. A few boards lay across it. Most of the well had sunk into rubble. Hendricks walked unsteadily toward it, Tasso beside him. "Are you certain about this?" Tasso said. "This doesn't look like anything." "I'm sure." Hendricks sat down at the edge of the well, his teeth locked. His breath came quickly. He wiped perspiration from his face. "This was arranged so the senior command officer could get away. If anything happened. If the bunker fell." "That was you?" "Yes." "Where is the ship? Is it here?" "We're standing on it." Hendricks ran his hands over the surface of the well stones. "The eye-lock responds to me, not to anybody else. It's my ship. Or it was supposed to be." There was a sharp click. Presently they heard a low grating sound from below them. "Step back," Hendricks said. He and Tasso moved away from the well. A section of the ground slid back. A metal frame pushed slowly up through the ash, shoving bricks and weeds out of the way. The action ceased, as the ship nosed into view. "There it is," Hendricks said. The ship was small. It rested quietly, suspended in its mesh frame, like a blunt needle. A rain of ash sifted down into the dark cavity from which the ship had been raised. Hendricks made his way over to it. He mounted the mesh and unscrewed the hatch, pulling it back. Inside the ship the control banks and the pressure seat were visible. * * * * * Tasso came and stood beside him, gazing into the ship. "I'm not accustomed to rocket piloting," she said, after awhile. Hendricks glanced at her. "I'll do the piloting." "Will you? There's only one seat, Major. I can see it's built to carry only a single person." Hendricks' breathing changed. He studied the interior of the ship intently. Tasso was right. There was only one seat. The ship was built to carry only one person. "I see," he said slowly. "And the one person is you." She nodded. "Of course." "Why?" "_You_ can't go. You might not live through the trip. You're injured. You probably wouldn't get there." "An interesting point. But you see, I know where the Moon Base is. And you don't. You might fly around for months and not find it. It's well hidden. Without knowing what to look for--" "I'll have to take my chances. Maybe I won't find it. Not by myself. But I think you'll give me all the information I need. Your life depends on it." "How?" "If I find the Moon Base in time, perhaps I can get them to send a ship back to pick you up. _If_ I find the Base in time. If not, then you haven't a chance. I imagine there are supplies on the ship. They will last me long enough--" Hendricks moved quickly. But his injured arm betrayed him. Tasso ducked, sliding lithely aside. Her hand came up, lightning fast. Hendricks saw the gun butt coming. He tried to ward off the blow, but she was too fast. The metal butt struck against the side of his head, just above his ear. Numbing pain rushed through him. Pain and rolling clouds of blackness. He sank down, sliding to the ground. * * * * * Dimly, he was aware that Tasso was standing over him, kicking him with her toe. "Major! Wake up." He opened his eyes, groaning. "Listen to me." She bent down, the gun pointed at his face. "I have to hurry. There isn't much time left. The ship is ready to go, but you must tell me the information I need before I leave." Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. "Hurry up! Where is the Moon Base? How do I find it? What do I look for?" Hendricks said nothing. "Answer me!" "Sorry." "Major, the ship is loaded with provisions. I can coast for weeks. I'll find the Base eventually. And in a half hour you'll be dead. Your only chance of survival--" She broke off. Along the slope, by some crumbling ruins, something moved. Something in the ash. Tasso turned quickly, aiming. She fired. A puff of flame leaped. Something scuttled away, rolling across the ash. She fired again. The claw burst apart, wheels flying. "See?" Tasso said. "A scout. It won't be long." "You'll bring them back here to get me?" "Yes. As soon as possible." Hendricks looked up at her. He studied her intently. "You're telling the truth?" A strange expression had come over his face, an avid hunger. "You will come back for me? You'll get me to the Moon Base?" "I'll get you to the Moon Base. But tell me where it is! There's only a little time left." "All right." Hendricks picked up a piece of rock, pulling himself to a sitting position. "Watch." Hendricks began to scratch in the ash. Tasso stood by him, watching the motion of the rock. Hendricks was sketching a crude lunar map. * * * * * "This is the Appenine range. Here is the Crater of Archimedes. The Moon Base is beyond the end of the Appenine, about two hundred miles. I don't know exactly where. No one on Terra knows. But when you're over the Appenine, signal with one red flare and a green flare, followed by two red flares in quick succession. The Base monitor will record your signal. The Base is under the surface, of course. They'll guide you down with magnetic grapples." "And the controls? Can I operate them?" "The controls are virtually automatic. All you have to do is give the right signal at the right time." "I will." "The seat absorbs most of the take-off shock. Air and temperature are automatically controlled. The ship will leave Terra and pass out into free space. It'll line itself up with the moon, falling into an orbit around it, about a hundred miles above the surface. The orbit will carry you over the Base. When you're in the region of the Appenine, release the signal rockets." Tasso slid into the ship and lowered herself into the pressure seat. The arm locks folded automatically around her. She fingered the controls. "Too bad you're not going, Major. All this put here for you, and you can't make the trip." "Leave me the pistol." Tasso pulled the pistol from her belt. She held it in her hand, weighing it thoughtfully. "Don't go too far from this location. It'll be hard to find you, as it is." "No. I'll stay here by the well." Tasso gripped the take-off switch, running her fingers over the smooth metal. "A beautiful ship, Major. Well built. I admire your workmanship. You people have always done good work. You build fine things. Your work, your creations, are your greatest achievement." "Give me the pistol," Hendricks said impatiently, holding out his hand. He struggled to his feet. "Good-bye, Major." Tasso tossed the pistol past Hendricks. The pistol clattered against the ground, bouncing and rolling away. Hendricks hurried after it. He bent down, snatching it up. The hatch of the ship clanged shut. The bolts fell into place. Hendricks made his way back. The inner door was being sealed. He raised the pistol unsteadily. * * * * * There was a shattering roar. The ship burst up from its metal cage, fusing the mesh behind it. Hendricks cringed, pulling back. The ship shot up into the rolling clouds of ash, disappearing into the sky. Hendricks stood watching a long time, until even the streamer had dissipated. Nothing stirred. The morning air was chill and silent. He began to walk aimlessly back the way they had come. Better to keep moving around. It would be a long time before help came--if it came at all. He searched his pockets until he found a package of cigarettes. He lit one grimly. They had all wanted cigarettes from him. But cigarettes were scarce. A lizard slithered by him, through the ash. He halted, rigid. The lizard disappeared. Above, the sun rose higher in the sky. Some flies landed on a flat rock to one side of him. Hendricks kicked at them with his foot. It was getting hot. Sweat trickled down his face, into his collar. His mouth was dry. Presently he stopped walking and sat down on some debris. He unfastened his medicine kit and swallowed a few narcotic capsules. He looked around him. Where was he? Something lay ahead. Stretched out on the ground. Silent and unmoving. Hendricks drew his gun quickly. It looked like a man. Then he remembered. It was the remains of Klaus. The Second Variety. Where Tasso had blasted him. He could see wheels and relays and metal parts, strewn around on the ash. Glittering and sparkling in the sunlight. Hendricks got to his feet and walked over. He nudged the inert form with his foot, turning it over a little. He

crabs

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

yards ahead, was the entrance of the forward command bunker. The bunker from which he had come. Hendricks watched silently. No motion. No sign of life. Nothing stirred. Klaus slithered up beside him. "Where is it?" "Down there." Hendricks passed him the glasses. Clouds of ash rolled across the evening sky. The world was darkening. They had a couple of hours of light left, at the most. Probably not that much. "I don't see anything," Klaus said. "That tree there. The stump. By the pile of bricks. The entrance is to the right of the bricks." "I'll have to take your word for it." "You and Tasso cover me from here. You'll be able to sight all the way to the bunker entrance." "You're going down alone?" "With my wrist tab I'll be safe. The ground around the bunker is a living field of claws. They collect down in the ash. Like crabs. Without tabs you wouldn't have a chance." "Maybe you're right." "I'll walk slowly all the way. As soon as I know for certain--" "If they're down inside the bunker you won't be able to get back up here. They go fast. You don't realize." "What do you suggest?" Klaus considered. "I don't know. Get them to come up to the surface. So you can see." Hendricks brought his transmitter from his belt, raising the antenna. "Let's get started." * * * * * Klaus signalled to Tasso. She crawled expertly up the side of the rise to where they were sitting. "He's going down alone," Klaus said. "We'll cover him from here. As soon as you see him start back, fire past him at once. They come quick." "You're not very optimistic," Tasso said. "No, I'm not." Hendricks opened the breech of his gun, checking it carefully. "Maybe things are all right." "You didn't see them. Hundreds of them. All the same. Pouring out like ants." "I should be able to find out without going down all the way." Hendricks locked his gun, gripping it in one hand, the transmitter in the other. "Well, wish me luck." Klaus put out his hand. "Don't go down until you're sure. Talk to them from up here. Make them show themselves." * * * * * Hendricks stood up. He stepped down the side of the rise. A moment later he was walking slowly toward the pile of bricks and debris beside the dead tree stump. Toward the entrance of the forward command bunker. Nothing stirred. He raised the transmitter, clicking it on. "Scott? Can you hear me?" Silence. "Scott! This is Hendricks. Can you hear me? I'm standing outside the bunker. You should be able to see me in the view sight." He listened, the transmitter gripped tightly. No sound. Only static. He walked forward. A claw burrowed out of the ash and raced toward him. It halted a few feet away and then slunk off. A second claw appeared, one of the big ones with feelers. It moved toward him, studied him intently, and then fell in behind him, dogging respectfully after him, a few paces away. A moment later a second big claw joined it. Silently, the claws trailed him, as he walked slowly toward the bunker. Hendricks stopped, and behind him, the claws came to a halt. He was close, now. Almost to the bunker steps. "Scott! Can you hear me? I'm standing right above you. Outside. On the surface. Are you picking me up?" * * * * * He waited, holding his gun against his side, the transmitter tightly to his ear. Time passed. He strained to hear, but there was only silence. Silence, and faint static. Then, distantly, metallically-- "This is Scott." The voice was neutral. Cold. He could not identify it. But the earphone was minute. "Scott! Listen. I'm standing right above you. I'm on the surface, looking down into the bunker entrance." "Yes." "Can you see me?" "Yes." "Through the view sight? You have the sight trained on me?" "Yes." Hendricks pondered. A circle of claws waited quietly around him, gray-metal bodies on all sides of him. "Is everything all right in the bunker? Nothing unusual has happened?" "Everything is all right." "Will you come up to the surface? I want to see you for a moment." Hendricks took a deep breath. "Come up here with me. I want to talk to you." "Come down." "I'm giving you an order." Silence. "Are you coming?" Hendricks listened. There was no response. "I order you to come to the surface." "Come down." Hendricks set his jaw. "Let me talk to Leone." There was a long pause. He listened to the static. Then a voice came, hard, thin, metallic. The same as the other. "This is Leone." "Hendricks. I'm on the surface. At the bunker entrance. I want one of you to come up here." "Come down." "Why come down? I'm giving you an order!" Silence. Hendricks lowered the transmitter. He looked carefully around him. The entrance was just ahead. Almost at his feet. He lowered the antenna and fastened the transmitter to his belt. Carefully, he gripped his gun with both hands. He moved forward, a step at a time. If they could see him they knew he was starting toward the entrance. He closed his eyes a moment. Then he put his foot on the first step that led downward. Two Davids came up at him, their faces identical and expressionless. He blasted them into particles. More came rushing silently up, a whole pack of them. All exactly the same. Hendricks turned and raced back, away from the bunker, back toward the rise. At the top of the rise Tasso and Klaus were firing down. The small claws were already streaking up toward them, shining metal spheres going fast, racing frantically through the ash. But he had no time to think about that. He knelt down, aiming at the bunker entrance, gun against his cheek. The Davids were coming out in groups, clutching their teddy bears, their thin knobby legs pumping as they ran up the steps to the surface. Hendricks fired into the main body of them. They burst apart, wheels and springs flying in all directions. He fired again through the mist of particles. A giant lumbering figure rose up in the bunker entrance, tall and swaying. Hendricks paused, amazed. A man, a soldier. With one leg, supporting himself with a crutch. "Major!" Tasso's voice came. More firing. The huge figure moved forward, Davids swarming around it. Hendricks broke out of his freeze. The First Variety. The Wounded Soldier. He aimed and fired. The soldier burst into bits, parts and relays flying. Now many Davids were out on the flat ground, away from the bunker. He fired again and again, moving slowly back, half-crouching and aiming. From the rise, Klaus fired down. The side of the rise was alive with claws making their way up. Hendricks retreated toward the rise, running and crouching. Tasso had left Klaus and was circling slowly to the right, moving away from the rise. A David slipped up toward him, its small white face expressionless, brown hair hanging down in its eyes. It bent over suddenly, opening its arms. Its teddy bear hurtled down and leaped across the ground, bounding toward him. Hendricks fired. The bear and the David both dissolved. He grinned, blinking. It was like a dream. "Up here!" Tasso's voice. Hendricks made his way toward her. She was over by some columns of concrete, walls of a ruined building. She was firing past him, with the hand pistol Klaus had given her. "Thanks." He joined her, grasping for breath. She pulled him back, behind the concrete, fumbling at her belt. "Close your eyes!" She unfastened a globe from her waist. Rapidly, she unscrewed the cap, locking it into place. "Close your eyes and get down." * * * * * She threw the bomb. It sailed in an arc, an expert, rolling and bouncing to the entrance of the bunker. Two Wounded Soldiers stood uncertainly by the brick pile. More Davids poured from behind them, out onto the plain. One of the Wounded Soldiers moved toward the bomb, stooping awkwardly down to pick it up. The bomb went off. The concussion whirled Hendricks around, throwing him on his face. A hot wind rolled over him. Dimly he saw Tasso standing behind the columns, firing slowly and methodically at the Davids coming out of the raging clouds of white fire. Back along the rise Klaus struggled with a ring of claws circling around him. He retreated, blasting at them and moving back, trying to break through the ring. Hendricks struggled to his feet. His head ached. He could hardly see. Everything was licking at him, raging and whirling. His right arm would not move. Tasso pulled back toward him. "Come on. Let's go." "Klaus--He's still up there." "Come on!" Tasso dragged Hendricks back, away from the columns. Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. Tasso led him rapidly away, her eyes intense and bright, watching for claws that had escaped the blast. One David came out of the rolling clouds of flame. Tasso blasted it. No more appeared. "But Klaus. What about him?" Hendricks stopped, standing unsteadily. "He--" "Come on!" * * * * * They retreated, moving farther and farther away from the bunker. A few small claws followed them for a little while and then gave up, turning back and going off. At last Tasso stopped. "We can stop here and get our breaths." Hendricks sat down on some heaps of debris. He wiped his neck, gasping. "We left Klaus back there." Tasso said nothing. She opened her gun, sliding a fresh round of blast cartridges into place. Hendricks stared at her, dazed. "You left him back there on purpose." Tasso snapped the gun together. She studied the heaps of rubble around them, her face expressionless. As if she were watching for something. "What is it?" Hendricks demanded. "What are you looking for? Is something coming?" He shook his head, trying to understand. What was she doing? What was she waiting for? He could see nothing. Ash lay all around them, ash and ruins. Occasional stark tree trunks, without leaves or branches. "What--" Tasso cut him off. "Be still." Her eyes narrowed. Suddenly her gun came up. Hendricks turned, following her gaze. * * * * * Back the way they had come a figure appeared. The figure walked unsteadily toward them. Its clothes were torn. It limped as it made its way along, going very slowly and carefully. Stopping now and then, resting and getting its strength. Once it almost fell. It stood for a moment, trying to steady itself. Then it came on. Klaus. Hendricks stood up. "Klaus!" He started toward him. "How the hell did you--" Tasso fired. Hendricks swung back. She fired again, the blast passing him, a searing line of heat. The beam caught Klaus in the chest. He exploded, gears and wheels flying. For a moment he continued to walk. Then he swayed back and forth. He crashed to the ground, his arms flung out. A few more wheels rolled away. Silence. Tasso turned to Hendricks. "Now you understand why he killed Rudi." Hendricks sat down again slowly. He shook his head. He was numb. He could not think. "Do you see?" Tasso said. "Do you understand?" Hendricks said nothing. Everything was slipping away from him, faster and faster. Darkness, rolling and plucking at him. He closed his eyes. * * * * * Hendricks opened his eyes slowly. His body ached all over. He tried to sit up but needles of pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He gasped. "Don't try to get up," Tasso said. She bent down, putting her cold hand against his forehead. It was night. A few stars glinted above, shining through the drifting clouds of ash. Hendricks lay back, his teeth locked. Tasso watched him impassively. She had built a fire with some wood and weeds. The fire licked feebly, hissing at a metal cup suspended over it. Everything was silent. Unmoving darkness, beyond the fire. "So he was the Second Variety," Hendricks murmured. "I had always thought so." "Why didn't you destroy him sooner?" he wanted to know. "You held me back." Tasso crossed to the fire to look into the metal cup. "Coffee. It'll be ready to drink in awhile." She came back and sat down beside him. Presently she opened her pistol and began to disassemble the firing mechanism, studying it intently. "This is a beautiful gun," Tasso said, half-aloud. "The construction is superb." "What about them? The claws." "The concussion from the bomb put most of them out of action. They're delicate. Highly organized, I suppose." "The Davids, too?" "Yes." "How did you happen to have a bomb like that?" Tasso shrugged. "We designed it. You shouldn't underestimate our technology, Major. Without such a bomb you and I would no longer exist." "Very useful." Tasso stretched out her legs, warming her feet in the heat of the fire. "It surprised me that you did not seem to understand, after he killed Rudi. Why did you think he--" "I told you. I thought he was afraid." "Really? You know, Major, for a little while I suspected you. Because you wouldn't let me kill him. I thought you might be protecting him." She laughed. "Are we safe here?" Hendricks asked presently. "For awhile. Until they get reinforcements from some other area." Tasso began to clean the interior of the gun with a bit of rag. She finished and pushed the mechanism back into place. She closed the gun, running her finger along the barrel. "We were lucky," Hendricks murmured. "Yes. Very lucky." "Thanks for pulling me away." * * * * * Tasso did not answer. She glanced up at him, her eyes bright in the fire light. Hendricks examined his arm. He could not move his fingers. His whole side seemed numb. Down inside him was a dull steady ache. "How do you feel?" Tasso asked. "My arm is damaged." "Anything else?" "Internal injuries." "You didn't get down when the bomb went off." Hendricks said nothing. He watched Tasso pour the coffee from the cup into a flat metal pan. She brought it over to him. "Thanks." He struggled up enough to drink. It was hard to swallow. His insides turned over and he pushed the pan away. "That's all I can drink now." Tasso drank the rest. Time passed. The clouds of ash moved across the dark sky above them. Hendricks rested, his mind blank. After awhile he became aware that Tasso was standing over him, gazing down at him. "What is it?" he murmured. "Do you feel any better?" "Some." "You know, Major, if I hadn't dragged you away they would have got you. You would be dead. Like Rudi." "I know." "Do you want to know why I brought you out? I could have left you. I could have left you there." "Why did you bring me out?" "Because we have to get away from here." Tasso stirred the fire with a stick, peering calmly down into it. "No human being can live here. When their reinforcements come we won't have a chance. I've pondered about it while you were unconscious. We have perhaps three hours before they come." "And you expect me to get us away?" "That's right. I expect you to get us out of here." "Why me?" "Because I don't know any way." Her eyes shone at him in the half-light, bright and steady. "If you can't get us out of here they'll kill us within three hours. I see nothing else ahead. Well, Major? What are you going to do? I've been waiting all night. While you were unconscious I sat here, waiting and listening. It's almost dawn. The night is almost over." * * * * * Hendricks considered. "It's curious," he said at last. "Curious?" "That you should think I can get us out of here. I wonder what you think I can do." "Can you get us to the Moon Base?" "The Moon Base? How?" "There must be some way." Hendricks shook his head. "No. There's no way that I know of." Tasso said nothing. For a moment her steady gaze wavered. She ducked her head, turning abruptly away. She scrambled to her feet. "More coffee?" "No." "Suit yourself." Tasso drank silently. He could not see her face. He lay back against the ground, deep in thought, trying to concentrate. It was hard to think. His head still hurt. And the numbing daze still hung over him. "There might be one way," he said suddenly. "Oh?" "How soon is dawn?" "Two hours. The sun will be coming up shortly." "There's supposed to be a ship near here. I've never seen it. But I know it exists." "What kind of a ship?" Her voice was sharp. "A rocket cruiser." "Will it take us off? To the Moon Base?" "It's supposed to. In case of emergency." He rubbed his forehead. "What's wrong?" "My head. It's hard to think. I can hardly--hardly concentrate. The bomb." "Is the ship near here?" Tasso slid over beside him, settling down on her haunches. "How far is it? Where is it?" "I'm trying to think." Her fingers dug into his arm. "Nearby?" Her voice was like iron. "Where would it be? Would they store it underground? Hidden underground?" "Yes. In a storage locker." "How do we find it? Is it marked? Is there a code marker to identify it?" Hendricks concentrated. "No. No markings. No code symbol." "What, then?" "A sign." "What sort of sign?" * * * * * Hendricks did not answer. In the flickering light his eyes were glazed, two sightless orbs. Tasso's fingers dug into his arm. "What sort of sign? What is it?" "I--I can't think. Let me rest." "All right." She let go and stood up. Hendricks lay back against the ground, his eyes closed. Tasso walked away from him, her hands in her pockets. She kicked a rock out of her way and stood staring up at the sky. The night blackness was already beginning to fade into gray. Morning was coming. Tasso gripped her pistol and walked around the fire in a circle, back and forth. On the ground Major Hendricks lay, his eyes closed, unmoving. The grayness rose in the sky, higher and higher. The landscape became visible, fields of ash stretching out in all directions. Ash and ruins of buildings, a wall here and there, heaps of concrete, the naked trunk of a tree. The air was cold and sharp. Somewhere a long way off a bird made a few bleak sounds. Hendricks stirred. He opened his eyes. "Is it dawn? Already?" "Yes." Hendricks sat up a little. "You wanted to know something. You were asking me." "Do you remember now?" "Yes." "What is it?" She tensed. "What?" she repeated sharply. "A well. A ruined well. It's in a storage locker under a well." "A well." Tasso relaxed. "Then we'll find a well." She looked at her watch. "We have about an hour, Major. Do you think we can find it in an hour?" * * * * * "Give me a hand up," Hendricks said. Tasso put her pistol away and helped him to his feet. "This is going to be difficult." "Yes it is." Hendricks set his lips tightly. "I don't think we're going to go very far." They began to walk. The early sun cast a little warmth down on them. The land was flat and barren, stretching out gray and lifeless as far as they could see. A few birds sailed silently, far above them, circling slowly. "See anything?" Hendricks said. "Any claws?" "No. Not yet." They passed through some ruins, upright concrete and bricks. A cement foundation. Rats scuttled away. Tasso jumped back warily. "This used to be a town," Hendricks said. "A village. Provincial village. This was all grape country, once. Where we are now." They came onto a ruined street, weeds and cracks criss-crossing it. Over to the right a stone chimney stuck up. "Be careful," he warned her. A pit yawned, an open basement. Ragged ends of pipes jutted up, twisted and bent. They passed part of a house, a bathtub turned on its side. A broken chair. A few spoons and bits of china dishes. In the center of the street the ground had sunk away. The depression was filled with weeds and debris and bones. "Over here," Hendricks murmured. "This way?" "To the right." They passed the remains of a heavy duty tank. Hendricks' belt counter clicked ominously. The tank had been radiation blasted. A few feet from the tank a mummified body lay sprawled out, mouth open. Beyond the road was a flat field. Stones and weeds, and bits of broken glass. "There," Hendricks said. * * * * * A stone well jutted up, sagging and broken. A few boards lay across it. Most of the well had sunk into rubble. Hendricks walked unsteadily toward it, Tasso beside him. "Are you certain about this?" Tasso said. "This doesn't look like anything." "I'm sure." Hendricks sat down at the edge of the well, his teeth locked. His breath came quickly. He wiped perspiration from his face. "This was arranged so the senior command officer could get away. If anything happened. If the bunker fell." "That was you?" "Yes." "Where is the ship? Is it here?" "We're standing on it." Hendricks ran his hands over the surface of the well stones. "The eye-lock responds to me, not to anybody else. It's my ship. Or it was supposed to be." There was a sharp click. Presently they heard a low grating sound from below them. "Step back," Hendricks said. He and Tasso moved away from the well. A section of the ground slid back. A metal frame pushed slowly up through the ash, shoving bricks and weeds out of the way. The action ceased, as the ship nosed into view. "There it is," Hendricks said. The ship was small. It rested quietly, suspended in its mesh frame, like a blunt needle. A rain of ash sifted down into the dark cavity from which the ship had been raised. Hendricks made his way over to it. He mounted the mesh and unscrewed the hatch, pulling it back. Inside the ship the control banks and the pressure seat were visible. * * * * * Tasso came and stood beside him, gazing into the ship. "I'm not accustomed to rocket piloting," she said, after awhile. Hendricks glanced at her. "I'll do the piloting." "Will you? There's only one seat, Major. I can see it's built to carry only a single person." Hendricks' breathing changed. He studied the interior of the ship intently. Tasso was right. There was only one seat. The ship was built to carry only one person. "I see," he said slowly. "And the one person is you." She nodded. "Of course." "Why?" "_You_ can't go. You might not live through the trip. You're injured. You probably wouldn't get there." "An interesting point. But you see, I know where the Moon Base is. And you don't. You might fly around for months and not find it. It's well hidden. Without knowing what to look for--" "I'll have to take my chances. Maybe I won't find it. Not by myself. But I think you'll give me all the information I need. Your life depends on it." "How?" "If I find the Moon Base in time, perhaps I can get them to send a ship back to pick you up. _If_ I find the Base in time. If not, then you haven't a chance. I imagine there are supplies on the ship. They will last me long enough--" Hendricks moved quickly. But his injured arm betrayed him. Tasso ducked, sliding lithely aside. Her hand came up, lightning fast. Hendricks saw the gun butt coming. He tried to ward off the blow, but she was too fast. The metal butt struck against the side of his head, just above his ear. Numbing pain rushed through him. Pain and rolling clouds of blackness. He sank down, sliding to the ground. * * * * * Dimly, he was aware that Tasso was standing over him, kicking him with her toe. "Major! Wake up." He opened his eyes, groaning. "Listen to me." She bent down, the gun pointed at his face. "I have to hurry. There isn't much time left. The ship is ready to go, but you must tell me the information I need before I leave." Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. "Hurry up! Where is the Moon Base? How do I find it? What do I look for?" Hendricks said nothing. "Answer me!" "Sorry." "Major, the ship is loaded with provisions. I can coast for weeks. I'll find the Base eventually. And in a half hour you'll be dead. Your only chance of survival--" She broke off. Along the slope, by some crumbling ruins, something moved. Something in the ash. Tasso turned quickly, aiming. She fired. A puff of flame leaped. Something scuttled away, rolling across the ash. She fired again. The claw burst apart, wheels flying. "See?" Tasso said. "A scout. It won't be long." "You'll bring them back here to get me?" "Yes. As soon as possible." Hendricks looked up at her. He studied her intently. "You're telling the truth?" A strange expression had come over his face, an avid hunger. "You will come back for me? You'll get me to the Moon Base?" "I'll get you to the Moon Base. But tell me where it is! There's only a little time left." "All right." Hendricks picked up a piece of rock, pulling himself to a sitting position. "Watch." Hendricks began to scratch in the ash. Tasso stood by him, watching the motion of the rock. Hendricks was sketching a crude lunar map. * * * * * "This is the Appenine range. Here is the Crater of Archimedes. The Moon Base is beyond the end of the Appenine, about two hundred miles. I don't know exactly where. No one on Terra knows. But when you're over the Appenine, signal with one red flare and a green flare, followed by two red flares in quick succession. The Base monitor will record your signal. The Base is under the surface, of course. They'll guide you down with magnetic grapples." "And the controls? Can I operate them?" "The controls are virtually automatic. All you have to do is give the right signal at the right time." "I will." "The seat absorbs most of the take-off shock. Air and temperature are automatically controlled. The ship will leave Terra and pass out into free space. It'll line itself up with the moon, falling into an orbit around it, about a hundred miles above the surface. The orbit will carry you over the Base. When you're in the region of the Appenine, release the signal rockets." Tasso slid into the ship and lowered herself into the pressure seat. The arm locks folded automatically around her. She fingered the controls. "Too bad you're not going, Major. All this put here for you, and you can't make the trip." "Leave me the pistol." Tasso pulled the pistol from her belt. She held it in her hand, weighing it thoughtfully. "Don't go too far from this location. It'll be hard to find you, as it is." "No. I'll stay here by the well." Tasso gripped the take-off switch, running her fingers over the smooth metal. "A beautiful ship, Major. Well built. I admire your workmanship. You people have always done good work. You build fine things. Your work, your creations, are your greatest achievement." "Give me the pistol," Hendricks said impatiently, holding out his hand. He struggled to his feet. "Good-bye, Major." Tasso tossed the pistol past Hendricks. The pistol clattered against the ground, bouncing and rolling away. Hendricks hurried after it. He bent down, snatching it up. The hatch of the ship clanged shut. The bolts fell into place. Hendricks made his way back. The inner door was being sealed. He raised the pistol unsteadily. * * * * * There was a shattering roar. The ship burst up from its metal cage, fusing the mesh behind it. Hendricks cringed, pulling back. The ship shot up into the rolling clouds of ash, disappearing into the sky. Hendricks stood watching a long time, until even the streamer had dissipated. Nothing stirred. The morning air was chill and silent. He began to walk aimlessly back the way they had come. Better to keep moving around. It would be a long time before help came--if it came at all. He searched his pockets until he found a package of cigarettes. He lit one grimly. They had all wanted cigarettes from him. But cigarettes were scarce. A lizard slithered by him, through the ash. He halted, rigid. The lizard disappeared. Above, the sun rose higher in the sky. Some flies landed on a flat rock to one side of him. Hendricks kicked at them with his foot. It was getting hot. Sweat trickled down his face, into his collar. His mouth was dry. Presently he stopped walking and sat down on some debris. He unfastened his medicine kit and swallowed a few narcotic capsules. He looked around him. Where was he? Something lay ahead. Stretched out on the ground. Silent and unmoving. Hendricks drew his gun quickly. It looked like a man. Then he remembered. It was the remains of Klaus. The Second Variety. Where Tasso had blasted him. He could see wheels and relays and metal parts, strewn around on the ash. Glittering and sparkling in the sunlight. Hendricks got to his feet and walked over. He nudged the inert form with his foot, turning it over a little. He

enough

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

yards ahead, was the entrance of the forward command bunker. The bunker from which he had come. Hendricks watched silently. No motion. No sign of life. Nothing stirred. Klaus slithered up beside him. "Where is it?" "Down there." Hendricks passed him the glasses. Clouds of ash rolled across the evening sky. The world was darkening. They had a couple of hours of light left, at the most. Probably not that much. "I don't see anything," Klaus said. "That tree there. The stump. By the pile of bricks. The entrance is to the right of the bricks." "I'll have to take your word for it." "You and Tasso cover me from here. You'll be able to sight all the way to the bunker entrance." "You're going down alone?" "With my wrist tab I'll be safe. The ground around the bunker is a living field of claws. They collect down in the ash. Like crabs. Without tabs you wouldn't have a chance." "Maybe you're right." "I'll walk slowly all the way. As soon as I know for certain--" "If they're down inside the bunker you won't be able to get back up here. They go fast. You don't realize." "What do you suggest?" Klaus considered. "I don't know. Get them to come up to the surface. So you can see." Hendricks brought his transmitter from his belt, raising the antenna. "Let's get started." * * * * * Klaus signalled to Tasso. She crawled expertly up the side of the rise to where they were sitting. "He's going down alone," Klaus said. "We'll cover him from here. As soon as you see him start back, fire past him at once. They come quick." "You're not very optimistic," Tasso said. "No, I'm not." Hendricks opened the breech of his gun, checking it carefully. "Maybe things are all right." "You didn't see them. Hundreds of them. All the same. Pouring out like ants." "I should be able to find out without going down all the way." Hendricks locked his gun, gripping it in one hand, the transmitter in the other. "Well, wish me luck." Klaus put out his hand. "Don't go down until you're sure. Talk to them from up here. Make them show themselves." * * * * * Hendricks stood up. He stepped down the side of the rise. A moment later he was walking slowly toward the pile of bricks and debris beside the dead tree stump. Toward the entrance of the forward command bunker. Nothing stirred. He raised the transmitter, clicking it on. "Scott? Can you hear me?" Silence. "Scott! This is Hendricks. Can you hear me? I'm standing outside the bunker. You should be able to see me in the view sight." He listened, the transmitter gripped tightly. No sound. Only static. He walked forward. A claw burrowed out of the ash and raced toward him. It halted a few feet away and then slunk off. A second claw appeared, one of the big ones with feelers. It moved toward him, studied him intently, and then fell in behind him, dogging respectfully after him, a few paces away. A moment later a second big claw joined it. Silently, the claws trailed him, as he walked slowly toward the bunker. Hendricks stopped, and behind him, the claws came to a halt. He was close, now. Almost to the bunker steps. "Scott! Can you hear me? I'm standing right above you. Outside. On the surface. Are you picking me up?" * * * * * He waited, holding his gun against his side, the transmitter tightly to his ear. Time passed. He strained to hear, but there was only silence. Silence, and faint static. Then, distantly, metallically-- "This is Scott." The voice was neutral. Cold. He could not identify it. But the earphone was minute. "Scott! Listen. I'm standing right above you. I'm on the surface, looking down into the bunker entrance." "Yes." "Can you see me?" "Yes." "Through the view sight? You have the sight trained on me?" "Yes." Hendricks pondered. A circle of claws waited quietly around him, gray-metal bodies on all sides of him. "Is everything all right in the bunker? Nothing unusual has happened?" "Everything is all right." "Will you come up to the surface? I want to see you for a moment." Hendricks took a deep breath. "Come up here with me. I want to talk to you." "Come down." "I'm giving you an order." Silence. "Are you coming?" Hendricks listened. There was no response. "I order you to come to the surface." "Come down." Hendricks set his jaw. "Let me talk to Leone." There was a long pause. He listened to the static. Then a voice came, hard, thin, metallic. The same as the other. "This is Leone." "Hendricks. I'm on the surface. At the bunker entrance. I want one of you to come up here." "Come down." "Why come down? I'm giving you an order!" Silence. Hendricks lowered the transmitter. He looked carefully around him. The entrance was just ahead. Almost at his feet. He lowered the antenna and fastened the transmitter to his belt. Carefully, he gripped his gun with both hands. He moved forward, a step at a time. If they could see him they knew he was starting toward the entrance. He closed his eyes a moment. Then he put his foot on the first step that led downward. Two Davids came up at him, their faces identical and expressionless. He blasted them into particles. More came rushing silently up, a whole pack of them. All exactly the same. Hendricks turned and raced back, away from the bunker, back toward the rise. At the top of the rise Tasso and Klaus were firing down. The small claws were already streaking up toward them, shining metal spheres going fast, racing frantically through the ash. But he had no time to think about that. He knelt down, aiming at the bunker entrance, gun against his cheek. The Davids were coming out in groups, clutching their teddy bears, their thin knobby legs pumping as they ran up the steps to the surface. Hendricks fired into the main body of them. They burst apart, wheels and springs flying in all directions. He fired again through the mist of particles. A giant lumbering figure rose up in the bunker entrance, tall and swaying. Hendricks paused, amazed. A man, a soldier. With one leg, supporting himself with a crutch. "Major!" Tasso's voice came. More firing. The huge figure moved forward, Davids swarming around it. Hendricks broke out of his freeze. The First Variety. The Wounded Soldier. He aimed and fired. The soldier burst into bits, parts and relays flying. Now many Davids were out on the flat ground, away from the bunker. He fired again and again, moving slowly back, half-crouching and aiming. From the rise, Klaus fired down. The side of the rise was alive with claws making their way up. Hendricks retreated toward the rise, running and crouching. Tasso had left Klaus and was circling slowly to the right, moving away from the rise. A David slipped up toward him, its small white face expressionless, brown hair hanging down in its eyes. It bent over suddenly, opening its arms. Its teddy bear hurtled down and leaped across the ground, bounding toward him. Hendricks fired. The bear and the David both dissolved. He grinned, blinking. It was like a dream. "Up here!" Tasso's voice. Hendricks made his way toward her. She was over by some columns of concrete, walls of a ruined building. She was firing past him, with the hand pistol Klaus had given her. "Thanks." He joined her, grasping for breath. She pulled him back, behind the concrete, fumbling at her belt. "Close your eyes!" She unfastened a globe from her waist. Rapidly, she unscrewed the cap, locking it into place. "Close your eyes and get down." * * * * * She threw the bomb. It sailed in an arc, an expert, rolling and bouncing to the entrance of the bunker. Two Wounded Soldiers stood uncertainly by the brick pile. More Davids poured from behind them, out onto the plain. One of the Wounded Soldiers moved toward the bomb, stooping awkwardly down to pick it up. The bomb went off. The concussion whirled Hendricks around, throwing him on his face. A hot wind rolled over him. Dimly he saw Tasso standing behind the columns, firing slowly and methodically at the Davids coming out of the raging clouds of white fire. Back along the rise Klaus struggled with a ring of claws circling around him. He retreated, blasting at them and moving back, trying to break through the ring. Hendricks struggled to his feet. His head ached. He could hardly see. Everything was licking at him, raging and whirling. His right arm would not move. Tasso pulled back toward him. "Come on. Let's go." "Klaus--He's still up there." "Come on!" Tasso dragged Hendricks back, away from the columns. Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. Tasso led him rapidly away, her eyes intense and bright, watching for claws that had escaped the blast. One David came out of the rolling clouds of flame. Tasso blasted it. No more appeared. "But Klaus. What about him?" Hendricks stopped, standing unsteadily. "He--" "Come on!" * * * * * They retreated, moving farther and farther away from the bunker. A few small claws followed them for a little while and then gave up, turning back and going off. At last Tasso stopped. "We can stop here and get our breaths." Hendricks sat down on some heaps of debris. He wiped his neck, gasping. "We left Klaus back there." Tasso said nothing. She opened her gun, sliding a fresh round of blast cartridges into place. Hendricks stared at her, dazed. "You left him back there on purpose." Tasso snapped the gun together. She studied the heaps of rubble around them, her face expressionless. As if she were watching for something. "What is it?" Hendricks demanded. "What are you looking for? Is something coming?" He shook his head, trying to understand. What was she doing? What was she waiting for? He could see nothing. Ash lay all around them, ash and ruins. Occasional stark tree trunks, without leaves or branches. "What--" Tasso cut him off. "Be still." Her eyes narrowed. Suddenly her gun came up. Hendricks turned, following her gaze. * * * * * Back the way they had come a figure appeared. The figure walked unsteadily toward them. Its clothes were torn. It limped as it made its way along, going very slowly and carefully. Stopping now and then, resting and getting its strength. Once it almost fell. It stood for a moment, trying to steady itself. Then it came on. Klaus. Hendricks stood up. "Klaus!" He started toward him. "How the hell did you--" Tasso fired. Hendricks swung back. She fired again, the blast passing him, a searing line of heat. The beam caught Klaus in the chest. He exploded, gears and wheels flying. For a moment he continued to walk. Then he swayed back and forth. He crashed to the ground, his arms flung out. A few more wheels rolled away. Silence. Tasso turned to Hendricks. "Now you understand why he killed Rudi." Hendricks sat down again slowly. He shook his head. He was numb. He could not think. "Do you see?" Tasso said. "Do you understand?" Hendricks said nothing. Everything was slipping away from him, faster and faster. Darkness, rolling and plucking at him. He closed his eyes. * * * * * Hendricks opened his eyes slowly. His body ached all over. He tried to sit up but needles of pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He gasped. "Don't try to get up," Tasso said. She bent down, putting her cold hand against his forehead. It was night. A few stars glinted above, shining through the drifting clouds of ash. Hendricks lay back, his teeth locked. Tasso watched him impassively. She had built a fire with some wood and weeds. The fire licked feebly, hissing at a metal cup suspended over it. Everything was silent. Unmoving darkness, beyond the fire. "So he was the Second Variety," Hendricks murmured. "I had always thought so." "Why didn't you destroy him sooner?" he wanted to know. "You held me back." Tasso crossed to the fire to look into the metal cup. "Coffee. It'll be ready to drink in awhile." She came back and sat down beside him. Presently she opened her pistol and began to disassemble the firing mechanism, studying it intently. "This is a beautiful gun," Tasso said, half-aloud. "The construction is superb." "What about them? The claws." "The concussion from the bomb put most of them out of action. They're delicate. Highly organized, I suppose." "The Davids, too?" "Yes." "How did you happen to have a bomb like that?" Tasso shrugged. "We designed it. You shouldn't underestimate our technology, Major. Without such a bomb you and I would no longer exist." "Very useful." Tasso stretched out her legs, warming her feet in the heat of the fire. "It surprised me that you did not seem to understand, after he killed Rudi. Why did you think he--" "I told you. I thought he was afraid." "Really? You know, Major, for a little while I suspected you. Because you wouldn't let me kill him. I thought you might be protecting him." She laughed. "Are we safe here?" Hendricks asked presently. "For awhile. Until they get reinforcements from some other area." Tasso began to clean the interior of the gun with a bit of rag. She finished and pushed the mechanism back into place. She closed the gun, running her finger along the barrel. "We were lucky," Hendricks murmured. "Yes. Very lucky." "Thanks for pulling me away." * * * * * Tasso did not answer. She glanced up at him, her eyes bright in the fire light. Hendricks examined his arm. He could not move his fingers. His whole side seemed numb. Down inside him was a dull steady ache. "How do you feel?" Tasso asked. "My arm is damaged." "Anything else?" "Internal injuries." "You didn't get down when the bomb went off." Hendricks said nothing. He watched Tasso pour the coffee from the cup into a flat metal pan. She brought it over to him. "Thanks." He struggled up enough to drink. It was hard to swallow. His insides turned over and he pushed the pan away. "That's all I can drink now." Tasso drank the rest. Time passed. The clouds of ash moved across the dark sky above them. Hendricks rested, his mind blank. After awhile he became aware that Tasso was standing over him, gazing down at him. "What is it?" he murmured. "Do you feel any better?" "Some." "You know, Major, if I hadn't dragged you away they would have got you. You would be dead. Like Rudi." "I know." "Do you want to know why I brought you out? I could have left you. I could have left you there." "Why did you bring me out?" "Because we have to get away from here." Tasso stirred the fire with a stick, peering calmly down into it. "No human being can live here. When their reinforcements come we won't have a chance. I've pondered about it while you were unconscious. We have perhaps three hours before they come." "And you expect me to get us away?" "That's right. I expect you to get us out of here." "Why me?" "Because I don't know any way." Her eyes shone at him in the half-light, bright and steady. "If you can't get us out of here they'll kill us within three hours. I see nothing else ahead. Well, Major? What are you going to do? I've been waiting all night. While you were unconscious I sat here, waiting and listening. It's almost dawn. The night is almost over." * * * * * Hendricks considered. "It's curious," he said at last. "Curious?" "That you should think I can get us out of here. I wonder what you think I can do." "Can you get us to the Moon Base?" "The Moon Base? How?" "There must be some way." Hendricks shook his head. "No. There's no way that I know of." Tasso said nothing. For a moment her steady gaze wavered. She ducked her head, turning abruptly away. She scrambled to her feet. "More coffee?" "No." "Suit yourself." Tasso drank silently. He could not see her face. He lay back against the ground, deep in thought, trying to concentrate. It was hard to think. His head still hurt. And the numbing daze still hung over him. "There might be one way," he said suddenly. "Oh?" "How soon is dawn?" "Two hours. The sun will be coming up shortly." "There's supposed to be a ship near here. I've never seen it. But I know it exists." "What kind of a ship?" Her voice was sharp. "A rocket cruiser." "Will it take us off? To the Moon Base?" "It's supposed to. In case of emergency." He rubbed his forehead. "What's wrong?" "My head. It's hard to think. I can hardly--hardly concentrate. The bomb." "Is the ship near here?" Tasso slid over beside him, settling down on her haunches. "How far is it? Where is it?" "I'm trying to think." Her fingers dug into his arm. "Nearby?" Her voice was like iron. "Where would it be? Would they store it underground? Hidden underground?" "Yes. In a storage locker." "How do we find it? Is it marked? Is there a code marker to identify it?" Hendricks concentrated. "No. No markings. No code symbol." "What, then?" "A sign." "What sort of sign?" * * * * * Hendricks did not answer. In the flickering light his eyes were glazed, two sightless orbs. Tasso's fingers dug into his arm. "What sort of sign? What is it?" "I--I can't think. Let me rest." "All right." She let go and stood up. Hendricks lay back against the ground, his eyes closed. Tasso walked away from him, her hands in her pockets. She kicked a rock out of her way and stood staring up at the sky. The night blackness was already beginning to fade into gray. Morning was coming. Tasso gripped her pistol and walked around the fire in a circle, back and forth. On the ground Major Hendricks lay, his eyes closed, unmoving. The grayness rose in the sky, higher and higher. The landscape became visible, fields of ash stretching out in all directions. Ash and ruins of buildings, a wall here and there, heaps of concrete, the naked trunk of a tree. The air was cold and sharp. Somewhere a long way off a bird made a few bleak sounds. Hendricks stirred. He opened his eyes. "Is it dawn? Already?" "Yes." Hendricks sat up a little. "You wanted to know something. You were asking me." "Do you remember now?" "Yes." "What is it?" She tensed. "What?" she repeated sharply. "A well. A ruined well. It's in a storage locker under a well." "A well." Tasso relaxed. "Then we'll find a well." She looked at her watch. "We have about an hour, Major. Do you think we can find it in an hour?" * * * * * "Give me a hand up," Hendricks said. Tasso put her pistol away and helped him to his feet. "This is going to be difficult." "Yes it is." Hendricks set his lips tightly. "I don't think we're going to go very far." They began to walk. The early sun cast a little warmth down on them. The land was flat and barren, stretching out gray and lifeless as far as they could see. A few birds sailed silently, far above them, circling slowly. "See anything?" Hendricks said. "Any claws?" "No. Not yet." They passed through some ruins, upright concrete and bricks. A cement foundation. Rats scuttled away. Tasso jumped back warily. "This used to be a town," Hendricks said. "A village. Provincial village. This was all grape country, once. Where we are now." They came onto a ruined street, weeds and cracks criss-crossing it. Over to the right a stone chimney stuck up. "Be careful," he warned her. A pit yawned, an open basement. Ragged ends of pipes jutted up, twisted and bent. They passed part of a house, a bathtub turned on its side. A broken chair. A few spoons and bits of china dishes. In the center of the street the ground had sunk away. The depression was filled with weeds and debris and bones. "Over here," Hendricks murmured. "This way?" "To the right." They passed the remains of a heavy duty tank. Hendricks' belt counter clicked ominously. The tank had been radiation blasted. A few feet from the tank a mummified body lay sprawled out, mouth open. Beyond the road was a flat field. Stones and weeds, and bits of broken glass. "There," Hendricks said. * * * * * A stone well jutted up, sagging and broken. A few boards lay across it. Most of the well had sunk into rubble. Hendricks walked unsteadily toward it, Tasso beside him. "Are you certain about this?" Tasso said. "This doesn't look like anything." "I'm sure." Hendricks sat down at the edge of the well, his teeth locked. His breath came quickly. He wiped perspiration from his face. "This was arranged so the senior command officer could get away. If anything happened. If the bunker fell." "That was you?" "Yes." "Where is the ship? Is it here?" "We're standing on it." Hendricks ran his hands over the surface of the well stones. "The eye-lock responds to me, not to anybody else. It's my ship. Or it was supposed to be." There was a sharp click. Presently they heard a low grating sound from below them. "Step back," Hendricks said. He and Tasso moved away from the well. A section of the ground slid back. A metal frame pushed slowly up through the ash, shoving bricks and weeds out of the way. The action ceased, as the ship nosed into view. "There it is," Hendricks said. The ship was small. It rested quietly, suspended in its mesh frame, like a blunt needle. A rain of ash sifted down into the dark cavity from which the ship had been raised. Hendricks made his way over to it. He mounted the mesh and unscrewed the hatch, pulling it back. Inside the ship the control banks and the pressure seat were visible. * * * * * Tasso came and stood beside him, gazing into the ship. "I'm not accustomed to rocket piloting," she said, after awhile. Hendricks glanced at her. "I'll do the piloting." "Will you? There's only one seat, Major. I can see it's built to carry only a single person." Hendricks' breathing changed. He studied the interior of the ship intently. Tasso was right. There was only one seat. The ship was built to carry only one person. "I see," he said slowly. "And the one person is you." She nodded. "Of course." "Why?" "_You_ can't go. You might not live through the trip. You're injured. You probably wouldn't get there." "An interesting point. But you see, I know where the Moon Base is. And you don't. You might fly around for months and not find it. It's well hidden. Without knowing what to look for--" "I'll have to take my chances. Maybe I won't find it. Not by myself. But I think you'll give me all the information I need. Your life depends on it." "How?" "If I find the Moon Base in time, perhaps I can get them to send a ship back to pick you up. _If_ I find the Base in time. If not, then you haven't a chance. I imagine there are supplies on the ship. They will last me long enough--" Hendricks moved quickly. But his injured arm betrayed him. Tasso ducked, sliding lithely aside. Her hand came up, lightning fast. Hendricks saw the gun butt coming. He tried to ward off the blow, but she was too fast. The metal butt struck against the side of his head, just above his ear. Numbing pain rushed through him. Pain and rolling clouds of blackness. He sank down, sliding to the ground. * * * * * Dimly, he was aware that Tasso was standing over him, kicking him with her toe. "Major! Wake up." He opened his eyes, groaning. "Listen to me." She bent down, the gun pointed at his face. "I have to hurry. There isn't much time left. The ship is ready to go, but you must tell me the information I need before I leave." Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. "Hurry up! Where is the Moon Base? How do I find it? What do I look for?" Hendricks said nothing. "Answer me!" "Sorry." "Major, the ship is loaded with provisions. I can coast for weeks. I'll find the Base eventually. And in a half hour you'll be dead. Your only chance of survival--" She broke off. Along the slope, by some crumbling ruins, something moved. Something in the ash. Tasso turned quickly, aiming. She fired. A puff of flame leaped. Something scuttled away, rolling across the ash. She fired again. The claw burst apart, wheels flying. "See?" Tasso said. "A scout. It won't be long." "You'll bring them back here to get me?" "Yes. As soon as possible." Hendricks looked up at her. He studied her intently. "You're telling the truth?" A strange expression had come over his face, an avid hunger. "You will come back for me? You'll get me to the Moon Base?" "I'll get you to the Moon Base. But tell me where it is! There's only a little time left." "All right." Hendricks picked up a piece of rock, pulling himself to a sitting position. "Watch." Hendricks began to scratch in the ash. Tasso stood by him, watching the motion of the rock. Hendricks was sketching a crude lunar map. * * * * * "This is the Appenine range. Here is the Crater of Archimedes. The Moon Base is beyond the end of the Appenine, about two hundred miles. I don't know exactly where. No one on Terra knows. But when you're over the Appenine, signal with one red flare and a green flare, followed by two red flares in quick succession. The Base monitor will record your signal. The Base is under the surface, of course. They'll guide you down with magnetic grapples." "And the controls? Can I operate them?" "The controls are virtually automatic. All you have to do is give the right signal at the right time." "I will." "The seat absorbs most of the take-off shock. Air and temperature are automatically controlled. The ship will leave Terra and pass out into free space. It'll line itself up with the moon, falling into an orbit around it, about a hundred miles above the surface. The orbit will carry you over the Base. When you're in the region of the Appenine, release the signal rockets." Tasso slid into the ship and lowered herself into the pressure seat. The arm locks folded automatically around her. She fingered the controls. "Too bad you're not going, Major. All this put here for you, and you can't make the trip." "Leave me the pistol." Tasso pulled the pistol from her belt. She held it in her hand, weighing it thoughtfully. "Don't go too far from this location. It'll be hard to find you, as it is." "No. I'll stay here by the well." Tasso gripped the take-off switch, running her fingers over the smooth metal. "A beautiful ship, Major. Well built. I admire your workmanship. You people have always done good work. You build fine things. Your work, your creations, are your greatest achievement." "Give me the pistol," Hendricks said impatiently, holding out his hand. He struggled to his feet. "Good-bye, Major." Tasso tossed the pistol past Hendricks. The pistol clattered against the ground, bouncing and rolling away. Hendricks hurried after it. He bent down, snatching it up. The hatch of the ship clanged shut. The bolts fell into place. Hendricks made his way back. The inner door was being sealed. He raised the pistol unsteadily. * * * * * There was a shattering roar. The ship burst up from its metal cage, fusing the mesh behind it. Hendricks cringed, pulling back. The ship shot up into the rolling clouds of ash, disappearing into the sky. Hendricks stood watching a long time, until even the streamer had dissipated. Nothing stirred. The morning air was chill and silent. He began to walk aimlessly back the way they had come. Better to keep moving around. It would be a long time before help came--if it came at all. He searched his pockets until he found a package of cigarettes. He lit one grimly. They had all wanted cigarettes from him. But cigarettes were scarce. A lizard slithered by him, through the ash. He halted, rigid. The lizard disappeared. Above, the sun rose higher in the sky. Some flies landed on a flat rock to one side of him. Hendricks kicked at them with his foot. It was getting hot. Sweat trickled down his face, into his collar. His mouth was dry. Presently he stopped walking and sat down on some debris. He unfastened his medicine kit and swallowed a few narcotic capsules. He looked around him. Where was he? Something lay ahead. Stretched out on the ground. Silent and unmoving. Hendricks drew his gun quickly. It looked like a man. Then he remembered. It was the remains of Klaus. The Second Variety. Where Tasso had blasted him. He could see wheels and relays and metal parts, strewn around on the ash. Glittering and sparkling in the sunlight. Hendricks got to his feet and walked over. He nudged the inert form with his foot, turning it over a little. He

stop

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

yards ahead, was the entrance of the forward command bunker. The bunker from which he had come. Hendricks watched silently. No motion. No sign of life. Nothing stirred. Klaus slithered up beside him. "Where is it?" "Down there." Hendricks passed him the glasses. Clouds of ash rolled across the evening sky. The world was darkening. They had a couple of hours of light left, at the most. Probably not that much. "I don't see anything," Klaus said. "That tree there. The stump. By the pile of bricks. The entrance is to the right of the bricks." "I'll have to take your word for it." "You and Tasso cover me from here. You'll be able to sight all the way to the bunker entrance." "You're going down alone?" "With my wrist tab I'll be safe. The ground around the bunker is a living field of claws. They collect down in the ash. Like crabs. Without tabs you wouldn't have a chance." "Maybe you're right." "I'll walk slowly all the way. As soon as I know for certain--" "If they're down inside the bunker you won't be able to get back up here. They go fast. You don't realize." "What do you suggest?" Klaus considered. "I don't know. Get them to come up to the surface. So you can see." Hendricks brought his transmitter from his belt, raising the antenna. "Let's get started." * * * * * Klaus signalled to Tasso. She crawled expertly up the side of the rise to where they were sitting. "He's going down alone," Klaus said. "We'll cover him from here. As soon as you see him start back, fire past him at once. They come quick." "You're not very optimistic," Tasso said. "No, I'm not." Hendricks opened the breech of his gun, checking it carefully. "Maybe things are all right." "You didn't see them. Hundreds of them. All the same. Pouring out like ants." "I should be able to find out without going down all the way." Hendricks locked his gun, gripping it in one hand, the transmitter in the other. "Well, wish me luck." Klaus put out his hand. "Don't go down until you're sure. Talk to them from up here. Make them show themselves." * * * * * Hendricks stood up. He stepped down the side of the rise. A moment later he was walking slowly toward the pile of bricks and debris beside the dead tree stump. Toward the entrance of the forward command bunker. Nothing stirred. He raised the transmitter, clicking it on. "Scott? Can you hear me?" Silence. "Scott! This is Hendricks. Can you hear me? I'm standing outside the bunker. You should be able to see me in the view sight." He listened, the transmitter gripped tightly. No sound. Only static. He walked forward. A claw burrowed out of the ash and raced toward him. It halted a few feet away and then slunk off. A second claw appeared, one of the big ones with feelers. It moved toward him, studied him intently, and then fell in behind him, dogging respectfully after him, a few paces away. A moment later a second big claw joined it. Silently, the claws trailed him, as he walked slowly toward the bunker. Hendricks stopped, and behind him, the claws came to a halt. He was close, now. Almost to the bunker steps. "Scott! Can you hear me? I'm standing right above you. Outside. On the surface. Are you picking me up?" * * * * * He waited, holding his gun against his side, the transmitter tightly to his ear. Time passed. He strained to hear, but there was only silence. Silence, and faint static. Then, distantly, metallically-- "This is Scott." The voice was neutral. Cold. He could not identify it. But the earphone was minute. "Scott! Listen. I'm standing right above you. I'm on the surface, looking down into the bunker entrance." "Yes." "Can you see me?" "Yes." "Through the view sight? You have the sight trained on me?" "Yes." Hendricks pondered. A circle of claws waited quietly around him, gray-metal bodies on all sides of him. "Is everything all right in the bunker? Nothing unusual has happened?" "Everything is all right." "Will you come up to the surface? I want to see you for a moment." Hendricks took a deep breath. "Come up here with me. I want to talk to you." "Come down." "I'm giving you an order." Silence. "Are you coming?" Hendricks listened. There was no response. "I order you to come to the surface." "Come down." Hendricks set his jaw. "Let me talk to Leone." There was a long pause. He listened to the static. Then a voice came, hard, thin, metallic. The same as the other. "This is Leone." "Hendricks. I'm on the surface. At the bunker entrance. I want one of you to come up here." "Come down." "Why come down? I'm giving you an order!" Silence. Hendricks lowered the transmitter. He looked carefully around him. The entrance was just ahead. Almost at his feet. He lowered the antenna and fastened the transmitter to his belt. Carefully, he gripped his gun with both hands. He moved forward, a step at a time. If they could see him they knew he was starting toward the entrance. He closed his eyes a moment. Then he put his foot on the first step that led downward. Two Davids came up at him, their faces identical and expressionless. He blasted them into particles. More came rushing silently up, a whole pack of them. All exactly the same. Hendricks turned and raced back, away from the bunker, back toward the rise. At the top of the rise Tasso and Klaus were firing down. The small claws were already streaking up toward them, shining metal spheres going fast, racing frantically through the ash. But he had no time to think about that. He knelt down, aiming at the bunker entrance, gun against his cheek. The Davids were coming out in groups, clutching their teddy bears, their thin knobby legs pumping as they ran up the steps to the surface. Hendricks fired into the main body of them. They burst apart, wheels and springs flying in all directions. He fired again through the mist of particles. A giant lumbering figure rose up in the bunker entrance, tall and swaying. Hendricks paused, amazed. A man, a soldier. With one leg, supporting himself with a crutch. "Major!" Tasso's voice came. More firing. The huge figure moved forward, Davids swarming around it. Hendricks broke out of his freeze. The First Variety. The Wounded Soldier. He aimed and fired. The soldier burst into bits, parts and relays flying. Now many Davids were out on the flat ground, away from the bunker. He fired again and again, moving slowly back, half-crouching and aiming. From the rise, Klaus fired down. The side of the rise was alive with claws making their way up. Hendricks retreated toward the rise, running and crouching. Tasso had left Klaus and was circling slowly to the right, moving away from the rise. A David slipped up toward him, its small white face expressionless, brown hair hanging down in its eyes. It bent over suddenly, opening its arms. Its teddy bear hurtled down and leaped across the ground, bounding toward him. Hendricks fired. The bear and the David both dissolved. He grinned, blinking. It was like a dream. "Up here!" Tasso's voice. Hendricks made his way toward her. She was over by some columns of concrete, walls of a ruined building. She was firing past him, with the hand pistol Klaus had given her. "Thanks." He joined her, grasping for breath. She pulled him back, behind the concrete, fumbling at her belt. "Close your eyes!" She unfastened a globe from her waist. Rapidly, she unscrewed the cap, locking it into place. "Close your eyes and get down." * * * * * She threw the bomb. It sailed in an arc, an expert, rolling and bouncing to the entrance of the bunker. Two Wounded Soldiers stood uncertainly by the brick pile. More Davids poured from behind them, out onto the plain. One of the Wounded Soldiers moved toward the bomb, stooping awkwardly down to pick it up. The bomb went off. The concussion whirled Hendricks around, throwing him on his face. A hot wind rolled over him. Dimly he saw Tasso standing behind the columns, firing slowly and methodically at the Davids coming out of the raging clouds of white fire. Back along the rise Klaus struggled with a ring of claws circling around him. He retreated, blasting at them and moving back, trying to break through the ring. Hendricks struggled to his feet. His head ached. He could hardly see. Everything was licking at him, raging and whirling. His right arm would not move. Tasso pulled back toward him. "Come on. Let's go." "Klaus--He's still up there." "Come on!" Tasso dragged Hendricks back, away from the columns. Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. Tasso led him rapidly away, her eyes intense and bright, watching for claws that had escaped the blast. One David came out of the rolling clouds of flame. Tasso blasted it. No more appeared. "But Klaus. What about him?" Hendricks stopped, standing unsteadily. "He--" "Come on!" * * * * * They retreated, moving farther and farther away from the bunker. A few small claws followed them for a little while and then gave up, turning back and going off. At last Tasso stopped. "We can stop here and get our breaths." Hendricks sat down on some heaps of debris. He wiped his neck, gasping. "We left Klaus back there." Tasso said nothing. She opened her gun, sliding a fresh round of blast cartridges into place. Hendricks stared at her, dazed. "You left him back there on purpose." Tasso snapped the gun together. She studied the heaps of rubble around them, her face expressionless. As if she were watching for something. "What is it?" Hendricks demanded. "What are you looking for? Is something coming?" He shook his head, trying to understand. What was she doing? What was she waiting for? He could see nothing. Ash lay all around them, ash and ruins. Occasional stark tree trunks, without leaves or branches. "What--" Tasso cut him off. "Be still." Her eyes narrowed. Suddenly her gun came up. Hendricks turned, following her gaze. * * * * * Back the way they had come a figure appeared. The figure walked unsteadily toward them. Its clothes were torn. It limped as it made its way along, going very slowly and carefully. Stopping now and then, resting and getting its strength. Once it almost fell. It stood for a moment, trying to steady itself. Then it came on. Klaus. Hendricks stood up. "Klaus!" He started toward him. "How the hell did you--" Tasso fired. Hendricks swung back. She fired again, the blast passing him, a searing line of heat. The beam caught Klaus in the chest. He exploded, gears and wheels flying. For a moment he continued to walk. Then he swayed back and forth. He crashed to the ground, his arms flung out. A few more wheels rolled away. Silence. Tasso turned to Hendricks. "Now you understand why he killed Rudi." Hendricks sat down again slowly. He shook his head. He was numb. He could not think. "Do you see?" Tasso said. "Do you understand?" Hendricks said nothing. Everything was slipping away from him, faster and faster. Darkness, rolling and plucking at him. He closed his eyes. * * * * * Hendricks opened his eyes slowly. His body ached all over. He tried to sit up but needles of pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He gasped. "Don't try to get up," Tasso said. She bent down, putting her cold hand against his forehead. It was night. A few stars glinted above, shining through the drifting clouds of ash. Hendricks lay back, his teeth locked. Tasso watched him impassively. She had built a fire with some wood and weeds. The fire licked feebly, hissing at a metal cup suspended over it. Everything was silent. Unmoving darkness, beyond the fire. "So he was the Second Variety," Hendricks murmured. "I had always thought so." "Why didn't you destroy him sooner?" he wanted to know. "You held me back." Tasso crossed to the fire to look into the metal cup. "Coffee. It'll be ready to drink in awhile." She came back and sat down beside him. Presently she opened her pistol and began to disassemble the firing mechanism, studying it intently. "This is a beautiful gun," Tasso said, half-aloud. "The construction is superb." "What about them? The claws." "The concussion from the bomb put most of them out of action. They're delicate. Highly organized, I suppose." "The Davids, too?" "Yes." "How did you happen to have a bomb like that?" Tasso shrugged. "We designed it. You shouldn't underestimate our technology, Major. Without such a bomb you and I would no longer exist." "Very useful." Tasso stretched out her legs, warming her feet in the heat of the fire. "It surprised me that you did not seem to understand, after he killed Rudi. Why did you think he--" "I told you. I thought he was afraid." "Really? You know, Major, for a little while I suspected you. Because you wouldn't let me kill him. I thought you might be protecting him." She laughed. "Are we safe here?" Hendricks asked presently. "For awhile. Until they get reinforcements from some other area." Tasso began to clean the interior of the gun with a bit of rag. She finished and pushed the mechanism back into place. She closed the gun, running her finger along the barrel. "We were lucky," Hendricks murmured. "Yes. Very lucky." "Thanks for pulling me away." * * * * * Tasso did not answer. She glanced up at him, her eyes bright in the fire light. Hendricks examined his arm. He could not move his fingers. His whole side seemed numb. Down inside him was a dull steady ache. "How do you feel?" Tasso asked. "My arm is damaged." "Anything else?" "Internal injuries." "You didn't get down when the bomb went off." Hendricks said nothing. He watched Tasso pour the coffee from the cup into a flat metal pan. She brought it over to him. "Thanks." He struggled up enough to drink. It was hard to swallow. His insides turned over and he pushed the pan away. "That's all I can drink now." Tasso drank the rest. Time passed. The clouds of ash moved across the dark sky above them. Hendricks rested, his mind blank. After awhile he became aware that Tasso was standing over him, gazing down at him. "What is it?" he murmured. "Do you feel any better?" "Some." "You know, Major, if I hadn't dragged you away they would have got you. You would be dead. Like Rudi." "I know." "Do you want to know why I brought you out? I could have left you. I could have left you there." "Why did you bring me out?" "Because we have to get away from here." Tasso stirred the fire with a stick, peering calmly down into it. "No human being can live here. When their reinforcements come we won't have a chance. I've pondered about it while you were unconscious. We have perhaps three hours before they come." "And you expect me to get us away?" "That's right. I expect you to get us out of here." "Why me?" "Because I don't know any way." Her eyes shone at him in the half-light, bright and steady. "If you can't get us out of here they'll kill us within three hours. I see nothing else ahead. Well, Major? What are you going to do? I've been waiting all night. While you were unconscious I sat here, waiting and listening. It's almost dawn. The night is almost over." * * * * * Hendricks considered. "It's curious," he said at last. "Curious?" "That you should think I can get us out of here. I wonder what you think I can do." "Can you get us to the Moon Base?" "The Moon Base? How?" "There must be some way." Hendricks shook his head. "No. There's no way that I know of." Tasso said nothing. For a moment her steady gaze wavered. She ducked her head, turning abruptly away. She scrambled to her feet. "More coffee?" "No." "Suit yourself." Tasso drank silently. He could not see her face. He lay back against the ground, deep in thought, trying to concentrate. It was hard to think. His head still hurt. And the numbing daze still hung over him. "There might be one way," he said suddenly. "Oh?" "How soon is dawn?" "Two hours. The sun will be coming up shortly." "There's supposed to be a ship near here. I've never seen it. But I know it exists." "What kind of a ship?" Her voice was sharp. "A rocket cruiser." "Will it take us off? To the Moon Base?" "It's supposed to. In case of emergency." He rubbed his forehead. "What's wrong?" "My head. It's hard to think. I can hardly--hardly concentrate. The bomb." "Is the ship near here?" Tasso slid over beside him, settling down on her haunches. "How far is it? Where is it?" "I'm trying to think." Her fingers dug into his arm. "Nearby?" Her voice was like iron. "Where would it be? Would they store it underground? Hidden underground?" "Yes. In a storage locker." "How do we find it? Is it marked? Is there a code marker to identify it?" Hendricks concentrated. "No. No markings. No code symbol." "What, then?" "A sign." "What sort of sign?" * * * * * Hendricks did not answer. In the flickering light his eyes were glazed, two sightless orbs. Tasso's fingers dug into his arm. "What sort of sign? What is it?" "I--I can't think. Let me rest." "All right." She let go and stood up. Hendricks lay back against the ground, his eyes closed. Tasso walked away from him, her hands in her pockets. She kicked a rock out of her way and stood staring up at the sky. The night blackness was already beginning to fade into gray. Morning was coming. Tasso gripped her pistol and walked around the fire in a circle, back and forth. On the ground Major Hendricks lay, his eyes closed, unmoving. The grayness rose in the sky, higher and higher. The landscape became visible, fields of ash stretching out in all directions. Ash and ruins of buildings, a wall here and there, heaps of concrete, the naked trunk of a tree. The air was cold and sharp. Somewhere a long way off a bird made a few bleak sounds. Hendricks stirred. He opened his eyes. "Is it dawn? Already?" "Yes." Hendricks sat up a little. "You wanted to know something. You were asking me." "Do you remember now?" "Yes." "What is it?" She tensed. "What?" she repeated sharply. "A well. A ruined well. It's in a storage locker under a well." "A well." Tasso relaxed. "Then we'll find a well." She looked at her watch. "We have about an hour, Major. Do you think we can find it in an hour?" * * * * * "Give me a hand up," Hendricks said. Tasso put her pistol away and helped him to his feet. "This is going to be difficult." "Yes it is." Hendricks set his lips tightly. "I don't think we're going to go very far." They began to walk. The early sun cast a little warmth down on them. The land was flat and barren, stretching out gray and lifeless as far as they could see. A few birds sailed silently, far above them, circling slowly. "See anything?" Hendricks said. "Any claws?" "No. Not yet." They passed through some ruins, upright concrete and bricks. A cement foundation. Rats scuttled away. Tasso jumped back warily. "This used to be a town," Hendricks said. "A village. Provincial village. This was all grape country, once. Where we are now." They came onto a ruined street, weeds and cracks criss-crossing it. Over to the right a stone chimney stuck up. "Be careful," he warned her. A pit yawned, an open basement. Ragged ends of pipes jutted up, twisted and bent. They passed part of a house, a bathtub turned on its side. A broken chair. A few spoons and bits of china dishes. In the center of the street the ground had sunk away. The depression was filled with weeds and debris and bones. "Over here," Hendricks murmured. "This way?" "To the right." They passed the remains of a heavy duty tank. Hendricks' belt counter clicked ominously. The tank had been radiation blasted. A few feet from the tank a mummified body lay sprawled out, mouth open. Beyond the road was a flat field. Stones and weeds, and bits of broken glass. "There," Hendricks said. * * * * * A stone well jutted up, sagging and broken. A few boards lay across it. Most of the well had sunk into rubble. Hendricks walked unsteadily toward it, Tasso beside him. "Are you certain about this?" Tasso said. "This doesn't look like anything." "I'm sure." Hendricks sat down at the edge of the well, his teeth locked. His breath came quickly. He wiped perspiration from his face. "This was arranged so the senior command officer could get away. If anything happened. If the bunker fell." "That was you?" "Yes." "Where is the ship? Is it here?" "We're standing on it." Hendricks ran his hands over the surface of the well stones. "The eye-lock responds to me, not to anybody else. It's my ship. Or it was supposed to be." There was a sharp click. Presently they heard a low grating sound from below them. "Step back," Hendricks said. He and Tasso moved away from the well. A section of the ground slid back. A metal frame pushed slowly up through the ash, shoving bricks and weeds out of the way. The action ceased, as the ship nosed into view. "There it is," Hendricks said. The ship was small. It rested quietly, suspended in its mesh frame, like a blunt needle. A rain of ash sifted down into the dark cavity from which the ship had been raised. Hendricks made his way over to it. He mounted the mesh and unscrewed the hatch, pulling it back. Inside the ship the control banks and the pressure seat were visible. * * * * * Tasso came and stood beside him, gazing into the ship. "I'm not accustomed to rocket piloting," she said, after awhile. Hendricks glanced at her. "I'll do the piloting." "Will you? There's only one seat, Major. I can see it's built to carry only a single person." Hendricks' breathing changed. He studied the interior of the ship intently. Tasso was right. There was only one seat. The ship was built to carry only one person. "I see," he said slowly. "And the one person is you." She nodded. "Of course." "Why?" "_You_ can't go. You might not live through the trip. You're injured. You probably wouldn't get there." "An interesting point. But you see, I know where the Moon Base is. And you don't. You might fly around for months and not find it. It's well hidden. Without knowing what to look for--" "I'll have to take my chances. Maybe I won't find it. Not by myself. But I think you'll give me all the information I need. Your life depends on it." "How?" "If I find the Moon Base in time, perhaps I can get them to send a ship back to pick you up. _If_ I find the Base in time. If not, then you haven't a chance. I imagine there are supplies on the ship. They will last me long enough--" Hendricks moved quickly. But his injured arm betrayed him. Tasso ducked, sliding lithely aside. Her hand came up, lightning fast. Hendricks saw the gun butt coming. He tried to ward off the blow, but she was too fast. The metal butt struck against the side of his head, just above his ear. Numbing pain rushed through him. Pain and rolling clouds of blackness. He sank down, sliding to the ground. * * * * * Dimly, he was aware that Tasso was standing over him, kicking him with her toe. "Major! Wake up." He opened his eyes, groaning. "Listen to me." She bent down, the gun pointed at his face. "I have to hurry. There isn't much time left. The ship is ready to go, but you must tell me the information I need before I leave." Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. "Hurry up! Where is the Moon Base? How do I find it? What do I look for?" Hendricks said nothing. "Answer me!" "Sorry." "Major, the ship is loaded with provisions. I can coast for weeks. I'll find the Base eventually. And in a half hour you'll be dead. Your only chance of survival--" She broke off. Along the slope, by some crumbling ruins, something moved. Something in the ash. Tasso turned quickly, aiming. She fired. A puff of flame leaped. Something scuttled away, rolling across the ash. She fired again. The claw burst apart, wheels flying. "See?" Tasso said. "A scout. It won't be long." "You'll bring them back here to get me?" "Yes. As soon as possible." Hendricks looked up at her. He studied her intently. "You're telling the truth?" A strange expression had come over his face, an avid hunger. "You will come back for me? You'll get me to the Moon Base?" "I'll get you to the Moon Base. But tell me where it is! There's only a little time left." "All right." Hendricks picked up a piece of rock, pulling himself to a sitting position. "Watch." Hendricks began to scratch in the ash. Tasso stood by him, watching the motion of the rock. Hendricks was sketching a crude lunar map. * * * * * "This is the Appenine range. Here is the Crater of Archimedes. The Moon Base is beyond the end of the Appenine, about two hundred miles. I don't know exactly where. No one on Terra knows. But when you're over the Appenine, signal with one red flare and a green flare, followed by two red flares in quick succession. The Base monitor will record your signal. The Base is under the surface, of course. They'll guide you down with magnetic grapples." "And the controls? Can I operate them?" "The controls are virtually automatic. All you have to do is give the right signal at the right time." "I will." "The seat absorbs most of the take-off shock. Air and temperature are automatically controlled. The ship will leave Terra and pass out into free space. It'll line itself up with the moon, falling into an orbit around it, about a hundred miles above the surface. The orbit will carry you over the Base. When you're in the region of the Appenine, release the signal rockets." Tasso slid into the ship and lowered herself into the pressure seat. The arm locks folded automatically around her. She fingered the controls. "Too bad you're not going, Major. All this put here for you, and you can't make the trip." "Leave me the pistol." Tasso pulled the pistol from her belt. She held it in her hand, weighing it thoughtfully. "Don't go too far from this location. It'll be hard to find you, as it is." "No. I'll stay here by the well." Tasso gripped the take-off switch, running her fingers over the smooth metal. "A beautiful ship, Major. Well built. I admire your workmanship. You people have always done good work. You build fine things. Your work, your creations, are your greatest achievement." "Give me the pistol," Hendricks said impatiently, holding out his hand. He struggled to his feet. "Good-bye, Major." Tasso tossed the pistol past Hendricks. The pistol clattered against the ground, bouncing and rolling away. Hendricks hurried after it. He bent down, snatching it up. The hatch of the ship clanged shut. The bolts fell into place. Hendricks made his way back. The inner door was being sealed. He raised the pistol unsteadily. * * * * * There was a shattering roar. The ship burst up from its metal cage, fusing the mesh behind it. Hendricks cringed, pulling back. The ship shot up into the rolling clouds of ash, disappearing into the sky. Hendricks stood watching a long time, until even the streamer had dissipated. Nothing stirred. The morning air was chill and silent. He began to walk aimlessly back the way they had come. Better to keep moving around. It would be a long time before help came--if it came at all. He searched his pockets until he found a package of cigarettes. He lit one grimly. They had all wanted cigarettes from him. But cigarettes were scarce. A lizard slithered by him, through the ash. He halted, rigid. The lizard disappeared. Above, the sun rose higher in the sky. Some flies landed on a flat rock to one side of him. Hendricks kicked at them with his foot. It was getting hot. Sweat trickled down his face, into his collar. His mouth was dry. Presently he stopped walking and sat down on some debris. He unfastened his medicine kit and swallowed a few narcotic capsules. He looked around him. Where was he? Something lay ahead. Stretched out on the ground. Silent and unmoving. Hendricks drew his gun quickly. It looked like a man. Then he remembered. It was the remains of Klaus. The Second Variety. Where Tasso had blasted him. He could see wheels and relays and metal parts, strewn around on the ash. Glittering and sparkling in the sunlight. Hendricks got to his feet and walked over. He nudged the inert form with his foot, turning it over a little. He

teddy

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

yards ahead, was the entrance of the forward command bunker. The bunker from which he had come. Hendricks watched silently. No motion. No sign of life. Nothing stirred. Klaus slithered up beside him. "Where is it?" "Down there." Hendricks passed him the glasses. Clouds of ash rolled across the evening sky. The world was darkening. They had a couple of hours of light left, at the most. Probably not that much. "I don't see anything," Klaus said. "That tree there. The stump. By the pile of bricks. The entrance is to the right of the bricks." "I'll have to take your word for it." "You and Tasso cover me from here. You'll be able to sight all the way to the bunker entrance." "You're going down alone?" "With my wrist tab I'll be safe. The ground around the bunker is a living field of claws. They collect down in the ash. Like crabs. Without tabs you wouldn't have a chance." "Maybe you're right." "I'll walk slowly all the way. As soon as I know for certain--" "If they're down inside the bunker you won't be able to get back up here. They go fast. You don't realize." "What do you suggest?" Klaus considered. "I don't know. Get them to come up to the surface. So you can see." Hendricks brought his transmitter from his belt, raising the antenna. "Let's get started." * * * * * Klaus signalled to Tasso. She crawled expertly up the side of the rise to where they were sitting. "He's going down alone," Klaus said. "We'll cover him from here. As soon as you see him start back, fire past him at once. They come quick." "You're not very optimistic," Tasso said. "No, I'm not." Hendricks opened the breech of his gun, checking it carefully. "Maybe things are all right." "You didn't see them. Hundreds of them. All the same. Pouring out like ants." "I should be able to find out without going down all the way." Hendricks locked his gun, gripping it in one hand, the transmitter in the other. "Well, wish me luck." Klaus put out his hand. "Don't go down until you're sure. Talk to them from up here. Make them show themselves." * * * * * Hendricks stood up. He stepped down the side of the rise. A moment later he was walking slowly toward the pile of bricks and debris beside the dead tree stump. Toward the entrance of the forward command bunker. Nothing stirred. He raised the transmitter, clicking it on. "Scott? Can you hear me?" Silence. "Scott! This is Hendricks. Can you hear me? I'm standing outside the bunker. You should be able to see me in the view sight." He listened, the transmitter gripped tightly. No sound. Only static. He walked forward. A claw burrowed out of the ash and raced toward him. It halted a few feet away and then slunk off. A second claw appeared, one of the big ones with feelers. It moved toward him, studied him intently, and then fell in behind him, dogging respectfully after him, a few paces away. A moment later a second big claw joined it. Silently, the claws trailed him, as he walked slowly toward the bunker. Hendricks stopped, and behind him, the claws came to a halt. He was close, now. Almost to the bunker steps. "Scott! Can you hear me? I'm standing right above you. Outside. On the surface. Are you picking me up?" * * * * * He waited, holding his gun against his side, the transmitter tightly to his ear. Time passed. He strained to hear, but there was only silence. Silence, and faint static. Then, distantly, metallically-- "This is Scott." The voice was neutral. Cold. He could not identify it. But the earphone was minute. "Scott! Listen. I'm standing right above you. I'm on the surface, looking down into the bunker entrance." "Yes." "Can you see me?" "Yes." "Through the view sight? You have the sight trained on me?" "Yes." Hendricks pondered. A circle of claws waited quietly around him, gray-metal bodies on all sides of him. "Is everything all right in the bunker? Nothing unusual has happened?" "Everything is all right." "Will you come up to the surface? I want to see you for a moment." Hendricks took a deep breath. "Come up here with me. I want to talk to you." "Come down." "I'm giving you an order." Silence. "Are you coming?" Hendricks listened. There was no response. "I order you to come to the surface." "Come down." Hendricks set his jaw. "Let me talk to Leone." There was a long pause. He listened to the static. Then a voice came, hard, thin, metallic. The same as the other. "This is Leone." "Hendricks. I'm on the surface. At the bunker entrance. I want one of you to come up here." "Come down." "Why come down? I'm giving you an order!" Silence. Hendricks lowered the transmitter. He looked carefully around him. The entrance was just ahead. Almost at his feet. He lowered the antenna and fastened the transmitter to his belt. Carefully, he gripped his gun with both hands. He moved forward, a step at a time. If they could see him they knew he was starting toward the entrance. He closed his eyes a moment. Then he put his foot on the first step that led downward. Two Davids came up at him, their faces identical and expressionless. He blasted them into particles. More came rushing silently up, a whole pack of them. All exactly the same. Hendricks turned and raced back, away from the bunker, back toward the rise. At the top of the rise Tasso and Klaus were firing down. The small claws were already streaking up toward them, shining metal spheres going fast, racing frantically through the ash. But he had no time to think about that. He knelt down, aiming at the bunker entrance, gun against his cheek. The Davids were coming out in groups, clutching their teddy bears, their thin knobby legs pumping as they ran up the steps to the surface. Hendricks fired into the main body of them. They burst apart, wheels and springs flying in all directions. He fired again through the mist of particles. A giant lumbering figure rose up in the bunker entrance, tall and swaying. Hendricks paused, amazed. A man, a soldier. With one leg, supporting himself with a crutch. "Major!" Tasso's voice came. More firing. The huge figure moved forward, Davids swarming around it. Hendricks broke out of his freeze. The First Variety. The Wounded Soldier. He aimed and fired. The soldier burst into bits, parts and relays flying. Now many Davids were out on the flat ground, away from the bunker. He fired again and again, moving slowly back, half-crouching and aiming. From the rise, Klaus fired down. The side of the rise was alive with claws making their way up. Hendricks retreated toward the rise, running and crouching. Tasso had left Klaus and was circling slowly to the right, moving away from the rise. A David slipped up toward him, its small white face expressionless, brown hair hanging down in its eyes. It bent over suddenly, opening its arms. Its teddy bear hurtled down and leaped across the ground, bounding toward him. Hendricks fired. The bear and the David both dissolved. He grinned, blinking. It was like a dream. "Up here!" Tasso's voice. Hendricks made his way toward her. She was over by some columns of concrete, walls of a ruined building. She was firing past him, with the hand pistol Klaus had given her. "Thanks." He joined her, grasping for breath. She pulled him back, behind the concrete, fumbling at her belt. "Close your eyes!" She unfastened a globe from her waist. Rapidly, she unscrewed the cap, locking it into place. "Close your eyes and get down." * * * * * She threw the bomb. It sailed in an arc, an expert, rolling and bouncing to the entrance of the bunker. Two Wounded Soldiers stood uncertainly by the brick pile. More Davids poured from behind them, out onto the plain. One of the Wounded Soldiers moved toward the bomb, stooping awkwardly down to pick it up. The bomb went off. The concussion whirled Hendricks around, throwing him on his face. A hot wind rolled over him. Dimly he saw Tasso standing behind the columns, firing slowly and methodically at the Davids coming out of the raging clouds of white fire. Back along the rise Klaus struggled with a ring of claws circling around him. He retreated, blasting at them and moving back, trying to break through the ring. Hendricks struggled to his feet. His head ached. He could hardly see. Everything was licking at him, raging and whirling. His right arm would not move. Tasso pulled back toward him. "Come on. Let's go." "Klaus--He's still up there." "Come on!" Tasso dragged Hendricks back, away from the columns. Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. Tasso led him rapidly away, her eyes intense and bright, watching for claws that had escaped the blast. One David came out of the rolling clouds of flame. Tasso blasted it. No more appeared. "But Klaus. What about him?" Hendricks stopped, standing unsteadily. "He--" "Come on!" * * * * * They retreated, moving farther and farther away from the bunker. A few small claws followed them for a little while and then gave up, turning back and going off. At last Tasso stopped. "We can stop here and get our breaths." Hendricks sat down on some heaps of debris. He wiped his neck, gasping. "We left Klaus back there." Tasso said nothing. She opened her gun, sliding a fresh round of blast cartridges into place. Hendricks stared at her, dazed. "You left him back there on purpose." Tasso snapped the gun together. She studied the heaps of rubble around them, her face expressionless. As if she were watching for something. "What is it?" Hendricks demanded. "What are you looking for? Is something coming?" He shook his head, trying to understand. What was she doing? What was she waiting for? He could see nothing. Ash lay all around them, ash and ruins. Occasional stark tree trunks, without leaves or branches. "What--" Tasso cut him off. "Be still." Her eyes narrowed. Suddenly her gun came up. Hendricks turned, following her gaze. * * * * * Back the way they had come a figure appeared. The figure walked unsteadily toward them. Its clothes were torn. It limped as it made its way along, going very slowly and carefully. Stopping now and then, resting and getting its strength. Once it almost fell. It stood for a moment, trying to steady itself. Then it came on. Klaus. Hendricks stood up. "Klaus!" He started toward him. "How the hell did you--" Tasso fired. Hendricks swung back. She fired again, the blast passing him, a searing line of heat. The beam caught Klaus in the chest. He exploded, gears and wheels flying. For a moment he continued to walk. Then he swayed back and forth. He crashed to the ground, his arms flung out. A few more wheels rolled away. Silence. Tasso turned to Hendricks. "Now you understand why he killed Rudi." Hendricks sat down again slowly. He shook his head. He was numb. He could not think. "Do you see?" Tasso said. "Do you understand?" Hendricks said nothing. Everything was slipping away from him, faster and faster. Darkness, rolling and plucking at him. He closed his eyes. * * * * * Hendricks opened his eyes slowly. His body ached all over. He tried to sit up but needles of pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He gasped. "Don't try to get up," Tasso said. She bent down, putting her cold hand against his forehead. It was night. A few stars glinted above, shining through the drifting clouds of ash. Hendricks lay back, his teeth locked. Tasso watched him impassively. She had built a fire with some wood and weeds. The fire licked feebly, hissing at a metal cup suspended over it. Everything was silent. Unmoving darkness, beyond the fire. "So he was the Second Variety," Hendricks murmured. "I had always thought so." "Why didn't you destroy him sooner?" he wanted to know. "You held me back." Tasso crossed to the fire to look into the metal cup. "Coffee. It'll be ready to drink in awhile." She came back and sat down beside him. Presently she opened her pistol and began to disassemble the firing mechanism, studying it intently. "This is a beautiful gun," Tasso said, half-aloud. "The construction is superb." "What about them? The claws." "The concussion from the bomb put most of them out of action. They're delicate. Highly organized, I suppose." "The Davids, too?" "Yes." "How did you happen to have a bomb like that?" Tasso shrugged. "We designed it. You shouldn't underestimate our technology, Major. Without such a bomb you and I would no longer exist." "Very useful." Tasso stretched out her legs, warming her feet in the heat of the fire. "It surprised me that you did not seem to understand, after he killed Rudi. Why did you think he--" "I told you. I thought he was afraid." "Really? You know, Major, for a little while I suspected you. Because you wouldn't let me kill him. I thought you might be protecting him." She laughed. "Are we safe here?" Hendricks asked presently. "For awhile. Until they get reinforcements from some other area." Tasso began to clean the interior of the gun with a bit of rag. She finished and pushed the mechanism back into place. She closed the gun, running her finger along the barrel. "We were lucky," Hendricks murmured. "Yes. Very lucky." "Thanks for pulling me away." * * * * * Tasso did not answer. She glanced up at him, her eyes bright in the fire light. Hendricks examined his arm. He could not move his fingers. His whole side seemed numb. Down inside him was a dull steady ache. "How do you feel?" Tasso asked. "My arm is damaged." "Anything else?" "Internal injuries." "You didn't get down when the bomb went off." Hendricks said nothing. He watched Tasso pour the coffee from the cup into a flat metal pan. She brought it over to him. "Thanks." He struggled up enough to drink. It was hard to swallow. His insides turned over and he pushed the pan away. "That's all I can drink now." Tasso drank the rest. Time passed. The clouds of ash moved across the dark sky above them. Hendricks rested, his mind blank. After awhile he became aware that Tasso was standing over him, gazing down at him. "What is it?" he murmured. "Do you feel any better?" "Some." "You know, Major, if I hadn't dragged you away they would have got you. You would be dead. Like Rudi." "I know." "Do you want to know why I brought you out? I could have left you. I could have left you there." "Why did you bring me out?" "Because we have to get away from here." Tasso stirred the fire with a stick, peering calmly down into it. "No human being can live here. When their reinforcements come we won't have a chance. I've pondered about it while you were unconscious. We have perhaps three hours before they come." "And you expect me to get us away?" "That's right. I expect you to get us out of here." "Why me?" "Because I don't know any way." Her eyes shone at him in the half-light, bright and steady. "If you can't get us out of here they'll kill us within three hours. I see nothing else ahead. Well, Major? What are you going to do? I've been waiting all night. While you were unconscious I sat here, waiting and listening. It's almost dawn. The night is almost over." * * * * * Hendricks considered. "It's curious," he said at last. "Curious?" "That you should think I can get us out of here. I wonder what you think I can do." "Can you get us to the Moon Base?" "The Moon Base? How?" "There must be some way." Hendricks shook his head. "No. There's no way that I know of." Tasso said nothing. For a moment her steady gaze wavered. She ducked her head, turning abruptly away. She scrambled to her feet. "More coffee?" "No." "Suit yourself." Tasso drank silently. He could not see her face. He lay back against the ground, deep in thought, trying to concentrate. It was hard to think. His head still hurt. And the numbing daze still hung over him. "There might be one way," he said suddenly. "Oh?" "How soon is dawn?" "Two hours. The sun will be coming up shortly." "There's supposed to be a ship near here. I've never seen it. But I know it exists." "What kind of a ship?" Her voice was sharp. "A rocket cruiser." "Will it take us off? To the Moon Base?" "It's supposed to. In case of emergency." He rubbed his forehead. "What's wrong?" "My head. It's hard to think. I can hardly--hardly concentrate. The bomb." "Is the ship near here?" Tasso slid over beside him, settling down on her haunches. "How far is it? Where is it?" "I'm trying to think." Her fingers dug into his arm. "Nearby?" Her voice was like iron. "Where would it be? Would they store it underground? Hidden underground?" "Yes. In a storage locker." "How do we find it? Is it marked? Is there a code marker to identify it?" Hendricks concentrated. "No. No markings. No code symbol." "What, then?" "A sign." "What sort of sign?" * * * * * Hendricks did not answer. In the flickering light his eyes were glazed, two sightless orbs. Tasso's fingers dug into his arm. "What sort of sign? What is it?" "I--I can't think. Let me rest." "All right." She let go and stood up. Hendricks lay back against the ground, his eyes closed. Tasso walked away from him, her hands in her pockets. She kicked a rock out of her way and stood staring up at the sky. The night blackness was already beginning to fade into gray. Morning was coming. Tasso gripped her pistol and walked around the fire in a circle, back and forth. On the ground Major Hendricks lay, his eyes closed, unmoving. The grayness rose in the sky, higher and higher. The landscape became visible, fields of ash stretching out in all directions. Ash and ruins of buildings, a wall here and there, heaps of concrete, the naked trunk of a tree. The air was cold and sharp. Somewhere a long way off a bird made a few bleak sounds. Hendricks stirred. He opened his eyes. "Is it dawn? Already?" "Yes." Hendricks sat up a little. "You wanted to know something. You were asking me." "Do you remember now?" "Yes." "What is it?" She tensed. "What?" she repeated sharply. "A well. A ruined well. It's in a storage locker under a well." "A well." Tasso relaxed. "Then we'll find a well." She looked at her watch. "We have about an hour, Major. Do you think we can find it in an hour?" * * * * * "Give me a hand up," Hendricks said. Tasso put her pistol away and helped him to his feet. "This is going to be difficult." "Yes it is." Hendricks set his lips tightly. "I don't think we're going to go very far." They began to walk. The early sun cast a little warmth down on them. The land was flat and barren, stretching out gray and lifeless as far as they could see. A few birds sailed silently, far above them, circling slowly. "See anything?" Hendricks said. "Any claws?" "No. Not yet." They passed through some ruins, upright concrete and bricks. A cement foundation. Rats scuttled away. Tasso jumped back warily. "This used to be a town," Hendricks said. "A village. Provincial village. This was all grape country, once. Where we are now." They came onto a ruined street, weeds and cracks criss-crossing it. Over to the right a stone chimney stuck up. "Be careful," he warned her. A pit yawned, an open basement. Ragged ends of pipes jutted up, twisted and bent. They passed part of a house, a bathtub turned on its side. A broken chair. A few spoons and bits of china dishes. In the center of the street the ground had sunk away. The depression was filled with weeds and debris and bones. "Over here," Hendricks murmured. "This way?" "To the right." They passed the remains of a heavy duty tank. Hendricks' belt counter clicked ominously. The tank had been radiation blasted. A few feet from the tank a mummified body lay sprawled out, mouth open. Beyond the road was a flat field. Stones and weeds, and bits of broken glass. "There," Hendricks said. * * * * * A stone well jutted up, sagging and broken. A few boards lay across it. Most of the well had sunk into rubble. Hendricks walked unsteadily toward it, Tasso beside him. "Are you certain about this?" Tasso said. "This doesn't look like anything." "I'm sure." Hendricks sat down at the edge of the well, his teeth locked. His breath came quickly. He wiped perspiration from his face. "This was arranged so the senior command officer could get away. If anything happened. If the bunker fell." "That was you?" "Yes." "Where is the ship? Is it here?" "We're standing on it." Hendricks ran his hands over the surface of the well stones. "The eye-lock responds to me, not to anybody else. It's my ship. Or it was supposed to be." There was a sharp click. Presently they heard a low grating sound from below them. "Step back," Hendricks said. He and Tasso moved away from the well. A section of the ground slid back. A metal frame pushed slowly up through the ash, shoving bricks and weeds out of the way. The action ceased, as the ship nosed into view. "There it is," Hendricks said. The ship was small. It rested quietly, suspended in its mesh frame, like a blunt needle. A rain of ash sifted down into the dark cavity from which the ship had been raised. Hendricks made his way over to it. He mounted the mesh and unscrewed the hatch, pulling it back. Inside the ship the control banks and the pressure seat were visible. * * * * * Tasso came and stood beside him, gazing into the ship. "I'm not accustomed to rocket piloting," she said, after awhile. Hendricks glanced at her. "I'll do the piloting." "Will you? There's only one seat, Major. I can see it's built to carry only a single person." Hendricks' breathing changed. He studied the interior of the ship intently. Tasso was right. There was only one seat. The ship was built to carry only one person. "I see," he said slowly. "And the one person is you." She nodded. "Of course." "Why?" "_You_ can't go. You might not live through the trip. You're injured. You probably wouldn't get there." "An interesting point. But you see, I know where the Moon Base is. And you don't. You might fly around for months and not find it. It's well hidden. Without knowing what to look for--" "I'll have to take my chances. Maybe I won't find it. Not by myself. But I think you'll give me all the information I need. Your life depends on it." "How?" "If I find the Moon Base in time, perhaps I can get them to send a ship back to pick you up. _If_ I find the Base in time. If not, then you haven't a chance. I imagine there are supplies on the ship. They will last me long enough--" Hendricks moved quickly. But his injured arm betrayed him. Tasso ducked, sliding lithely aside. Her hand came up, lightning fast. Hendricks saw the gun butt coming. He tried to ward off the blow, but she was too fast. The metal butt struck against the side of his head, just above his ear. Numbing pain rushed through him. Pain and rolling clouds of blackness. He sank down, sliding to the ground. * * * * * Dimly, he was aware that Tasso was standing over him, kicking him with her toe. "Major! Wake up." He opened his eyes, groaning. "Listen to me." She bent down, the gun pointed at his face. "I have to hurry. There isn't much time left. The ship is ready to go, but you must tell me the information I need before I leave." Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. "Hurry up! Where is the Moon Base? How do I find it? What do I look for?" Hendricks said nothing. "Answer me!" "Sorry." "Major, the ship is loaded with provisions. I can coast for weeks. I'll find the Base eventually. And in a half hour you'll be dead. Your only chance of survival--" She broke off. Along the slope, by some crumbling ruins, something moved. Something in the ash. Tasso turned quickly, aiming. She fired. A puff of flame leaped. Something scuttled away, rolling across the ash. She fired again. The claw burst apart, wheels flying. "See?" Tasso said. "A scout. It won't be long." "You'll bring them back here to get me?" "Yes. As soon as possible." Hendricks looked up at her. He studied her intently. "You're telling the truth?" A strange expression had come over his face, an avid hunger. "You will come back for me? You'll get me to the Moon Base?" "I'll get you to the Moon Base. But tell me where it is! There's only a little time left." "All right." Hendricks picked up a piece of rock, pulling himself to a sitting position. "Watch." Hendricks began to scratch in the ash. Tasso stood by him, watching the motion of the rock. Hendricks was sketching a crude lunar map. * * * * * "This is the Appenine range. Here is the Crater of Archimedes. The Moon Base is beyond the end of the Appenine, about two hundred miles. I don't know exactly where. No one on Terra knows. But when you're over the Appenine, signal with one red flare and a green flare, followed by two red flares in quick succession. The Base monitor will record your signal. The Base is under the surface, of course. They'll guide you down with magnetic grapples." "And the controls? Can I operate them?" "The controls are virtually automatic. All you have to do is give the right signal at the right time." "I will." "The seat absorbs most of the take-off shock. Air and temperature are automatically controlled. The ship will leave Terra and pass out into free space. It'll line itself up with the moon, falling into an orbit around it, about a hundred miles above the surface. The orbit will carry you over the Base. When you're in the region of the Appenine, release the signal rockets." Tasso slid into the ship and lowered herself into the pressure seat. The arm locks folded automatically around her. She fingered the controls. "Too bad you're not going, Major. All this put here for you, and you can't make the trip." "Leave me the pistol." Tasso pulled the pistol from her belt. She held it in her hand, weighing it thoughtfully. "Don't go too far from this location. It'll be hard to find you, as it is." "No. I'll stay here by the well." Tasso gripped the take-off switch, running her fingers over the smooth metal. "A beautiful ship, Major. Well built. I admire your workmanship. You people have always done good work. You build fine things. Your work, your creations, are your greatest achievement." "Give me the pistol," Hendricks said impatiently, holding out his hand. He struggled to his feet. "Good-bye, Major." Tasso tossed the pistol past Hendricks. The pistol clattered against the ground, bouncing and rolling away. Hendricks hurried after it. He bent down, snatching it up. The hatch of the ship clanged shut. The bolts fell into place. Hendricks made his way back. The inner door was being sealed. He raised the pistol unsteadily. * * * * * There was a shattering roar. The ship burst up from its metal cage, fusing the mesh behind it. Hendricks cringed, pulling back. The ship shot up into the rolling clouds of ash, disappearing into the sky. Hendricks stood watching a long time, until even the streamer had dissipated. Nothing stirred. The morning air was chill and silent. He began to walk aimlessly back the way they had come. Better to keep moving around. It would be a long time before help came--if it came at all. He searched his pockets until he found a package of cigarettes. He lit one grimly. They had all wanted cigarettes from him. But cigarettes were scarce. A lizard slithered by him, through the ash. He halted, rigid. The lizard disappeared. Above, the sun rose higher in the sky. Some flies landed on a flat rock to one side of him. Hendricks kicked at them with his foot. It was getting hot. Sweat trickled down his face, into his collar. His mouth was dry. Presently he stopped walking and sat down on some debris. He unfastened his medicine kit and swallowed a few narcotic capsules. He looked around him. Where was he? Something lay ahead. Stretched out on the ground. Silent and unmoving. Hendricks drew his gun quickly. It looked like a man. Then he remembered. It was the remains of Klaus. The Second Variety. Where Tasso had blasted him. He could see wheels and relays and metal parts, strewn around on the ash. Glittering and sparkling in the sunlight. Hendricks got to his feet and walked over. He nudged the inert form with his foot, turning it over a little. He

shoulder

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

yards ahead, was the entrance of the forward command bunker. The bunker from which he had come. Hendricks watched silently. No motion. No sign of life. Nothing stirred. Klaus slithered up beside him. "Where is it?" "Down there." Hendricks passed him the glasses. Clouds of ash rolled across the evening sky. The world was darkening. They had a couple of hours of light left, at the most. Probably not that much. "I don't see anything," Klaus said. "That tree there. The stump. By the pile of bricks. The entrance is to the right of the bricks." "I'll have to take your word for it." "You and Tasso cover me from here. You'll be able to sight all the way to the bunker entrance." "You're going down alone?" "With my wrist tab I'll be safe. The ground around the bunker is a living field of claws. They collect down in the ash. Like crabs. Without tabs you wouldn't have a chance." "Maybe you're right." "I'll walk slowly all the way. As soon as I know for certain--" "If they're down inside the bunker you won't be able to get back up here. They go fast. You don't realize." "What do you suggest?" Klaus considered. "I don't know. Get them to come up to the surface. So you can see." Hendricks brought his transmitter from his belt, raising the antenna. "Let's get started." * * * * * Klaus signalled to Tasso. She crawled expertly up the side of the rise to where they were sitting. "He's going down alone," Klaus said. "We'll cover him from here. As soon as you see him start back, fire past him at once. They come quick." "You're not very optimistic," Tasso said. "No, I'm not." Hendricks opened the breech of his gun, checking it carefully. "Maybe things are all right." "You didn't see them. Hundreds of them. All the same. Pouring out like ants." "I should be able to find out without going down all the way." Hendricks locked his gun, gripping it in one hand, the transmitter in the other. "Well, wish me luck." Klaus put out his hand. "Don't go down until you're sure. Talk to them from up here. Make them show themselves." * * * * * Hendricks stood up. He stepped down the side of the rise. A moment later he was walking slowly toward the pile of bricks and debris beside the dead tree stump. Toward the entrance of the forward command bunker. Nothing stirred. He raised the transmitter, clicking it on. "Scott? Can you hear me?" Silence. "Scott! This is Hendricks. Can you hear me? I'm standing outside the bunker. You should be able to see me in the view sight." He listened, the transmitter gripped tightly. No sound. Only static. He walked forward. A claw burrowed out of the ash and raced toward him. It halted a few feet away and then slunk off. A second claw appeared, one of the big ones with feelers. It moved toward him, studied him intently, and then fell in behind him, dogging respectfully after him, a few paces away. A moment later a second big claw joined it. Silently, the claws trailed him, as he walked slowly toward the bunker. Hendricks stopped, and behind him, the claws came to a halt. He was close, now. Almost to the bunker steps. "Scott! Can you hear me? I'm standing right above you. Outside. On the surface. Are you picking me up?" * * * * * He waited, holding his gun against his side, the transmitter tightly to his ear. Time passed. He strained to hear, but there was only silence. Silence, and faint static. Then, distantly, metallically-- "This is Scott." The voice was neutral. Cold. He could not identify it. But the earphone was minute. "Scott! Listen. I'm standing right above you. I'm on the surface, looking down into the bunker entrance." "Yes." "Can you see me?" "Yes." "Through the view sight? You have the sight trained on me?" "Yes." Hendricks pondered. A circle of claws waited quietly around him, gray-metal bodies on all sides of him. "Is everything all right in the bunker? Nothing unusual has happened?" "Everything is all right." "Will you come up to the surface? I want to see you for a moment." Hendricks took a deep breath. "Come up here with me. I want to talk to you." "Come down." "I'm giving you an order." Silence. "Are you coming?" Hendricks listened. There was no response. "I order you to come to the surface." "Come down." Hendricks set his jaw. "Let me talk to Leone." There was a long pause. He listened to the static. Then a voice came, hard, thin, metallic. The same as the other. "This is Leone." "Hendricks. I'm on the surface. At the bunker entrance. I want one of you to come up here." "Come down." "Why come down? I'm giving you an order!" Silence. Hendricks lowered the transmitter. He looked carefully around him. The entrance was just ahead. Almost at his feet. He lowered the antenna and fastened the transmitter to his belt. Carefully, he gripped his gun with both hands. He moved forward, a step at a time. If they could see him they knew he was starting toward the entrance. He closed his eyes a moment. Then he put his foot on the first step that led downward. Two Davids came up at him, their faces identical and expressionless. He blasted them into particles. More came rushing silently up, a whole pack of them. All exactly the same. Hendricks turned and raced back, away from the bunker, back toward the rise. At the top of the rise Tasso and Klaus were firing down. The small claws were already streaking up toward them, shining metal spheres going fast, racing frantically through the ash. But he had no time to think about that. He knelt down, aiming at the bunker entrance, gun against his cheek. The Davids were coming out in groups, clutching their teddy bears, their thin knobby legs pumping as they ran up the steps to the surface. Hendricks fired into the main body of them. They burst apart, wheels and springs flying in all directions. He fired again through the mist of particles. A giant lumbering figure rose up in the bunker entrance, tall and swaying. Hendricks paused, amazed. A man, a soldier. With one leg, supporting himself with a crutch. "Major!" Tasso's voice came. More firing. The huge figure moved forward, Davids swarming around it. Hendricks broke out of his freeze. The First Variety. The Wounded Soldier. He aimed and fired. The soldier burst into bits, parts and relays flying. Now many Davids were out on the flat ground, away from the bunker. He fired again and again, moving slowly back, half-crouching and aiming. From the rise, Klaus fired down. The side of the rise was alive with claws making their way up. Hendricks retreated toward the rise, running and crouching. Tasso had left Klaus and was circling slowly to the right, moving away from the rise. A David slipped up toward him, its small white face expressionless, brown hair hanging down in its eyes. It bent over suddenly, opening its arms. Its teddy bear hurtled down and leaped across the ground, bounding toward him. Hendricks fired. The bear and the David both dissolved. He grinned, blinking. It was like a dream. "Up here!" Tasso's voice. Hendricks made his way toward her. She was over by some columns of concrete, walls of a ruined building. She was firing past him, with the hand pistol Klaus had given her. "Thanks." He joined her, grasping for breath. She pulled him back, behind the concrete, fumbling at her belt. "Close your eyes!" She unfastened a globe from her waist. Rapidly, she unscrewed the cap, locking it into place. "Close your eyes and get down." * * * * * She threw the bomb. It sailed in an arc, an expert, rolling and bouncing to the entrance of the bunker. Two Wounded Soldiers stood uncertainly by the brick pile. More Davids poured from behind them, out onto the plain. One of the Wounded Soldiers moved toward the bomb, stooping awkwardly down to pick it up. The bomb went off. The concussion whirled Hendricks around, throwing him on his face. A hot wind rolled over him. Dimly he saw Tasso standing behind the columns, firing slowly and methodically at the Davids coming out of the raging clouds of white fire. Back along the rise Klaus struggled with a ring of claws circling around him. He retreated, blasting at them and moving back, trying to break through the ring. Hendricks struggled to his feet. His head ached. He could hardly see. Everything was licking at him, raging and whirling. His right arm would not move. Tasso pulled back toward him. "Come on. Let's go." "Klaus--He's still up there." "Come on!" Tasso dragged Hendricks back, away from the columns. Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. Tasso led him rapidly away, her eyes intense and bright, watching for claws that had escaped the blast. One David came out of the rolling clouds of flame. Tasso blasted it. No more appeared. "But Klaus. What about him?" Hendricks stopped, standing unsteadily. "He--" "Come on!" * * * * * They retreated, moving farther and farther away from the bunker. A few small claws followed them for a little while and then gave up, turning back and going off. At last Tasso stopped. "We can stop here and get our breaths." Hendricks sat down on some heaps of debris. He wiped his neck, gasping. "We left Klaus back there." Tasso said nothing. She opened her gun, sliding a fresh round of blast cartridges into place. Hendricks stared at her, dazed. "You left him back there on purpose." Tasso snapped the gun together. She studied the heaps of rubble around them, her face expressionless. As if she were watching for something. "What is it?" Hendricks demanded. "What are you looking for? Is something coming?" He shook his head, trying to understand. What was she doing? What was she waiting for? He could see nothing. Ash lay all around them, ash and ruins. Occasional stark tree trunks, without leaves or branches. "What--" Tasso cut him off. "Be still." Her eyes narrowed. Suddenly her gun came up. Hendricks turned, following her gaze. * * * * * Back the way they had come a figure appeared. The figure walked unsteadily toward them. Its clothes were torn. It limped as it made its way along, going very slowly and carefully. Stopping now and then, resting and getting its strength. Once it almost fell. It stood for a moment, trying to steady itself. Then it came on. Klaus. Hendricks stood up. "Klaus!" He started toward him. "How the hell did you--" Tasso fired. Hendricks swung back. She fired again, the blast passing him, a searing line of heat. The beam caught Klaus in the chest. He exploded, gears and wheels flying. For a moment he continued to walk. Then he swayed back and forth. He crashed to the ground, his arms flung out. A few more wheels rolled away. Silence. Tasso turned to Hendricks. "Now you understand why he killed Rudi." Hendricks sat down again slowly. He shook his head. He was numb. He could not think. "Do you see?" Tasso said. "Do you understand?" Hendricks said nothing. Everything was slipping away from him, faster and faster. Darkness, rolling and plucking at him. He closed his eyes. * * * * * Hendricks opened his eyes slowly. His body ached all over. He tried to sit up but needles of pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He gasped. "Don't try to get up," Tasso said. She bent down, putting her cold hand against his forehead. It was night. A few stars glinted above, shining through the drifting clouds of ash. Hendricks lay back, his teeth locked. Tasso watched him impassively. She had built a fire with some wood and weeds. The fire licked feebly, hissing at a metal cup suspended over it. Everything was silent. Unmoving darkness, beyond the fire. "So he was the Second Variety," Hendricks murmured. "I had always thought so." "Why didn't you destroy him sooner?" he wanted to know. "You held me back." Tasso crossed to the fire to look into the metal cup. "Coffee. It'll be ready to drink in awhile." She came back and sat down beside him. Presently she opened her pistol and began to disassemble the firing mechanism, studying it intently. "This is a beautiful gun," Tasso said, half-aloud. "The construction is superb." "What about them? The claws." "The concussion from the bomb put most of them out of action. They're delicate. Highly organized, I suppose." "The Davids, too?" "Yes." "How did you happen to have a bomb like that?" Tasso shrugged. "We designed it. You shouldn't underestimate our technology, Major. Without such a bomb you and I would no longer exist." "Very useful." Tasso stretched out her legs, warming her feet in the heat of the fire. "It surprised me that you did not seem to understand, after he killed Rudi. Why did you think he--" "I told you. I thought he was afraid." "Really? You know, Major, for a little while I suspected you. Because you wouldn't let me kill him. I thought you might be protecting him." She laughed. "Are we safe here?" Hendricks asked presently. "For awhile. Until they get reinforcements from some other area." Tasso began to clean the interior of the gun with a bit of rag. She finished and pushed the mechanism back into place. She closed the gun, running her finger along the barrel. "We were lucky," Hendricks murmured. "Yes. Very lucky." "Thanks for pulling me away." * * * * * Tasso did not answer. She glanced up at him, her eyes bright in the fire light. Hendricks examined his arm. He could not move his fingers. His whole side seemed numb. Down inside him was a dull steady ache. "How do you feel?" Tasso asked. "My arm is damaged." "Anything else?" "Internal injuries." "You didn't get down when the bomb went off." Hendricks said nothing. He watched Tasso pour the coffee from the cup into a flat metal pan. She brought it over to him. "Thanks." He struggled up enough to drink. It was hard to swallow. His insides turned over and he pushed the pan away. "That's all I can drink now." Tasso drank the rest. Time passed. The clouds of ash moved across the dark sky above them. Hendricks rested, his mind blank. After awhile he became aware that Tasso was standing over him, gazing down at him. "What is it?" he murmured. "Do you feel any better?" "Some." "You know, Major, if I hadn't dragged you away they would have got you. You would be dead. Like Rudi." "I know." "Do you want to know why I brought you out? I could have left you. I could have left you there." "Why did you bring me out?" "Because we have to get away from here." Tasso stirred the fire with a stick, peering calmly down into it. "No human being can live here. When their reinforcements come we won't have a chance. I've pondered about it while you were unconscious. We have perhaps three hours before they come." "And you expect me to get us away?" "That's right. I expect you to get us out of here." "Why me?" "Because I don't know any way." Her eyes shone at him in the half-light, bright and steady. "If you can't get us out of here they'll kill us within three hours. I see nothing else ahead. Well, Major? What are you going to do? I've been waiting all night. While you were unconscious I sat here, waiting and listening. It's almost dawn. The night is almost over." * * * * * Hendricks considered. "It's curious," he said at last. "Curious?" "That you should think I can get us out of here. I wonder what you think I can do." "Can you get us to the Moon Base?" "The Moon Base? How?" "There must be some way." Hendricks shook his head. "No. There's no way that I know of." Tasso said nothing. For a moment her steady gaze wavered. She ducked her head, turning abruptly away. She scrambled to her feet. "More coffee?" "No." "Suit yourself." Tasso drank silently. He could not see her face. He lay back against the ground, deep in thought, trying to concentrate. It was hard to think. His head still hurt. And the numbing daze still hung over him. "There might be one way," he said suddenly. "Oh?" "How soon is dawn?" "Two hours. The sun will be coming up shortly." "There's supposed to be a ship near here. I've never seen it. But I know it exists." "What kind of a ship?" Her voice was sharp. "A rocket cruiser." "Will it take us off? To the Moon Base?" "It's supposed to. In case of emergency." He rubbed his forehead. "What's wrong?" "My head. It's hard to think. I can hardly--hardly concentrate. The bomb." "Is the ship near here?" Tasso slid over beside him, settling down on her haunches. "How far is it? Where is it?" "I'm trying to think." Her fingers dug into his arm. "Nearby?" Her voice was like iron. "Where would it be? Would they store it underground? Hidden underground?" "Yes. In a storage locker." "How do we find it? Is it marked? Is there a code marker to identify it?" Hendricks concentrated. "No. No markings. No code symbol." "What, then?" "A sign." "What sort of sign?" * * * * * Hendricks did not answer. In the flickering light his eyes were glazed, two sightless orbs. Tasso's fingers dug into his arm. "What sort of sign? What is it?" "I--I can't think. Let me rest." "All right." She let go and stood up. Hendricks lay back against the ground, his eyes closed. Tasso walked away from him, her hands in her pockets. She kicked a rock out of her way and stood staring up at the sky. The night blackness was already beginning to fade into gray. Morning was coming. Tasso gripped her pistol and walked around the fire in a circle, back and forth. On the ground Major Hendricks lay, his eyes closed, unmoving. The grayness rose in the sky, higher and higher. The landscape became visible, fields of ash stretching out in all directions. Ash and ruins of buildings, a wall here and there, heaps of concrete, the naked trunk of a tree. The air was cold and sharp. Somewhere a long way off a bird made a few bleak sounds. Hendricks stirred. He opened his eyes. "Is it dawn? Already?" "Yes." Hendricks sat up a little. "You wanted to know something. You were asking me." "Do you remember now?" "Yes." "What is it?" She tensed. "What?" she repeated sharply. "A well. A ruined well. It's in a storage locker under a well." "A well." Tasso relaxed. "Then we'll find a well." She looked at her watch. "We have about an hour, Major. Do you think we can find it in an hour?" * * * * * "Give me a hand up," Hendricks said. Tasso put her pistol away and helped him to his feet. "This is going to be difficult." "Yes it is." Hendricks set his lips tightly. "I don't think we're going to go very far." They began to walk. The early sun cast a little warmth down on them. The land was flat and barren, stretching out gray and lifeless as far as they could see. A few birds sailed silently, far above them, circling slowly. "See anything?" Hendricks said. "Any claws?" "No. Not yet." They passed through some ruins, upright concrete and bricks. A cement foundation. Rats scuttled away. Tasso jumped back warily. "This used to be a town," Hendricks said. "A village. Provincial village. This was all grape country, once. Where we are now." They came onto a ruined street, weeds and cracks criss-crossing it. Over to the right a stone chimney stuck up. "Be careful," he warned her. A pit yawned, an open basement. Ragged ends of pipes jutted up, twisted and bent. They passed part of a house, a bathtub turned on its side. A broken chair. A few spoons and bits of china dishes. In the center of the street the ground had sunk away. The depression was filled with weeds and debris and bones. "Over here," Hendricks murmured. "This way?" "To the right." They passed the remains of a heavy duty tank. Hendricks' belt counter clicked ominously. The tank had been radiation blasted. A few feet from the tank a mummified body lay sprawled out, mouth open. Beyond the road was a flat field. Stones and weeds, and bits of broken glass. "There," Hendricks said. * * * * * A stone well jutted up, sagging and broken. A few boards lay across it. Most of the well had sunk into rubble. Hendricks walked unsteadily toward it, Tasso beside him. "Are you certain about this?" Tasso said. "This doesn't look like anything." "I'm sure." Hendricks sat down at the edge of the well, his teeth locked. His breath came quickly. He wiped perspiration from his face. "This was arranged so the senior command officer could get away. If anything happened. If the bunker fell." "That was you?" "Yes." "Where is the ship? Is it here?" "We're standing on it." Hendricks ran his hands over the surface of the well stones. "The eye-lock responds to me, not to anybody else. It's my ship. Or it was supposed to be." There was a sharp click. Presently they heard a low grating sound from below them. "Step back," Hendricks said. He and Tasso moved away from the well. A section of the ground slid back. A metal frame pushed slowly up through the ash, shoving bricks and weeds out of the way. The action ceased, as the ship nosed into view. "There it is," Hendricks said. The ship was small. It rested quietly, suspended in its mesh frame, like a blunt needle. A rain of ash sifted down into the dark cavity from which the ship had been raised. Hendricks made his way over to it. He mounted the mesh and unscrewed the hatch, pulling it back. Inside the ship the control banks and the pressure seat were visible. * * * * * Tasso came and stood beside him, gazing into the ship. "I'm not accustomed to rocket piloting," she said, after awhile. Hendricks glanced at her. "I'll do the piloting." "Will you? There's only one seat, Major. I can see it's built to carry only a single person." Hendricks' breathing changed. He studied the interior of the ship intently. Tasso was right. There was only one seat. The ship was built to carry only one person. "I see," he said slowly. "And the one person is you." She nodded. "Of course." "Why?" "_You_ can't go. You might not live through the trip. You're injured. You probably wouldn't get there." "An interesting point. But you see, I know where the Moon Base is. And you don't. You might fly around for months and not find it. It's well hidden. Without knowing what to look for--" "I'll have to take my chances. Maybe I won't find it. Not by myself. But I think you'll give me all the information I need. Your life depends on it." "How?" "If I find the Moon Base in time, perhaps I can get them to send a ship back to pick you up. _If_ I find the Base in time. If not, then you haven't a chance. I imagine there are supplies on the ship. They will last me long enough--" Hendricks moved quickly. But his injured arm betrayed him. Tasso ducked, sliding lithely aside. Her hand came up, lightning fast. Hendricks saw the gun butt coming. He tried to ward off the blow, but she was too fast. The metal butt struck against the side of his head, just above his ear. Numbing pain rushed through him. Pain and rolling clouds of blackness. He sank down, sliding to the ground. * * * * * Dimly, he was aware that Tasso was standing over him, kicking him with her toe. "Major! Wake up." He opened his eyes, groaning. "Listen to me." She bent down, the gun pointed at his face. "I have to hurry. There isn't much time left. The ship is ready to go, but you must tell me the information I need before I leave." Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. "Hurry up! Where is the Moon Base? How do I find it? What do I look for?" Hendricks said nothing. "Answer me!" "Sorry." "Major, the ship is loaded with provisions. I can coast for weeks. I'll find the Base eventually. And in a half hour you'll be dead. Your only chance of survival--" She broke off. Along the slope, by some crumbling ruins, something moved. Something in the ash. Tasso turned quickly, aiming. She fired. A puff of flame leaped. Something scuttled away, rolling across the ash. She fired again. The claw burst apart, wheels flying. "See?" Tasso said. "A scout. It won't be long." "You'll bring them back here to get me?" "Yes. As soon as possible." Hendricks looked up at her. He studied her intently. "You're telling the truth?" A strange expression had come over his face, an avid hunger. "You will come back for me? You'll get me to the Moon Base?" "I'll get you to the Moon Base. But tell me where it is! There's only a little time left." "All right." Hendricks picked up a piece of rock, pulling himself to a sitting position. "Watch." Hendricks began to scratch in the ash. Tasso stood by him, watching the motion of the rock. Hendricks was sketching a crude lunar map. * * * * * "This is the Appenine range. Here is the Crater of Archimedes. The Moon Base is beyond the end of the Appenine, about two hundred miles. I don't know exactly where. No one on Terra knows. But when you're over the Appenine, signal with one red flare and a green flare, followed by two red flares in quick succession. The Base monitor will record your signal. The Base is under the surface, of course. They'll guide you down with magnetic grapples." "And the controls? Can I operate them?" "The controls are virtually automatic. All you have to do is give the right signal at the right time." "I will." "The seat absorbs most of the take-off shock. Air and temperature are automatically controlled. The ship will leave Terra and pass out into free space. It'll line itself up with the moon, falling into an orbit around it, about a hundred miles above the surface. The orbit will carry you over the Base. When you're in the region of the Appenine, release the signal rockets." Tasso slid into the ship and lowered herself into the pressure seat. The arm locks folded automatically around her. She fingered the controls. "Too bad you're not going, Major. All this put here for you, and you can't make the trip." "Leave me the pistol." Tasso pulled the pistol from her belt. She held it in her hand, weighing it thoughtfully. "Don't go too far from this location. It'll be hard to find you, as it is." "No. I'll stay here by the well." Tasso gripped the take-off switch, running her fingers over the smooth metal. "A beautiful ship, Major. Well built. I admire your workmanship. You people have always done good work. You build fine things. Your work, your creations, are your greatest achievement." "Give me the pistol," Hendricks said impatiently, holding out his hand. He struggled to his feet. "Good-bye, Major." Tasso tossed the pistol past Hendricks. The pistol clattered against the ground, bouncing and rolling away. Hendricks hurried after it. He bent down, snatching it up. The hatch of the ship clanged shut. The bolts fell into place. Hendricks made his way back. The inner door was being sealed. He raised the pistol unsteadily. * * * * * There was a shattering roar. The ship burst up from its metal cage, fusing the mesh behind it. Hendricks cringed, pulling back. The ship shot up into the rolling clouds of ash, disappearing into the sky. Hendricks stood watching a long time, until even the streamer had dissipated. Nothing stirred. The morning air was chill and silent. He began to walk aimlessly back the way they had come. Better to keep moving around. It would be a long time before help came--if it came at all. He searched his pockets until he found a package of cigarettes. He lit one grimly. They had all wanted cigarettes from him. But cigarettes were scarce. A lizard slithered by him, through the ash. He halted, rigid. The lizard disappeared. Above, the sun rose higher in the sky. Some flies landed on a flat rock to one side of him. Hendricks kicked at them with his foot. It was getting hot. Sweat trickled down his face, into his collar. His mouth was dry. Presently he stopped walking and sat down on some debris. He unfastened his medicine kit and swallowed a few narcotic capsules. He looked around him. Where was he? Something lay ahead. Stretched out on the ground. Silent and unmoving. Hendricks drew his gun quickly. It looked like a man. Then he remembered. It was the remains of Klaus. The Second Variety. Where Tasso had blasted him. He could see wheels and relays and metal parts, strewn around on the ash. Glittering and sparkling in the sunlight. Hendricks got to his feet and walked over. He nudged the inert form with his foot, turning it over a little. He

us

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

yards ahead, was the entrance of the forward command bunker. The bunker from which he had come. Hendricks watched silently. No motion. No sign of life. Nothing stirred. Klaus slithered up beside him. "Where is it?" "Down there." Hendricks passed him the glasses. Clouds of ash rolled across the evening sky. The world was darkening. They had a couple of hours of light left, at the most. Probably not that much. "I don't see anything," Klaus said. "That tree there. The stump. By the pile of bricks. The entrance is to the right of the bricks." "I'll have to take your word for it." "You and Tasso cover me from here. You'll be able to sight all the way to the bunker entrance." "You're going down alone?" "With my wrist tab I'll be safe. The ground around the bunker is a living field of claws. They collect down in the ash. Like crabs. Without tabs you wouldn't have a chance." "Maybe you're right." "I'll walk slowly all the way. As soon as I know for certain--" "If they're down inside the bunker you won't be able to get back up here. They go fast. You don't realize." "What do you suggest?" Klaus considered. "I don't know. Get them to come up to the surface. So you can see." Hendricks brought his transmitter from his belt, raising the antenna. "Let's get started." * * * * * Klaus signalled to Tasso. She crawled expertly up the side of the rise to where they were sitting. "He's going down alone," Klaus said. "We'll cover him from here. As soon as you see him start back, fire past him at once. They come quick." "You're not very optimistic," Tasso said. "No, I'm not." Hendricks opened the breech of his gun, checking it carefully. "Maybe things are all right." "You didn't see them. Hundreds of them. All the same. Pouring out like ants." "I should be able to find out without going down all the way." Hendricks locked his gun, gripping it in one hand, the transmitter in the other. "Well, wish me luck." Klaus put out his hand. "Don't go down until you're sure. Talk to them from up here. Make them show themselves." * * * * * Hendricks stood up. He stepped down the side of the rise. A moment later he was walking slowly toward the pile of bricks and debris beside the dead tree stump. Toward the entrance of the forward command bunker. Nothing stirred. He raised the transmitter, clicking it on. "Scott? Can you hear me?" Silence. "Scott! This is Hendricks. Can you hear me? I'm standing outside the bunker. You should be able to see me in the view sight." He listened, the transmitter gripped tightly. No sound. Only static. He walked forward. A claw burrowed out of the ash and raced toward him. It halted a few feet away and then slunk off. A second claw appeared, one of the big ones with feelers. It moved toward him, studied him intently, and then fell in behind him, dogging respectfully after him, a few paces away. A moment later a second big claw joined it. Silently, the claws trailed him, as he walked slowly toward the bunker. Hendricks stopped, and behind him, the claws came to a halt. He was close, now. Almost to the bunker steps. "Scott! Can you hear me? I'm standing right above you. Outside. On the surface. Are you picking me up?" * * * * * He waited, holding his gun against his side, the transmitter tightly to his ear. Time passed. He strained to hear, but there was only silence. Silence, and faint static. Then, distantly, metallically-- "This is Scott." The voice was neutral. Cold. He could not identify it. But the earphone was minute. "Scott! Listen. I'm standing right above you. I'm on the surface, looking down into the bunker entrance." "Yes." "Can you see me?" "Yes." "Through the view sight? You have the sight trained on me?" "Yes." Hendricks pondered. A circle of claws waited quietly around him, gray-metal bodies on all sides of him. "Is everything all right in the bunker? Nothing unusual has happened?" "Everything is all right." "Will you come up to the surface? I want to see you for a moment." Hendricks took a deep breath. "Come up here with me. I want to talk to you." "Come down." "I'm giving you an order." Silence. "Are you coming?" Hendricks listened. There was no response. "I order you to come to the surface." "Come down." Hendricks set his jaw. "Let me talk to Leone." There was a long pause. He listened to the static. Then a voice came, hard, thin, metallic. The same as the other. "This is Leone." "Hendricks. I'm on the surface. At the bunker entrance. I want one of you to come up here." "Come down." "Why come down? I'm giving you an order!" Silence. Hendricks lowered the transmitter. He looked carefully around him. The entrance was just ahead. Almost at his feet. He lowered the antenna and fastened the transmitter to his belt. Carefully, he gripped his gun with both hands. He moved forward, a step at a time. If they could see him they knew he was starting toward the entrance. He closed his eyes a moment. Then he put his foot on the first step that led downward. Two Davids came up at him, their faces identical and expressionless. He blasted them into particles. More came rushing silently up, a whole pack of them. All exactly the same. Hendricks turned and raced back, away from the bunker, back toward the rise. At the top of the rise Tasso and Klaus were firing down. The small claws were already streaking up toward them, shining metal spheres going fast, racing frantically through the ash. But he had no time to think about that. He knelt down, aiming at the bunker entrance, gun against his cheek. The Davids were coming out in groups, clutching their teddy bears, their thin knobby legs pumping as they ran up the steps to the surface. Hendricks fired into the main body of them. They burst apart, wheels and springs flying in all directions. He fired again through the mist of particles. A giant lumbering figure rose up in the bunker entrance, tall and swaying. Hendricks paused, amazed. A man, a soldier. With one leg, supporting himself with a crutch. "Major!" Tasso's voice came. More firing. The huge figure moved forward, Davids swarming around it. Hendricks broke out of his freeze. The First Variety. The Wounded Soldier. He aimed and fired. The soldier burst into bits, parts and relays flying. Now many Davids were out on the flat ground, away from the bunker. He fired again and again, moving slowly back, half-crouching and aiming. From the rise, Klaus fired down. The side of the rise was alive with claws making their way up. Hendricks retreated toward the rise, running and crouching. Tasso had left Klaus and was circling slowly to the right, moving away from the rise. A David slipped up toward him, its small white face expressionless, brown hair hanging down in its eyes. It bent over suddenly, opening its arms. Its teddy bear hurtled down and leaped across the ground, bounding toward him. Hendricks fired. The bear and the David both dissolved. He grinned, blinking. It was like a dream. "Up here!" Tasso's voice. Hendricks made his way toward her. She was over by some columns of concrete, walls of a ruined building. She was firing past him, with the hand pistol Klaus had given her. "Thanks." He joined her, grasping for breath. She pulled him back, behind the concrete, fumbling at her belt. "Close your eyes!" She unfastened a globe from her waist. Rapidly, she unscrewed the cap, locking it into place. "Close your eyes and get down." * * * * * She threw the bomb. It sailed in an arc, an expert, rolling and bouncing to the entrance of the bunker. Two Wounded Soldiers stood uncertainly by the brick pile. More Davids poured from behind them, out onto the plain. One of the Wounded Soldiers moved toward the bomb, stooping awkwardly down to pick it up. The bomb went off. The concussion whirled Hendricks around, throwing him on his face. A hot wind rolled over him. Dimly he saw Tasso standing behind the columns, firing slowly and methodically at the Davids coming out of the raging clouds of white fire. Back along the rise Klaus struggled with a ring of claws circling around him. He retreated, blasting at them and moving back, trying to break through the ring. Hendricks struggled to his feet. His head ached. He could hardly see. Everything was licking at him, raging and whirling. His right arm would not move. Tasso pulled back toward him. "Come on. Let's go." "Klaus--He's still up there." "Come on!" Tasso dragged Hendricks back, away from the columns. Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. Tasso led him rapidly away, her eyes intense and bright, watching for claws that had escaped the blast. One David came out of the rolling clouds of flame. Tasso blasted it. No more appeared. "But Klaus. What about him?" Hendricks stopped, standing unsteadily. "He--" "Come on!" * * * * * They retreated, moving farther and farther away from the bunker. A few small claws followed them for a little while and then gave up, turning back and going off. At last Tasso stopped. "We can stop here and get our breaths." Hendricks sat down on some heaps of debris. He wiped his neck, gasping. "We left Klaus back there." Tasso said nothing. She opened her gun, sliding a fresh round of blast cartridges into place. Hendricks stared at her, dazed. "You left him back there on purpose." Tasso snapped the gun together. She studied the heaps of rubble around them, her face expressionless. As if she were watching for something. "What is it?" Hendricks demanded. "What are you looking for? Is something coming?" He shook his head, trying to understand. What was she doing? What was she waiting for? He could see nothing. Ash lay all around them, ash and ruins. Occasional stark tree trunks, without leaves or branches. "What--" Tasso cut him off. "Be still." Her eyes narrowed. Suddenly her gun came up. Hendricks turned, following her gaze. * * * * * Back the way they had come a figure appeared. The figure walked unsteadily toward them. Its clothes were torn. It limped as it made its way along, going very slowly and carefully. Stopping now and then, resting and getting its strength. Once it almost fell. It stood for a moment, trying to steady itself. Then it came on. Klaus. Hendricks stood up. "Klaus!" He started toward him. "How the hell did you--" Tasso fired. Hendricks swung back. She fired again, the blast passing him, a searing line of heat. The beam caught Klaus in the chest. He exploded, gears and wheels flying. For a moment he continued to walk. Then he swayed back and forth. He crashed to the ground, his arms flung out. A few more wheels rolled away. Silence. Tasso turned to Hendricks. "Now you understand why he killed Rudi." Hendricks sat down again slowly. He shook his head. He was numb. He could not think. "Do you see?" Tasso said. "Do you understand?" Hendricks said nothing. Everything was slipping away from him, faster and faster. Darkness, rolling and plucking at him. He closed his eyes. * * * * * Hendricks opened his eyes slowly. His body ached all over. He tried to sit up but needles of pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He gasped. "Don't try to get up," Tasso said. She bent down, putting her cold hand against his forehead. It was night. A few stars glinted above, shining through the drifting clouds of ash. Hendricks lay back, his teeth locked. Tasso watched him impassively. She had built a fire with some wood and weeds. The fire licked feebly, hissing at a metal cup suspended over it. Everything was silent. Unmoving darkness, beyond the fire. "So he was the Second Variety," Hendricks murmured. "I had always thought so." "Why didn't you destroy him sooner?" he wanted to know. "You held me back." Tasso crossed to the fire to look into the metal cup. "Coffee. It'll be ready to drink in awhile." She came back and sat down beside him. Presently she opened her pistol and began to disassemble the firing mechanism, studying it intently. "This is a beautiful gun," Tasso said, half-aloud. "The construction is superb." "What about them? The claws." "The concussion from the bomb put most of them out of action. They're delicate. Highly organized, I suppose." "The Davids, too?" "Yes." "How did you happen to have a bomb like that?" Tasso shrugged. "We designed it. You shouldn't underestimate our technology, Major. Without such a bomb you and I would no longer exist." "Very useful." Tasso stretched out her legs, warming her feet in the heat of the fire. "It surprised me that you did not seem to understand, after he killed Rudi. Why did you think he--" "I told you. I thought he was afraid." "Really? You know, Major, for a little while I suspected you. Because you wouldn't let me kill him. I thought you might be protecting him." She laughed. "Are we safe here?" Hendricks asked presently. "For awhile. Until they get reinforcements from some other area." Tasso began to clean the interior of the gun with a bit of rag. She finished and pushed the mechanism back into place. She closed the gun, running her finger along the barrel. "We were lucky," Hendricks murmured. "Yes. Very lucky." "Thanks for pulling me away." * * * * * Tasso did not answer. She glanced up at him, her eyes bright in the fire light. Hendricks examined his arm. He could not move his fingers. His whole side seemed numb. Down inside him was a dull steady ache. "How do you feel?" Tasso asked. "My arm is damaged." "Anything else?" "Internal injuries." "You didn't get down when the bomb went off." Hendricks said nothing. He watched Tasso pour the coffee from the cup into a flat metal pan. She brought it over to him. "Thanks." He struggled up enough to drink. It was hard to swallow. His insides turned over and he pushed the pan away. "That's all I can drink now." Tasso drank the rest. Time passed. The clouds of ash moved across the dark sky above them. Hendricks rested, his mind blank. After awhile he became aware that Tasso was standing over him, gazing down at him. "What is it?" he murmured. "Do you feel any better?" "Some." "You know, Major, if I hadn't dragged you away they would have got you. You would be dead. Like Rudi." "I know." "Do you want to know why I brought you out? I could have left you. I could have left you there." "Why did you bring me out?" "Because we have to get away from here." Tasso stirred the fire with a stick, peering calmly down into it. "No human being can live here. When their reinforcements come we won't have a chance. I've pondered about it while you were unconscious. We have perhaps three hours before they come." "And you expect me to get us away?" "That's right. I expect you to get us out of here." "Why me?" "Because I don't know any way." Her eyes shone at him in the half-light, bright and steady. "If you can't get us out of here they'll kill us within three hours. I see nothing else ahead. Well, Major? What are you going to do? I've been waiting all night. While you were unconscious I sat here, waiting and listening. It's almost dawn. The night is almost over." * * * * * Hendricks considered. "It's curious," he said at last. "Curious?" "That you should think I can get us out of here. I wonder what you think I can do." "Can you get us to the Moon Base?" "The Moon Base? How?" "There must be some way." Hendricks shook his head. "No. There's no way that I know of." Tasso said nothing. For a moment her steady gaze wavered. She ducked her head, turning abruptly away. She scrambled to her feet. "More coffee?" "No." "Suit yourself." Tasso drank silently. He could not see her face. He lay back against the ground, deep in thought, trying to concentrate. It was hard to think. His head still hurt. And the numbing daze still hung over him. "There might be one way," he said suddenly. "Oh?" "How soon is dawn?" "Two hours. The sun will be coming up shortly." "There's supposed to be a ship near here. I've never seen it. But I know it exists." "What kind of a ship?" Her voice was sharp. "A rocket cruiser." "Will it take us off? To the Moon Base?" "It's supposed to. In case of emergency." He rubbed his forehead. "What's wrong?" "My head. It's hard to think. I can hardly--hardly concentrate. The bomb." "Is the ship near here?" Tasso slid over beside him, settling down on her haunches. "How far is it? Where is it?" "I'm trying to think." Her fingers dug into his arm. "Nearby?" Her voice was like iron. "Where would it be? Would they store it underground? Hidden underground?" "Yes. In a storage locker." "How do we find it? Is it marked? Is there a code marker to identify it?" Hendricks concentrated. "No. No markings. No code symbol." "What, then?" "A sign." "What sort of sign?" * * * * * Hendricks did not answer. In the flickering light his eyes were glazed, two sightless orbs. Tasso's fingers dug into his arm. "What sort of sign? What is it?" "I--I can't think. Let me rest." "All right." She let go and stood up. Hendricks lay back against the ground, his eyes closed. Tasso walked away from him, her hands in her pockets. She kicked a rock out of her way and stood staring up at the sky. The night blackness was already beginning to fade into gray. Morning was coming. Tasso gripped her pistol and walked around the fire in a circle, back and forth. On the ground Major Hendricks lay, his eyes closed, unmoving. The grayness rose in the sky, higher and higher. The landscape became visible, fields of ash stretching out in all directions. Ash and ruins of buildings, a wall here and there, heaps of concrete, the naked trunk of a tree. The air was cold and sharp. Somewhere a long way off a bird made a few bleak sounds. Hendricks stirred. He opened his eyes. "Is it dawn? Already?" "Yes." Hendricks sat up a little. "You wanted to know something. You were asking me." "Do you remember now?" "Yes." "What is it?" She tensed. "What?" she repeated sharply. "A well. A ruined well. It's in a storage locker under a well." "A well." Tasso relaxed. "Then we'll find a well." She looked at her watch. "We have about an hour, Major. Do you think we can find it in an hour?" * * * * * "Give me a hand up," Hendricks said. Tasso put her pistol away and helped him to his feet. "This is going to be difficult." "Yes it is." Hendricks set his lips tightly. "I don't think we're going to go very far." They began to walk. The early sun cast a little warmth down on them. The land was flat and barren, stretching out gray and lifeless as far as they could see. A few birds sailed silently, far above them, circling slowly. "See anything?" Hendricks said. "Any claws?" "No. Not yet." They passed through some ruins, upright concrete and bricks. A cement foundation. Rats scuttled away. Tasso jumped back warily. "This used to be a town," Hendricks said. "A village. Provincial village. This was all grape country, once. Where we are now." They came onto a ruined street, weeds and cracks criss-crossing it. Over to the right a stone chimney stuck up. "Be careful," he warned her. A pit yawned, an open basement. Ragged ends of pipes jutted up, twisted and bent. They passed part of a house, a bathtub turned on its side. A broken chair. A few spoons and bits of china dishes. In the center of the street the ground had sunk away. The depression was filled with weeds and debris and bones. "Over here," Hendricks murmured. "This way?" "To the right." They passed the remains of a heavy duty tank. Hendricks' belt counter clicked ominously. The tank had been radiation blasted. A few feet from the tank a mummified body lay sprawled out, mouth open. Beyond the road was a flat field. Stones and weeds, and bits of broken glass. "There," Hendricks said. * * * * * A stone well jutted up, sagging and broken. A few boards lay across it. Most of the well had sunk into rubble. Hendricks walked unsteadily toward it, Tasso beside him. "Are you certain about this?" Tasso said. "This doesn't look like anything." "I'm sure." Hendricks sat down at the edge of the well, his teeth locked. His breath came quickly. He wiped perspiration from his face. "This was arranged so the senior command officer could get away. If anything happened. If the bunker fell." "That was you?" "Yes." "Where is the ship? Is it here?" "We're standing on it." Hendricks ran his hands over the surface of the well stones. "The eye-lock responds to me, not to anybody else. It's my ship. Or it was supposed to be." There was a sharp click. Presently they heard a low grating sound from below them. "Step back," Hendricks said. He and Tasso moved away from the well. A section of the ground slid back. A metal frame pushed slowly up through the ash, shoving bricks and weeds out of the way. The action ceased, as the ship nosed into view. "There it is," Hendricks said. The ship was small. It rested quietly, suspended in its mesh frame, like a blunt needle. A rain of ash sifted down into the dark cavity from which the ship had been raised. Hendricks made his way over to it. He mounted the mesh and unscrewed the hatch, pulling it back. Inside the ship the control banks and the pressure seat were visible. * * * * * Tasso came and stood beside him, gazing into the ship. "I'm not accustomed to rocket piloting," she said, after awhile. Hendricks glanced at her. "I'll do the piloting." "Will you? There's only one seat, Major. I can see it's built to carry only a single person." Hendricks' breathing changed. He studied the interior of the ship intently. Tasso was right. There was only one seat. The ship was built to carry only one person. "I see," he said slowly. "And the one person is you." She nodded. "Of course." "Why?" "_You_ can't go. You might not live through the trip. You're injured. You probably wouldn't get there." "An interesting point. But you see, I know where the Moon Base is. And you don't. You might fly around for months and not find it. It's well hidden. Without knowing what to look for--" "I'll have to take my chances. Maybe I won't find it. Not by myself. But I think you'll give me all the information I need. Your life depends on it." "How?" "If I find the Moon Base in time, perhaps I can get them to send a ship back to pick you up. _If_ I find the Base in time. If not, then you haven't a chance. I imagine there are supplies on the ship. They will last me long enough--" Hendricks moved quickly. But his injured arm betrayed him. Tasso ducked, sliding lithely aside. Her hand came up, lightning fast. Hendricks saw the gun butt coming. He tried to ward off the blow, but she was too fast. The metal butt struck against the side of his head, just above his ear. Numbing pain rushed through him. Pain and rolling clouds of blackness. He sank down, sliding to the ground. * * * * * Dimly, he was aware that Tasso was standing over him, kicking him with her toe. "Major! Wake up." He opened his eyes, groaning. "Listen to me." She bent down, the gun pointed at his face. "I have to hurry. There isn't much time left. The ship is ready to go, but you must tell me the information I need before I leave." Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. "Hurry up! Where is the Moon Base? How do I find it? What do I look for?" Hendricks said nothing. "Answer me!" "Sorry." "Major, the ship is loaded with provisions. I can coast for weeks. I'll find the Base eventually. And in a half hour you'll be dead. Your only chance of survival--" She broke off. Along the slope, by some crumbling ruins, something moved. Something in the ash. Tasso turned quickly, aiming. She fired. A puff of flame leaped. Something scuttled away, rolling across the ash. She fired again. The claw burst apart, wheels flying. "See?" Tasso said. "A scout. It won't be long." "You'll bring them back here to get me?" "Yes. As soon as possible." Hendricks looked up at her. He studied her intently. "You're telling the truth?" A strange expression had come over his face, an avid hunger. "You will come back for me? You'll get me to the Moon Base?" "I'll get you to the Moon Base. But tell me where it is! There's only a little time left." "All right." Hendricks picked up a piece of rock, pulling himself to a sitting position. "Watch." Hendricks began to scratch in the ash. Tasso stood by him, watching the motion of the rock. Hendricks was sketching a crude lunar map. * * * * * "This is the Appenine range. Here is the Crater of Archimedes. The Moon Base is beyond the end of the Appenine, about two hundred miles. I don't know exactly where. No one on Terra knows. But when you're over the Appenine, signal with one red flare and a green flare, followed by two red flares in quick succession. The Base monitor will record your signal. The Base is under the surface, of course. They'll guide you down with magnetic grapples." "And the controls? Can I operate them?" "The controls are virtually automatic. All you have to do is give the right signal at the right time." "I will." "The seat absorbs most of the take-off shock. Air and temperature are automatically controlled. The ship will leave Terra and pass out into free space. It'll line itself up with the moon, falling into an orbit around it, about a hundred miles above the surface. The orbit will carry you over the Base. When you're in the region of the Appenine, release the signal rockets." Tasso slid into the ship and lowered herself into the pressure seat. The arm locks folded automatically around her. She fingered the controls. "Too bad you're not going, Major. All this put here for you, and you can't make the trip." "Leave me the pistol." Tasso pulled the pistol from her belt. She held it in her hand, weighing it thoughtfully. "Don't go too far from this location. It'll be hard to find you, as it is." "No. I'll stay here by the well." Tasso gripped the take-off switch, running her fingers over the smooth metal. "A beautiful ship, Major. Well built. I admire your workmanship. You people have always done good work. You build fine things. Your work, your creations, are your greatest achievement." "Give me the pistol," Hendricks said impatiently, holding out his hand. He struggled to his feet. "Good-bye, Major." Tasso tossed the pistol past Hendricks. The pistol clattered against the ground, bouncing and rolling away. Hendricks hurried after it. He bent down, snatching it up. The hatch of the ship clanged shut. The bolts fell into place. Hendricks made his way back. The inner door was being sealed. He raised the pistol unsteadily. * * * * * There was a shattering roar. The ship burst up from its metal cage, fusing the mesh behind it. Hendricks cringed, pulling back. The ship shot up into the rolling clouds of ash, disappearing into the sky. Hendricks stood watching a long time, until even the streamer had dissipated. Nothing stirred. The morning air was chill and silent. He began to walk aimlessly back the way they had come. Better to keep moving around. It would be a long time before help came--if it came at all. He searched his pockets until he found a package of cigarettes. He lit one grimly. They had all wanted cigarettes from him. But cigarettes were scarce. A lizard slithered by him, through the ash. He halted, rigid. The lizard disappeared. Above, the sun rose higher in the sky. Some flies landed on a flat rock to one side of him. Hendricks kicked at them with his foot. It was getting hot. Sweat trickled down his face, into his collar. His mouth was dry. Presently he stopped walking and sat down on some debris. He unfastened his medicine kit and swallowed a few narcotic capsules. He looked around him. Where was he? Something lay ahead. Stretched out on the ground. Silent and unmoving. Hendricks drew his gun quickly. It looked like a man. Then he remembered. It was the remains of Klaus. The Second Variety. Where Tasso had blasted him. He could see wheels and relays and metal parts, strewn around on the ash. Glittering and sparkling in the sunlight. Hendricks got to his feet and walked over. He nudged the inert form with his foot, turning it over a little. He

art

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

yards ahead, was the entrance of the forward command bunker. The bunker from which he had come. Hendricks watched silently. No motion. No sign of life. Nothing stirred. Klaus slithered up beside him. "Where is it?" "Down there." Hendricks passed him the glasses. Clouds of ash rolled across the evening sky. The world was darkening. They had a couple of hours of light left, at the most. Probably not that much. "I don't see anything," Klaus said. "That tree there. The stump. By the pile of bricks. The entrance is to the right of the bricks." "I'll have to take your word for it." "You and Tasso cover me from here. You'll be able to sight all the way to the bunker entrance." "You're going down alone?" "With my wrist tab I'll be safe. The ground around the bunker is a living field of claws. They collect down in the ash. Like crabs. Without tabs you wouldn't have a chance." "Maybe you're right." "I'll walk slowly all the way. As soon as I know for certain--" "If they're down inside the bunker you won't be able to get back up here. They go fast. You don't realize." "What do you suggest?" Klaus considered. "I don't know. Get them to come up to the surface. So you can see." Hendricks brought his transmitter from his belt, raising the antenna. "Let's get started." * * * * * Klaus signalled to Tasso. She crawled expertly up the side of the rise to where they were sitting. "He's going down alone," Klaus said. "We'll cover him from here. As soon as you see him start back, fire past him at once. They come quick." "You're not very optimistic," Tasso said. "No, I'm not." Hendricks opened the breech of his gun, checking it carefully. "Maybe things are all right." "You didn't see them. Hundreds of them. All the same. Pouring out like ants." "I should be able to find out without going down all the way." Hendricks locked his gun, gripping it in one hand, the transmitter in the other. "Well, wish me luck." Klaus put out his hand. "Don't go down until you're sure. Talk to them from up here. Make them show themselves." * * * * * Hendricks stood up. He stepped down the side of the rise. A moment later he was walking slowly toward the pile of bricks and debris beside the dead tree stump. Toward the entrance of the forward command bunker. Nothing stirred. He raised the transmitter, clicking it on. "Scott? Can you hear me?" Silence. "Scott! This is Hendricks. Can you hear me? I'm standing outside the bunker. You should be able to see me in the view sight." He listened, the transmitter gripped tightly. No sound. Only static. He walked forward. A claw burrowed out of the ash and raced toward him. It halted a few feet away and then slunk off. A second claw appeared, one of the big ones with feelers. It moved toward him, studied him intently, and then fell in behind him, dogging respectfully after him, a few paces away. A moment later a second big claw joined it. Silently, the claws trailed him, as he walked slowly toward the bunker. Hendricks stopped, and behind him, the claws came to a halt. He was close, now. Almost to the bunker steps. "Scott! Can you hear me? I'm standing right above you. Outside. On the surface. Are you picking me up?" * * * * * He waited, holding his gun against his side, the transmitter tightly to his ear. Time passed. He strained to hear, but there was only silence. Silence, and faint static. Then, distantly, metallically-- "This is Scott." The voice was neutral. Cold. He could not identify it. But the earphone was minute. "Scott! Listen. I'm standing right above you. I'm on the surface, looking down into the bunker entrance." "Yes." "Can you see me?" "Yes." "Through the view sight? You have the sight trained on me?" "Yes." Hendricks pondered. A circle of claws waited quietly around him, gray-metal bodies on all sides of him. "Is everything all right in the bunker? Nothing unusual has happened?" "Everything is all right." "Will you come up to the surface? I want to see you for a moment." Hendricks took a deep breath. "Come up here with me. I want to talk to you." "Come down." "I'm giving you an order." Silence. "Are you coming?" Hendricks listened. There was no response. "I order you to come to the surface." "Come down." Hendricks set his jaw. "Let me talk to Leone." There was a long pause. He listened to the static. Then a voice came, hard, thin, metallic. The same as the other. "This is Leone." "Hendricks. I'm on the surface. At the bunker entrance. I want one of you to come up here." "Come down." "Why come down? I'm giving you an order!" Silence. Hendricks lowered the transmitter. He looked carefully around him. The entrance was just ahead. Almost at his feet. He lowered the antenna and fastened the transmitter to his belt. Carefully, he gripped his gun with both hands. He moved forward, a step at a time. If they could see him they knew he was starting toward the entrance. He closed his eyes a moment. Then he put his foot on the first step that led downward. Two Davids came up at him, their faces identical and expressionless. He blasted them into particles. More came rushing silently up, a whole pack of them. All exactly the same. Hendricks turned and raced back, away from the bunker, back toward the rise. At the top of the rise Tasso and Klaus were firing down. The small claws were already streaking up toward them, shining metal spheres going fast, racing frantically through the ash. But he had no time to think about that. He knelt down, aiming at the bunker entrance, gun against his cheek. The Davids were coming out in groups, clutching their teddy bears, their thin knobby legs pumping as they ran up the steps to the surface. Hendricks fired into the main body of them. They burst apart, wheels and springs flying in all directions. He fired again through the mist of particles. A giant lumbering figure rose up in the bunker entrance, tall and swaying. Hendricks paused, amazed. A man, a soldier. With one leg, supporting himself with a crutch. "Major!" Tasso's voice came. More firing. The huge figure moved forward, Davids swarming around it. Hendricks broke out of his freeze. The First Variety. The Wounded Soldier. He aimed and fired. The soldier burst into bits, parts and relays flying. Now many Davids were out on the flat ground, away from the bunker. He fired again and again, moving slowly back, half-crouching and aiming. From the rise, Klaus fired down. The side of the rise was alive with claws making their way up. Hendricks retreated toward the rise, running and crouching. Tasso had left Klaus and was circling slowly to the right, moving away from the rise. A David slipped up toward him, its small white face expressionless, brown hair hanging down in its eyes. It bent over suddenly, opening its arms. Its teddy bear hurtled down and leaped across the ground, bounding toward him. Hendricks fired. The bear and the David both dissolved. He grinned, blinking. It was like a dream. "Up here!" Tasso's voice. Hendricks made his way toward her. She was over by some columns of concrete, walls of a ruined building. She was firing past him, with the hand pistol Klaus had given her. "Thanks." He joined her, grasping for breath. She pulled him back, behind the concrete, fumbling at her belt. "Close your eyes!" She unfastened a globe from her waist. Rapidly, she unscrewed the cap, locking it into place. "Close your eyes and get down." * * * * * She threw the bomb. It sailed in an arc, an expert, rolling and bouncing to the entrance of the bunker. Two Wounded Soldiers stood uncertainly by the brick pile. More Davids poured from behind them, out onto the plain. One of the Wounded Soldiers moved toward the bomb, stooping awkwardly down to pick it up. The bomb went off. The concussion whirled Hendricks around, throwing him on his face. A hot wind rolled over him. Dimly he saw Tasso standing behind the columns, firing slowly and methodically at the Davids coming out of the raging clouds of white fire. Back along the rise Klaus struggled with a ring of claws circling around him. He retreated, blasting at them and moving back, trying to break through the ring. Hendricks struggled to his feet. His head ached. He could hardly see. Everything was licking at him, raging and whirling. His right arm would not move. Tasso pulled back toward him. "Come on. Let's go." "Klaus--He's still up there." "Come on!" Tasso dragged Hendricks back, away from the columns. Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. Tasso led him rapidly away, her eyes intense and bright, watching for claws that had escaped the blast. One David came out of the rolling clouds of flame. Tasso blasted it. No more appeared. "But Klaus. What about him?" Hendricks stopped, standing unsteadily. "He--" "Come on!" * * * * * They retreated, moving farther and farther away from the bunker. A few small claws followed them for a little while and then gave up, turning back and going off. At last Tasso stopped. "We can stop here and get our breaths." Hendricks sat down on some heaps of debris. He wiped his neck, gasping. "We left Klaus back there." Tasso said nothing. She opened her gun, sliding a fresh round of blast cartridges into place. Hendricks stared at her, dazed. "You left him back there on purpose." Tasso snapped the gun together. She studied the heaps of rubble around them, her face expressionless. As if she were watching for something. "What is it?" Hendricks demanded. "What are you looking for? Is something coming?" He shook his head, trying to understand. What was she doing? What was she waiting for? He could see nothing. Ash lay all around them, ash and ruins. Occasional stark tree trunks, without leaves or branches. "What--" Tasso cut him off. "Be still." Her eyes narrowed. Suddenly her gun came up. Hendricks turned, following her gaze. * * * * * Back the way they had come a figure appeared. The figure walked unsteadily toward them. Its clothes were torn. It limped as it made its way along, going very slowly and carefully. Stopping now and then, resting and getting its strength. Once it almost fell. It stood for a moment, trying to steady itself. Then it came on. Klaus. Hendricks stood up. "Klaus!" He started toward him. "How the hell did you--" Tasso fired. Hendricks swung back. She fired again, the blast passing him, a searing line of heat. The beam caught Klaus in the chest. He exploded, gears and wheels flying. For a moment he continued to walk. Then he swayed back and forth. He crashed to the ground, his arms flung out. A few more wheels rolled away. Silence. Tasso turned to Hendricks. "Now you understand why he killed Rudi." Hendricks sat down again slowly. He shook his head. He was numb. He could not think. "Do you see?" Tasso said. "Do you understand?" Hendricks said nothing. Everything was slipping away from him, faster and faster. Darkness, rolling and plucking at him. He closed his eyes. * * * * * Hendricks opened his eyes slowly. His body ached all over. He tried to sit up but needles of pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He gasped. "Don't try to get up," Tasso said. She bent down, putting her cold hand against his forehead. It was night. A few stars glinted above, shining through the drifting clouds of ash. Hendricks lay back, his teeth locked. Tasso watched him impassively. She had built a fire with some wood and weeds. The fire licked feebly, hissing at a metal cup suspended over it. Everything was silent. Unmoving darkness, beyond the fire. "So he was the Second Variety," Hendricks murmured. "I had always thought so." "Why didn't you destroy him sooner?" he wanted to know. "You held me back." Tasso crossed to the fire to look into the metal cup. "Coffee. It'll be ready to drink in awhile." She came back and sat down beside him. Presently she opened her pistol and began to disassemble the firing mechanism, studying it intently. "This is a beautiful gun," Tasso said, half-aloud. "The construction is superb." "What about them? The claws." "The concussion from the bomb put most of them out of action. They're delicate. Highly organized, I suppose." "The Davids, too?" "Yes." "How did you happen to have a bomb like that?" Tasso shrugged. "We designed it. You shouldn't underestimate our technology, Major. Without such a bomb you and I would no longer exist." "Very useful." Tasso stretched out her legs, warming her feet in the heat of the fire. "It surprised me that you did not seem to understand, after he killed Rudi. Why did you think he--" "I told you. I thought he was afraid." "Really? You know, Major, for a little while I suspected you. Because you wouldn't let me kill him. I thought you might be protecting him." She laughed. "Are we safe here?" Hendricks asked presently. "For awhile. Until they get reinforcements from some other area." Tasso began to clean the interior of the gun with a bit of rag. She finished and pushed the mechanism back into place. She closed the gun, running her finger along the barrel. "We were lucky," Hendricks murmured. "Yes. Very lucky." "Thanks for pulling me away." * * * * * Tasso did not answer. She glanced up at him, her eyes bright in the fire light. Hendricks examined his arm. He could not move his fingers. His whole side seemed numb. Down inside him was a dull steady ache. "How do you feel?" Tasso asked. "My arm is damaged." "Anything else?" "Internal injuries." "You didn't get down when the bomb went off." Hendricks said nothing. He watched Tasso pour the coffee from the cup into a flat metal pan. She brought it over to him. "Thanks." He struggled up enough to drink. It was hard to swallow. His insides turned over and he pushed the pan away. "That's all I can drink now." Tasso drank the rest. Time passed. The clouds of ash moved across the dark sky above them. Hendricks rested, his mind blank. After awhile he became aware that Tasso was standing over him, gazing down at him. "What is it?" he murmured. "Do you feel any better?" "Some." "You know, Major, if I hadn't dragged you away they would have got you. You would be dead. Like Rudi." "I know." "Do you want to know why I brought you out? I could have left you. I could have left you there." "Why did you bring me out?" "Because we have to get away from here." Tasso stirred the fire with a stick, peering calmly down into it. "No human being can live here. When their reinforcements come we won't have a chance. I've pondered about it while you were unconscious. We have perhaps three hours before they come." "And you expect me to get us away?" "That's right. I expect you to get us out of here." "Why me?" "Because I don't know any way." Her eyes shone at him in the half-light, bright and steady. "If you can't get us out of here they'll kill us within three hours. I see nothing else ahead. Well, Major? What are you going to do? I've been waiting all night. While you were unconscious I sat here, waiting and listening. It's almost dawn. The night is almost over." * * * * * Hendricks considered. "It's curious," he said at last. "Curious?" "That you should think I can get us out of here. I wonder what you think I can do." "Can you get us to the Moon Base?" "The Moon Base? How?" "There must be some way." Hendricks shook his head. "No. There's no way that I know of." Tasso said nothing. For a moment her steady gaze wavered. She ducked her head, turning abruptly away. She scrambled to her feet. "More coffee?" "No." "Suit yourself." Tasso drank silently. He could not see her face. He lay back against the ground, deep in thought, trying to concentrate. It was hard to think. His head still hurt. And the numbing daze still hung over him. "There might be one way," he said suddenly. "Oh?" "How soon is dawn?" "Two hours. The sun will be coming up shortly." "There's supposed to be a ship near here. I've never seen it. But I know it exists." "What kind of a ship?" Her voice was sharp. "A rocket cruiser." "Will it take us off? To the Moon Base?" "It's supposed to. In case of emergency." He rubbed his forehead. "What's wrong?" "My head. It's hard to think. I can hardly--hardly concentrate. The bomb." "Is the ship near here?" Tasso slid over beside him, settling down on her haunches. "How far is it? Where is it?" "I'm trying to think." Her fingers dug into his arm. "Nearby?" Her voice was like iron. "Where would it be? Would they store it underground? Hidden underground?" "Yes. In a storage locker." "How do we find it? Is it marked? Is there a code marker to identify it?" Hendricks concentrated. "No. No markings. No code symbol." "What, then?" "A sign." "What sort of sign?" * * * * * Hendricks did not answer. In the flickering light his eyes were glazed, two sightless orbs. Tasso's fingers dug into his arm. "What sort of sign? What is it?" "I--I can't think. Let me rest." "All right." She let go and stood up. Hendricks lay back against the ground, his eyes closed. Tasso walked away from him, her hands in her pockets. She kicked a rock out of her way and stood staring up at the sky. The night blackness was already beginning to fade into gray. Morning was coming. Tasso gripped her pistol and walked around the fire in a circle, back and forth. On the ground Major Hendricks lay, his eyes closed, unmoving. The grayness rose in the sky, higher and higher. The landscape became visible, fields of ash stretching out in all directions. Ash and ruins of buildings, a wall here and there, heaps of concrete, the naked trunk of a tree. The air was cold and sharp. Somewhere a long way off a bird made a few bleak sounds. Hendricks stirred. He opened his eyes. "Is it dawn? Already?" "Yes." Hendricks sat up a little. "You wanted to know something. You were asking me." "Do you remember now?" "Yes." "What is it?" She tensed. "What?" she repeated sharply. "A well. A ruined well. It's in a storage locker under a well." "A well." Tasso relaxed. "Then we'll find a well." She looked at her watch. "We have about an hour, Major. Do you think we can find it in an hour?" * * * * * "Give me a hand up," Hendricks said. Tasso put her pistol away and helped him to his feet. "This is going to be difficult." "Yes it is." Hendricks set his lips tightly. "I don't think we're going to go very far." They began to walk. The early sun cast a little warmth down on them. The land was flat and barren, stretching out gray and lifeless as far as they could see. A few birds sailed silently, far above them, circling slowly. "See anything?" Hendricks said. "Any claws?" "No. Not yet." They passed through some ruins, upright concrete and bricks. A cement foundation. Rats scuttled away. Tasso jumped back warily. "This used to be a town," Hendricks said. "A village. Provincial village. This was all grape country, once. Where we are now." They came onto a ruined street, weeds and cracks criss-crossing it. Over to the right a stone chimney stuck up. "Be careful," he warned her. A pit yawned, an open basement. Ragged ends of pipes jutted up, twisted and bent. They passed part of a house, a bathtub turned on its side. A broken chair. A few spoons and bits of china dishes. In the center of the street the ground had sunk away. The depression was filled with weeds and debris and bones. "Over here," Hendricks murmured. "This way?" "To the right." They passed the remains of a heavy duty tank. Hendricks' belt counter clicked ominously. The tank had been radiation blasted. A few feet from the tank a mummified body lay sprawled out, mouth open. Beyond the road was a flat field. Stones and weeds, and bits of broken glass. "There," Hendricks said. * * * * * A stone well jutted up, sagging and broken. A few boards lay across it. Most of the well had sunk into rubble. Hendricks walked unsteadily toward it, Tasso beside him. "Are you certain about this?" Tasso said. "This doesn't look like anything." "I'm sure." Hendricks sat down at the edge of the well, his teeth locked. His breath came quickly. He wiped perspiration from his face. "This was arranged so the senior command officer could get away. If anything happened. If the bunker fell." "That was you?" "Yes." "Where is the ship? Is it here?" "We're standing on it." Hendricks ran his hands over the surface of the well stones. "The eye-lock responds to me, not to anybody else. It's my ship. Or it was supposed to be." There was a sharp click. Presently they heard a low grating sound from below them. "Step back," Hendricks said. He and Tasso moved away from the well. A section of the ground slid back. A metal frame pushed slowly up through the ash, shoving bricks and weeds out of the way. The action ceased, as the ship nosed into view. "There it is," Hendricks said. The ship was small. It rested quietly, suspended in its mesh frame, like a blunt needle. A rain of ash sifted down into the dark cavity from which the ship had been raised. Hendricks made his way over to it. He mounted the mesh and unscrewed the hatch, pulling it back. Inside the ship the control banks and the pressure seat were visible. * * * * * Tasso came and stood beside him, gazing into the ship. "I'm not accustomed to rocket piloting," she said, after awhile. Hendricks glanced at her. "I'll do the piloting." "Will you? There's only one seat, Major. I can see it's built to carry only a single person." Hendricks' breathing changed. He studied the interior of the ship intently. Tasso was right. There was only one seat. The ship was built to carry only one person. "I see," he said slowly. "And the one person is you." She nodded. "Of course." "Why?" "_You_ can't go. You might not live through the trip. You're injured. You probably wouldn't get there." "An interesting point. But you see, I know where the Moon Base is. And you don't. You might fly around for months and not find it. It's well hidden. Without knowing what to look for--" "I'll have to take my chances. Maybe I won't find it. Not by myself. But I think you'll give me all the information I need. Your life depends on it." "How?" "If I find the Moon Base in time, perhaps I can get them to send a ship back to pick you up. _If_ I find the Base in time. If not, then you haven't a chance. I imagine there are supplies on the ship. They will last me long enough--" Hendricks moved quickly. But his injured arm betrayed him. Tasso ducked, sliding lithely aside. Her hand came up, lightning fast. Hendricks saw the gun butt coming. He tried to ward off the blow, but she was too fast. The metal butt struck against the side of his head, just above his ear. Numbing pain rushed through him. Pain and rolling clouds of blackness. He sank down, sliding to the ground. * * * * * Dimly, he was aware that Tasso was standing over him, kicking him with her toe. "Major! Wake up." He opened his eyes, groaning. "Listen to me." She bent down, the gun pointed at his face. "I have to hurry. There isn't much time left. The ship is ready to go, but you must tell me the information I need before I leave." Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. "Hurry up! Where is the Moon Base? How do I find it? What do I look for?" Hendricks said nothing. "Answer me!" "Sorry." "Major, the ship is loaded with provisions. I can coast for weeks. I'll find the Base eventually. And in a half hour you'll be dead. Your only chance of survival--" She broke off. Along the slope, by some crumbling ruins, something moved. Something in the ash. Tasso turned quickly, aiming. She fired. A puff of flame leaped. Something scuttled away, rolling across the ash. She fired again. The claw burst apart, wheels flying. "See?" Tasso said. "A scout. It won't be long." "You'll bring them back here to get me?" "Yes. As soon as possible." Hendricks looked up at her. He studied her intently. "You're telling the truth?" A strange expression had come over his face, an avid hunger. "You will come back for me? You'll get me to the Moon Base?" "I'll get you to the Moon Base. But tell me where it is! There's only a little time left." "All right." Hendricks picked up a piece of rock, pulling himself to a sitting position. "Watch." Hendricks began to scratch in the ash. Tasso stood by him, watching the motion of the rock. Hendricks was sketching a crude lunar map. * * * * * "This is the Appenine range. Here is the Crater of Archimedes. The Moon Base is beyond the end of the Appenine, about two hundred miles. I don't know exactly where. No one on Terra knows. But when you're over the Appenine, signal with one red flare and a green flare, followed by two red flares in quick succession. The Base monitor will record your signal. The Base is under the surface, of course. They'll guide you down with magnetic grapples." "And the controls? Can I operate them?" "The controls are virtually automatic. All you have to do is give the right signal at the right time." "I will." "The seat absorbs most of the take-off shock. Air and temperature are automatically controlled. The ship will leave Terra and pass out into free space. It'll line itself up with the moon, falling into an orbit around it, about a hundred miles above the surface. The orbit will carry you over the Base. When you're in the region of the Appenine, release the signal rockets." Tasso slid into the ship and lowered herself into the pressure seat. The arm locks folded automatically around her. She fingered the controls. "Too bad you're not going, Major. All this put here for you, and you can't make the trip." "Leave me the pistol." Tasso pulled the pistol from her belt. She held it in her hand, weighing it thoughtfully. "Don't go too far from this location. It'll be hard to find you, as it is." "No. I'll stay here by the well." Tasso gripped the take-off switch, running her fingers over the smooth metal. "A beautiful ship, Major. Well built. I admire your workmanship. You people have always done good work. You build fine things. Your work, your creations, are your greatest achievement." "Give me the pistol," Hendricks said impatiently, holding out his hand. He struggled to his feet. "Good-bye, Major." Tasso tossed the pistol past Hendricks. The pistol clattered against the ground, bouncing and rolling away. Hendricks hurried after it. He bent down, snatching it up. The hatch of the ship clanged shut. The bolts fell into place. Hendricks made his way back. The inner door was being sealed. He raised the pistol unsteadily. * * * * * There was a shattering roar. The ship burst up from its metal cage, fusing the mesh behind it. Hendricks cringed, pulling back. The ship shot up into the rolling clouds of ash, disappearing into the sky. Hendricks stood watching a long time, until even the streamer had dissipated. Nothing stirred. The morning air was chill and silent. He began to walk aimlessly back the way they had come. Better to keep moving around. It would be a long time before help came--if it came at all. He searched his pockets until he found a package of cigarettes. He lit one grimly. They had all wanted cigarettes from him. But cigarettes were scarce. A lizard slithered by him, through the ash. He halted, rigid. The lizard disappeared. Above, the sun rose higher in the sky. Some flies landed on a flat rock to one side of him. Hendricks kicked at them with his foot. It was getting hot. Sweat trickled down his face, into his collar. His mouth was dry. Presently he stopped walking and sat down on some debris. He unfastened his medicine kit and swallowed a few narcotic capsules. He looked around him. Where was he? Something lay ahead. Stretched out on the ground. Silent and unmoving. Hendricks drew his gun quickly. It looked like a man. Then he remembered. It was the remains of Klaus. The Second Variety. Where Tasso had blasted him. He could see wheels and relays and metal parts, strewn around on the ash. Glittering and sparkling in the sunlight. Hendricks got to his feet and walked over. He nudged the inert form with his foot, turning it over a little. He

difficulty

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

yards ahead, was the entrance of the forward command bunker. The bunker from which he had come. Hendricks watched silently. No motion. No sign of life. Nothing stirred. Klaus slithered up beside him. "Where is it?" "Down there." Hendricks passed him the glasses. Clouds of ash rolled across the evening sky. The world was darkening. They had a couple of hours of light left, at the most. Probably not that much. "I don't see anything," Klaus said. "That tree there. The stump. By the pile of bricks. The entrance is to the right of the bricks." "I'll have to take your word for it." "You and Tasso cover me from here. You'll be able to sight all the way to the bunker entrance." "You're going down alone?" "With my wrist tab I'll be safe. The ground around the bunker is a living field of claws. They collect down in the ash. Like crabs. Without tabs you wouldn't have a chance." "Maybe you're right." "I'll walk slowly all the way. As soon as I know for certain--" "If they're down inside the bunker you won't be able to get back up here. They go fast. You don't realize." "What do you suggest?" Klaus considered. "I don't know. Get them to come up to the surface. So you can see." Hendricks brought his transmitter from his belt, raising the antenna. "Let's get started." * * * * * Klaus signalled to Tasso. She crawled expertly up the side of the rise to where they were sitting. "He's going down alone," Klaus said. "We'll cover him from here. As soon as you see him start back, fire past him at once. They come quick." "You're not very optimistic," Tasso said. "No, I'm not." Hendricks opened the breech of his gun, checking it carefully. "Maybe things are all right." "You didn't see them. Hundreds of them. All the same. Pouring out like ants." "I should be able to find out without going down all the way." Hendricks locked his gun, gripping it in one hand, the transmitter in the other. "Well, wish me luck." Klaus put out his hand. "Don't go down until you're sure. Talk to them from up here. Make them show themselves." * * * * * Hendricks stood up. He stepped down the side of the rise. A moment later he was walking slowly toward the pile of bricks and debris beside the dead tree stump. Toward the entrance of the forward command bunker. Nothing stirred. He raised the transmitter, clicking it on. "Scott? Can you hear me?" Silence. "Scott! This is Hendricks. Can you hear me? I'm standing outside the bunker. You should be able to see me in the view sight." He listened, the transmitter gripped tightly. No sound. Only static. He walked forward. A claw burrowed out of the ash and raced toward him. It halted a few feet away and then slunk off. A second claw appeared, one of the big ones with feelers. It moved toward him, studied him intently, and then fell in behind him, dogging respectfully after him, a few paces away. A moment later a second big claw joined it. Silently, the claws trailed him, as he walked slowly toward the bunker. Hendricks stopped, and behind him, the claws came to a halt. He was close, now. Almost to the bunker steps. "Scott! Can you hear me? I'm standing right above you. Outside. On the surface. Are you picking me up?" * * * * * He waited, holding his gun against his side, the transmitter tightly to his ear. Time passed. He strained to hear, but there was only silence. Silence, and faint static. Then, distantly, metallically-- "This is Scott." The voice was neutral. Cold. He could not identify it. But the earphone was minute. "Scott! Listen. I'm standing right above you. I'm on the surface, looking down into the bunker entrance." "Yes." "Can you see me?" "Yes." "Through the view sight? You have the sight trained on me?" "Yes." Hendricks pondered. A circle of claws waited quietly around him, gray-metal bodies on all sides of him. "Is everything all right in the bunker? Nothing unusual has happened?" "Everything is all right." "Will you come up to the surface? I want to see you for a moment." Hendricks took a deep breath. "Come up here with me. I want to talk to you." "Come down." "I'm giving you an order." Silence. "Are you coming?" Hendricks listened. There was no response. "I order you to come to the surface." "Come down." Hendricks set his jaw. "Let me talk to Leone." There was a long pause. He listened to the static. Then a voice came, hard, thin, metallic. The same as the other. "This is Leone." "Hendricks. I'm on the surface. At the bunker entrance. I want one of you to come up here." "Come down." "Why come down? I'm giving you an order!" Silence. Hendricks lowered the transmitter. He looked carefully around him. The entrance was just ahead. Almost at his feet. He lowered the antenna and fastened the transmitter to his belt. Carefully, he gripped his gun with both hands. He moved forward, a step at a time. If they could see him they knew he was starting toward the entrance. He closed his eyes a moment. Then he put his foot on the first step that led downward. Two Davids came up at him, their faces identical and expressionless. He blasted them into particles. More came rushing silently up, a whole pack of them. All exactly the same. Hendricks turned and raced back, away from the bunker, back toward the rise. At the top of the rise Tasso and Klaus were firing down. The small claws were already streaking up toward them, shining metal spheres going fast, racing frantically through the ash. But he had no time to think about that. He knelt down, aiming at the bunker entrance, gun against his cheek. The Davids were coming out in groups, clutching their teddy bears, their thin knobby legs pumping as they ran up the steps to the surface. Hendricks fired into the main body of them. They burst apart, wheels and springs flying in all directions. He fired again through the mist of particles. A giant lumbering figure rose up in the bunker entrance, tall and swaying. Hendricks paused, amazed. A man, a soldier. With one leg, supporting himself with a crutch. "Major!" Tasso's voice came. More firing. The huge figure moved forward, Davids swarming around it. Hendricks broke out of his freeze. The First Variety. The Wounded Soldier. He aimed and fired. The soldier burst into bits, parts and relays flying. Now many Davids were out on the flat ground, away from the bunker. He fired again and again, moving slowly back, half-crouching and aiming. From the rise, Klaus fired down. The side of the rise was alive with claws making their way up. Hendricks retreated toward the rise, running and crouching. Tasso had left Klaus and was circling slowly to the right, moving away from the rise. A David slipped up toward him, its small white face expressionless, brown hair hanging down in its eyes. It bent over suddenly, opening its arms. Its teddy bear hurtled down and leaped across the ground, bounding toward him. Hendricks fired. The bear and the David both dissolved. He grinned, blinking. It was like a dream. "Up here!" Tasso's voice. Hendricks made his way toward her. She was over by some columns of concrete, walls of a ruined building. She was firing past him, with the hand pistol Klaus had given her. "Thanks." He joined her, grasping for breath. She pulled him back, behind the concrete, fumbling at her belt. "Close your eyes!" She unfastened a globe from her waist. Rapidly, she unscrewed the cap, locking it into place. "Close your eyes and get down." * * * * * She threw the bomb. It sailed in an arc, an expert, rolling and bouncing to the entrance of the bunker. Two Wounded Soldiers stood uncertainly by the brick pile. More Davids poured from behind them, out onto the plain. One of the Wounded Soldiers moved toward the bomb, stooping awkwardly down to pick it up. The bomb went off. The concussion whirled Hendricks around, throwing him on his face. A hot wind rolled over him. Dimly he saw Tasso standing behind the columns, firing slowly and methodically at the Davids coming out of the raging clouds of white fire. Back along the rise Klaus struggled with a ring of claws circling around him. He retreated, blasting at them and moving back, trying to break through the ring. Hendricks struggled to his feet. His head ached. He could hardly see. Everything was licking at him, raging and whirling. His right arm would not move. Tasso pulled back toward him. "Come on. Let's go." "Klaus--He's still up there." "Come on!" Tasso dragged Hendricks back, away from the columns. Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. Tasso led him rapidly away, her eyes intense and bright, watching for claws that had escaped the blast. One David came out of the rolling clouds of flame. Tasso blasted it. No more appeared. "But Klaus. What about him?" Hendricks stopped, standing unsteadily. "He--" "Come on!" * * * * * They retreated, moving farther and farther away from the bunker. A few small claws followed them for a little while and then gave up, turning back and going off. At last Tasso stopped. "We can stop here and get our breaths." Hendricks sat down on some heaps of debris. He wiped his neck, gasping. "We left Klaus back there." Tasso said nothing. She opened her gun, sliding a fresh round of blast cartridges into place. Hendricks stared at her, dazed. "You left him back there on purpose." Tasso snapped the gun together. She studied the heaps of rubble around them, her face expressionless. As if she were watching for something. "What is it?" Hendricks demanded. "What are you looking for? Is something coming?" He shook his head, trying to understand. What was she doing? What was she waiting for? He could see nothing. Ash lay all around them, ash and ruins. Occasional stark tree trunks, without leaves or branches. "What--" Tasso cut him off. "Be still." Her eyes narrowed. Suddenly her gun came up. Hendricks turned, following her gaze. * * * * * Back the way they had come a figure appeared. The figure walked unsteadily toward them. Its clothes were torn. It limped as it made its way along, going very slowly and carefully. Stopping now and then, resting and getting its strength. Once it almost fell. It stood for a moment, trying to steady itself. Then it came on. Klaus. Hendricks stood up. "Klaus!" He started toward him. "How the hell did you--" Tasso fired. Hendricks swung back. She fired again, the blast passing him, a searing line of heat. The beam caught Klaus in the chest. He exploded, gears and wheels flying. For a moment he continued to walk. Then he swayed back and forth. He crashed to the ground, his arms flung out. A few more wheels rolled away. Silence. Tasso turned to Hendricks. "Now you understand why he killed Rudi." Hendricks sat down again slowly. He shook his head. He was numb. He could not think. "Do you see?" Tasso said. "Do you understand?" Hendricks said nothing. Everything was slipping away from him, faster and faster. Darkness, rolling and plucking at him. He closed his eyes. * * * * * Hendricks opened his eyes slowly. His body ached all over. He tried to sit up but needles of pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He gasped. "Don't try to get up," Tasso said. She bent down, putting her cold hand against his forehead. It was night. A few stars glinted above, shining through the drifting clouds of ash. Hendricks lay back, his teeth locked. Tasso watched him impassively. She had built a fire with some wood and weeds. The fire licked feebly, hissing at a metal cup suspended over it. Everything was silent. Unmoving darkness, beyond the fire. "So he was the Second Variety," Hendricks murmured. "I had always thought so." "Why didn't you destroy him sooner?" he wanted to know. "You held me back." Tasso crossed to the fire to look into the metal cup. "Coffee. It'll be ready to drink in awhile." She came back and sat down beside him. Presently she opened her pistol and began to disassemble the firing mechanism, studying it intently. "This is a beautiful gun," Tasso said, half-aloud. "The construction is superb." "What about them? The claws." "The concussion from the bomb put most of them out of action. They're delicate. Highly organized, I suppose." "The Davids, too?" "Yes." "How did you happen to have a bomb like that?" Tasso shrugged. "We designed it. You shouldn't underestimate our technology, Major. Without such a bomb you and I would no longer exist." "Very useful." Tasso stretched out her legs, warming her feet in the heat of the fire. "It surprised me that you did not seem to understand, after he killed Rudi. Why did you think he--" "I told you. I thought he was afraid." "Really? You know, Major, for a little while I suspected you. Because you wouldn't let me kill him. I thought you might be protecting him." She laughed. "Are we safe here?" Hendricks asked presently. "For awhile. Until they get reinforcements from some other area." Tasso began to clean the interior of the gun with a bit of rag. She finished and pushed the mechanism back into place. She closed the gun, running her finger along the barrel. "We were lucky," Hendricks murmured. "Yes. Very lucky." "Thanks for pulling me away." * * * * * Tasso did not answer. She glanced up at him, her eyes bright in the fire light. Hendricks examined his arm. He could not move his fingers. His whole side seemed numb. Down inside him was a dull steady ache. "How do you feel?" Tasso asked. "My arm is damaged." "Anything else?" "Internal injuries." "You didn't get down when the bomb went off." Hendricks said nothing. He watched Tasso pour the coffee from the cup into a flat metal pan. She brought it over to him. "Thanks." He struggled up enough to drink. It was hard to swallow. His insides turned over and he pushed the pan away. "That's all I can drink now." Tasso drank the rest. Time passed. The clouds of ash moved across the dark sky above them. Hendricks rested, his mind blank. After awhile he became aware that Tasso was standing over him, gazing down at him. "What is it?" he murmured. "Do you feel any better?" "Some." "You know, Major, if I hadn't dragged you away they would have got you. You would be dead. Like Rudi." "I know." "Do you want to know why I brought you out? I could have left you. I could have left you there." "Why did you bring me out?" "Because we have to get away from here." Tasso stirred the fire with a stick, peering calmly down into it. "No human being can live here. When their reinforcements come we won't have a chance. I've pondered about it while you were unconscious. We have perhaps three hours before they come." "And you expect me to get us away?" "That's right. I expect you to get us out of here." "Why me?" "Because I don't know any way." Her eyes shone at him in the half-light, bright and steady. "If you can't get us out of here they'll kill us within three hours. I see nothing else ahead. Well, Major? What are you going to do? I've been waiting all night. While you were unconscious I sat here, waiting and listening. It's almost dawn. The night is almost over." * * * * * Hendricks considered. "It's curious," he said at last. "Curious?" "That you should think I can get us out of here. I wonder what you think I can do." "Can you get us to the Moon Base?" "The Moon Base? How?" "There must be some way." Hendricks shook his head. "No. There's no way that I know of." Tasso said nothing. For a moment her steady gaze wavered. She ducked her head, turning abruptly away. She scrambled to her feet. "More coffee?" "No." "Suit yourself." Tasso drank silently. He could not see her face. He lay back against the ground, deep in thought, trying to concentrate. It was hard to think. His head still hurt. And the numbing daze still hung over him. "There might be one way," he said suddenly. "Oh?" "How soon is dawn?" "Two hours. The sun will be coming up shortly." "There's supposed to be a ship near here. I've never seen it. But I know it exists." "What kind of a ship?" Her voice was sharp. "A rocket cruiser." "Will it take us off? To the Moon Base?" "It's supposed to. In case of emergency." He rubbed his forehead. "What's wrong?" "My head. It's hard to think. I can hardly--hardly concentrate. The bomb." "Is the ship near here?" Tasso slid over beside him, settling down on her haunches. "How far is it? Where is it?" "I'm trying to think." Her fingers dug into his arm. "Nearby?" Her voice was like iron. "Where would it be? Would they store it underground? Hidden underground?" "Yes. In a storage locker." "How do we find it? Is it marked? Is there a code marker to identify it?" Hendricks concentrated. "No. No markings. No code symbol." "What, then?" "A sign." "What sort of sign?" * * * * * Hendricks did not answer. In the flickering light his eyes were glazed, two sightless orbs. Tasso's fingers dug into his arm. "What sort of sign? What is it?" "I--I can't think. Let me rest." "All right." She let go and stood up. Hendricks lay back against the ground, his eyes closed. Tasso walked away from him, her hands in her pockets. She kicked a rock out of her way and stood staring up at the sky. The night blackness was already beginning to fade into gray. Morning was coming. Tasso gripped her pistol and walked around the fire in a circle, back and forth. On the ground Major Hendricks lay, his eyes closed, unmoving. The grayness rose in the sky, higher and higher. The landscape became visible, fields of ash stretching out in all directions. Ash and ruins of buildings, a wall here and there, heaps of concrete, the naked trunk of a tree. The air was cold and sharp. Somewhere a long way off a bird made a few bleak sounds. Hendricks stirred. He opened his eyes. "Is it dawn? Already?" "Yes." Hendricks sat up a little. "You wanted to know something. You were asking me." "Do you remember now?" "Yes." "What is it?" She tensed. "What?" she repeated sharply. "A well. A ruined well. It's in a storage locker under a well." "A well." Tasso relaxed. "Then we'll find a well." She looked at her watch. "We have about an hour, Major. Do you think we can find it in an hour?" * * * * * "Give me a hand up," Hendricks said. Tasso put her pistol away and helped him to his feet. "This is going to be difficult." "Yes it is." Hendricks set his lips tightly. "I don't think we're going to go very far." They began to walk. The early sun cast a little warmth down on them. The land was flat and barren, stretching out gray and lifeless as far as they could see. A few birds sailed silently, far above them, circling slowly. "See anything?" Hendricks said. "Any claws?" "No. Not yet." They passed through some ruins, upright concrete and bricks. A cement foundation. Rats scuttled away. Tasso jumped back warily. "This used to be a town," Hendricks said. "A village. Provincial village. This was all grape country, once. Where we are now." They came onto a ruined street, weeds and cracks criss-crossing it. Over to the right a stone chimney stuck up. "Be careful," he warned her. A pit yawned, an open basement. Ragged ends of pipes jutted up, twisted and bent. They passed part of a house, a bathtub turned on its side. A broken chair. A few spoons and bits of china dishes. In the center of the street the ground had sunk away. The depression was filled with weeds and debris and bones. "Over here," Hendricks murmured. "This way?" "To the right." They passed the remains of a heavy duty tank. Hendricks' belt counter clicked ominously. The tank had been radiation blasted. A few feet from the tank a mummified body lay sprawled out, mouth open. Beyond the road was a flat field. Stones and weeds, and bits of broken glass. "There," Hendricks said. * * * * * A stone well jutted up, sagging and broken. A few boards lay across it. Most of the well had sunk into rubble. Hendricks walked unsteadily toward it, Tasso beside him. "Are you certain about this?" Tasso said. "This doesn't look like anything." "I'm sure." Hendricks sat down at the edge of the well, his teeth locked. His breath came quickly. He wiped perspiration from his face. "This was arranged so the senior command officer could get away. If anything happened. If the bunker fell." "That was you?" "Yes." "Where is the ship? Is it here?" "We're standing on it." Hendricks ran his hands over the surface of the well stones. "The eye-lock responds to me, not to anybody else. It's my ship. Or it was supposed to be." There was a sharp click. Presently they heard a low grating sound from below them. "Step back," Hendricks said. He and Tasso moved away from the well. A section of the ground slid back. A metal frame pushed slowly up through the ash, shoving bricks and weeds out of the way. The action ceased, as the ship nosed into view. "There it is," Hendricks said. The ship was small. It rested quietly, suspended in its mesh frame, like a blunt needle. A rain of ash sifted down into the dark cavity from which the ship had been raised. Hendricks made his way over to it. He mounted the mesh and unscrewed the hatch, pulling it back. Inside the ship the control banks and the pressure seat were visible. * * * * * Tasso came and stood beside him, gazing into the ship. "I'm not accustomed to rocket piloting," she said, after awhile. Hendricks glanced at her. "I'll do the piloting." "Will you? There's only one seat, Major. I can see it's built to carry only a single person." Hendricks' breathing changed. He studied the interior of the ship intently. Tasso was right. There was only one seat. The ship was built to carry only one person. "I see," he said slowly. "And the one person is you." She nodded. "Of course." "Why?" "_You_ can't go. You might not live through the trip. You're injured. You probably wouldn't get there." "An interesting point. But you see, I know where the Moon Base is. And you don't. You might fly around for months and not find it. It's well hidden. Without knowing what to look for--" "I'll have to take my chances. Maybe I won't find it. Not by myself. But I think you'll give me all the information I need. Your life depends on it." "How?" "If I find the Moon Base in time, perhaps I can get them to send a ship back to pick you up. _If_ I find the Base in time. If not, then you haven't a chance. I imagine there are supplies on the ship. They will last me long enough--" Hendricks moved quickly. But his injured arm betrayed him. Tasso ducked, sliding lithely aside. Her hand came up, lightning fast. Hendricks saw the gun butt coming. He tried to ward off the blow, but she was too fast. The metal butt struck against the side of his head, just above his ear. Numbing pain rushed through him. Pain and rolling clouds of blackness. He sank down, sliding to the ground. * * * * * Dimly, he was aware that Tasso was standing over him, kicking him with her toe. "Major! Wake up." He opened his eyes, groaning. "Listen to me." She bent down, the gun pointed at his face. "I have to hurry. There isn't much time left. The ship is ready to go, but you must tell me the information I need before I leave." Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. "Hurry up! Where is the Moon Base? How do I find it? What do I look for?" Hendricks said nothing. "Answer me!" "Sorry." "Major, the ship is loaded with provisions. I can coast for weeks. I'll find the Base eventually. And in a half hour you'll be dead. Your only chance of survival--" She broke off. Along the slope, by some crumbling ruins, something moved. Something in the ash. Tasso turned quickly, aiming. She fired. A puff of flame leaped. Something scuttled away, rolling across the ash. She fired again. The claw burst apart, wheels flying. "See?" Tasso said. "A scout. It won't be long." "You'll bring them back here to get me?" "Yes. As soon as possible." Hendricks looked up at her. He studied her intently. "You're telling the truth?" A strange expression had come over his face, an avid hunger. "You will come back for me? You'll get me to the Moon Base?" "I'll get you to the Moon Base. But tell me where it is! There's only a little time left." "All right." Hendricks picked up a piece of rock, pulling himself to a sitting position. "Watch." Hendricks began to scratch in the ash. Tasso stood by him, watching the motion of the rock. Hendricks was sketching a crude lunar map. * * * * * "This is the Appenine range. Here is the Crater of Archimedes. The Moon Base is beyond the end of the Appenine, about two hundred miles. I don't know exactly where. No one on Terra knows. But when you're over the Appenine, signal with one red flare and a green flare, followed by two red flares in quick succession. The Base monitor will record your signal. The Base is under the surface, of course. They'll guide you down with magnetic grapples." "And the controls? Can I operate them?" "The controls are virtually automatic. All you have to do is give the right signal at the right time." "I will." "The seat absorbs most of the take-off shock. Air and temperature are automatically controlled. The ship will leave Terra and pass out into free space. It'll line itself up with the moon, falling into an orbit around it, about a hundred miles above the surface. The orbit will carry you over the Base. When you're in the region of the Appenine, release the signal rockets." Tasso slid into the ship and lowered herself into the pressure seat. The arm locks folded automatically around her. She fingered the controls. "Too bad you're not going, Major. All this put here for you, and you can't make the trip." "Leave me the pistol." Tasso pulled the pistol from her belt. She held it in her hand, weighing it thoughtfully. "Don't go too far from this location. It'll be hard to find you, as it is." "No. I'll stay here by the well." Tasso gripped the take-off switch, running her fingers over the smooth metal. "A beautiful ship, Major. Well built. I admire your workmanship. You people have always done good work. You build fine things. Your work, your creations, are your greatest achievement." "Give me the pistol," Hendricks said impatiently, holding out his hand. He struggled to his feet. "Good-bye, Major." Tasso tossed the pistol past Hendricks. The pistol clattered against the ground, bouncing and rolling away. Hendricks hurried after it. He bent down, snatching it up. The hatch of the ship clanged shut. The bolts fell into place. Hendricks made his way back. The inner door was being sealed. He raised the pistol unsteadily. * * * * * There was a shattering roar. The ship burst up from its metal cage, fusing the mesh behind it. Hendricks cringed, pulling back. The ship shot up into the rolling clouds of ash, disappearing into the sky. Hendricks stood watching a long time, until even the streamer had dissipated. Nothing stirred. The morning air was chill and silent. He began to walk aimlessly back the way they had come. Better to keep moving around. It would be a long time before help came--if it came at all. He searched his pockets until he found a package of cigarettes. He lit one grimly. They had all wanted cigarettes from him. But cigarettes were scarce. A lizard slithered by him, through the ash. He halted, rigid. The lizard disappeared. Above, the sun rose higher in the sky. Some flies landed on a flat rock to one side of him. Hendricks kicked at them with his foot. It was getting hot. Sweat trickled down his face, into his collar. His mouth was dry. Presently he stopped walking and sat down on some debris. He unfastened his medicine kit and swallowed a few narcotic capsules. He looked around him. Where was he? Something lay ahead. Stretched out on the ground. Silent and unmoving. Hendricks drew his gun quickly. It looked like a man. Then he remembered. It was the remains of Klaus. The Second Variety. Where Tasso had blasted him. He could see wheels and relays and metal parts, strewn around on the ash. Glittering and sparkling in the sunlight. Hendricks got to his feet and walked over. He nudged the inert form with his foot, turning it over a little. He

resentment

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

yards ahead, was the entrance of the forward command bunker. The bunker from which he had come. Hendricks watched silently. No motion. No sign of life. Nothing stirred. Klaus slithered up beside him. "Where is it?" "Down there." Hendricks passed him the glasses. Clouds of ash rolled across the evening sky. The world was darkening. They had a couple of hours of light left, at the most. Probably not that much. "I don't see anything," Klaus said. "That tree there. The stump. By the pile of bricks. The entrance is to the right of the bricks." "I'll have to take your word for it." "You and Tasso cover me from here. You'll be able to sight all the way to the bunker entrance." "You're going down alone?" "With my wrist tab I'll be safe. The ground around the bunker is a living field of claws. They collect down in the ash. Like crabs. Without tabs you wouldn't have a chance." "Maybe you're right." "I'll walk slowly all the way. As soon as I know for certain--" "If they're down inside the bunker you won't be able to get back up here. They go fast. You don't realize." "What do you suggest?" Klaus considered. "I don't know. Get them to come up to the surface. So you can see." Hendricks brought his transmitter from his belt, raising the antenna. "Let's get started." * * * * * Klaus signalled to Tasso. She crawled expertly up the side of the rise to where they were sitting. "He's going down alone," Klaus said. "We'll cover him from here. As soon as you see him start back, fire past him at once. They come quick." "You're not very optimistic," Tasso said. "No, I'm not." Hendricks opened the breech of his gun, checking it carefully. "Maybe things are all right." "You didn't see them. Hundreds of them. All the same. Pouring out like ants." "I should be able to find out without going down all the way." Hendricks locked his gun, gripping it in one hand, the transmitter in the other. "Well, wish me luck." Klaus put out his hand. "Don't go down until you're sure. Talk to them from up here. Make them show themselves." * * * * * Hendricks stood up. He stepped down the side of the rise. A moment later he was walking slowly toward the pile of bricks and debris beside the dead tree stump. Toward the entrance of the forward command bunker. Nothing stirred. He raised the transmitter, clicking it on. "Scott? Can you hear me?" Silence. "Scott! This is Hendricks. Can you hear me? I'm standing outside the bunker. You should be able to see me in the view sight." He listened, the transmitter gripped tightly. No sound. Only static. He walked forward. A claw burrowed out of the ash and raced toward him. It halted a few feet away and then slunk off. A second claw appeared, one of the big ones with feelers. It moved toward him, studied him intently, and then fell in behind him, dogging respectfully after him, a few paces away. A moment later a second big claw joined it. Silently, the claws trailed him, as he walked slowly toward the bunker. Hendricks stopped, and behind him, the claws came to a halt. He was close, now. Almost to the bunker steps. "Scott! Can you hear me? I'm standing right above you. Outside. On the surface. Are you picking me up?" * * * * * He waited, holding his gun against his side, the transmitter tightly to his ear. Time passed. He strained to hear, but there was only silence. Silence, and faint static. Then, distantly, metallically-- "This is Scott." The voice was neutral. Cold. He could not identify it. But the earphone was minute. "Scott! Listen. I'm standing right above you. I'm on the surface, looking down into the bunker entrance." "Yes." "Can you see me?" "Yes." "Through the view sight? You have the sight trained on me?" "Yes." Hendricks pondered. A circle of claws waited quietly around him, gray-metal bodies on all sides of him. "Is everything all right in the bunker? Nothing unusual has happened?" "Everything is all right." "Will you come up to the surface? I want to see you for a moment." Hendricks took a deep breath. "Come up here with me. I want to talk to you." "Come down." "I'm giving you an order." Silence. "Are you coming?" Hendricks listened. There was no response. "I order you to come to the surface." "Come down." Hendricks set his jaw. "Let me talk to Leone." There was a long pause. He listened to the static. Then a voice came, hard, thin, metallic. The same as the other. "This is Leone." "Hendricks. I'm on the surface. At the bunker entrance. I want one of you to come up here." "Come down." "Why come down? I'm giving you an order!" Silence. Hendricks lowered the transmitter. He looked carefully around him. The entrance was just ahead. Almost at his feet. He lowered the antenna and fastened the transmitter to his belt. Carefully, he gripped his gun with both hands. He moved forward, a step at a time. If they could see him they knew he was starting toward the entrance. He closed his eyes a moment. Then he put his foot on the first step that led downward. Two Davids came up at him, their faces identical and expressionless. He blasted them into particles. More came rushing silently up, a whole pack of them. All exactly the same. Hendricks turned and raced back, away from the bunker, back toward the rise. At the top of the rise Tasso and Klaus were firing down. The small claws were already streaking up toward them, shining metal spheres going fast, racing frantically through the ash. But he had no time to think about that. He knelt down, aiming at the bunker entrance, gun against his cheek. The Davids were coming out in groups, clutching their teddy bears, their thin knobby legs pumping as they ran up the steps to the surface. Hendricks fired into the main body of them. They burst apart, wheels and springs flying in all directions. He fired again through the mist of particles. A giant lumbering figure rose up in the bunker entrance, tall and swaying. Hendricks paused, amazed. A man, a soldier. With one leg, supporting himself with a crutch. "Major!" Tasso's voice came. More firing. The huge figure moved forward, Davids swarming around it. Hendricks broke out of his freeze. The First Variety. The Wounded Soldier. He aimed and fired. The soldier burst into bits, parts and relays flying. Now many Davids were out on the flat ground, away from the bunker. He fired again and again, moving slowly back, half-crouching and aiming. From the rise, Klaus fired down. The side of the rise was alive with claws making their way up. Hendricks retreated toward the rise, running and crouching. Tasso had left Klaus and was circling slowly to the right, moving away from the rise. A David slipped up toward him, its small white face expressionless, brown hair hanging down in its eyes. It bent over suddenly, opening its arms. Its teddy bear hurtled down and leaped across the ground, bounding toward him. Hendricks fired. The bear and the David both dissolved. He grinned, blinking. It was like a dream. "Up here!" Tasso's voice. Hendricks made his way toward her. She was over by some columns of concrete, walls of a ruined building. She was firing past him, with the hand pistol Klaus had given her. "Thanks." He joined her, grasping for breath. She pulled him back, behind the concrete, fumbling at her belt. "Close your eyes!" She unfastened a globe from her waist. Rapidly, she unscrewed the cap, locking it into place. "Close your eyes and get down." * * * * * She threw the bomb. It sailed in an arc, an expert, rolling and bouncing to the entrance of the bunker. Two Wounded Soldiers stood uncertainly by the brick pile. More Davids poured from behind them, out onto the plain. One of the Wounded Soldiers moved toward the bomb, stooping awkwardly down to pick it up. The bomb went off. The concussion whirled Hendricks around, throwing him on his face. A hot wind rolled over him. Dimly he saw Tasso standing behind the columns, firing slowly and methodically at the Davids coming out of the raging clouds of white fire. Back along the rise Klaus struggled with a ring of claws circling around him. He retreated, blasting at them and moving back, trying to break through the ring. Hendricks struggled to his feet. His head ached. He could hardly see. Everything was licking at him, raging and whirling. His right arm would not move. Tasso pulled back toward him. "Come on. Let's go." "Klaus--He's still up there." "Come on!" Tasso dragged Hendricks back, away from the columns. Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. Tasso led him rapidly away, her eyes intense and bright, watching for claws that had escaped the blast. One David came out of the rolling clouds of flame. Tasso blasted it. No more appeared. "But Klaus. What about him?" Hendricks stopped, standing unsteadily. "He--" "Come on!" * * * * * They retreated, moving farther and farther away from the bunker. A few small claws followed them for a little while and then gave up, turning back and going off. At last Tasso stopped. "We can stop here and get our breaths." Hendricks sat down on some heaps of debris. He wiped his neck, gasping. "We left Klaus back there." Tasso said nothing. She opened her gun, sliding a fresh round of blast cartridges into place. Hendricks stared at her, dazed. "You left him back there on purpose." Tasso snapped the gun together. She studied the heaps of rubble around them, her face expressionless. As if she were watching for something. "What is it?" Hendricks demanded. "What are you looking for? Is something coming?" He shook his head, trying to understand. What was she doing? What was she waiting for? He could see nothing. Ash lay all around them, ash and ruins. Occasional stark tree trunks, without leaves or branches. "What--" Tasso cut him off. "Be still." Her eyes narrowed. Suddenly her gun came up. Hendricks turned, following her gaze. * * * * * Back the way they had come a figure appeared. The figure walked unsteadily toward them. Its clothes were torn. It limped as it made its way along, going very slowly and carefully. Stopping now and then, resting and getting its strength. Once it almost fell. It stood for a moment, trying to steady itself. Then it came on. Klaus. Hendricks stood up. "Klaus!" He started toward him. "How the hell did you--" Tasso fired. Hendricks swung back. She fired again, the blast passing him, a searing line of heat. The beam caught Klaus in the chest. He exploded, gears and wheels flying. For a moment he continued to walk. Then he swayed back and forth. He crashed to the ground, his arms flung out. A few more wheels rolled away. Silence. Tasso turned to Hendricks. "Now you understand why he killed Rudi." Hendricks sat down again slowly. He shook his head. He was numb. He could not think. "Do you see?" Tasso said. "Do you understand?" Hendricks said nothing. Everything was slipping away from him, faster and faster. Darkness, rolling and plucking at him. He closed his eyes. * * * * * Hendricks opened his eyes slowly. His body ached all over. He tried to sit up but needles of pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He gasped. "Don't try to get up," Tasso said. She bent down, putting her cold hand against his forehead. It was night. A few stars glinted above, shining through the drifting clouds of ash. Hendricks lay back, his teeth locked. Tasso watched him impassively. She had built a fire with some wood and weeds. The fire licked feebly, hissing at a metal cup suspended over it. Everything was silent. Unmoving darkness, beyond the fire. "So he was the Second Variety," Hendricks murmured. "I had always thought so." "Why didn't you destroy him sooner?" he wanted to know. "You held me back." Tasso crossed to the fire to look into the metal cup. "Coffee. It'll be ready to drink in awhile." She came back and sat down beside him. Presently she opened her pistol and began to disassemble the firing mechanism, studying it intently. "This is a beautiful gun," Tasso said, half-aloud. "The construction is superb." "What about them? The claws." "The concussion from the bomb put most of them out of action. They're delicate. Highly organized, I suppose." "The Davids, too?" "Yes." "How did you happen to have a bomb like that?" Tasso shrugged. "We designed it. You shouldn't underestimate our technology, Major. Without such a bomb you and I would no longer exist." "Very useful." Tasso stretched out her legs, warming her feet in the heat of the fire. "It surprised me that you did not seem to understand, after he killed Rudi. Why did you think he--" "I told you. I thought he was afraid." "Really? You know, Major, for a little while I suspected you. Because you wouldn't let me kill him. I thought you might be protecting him." She laughed. "Are we safe here?" Hendricks asked presently. "For awhile. Until they get reinforcements from some other area." Tasso began to clean the interior of the gun with a bit of rag. She finished and pushed the mechanism back into place. She closed the gun, running her finger along the barrel. "We were lucky," Hendricks murmured. "Yes. Very lucky." "Thanks for pulling me away." * * * * * Tasso did not answer. She glanced up at him, her eyes bright in the fire light. Hendricks examined his arm. He could not move his fingers. His whole side seemed numb. Down inside him was a dull steady ache. "How do you feel?" Tasso asked. "My arm is damaged." "Anything else?" "Internal injuries." "You didn't get down when the bomb went off." Hendricks said nothing. He watched Tasso pour the coffee from the cup into a flat metal pan. She brought it over to him. "Thanks." He struggled up enough to drink. It was hard to swallow. His insides turned over and he pushed the pan away. "That's all I can drink now." Tasso drank the rest. Time passed. The clouds of ash moved across the dark sky above them. Hendricks rested, his mind blank. After awhile he became aware that Tasso was standing over him, gazing down at him. "What is it?" he murmured. "Do you feel any better?" "Some." "You know, Major, if I hadn't dragged you away they would have got you. You would be dead. Like Rudi." "I know." "Do you want to know why I brought you out? I could have left you. I could have left you there." "Why did you bring me out?" "Because we have to get away from here." Tasso stirred the fire with a stick, peering calmly down into it. "No human being can live here. When their reinforcements come we won't have a chance. I've pondered about it while you were unconscious. We have perhaps three hours before they come." "And you expect me to get us away?" "That's right. I expect you to get us out of here." "Why me?" "Because I don't know any way." Her eyes shone at him in the half-light, bright and steady. "If you can't get us out of here they'll kill us within three hours. I see nothing else ahead. Well, Major? What are you going to do? I've been waiting all night. While you were unconscious I sat here, waiting and listening. It's almost dawn. The night is almost over." * * * * * Hendricks considered. "It's curious," he said at last. "Curious?" "That you should think I can get us out of here. I wonder what you think I can do." "Can you get us to the Moon Base?" "The Moon Base? How?" "There must be some way." Hendricks shook his head. "No. There's no way that I know of." Tasso said nothing. For a moment her steady gaze wavered. She ducked her head, turning abruptly away. She scrambled to her feet. "More coffee?" "No." "Suit yourself." Tasso drank silently. He could not see her face. He lay back against the ground, deep in thought, trying to concentrate. It was hard to think. His head still hurt. And the numbing daze still hung over him. "There might be one way," he said suddenly. "Oh?" "How soon is dawn?" "Two hours. The sun will be coming up shortly." "There's supposed to be a ship near here. I've never seen it. But I know it exists." "What kind of a ship?" Her voice was sharp. "A rocket cruiser." "Will it take us off? To the Moon Base?" "It's supposed to. In case of emergency." He rubbed his forehead. "What's wrong?" "My head. It's hard to think. I can hardly--hardly concentrate. The bomb." "Is the ship near here?" Tasso slid over beside him, settling down on her haunches. "How far is it? Where is it?" "I'm trying to think." Her fingers dug into his arm. "Nearby?" Her voice was like iron. "Where would it be? Would they store it underground? Hidden underground?" "Yes. In a storage locker." "How do we find it? Is it marked? Is there a code marker to identify it?" Hendricks concentrated. "No. No markings. No code symbol." "What, then?" "A sign." "What sort of sign?" * * * * * Hendricks did not answer. In the flickering light his eyes were glazed, two sightless orbs. Tasso's fingers dug into his arm. "What sort of sign? What is it?" "I--I can't think. Let me rest." "All right." She let go and stood up. Hendricks lay back against the ground, his eyes closed. Tasso walked away from him, her hands in her pockets. She kicked a rock out of her way and stood staring up at the sky. The night blackness was already beginning to fade into gray. Morning was coming. Tasso gripped her pistol and walked around the fire in a circle, back and forth. On the ground Major Hendricks lay, his eyes closed, unmoving. The grayness rose in the sky, higher and higher. The landscape became visible, fields of ash stretching out in all directions. Ash and ruins of buildings, a wall here and there, heaps of concrete, the naked trunk of a tree. The air was cold and sharp. Somewhere a long way off a bird made a few bleak sounds. Hendricks stirred. He opened his eyes. "Is it dawn? Already?" "Yes." Hendricks sat up a little. "You wanted to know something. You were asking me." "Do you remember now?" "Yes." "What is it?" She tensed. "What?" she repeated sharply. "A well. A ruined well. It's in a storage locker under a well." "A well." Tasso relaxed. "Then we'll find a well." She looked at her watch. "We have about an hour, Major. Do you think we can find it in an hour?" * * * * * "Give me a hand up," Hendricks said. Tasso put her pistol away and helped him to his feet. "This is going to be difficult." "Yes it is." Hendricks set his lips tightly. "I don't think we're going to go very far." They began to walk. The early sun cast a little warmth down on them. The land was flat and barren, stretching out gray and lifeless as far as they could see. A few birds sailed silently, far above them, circling slowly. "See anything?" Hendricks said. "Any claws?" "No. Not yet." They passed through some ruins, upright concrete and bricks. A cement foundation. Rats scuttled away. Tasso jumped back warily. "This used to be a town," Hendricks said. "A village. Provincial village. This was all grape country, once. Where we are now." They came onto a ruined street, weeds and cracks criss-crossing it. Over to the right a stone chimney stuck up. "Be careful," he warned her. A pit yawned, an open basement. Ragged ends of pipes jutted up, twisted and bent. They passed part of a house, a bathtub turned on its side. A broken chair. A few spoons and bits of china dishes. In the center of the street the ground had sunk away. The depression was filled with weeds and debris and bones. "Over here," Hendricks murmured. "This way?" "To the right." They passed the remains of a heavy duty tank. Hendricks' belt counter clicked ominously. The tank had been radiation blasted. A few feet from the tank a mummified body lay sprawled out, mouth open. Beyond the road was a flat field. Stones and weeds, and bits of broken glass. "There," Hendricks said. * * * * * A stone well jutted up, sagging and broken. A few boards lay across it. Most of the well had sunk into rubble. Hendricks walked unsteadily toward it, Tasso beside him. "Are you certain about this?" Tasso said. "This doesn't look like anything." "I'm sure." Hendricks sat down at the edge of the well, his teeth locked. His breath came quickly. He wiped perspiration from his face. "This was arranged so the senior command officer could get away. If anything happened. If the bunker fell." "That was you?" "Yes." "Where is the ship? Is it here?" "We're standing on it." Hendricks ran his hands over the surface of the well stones. "The eye-lock responds to me, not to anybody else. It's my ship. Or it was supposed to be." There was a sharp click. Presently they heard a low grating sound from below them. "Step back," Hendricks said. He and Tasso moved away from the well. A section of the ground slid back. A metal frame pushed slowly up through the ash, shoving bricks and weeds out of the way. The action ceased, as the ship nosed into view. "There it is," Hendricks said. The ship was small. It rested quietly, suspended in its mesh frame, like a blunt needle. A rain of ash sifted down into the dark cavity from which the ship had been raised. Hendricks made his way over to it. He mounted the mesh and unscrewed the hatch, pulling it back. Inside the ship the control banks and the pressure seat were visible. * * * * * Tasso came and stood beside him, gazing into the ship. "I'm not accustomed to rocket piloting," she said, after awhile. Hendricks glanced at her. "I'll do the piloting." "Will you? There's only one seat, Major. I can see it's built to carry only a single person." Hendricks' breathing changed. He studied the interior of the ship intently. Tasso was right. There was only one seat. The ship was built to carry only one person. "I see," he said slowly. "And the one person is you." She nodded. "Of course." "Why?" "_You_ can't go. You might not live through the trip. You're injured. You probably wouldn't get there." "An interesting point. But you see, I know where the Moon Base is. And you don't. You might fly around for months and not find it. It's well hidden. Without knowing what to look for--" "I'll have to take my chances. Maybe I won't find it. Not by myself. But I think you'll give me all the information I need. Your life depends on it." "How?" "If I find the Moon Base in time, perhaps I can get them to send a ship back to pick you up. _If_ I find the Base in time. If not, then you haven't a chance. I imagine there are supplies on the ship. They will last me long enough--" Hendricks moved quickly. But his injured arm betrayed him. Tasso ducked, sliding lithely aside. Her hand came up, lightning fast. Hendricks saw the gun butt coming. He tried to ward off the blow, but she was too fast. The metal butt struck against the side of his head, just above his ear. Numbing pain rushed through him. Pain and rolling clouds of blackness. He sank down, sliding to the ground. * * * * * Dimly, he was aware that Tasso was standing over him, kicking him with her toe. "Major! Wake up." He opened his eyes, groaning. "Listen to me." She bent down, the gun pointed at his face. "I have to hurry. There isn't much time left. The ship is ready to go, but you must tell me the information I need before I leave." Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. "Hurry up! Where is the Moon Base? How do I find it? What do I look for?" Hendricks said nothing. "Answer me!" "Sorry." "Major, the ship is loaded with provisions. I can coast for weeks. I'll find the Base eventually. And in a half hour you'll be dead. Your only chance of survival--" She broke off. Along the slope, by some crumbling ruins, something moved. Something in the ash. Tasso turned quickly, aiming. She fired. A puff of flame leaped. Something scuttled away, rolling across the ash. She fired again. The claw burst apart, wheels flying. "See?" Tasso said. "A scout. It won't be long." "You'll bring them back here to get me?" "Yes. As soon as possible." Hendricks looked up at her. He studied her intently. "You're telling the truth?" A strange expression had come over his face, an avid hunger. "You will come back for me? You'll get me to the Moon Base?" "I'll get you to the Moon Base. But tell me where it is! There's only a little time left." "All right." Hendricks picked up a piece of rock, pulling himself to a sitting position. "Watch." Hendricks began to scratch in the ash. Tasso stood by him, watching the motion of the rock. Hendricks was sketching a crude lunar map. * * * * * "This is the Appenine range. Here is the Crater of Archimedes. The Moon Base is beyond the end of the Appenine, about two hundred miles. I don't know exactly where. No one on Terra knows. But when you're over the Appenine, signal with one red flare and a green flare, followed by two red flares in quick succession. The Base monitor will record your signal. The Base is under the surface, of course. They'll guide you down with magnetic grapples." "And the controls? Can I operate them?" "The controls are virtually automatic. All you have to do is give the right signal at the right time." "I will." "The seat absorbs most of the take-off shock. Air and temperature are automatically controlled. The ship will leave Terra and pass out into free space. It'll line itself up with the moon, falling into an orbit around it, about a hundred miles above the surface. The orbit will carry you over the Base. When you're in the region of the Appenine, release the signal rockets." Tasso slid into the ship and lowered herself into the pressure seat. The arm locks folded automatically around her. She fingered the controls. "Too bad you're not going, Major. All this put here for you, and you can't make the trip." "Leave me the pistol." Tasso pulled the pistol from her belt. She held it in her hand, weighing it thoughtfully. "Don't go too far from this location. It'll be hard to find you, as it is." "No. I'll stay here by the well." Tasso gripped the take-off switch, running her fingers over the smooth metal. "A beautiful ship, Major. Well built. I admire your workmanship. You people have always done good work. You build fine things. Your work, your creations, are your greatest achievement." "Give me the pistol," Hendricks said impatiently, holding out his hand. He struggled to his feet. "Good-bye, Major." Tasso tossed the pistol past Hendricks. The pistol clattered against the ground, bouncing and rolling away. Hendricks hurried after it. He bent down, snatching it up. The hatch of the ship clanged shut. The bolts fell into place. Hendricks made his way back. The inner door was being sealed. He raised the pistol unsteadily. * * * * * There was a shattering roar. The ship burst up from its metal cage, fusing the mesh behind it. Hendricks cringed, pulling back. The ship shot up into the rolling clouds of ash, disappearing into the sky. Hendricks stood watching a long time, until even the streamer had dissipated. Nothing stirred. The morning air was chill and silent. He began to walk aimlessly back the way they had come. Better to keep moving around. It would be a long time before help came--if it came at all. He searched his pockets until he found a package of cigarettes. He lit one grimly. They had all wanted cigarettes from him. But cigarettes were scarce. A lizard slithered by him, through the ash. He halted, rigid. The lizard disappeared. Above, the sun rose higher in the sky. Some flies landed on a flat rock to one side of him. Hendricks kicked at them with his foot. It was getting hot. Sweat trickled down his face, into his collar. His mouth was dry. Presently he stopped walking and sat down on some debris. He unfastened his medicine kit and swallowed a few narcotic capsules. He looked around him. Where was he? Something lay ahead. Stretched out on the ground. Silent and unmoving. Hendricks drew his gun quickly. It looked like a man. Then he remembered. It was the remains of Klaus. The Second Variety. Where Tasso had blasted him. He could see wheels and relays and metal parts, strewn around on the ash. Glittering and sparkling in the sunlight. Hendricks got to his feet and walked over. He nudged the inert form with his foot, turning it over a little. He

light

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

yards ahead, was the entrance of the forward command bunker. The bunker from which he had come. Hendricks watched silently. No motion. No sign of life. Nothing stirred. Klaus slithered up beside him. "Where is it?" "Down there." Hendricks passed him the glasses. Clouds of ash rolled across the evening sky. The world was darkening. They had a couple of hours of light left, at the most. Probably not that much. "I don't see anything," Klaus said. "That tree there. The stump. By the pile of bricks. The entrance is to the right of the bricks." "I'll have to take your word for it." "You and Tasso cover me from here. You'll be able to sight all the way to the bunker entrance." "You're going down alone?" "With my wrist tab I'll be safe. The ground around the bunker is a living field of claws. They collect down in the ash. Like crabs. Without tabs you wouldn't have a chance." "Maybe you're right." "I'll walk slowly all the way. As soon as I know for certain--" "If they're down inside the bunker you won't be able to get back up here. They go fast. You don't realize." "What do you suggest?" Klaus considered. "I don't know. Get them to come up to the surface. So you can see." Hendricks brought his transmitter from his belt, raising the antenna. "Let's get started." * * * * * Klaus signalled to Tasso. She crawled expertly up the side of the rise to where they were sitting. "He's going down alone," Klaus said. "We'll cover him from here. As soon as you see him start back, fire past him at once. They come quick." "You're not very optimistic," Tasso said. "No, I'm not." Hendricks opened the breech of his gun, checking it carefully. "Maybe things are all right." "You didn't see them. Hundreds of them. All the same. Pouring out like ants." "I should be able to find out without going down all the way." Hendricks locked his gun, gripping it in one hand, the transmitter in the other. "Well, wish me luck." Klaus put out his hand. "Don't go down until you're sure. Talk to them from up here. Make them show themselves." * * * * * Hendricks stood up. He stepped down the side of the rise. A moment later he was walking slowly toward the pile of bricks and debris beside the dead tree stump. Toward the entrance of the forward command bunker. Nothing stirred. He raised the transmitter, clicking it on. "Scott? Can you hear me?" Silence. "Scott! This is Hendricks. Can you hear me? I'm standing outside the bunker. You should be able to see me in the view sight." He listened, the transmitter gripped tightly. No sound. Only static. He walked forward. A claw burrowed out of the ash and raced toward him. It halted a few feet away and then slunk off. A second claw appeared, one of the big ones with feelers. It moved toward him, studied him intently, and then fell in behind him, dogging respectfully after him, a few paces away. A moment later a second big claw joined it. Silently, the claws trailed him, as he walked slowly toward the bunker. Hendricks stopped, and behind him, the claws came to a halt. He was close, now. Almost to the bunker steps. "Scott! Can you hear me? I'm standing right above you. Outside. On the surface. Are you picking me up?" * * * * * He waited, holding his gun against his side, the transmitter tightly to his ear. Time passed. He strained to hear, but there was only silence. Silence, and faint static. Then, distantly, metallically-- "This is Scott." The voice was neutral. Cold. He could not identify it. But the earphone was minute. "Scott! Listen. I'm standing right above you. I'm on the surface, looking down into the bunker entrance." "Yes." "Can you see me?" "Yes." "Through the view sight? You have the sight trained on me?" "Yes." Hendricks pondered. A circle of claws waited quietly around him, gray-metal bodies on all sides of him. "Is everything all right in the bunker? Nothing unusual has happened?" "Everything is all right." "Will you come up to the surface? I want to see you for a moment." Hendricks took a deep breath. "Come up here with me. I want to talk to you." "Come down." "I'm giving you an order." Silence. "Are you coming?" Hendricks listened. There was no response. "I order you to come to the surface." "Come down." Hendricks set his jaw. "Let me talk to Leone." There was a long pause. He listened to the static. Then a voice came, hard, thin, metallic. The same as the other. "This is Leone." "Hendricks. I'm on the surface. At the bunker entrance. I want one of you to come up here." "Come down." "Why come down? I'm giving you an order!" Silence. Hendricks lowered the transmitter. He looked carefully around him. The entrance was just ahead. Almost at his feet. He lowered the antenna and fastened the transmitter to his belt. Carefully, he gripped his gun with both hands. He moved forward, a step at a time. If they could see him they knew he was starting toward the entrance. He closed his eyes a moment. Then he put his foot on the first step that led downward. Two Davids came up at him, their faces identical and expressionless. He blasted them into particles. More came rushing silently up, a whole pack of them. All exactly the same. Hendricks turned and raced back, away from the bunker, back toward the rise. At the top of the rise Tasso and Klaus were firing down. The small claws were already streaking up toward them, shining metal spheres going fast, racing frantically through the ash. But he had no time to think about that. He knelt down, aiming at the bunker entrance, gun against his cheek. The Davids were coming out in groups, clutching their teddy bears, their thin knobby legs pumping as they ran up the steps to the surface. Hendricks fired into the main body of them. They burst apart, wheels and springs flying in all directions. He fired again through the mist of particles. A giant lumbering figure rose up in the bunker entrance, tall and swaying. Hendricks paused, amazed. A man, a soldier. With one leg, supporting himself with a crutch. "Major!" Tasso's voice came. More firing. The huge figure moved forward, Davids swarming around it. Hendricks broke out of his freeze. The First Variety. The Wounded Soldier. He aimed and fired. The soldier burst into bits, parts and relays flying. Now many Davids were out on the flat ground, away from the bunker. He fired again and again, moving slowly back, half-crouching and aiming. From the rise, Klaus fired down. The side of the rise was alive with claws making their way up. Hendricks retreated toward the rise, running and crouching. Tasso had left Klaus and was circling slowly to the right, moving away from the rise. A David slipped up toward him, its small white face expressionless, brown hair hanging down in its eyes. It bent over suddenly, opening its arms. Its teddy bear hurtled down and leaped across the ground, bounding toward him. Hendricks fired. The bear and the David both dissolved. He grinned, blinking. It was like a dream. "Up here!" Tasso's voice. Hendricks made his way toward her. She was over by some columns of concrete, walls of a ruined building. She was firing past him, with the hand pistol Klaus had given her. "Thanks." He joined her, grasping for breath. She pulled him back, behind the concrete, fumbling at her belt. "Close your eyes!" She unfastened a globe from her waist. Rapidly, she unscrewed the cap, locking it into place. "Close your eyes and get down." * * * * * She threw the bomb. It sailed in an arc, an expert, rolling and bouncing to the entrance of the bunker. Two Wounded Soldiers stood uncertainly by the brick pile. More Davids poured from behind them, out onto the plain. One of the Wounded Soldiers moved toward the bomb, stooping awkwardly down to pick it up. The bomb went off. The concussion whirled Hendricks around, throwing him on his face. A hot wind rolled over him. Dimly he saw Tasso standing behind the columns, firing slowly and methodically at the Davids coming out of the raging clouds of white fire. Back along the rise Klaus struggled with a ring of claws circling around him. He retreated, blasting at them and moving back, trying to break through the ring. Hendricks struggled to his feet. His head ached. He could hardly see. Everything was licking at him, raging and whirling. His right arm would not move. Tasso pulled back toward him. "Come on. Let's go." "Klaus--He's still up there." "Come on!" Tasso dragged Hendricks back, away from the columns. Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. Tasso led him rapidly away, her eyes intense and bright, watching for claws that had escaped the blast. One David came out of the rolling clouds of flame. Tasso blasted it. No more appeared. "But Klaus. What about him?" Hendricks stopped, standing unsteadily. "He--" "Come on!" * * * * * They retreated, moving farther and farther away from the bunker. A few small claws followed them for a little while and then gave up, turning back and going off. At last Tasso stopped. "We can stop here and get our breaths." Hendricks sat down on some heaps of debris. He wiped his neck, gasping. "We left Klaus back there." Tasso said nothing. She opened her gun, sliding a fresh round of blast cartridges into place. Hendricks stared at her, dazed. "You left him back there on purpose." Tasso snapped the gun together. She studied the heaps of rubble around them, her face expressionless. As if she were watching for something. "What is it?" Hendricks demanded. "What are you looking for? Is something coming?" He shook his head, trying to understand. What was she doing? What was she waiting for? He could see nothing. Ash lay all around them, ash and ruins. Occasional stark tree trunks, without leaves or branches. "What--" Tasso cut him off. "Be still." Her eyes narrowed. Suddenly her gun came up. Hendricks turned, following her gaze. * * * * * Back the way they had come a figure appeared. The figure walked unsteadily toward them. Its clothes were torn. It limped as it made its way along, going very slowly and carefully. Stopping now and then, resting and getting its strength. Once it almost fell. It stood for a moment, trying to steady itself. Then it came on. Klaus. Hendricks stood up. "Klaus!" He started toward him. "How the hell did you--" Tasso fired. Hendricks swung back. She fired again, the blast passing him, a searing line of heat. The beam caught Klaus in the chest. He exploded, gears and wheels flying. For a moment he continued to walk. Then he swayed back and forth. He crashed to the ground, his arms flung out. A few more wheels rolled away. Silence. Tasso turned to Hendricks. "Now you understand why he killed Rudi." Hendricks sat down again slowly. He shook his head. He was numb. He could not think. "Do you see?" Tasso said. "Do you understand?" Hendricks said nothing. Everything was slipping away from him, faster and faster. Darkness, rolling and plucking at him. He closed his eyes. * * * * * Hendricks opened his eyes slowly. His body ached all over. He tried to sit up but needles of pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He gasped. "Don't try to get up," Tasso said. She bent down, putting her cold hand against his forehead. It was night. A few stars glinted above, shining through the drifting clouds of ash. Hendricks lay back, his teeth locked. Tasso watched him impassively. She had built a fire with some wood and weeds. The fire licked feebly, hissing at a metal cup suspended over it. Everything was silent. Unmoving darkness, beyond the fire. "So he was the Second Variety," Hendricks murmured. "I had always thought so." "Why didn't you destroy him sooner?" he wanted to know. "You held me back." Tasso crossed to the fire to look into the metal cup. "Coffee. It'll be ready to drink in awhile." She came back and sat down beside him. Presently she opened her pistol and began to disassemble the firing mechanism, studying it intently. "This is a beautiful gun," Tasso said, half-aloud. "The construction is superb." "What about them? The claws." "The concussion from the bomb put most of them out of action. They're delicate. Highly organized, I suppose." "The Davids, too?" "Yes." "How did you happen to have a bomb like that?" Tasso shrugged. "We designed it. You shouldn't underestimate our technology, Major. Without such a bomb you and I would no longer exist." "Very useful." Tasso stretched out her legs, warming her feet in the heat of the fire. "It surprised me that you did not seem to understand, after he killed Rudi. Why did you think he--" "I told you. I thought he was afraid." "Really? You know, Major, for a little while I suspected you. Because you wouldn't let me kill him. I thought you might be protecting him." She laughed. "Are we safe here?" Hendricks asked presently. "For awhile. Until they get reinforcements from some other area." Tasso began to clean the interior of the gun with a bit of rag. She finished and pushed the mechanism back into place. She closed the gun, running her finger along the barrel. "We were lucky," Hendricks murmured. "Yes. Very lucky." "Thanks for pulling me away." * * * * * Tasso did not answer. She glanced up at him, her eyes bright in the fire light. Hendricks examined his arm. He could not move his fingers. His whole side seemed numb. Down inside him was a dull steady ache. "How do you feel?" Tasso asked. "My arm is damaged." "Anything else?" "Internal injuries." "You didn't get down when the bomb went off." Hendricks said nothing. He watched Tasso pour the coffee from the cup into a flat metal pan. She brought it over to him. "Thanks." He struggled up enough to drink. It was hard to swallow. His insides turned over and he pushed the pan away. "That's all I can drink now." Tasso drank the rest. Time passed. The clouds of ash moved across the dark sky above them. Hendricks rested, his mind blank. After awhile he became aware that Tasso was standing over him, gazing down at him. "What is it?" he murmured. "Do you feel any better?" "Some." "You know, Major, if I hadn't dragged you away they would have got you. You would be dead. Like Rudi." "I know." "Do you want to know why I brought you out? I could have left you. I could have left you there." "Why did you bring me out?" "Because we have to get away from here." Tasso stirred the fire with a stick, peering calmly down into it. "No human being can live here. When their reinforcements come we won't have a chance. I've pondered about it while you were unconscious. We have perhaps three hours before they come." "And you expect me to get us away?" "That's right. I expect you to get us out of here." "Why me?" "Because I don't know any way." Her eyes shone at him in the half-light, bright and steady. "If you can't get us out of here they'll kill us within three hours. I see nothing else ahead. Well, Major? What are you going to do? I've been waiting all night. While you were unconscious I sat here, waiting and listening. It's almost dawn. The night is almost over." * * * * * Hendricks considered. "It's curious," he said at last. "Curious?" "That you should think I can get us out of here. I wonder what you think I can do." "Can you get us to the Moon Base?" "The Moon Base? How?" "There must be some way." Hendricks shook his head. "No. There's no way that I know of." Tasso said nothing. For a moment her steady gaze wavered. She ducked her head, turning abruptly away. She scrambled to her feet. "More coffee?" "No." "Suit yourself." Tasso drank silently. He could not see her face. He lay back against the ground, deep in thought, trying to concentrate. It was hard to think. His head still hurt. And the numbing daze still hung over him. "There might be one way," he said suddenly. "Oh?" "How soon is dawn?" "Two hours. The sun will be coming up shortly." "There's supposed to be a ship near here. I've never seen it. But I know it exists." "What kind of a ship?" Her voice was sharp. "A rocket cruiser." "Will it take us off? To the Moon Base?" "It's supposed to. In case of emergency." He rubbed his forehead. "What's wrong?" "My head. It's hard to think. I can hardly--hardly concentrate. The bomb." "Is the ship near here?" Tasso slid over beside him, settling down on her haunches. "How far is it? Where is it?" "I'm trying to think." Her fingers dug into his arm. "Nearby?" Her voice was like iron. "Where would it be? Would they store it underground? Hidden underground?" "Yes. In a storage locker." "How do we find it? Is it marked? Is there a code marker to identify it?" Hendricks concentrated. "No. No markings. No code symbol." "What, then?" "A sign." "What sort of sign?" * * * * * Hendricks did not answer. In the flickering light his eyes were glazed, two sightless orbs. Tasso's fingers dug into his arm. "What sort of sign? What is it?" "I--I can't think. Let me rest." "All right." She let go and stood up. Hendricks lay back against the ground, his eyes closed. Tasso walked away from him, her hands in her pockets. She kicked a rock out of her way and stood staring up at the sky. The night blackness was already beginning to fade into gray. Morning was coming. Tasso gripped her pistol and walked around the fire in a circle, back and forth. On the ground Major Hendricks lay, his eyes closed, unmoving. The grayness rose in the sky, higher and higher. The landscape became visible, fields of ash stretching out in all directions. Ash and ruins of buildings, a wall here and there, heaps of concrete, the naked trunk of a tree. The air was cold and sharp. Somewhere a long way off a bird made a few bleak sounds. Hendricks stirred. He opened his eyes. "Is it dawn? Already?" "Yes." Hendricks sat up a little. "You wanted to know something. You were asking me." "Do you remember now?" "Yes." "What is it?" She tensed. "What?" she repeated sharply. "A well. A ruined well. It's in a storage locker under a well." "A well." Tasso relaxed. "Then we'll find a well." She looked at her watch. "We have about an hour, Major. Do you think we can find it in an hour?" * * * * * "Give me a hand up," Hendricks said. Tasso put her pistol away and helped him to his feet. "This is going to be difficult." "Yes it is." Hendricks set his lips tightly. "I don't think we're going to go very far." They began to walk. The early sun cast a little warmth down on them. The land was flat and barren, stretching out gray and lifeless as far as they could see. A few birds sailed silently, far above them, circling slowly. "See anything?" Hendricks said. "Any claws?" "No. Not yet." They passed through some ruins, upright concrete and bricks. A cement foundation. Rats scuttled away. Tasso jumped back warily. "This used to be a town," Hendricks said. "A village. Provincial village. This was all grape country, once. Where we are now." They came onto a ruined street, weeds and cracks criss-crossing it. Over to the right a stone chimney stuck up. "Be careful," he warned her. A pit yawned, an open basement. Ragged ends of pipes jutted up, twisted and bent. They passed part of a house, a bathtub turned on its side. A broken chair. A few spoons and bits of china dishes. In the center of the street the ground had sunk away. The depression was filled with weeds and debris and bones. "Over here," Hendricks murmured. "This way?" "To the right." They passed the remains of a heavy duty tank. Hendricks' belt counter clicked ominously. The tank had been radiation blasted. A few feet from the tank a mummified body lay sprawled out, mouth open. Beyond the road was a flat field. Stones and weeds, and bits of broken glass. "There," Hendricks said. * * * * * A stone well jutted up, sagging and broken. A few boards lay across it. Most of the well had sunk into rubble. Hendricks walked unsteadily toward it, Tasso beside him. "Are you certain about this?" Tasso said. "This doesn't look like anything." "I'm sure." Hendricks sat down at the edge of the well, his teeth locked. His breath came quickly. He wiped perspiration from his face. "This was arranged so the senior command officer could get away. If anything happened. If the bunker fell." "That was you?" "Yes." "Where is the ship? Is it here?" "We're standing on it." Hendricks ran his hands over the surface of the well stones. "The eye-lock responds to me, not to anybody else. It's my ship. Or it was supposed to be." There was a sharp click. Presently they heard a low grating sound from below them. "Step back," Hendricks said. He and Tasso moved away from the well. A section of the ground slid back. A metal frame pushed slowly up through the ash, shoving bricks and weeds out of the way. The action ceased, as the ship nosed into view. "There it is," Hendricks said. The ship was small. It rested quietly, suspended in its mesh frame, like a blunt needle. A rain of ash sifted down into the dark cavity from which the ship had been raised. Hendricks made his way over to it. He mounted the mesh and unscrewed the hatch, pulling it back. Inside the ship the control banks and the pressure seat were visible. * * * * * Tasso came and stood beside him, gazing into the ship. "I'm not accustomed to rocket piloting," she said, after awhile. Hendricks glanced at her. "I'll do the piloting." "Will you? There's only one seat, Major. I can see it's built to carry only a single person." Hendricks' breathing changed. He studied the interior of the ship intently. Tasso was right. There was only one seat. The ship was built to carry only one person. "I see," he said slowly. "And the one person is you." She nodded. "Of course." "Why?" "_You_ can't go. You might not live through the trip. You're injured. You probably wouldn't get there." "An interesting point. But you see, I know where the Moon Base is. And you don't. You might fly around for months and not find it. It's well hidden. Without knowing what to look for--" "I'll have to take my chances. Maybe I won't find it. Not by myself. But I think you'll give me all the information I need. Your life depends on it." "How?" "If I find the Moon Base in time, perhaps I can get them to send a ship back to pick you up. _If_ I find the Base in time. If not, then you haven't a chance. I imagine there are supplies on the ship. They will last me long enough--" Hendricks moved quickly. But his injured arm betrayed him. Tasso ducked, sliding lithely aside. Her hand came up, lightning fast. Hendricks saw the gun butt coming. He tried to ward off the blow, but she was too fast. The metal butt struck against the side of his head, just above his ear. Numbing pain rushed through him. Pain and rolling clouds of blackness. He sank down, sliding to the ground. * * * * * Dimly, he was aware that Tasso was standing over him, kicking him with her toe. "Major! Wake up." He opened his eyes, groaning. "Listen to me." She bent down, the gun pointed at his face. "I have to hurry. There isn't much time left. The ship is ready to go, but you must tell me the information I need before I leave." Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. "Hurry up! Where is the Moon Base? How do I find it? What do I look for?" Hendricks said nothing. "Answer me!" "Sorry." "Major, the ship is loaded with provisions. I can coast for weeks. I'll find the Base eventually. And in a half hour you'll be dead. Your only chance of survival--" She broke off. Along the slope, by some crumbling ruins, something moved. Something in the ash. Tasso turned quickly, aiming. She fired. A puff of flame leaped. Something scuttled away, rolling across the ash. She fired again. The claw burst apart, wheels flying. "See?" Tasso said. "A scout. It won't be long." "You'll bring them back here to get me?" "Yes. As soon as possible." Hendricks looked up at her. He studied her intently. "You're telling the truth?" A strange expression had come over his face, an avid hunger. "You will come back for me? You'll get me to the Moon Base?" "I'll get you to the Moon Base. But tell me where it is! There's only a little time left." "All right." Hendricks picked up a piece of rock, pulling himself to a sitting position. "Watch." Hendricks began to scratch in the ash. Tasso stood by him, watching the motion of the rock. Hendricks was sketching a crude lunar map. * * * * * "This is the Appenine range. Here is the Crater of Archimedes. The Moon Base is beyond the end of the Appenine, about two hundred miles. I don't know exactly where. No one on Terra knows. But when you're over the Appenine, signal with one red flare and a green flare, followed by two red flares in quick succession. The Base monitor will record your signal. The Base is under the surface, of course. They'll guide you down with magnetic grapples." "And the controls? Can I operate them?" "The controls are virtually automatic. All you have to do is give the right signal at the right time." "I will." "The seat absorbs most of the take-off shock. Air and temperature are automatically controlled. The ship will leave Terra and pass out into free space. It'll line itself up with the moon, falling into an orbit around it, about a hundred miles above the surface. The orbit will carry you over the Base. When you're in the region of the Appenine, release the signal rockets." Tasso slid into the ship and lowered herself into the pressure seat. The arm locks folded automatically around her. She fingered the controls. "Too bad you're not going, Major. All this put here for you, and you can't make the trip." "Leave me the pistol." Tasso pulled the pistol from her belt. She held it in her hand, weighing it thoughtfully. "Don't go too far from this location. It'll be hard to find you, as it is." "No. I'll stay here by the well." Tasso gripped the take-off switch, running her fingers over the smooth metal. "A beautiful ship, Major. Well built. I admire your workmanship. You people have always done good work. You build fine things. Your work, your creations, are your greatest achievement." "Give me the pistol," Hendricks said impatiently, holding out his hand. He struggled to his feet. "Good-bye, Major." Tasso tossed the pistol past Hendricks. The pistol clattered against the ground, bouncing and rolling away. Hendricks hurried after it. He bent down, snatching it up. The hatch of the ship clanged shut. The bolts fell into place. Hendricks made his way back. The inner door was being sealed. He raised the pistol unsteadily. * * * * * There was a shattering roar. The ship burst up from its metal cage, fusing the mesh behind it. Hendricks cringed, pulling back. The ship shot up into the rolling clouds of ash, disappearing into the sky. Hendricks stood watching a long time, until even the streamer had dissipated. Nothing stirred. The morning air was chill and silent. He began to walk aimlessly back the way they had come. Better to keep moving around. It would be a long time before help came--if it came at all. He searched his pockets until he found a package of cigarettes. He lit one grimly. They had all wanted cigarettes from him. But cigarettes were scarce. A lizard slithered by him, through the ash. He halted, rigid. The lizard disappeared. Above, the sun rose higher in the sky. Some flies landed on a flat rock to one side of him. Hendricks kicked at them with his foot. It was getting hot. Sweat trickled down his face, into his collar. His mouth was dry. Presently he stopped walking and sat down on some debris. He unfastened his medicine kit and swallowed a few narcotic capsules. He looked around him. Where was he? Something lay ahead. Stretched out on the ground. Silent and unmoving. Hendricks drew his gun quickly. It looked like a man. Then he remembered. It was the remains of Klaus. The Second Variety. Where Tasso had blasted him. He could see wheels and relays and metal parts, strewn around on the ash. Glittering and sparkling in the sunlight. Hendricks got to his feet and walked over. He nudged the inert form with his foot, turning it over a little. He

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yards ahead, was the entrance of the forward command bunker. The bunker from which he had come. Hendricks watched silently. No motion. No sign of life. Nothing stirred. Klaus slithered up beside him. "Where is it?" "Down there." Hendricks passed him the glasses. Clouds of ash rolled across the evening sky. The world was darkening. They had a couple of hours of light left, at the most. Probably not that much. "I don't see anything," Klaus said. "That tree there. The stump. By the pile of bricks. The entrance is to the right of the bricks." "I'll have to take your word for it." "You and Tasso cover me from here. You'll be able to sight all the way to the bunker entrance." "You're going down alone?" "With my wrist tab I'll be safe. The ground around the bunker is a living field of claws. They collect down in the ash. Like crabs. Without tabs you wouldn't have a chance." "Maybe you're right." "I'll walk slowly all the way. As soon as I know for certain--" "If they're down inside the bunker you won't be able to get back up here. They go fast. You don't realize." "What do you suggest?" Klaus considered. "I don't know. Get them to come up to the surface. So you can see." Hendricks brought his transmitter from his belt, raising the antenna. "Let's get started." * * * * * Klaus signalled to Tasso. She crawled expertly up the side of the rise to where they were sitting. "He's going down alone," Klaus said. "We'll cover him from here. As soon as you see him start back, fire past him at once. They come quick." "You're not very optimistic," Tasso said. "No, I'm not." Hendricks opened the breech of his gun, checking it carefully. "Maybe things are all right." "You didn't see them. Hundreds of them. All the same. Pouring out like ants." "I should be able to find out without going down all the way." Hendricks locked his gun, gripping it in one hand, the transmitter in the other. "Well, wish me luck." Klaus put out his hand. "Don't go down until you're sure. Talk to them from up here. Make them show themselves." * * * * * Hendricks stood up. He stepped down the side of the rise. A moment later he was walking slowly toward the pile of bricks and debris beside the dead tree stump. Toward the entrance of the forward command bunker. Nothing stirred. He raised the transmitter, clicking it on. "Scott? Can you hear me?" Silence. "Scott! This is Hendricks. Can you hear me? I'm standing outside the bunker. You should be able to see me in the view sight." He listened, the transmitter gripped tightly. No sound. Only static. He walked forward. A claw burrowed out of the ash and raced toward him. It halted a few feet away and then slunk off. A second claw appeared, one of the big ones with feelers. It moved toward him, studied him intently, and then fell in behind him, dogging respectfully after him, a few paces away. A moment later a second big claw joined it. Silently, the claws trailed him, as he walked slowly toward the bunker. Hendricks stopped, and behind him, the claws came to a halt. He was close, now. Almost to the bunker steps. "Scott! Can you hear me? I'm standing right above you. Outside. On the surface. Are you picking me up?" * * * * * He waited, holding his gun against his side, the transmitter tightly to his ear. Time passed. He strained to hear, but there was only silence. Silence, and faint static. Then, distantly, metallically-- "This is Scott." The voice was neutral. Cold. He could not identify it. But the earphone was minute. "Scott! Listen. I'm standing right above you. I'm on the surface, looking down into the bunker entrance." "Yes." "Can you see me?" "Yes." "Through the view sight? You have the sight trained on me?" "Yes." Hendricks pondered. A circle of claws waited quietly around him, gray-metal bodies on all sides of him. "Is everything all right in the bunker? Nothing unusual has happened?" "Everything is all right." "Will you come up to the surface? I want to see you for a moment." Hendricks took a deep breath. "Come up here with me. I want to talk to you." "Come down." "I'm giving you an order." Silence. "Are you coming?" Hendricks listened. There was no response. "I order you to come to the surface." "Come down." Hendricks set his jaw. "Let me talk to Leone." There was a long pause. He listened to the static. Then a voice came, hard, thin, metallic. The same as the other. "This is Leone." "Hendricks. I'm on the surface. At the bunker entrance. I want one of you to come up here." "Come down." "Why come down? I'm giving you an order!" Silence. Hendricks lowered the transmitter. He looked carefully around him. The entrance was just ahead. Almost at his feet. He lowered the antenna and fastened the transmitter to his belt. Carefully, he gripped his gun with both hands. He moved forward, a step at a time. If they could see him they knew he was starting toward the entrance. He closed his eyes a moment. Then he put his foot on the first step that led downward. Two Davids came up at him, their faces identical and expressionless. He blasted them into particles. More came rushing silently up, a whole pack of them. All exactly the same. Hendricks turned and raced back, away from the bunker, back toward the rise. At the top of the rise Tasso and Klaus were firing down. The small claws were already streaking up toward them, shining metal spheres going fast, racing frantically through the ash. But he had no time to think about that. He knelt down, aiming at the bunker entrance, gun against his cheek. The Davids were coming out in groups, clutching their teddy bears, their thin knobby legs pumping as they ran up the steps to the surface. Hendricks fired into the main body of them. They burst apart, wheels and springs flying in all directions. He fired again through the mist of particles. A giant lumbering figure rose up in the bunker entrance, tall and swaying. Hendricks paused, amazed. A man, a soldier. With one leg, supporting himself with a crutch. "Major!" Tasso's voice came. More firing. The huge figure moved forward, Davids swarming around it. Hendricks broke out of his freeze. The First Variety. The Wounded Soldier. He aimed and fired. The soldier burst into bits, parts and relays flying. Now many Davids were out on the flat ground, away from the bunker. He fired again and again, moving slowly back, half-crouching and aiming. From the rise, Klaus fired down. The side of the rise was alive with claws making their way up. Hendricks retreated toward the rise, running and crouching. Tasso had left Klaus and was circling slowly to the right, moving away from the rise. A David slipped up toward him, its small white face expressionless, brown hair hanging down in its eyes. It bent over suddenly, opening its arms. Its teddy bear hurtled down and leaped across the ground, bounding toward him. Hendricks fired. The bear and the David both dissolved. He grinned, blinking. It was like a dream. "Up here!" Tasso's voice. Hendricks made his way toward her. She was over by some columns of concrete, walls of a ruined building. She was firing past him, with the hand pistol Klaus had given her. "Thanks." He joined her, grasping for breath. She pulled him back, behind the concrete, fumbling at her belt. "Close your eyes!" She unfastened a globe from her waist. Rapidly, she unscrewed the cap, locking it into place. "Close your eyes and get down." * * * * * She threw the bomb. It sailed in an arc, an expert, rolling and bouncing to the entrance of the bunker. Two Wounded Soldiers stood uncertainly by the brick pile. More Davids poured from behind them, out onto the plain. One of the Wounded Soldiers moved toward the bomb, stooping awkwardly down to pick it up. The bomb went off. The concussion whirled Hendricks around, throwing him on his face. A hot wind rolled over him. Dimly he saw Tasso standing behind the columns, firing slowly and methodically at the Davids coming out of the raging clouds of white fire. Back along the rise Klaus struggled with a ring of claws circling around him. He retreated, blasting at them and moving back, trying to break through the ring. Hendricks struggled to his feet. His head ached. He could hardly see. Everything was licking at him, raging and whirling. His right arm would not move. Tasso pulled back toward him. "Come on. Let's go." "Klaus--He's still up there." "Come on!" Tasso dragged Hendricks back, away from the columns. Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. Tasso led him rapidly away, her eyes intense and bright, watching for claws that had escaped the blast. One David came out of the rolling clouds of flame. Tasso blasted it. No more appeared. "But Klaus. What about him?" Hendricks stopped, standing unsteadily. "He--" "Come on!" * * * * * They retreated, moving farther and farther away from the bunker. A few small claws followed them for a little while and then gave up, turning back and going off. At last Tasso stopped. "We can stop here and get our breaths." Hendricks sat down on some heaps of debris. He wiped his neck, gasping. "We left Klaus back there." Tasso said nothing. She opened her gun, sliding a fresh round of blast cartridges into place. Hendricks stared at her, dazed. "You left him back there on purpose." Tasso snapped the gun together. She studied the heaps of rubble around them, her face expressionless. As if she were watching for something. "What is it?" Hendricks demanded. "What are you looking for? Is something coming?" He shook his head, trying to understand. What was she doing? What was she waiting for? He could see nothing. Ash lay all around them, ash and ruins. Occasional stark tree trunks, without leaves or branches. "What--" Tasso cut him off. "Be still." Her eyes narrowed. Suddenly her gun came up. Hendricks turned, following her gaze. * * * * * Back the way they had come a figure appeared. The figure walked unsteadily toward them. Its clothes were torn. It limped as it made its way along, going very slowly and carefully. Stopping now and then, resting and getting its strength. Once it almost fell. It stood for a moment, trying to steady itself. Then it came on. Klaus. Hendricks stood up. "Klaus!" He started toward him. "How the hell did you--" Tasso fired. Hendricks swung back. She fired again, the blast passing him, a searing line of heat. The beam caught Klaus in the chest. He exploded, gears and wheels flying. For a moment he continued to walk. Then he swayed back and forth. He crashed to the ground, his arms flung out. A few more wheels rolled away. Silence. Tasso turned to Hendricks. "Now you understand why he killed Rudi." Hendricks sat down again slowly. He shook his head. He was numb. He could not think. "Do you see?" Tasso said. "Do you understand?" Hendricks said nothing. Everything was slipping away from him, faster and faster. Darkness, rolling and plucking at him. He closed his eyes. * * * * * Hendricks opened his eyes slowly. His body ached all over. He tried to sit up but needles of pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He gasped. "Don't try to get up," Tasso said. She bent down, putting her cold hand against his forehead. It was night. A few stars glinted above, shining through the drifting clouds of ash. Hendricks lay back, his teeth locked. Tasso watched him impassively. She had built a fire with some wood and weeds. The fire licked feebly, hissing at a metal cup suspended over it. Everything was silent. Unmoving darkness, beyond the fire. "So he was the Second Variety," Hendricks murmured. "I had always thought so." "Why didn't you destroy him sooner?" he wanted to know. "You held me back." Tasso crossed to the fire to look into the metal cup. "Coffee. It'll be ready to drink in awhile." She came back and sat down beside him. Presently she opened her pistol and began to disassemble the firing mechanism, studying it intently. "This is a beautiful gun," Tasso said, half-aloud. "The construction is superb." "What about them? The claws." "The concussion from the bomb put most of them out of action. They're delicate. Highly organized, I suppose." "The Davids, too?" "Yes." "How did you happen to have a bomb like that?" Tasso shrugged. "We designed it. You shouldn't underestimate our technology, Major. Without such a bomb you and I would no longer exist." "Very useful." Tasso stretched out her legs, warming her feet in the heat of the fire. "It surprised me that you did not seem to understand, after he killed Rudi. Why did you think he--" "I told you. I thought he was afraid." "Really? You know, Major, for a little while I suspected you. Because you wouldn't let me kill him. I thought you might be protecting him." She laughed. "Are we safe here?" Hendricks asked presently. "For awhile. Until they get reinforcements from some other area." Tasso began to clean the interior of the gun with a bit of rag. She finished and pushed the mechanism back into place. She closed the gun, running her finger along the barrel. "We were lucky," Hendricks murmured. "Yes. Very lucky." "Thanks for pulling me away." * * * * * Tasso did not answer. She glanced up at him, her eyes bright in the fire light. Hendricks examined his arm. He could not move his fingers. His whole side seemed numb. Down inside him was a dull steady ache. "How do you feel?" Tasso asked. "My arm is damaged." "Anything else?" "Internal injuries." "You didn't get down when the bomb went off." Hendricks said nothing. He watched Tasso pour the coffee from the cup into a flat metal pan. She brought it over to him. "Thanks." He struggled up enough to drink. It was hard to swallow. His insides turned over and he pushed the pan away. "That's all I can drink now." Tasso drank the rest. Time passed. The clouds of ash moved across the dark sky above them. Hendricks rested, his mind blank. After awhile he became aware that Tasso was standing over him, gazing down at him. "What is it?" he murmured. "Do you feel any better?" "Some." "You know, Major, if I hadn't dragged you away they would have got you. You would be dead. Like Rudi." "I know." "Do you want to know why I brought you out? I could have left you. I could have left you there." "Why did you bring me out?" "Because we have to get away from here." Tasso stirred the fire with a stick, peering calmly down into it. "No human being can live here. When their reinforcements come we won't have a chance. I've pondered about it while you were unconscious. We have perhaps three hours before they come." "And you expect me to get us away?" "That's right. I expect you to get us out of here." "Why me?" "Because I don't know any way." Her eyes shone at him in the half-light, bright and steady. "If you can't get us out of here they'll kill us within three hours. I see nothing else ahead. Well, Major? What are you going to do? I've been waiting all night. While you were unconscious I sat here, waiting and listening. It's almost dawn. The night is almost over." * * * * * Hendricks considered. "It's curious," he said at last. "Curious?" "That you should think I can get us out of here. I wonder what you think I can do." "Can you get us to the Moon Base?" "The Moon Base? How?" "There must be some way." Hendricks shook his head. "No. There's no way that I know of." Tasso said nothing. For a moment her steady gaze wavered. She ducked her head, turning abruptly away. She scrambled to her feet. "More coffee?" "No." "Suit yourself." Tasso drank silently. He could not see her face. He lay back against the ground, deep in thought, trying to concentrate. It was hard to think. His head still hurt. And the numbing daze still hung over him. "There might be one way," he said suddenly. "Oh?" "How soon is dawn?" "Two hours. The sun will be coming up shortly." "There's supposed to be a ship near here. I've never seen it. But I know it exists." "What kind of a ship?" Her voice was sharp. "A rocket cruiser." "Will it take us off? To the Moon Base?" "It's supposed to. In case of emergency." He rubbed his forehead. "What's wrong?" "My head. It's hard to think. I can hardly--hardly concentrate. The bomb." "Is the ship near here?" Tasso slid over beside him, settling down on her haunches. "How far is it? Where is it?" "I'm trying to think." Her fingers dug into his arm. "Nearby?" Her voice was like iron. "Where would it be? Would they store it underground? Hidden underground?" "Yes. In a storage locker." "How do we find it? Is it marked? Is there a code marker to identify it?" Hendricks concentrated. "No. No markings. No code symbol." "What, then?" "A sign." "What sort of sign?" * * * * * Hendricks did not answer. In the flickering light his eyes were glazed, two sightless orbs. Tasso's fingers dug into his arm. "What sort of sign? What is it?" "I--I can't think. Let me rest." "All right." She let go and stood up. Hendricks lay back against the ground, his eyes closed. Tasso walked away from him, her hands in her pockets. She kicked a rock out of her way and stood staring up at the sky. The night blackness was already beginning to fade into gray. Morning was coming. Tasso gripped her pistol and walked around the fire in a circle, back and forth. On the ground Major Hendricks lay, his eyes closed, unmoving. The grayness rose in the sky, higher and higher. The landscape became visible, fields of ash stretching out in all directions. Ash and ruins of buildings, a wall here and there, heaps of concrete, the naked trunk of a tree. The air was cold and sharp. Somewhere a long way off a bird made a few bleak sounds. Hendricks stirred. He opened his eyes. "Is it dawn? Already?" "Yes." Hendricks sat up a little. "You wanted to know something. You were asking me." "Do you remember now?" "Yes." "What is it?" She tensed. "What?" she repeated sharply. "A well. A ruined well. It's in a storage locker under a well." "A well." Tasso relaxed. "Then we'll find a well." She looked at her watch. "We have about an hour, Major. Do you think we can find it in an hour?" * * * * * "Give me a hand up," Hendricks said. Tasso put her pistol away and helped him to his feet. "This is going to be difficult." "Yes it is." Hendricks set his lips tightly. "I don't think we're going to go very far." They began to walk. The early sun cast a little warmth down on them. The land was flat and barren, stretching out gray and lifeless as far as they could see. A few birds sailed silently, far above them, circling slowly. "See anything?" Hendricks said. "Any claws?" "No. Not yet." They passed through some ruins, upright concrete and bricks. A cement foundation. Rats scuttled away. Tasso jumped back warily. "This used to be a town," Hendricks said. "A village. Provincial village. This was all grape country, once. Where we are now." They came onto a ruined street, weeds and cracks criss-crossing it. Over to the right a stone chimney stuck up. "Be careful," he warned her. A pit yawned, an open basement. Ragged ends of pipes jutted up, twisted and bent. They passed part of a house, a bathtub turned on its side. A broken chair. A few spoons and bits of china dishes. In the center of the street the ground had sunk away. The depression was filled with weeds and debris and bones. "Over here," Hendricks murmured. "This way?" "To the right." They passed the remains of a heavy duty tank. Hendricks' belt counter clicked ominously. The tank had been radiation blasted. A few feet from the tank a mummified body lay sprawled out, mouth open. Beyond the road was a flat field. Stones and weeds, and bits of broken glass. "There," Hendricks said. * * * * * A stone well jutted up, sagging and broken. A few boards lay across it. Most of the well had sunk into rubble. Hendricks walked unsteadily toward it, Tasso beside him. "Are you certain about this?" Tasso said. "This doesn't look like anything." "I'm sure." Hendricks sat down at the edge of the well, his teeth locked. His breath came quickly. He wiped perspiration from his face. "This was arranged so the senior command officer could get away. If anything happened. If the bunker fell." "That was you?" "Yes." "Where is the ship? Is it here?" "We're standing on it." Hendricks ran his hands over the surface of the well stones. "The eye-lock responds to me, not to anybody else. It's my ship. Or it was supposed to be." There was a sharp click. Presently they heard a low grating sound from below them. "Step back," Hendricks said. He and Tasso moved away from the well. A section of the ground slid back. A metal frame pushed slowly up through the ash, shoving bricks and weeds out of the way. The action ceased, as the ship nosed into view. "There it is," Hendricks said. The ship was small. It rested quietly, suspended in its mesh frame, like a blunt needle. A rain of ash sifted down into the dark cavity from which the ship had been raised. Hendricks made his way over to it. He mounted the mesh and unscrewed the hatch, pulling it back. Inside the ship the control banks and the pressure seat were visible. * * * * * Tasso came and stood beside him, gazing into the ship. "I'm not accustomed to rocket piloting," she said, after awhile. Hendricks glanced at her. "I'll do the piloting." "Will you? There's only one seat, Major. I can see it's built to carry only a single person." Hendricks' breathing changed. He studied the interior of the ship intently. Tasso was right. There was only one seat. The ship was built to carry only one person. "I see," he said slowly. "And the one person is you." She nodded. "Of course." "Why?" "_You_ can't go. You might not live through the trip. You're injured. You probably wouldn't get there." "An interesting point. But you see, I know where the Moon Base is. And you don't. You might fly around for months and not find it. It's well hidden. Without knowing what to look for--" "I'll have to take my chances. Maybe I won't find it. Not by myself. But I think you'll give me all the information I need. Your life depends on it." "How?" "If I find the Moon Base in time, perhaps I can get them to send a ship back to pick you up. _If_ I find the Base in time. If not, then you haven't a chance. I imagine there are supplies on the ship. They will last me long enough--" Hendricks moved quickly. But his injured arm betrayed him. Tasso ducked, sliding lithely aside. Her hand came up, lightning fast. Hendricks saw the gun butt coming. He tried to ward off the blow, but she was too fast. The metal butt struck against the side of his head, just above his ear. Numbing pain rushed through him. Pain and rolling clouds of blackness. He sank down, sliding to the ground. * * * * * Dimly, he was aware that Tasso was standing over him, kicking him with her toe. "Major! Wake up." He opened his eyes, groaning. "Listen to me." She bent down, the gun pointed at his face. "I have to hurry. There isn't much time left. The ship is ready to go, but you must tell me the information I need before I leave." Hendricks shook his head, trying to clear it. "Hurry up! Where is the Moon Base? How do I find it? What do I look for?" Hendricks said nothing. "Answer me!" "Sorry." "Major, the ship is loaded with provisions. I can coast for weeks. I'll find the Base eventually. And in a half hour you'll be dead. Your only chance of survival--" She broke off. Along the slope, by some crumbling ruins, something moved. Something in the ash. Tasso turned quickly, aiming. She fired. A puff of flame leaped. Something scuttled away, rolling across the ash. She fired again. The claw burst apart, wheels flying. "See?" Tasso said. "A scout. It won't be long." "You'll bring them back here to get me?" "Yes. As soon as possible." Hendricks looked up at her. He studied her intently. "You're telling the truth?" A strange expression had come over his face, an avid hunger. "You will come back for me? You'll get me to the Moon Base?" "I'll get you to the Moon Base. But tell me where it is! There's only a little time left." "All right." Hendricks picked up a piece of rock, pulling himself to a sitting position. "Watch." Hendricks began to scratch in the ash. Tasso stood by him, watching the motion of the rock. Hendricks was sketching a crude lunar map. * * * * * "This is the Appenine range. Here is the Crater of Archimedes. The Moon Base is beyond the end of the Appenine, about two hundred miles. I don't know exactly where. No one on Terra knows. But when you're over the Appenine, signal with one red flare and a green flare, followed by two red flares in quick succession. The Base monitor will record your signal. The Base is under the surface, of course. They'll guide you down with magnetic grapples." "And the controls? Can I operate them?" "The controls are virtually automatic. All you have to do is give the right signal at the right time." "I will." "The seat absorbs most of the take-off shock. Air and temperature are automatically controlled. The ship will leave Terra and pass out into free space. It'll line itself up with the moon, falling into an orbit around it, about a hundred miles above the surface. The orbit will carry you over the Base. When you're in the region of the Appenine, release the signal rockets." Tasso slid into the ship and lowered herself into the pressure seat. The arm locks folded automatically around her. She fingered the controls. "Too bad you're not going, Major. All this put here for you, and you can't make the trip." "Leave me the pistol." Tasso pulled the pistol from her belt. She held it in her hand, weighing it thoughtfully. "Don't go too far from this location. It'll be hard to find you, as it is." "No. I'll stay here by the well." Tasso gripped the take-off switch, running her fingers over the smooth metal. "A beautiful ship, Major. Well built. I admire your workmanship. You people have always done good work. You build fine things. Your work, your creations, are your greatest achievement." "Give me the pistol," Hendricks said impatiently, holding out his hand. He struggled to his feet. "Good-bye, Major." Tasso tossed the pistol past Hendricks. The pistol clattered against the ground, bouncing and rolling away. Hendricks hurried after it. He bent down, snatching it up. The hatch of the ship clanged shut. The bolts fell into place. Hendricks made his way back. The inner door was being sealed. He raised the pistol unsteadily. * * * * * There was a shattering roar. The ship burst up from its metal cage, fusing the mesh behind it. Hendricks cringed, pulling back. The ship shot up into the rolling clouds of ash, disappearing into the sky. Hendricks stood watching a long time, until even the streamer had dissipated. Nothing stirred. The morning air was chill and silent. He began to walk aimlessly back the way they had come. Better to keep moving around. It would be a long time before help came--if it came at all. He searched his pockets until he found a package of cigarettes. He lit one grimly. They had all wanted cigarettes from him. But cigarettes were scarce. A lizard slithered by him, through the ash. He halted, rigid. The lizard disappeared. Above, the sun rose higher in the sky. Some flies landed on a flat rock to one side of him. Hendricks kicked at them with his foot. It was getting hot. Sweat trickled down his face, into his collar. His mouth was dry. Presently he stopped walking and sat down on some debris. He unfastened his medicine kit and swallowed a few narcotic capsules. He looked around him. Where was he? Something lay ahead. Stretched out on the ground. Silent and unmoving. Hendricks drew his gun quickly. It looked like a man. Then he remembered. It was the remains of Klaus. The Second Variety. Where Tasso had blasted him. He could see wheels and relays and metal parts, strewn around on the ash. Glittering and sparkling in the sunlight. Hendricks got to his feet and walked over. He nudged the inert form with his foot, turning it over a little. He

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years to his life? "Ha, my little heart of gold!" he cried, darting forward suddenly and throwing his arms round Sir Nigel. "I heard that you were here and have been seeking you." "My fair and dear lord," said the knight, returning the warrior's embrace, "I have indeed come back to you, for where else shall I go that I may learn to be a gentle and a hardy knight?" "By my troth!" said Chandos with a smile, "it is very fitting that we should be companions, Nigel, for since you have tied up one of your eyes, and I have had the mischance to lose one of mine, we have but a pair between us. Ah, Sir Oliver! you were on the blind side of me and I saw you not. A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me. We shall go in to the prince anon; but in truth he hath much upon his hands, for what with Pedro, and the King of Majorca, and the King of Navarre, who is no two days of the same mind, and the Gascon barons who are all chaffering for terms like so many hucksters, he hath an uneasy part to play. But how left you the Lady Loring?" "She was well, my fair lord, and sent her service and greetings to you." "I am ever her knight and slave. And your journey, I trust that it was pleasant?" "As heart could wish. We had sight of two rover galleys, and even came to have some slight bickering with them." "Ever in luck's way, Nigel!" quoth Sir John. "We must hear the tale anon. But I deem it best that ye should leave your squires and come with me, for, howsoe'er pressed the prince may be, I am very sure that he would be loth to keep two old comrades-in-arms upon the further side of the door. Follow close behind me, and I will forestall old Sir William, though I can scarce promise to roll forth your style and rank as is his wont." So saying, he led the way to the inner chamber, the two companions treading close at his heels, and nodding to right and left as they caught sight of familiar faces among the crowd. CHAPTER XIX. HOW THERE WAS STIR AT THE ABBEY OF ST. ANDREW'S. The prince's reception-room, although of no great size, was fitted up with all the state and luxury which the fame and power of its owner demanded. A high dais at the further end was roofed in by a broad canopy of scarlet velvet spangled with silver fleurs-de-lis, and supported at either corner by silver rods. This was approached by four steps carpeted with the same material, while all round were scattered rich cushions, oriental mats and costly rugs of fur. The choicest tapestries which the looms of Arras could furnish draped the walls, whereon the battles of Judas Maccabaeus were set forth, with the Jewish warriors in plate of proof, with crest and lance and banderole, as the naive artists of the day were wont to depict them. A few rich settles and bancals, choicely carved and decorated with glazed leather hangings of the sort termed _or basane_, completed the furniture of the apartment, save that at one side of the dais there stood a lofty perch, upon which a cast of three solemn Prussian gerfalcons sat, hooded and jesseled, as silent and motionless as the royal fowler who stood beside them. In the centre of the dais were two very high chairs with dorserets, which arched forwards over the heads of the occupants, the whole covered with light-blue silk thickly powdered with golden stars. On that to the right sat a very tall and well formed man with red hair, a livid face, and a cold blue eye, which had in it something peculiarly sinister and menacing. He lounged back in a careless position, and yawned repeatedly as though heartily weary of the proceedings, stooping from time to time to fondle a shaggy Spanish greyhound which lay stretched at his feet. On the other throne there was perched bolt upright, with prim demeanor, as though he felt himself to be upon his good behavior, a little, round, pippin faced person, who smiled and bobbed to every one whose eye he chanced to meet. Between and a little in front of them on a humble charette or stool, sat a slim, dark young man, whose quiet attire and modest manner would scarce proclaim him to be the most noted prince in Europe. A jupon of dark blue cloth, tagged with buckles and pendants of gold, seemed but a sombre and plain attire amidst the wealth of silk and ermine and gilt tissue of fustian with which he was surrounded. He sat with his two hands clasped round his knee, his head slightly bent, and an expression of impatience and of trouble upon his clear, well-chiselled features. Behind the thrones there stood two men in purple gowns, with ascetic, clean-shaven faces, and half a dozen other high dignitaries and office-holders of Aquitaine. Below on either side of the steps were forty or fifty barons, knights, and courtiers, ranged in a triple row to the right and the left, with a clear passage in the centre. "There sits the prince," whispered Sir John Chandos, as they entered. "He on the right is Pedro, whom we are about to put upon the Spanish throne. The other is Don James, whom we purpose with the aid of God to help to his throne in Majorca. Now follow me, and take it not to heart if he be a little short in his speech, for indeed his mind is full of many very weighty concerns." The prince, however, had already observed their entrance, and, springing to his feet, he had advanced with a winning smile and the light of welcome in his eyes. "We do not need your good offices as herald here, Sir John," said he in a low but clear voice; "these valiant knights are very well known to me. Welcome to Aquitaine, Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver Buttesthorn. Nay, keep your knee for my sweet father at Windsor. I would have your hands, my friends. We are like to give you some work to do ere you see the downs of Hampshire once more. Know you aught of Spain, Sir Oliver?" "Nought, my sire, save that I have heard men say that there is a dish named an olla which is prepared there, though I have never been clear in my mind as to whether it was but a ragout such as is to be found in the south, or whether there is some seasoning such as fennel or garlic which is peculiar to Spain." "Your doubts, Sir Oliver, shall soon be resolved," answered the prince, laughing heartily, as did many of the barons who surrounded them. "His majesty here will doubtless order that you have this dish hotly seasoned when we are all safely in Castile." "I will have a hotly seasoned dish for some folk I know of," answered Don Pedro with a cold smile. "But my friend Sir Oliver can fight right hardily without either bite or sup," remarked the prince. "Did I not see him at Poictiers, when for two days we had not more than a crust of bread and a cup of foul water, yet carrying himself most valiantly. With my own eyes I saw him in the rout sweep the head from a knight of Picardy with one blow of his sword." "The rogue got between me and the nearest French victual wain," muttered Sir Oliver, amid a fresh titter from those who were near enough to catch his words. "How many have you in your train?" asked the prince, assuming a graver mien. "I have forty men-at-arms, sire," said Sir Oliver. "And I have one hundred archers and a score of lancers, but there are two hundred men who wait for me on this side of the water upon the borders of Navarre." "And who are they, Sir Nigel?" "They are a free company, sire, and they are called the White Company." To the astonishment of the knight, his words provoked a burst of merriment from the barons round, in which the two kings and the prince were fain to join. Sir Nigel blinked mildly from one to the other, until at last perceiving a stout black-bearded knight at his elbow, whose laugh rang somewhat louder than the others, he touched him lightly upon the sleeve. "Perchance, my fair sir," he whispered, "there is some small vow of which I may relieve you. Might we not have some honorable debate upon the matter. Your gentle courtesy may perhaps grant me an exchange of thrusts." "Nay, nay, Sir Nigel," cried the prince, "fasten not the offence upon Sir Robert Briquet, for we are one and all bogged in the same mire. Truth to say, our ears have just been vexed by the doings of the same company, and I have even now made vow to hang the man who held the rank of captain over it. I little thought to find him among the bravest of my own chosen chieftains. But the vow is now nought, for, as you have never seen your company, it would be a fool's act to blame you for their doings." "My liege," said Sir Nigel, "it is a very small matter that I should be hanged, albeit the manner of death is somewhat more ignoble than I had hoped for. On the other hand, it would be a very grievous thing that you, the Prince of England and the flower of knighthood, should make a vow, whether in ignorance or no, and fail to bring it to fulfilment." "Vex not your mind on that," the prince answered, smiling. "We have had a citizen from Montauban here this very day, who told us such a tale of sack and murder and pillage that it moved our blood; but our wrath was turned upon the man who was in authority over them." "My dear and honored master," cried Nigel, in great anxiety, "I fear me much that in your gentleness of heart you are straining this vow which you have taken. If there be so much as a shadow of a doubt as to the form of it, it were a thousand times best----" "Peace! peace!" cried the prince impatiently. "I am very well able to look to my own vows and their performance. We hope to see you both in the banquet-hall anon. Meanwhile you will attend upon us with our train." He bowed, and Chandos, plucking Sir Oliver by the sleeve, led them both away to the back of the press of courtiers. "Why, little coz," he whispered, "you are very eager to have your neck in a noose. By my soul! had you asked as much from our new ally Don Pedro, he had not baulked you. Between friends, there is overmuch of the hangman in him, and too little of the prince. But indeed this White Company is a rough band, and may take some handling ere you find yourself safe in your captaincy." "I doubt not, with the help of St. Paul, that I shall bring them to some order," Sir Nigel answered. "But there are many faces here which are new to me, though others have been before me since first I waited upon my dear master, Sir Walter. I pray you to tell me, Sir John, who are these priests upon the dais?" "The one is the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Nigel, and the other the Bishop of Agen." "And the dark knight with gray-streaked beard? By my troth, he seems to be a man of much wisdom and valor." "He is Sir William Felton, who, with my unworthy self, is the chief counsellor of the prince, he being high steward and I the seneschal of Aquitaine." "And the knights upon the right, beside Don Pedro?" "They are cavaliers of Spain who have followed him in his exile. The one at his elbow is Fernando de Castro, who is as brave and true a man as heart could wish. In front to the right are the Gascon lords. You may well tell them by their clouded brows, for there hath been some ill-will of late betwixt the prince and them. The tall and burly man is the Captal de Buch, whom I doubt not that you know, for a braver knight never laid lance in rest. That heavy-faced cavalier who plucks his skirts and whispers in his ear is Lord Oliver de Clisson, known also as the butcher. He it is who stirs up strife, and forever blows the dying embers into flame. The man with the mole upon his cheek is the Lord Pommers, and his two brothers stand behind him, with the Lord Lesparre, Lord de Rosem, Lord de Mucident, Sir Perducas d'Albret, the Souldich de la Trane, and others. Further back are knights from Quercy, Limousin, Saintonge, Poitou, and Aquitaine, with the valiant Sir Guiscard d'Angle. That is he in the rose-colored doublet with the ermine." "And the knights upon this side?" "They are all Englishmen, some of the household and others who like yourself, are captains of companies. There is Lord Neville, Sir Stephen Cossington, and Sir Matthew Gourney, with Sir Walter Huet, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Thomas Felton, who is the brother of the high steward. Mark well the man with the high nose and flaxen beard who hath placed his hand upon the shoulder of the dark hard-faced cavalier in the rust-stained jupon." "Aye, by St. Paul!" observed Sir Nigel, "they both bear the print of their armor upon their cotes-hardies. Methinks they are men who breathe freer in a camp than a court." "There are many of us who do that, Nigel," said Chandos, "and the head of the court is, I dare warrant, among them. But of these two men the one is Sir Hugh Calverley, and the other is Sir Robert Knolles." Sir Nigel and Sir Oliver craned their necks to have the clearer view of these famous warriors, the one a chosen leader of free companies, the other a man who by his fierce valor and energy had raised himself from the lowest ranks until he was second only to Chandos himself in the esteem of the army. "He hath no light hand in war, hath Sir Robert," said Chandos. "If he passes through a country you may tell it for some years to come. I have heard that in the north it is still the use to call a house which hath but the two gable ends left, without walls or roof, a Knolles' mitre." "I have often heard of him," said Nigel, "and I have hoped to be so far honored as to run a course with him. But hark, Sir John, what is amiss with the prince?" Whilst Chandos had been conversing with the two knights a continuous stream of suitors had been ushered in, adventurers seeking to sell their swords and merchants clamoring over some grievance, a ship detained for the carriage of troops, or a tun of sweet wine which had the bottom knocked out by a troop of thirsty archers. A few words from the prince disposed of each case, and, if the applicant liked not the judgment, a quick glance from the prince's dark eyes sent him to the door with the grievance all gone out of him. The younger ruler had sat listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character. "How now, Don Martin de la Carra?" he cried. "How now, sirrah? What message do you bring to us from our brother of Navarre?" The new-comer to whom this abrupt query had been addressed was a tall and exceedingly handsome cavalier who had just been ushered into the apartment. His swarthy cheek and raven black hair spoke of the fiery south, and he wore his long black cloak swathed across his chest and over his shoulders in a graceful sweeping fashion, which was neither English nor French. With stately steps and many profound bows, he advanced to the foot of the dais before replying to the prince's question. "My powerful and illustrious master," he began, "Charles, King of Navarre, Earl of Evreux, Count of Champagne, who also writeth himself Overlord of Bearn, hereby sends his love and greetings to his dear cousin Edward, the Prince of Wales, Governor of Aquitaine, Grand Commander of----" "Tush! tush! Don Martin!" interrupted the prince, who had been beating the ground with his foot impatiently during this stately preamble. "We already know our cousin's titles and style, and, certes, we know our own. To the point, man, and at once. Are the passes open to us, or does your master go back from his word pledged to me at Libourne no later than last Michaelmas?" "It would ill become my gracious master, sire, to go back from promise given. He does but ask some delay and certain conditions and hostages----" "Conditions! Hostages! Is he speaking to the Prince of England, or is it to the bourgeois provost of some half-captured town! Conditions, quotha? He may find much to mend in his own condition ere long. The passes are, then, closed to us?" "Nay, sire----" "They are open, then?" "Nay, sire, if you would but----" "Enough, enough, Don Martin," cried the prince. "It is a sorry sight to see so true a knight pleading in so false a cause. We know the doings of our cousin Charles. We know that while with the right hand he takes our fifty thousand crowns for the holding of the passes open, he hath his left outstretched to Henry of Trastamare, or to the King of France, all ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered horse. He is----" "My lord," cried Don Martin, "I cannot stand there to hear such words of my master. Did they come from other lips, I should know better how to answer them." Don Pedro frowned and curled his lip, but the prince smiled and nodded his approbation. "Your bearing and your words, Don Martin, are such I should have looked for in you," he remarked. "You will tell the king, your master, that he hath been paid his price and that if he holds to his promise he hath my word for it that no scath shall come to his people, nor to their houses or gear. If, however, we have not his leave, I shall come close at the heels of this message without his leave, and bearing a key with me which shall open all that he may close." He stooped and whispered to Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Huge Calverley, who smiled as men well pleased, and hastened from the room. "Our cousin Charles has had experience of our friendship," the prince continued, "and now, by the Saints! he shall feel a touch of our displeasure. I send now a message to our cousin Charles which his whole kingdom may read. Let him take heed lest worse befall him. Where is my Lord Chandos? Ha, Sir John, I commend this worthy knight to your care. You will see that he hath refection, and such a purse of gold as may defray his charges, for indeed it is great honor to any court to have within it so noble and gentle a cavalier. How say you, sire?" he asked, turning to the Spanish refugee, while the herald of Navarre was conducted from the chamber by the old warrior. "It is not our custom in Spain to reward pertness in a messenger," Don Pedro answered, patting the head of his greyhound. "Yet we have all heard the lengths to which your royal generosity runs." "In sooth, yes," cried the King of Majorca. "Who should know it better than we?" said Don Pedro bitterly, "since we have had to fly to you in our trouble as to the natural protector of all who are weak." "Nay, nay, as brothers to a brother," cried the prince, with sparkling eyes. "We doubt not, with the help of God, to see you very soon restored to those thrones from which you have been so traitorously thrust." "When that happy day comes," said Pedro, "then Spain shall be to you as Aquitaine, and, be your project what it may, you may ever count on every troop and every ship over which flies the banner of Castile." "And," added the other, "upon every aid which the wealth and power of Majorca can bestow." "Touching the hundred thousand crowns in which I stand your debtor," continued Pedro carelessly, "it can no doubt----" "Not a word, sire, not a word!" cried the prince. "It is not now when you are in grief that I would vex your mind with such base and sordid matters. I have said once and forever that I am yours with every bow-string of my army and every florin in my coffers." "Ah! here is indeed a mirror of chivalry," said Don Pedro. "I think, Sir Fernando, since the prince's bounty is stretched so far, that we may make further use of his gracious goodness to the extent of fifty thousand crowns. Good Sir William Felton, here, will doubtless settle the matter with you." The stout old English counsellor looked somewhat blank at this prompt acceptance of his master's bounty. "If it please you, sire," he said, "the public funds are at their lowest, seeing that I have paid twelve thousand men of the companies, and the new taxes--the hearth-tax and the wine-tax--not yet come in. If you could wait until the promised help from England comes----" "Nay, nay, my sweet cousin," cried Don Pedro. "Had we known that your own coffers were so low, or that this sorry sum could have weighed one way or the other, we had been loth indeed----" "Enough, sire, enough!" said the prince, flushing with vexation. "If the public funds be, indeed, so backward, Sir William, there is still, I trust, my own private credit, which hath never been drawn upon for my own uses, but is now ready in the cause of a friend in adversity. Go, raise this money upon our own jewels, if nought else may serve, and see that it be paid over to Don Fernando." "In security I offer----" cried Don Pedro. "Tush! tush!" said the prince. "I am not a Lombard, sire. Your kingly pledge is my security, without bond or seal. But I have tidings for you, my lords and lieges, that our brother of Lancaster is on his way for our capital with four hundred lances and as many archers to aid us in our venture. When he hath come, and when our fair consort is recovered in her health, which I trust by the grace of God may be ere many weeks be past, we shall then join the army at Dax, and set our banners to the breeze once more." A buzz of joy at the prospect of immediate action rose up from the group of warriors. The prince smiled at the martial ardor which shone upon every face around him. "It will hearten you to know," he continued, "that I have sure advices that this Henry is a very valiant leader, and that he has it in his power to make such a stand against us as promises to give us much honor and pleasure. Of his own people he hath brought together, as I learn, some fifty thousand, with twelve thousand of the French free companies, who are, as you know very valiant and expert men-at-arms. It is certain also, that the brave and worthy Bertrand de Guesclin hath ridden into France to the Duke of Anjou, and purposes to take back with him great levies from Picardy and Brittany. We hold Bertrand in high esteem, for he has oft before been at great pains to furnish us with an honorable encounter. What think you of it, my worthy Captal? He took you at Cocherel, and, by my soul! you will have the chance now to pay that score." The Gascon warrior winced a little at the allusion, nor were his countrymen around him better pleased, for on the only occasion when they had encountered the arms of France without English aid they had met with a heavy defeat. "There are some who say, sire," said the burly De Clisson, "that the score is already overpaid, for that without Gascon help Bertrand had not been taken at Auray, nor had King John been overborne at Poictiers." "By heaven! but this is too much," cried an English nobleman. "Methinks that Gascony is too small a cock to crow so lustily." "The smaller cock, my Lord Audley, may have the longer spur," remarked the Captal de Buch. "May have its comb clipped if it make over-much noise," broke in an Englishman. "By our Lady of Rocamadour!" cried the Lord of Mucident, "this is more than I can abide. Sir John Charnell, you shall answer to me for those words!" "Freely, my lord, and when you will," returned the Englishman carelessly. "My Lord de Clisson," cried Lord Audley, "you look somewhat fixedly in my direction. By God's soul! I should be right glad to go further into the matter with you." "And you, my Lord of Pommers," said Sir Nigel, pushing his way to the front, "it is in my mind that we might break a lance in gentle and honorable debate over the question." For a moment a dozen challenges flashed backwards and forwards at this sudden bursting of the cloud which had lowered so long between the knights of the two nations. Furious and gesticulating the Gascons, white and cold and sneering the English, while the prince with a half smile glanced from one party to the other, like a man who loved to dwell upon a fiery scene, and yet dreaded least the mischief go so far that he might find it beyond his control. "Friends, friends!" he cried at last, "this quarrel must go no further. The man shall answer to me, be he Gascon or English, who carries it beyond this room. I have overmuch need for your swords that you should turn them upon each other. Sir John Charnell, Lord Audley, you do not doubt the courage of our friends of Gascony?" "Not I, sire," Lord Audley answered. "I have seen them fight too often not to know that they are very hardy and valiant gentlemen." "And so say I," quoth the other Englishman; "but, certes, there is no fear of our forgetting it while they have a tongue in their heads." "Nay, Sir John," said the prince reprovingly, "all peoples have their own use and customs. There are some who might call us cold and dull and silent. But you hear, my lords of Gascony, that these gentlemen had no thought to throw a slur upon your honor or your valor, so let all anger fade from your mind. Clisson, Captal, De Pommers, I have your word?" "We are your subjects, sire," said the Gascon barons, though with no very good grace. "Your words are our law." "Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon of Malvoisie," said the prince, cheerily. "Ho, there! the doors of the banquet-hall! I have been over long from my sweet spouse but I shall be back with you anon. Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!" He turned away, accompanied by the two monarchs, while the rest of the company, with many a compressed lip and menacing eye, filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth. CHAPTER XX. HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD. Whilst the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England. "How is it with the old man at Windsor?" asked one. "And how with the good Queen Philippa?" "And how with Dame Alice Perrers?" cried a third. "The devil take your tongue, Wat!" shouted a tall young man, seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. "The prince would take your head off for those words." "By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little," said another. "It is as empty as a beggar's wallet." "As empty as an English squire, coz," cried the first speaker. "What a devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet." "Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least," observed another, amid a burst of laughter. "And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm," cried the aggrieved Humphrey. "But how of England, my lads of Loring?" "I take it," said Ford, "that it is much as it was when you were there last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there." "And why less noise, young Solomon?" "Ah, that is

surrounded

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years to his life? "Ha, my little heart of gold!" he cried, darting forward suddenly and throwing his arms round Sir Nigel. "I heard that you were here and have been seeking you." "My fair and dear lord," said the knight, returning the warrior's embrace, "I have indeed come back to you, for where else shall I go that I may learn to be a gentle and a hardy knight?" "By my troth!" said Chandos with a smile, "it is very fitting that we should be companions, Nigel, for since you have tied up one of your eyes, and I have had the mischance to lose one of mine, we have but a pair between us. Ah, Sir Oliver! you were on the blind side of me and I saw you not. A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me. We shall go in to the prince anon; but in truth he hath much upon his hands, for what with Pedro, and the King of Majorca, and the King of Navarre, who is no two days of the same mind, and the Gascon barons who are all chaffering for terms like so many hucksters, he hath an uneasy part to play. But how left you the Lady Loring?" "She was well, my fair lord, and sent her service and greetings to you." "I am ever her knight and slave. And your journey, I trust that it was pleasant?" "As heart could wish. We had sight of two rover galleys, and even came to have some slight bickering with them." "Ever in luck's way, Nigel!" quoth Sir John. "We must hear the tale anon. But I deem it best that ye should leave your squires and come with me, for, howsoe'er pressed the prince may be, I am very sure that he would be loth to keep two old comrades-in-arms upon the further side of the door. Follow close behind me, and I will forestall old Sir William, though I can scarce promise to roll forth your style and rank as is his wont." So saying, he led the way to the inner chamber, the two companions treading close at his heels, and nodding to right and left as they caught sight of familiar faces among the crowd. CHAPTER XIX. HOW THERE WAS STIR AT THE ABBEY OF ST. ANDREW'S. The prince's reception-room, although of no great size, was fitted up with all the state and luxury which the fame and power of its owner demanded. A high dais at the further end was roofed in by a broad canopy of scarlet velvet spangled with silver fleurs-de-lis, and supported at either corner by silver rods. This was approached by four steps carpeted with the same material, while all round were scattered rich cushions, oriental mats and costly rugs of fur. The choicest tapestries which the looms of Arras could furnish draped the walls, whereon the battles of Judas Maccabaeus were set forth, with the Jewish warriors in plate of proof, with crest and lance and banderole, as the naive artists of the day were wont to depict them. A few rich settles and bancals, choicely carved and decorated with glazed leather hangings of the sort termed _or basane_, completed the furniture of the apartment, save that at one side of the dais there stood a lofty perch, upon which a cast of three solemn Prussian gerfalcons sat, hooded and jesseled, as silent and motionless as the royal fowler who stood beside them. In the centre of the dais were two very high chairs with dorserets, which arched forwards over the heads of the occupants, the whole covered with light-blue silk thickly powdered with golden stars. On that to the right sat a very tall and well formed man with red hair, a livid face, and a cold blue eye, which had in it something peculiarly sinister and menacing. He lounged back in a careless position, and yawned repeatedly as though heartily weary of the proceedings, stooping from time to time to fondle a shaggy Spanish greyhound which lay stretched at his feet. On the other throne there was perched bolt upright, with prim demeanor, as though he felt himself to be upon his good behavior, a little, round, pippin faced person, who smiled and bobbed to every one whose eye he chanced to meet. Between and a little in front of them on a humble charette or stool, sat a slim, dark young man, whose quiet attire and modest manner would scarce proclaim him to be the most noted prince in Europe. A jupon of dark blue cloth, tagged with buckles and pendants of gold, seemed but a sombre and plain attire amidst the wealth of silk and ermine and gilt tissue of fustian with which he was surrounded. He sat with his two hands clasped round his knee, his head slightly bent, and an expression of impatience and of trouble upon his clear, well-chiselled features. Behind the thrones there stood two men in purple gowns, with ascetic, clean-shaven faces, and half a dozen other high dignitaries and office-holders of Aquitaine. Below on either side of the steps were forty or fifty barons, knights, and courtiers, ranged in a triple row to the right and the left, with a clear passage in the centre. "There sits the prince," whispered Sir John Chandos, as they entered. "He on the right is Pedro, whom we are about to put upon the Spanish throne. The other is Don James, whom we purpose with the aid of God to help to his throne in Majorca. Now follow me, and take it not to heart if he be a little short in his speech, for indeed his mind is full of many very weighty concerns." The prince, however, had already observed their entrance, and, springing to his feet, he had advanced with a winning smile and the light of welcome in his eyes. "We do not need your good offices as herald here, Sir John," said he in a low but clear voice; "these valiant knights are very well known to me. Welcome to Aquitaine, Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver Buttesthorn. Nay, keep your knee for my sweet father at Windsor. I would have your hands, my friends. We are like to give you some work to do ere you see the downs of Hampshire once more. Know you aught of Spain, Sir Oliver?" "Nought, my sire, save that I have heard men say that there is a dish named an olla which is prepared there, though I have never been clear in my mind as to whether it was but a ragout such as is to be found in the south, or whether there is some seasoning such as fennel or garlic which is peculiar to Spain." "Your doubts, Sir Oliver, shall soon be resolved," answered the prince, laughing heartily, as did many of the barons who surrounded them. "His majesty here will doubtless order that you have this dish hotly seasoned when we are all safely in Castile." "I will have a hotly seasoned dish for some folk I know of," answered Don Pedro with a cold smile. "But my friend Sir Oliver can fight right hardily without either bite or sup," remarked the prince. "Did I not see him at Poictiers, when for two days we had not more than a crust of bread and a cup of foul water, yet carrying himself most valiantly. With my own eyes I saw him in the rout sweep the head from a knight of Picardy with one blow of his sword." "The rogue got between me and the nearest French victual wain," muttered Sir Oliver, amid a fresh titter from those who were near enough to catch his words. "How many have you in your train?" asked the prince, assuming a graver mien. "I have forty men-at-arms, sire," said Sir Oliver. "And I have one hundred archers and a score of lancers, but there are two hundred men who wait for me on this side of the water upon the borders of Navarre." "And who are they, Sir Nigel?" "They are a free company, sire, and they are called the White Company." To the astonishment of the knight, his words provoked a burst of merriment from the barons round, in which the two kings and the prince were fain to join. Sir Nigel blinked mildly from one to the other, until at last perceiving a stout black-bearded knight at his elbow, whose laugh rang somewhat louder than the others, he touched him lightly upon the sleeve. "Perchance, my fair sir," he whispered, "there is some small vow of which I may relieve you. Might we not have some honorable debate upon the matter. Your gentle courtesy may perhaps grant me an exchange of thrusts." "Nay, nay, Sir Nigel," cried the prince, "fasten not the offence upon Sir Robert Briquet, for we are one and all bogged in the same mire. Truth to say, our ears have just been vexed by the doings of the same company, and I have even now made vow to hang the man who held the rank of captain over it. I little thought to find him among the bravest of my own chosen chieftains. But the vow is now nought, for, as you have never seen your company, it would be a fool's act to blame you for their doings." "My liege," said Sir Nigel, "it is a very small matter that I should be hanged, albeit the manner of death is somewhat more ignoble than I had hoped for. On the other hand, it would be a very grievous thing that you, the Prince of England and the flower of knighthood, should make a vow, whether in ignorance or no, and fail to bring it to fulfilment." "Vex not your mind on that," the prince answered, smiling. "We have had a citizen from Montauban here this very day, who told us such a tale of sack and murder and pillage that it moved our blood; but our wrath was turned upon the man who was in authority over them." "My dear and honored master," cried Nigel, in great anxiety, "I fear me much that in your gentleness of heart you are straining this vow which you have taken. If there be so much as a shadow of a doubt as to the form of it, it were a thousand times best----" "Peace! peace!" cried the prince impatiently. "I am very well able to look to my own vows and their performance. We hope to see you both in the banquet-hall anon. Meanwhile you will attend upon us with our train." He bowed, and Chandos, plucking Sir Oliver by the sleeve, led them both away to the back of the press of courtiers. "Why, little coz," he whispered, "you are very eager to have your neck in a noose. By my soul! had you asked as much from our new ally Don Pedro, he had not baulked you. Between friends, there is overmuch of the hangman in him, and too little of the prince. But indeed this White Company is a rough band, and may take some handling ere you find yourself safe in your captaincy." "I doubt not, with the help of St. Paul, that I shall bring them to some order," Sir Nigel answered. "But there are many faces here which are new to me, though others have been before me since first I waited upon my dear master, Sir Walter. I pray you to tell me, Sir John, who are these priests upon the dais?" "The one is the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Nigel, and the other the Bishop of Agen." "And the dark knight with gray-streaked beard? By my troth, he seems to be a man of much wisdom and valor." "He is Sir William Felton, who, with my unworthy self, is the chief counsellor of the prince, he being high steward and I the seneschal of Aquitaine." "And the knights upon the right, beside Don Pedro?" "They are cavaliers of Spain who have followed him in his exile. The one at his elbow is Fernando de Castro, who is as brave and true a man as heart could wish. In front to the right are the Gascon lords. You may well tell them by their clouded brows, for there hath been some ill-will of late betwixt the prince and them. The tall and burly man is the Captal de Buch, whom I doubt not that you know, for a braver knight never laid lance in rest. That heavy-faced cavalier who plucks his skirts and whispers in his ear is Lord Oliver de Clisson, known also as the butcher. He it is who stirs up strife, and forever blows the dying embers into flame. The man with the mole upon his cheek is the Lord Pommers, and his two brothers stand behind him, with the Lord Lesparre, Lord de Rosem, Lord de Mucident, Sir Perducas d'Albret, the Souldich de la Trane, and others. Further back are knights from Quercy, Limousin, Saintonge, Poitou, and Aquitaine, with the valiant Sir Guiscard d'Angle. That is he in the rose-colored doublet with the ermine." "And the knights upon this side?" "They are all Englishmen, some of the household and others who like yourself, are captains of companies. There is Lord Neville, Sir Stephen Cossington, and Sir Matthew Gourney, with Sir Walter Huet, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Thomas Felton, who is the brother of the high steward. Mark well the man with the high nose and flaxen beard who hath placed his hand upon the shoulder of the dark hard-faced cavalier in the rust-stained jupon." "Aye, by St. Paul!" observed Sir Nigel, "they both bear the print of their armor upon their cotes-hardies. Methinks they are men who breathe freer in a camp than a court." "There are many of us who do that, Nigel," said Chandos, "and the head of the court is, I dare warrant, among them. But of these two men the one is Sir Hugh Calverley, and the other is Sir Robert Knolles." Sir Nigel and Sir Oliver craned their necks to have the clearer view of these famous warriors, the one a chosen leader of free companies, the other a man who by his fierce valor and energy had raised himself from the lowest ranks until he was second only to Chandos himself in the esteem of the army. "He hath no light hand in war, hath Sir Robert," said Chandos. "If he passes through a country you may tell it for some years to come. I have heard that in the north it is still the use to call a house which hath but the two gable ends left, without walls or roof, a Knolles' mitre." "I have often heard of him," said Nigel, "and I have hoped to be so far honored as to run a course with him. But hark, Sir John, what is amiss with the prince?" Whilst Chandos had been conversing with the two knights a continuous stream of suitors had been ushered in, adventurers seeking to sell their swords and merchants clamoring over some grievance, a ship detained for the carriage of troops, or a tun of sweet wine which had the bottom knocked out by a troop of thirsty archers. A few words from the prince disposed of each case, and, if the applicant liked not the judgment, a quick glance from the prince's dark eyes sent him to the door with the grievance all gone out of him. The younger ruler had sat listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character. "How now, Don Martin de la Carra?" he cried. "How now, sirrah? What message do you bring to us from our brother of Navarre?" The new-comer to whom this abrupt query had been addressed was a tall and exceedingly handsome cavalier who had just been ushered into the apartment. His swarthy cheek and raven black hair spoke of the fiery south, and he wore his long black cloak swathed across his chest and over his shoulders in a graceful sweeping fashion, which was neither English nor French. With stately steps and many profound bows, he advanced to the foot of the dais before replying to the prince's question. "My powerful and illustrious master," he began, "Charles, King of Navarre, Earl of Evreux, Count of Champagne, who also writeth himself Overlord of Bearn, hereby sends his love and greetings to his dear cousin Edward, the Prince of Wales, Governor of Aquitaine, Grand Commander of----" "Tush! tush! Don Martin!" interrupted the prince, who had been beating the ground with his foot impatiently during this stately preamble. "We already know our cousin's titles and style, and, certes, we know our own. To the point, man, and at once. Are the passes open to us, or does your master go back from his word pledged to me at Libourne no later than last Michaelmas?" "It would ill become my gracious master, sire, to go back from promise given. He does but ask some delay and certain conditions and hostages----" "Conditions! Hostages! Is he speaking to the Prince of England, or is it to the bourgeois provost of some half-captured town! Conditions, quotha? He may find much to mend in his own condition ere long. The passes are, then, closed to us?" "Nay, sire----" "They are open, then?" "Nay, sire, if you would but----" "Enough, enough, Don Martin," cried the prince. "It is a sorry sight to see so true a knight pleading in so false a cause. We know the doings of our cousin Charles. We know that while with the right hand he takes our fifty thousand crowns for the holding of the passes open, he hath his left outstretched to Henry of Trastamare, or to the King of France, all ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered horse. He is----" "My lord," cried Don Martin, "I cannot stand there to hear such words of my master. Did they come from other lips, I should know better how to answer them." Don Pedro frowned and curled his lip, but the prince smiled and nodded his approbation. "Your bearing and your words, Don Martin, are such I should have looked for in you," he remarked. "You will tell the king, your master, that he hath been paid his price and that if he holds to his promise he hath my word for it that no scath shall come to his people, nor to their houses or gear. If, however, we have not his leave, I shall come close at the heels of this message without his leave, and bearing a key with me which shall open all that he may close." He stooped and whispered to Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Huge Calverley, who smiled as men well pleased, and hastened from the room. "Our cousin Charles has had experience of our friendship," the prince continued, "and now, by the Saints! he shall feel a touch of our displeasure. I send now a message to our cousin Charles which his whole kingdom may read. Let him take heed lest worse befall him. Where is my Lord Chandos? Ha, Sir John, I commend this worthy knight to your care. You will see that he hath refection, and such a purse of gold as may defray his charges, for indeed it is great honor to any court to have within it so noble and gentle a cavalier. How say you, sire?" he asked, turning to the Spanish refugee, while the herald of Navarre was conducted from the chamber by the old warrior. "It is not our custom in Spain to reward pertness in a messenger," Don Pedro answered, patting the head of his greyhound. "Yet we have all heard the lengths to which your royal generosity runs." "In sooth, yes," cried the King of Majorca. "Who should know it better than we?" said Don Pedro bitterly, "since we have had to fly to you in our trouble as to the natural protector of all who are weak." "Nay, nay, as brothers to a brother," cried the prince, with sparkling eyes. "We doubt not, with the help of God, to see you very soon restored to those thrones from which you have been so traitorously thrust." "When that happy day comes," said Pedro, "then Spain shall be to you as Aquitaine, and, be your project what it may, you may ever count on every troop and every ship over which flies the banner of Castile." "And," added the other, "upon every aid which the wealth and power of Majorca can bestow." "Touching the hundred thousand crowns in which I stand your debtor," continued Pedro carelessly, "it can no doubt----" "Not a word, sire, not a word!" cried the prince. "It is not now when you are in grief that I would vex your mind with such base and sordid matters. I have said once and forever that I am yours with every bow-string of my army and every florin in my coffers." "Ah! here is indeed a mirror of chivalry," said Don Pedro. "I think, Sir Fernando, since the prince's bounty is stretched so far, that we may make further use of his gracious goodness to the extent of fifty thousand crowns. Good Sir William Felton, here, will doubtless settle the matter with you." The stout old English counsellor looked somewhat blank at this prompt acceptance of his master's bounty. "If it please you, sire," he said, "the public funds are at their lowest, seeing that I have paid twelve thousand men of the companies, and the new taxes--the hearth-tax and the wine-tax--not yet come in. If you could wait until the promised help from England comes----" "Nay, nay, my sweet cousin," cried Don Pedro. "Had we known that your own coffers were so low, or that this sorry sum could have weighed one way or the other, we had been loth indeed----" "Enough, sire, enough!" said the prince, flushing with vexation. "If the public funds be, indeed, so backward, Sir William, there is still, I trust, my own private credit, which hath never been drawn upon for my own uses, but is now ready in the cause of a friend in adversity. Go, raise this money upon our own jewels, if nought else may serve, and see that it be paid over to Don Fernando." "In security I offer----" cried Don Pedro. "Tush! tush!" said the prince. "I am not a Lombard, sire. Your kingly pledge is my security, without bond or seal. But I have tidings for you, my lords and lieges, that our brother of Lancaster is on his way for our capital with four hundred lances and as many archers to aid us in our venture. When he hath come, and when our fair consort is recovered in her health, which I trust by the grace of God may be ere many weeks be past, we shall then join the army at Dax, and set our banners to the breeze once more." A buzz of joy at the prospect of immediate action rose up from the group of warriors. The prince smiled at the martial ardor which shone upon every face around him. "It will hearten you to know," he continued, "that I have sure advices that this Henry is a very valiant leader, and that he has it in his power to make such a stand against us as promises to give us much honor and pleasure. Of his own people he hath brought together, as I learn, some fifty thousand, with twelve thousand of the French free companies, who are, as you know very valiant and expert men-at-arms. It is certain also, that the brave and worthy Bertrand de Guesclin hath ridden into France to the Duke of Anjou, and purposes to take back with him great levies from Picardy and Brittany. We hold Bertrand in high esteem, for he has oft before been at great pains to furnish us with an honorable encounter. What think you of it, my worthy Captal? He took you at Cocherel, and, by my soul! you will have the chance now to pay that score." The Gascon warrior winced a little at the allusion, nor were his countrymen around him better pleased, for on the only occasion when they had encountered the arms of France without English aid they had met with a heavy defeat. "There are some who say, sire," said the burly De Clisson, "that the score is already overpaid, for that without Gascon help Bertrand had not been taken at Auray, nor had King John been overborne at Poictiers." "By heaven! but this is too much," cried an English nobleman. "Methinks that Gascony is too small a cock to crow so lustily." "The smaller cock, my Lord Audley, may have the longer spur," remarked the Captal de Buch. "May have its comb clipped if it make over-much noise," broke in an Englishman. "By our Lady of Rocamadour!" cried the Lord of Mucident, "this is more than I can abide. Sir John Charnell, you shall answer to me for those words!" "Freely, my lord, and when you will," returned the Englishman carelessly. "My Lord de Clisson," cried Lord Audley, "you look somewhat fixedly in my direction. By God's soul! I should be right glad to go further into the matter with you." "And you, my Lord of Pommers," said Sir Nigel, pushing his way to the front, "it is in my mind that we might break a lance in gentle and honorable debate over the question." For a moment a dozen challenges flashed backwards and forwards at this sudden bursting of the cloud which had lowered so long between the knights of the two nations. Furious and gesticulating the Gascons, white and cold and sneering the English, while the prince with a half smile glanced from one party to the other, like a man who loved to dwell upon a fiery scene, and yet dreaded least the mischief go so far that he might find it beyond his control. "Friends, friends!" he cried at last, "this quarrel must go no further. The man shall answer to me, be he Gascon or English, who carries it beyond this room. I have overmuch need for your swords that you should turn them upon each other. Sir John Charnell, Lord Audley, you do not doubt the courage of our friends of Gascony?" "Not I, sire," Lord Audley answered. "I have seen them fight too often not to know that they are very hardy and valiant gentlemen." "And so say I," quoth the other Englishman; "but, certes, there is no fear of our forgetting it while they have a tongue in their heads." "Nay, Sir John," said the prince reprovingly, "all peoples have their own use and customs. There are some who might call us cold and dull and silent. But you hear, my lords of Gascony, that these gentlemen had no thought to throw a slur upon your honor or your valor, so let all anger fade from your mind. Clisson, Captal, De Pommers, I have your word?" "We are your subjects, sire," said the Gascon barons, though with no very good grace. "Your words are our law." "Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon of Malvoisie," said the prince, cheerily. "Ho, there! the doors of the banquet-hall! I have been over long from my sweet spouse but I shall be back with you anon. Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!" He turned away, accompanied by the two monarchs, while the rest of the company, with many a compressed lip and menacing eye, filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth. CHAPTER XX. HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD. Whilst the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England. "How is it with the old man at Windsor?" asked one. "And how with the good Queen Philippa?" "And how with Dame Alice Perrers?" cried a third. "The devil take your tongue, Wat!" shouted a tall young man, seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. "The prince would take your head off for those words." "By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little," said another. "It is as empty as a beggar's wallet." "As empty as an English squire, coz," cried the first speaker. "What a devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet." "Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least," observed another, amid a burst of laughter. "And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm," cried the aggrieved Humphrey. "But how of England, my lads of Loring?" "I take it," said Ford, "that it is much as it was when you were there last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there." "And why less noise, young Solomon?" "Ah, that is

carriage

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years to his life? "Ha, my little heart of gold!" he cried, darting forward suddenly and throwing his arms round Sir Nigel. "I heard that you were here and have been seeking you." "My fair and dear lord," said the knight, returning the warrior's embrace, "I have indeed come back to you, for where else shall I go that I may learn to be a gentle and a hardy knight?" "By my troth!" said Chandos with a smile, "it is very fitting that we should be companions, Nigel, for since you have tied up one of your eyes, and I have had the mischance to lose one of mine, we have but a pair between us. Ah, Sir Oliver! you were on the blind side of me and I saw you not. A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me. We shall go in to the prince anon; but in truth he hath much upon his hands, for what with Pedro, and the King of Majorca, and the King of Navarre, who is no two days of the same mind, and the Gascon barons who are all chaffering for terms like so many hucksters, he hath an uneasy part to play. But how left you the Lady Loring?" "She was well, my fair lord, and sent her service and greetings to you." "I am ever her knight and slave. And your journey, I trust that it was pleasant?" "As heart could wish. We had sight of two rover galleys, and even came to have some slight bickering with them." "Ever in luck's way, Nigel!" quoth Sir John. "We must hear the tale anon. But I deem it best that ye should leave your squires and come with me, for, howsoe'er pressed the prince may be, I am very sure that he would be loth to keep two old comrades-in-arms upon the further side of the door. Follow close behind me, and I will forestall old Sir William, though I can scarce promise to roll forth your style and rank as is his wont." So saying, he led the way to the inner chamber, the two companions treading close at his heels, and nodding to right and left as they caught sight of familiar faces among the crowd. CHAPTER XIX. HOW THERE WAS STIR AT THE ABBEY OF ST. ANDREW'S. The prince's reception-room, although of no great size, was fitted up with all the state and luxury which the fame and power of its owner demanded. A high dais at the further end was roofed in by a broad canopy of scarlet velvet spangled with silver fleurs-de-lis, and supported at either corner by silver rods. This was approached by four steps carpeted with the same material, while all round were scattered rich cushions, oriental mats and costly rugs of fur. The choicest tapestries which the looms of Arras could furnish draped the walls, whereon the battles of Judas Maccabaeus were set forth, with the Jewish warriors in plate of proof, with crest and lance and banderole, as the naive artists of the day were wont to depict them. A few rich settles and bancals, choicely carved and decorated with glazed leather hangings of the sort termed _or basane_, completed the furniture of the apartment, save that at one side of the dais there stood a lofty perch, upon which a cast of three solemn Prussian gerfalcons sat, hooded and jesseled, as silent and motionless as the royal fowler who stood beside them. In the centre of the dais were two very high chairs with dorserets, which arched forwards over the heads of the occupants, the whole covered with light-blue silk thickly powdered with golden stars. On that to the right sat a very tall and well formed man with red hair, a livid face, and a cold blue eye, which had in it something peculiarly sinister and menacing. He lounged back in a careless position, and yawned repeatedly as though heartily weary of the proceedings, stooping from time to time to fondle a shaggy Spanish greyhound which lay stretched at his feet. On the other throne there was perched bolt upright, with prim demeanor, as though he felt himself to be upon his good behavior, a little, round, pippin faced person, who smiled and bobbed to every one whose eye he chanced to meet. Between and a little in front of them on a humble charette or stool, sat a slim, dark young man, whose quiet attire and modest manner would scarce proclaim him to be the most noted prince in Europe. A jupon of dark blue cloth, tagged with buckles and pendants of gold, seemed but a sombre and plain attire amidst the wealth of silk and ermine and gilt tissue of fustian with which he was surrounded. He sat with his two hands clasped round his knee, his head slightly bent, and an expression of impatience and of trouble upon his clear, well-chiselled features. Behind the thrones there stood two men in purple gowns, with ascetic, clean-shaven faces, and half a dozen other high dignitaries and office-holders of Aquitaine. Below on either side of the steps were forty or fifty barons, knights, and courtiers, ranged in a triple row to the right and the left, with a clear passage in the centre. "There sits the prince," whispered Sir John Chandos, as they entered. "He on the right is Pedro, whom we are about to put upon the Spanish throne. The other is Don James, whom we purpose with the aid of God to help to his throne in Majorca. Now follow me, and take it not to heart if he be a little short in his speech, for indeed his mind is full of many very weighty concerns." The prince, however, had already observed their entrance, and, springing to his feet, he had advanced with a winning smile and the light of welcome in his eyes. "We do not need your good offices as herald here, Sir John," said he in a low but clear voice; "these valiant knights are very well known to me. Welcome to Aquitaine, Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver Buttesthorn. Nay, keep your knee for my sweet father at Windsor. I would have your hands, my friends. We are like to give you some work to do ere you see the downs of Hampshire once more. Know you aught of Spain, Sir Oliver?" "Nought, my sire, save that I have heard men say that there is a dish named an olla which is prepared there, though I have never been clear in my mind as to whether it was but a ragout such as is to be found in the south, or whether there is some seasoning such as fennel or garlic which is peculiar to Spain." "Your doubts, Sir Oliver, shall soon be resolved," answered the prince, laughing heartily, as did many of the barons who surrounded them. "His majesty here will doubtless order that you have this dish hotly seasoned when we are all safely in Castile." "I will have a hotly seasoned dish for some folk I know of," answered Don Pedro with a cold smile. "But my friend Sir Oliver can fight right hardily without either bite or sup," remarked the prince. "Did I not see him at Poictiers, when for two days we had not more than a crust of bread and a cup of foul water, yet carrying himself most valiantly. With my own eyes I saw him in the rout sweep the head from a knight of Picardy with one blow of his sword." "The rogue got between me and the nearest French victual wain," muttered Sir Oliver, amid a fresh titter from those who were near enough to catch his words. "How many have you in your train?" asked the prince, assuming a graver mien. "I have forty men-at-arms, sire," said Sir Oliver. "And I have one hundred archers and a score of lancers, but there are two hundred men who wait for me on this side of the water upon the borders of Navarre." "And who are they, Sir Nigel?" "They are a free company, sire, and they are called the White Company." To the astonishment of the knight, his words provoked a burst of merriment from the barons round, in which the two kings and the prince were fain to join. Sir Nigel blinked mildly from one to the other, until at last perceiving a stout black-bearded knight at his elbow, whose laugh rang somewhat louder than the others, he touched him lightly upon the sleeve. "Perchance, my fair sir," he whispered, "there is some small vow of which I may relieve you. Might we not have some honorable debate upon the matter. Your gentle courtesy may perhaps grant me an exchange of thrusts." "Nay, nay, Sir Nigel," cried the prince, "fasten not the offence upon Sir Robert Briquet, for we are one and all bogged in the same mire. Truth to say, our ears have just been vexed by the doings of the same company, and I have even now made vow to hang the man who held the rank of captain over it. I little thought to find him among the bravest of my own chosen chieftains. But the vow is now nought, for, as you have never seen your company, it would be a fool's act to blame you for their doings." "My liege," said Sir Nigel, "it is a very small matter that I should be hanged, albeit the manner of death is somewhat more ignoble than I had hoped for. On the other hand, it would be a very grievous thing that you, the Prince of England and the flower of knighthood, should make a vow, whether in ignorance or no, and fail to bring it to fulfilment." "Vex not your mind on that," the prince answered, smiling. "We have had a citizen from Montauban here this very day, who told us such a tale of sack and murder and pillage that it moved our blood; but our wrath was turned upon the man who was in authority over them." "My dear and honored master," cried Nigel, in great anxiety, "I fear me much that in your gentleness of heart you are straining this vow which you have taken. If there be so much as a shadow of a doubt as to the form of it, it were a thousand times best----" "Peace! peace!" cried the prince impatiently. "I am very well able to look to my own vows and their performance. We hope to see you both in the banquet-hall anon. Meanwhile you will attend upon us with our train." He bowed, and Chandos, plucking Sir Oliver by the sleeve, led them both away to the back of the press of courtiers. "Why, little coz," he whispered, "you are very eager to have your neck in a noose. By my soul! had you asked as much from our new ally Don Pedro, he had not baulked you. Between friends, there is overmuch of the hangman in him, and too little of the prince. But indeed this White Company is a rough band, and may take some handling ere you find yourself safe in your captaincy." "I doubt not, with the help of St. Paul, that I shall bring them to some order," Sir Nigel answered. "But there are many faces here which are new to me, though others have been before me since first I waited upon my dear master, Sir Walter. I pray you to tell me, Sir John, who are these priests upon the dais?" "The one is the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Nigel, and the other the Bishop of Agen." "And the dark knight with gray-streaked beard? By my troth, he seems to be a man of much wisdom and valor." "He is Sir William Felton, who, with my unworthy self, is the chief counsellor of the prince, he being high steward and I the seneschal of Aquitaine." "And the knights upon the right, beside Don Pedro?" "They are cavaliers of Spain who have followed him in his exile. The one at his elbow is Fernando de Castro, who is as brave and true a man as heart could wish. In front to the right are the Gascon lords. You may well tell them by their clouded brows, for there hath been some ill-will of late betwixt the prince and them. The tall and burly man is the Captal de Buch, whom I doubt not that you know, for a braver knight never laid lance in rest. That heavy-faced cavalier who plucks his skirts and whispers in his ear is Lord Oliver de Clisson, known also as the butcher. He it is who stirs up strife, and forever blows the dying embers into flame. The man with the mole upon his cheek is the Lord Pommers, and his two brothers stand behind him, with the Lord Lesparre, Lord de Rosem, Lord de Mucident, Sir Perducas d'Albret, the Souldich de la Trane, and others. Further back are knights from Quercy, Limousin, Saintonge, Poitou, and Aquitaine, with the valiant Sir Guiscard d'Angle. That is he in the rose-colored doublet with the ermine." "And the knights upon this side?" "They are all Englishmen, some of the household and others who like yourself, are captains of companies. There is Lord Neville, Sir Stephen Cossington, and Sir Matthew Gourney, with Sir Walter Huet, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Thomas Felton, who is the brother of the high steward. Mark well the man with the high nose and flaxen beard who hath placed his hand upon the shoulder of the dark hard-faced cavalier in the rust-stained jupon." "Aye, by St. Paul!" observed Sir Nigel, "they both bear the print of their armor upon their cotes-hardies. Methinks they are men who breathe freer in a camp than a court." "There are many of us who do that, Nigel," said Chandos, "and the head of the court is, I dare warrant, among them. But of these two men the one is Sir Hugh Calverley, and the other is Sir Robert Knolles." Sir Nigel and Sir Oliver craned their necks to have the clearer view of these famous warriors, the one a chosen leader of free companies, the other a man who by his fierce valor and energy had raised himself from the lowest ranks until he was second only to Chandos himself in the esteem of the army. "He hath no light hand in war, hath Sir Robert," said Chandos. "If he passes through a country you may tell it for some years to come. I have heard that in the north it is still the use to call a house which hath but the two gable ends left, without walls or roof, a Knolles' mitre." "I have often heard of him," said Nigel, "and I have hoped to be so far honored as to run a course with him. But hark, Sir John, what is amiss with the prince?" Whilst Chandos had been conversing with the two knights a continuous stream of suitors had been ushered in, adventurers seeking to sell their swords and merchants clamoring over some grievance, a ship detained for the carriage of troops, or a tun of sweet wine which had the bottom knocked out by a troop of thirsty archers. A few words from the prince disposed of each case, and, if the applicant liked not the judgment, a quick glance from the prince's dark eyes sent him to the door with the grievance all gone out of him. The younger ruler had sat listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character. "How now, Don Martin de la Carra?" he cried. "How now, sirrah? What message do you bring to us from our brother of Navarre?" The new-comer to whom this abrupt query had been addressed was a tall and exceedingly handsome cavalier who had just been ushered into the apartment. His swarthy cheek and raven black hair spoke of the fiery south, and he wore his long black cloak swathed across his chest and over his shoulders in a graceful sweeping fashion, which was neither English nor French. With stately steps and many profound bows, he advanced to the foot of the dais before replying to the prince's question. "My powerful and illustrious master," he began, "Charles, King of Navarre, Earl of Evreux, Count of Champagne, who also writeth himself Overlord of Bearn, hereby sends his love and greetings to his dear cousin Edward, the Prince of Wales, Governor of Aquitaine, Grand Commander of----" "Tush! tush! Don Martin!" interrupted the prince, who had been beating the ground with his foot impatiently during this stately preamble. "We already know our cousin's titles and style, and, certes, we know our own. To the point, man, and at once. Are the passes open to us, or does your master go back from his word pledged to me at Libourne no later than last Michaelmas?" "It would ill become my gracious master, sire, to go back from promise given. He does but ask some delay and certain conditions and hostages----" "Conditions! Hostages! Is he speaking to the Prince of England, or is it to the bourgeois provost of some half-captured town! Conditions, quotha? He may find much to mend in his own condition ere long. The passes are, then, closed to us?" "Nay, sire----" "They are open, then?" "Nay, sire, if you would but----" "Enough, enough, Don Martin," cried the prince. "It is a sorry sight to see so true a knight pleading in so false a cause. We know the doings of our cousin Charles. We know that while with the right hand he takes our fifty thousand crowns for the holding of the passes open, he hath his left outstretched to Henry of Trastamare, or to the King of France, all ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered horse. He is----" "My lord," cried Don Martin, "I cannot stand there to hear such words of my master. Did they come from other lips, I should know better how to answer them." Don Pedro frowned and curled his lip, but the prince smiled and nodded his approbation. "Your bearing and your words, Don Martin, are such I should have looked for in you," he remarked. "You will tell the king, your master, that he hath been paid his price and that if he holds to his promise he hath my word for it that no scath shall come to his people, nor to their houses or gear. If, however, we have not his leave, I shall come close at the heels of this message without his leave, and bearing a key with me which shall open all that he may close." He stooped and whispered to Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Huge Calverley, who smiled as men well pleased, and hastened from the room. "Our cousin Charles has had experience of our friendship," the prince continued, "and now, by the Saints! he shall feel a touch of our displeasure. I send now a message to our cousin Charles which his whole kingdom may read. Let him take heed lest worse befall him. Where is my Lord Chandos? Ha, Sir John, I commend this worthy knight to your care. You will see that he hath refection, and such a purse of gold as may defray his charges, for indeed it is great honor to any court to have within it so noble and gentle a cavalier. How say you, sire?" he asked, turning to the Spanish refugee, while the herald of Navarre was conducted from the chamber by the old warrior. "It is not our custom in Spain to reward pertness in a messenger," Don Pedro answered, patting the head of his greyhound. "Yet we have all heard the lengths to which your royal generosity runs." "In sooth, yes," cried the King of Majorca. "Who should know it better than we?" said Don Pedro bitterly, "since we have had to fly to you in our trouble as to the natural protector of all who are weak." "Nay, nay, as brothers to a brother," cried the prince, with sparkling eyes. "We doubt not, with the help of God, to see you very soon restored to those thrones from which you have been so traitorously thrust." "When that happy day comes," said Pedro, "then Spain shall be to you as Aquitaine, and, be your project what it may, you may ever count on every troop and every ship over which flies the banner of Castile." "And," added the other, "upon every aid which the wealth and power of Majorca can bestow." "Touching the hundred thousand crowns in which I stand your debtor," continued Pedro carelessly, "it can no doubt----" "Not a word, sire, not a word!" cried the prince. "It is not now when you are in grief that I would vex your mind with such base and sordid matters. I have said once and forever that I am yours with every bow-string of my army and every florin in my coffers." "Ah! here is indeed a mirror of chivalry," said Don Pedro. "I think, Sir Fernando, since the prince's bounty is stretched so far, that we may make further use of his gracious goodness to the extent of fifty thousand crowns. Good Sir William Felton, here, will doubtless settle the matter with you." The stout old English counsellor looked somewhat blank at this prompt acceptance of his master's bounty. "If it please you, sire," he said, "the public funds are at their lowest, seeing that I have paid twelve thousand men of the companies, and the new taxes--the hearth-tax and the wine-tax--not yet come in. If you could wait until the promised help from England comes----" "Nay, nay, my sweet cousin," cried Don Pedro. "Had we known that your own coffers were so low, or that this sorry sum could have weighed one way or the other, we had been loth indeed----" "Enough, sire, enough!" said the prince, flushing with vexation. "If the public funds be, indeed, so backward, Sir William, there is still, I trust, my own private credit, which hath never been drawn upon for my own uses, but is now ready in the cause of a friend in adversity. Go, raise this money upon our own jewels, if nought else may serve, and see that it be paid over to Don Fernando." "In security I offer----" cried Don Pedro. "Tush! tush!" said the prince. "I am not a Lombard, sire. Your kingly pledge is my security, without bond or seal. But I have tidings for you, my lords and lieges, that our brother of Lancaster is on his way for our capital with four hundred lances and as many archers to aid us in our venture. When he hath come, and when our fair consort is recovered in her health, which I trust by the grace of God may be ere many weeks be past, we shall then join the army at Dax, and set our banners to the breeze once more." A buzz of joy at the prospect of immediate action rose up from the group of warriors. The prince smiled at the martial ardor which shone upon every face around him. "It will hearten you to know," he continued, "that I have sure advices that this Henry is a very valiant leader, and that he has it in his power to make such a stand against us as promises to give us much honor and pleasure. Of his own people he hath brought together, as I learn, some fifty thousand, with twelve thousand of the French free companies, who are, as you know very valiant and expert men-at-arms. It is certain also, that the brave and worthy Bertrand de Guesclin hath ridden into France to the Duke of Anjou, and purposes to take back with him great levies from Picardy and Brittany. We hold Bertrand in high esteem, for he has oft before been at great pains to furnish us with an honorable encounter. What think you of it, my worthy Captal? He took you at Cocherel, and, by my soul! you will have the chance now to pay that score." The Gascon warrior winced a little at the allusion, nor were his countrymen around him better pleased, for on the only occasion when they had encountered the arms of France without English aid they had met with a heavy defeat. "There are some who say, sire," said the burly De Clisson, "that the score is already overpaid, for that without Gascon help Bertrand had not been taken at Auray, nor had King John been overborne at Poictiers." "By heaven! but this is too much," cried an English nobleman. "Methinks that Gascony is too small a cock to crow so lustily." "The smaller cock, my Lord Audley, may have the longer spur," remarked the Captal de Buch. "May have its comb clipped if it make over-much noise," broke in an Englishman. "By our Lady of Rocamadour!" cried the Lord of Mucident, "this is more than I can abide. Sir John Charnell, you shall answer to me for those words!" "Freely, my lord, and when you will," returned the Englishman carelessly. "My Lord de Clisson," cried Lord Audley, "you look somewhat fixedly in my direction. By God's soul! I should be right glad to go further into the matter with you." "And you, my Lord of Pommers," said Sir Nigel, pushing his way to the front, "it is in my mind that we might break a lance in gentle and honorable debate over the question." For a moment a dozen challenges flashed backwards and forwards at this sudden bursting of the cloud which had lowered so long between the knights of the two nations. Furious and gesticulating the Gascons, white and cold and sneering the English, while the prince with a half smile glanced from one party to the other, like a man who loved to dwell upon a fiery scene, and yet dreaded least the mischief go so far that he might find it beyond his control. "Friends, friends!" he cried at last, "this quarrel must go no further. The man shall answer to me, be he Gascon or English, who carries it beyond this room. I have overmuch need for your swords that you should turn them upon each other. Sir John Charnell, Lord Audley, you do not doubt the courage of our friends of Gascony?" "Not I, sire," Lord Audley answered. "I have seen them fight too often not to know that they are very hardy and valiant gentlemen." "And so say I," quoth the other Englishman; "but, certes, there is no fear of our forgetting it while they have a tongue in their heads." "Nay, Sir John," said the prince reprovingly, "all peoples have their own use and customs. There are some who might call us cold and dull and silent. But you hear, my lords of Gascony, that these gentlemen had no thought to throw a slur upon your honor or your valor, so let all anger fade from your mind. Clisson, Captal, De Pommers, I have your word?" "We are your subjects, sire," said the Gascon barons, though with no very good grace. "Your words are our law." "Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon of Malvoisie," said the prince, cheerily. "Ho, there! the doors of the banquet-hall! I have been over long from my sweet spouse but I shall be back with you anon. Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!" He turned away, accompanied by the two monarchs, while the rest of the company, with many a compressed lip and menacing eye, filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth. CHAPTER XX. HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD. Whilst the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England. "How is it with the old man at Windsor?" asked one. "And how with the good Queen Philippa?" "And how with Dame Alice Perrers?" cried a third. "The devil take your tongue, Wat!" shouted a tall young man, seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. "The prince would take your head off for those words." "By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little," said another. "It is as empty as a beggar's wallet." "As empty as an English squire, coz," cried the first speaker. "What a devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet." "Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least," observed another, amid a burst of laughter. "And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm," cried the aggrieved Humphrey. "But how of England, my lads of Loring?" "I take it," said Ford, "that it is much as it was when you were there last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there." "And why less noise, young Solomon?" "Ah, that is

heard

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

years to his life? "Ha, my little heart of gold!" he cried, darting forward suddenly and throwing his arms round Sir Nigel. "I heard that you were here and have been seeking you." "My fair and dear lord," said the knight, returning the warrior's embrace, "I have indeed come back to you, for where else shall I go that I may learn to be a gentle and a hardy knight?" "By my troth!" said Chandos with a smile, "it is very fitting that we should be companions, Nigel, for since you have tied up one of your eyes, and I have had the mischance to lose one of mine, we have but a pair between us. Ah, Sir Oliver! you were on the blind side of me and I saw you not. A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me. We shall go in to the prince anon; but in truth he hath much upon his hands, for what with Pedro, and the King of Majorca, and the King of Navarre, who is no two days of the same mind, and the Gascon barons who are all chaffering for terms like so many hucksters, he hath an uneasy part to play. But how left you the Lady Loring?" "She was well, my fair lord, and sent her service and greetings to you." "I am ever her knight and slave. And your journey, I trust that it was pleasant?" "As heart could wish. We had sight of two rover galleys, and even came to have some slight bickering with them." "Ever in luck's way, Nigel!" quoth Sir John. "We must hear the tale anon. But I deem it best that ye should leave your squires and come with me, for, howsoe'er pressed the prince may be, I am very sure that he would be loth to keep two old comrades-in-arms upon the further side of the door. Follow close behind me, and I will forestall old Sir William, though I can scarce promise to roll forth your style and rank as is his wont." So saying, he led the way to the inner chamber, the two companions treading close at his heels, and nodding to right and left as they caught sight of familiar faces among the crowd. CHAPTER XIX. HOW THERE WAS STIR AT THE ABBEY OF ST. ANDREW'S. The prince's reception-room, although of no great size, was fitted up with all the state and luxury which the fame and power of its owner demanded. A high dais at the further end was roofed in by a broad canopy of scarlet velvet spangled with silver fleurs-de-lis, and supported at either corner by silver rods. This was approached by four steps carpeted with the same material, while all round were scattered rich cushions, oriental mats and costly rugs of fur. The choicest tapestries which the looms of Arras could furnish draped the walls, whereon the battles of Judas Maccabaeus were set forth, with the Jewish warriors in plate of proof, with crest and lance and banderole, as the naive artists of the day were wont to depict them. A few rich settles and bancals, choicely carved and decorated with glazed leather hangings of the sort termed _or basane_, completed the furniture of the apartment, save that at one side of the dais there stood a lofty perch, upon which a cast of three solemn Prussian gerfalcons sat, hooded and jesseled, as silent and motionless as the royal fowler who stood beside them. In the centre of the dais were two very high chairs with dorserets, which arched forwards over the heads of the occupants, the whole covered with light-blue silk thickly powdered with golden stars. On that to the right sat a very tall and well formed man with red hair, a livid face, and a cold blue eye, which had in it something peculiarly sinister and menacing. He lounged back in a careless position, and yawned repeatedly as though heartily weary of the proceedings, stooping from time to time to fondle a shaggy Spanish greyhound which lay stretched at his feet. On the other throne there was perched bolt upright, with prim demeanor, as though he felt himself to be upon his good behavior, a little, round, pippin faced person, who smiled and bobbed to every one whose eye he chanced to meet. Between and a little in front of them on a humble charette or stool, sat a slim, dark young man, whose quiet attire and modest manner would scarce proclaim him to be the most noted prince in Europe. A jupon of dark blue cloth, tagged with buckles and pendants of gold, seemed but a sombre and plain attire amidst the wealth of silk and ermine and gilt tissue of fustian with which he was surrounded. He sat with his two hands clasped round his knee, his head slightly bent, and an expression of impatience and of trouble upon his clear, well-chiselled features. Behind the thrones there stood two men in purple gowns, with ascetic, clean-shaven faces, and half a dozen other high dignitaries and office-holders of Aquitaine. Below on either side of the steps were forty or fifty barons, knights, and courtiers, ranged in a triple row to the right and the left, with a clear passage in the centre. "There sits the prince," whispered Sir John Chandos, as they entered. "He on the right is Pedro, whom we are about to put upon the Spanish throne. The other is Don James, whom we purpose with the aid of God to help to his throne in Majorca. Now follow me, and take it not to heart if he be a little short in his speech, for indeed his mind is full of many very weighty concerns." The prince, however, had already observed their entrance, and, springing to his feet, he had advanced with a winning smile and the light of welcome in his eyes. "We do not need your good offices as herald here, Sir John," said he in a low but clear voice; "these valiant knights are very well known to me. Welcome to Aquitaine, Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver Buttesthorn. Nay, keep your knee for my sweet father at Windsor. I would have your hands, my friends. We are like to give you some work to do ere you see the downs of Hampshire once more. Know you aught of Spain, Sir Oliver?" "Nought, my sire, save that I have heard men say that there is a dish named an olla which is prepared there, though I have never been clear in my mind as to whether it was but a ragout such as is to be found in the south, or whether there is some seasoning such as fennel or garlic which is peculiar to Spain." "Your doubts, Sir Oliver, shall soon be resolved," answered the prince, laughing heartily, as did many of the barons who surrounded them. "His majesty here will doubtless order that you have this dish hotly seasoned when we are all safely in Castile." "I will have a hotly seasoned dish for some folk I know of," answered Don Pedro with a cold smile. "But my friend Sir Oliver can fight right hardily without either bite or sup," remarked the prince. "Did I not see him at Poictiers, when for two days we had not more than a crust of bread and a cup of foul water, yet carrying himself most valiantly. With my own eyes I saw him in the rout sweep the head from a knight of Picardy with one blow of his sword." "The rogue got between me and the nearest French victual wain," muttered Sir Oliver, amid a fresh titter from those who were near enough to catch his words. "How many have you in your train?" asked the prince, assuming a graver mien. "I have forty men-at-arms, sire," said Sir Oliver. "And I have one hundred archers and a score of lancers, but there are two hundred men who wait for me on this side of the water upon the borders of Navarre." "And who are they, Sir Nigel?" "They are a free company, sire, and they are called the White Company." To the astonishment of the knight, his words provoked a burst of merriment from the barons round, in which the two kings and the prince were fain to join. Sir Nigel blinked mildly from one to the other, until at last perceiving a stout black-bearded knight at his elbow, whose laugh rang somewhat louder than the others, he touched him lightly upon the sleeve. "Perchance, my fair sir," he whispered, "there is some small vow of which I may relieve you. Might we not have some honorable debate upon the matter. Your gentle courtesy may perhaps grant me an exchange of thrusts." "Nay, nay, Sir Nigel," cried the prince, "fasten not the offence upon Sir Robert Briquet, for we are one and all bogged in the same mire. Truth to say, our ears have just been vexed by the doings of the same company, and I have even now made vow to hang the man who held the rank of captain over it. I little thought to find him among the bravest of my own chosen chieftains. But the vow is now nought, for, as you have never seen your company, it would be a fool's act to blame you for their doings." "My liege," said Sir Nigel, "it is a very small matter that I should be hanged, albeit the manner of death is somewhat more ignoble than I had hoped for. On the other hand, it would be a very grievous thing that you, the Prince of England and the flower of knighthood, should make a vow, whether in ignorance or no, and fail to bring it to fulfilment." "Vex not your mind on that," the prince answered, smiling. "We have had a citizen from Montauban here this very day, who told us such a tale of sack and murder and pillage that it moved our blood; but our wrath was turned upon the man who was in authority over them." "My dear and honored master," cried Nigel, in great anxiety, "I fear me much that in your gentleness of heart you are straining this vow which you have taken. If there be so much as a shadow of a doubt as to the form of it, it were a thousand times best----" "Peace! peace!" cried the prince impatiently. "I am very well able to look to my own vows and their performance. We hope to see you both in the banquet-hall anon. Meanwhile you will attend upon us with our train." He bowed, and Chandos, plucking Sir Oliver by the sleeve, led them both away to the back of the press of courtiers. "Why, little coz," he whispered, "you are very eager to have your neck in a noose. By my soul! had you asked as much from our new ally Don Pedro, he had not baulked you. Between friends, there is overmuch of the hangman in him, and too little of the prince. But indeed this White Company is a rough band, and may take some handling ere you find yourself safe in your captaincy." "I doubt not, with the help of St. Paul, that I shall bring them to some order," Sir Nigel answered. "But there are many faces here which are new to me, though others have been before me since first I waited upon my dear master, Sir Walter. I pray you to tell me, Sir John, who are these priests upon the dais?" "The one is the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Nigel, and the other the Bishop of Agen." "And the dark knight with gray-streaked beard? By my troth, he seems to be a man of much wisdom and valor." "He is Sir William Felton, who, with my unworthy self, is the chief counsellor of the prince, he being high steward and I the seneschal of Aquitaine." "And the knights upon the right, beside Don Pedro?" "They are cavaliers of Spain who have followed him in his exile. The one at his elbow is Fernando de Castro, who is as brave and true a man as heart could wish. In front to the right are the Gascon lords. You may well tell them by their clouded brows, for there hath been some ill-will of late betwixt the prince and them. The tall and burly man is the Captal de Buch, whom I doubt not that you know, for a braver knight never laid lance in rest. That heavy-faced cavalier who plucks his skirts and whispers in his ear is Lord Oliver de Clisson, known also as the butcher. He it is who stirs up strife, and forever blows the dying embers into flame. The man with the mole upon his cheek is the Lord Pommers, and his two brothers stand behind him, with the Lord Lesparre, Lord de Rosem, Lord de Mucident, Sir Perducas d'Albret, the Souldich de la Trane, and others. Further back are knights from Quercy, Limousin, Saintonge, Poitou, and Aquitaine, with the valiant Sir Guiscard d'Angle. That is he in the rose-colored doublet with the ermine." "And the knights upon this side?" "They are all Englishmen, some of the household and others who like yourself, are captains of companies. There is Lord Neville, Sir Stephen Cossington, and Sir Matthew Gourney, with Sir Walter Huet, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Thomas Felton, who is the brother of the high steward. Mark well the man with the high nose and flaxen beard who hath placed his hand upon the shoulder of the dark hard-faced cavalier in the rust-stained jupon." "Aye, by St. Paul!" observed Sir Nigel, "they both bear the print of their armor upon their cotes-hardies. Methinks they are men who breathe freer in a camp than a court." "There are many of us who do that, Nigel," said Chandos, "and the head of the court is, I dare warrant, among them. But of these two men the one is Sir Hugh Calverley, and the other is Sir Robert Knolles." Sir Nigel and Sir Oliver craned their necks to have the clearer view of these famous warriors, the one a chosen leader of free companies, the other a man who by his fierce valor and energy had raised himself from the lowest ranks until he was second only to Chandos himself in the esteem of the army. "He hath no light hand in war, hath Sir Robert," said Chandos. "If he passes through a country you may tell it for some years to come. I have heard that in the north it is still the use to call a house which hath but the two gable ends left, without walls or roof, a Knolles' mitre." "I have often heard of him," said Nigel, "and I have hoped to be so far honored as to run a course with him. But hark, Sir John, what is amiss with the prince?" Whilst Chandos had been conversing with the two knights a continuous stream of suitors had been ushered in, adventurers seeking to sell their swords and merchants clamoring over some grievance, a ship detained for the carriage of troops, or a tun of sweet wine which had the bottom knocked out by a troop of thirsty archers. A few words from the prince disposed of each case, and, if the applicant liked not the judgment, a quick glance from the prince's dark eyes sent him to the door with the grievance all gone out of him. The younger ruler had sat listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character. "How now, Don Martin de la Carra?" he cried. "How now, sirrah? What message do you bring to us from our brother of Navarre?" The new-comer to whom this abrupt query had been addressed was a tall and exceedingly handsome cavalier who had just been ushered into the apartment. His swarthy cheek and raven black hair spoke of the fiery south, and he wore his long black cloak swathed across his chest and over his shoulders in a graceful sweeping fashion, which was neither English nor French. With stately steps and many profound bows, he advanced to the foot of the dais before replying to the prince's question. "My powerful and illustrious master," he began, "Charles, King of Navarre, Earl of Evreux, Count of Champagne, who also writeth himself Overlord of Bearn, hereby sends his love and greetings to his dear cousin Edward, the Prince of Wales, Governor of Aquitaine, Grand Commander of----" "Tush! tush! Don Martin!" interrupted the prince, who had been beating the ground with his foot impatiently during this stately preamble. "We already know our cousin's titles and style, and, certes, we know our own. To the point, man, and at once. Are the passes open to us, or does your master go back from his word pledged to me at Libourne no later than last Michaelmas?" "It would ill become my gracious master, sire, to go back from promise given. He does but ask some delay and certain conditions and hostages----" "Conditions! Hostages! Is he speaking to the Prince of England, or is it to the bourgeois provost of some half-captured town! Conditions, quotha? He may find much to mend in his own condition ere long. The passes are, then, closed to us?" "Nay, sire----" "They are open, then?" "Nay, sire, if you would but----" "Enough, enough, Don Martin," cried the prince. "It is a sorry sight to see so true a knight pleading in so false a cause. We know the doings of our cousin Charles. We know that while with the right hand he takes our fifty thousand crowns for the holding of the passes open, he hath his left outstretched to Henry of Trastamare, or to the King of France, all ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered horse. He is----" "My lord," cried Don Martin, "I cannot stand there to hear such words of my master. Did they come from other lips, I should know better how to answer them." Don Pedro frowned and curled his lip, but the prince smiled and nodded his approbation. "Your bearing and your words, Don Martin, are such I should have looked for in you," he remarked. "You will tell the king, your master, that he hath been paid his price and that if he holds to his promise he hath my word for it that no scath shall come to his people, nor to their houses or gear. If, however, we have not his leave, I shall come close at the heels of this message without his leave, and bearing a key with me which shall open all that he may close." He stooped and whispered to Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Huge Calverley, who smiled as men well pleased, and hastened from the room. "Our cousin Charles has had experience of our friendship," the prince continued, "and now, by the Saints! he shall feel a touch of our displeasure. I send now a message to our cousin Charles which his whole kingdom may read. Let him take heed lest worse befall him. Where is my Lord Chandos? Ha, Sir John, I commend this worthy knight to your care. You will see that he hath refection, and such a purse of gold as may defray his charges, for indeed it is great honor to any court to have within it so noble and gentle a cavalier. How say you, sire?" he asked, turning to the Spanish refugee, while the herald of Navarre was conducted from the chamber by the old warrior. "It is not our custom in Spain to reward pertness in a messenger," Don Pedro answered, patting the head of his greyhound. "Yet we have all heard the lengths to which your royal generosity runs." "In sooth, yes," cried the King of Majorca. "Who should know it better than we?" said Don Pedro bitterly, "since we have had to fly to you in our trouble as to the natural protector of all who are weak." "Nay, nay, as brothers to a brother," cried the prince, with sparkling eyes. "We doubt not, with the help of God, to see you very soon restored to those thrones from which you have been so traitorously thrust." "When that happy day comes," said Pedro, "then Spain shall be to you as Aquitaine, and, be your project what it may, you may ever count on every troop and every ship over which flies the banner of Castile." "And," added the other, "upon every aid which the wealth and power of Majorca can bestow." "Touching the hundred thousand crowns in which I stand your debtor," continued Pedro carelessly, "it can no doubt----" "Not a word, sire, not a word!" cried the prince. "It is not now when you are in grief that I would vex your mind with such base and sordid matters. I have said once and forever that I am yours with every bow-string of my army and every florin in my coffers." "Ah! here is indeed a mirror of chivalry," said Don Pedro. "I think, Sir Fernando, since the prince's bounty is stretched so far, that we may make further use of his gracious goodness to the extent of fifty thousand crowns. Good Sir William Felton, here, will doubtless settle the matter with you." The stout old English counsellor looked somewhat blank at this prompt acceptance of his master's bounty. "If it please you, sire," he said, "the public funds are at their lowest, seeing that I have paid twelve thousand men of the companies, and the new taxes--the hearth-tax and the wine-tax--not yet come in. If you could wait until the promised help from England comes----" "Nay, nay, my sweet cousin," cried Don Pedro. "Had we known that your own coffers were so low, or that this sorry sum could have weighed one way or the other, we had been loth indeed----" "Enough, sire, enough!" said the prince, flushing with vexation. "If the public funds be, indeed, so backward, Sir William, there is still, I trust, my own private credit, which hath never been drawn upon for my own uses, but is now ready in the cause of a friend in adversity. Go, raise this money upon our own jewels, if nought else may serve, and see that it be paid over to Don Fernando." "In security I offer----" cried Don Pedro. "Tush! tush!" said the prince. "I am not a Lombard, sire. Your kingly pledge is my security, without bond or seal. But I have tidings for you, my lords and lieges, that our brother of Lancaster is on his way for our capital with four hundred lances and as many archers to aid us in our venture. When he hath come, and when our fair consort is recovered in her health, which I trust by the grace of God may be ere many weeks be past, we shall then join the army at Dax, and set our banners to the breeze once more." A buzz of joy at the prospect of immediate action rose up from the group of warriors. The prince smiled at the martial ardor which shone upon every face around him. "It will hearten you to know," he continued, "that I have sure advices that this Henry is a very valiant leader, and that he has it in his power to make such a stand against us as promises to give us much honor and pleasure. Of his own people he hath brought together, as I learn, some fifty thousand, with twelve thousand of the French free companies, who are, as you know very valiant and expert men-at-arms. It is certain also, that the brave and worthy Bertrand de Guesclin hath ridden into France to the Duke of Anjou, and purposes to take back with him great levies from Picardy and Brittany. We hold Bertrand in high esteem, for he has oft before been at great pains to furnish us with an honorable encounter. What think you of it, my worthy Captal? He took you at Cocherel, and, by my soul! you will have the chance now to pay that score." The Gascon warrior winced a little at the allusion, nor were his countrymen around him better pleased, for on the only occasion when they had encountered the arms of France without English aid they had met with a heavy defeat. "There are some who say, sire," said the burly De Clisson, "that the score is already overpaid, for that without Gascon help Bertrand had not been taken at Auray, nor had King John been overborne at Poictiers." "By heaven! but this is too much," cried an English nobleman. "Methinks that Gascony is too small a cock to crow so lustily." "The smaller cock, my Lord Audley, may have the longer spur," remarked the Captal de Buch. "May have its comb clipped if it make over-much noise," broke in an Englishman. "By our Lady of Rocamadour!" cried the Lord of Mucident, "this is more than I can abide. Sir John Charnell, you shall answer to me for those words!" "Freely, my lord, and when you will," returned the Englishman carelessly. "My Lord de Clisson," cried Lord Audley, "you look somewhat fixedly in my direction. By God's soul! I should be right glad to go further into the matter with you." "And you, my Lord of Pommers," said Sir Nigel, pushing his way to the front, "it is in my mind that we might break a lance in gentle and honorable debate over the question." For a moment a dozen challenges flashed backwards and forwards at this sudden bursting of the cloud which had lowered so long between the knights of the two nations. Furious and gesticulating the Gascons, white and cold and sneering the English, while the prince with a half smile glanced from one party to the other, like a man who loved to dwell upon a fiery scene, and yet dreaded least the mischief go so far that he might find it beyond his control. "Friends, friends!" he cried at last, "this quarrel must go no further. The man shall answer to me, be he Gascon or English, who carries it beyond this room. I have overmuch need for your swords that you should turn them upon each other. Sir John Charnell, Lord Audley, you do not doubt the courage of our friends of Gascony?" "Not I, sire," Lord Audley answered. "I have seen them fight too often not to know that they are very hardy and valiant gentlemen." "And so say I," quoth the other Englishman; "but, certes, there is no fear of our forgetting it while they have a tongue in their heads." "Nay, Sir John," said the prince reprovingly, "all peoples have their own use and customs. There are some who might call us cold and dull and silent. But you hear, my lords of Gascony, that these gentlemen had no thought to throw a slur upon your honor or your valor, so let all anger fade from your mind. Clisson, Captal, De Pommers, I have your word?" "We are your subjects, sire," said the Gascon barons, though with no very good grace. "Your words are our law." "Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon of Malvoisie," said the prince, cheerily. "Ho, there! the doors of the banquet-hall! I have been over long from my sweet spouse but I shall be back with you anon. Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!" He turned away, accompanied by the two monarchs, while the rest of the company, with many a compressed lip and menacing eye, filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth. CHAPTER XX. HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD. Whilst the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England. "How is it with the old man at Windsor?" asked one. "And how with the good Queen Philippa?" "And how with Dame Alice Perrers?" cried a third. "The devil take your tongue, Wat!" shouted a tall young man, seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. "The prince would take your head off for those words." "By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little," said another. "It is as empty as a beggar's wallet." "As empty as an English squire, coz," cried the first speaker. "What a devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet." "Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least," observed another, amid a burst of laughter. "And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm," cried the aggrieved Humphrey. "But how of England, my lads of Loring?" "I take it," said Ford, "that it is much as it was when you were there last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there." "And why less noise, young Solomon?" "Ah, that is

throne

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

years to his life? "Ha, my little heart of gold!" he cried, darting forward suddenly and throwing his arms round Sir Nigel. "I heard that you were here and have been seeking you." "My fair and dear lord," said the knight, returning the warrior's embrace, "I have indeed come back to you, for where else shall I go that I may learn to be a gentle and a hardy knight?" "By my troth!" said Chandos with a smile, "it is very fitting that we should be companions, Nigel, for since you have tied up one of your eyes, and I have had the mischance to lose one of mine, we have but a pair between us. Ah, Sir Oliver! you were on the blind side of me and I saw you not. A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me. We shall go in to the prince anon; but in truth he hath much upon his hands, for what with Pedro, and the King of Majorca, and the King of Navarre, who is no two days of the same mind, and the Gascon barons who are all chaffering for terms like so many hucksters, he hath an uneasy part to play. But how left you the Lady Loring?" "She was well, my fair lord, and sent her service and greetings to you." "I am ever her knight and slave. And your journey, I trust that it was pleasant?" "As heart could wish. We had sight of two rover galleys, and even came to have some slight bickering with them." "Ever in luck's way, Nigel!" quoth Sir John. "We must hear the tale anon. But I deem it best that ye should leave your squires and come with me, for, howsoe'er pressed the prince may be, I am very sure that he would be loth to keep two old comrades-in-arms upon the further side of the door. Follow close behind me, and I will forestall old Sir William, though I can scarce promise to roll forth your style and rank as is his wont." So saying, he led the way to the inner chamber, the two companions treading close at his heels, and nodding to right and left as they caught sight of familiar faces among the crowd. CHAPTER XIX. HOW THERE WAS STIR AT THE ABBEY OF ST. ANDREW'S. The prince's reception-room, although of no great size, was fitted up with all the state and luxury which the fame and power of its owner demanded. A high dais at the further end was roofed in by a broad canopy of scarlet velvet spangled with silver fleurs-de-lis, and supported at either corner by silver rods. This was approached by four steps carpeted with the same material, while all round were scattered rich cushions, oriental mats and costly rugs of fur. The choicest tapestries which the looms of Arras could furnish draped the walls, whereon the battles of Judas Maccabaeus were set forth, with the Jewish warriors in plate of proof, with crest and lance and banderole, as the naive artists of the day were wont to depict them. A few rich settles and bancals, choicely carved and decorated with glazed leather hangings of the sort termed _or basane_, completed the furniture of the apartment, save that at one side of the dais there stood a lofty perch, upon which a cast of three solemn Prussian gerfalcons sat, hooded and jesseled, as silent and motionless as the royal fowler who stood beside them. In the centre of the dais were two very high chairs with dorserets, which arched forwards over the heads of the occupants, the whole covered with light-blue silk thickly powdered with golden stars. On that to the right sat a very tall and well formed man with red hair, a livid face, and a cold blue eye, which had in it something peculiarly sinister and menacing. He lounged back in a careless position, and yawned repeatedly as though heartily weary of the proceedings, stooping from time to time to fondle a shaggy Spanish greyhound which lay stretched at his feet. On the other throne there was perched bolt upright, with prim demeanor, as though he felt himself to be upon his good behavior, a little, round, pippin faced person, who smiled and bobbed to every one whose eye he chanced to meet. Between and a little in front of them on a humble charette or stool, sat a slim, dark young man, whose quiet attire and modest manner would scarce proclaim him to be the most noted prince in Europe. A jupon of dark blue cloth, tagged with buckles and pendants of gold, seemed but a sombre and plain attire amidst the wealth of silk and ermine and gilt tissue of fustian with which he was surrounded. He sat with his two hands clasped round his knee, his head slightly bent, and an expression of impatience and of trouble upon his clear, well-chiselled features. Behind the thrones there stood two men in purple gowns, with ascetic, clean-shaven faces, and half a dozen other high dignitaries and office-holders of Aquitaine. Below on either side of the steps were forty or fifty barons, knights, and courtiers, ranged in a triple row to the right and the left, with a clear passage in the centre. "There sits the prince," whispered Sir John Chandos, as they entered. "He on the right is Pedro, whom we are about to put upon the Spanish throne. The other is Don James, whom we purpose with the aid of God to help to his throne in Majorca. Now follow me, and take it not to heart if he be a little short in his speech, for indeed his mind is full of many very weighty concerns." The prince, however, had already observed their entrance, and, springing to his feet, he had advanced with a winning smile and the light of welcome in his eyes. "We do not need your good offices as herald here, Sir John," said he in a low but clear voice; "these valiant knights are very well known to me. Welcome to Aquitaine, Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver Buttesthorn. Nay, keep your knee for my sweet father at Windsor. I would have your hands, my friends. We are like to give you some work to do ere you see the downs of Hampshire once more. Know you aught of Spain, Sir Oliver?" "Nought, my sire, save that I have heard men say that there is a dish named an olla which is prepared there, though I have never been clear in my mind as to whether it was but a ragout such as is to be found in the south, or whether there is some seasoning such as fennel or garlic which is peculiar to Spain." "Your doubts, Sir Oliver, shall soon be resolved," answered the prince, laughing heartily, as did many of the barons who surrounded them. "His majesty here will doubtless order that you have this dish hotly seasoned when we are all safely in Castile." "I will have a hotly seasoned dish for some folk I know of," answered Don Pedro with a cold smile. "But my friend Sir Oliver can fight right hardily without either bite or sup," remarked the prince. "Did I not see him at Poictiers, when for two days we had not more than a crust of bread and a cup of foul water, yet carrying himself most valiantly. With my own eyes I saw him in the rout sweep the head from a knight of Picardy with one blow of his sword." "The rogue got between me and the nearest French victual wain," muttered Sir Oliver, amid a fresh titter from those who were near enough to catch his words. "How many have you in your train?" asked the prince, assuming a graver mien. "I have forty men-at-arms, sire," said Sir Oliver. "And I have one hundred archers and a score of lancers, but there are two hundred men who wait for me on this side of the water upon the borders of Navarre." "And who are they, Sir Nigel?" "They are a free company, sire, and they are called the White Company." To the astonishment of the knight, his words provoked a burst of merriment from the barons round, in which the two kings and the prince were fain to join. Sir Nigel blinked mildly from one to the other, until at last perceiving a stout black-bearded knight at his elbow, whose laugh rang somewhat louder than the others, he touched him lightly upon the sleeve. "Perchance, my fair sir," he whispered, "there is some small vow of which I may relieve you. Might we not have some honorable debate upon the matter. Your gentle courtesy may perhaps grant me an exchange of thrusts." "Nay, nay, Sir Nigel," cried the prince, "fasten not the offence upon Sir Robert Briquet, for we are one and all bogged in the same mire. Truth to say, our ears have just been vexed by the doings of the same company, and I have even now made vow to hang the man who held the rank of captain over it. I little thought to find him among the bravest of my own chosen chieftains. But the vow is now nought, for, as you have never seen your company, it would be a fool's act to blame you for their doings." "My liege," said Sir Nigel, "it is a very small matter that I should be hanged, albeit the manner of death is somewhat more ignoble than I had hoped for. On the other hand, it would be a very grievous thing that you, the Prince of England and the flower of knighthood, should make a vow, whether in ignorance or no, and fail to bring it to fulfilment." "Vex not your mind on that," the prince answered, smiling. "We have had a citizen from Montauban here this very day, who told us such a tale of sack and murder and pillage that it moved our blood; but our wrath was turned upon the man who was in authority over them." "My dear and honored master," cried Nigel, in great anxiety, "I fear me much that in your gentleness of heart you are straining this vow which you have taken. If there be so much as a shadow of a doubt as to the form of it, it were a thousand times best----" "Peace! peace!" cried the prince impatiently. "I am very well able to look to my own vows and their performance. We hope to see you both in the banquet-hall anon. Meanwhile you will attend upon us with our train." He bowed, and Chandos, plucking Sir Oliver by the sleeve, led them both away to the back of the press of courtiers. "Why, little coz," he whispered, "you are very eager to have your neck in a noose. By my soul! had you asked as much from our new ally Don Pedro, he had not baulked you. Between friends, there is overmuch of the hangman in him, and too little of the prince. But indeed this White Company is a rough band, and may take some handling ere you find yourself safe in your captaincy." "I doubt not, with the help of St. Paul, that I shall bring them to some order," Sir Nigel answered. "But there are many faces here which are new to me, though others have been before me since first I waited upon my dear master, Sir Walter. I pray you to tell me, Sir John, who are these priests upon the dais?" "The one is the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Nigel, and the other the Bishop of Agen." "And the dark knight with gray-streaked beard? By my troth, he seems to be a man of much wisdom and valor." "He is Sir William Felton, who, with my unworthy self, is the chief counsellor of the prince, he being high steward and I the seneschal of Aquitaine." "And the knights upon the right, beside Don Pedro?" "They are cavaliers of Spain who have followed him in his exile. The one at his elbow is Fernando de Castro, who is as brave and true a man as heart could wish. In front to the right are the Gascon lords. You may well tell them by their clouded brows, for there hath been some ill-will of late betwixt the prince and them. The tall and burly man is the Captal de Buch, whom I doubt not that you know, for a braver knight never laid lance in rest. That heavy-faced cavalier who plucks his skirts and whispers in his ear is Lord Oliver de Clisson, known also as the butcher. He it is who stirs up strife, and forever blows the dying embers into flame. The man with the mole upon his cheek is the Lord Pommers, and his two brothers stand behind him, with the Lord Lesparre, Lord de Rosem, Lord de Mucident, Sir Perducas d'Albret, the Souldich de la Trane, and others. Further back are knights from Quercy, Limousin, Saintonge, Poitou, and Aquitaine, with the valiant Sir Guiscard d'Angle. That is he in the rose-colored doublet with the ermine." "And the knights upon this side?" "They are all Englishmen, some of the household and others who like yourself, are captains of companies. There is Lord Neville, Sir Stephen Cossington, and Sir Matthew Gourney, with Sir Walter Huet, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Thomas Felton, who is the brother of the high steward. Mark well the man with the high nose and flaxen beard who hath placed his hand upon the shoulder of the dark hard-faced cavalier in the rust-stained jupon." "Aye, by St. Paul!" observed Sir Nigel, "they both bear the print of their armor upon their cotes-hardies. Methinks they are men who breathe freer in a camp than a court." "There are many of us who do that, Nigel," said Chandos, "and the head of the court is, I dare warrant, among them. But of these two men the one is Sir Hugh Calverley, and the other is Sir Robert Knolles." Sir Nigel and Sir Oliver craned their necks to have the clearer view of these famous warriors, the one a chosen leader of free companies, the other a man who by his fierce valor and energy had raised himself from the lowest ranks until he was second only to Chandos himself in the esteem of the army. "He hath no light hand in war, hath Sir Robert," said Chandos. "If he passes through a country you may tell it for some years to come. I have heard that in the north it is still the use to call a house which hath but the two gable ends left, without walls or roof, a Knolles' mitre." "I have often heard of him," said Nigel, "and I have hoped to be so far honored as to run a course with him. But hark, Sir John, what is amiss with the prince?" Whilst Chandos had been conversing with the two knights a continuous stream of suitors had been ushered in, adventurers seeking to sell their swords and merchants clamoring over some grievance, a ship detained for the carriage of troops, or a tun of sweet wine which had the bottom knocked out by a troop of thirsty archers. A few words from the prince disposed of each case, and, if the applicant liked not the judgment, a quick glance from the prince's dark eyes sent him to the door with the grievance all gone out of him. The younger ruler had sat listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character. "How now, Don Martin de la Carra?" he cried. "How now, sirrah? What message do you bring to us from our brother of Navarre?" The new-comer to whom this abrupt query had been addressed was a tall and exceedingly handsome cavalier who had just been ushered into the apartment. His swarthy cheek and raven black hair spoke of the fiery south, and he wore his long black cloak swathed across his chest and over his shoulders in a graceful sweeping fashion, which was neither English nor French. With stately steps and many profound bows, he advanced to the foot of the dais before replying to the prince's question. "My powerful and illustrious master," he began, "Charles, King of Navarre, Earl of Evreux, Count of Champagne, who also writeth himself Overlord of Bearn, hereby sends his love and greetings to his dear cousin Edward, the Prince of Wales, Governor of Aquitaine, Grand Commander of----" "Tush! tush! Don Martin!" interrupted the prince, who had been beating the ground with his foot impatiently during this stately preamble. "We already know our cousin's titles and style, and, certes, we know our own. To the point, man, and at once. Are the passes open to us, or does your master go back from his word pledged to me at Libourne no later than last Michaelmas?" "It would ill become my gracious master, sire, to go back from promise given. He does but ask some delay and certain conditions and hostages----" "Conditions! Hostages! Is he speaking to the Prince of England, or is it to the bourgeois provost of some half-captured town! Conditions, quotha? He may find much to mend in his own condition ere long. The passes are, then, closed to us?" "Nay, sire----" "They are open, then?" "Nay, sire, if you would but----" "Enough, enough, Don Martin," cried the prince. "It is a sorry sight to see so true a knight pleading in so false a cause. We know the doings of our cousin Charles. We know that while with the right hand he takes our fifty thousand crowns for the holding of the passes open, he hath his left outstretched to Henry of Trastamare, or to the King of France, all ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered horse. He is----" "My lord," cried Don Martin, "I cannot stand there to hear such words of my master. Did they come from other lips, I should know better how to answer them." Don Pedro frowned and curled his lip, but the prince smiled and nodded his approbation. "Your bearing and your words, Don Martin, are such I should have looked for in you," he remarked. "You will tell the king, your master, that he hath been paid his price and that if he holds to his promise he hath my word for it that no scath shall come to his people, nor to their houses or gear. If, however, we have not his leave, I shall come close at the heels of this message without his leave, and bearing a key with me which shall open all that he may close." He stooped and whispered to Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Huge Calverley, who smiled as men well pleased, and hastened from the room. "Our cousin Charles has had experience of our friendship," the prince continued, "and now, by the Saints! he shall feel a touch of our displeasure. I send now a message to our cousin Charles which his whole kingdom may read. Let him take heed lest worse befall him. Where is my Lord Chandos? Ha, Sir John, I commend this worthy knight to your care. You will see that he hath refection, and such a purse of gold as may defray his charges, for indeed it is great honor to any court to have within it so noble and gentle a cavalier. How say you, sire?" he asked, turning to the Spanish refugee, while the herald of Navarre was conducted from the chamber by the old warrior. "It is not our custom in Spain to reward pertness in a messenger," Don Pedro answered, patting the head of his greyhound. "Yet we have all heard the lengths to which your royal generosity runs." "In sooth, yes," cried the King of Majorca. "Who should know it better than we?" said Don Pedro bitterly, "since we have had to fly to you in our trouble as to the natural protector of all who are weak." "Nay, nay, as brothers to a brother," cried the prince, with sparkling eyes. "We doubt not, with the help of God, to see you very soon restored to those thrones from which you have been so traitorously thrust." "When that happy day comes," said Pedro, "then Spain shall be to you as Aquitaine, and, be your project what it may, you may ever count on every troop and every ship over which flies the banner of Castile." "And," added the other, "upon every aid which the wealth and power of Majorca can bestow." "Touching the hundred thousand crowns in which I stand your debtor," continued Pedro carelessly, "it can no doubt----" "Not a word, sire, not a word!" cried the prince. "It is not now when you are in grief that I would vex your mind with such base and sordid matters. I have said once and forever that I am yours with every bow-string of my army and every florin in my coffers." "Ah! here is indeed a mirror of chivalry," said Don Pedro. "I think, Sir Fernando, since the prince's bounty is stretched so far, that we may make further use of his gracious goodness to the extent of fifty thousand crowns. Good Sir William Felton, here, will doubtless settle the matter with you." The stout old English counsellor looked somewhat blank at this prompt acceptance of his master's bounty. "If it please you, sire," he said, "the public funds are at their lowest, seeing that I have paid twelve thousand men of the companies, and the new taxes--the hearth-tax and the wine-tax--not yet come in. If you could wait until the promised help from England comes----" "Nay, nay, my sweet cousin," cried Don Pedro. "Had we known that your own coffers were so low, or that this sorry sum could have weighed one way or the other, we had been loth indeed----" "Enough, sire, enough!" said the prince, flushing with vexation. "If the public funds be, indeed, so backward, Sir William, there is still, I trust, my own private credit, which hath never been drawn upon for my own uses, but is now ready in the cause of a friend in adversity. Go, raise this money upon our own jewels, if nought else may serve, and see that it be paid over to Don Fernando." "In security I offer----" cried Don Pedro. "Tush! tush!" said the prince. "I am not a Lombard, sire. Your kingly pledge is my security, without bond or seal. But I have tidings for you, my lords and lieges, that our brother of Lancaster is on his way for our capital with four hundred lances and as many archers to aid us in our venture. When he hath come, and when our fair consort is recovered in her health, which I trust by the grace of God may be ere many weeks be past, we shall then join the army at Dax, and set our banners to the breeze once more." A buzz of joy at the prospect of immediate action rose up from the group of warriors. The prince smiled at the martial ardor which shone upon every face around him. "It will hearten you to know," he continued, "that I have sure advices that this Henry is a very valiant leader, and that he has it in his power to make such a stand against us as promises to give us much honor and pleasure. Of his own people he hath brought together, as I learn, some fifty thousand, with twelve thousand of the French free companies, who are, as you know very valiant and expert men-at-arms. It is certain also, that the brave and worthy Bertrand de Guesclin hath ridden into France to the Duke of Anjou, and purposes to take back with him great levies from Picardy and Brittany. We hold Bertrand in high esteem, for he has oft before been at great pains to furnish us with an honorable encounter. What think you of it, my worthy Captal? He took you at Cocherel, and, by my soul! you will have the chance now to pay that score." The Gascon warrior winced a little at the allusion, nor were his countrymen around him better pleased, for on the only occasion when they had encountered the arms of France without English aid they had met with a heavy defeat. "There are some who say, sire," said the burly De Clisson, "that the score is already overpaid, for that without Gascon help Bertrand had not been taken at Auray, nor had King John been overborne at Poictiers." "By heaven! but this is too much," cried an English nobleman. "Methinks that Gascony is too small a cock to crow so lustily." "The smaller cock, my Lord Audley, may have the longer spur," remarked the Captal de Buch. "May have its comb clipped if it make over-much noise," broke in an Englishman. "By our Lady of Rocamadour!" cried the Lord of Mucident, "this is more than I can abide. Sir John Charnell, you shall answer to me for those words!" "Freely, my lord, and when you will," returned the Englishman carelessly. "My Lord de Clisson," cried Lord Audley, "you look somewhat fixedly in my direction. By God's soul! I should be right glad to go further into the matter with you." "And you, my Lord of Pommers," said Sir Nigel, pushing his way to the front, "it is in my mind that we might break a lance in gentle and honorable debate over the question." For a moment a dozen challenges flashed backwards and forwards at this sudden bursting of the cloud which had lowered so long between the knights of the two nations. Furious and gesticulating the Gascons, white and cold and sneering the English, while the prince with a half smile glanced from one party to the other, like a man who loved to dwell upon a fiery scene, and yet dreaded least the mischief go so far that he might find it beyond his control. "Friends, friends!" he cried at last, "this quarrel must go no further. The man shall answer to me, be he Gascon or English, who carries it beyond this room. I have overmuch need for your swords that you should turn them upon each other. Sir John Charnell, Lord Audley, you do not doubt the courage of our friends of Gascony?" "Not I, sire," Lord Audley answered. "I have seen them fight too often not to know that they are very hardy and valiant gentlemen." "And so say I," quoth the other Englishman; "but, certes, there is no fear of our forgetting it while they have a tongue in their heads." "Nay, Sir John," said the prince reprovingly, "all peoples have their own use and customs. There are some who might call us cold and dull and silent. But you hear, my lords of Gascony, that these gentlemen had no thought to throw a slur upon your honor or your valor, so let all anger fade from your mind. Clisson, Captal, De Pommers, I have your word?" "We are your subjects, sire," said the Gascon barons, though with no very good grace. "Your words are our law." "Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon of Malvoisie," said the prince, cheerily. "Ho, there! the doors of the banquet-hall! I have been over long from my sweet spouse but I shall be back with you anon. Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!" He turned away, accompanied by the two monarchs, while the rest of the company, with many a compressed lip and menacing eye, filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth. CHAPTER XX. HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD. Whilst the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England. "How is it with the old man at Windsor?" asked one. "And how with the good Queen Philippa?" "And how with Dame Alice Perrers?" cried a third. "The devil take your tongue, Wat!" shouted a tall young man, seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. "The prince would take your head off for those words." "By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little," said another. "It is as empty as a beggar's wallet." "As empty as an English squire, coz," cried the first speaker. "What a devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet." "Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least," observed another, amid a burst of laughter. "And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm," cried the aggrieved Humphrey. "But how of England, my lads of Loring?" "I take it," said Ford, "that it is much as it was when you were there last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there." "And why less noise, young Solomon?" "Ah, that is

moaning

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

years to his life? "Ha, my little heart of gold!" he cried, darting forward suddenly and throwing his arms round Sir Nigel. "I heard that you were here and have been seeking you." "My fair and dear lord," said the knight, returning the warrior's embrace, "I have indeed come back to you, for where else shall I go that I may learn to be a gentle and a hardy knight?" "By my troth!" said Chandos with a smile, "it is very fitting that we should be companions, Nigel, for since you have tied up one of your eyes, and I have had the mischance to lose one of mine, we have but a pair between us. Ah, Sir Oliver! you were on the blind side of me and I saw you not. A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me. We shall go in to the prince anon; but in truth he hath much upon his hands, for what with Pedro, and the King of Majorca, and the King of Navarre, who is no two days of the same mind, and the Gascon barons who are all chaffering for terms like so many hucksters, he hath an uneasy part to play. But how left you the Lady Loring?" "She was well, my fair lord, and sent her service and greetings to you." "I am ever her knight and slave. And your journey, I trust that it was pleasant?" "As heart could wish. We had sight of two rover galleys, and even came to have some slight bickering with them." "Ever in luck's way, Nigel!" quoth Sir John. "We must hear the tale anon. But I deem it best that ye should leave your squires and come with me, for, howsoe'er pressed the prince may be, I am very sure that he would be loth to keep two old comrades-in-arms upon the further side of the door. Follow close behind me, and I will forestall old Sir William, though I can scarce promise to roll forth your style and rank as is his wont." So saying, he led the way to the inner chamber, the two companions treading close at his heels, and nodding to right and left as they caught sight of familiar faces among the crowd. CHAPTER XIX. HOW THERE WAS STIR AT THE ABBEY OF ST. ANDREW'S. The prince's reception-room, although of no great size, was fitted up with all the state and luxury which the fame and power of its owner demanded. A high dais at the further end was roofed in by a broad canopy of scarlet velvet spangled with silver fleurs-de-lis, and supported at either corner by silver rods. This was approached by four steps carpeted with the same material, while all round were scattered rich cushions, oriental mats and costly rugs of fur. The choicest tapestries which the looms of Arras could furnish draped the walls, whereon the battles of Judas Maccabaeus were set forth, with the Jewish warriors in plate of proof, with crest and lance and banderole, as the naive artists of the day were wont to depict them. A few rich settles and bancals, choicely carved and decorated with glazed leather hangings of the sort termed _or basane_, completed the furniture of the apartment, save that at one side of the dais there stood a lofty perch, upon which a cast of three solemn Prussian gerfalcons sat, hooded and jesseled, as silent and motionless as the royal fowler who stood beside them. In the centre of the dais were two very high chairs with dorserets, which arched forwards over the heads of the occupants, the whole covered with light-blue silk thickly powdered with golden stars. On that to the right sat a very tall and well formed man with red hair, a livid face, and a cold blue eye, which had in it something peculiarly sinister and menacing. He lounged back in a careless position, and yawned repeatedly as though heartily weary of the proceedings, stooping from time to time to fondle a shaggy Spanish greyhound which lay stretched at his feet. On the other throne there was perched bolt upright, with prim demeanor, as though he felt himself to be upon his good behavior, a little, round, pippin faced person, who smiled and bobbed to every one whose eye he chanced to meet. Between and a little in front of them on a humble charette or stool, sat a slim, dark young man, whose quiet attire and modest manner would scarce proclaim him to be the most noted prince in Europe. A jupon of dark blue cloth, tagged with buckles and pendants of gold, seemed but a sombre and plain attire amidst the wealth of silk and ermine and gilt tissue of fustian with which he was surrounded. He sat with his two hands clasped round his knee, his head slightly bent, and an expression of impatience and of trouble upon his clear, well-chiselled features. Behind the thrones there stood two men in purple gowns, with ascetic, clean-shaven faces, and half a dozen other high dignitaries and office-holders of Aquitaine. Below on either side of the steps were forty or fifty barons, knights, and courtiers, ranged in a triple row to the right and the left, with a clear passage in the centre. "There sits the prince," whispered Sir John Chandos, as they entered. "He on the right is Pedro, whom we are about to put upon the Spanish throne. The other is Don James, whom we purpose with the aid of God to help to his throne in Majorca. Now follow me, and take it not to heart if he be a little short in his speech, for indeed his mind is full of many very weighty concerns." The prince, however, had already observed their entrance, and, springing to his feet, he had advanced with a winning smile and the light of welcome in his eyes. "We do not need your good offices as herald here, Sir John," said he in a low but clear voice; "these valiant knights are very well known to me. Welcome to Aquitaine, Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver Buttesthorn. Nay, keep your knee for my sweet father at Windsor. I would have your hands, my friends. We are like to give you some work to do ere you see the downs of Hampshire once more. Know you aught of Spain, Sir Oliver?" "Nought, my sire, save that I have heard men say that there is a dish named an olla which is prepared there, though I have never been clear in my mind as to whether it was but a ragout such as is to be found in the south, or whether there is some seasoning such as fennel or garlic which is peculiar to Spain." "Your doubts, Sir Oliver, shall soon be resolved," answered the prince, laughing heartily, as did many of the barons who surrounded them. "His majesty here will doubtless order that you have this dish hotly seasoned when we are all safely in Castile." "I will have a hotly seasoned dish for some folk I know of," answered Don Pedro with a cold smile. "But my friend Sir Oliver can fight right hardily without either bite or sup," remarked the prince. "Did I not see him at Poictiers, when for two days we had not more than a crust of bread and a cup of foul water, yet carrying himself most valiantly. With my own eyes I saw him in the rout sweep the head from a knight of Picardy with one blow of his sword." "The rogue got between me and the nearest French victual wain," muttered Sir Oliver, amid a fresh titter from those who were near enough to catch his words. "How many have you in your train?" asked the prince, assuming a graver mien. "I have forty men-at-arms, sire," said Sir Oliver. "And I have one hundred archers and a score of lancers, but there are two hundred men who wait for me on this side of the water upon the borders of Navarre." "And who are they, Sir Nigel?" "They are a free company, sire, and they are called the White Company." To the astonishment of the knight, his words provoked a burst of merriment from the barons round, in which the two kings and the prince were fain to join. Sir Nigel blinked mildly from one to the other, until at last perceiving a stout black-bearded knight at his elbow, whose laugh rang somewhat louder than the others, he touched him lightly upon the sleeve. "Perchance, my fair sir," he whispered, "there is some small vow of which I may relieve you. Might we not have some honorable debate upon the matter. Your gentle courtesy may perhaps grant me an exchange of thrusts." "Nay, nay, Sir Nigel," cried the prince, "fasten not the offence upon Sir Robert Briquet, for we are one and all bogged in the same mire. Truth to say, our ears have just been vexed by the doings of the same company, and I have even now made vow to hang the man who held the rank of captain over it. I little thought to find him among the bravest of my own chosen chieftains. But the vow is now nought, for, as you have never seen your company, it would be a fool's act to blame you for their doings." "My liege," said Sir Nigel, "it is a very small matter that I should be hanged, albeit the manner of death is somewhat more ignoble than I had hoped for. On the other hand, it would be a very grievous thing that you, the Prince of England and the flower of knighthood, should make a vow, whether in ignorance or no, and fail to bring it to fulfilment." "Vex not your mind on that," the prince answered, smiling. "We have had a citizen from Montauban here this very day, who told us such a tale of sack and murder and pillage that it moved our blood; but our wrath was turned upon the man who was in authority over them." "My dear and honored master," cried Nigel, in great anxiety, "I fear me much that in your gentleness of heart you are straining this vow which you have taken. If there be so much as a shadow of a doubt as to the form of it, it were a thousand times best----" "Peace! peace!" cried the prince impatiently. "I am very well able to look to my own vows and their performance. We hope to see you both in the banquet-hall anon. Meanwhile you will attend upon us with our train." He bowed, and Chandos, plucking Sir Oliver by the sleeve, led them both away to the back of the press of courtiers. "Why, little coz," he whispered, "you are very eager to have your neck in a noose. By my soul! had you asked as much from our new ally Don Pedro, he had not baulked you. Between friends, there is overmuch of the hangman in him, and too little of the prince. But indeed this White Company is a rough band, and may take some handling ere you find yourself safe in your captaincy." "I doubt not, with the help of St. Paul, that I shall bring them to some order," Sir Nigel answered. "But there are many faces here which are new to me, though others have been before me since first I waited upon my dear master, Sir Walter. I pray you to tell me, Sir John, who are these priests upon the dais?" "The one is the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Nigel, and the other the Bishop of Agen." "And the dark knight with gray-streaked beard? By my troth, he seems to be a man of much wisdom and valor." "He is Sir William Felton, who, with my unworthy self, is the chief counsellor of the prince, he being high steward and I the seneschal of Aquitaine." "And the knights upon the right, beside Don Pedro?" "They are cavaliers of Spain who have followed him in his exile. The one at his elbow is Fernando de Castro, who is as brave and true a man as heart could wish. In front to the right are the Gascon lords. You may well tell them by their clouded brows, for there hath been some ill-will of late betwixt the prince and them. The tall and burly man is the Captal de Buch, whom I doubt not that you know, for a braver knight never laid lance in rest. That heavy-faced cavalier who plucks his skirts and whispers in his ear is Lord Oliver de Clisson, known also as the butcher. He it is who stirs up strife, and forever blows the dying embers into flame. The man with the mole upon his cheek is the Lord Pommers, and his two brothers stand behind him, with the Lord Lesparre, Lord de Rosem, Lord de Mucident, Sir Perducas d'Albret, the Souldich de la Trane, and others. Further back are knights from Quercy, Limousin, Saintonge, Poitou, and Aquitaine, with the valiant Sir Guiscard d'Angle. That is he in the rose-colored doublet with the ermine." "And the knights upon this side?" "They are all Englishmen, some of the household and others who like yourself, are captains of companies. There is Lord Neville, Sir Stephen Cossington, and Sir Matthew Gourney, with Sir Walter Huet, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Thomas Felton, who is the brother of the high steward. Mark well the man with the high nose and flaxen beard who hath placed his hand upon the shoulder of the dark hard-faced cavalier in the rust-stained jupon." "Aye, by St. Paul!" observed Sir Nigel, "they both bear the print of their armor upon their cotes-hardies. Methinks they are men who breathe freer in a camp than a court." "There are many of us who do that, Nigel," said Chandos, "and the head of the court is, I dare warrant, among them. But of these two men the one is Sir Hugh Calverley, and the other is Sir Robert Knolles." Sir Nigel and Sir Oliver craned their necks to have the clearer view of these famous warriors, the one a chosen leader of free companies, the other a man who by his fierce valor and energy had raised himself from the lowest ranks until he was second only to Chandos himself in the esteem of the army. "He hath no light hand in war, hath Sir Robert," said Chandos. "If he passes through a country you may tell it for some years to come. I have heard that in the north it is still the use to call a house which hath but the two gable ends left, without walls or roof, a Knolles' mitre." "I have often heard of him," said Nigel, "and I have hoped to be so far honored as to run a course with him. But hark, Sir John, what is amiss with the prince?" Whilst Chandos had been conversing with the two knights a continuous stream of suitors had been ushered in, adventurers seeking to sell their swords and merchants clamoring over some grievance, a ship detained for the carriage of troops, or a tun of sweet wine which had the bottom knocked out by a troop of thirsty archers. A few words from the prince disposed of each case, and, if the applicant liked not the judgment, a quick glance from the prince's dark eyes sent him to the door with the grievance all gone out of him. The younger ruler had sat listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character. "How now, Don Martin de la Carra?" he cried. "How now, sirrah? What message do you bring to us from our brother of Navarre?" The new-comer to whom this abrupt query had been addressed was a tall and exceedingly handsome cavalier who had just been ushered into the apartment. His swarthy cheek and raven black hair spoke of the fiery south, and he wore his long black cloak swathed across his chest and over his shoulders in a graceful sweeping fashion, which was neither English nor French. With stately steps and many profound bows, he advanced to the foot of the dais before replying to the prince's question. "My powerful and illustrious master," he began, "Charles, King of Navarre, Earl of Evreux, Count of Champagne, who also writeth himself Overlord of Bearn, hereby sends his love and greetings to his dear cousin Edward, the Prince of Wales, Governor of Aquitaine, Grand Commander of----" "Tush! tush! Don Martin!" interrupted the prince, who had been beating the ground with his foot impatiently during this stately preamble. "We already know our cousin's titles and style, and, certes, we know our own. To the point, man, and at once. Are the passes open to us, or does your master go back from his word pledged to me at Libourne no later than last Michaelmas?" "It would ill become my gracious master, sire, to go back from promise given. He does but ask some delay and certain conditions and hostages----" "Conditions! Hostages! Is he speaking to the Prince of England, or is it to the bourgeois provost of some half-captured town! Conditions, quotha? He may find much to mend in his own condition ere long. The passes are, then, closed to us?" "Nay, sire----" "They are open, then?" "Nay, sire, if you would but----" "Enough, enough, Don Martin," cried the prince. "It is a sorry sight to see so true a knight pleading in so false a cause. We know the doings of our cousin Charles. We know that while with the right hand he takes our fifty thousand crowns for the holding of the passes open, he hath his left outstretched to Henry of Trastamare, or to the King of France, all ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered horse. He is----" "My lord," cried Don Martin, "I cannot stand there to hear such words of my master. Did they come from other lips, I should know better how to answer them." Don Pedro frowned and curled his lip, but the prince smiled and nodded his approbation. "Your bearing and your words, Don Martin, are such I should have looked for in you," he remarked. "You will tell the king, your master, that he hath been paid his price and that if he holds to his promise he hath my word for it that no scath shall come to his people, nor to their houses or gear. If, however, we have not his leave, I shall come close at the heels of this message without his leave, and bearing a key with me which shall open all that he may close." He stooped and whispered to Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Huge Calverley, who smiled as men well pleased, and hastened from the room. "Our cousin Charles has had experience of our friendship," the prince continued, "and now, by the Saints! he shall feel a touch of our displeasure. I send now a message to our cousin Charles which his whole kingdom may read. Let him take heed lest worse befall him. Where is my Lord Chandos? Ha, Sir John, I commend this worthy knight to your care. You will see that he hath refection, and such a purse of gold as may defray his charges, for indeed it is great honor to any court to have within it so noble and gentle a cavalier. How say you, sire?" he asked, turning to the Spanish refugee, while the herald of Navarre was conducted from the chamber by the old warrior. "It is not our custom in Spain to reward pertness in a messenger," Don Pedro answered, patting the head of his greyhound. "Yet we have all heard the lengths to which your royal generosity runs." "In sooth, yes," cried the King of Majorca. "Who should know it better than we?" said Don Pedro bitterly, "since we have had to fly to you in our trouble as to the natural protector of all who are weak." "Nay, nay, as brothers to a brother," cried the prince, with sparkling eyes. "We doubt not, with the help of God, to see you very soon restored to those thrones from which you have been so traitorously thrust." "When that happy day comes," said Pedro, "then Spain shall be to you as Aquitaine, and, be your project what it may, you may ever count on every troop and every ship over which flies the banner of Castile." "And," added the other, "upon every aid which the wealth and power of Majorca can bestow." "Touching the hundred thousand crowns in which I stand your debtor," continued Pedro carelessly, "it can no doubt----" "Not a word, sire, not a word!" cried the prince. "It is not now when you are in grief that I would vex your mind with such base and sordid matters. I have said once and forever that I am yours with every bow-string of my army and every florin in my coffers." "Ah! here is indeed a mirror of chivalry," said Don Pedro. "I think, Sir Fernando, since the prince's bounty is stretched so far, that we may make further use of his gracious goodness to the extent of fifty thousand crowns. Good Sir William Felton, here, will doubtless settle the matter with you." The stout old English counsellor looked somewhat blank at this prompt acceptance of his master's bounty. "If it please you, sire," he said, "the public funds are at their lowest, seeing that I have paid twelve thousand men of the companies, and the new taxes--the hearth-tax and the wine-tax--not yet come in. If you could wait until the promised help from England comes----" "Nay, nay, my sweet cousin," cried Don Pedro. "Had we known that your own coffers were so low, or that this sorry sum could have weighed one way or the other, we had been loth indeed----" "Enough, sire, enough!" said the prince, flushing with vexation. "If the public funds be, indeed, so backward, Sir William, there is still, I trust, my own private credit, which hath never been drawn upon for my own uses, but is now ready in the cause of a friend in adversity. Go, raise this money upon our own jewels, if nought else may serve, and see that it be paid over to Don Fernando." "In security I offer----" cried Don Pedro. "Tush! tush!" said the prince. "I am not a Lombard, sire. Your kingly pledge is my security, without bond or seal. But I have tidings for you, my lords and lieges, that our brother of Lancaster is on his way for our capital with four hundred lances and as many archers to aid us in our venture. When he hath come, and when our fair consort is recovered in her health, which I trust by the grace of God may be ere many weeks be past, we shall then join the army at Dax, and set our banners to the breeze once more." A buzz of joy at the prospect of immediate action rose up from the group of warriors. The prince smiled at the martial ardor which shone upon every face around him. "It will hearten you to know," he continued, "that I have sure advices that this Henry is a very valiant leader, and that he has it in his power to make such a stand against us as promises to give us much honor and pleasure. Of his own people he hath brought together, as I learn, some fifty thousand, with twelve thousand of the French free companies, who are, as you know very valiant and expert men-at-arms. It is certain also, that the brave and worthy Bertrand de Guesclin hath ridden into France to the Duke of Anjou, and purposes to take back with him great levies from Picardy and Brittany. We hold Bertrand in high esteem, for he has oft before been at great pains to furnish us with an honorable encounter. What think you of it, my worthy Captal? He took you at Cocherel, and, by my soul! you will have the chance now to pay that score." The Gascon warrior winced a little at the allusion, nor were his countrymen around him better pleased, for on the only occasion when they had encountered the arms of France without English aid they had met with a heavy defeat. "There are some who say, sire," said the burly De Clisson, "that the score is already overpaid, for that without Gascon help Bertrand had not been taken at Auray, nor had King John been overborne at Poictiers." "By heaven! but this is too much," cried an English nobleman. "Methinks that Gascony is too small a cock to crow so lustily." "The smaller cock, my Lord Audley, may have the longer spur," remarked the Captal de Buch. "May have its comb clipped if it make over-much noise," broke in an Englishman. "By our Lady of Rocamadour!" cried the Lord of Mucident, "this is more than I can abide. Sir John Charnell, you shall answer to me for those words!" "Freely, my lord, and when you will," returned the Englishman carelessly. "My Lord de Clisson," cried Lord Audley, "you look somewhat fixedly in my direction. By God's soul! I should be right glad to go further into the matter with you." "And you, my Lord of Pommers," said Sir Nigel, pushing his way to the front, "it is in my mind that we might break a lance in gentle and honorable debate over the question." For a moment a dozen challenges flashed backwards and forwards at this sudden bursting of the cloud which had lowered so long between the knights of the two nations. Furious and gesticulating the Gascons, white and cold and sneering the English, while the prince with a half smile glanced from one party to the other, like a man who loved to dwell upon a fiery scene, and yet dreaded least the mischief go so far that he might find it beyond his control. "Friends, friends!" he cried at last, "this quarrel must go no further. The man shall answer to me, be he Gascon or English, who carries it beyond this room. I have overmuch need for your swords that you should turn them upon each other. Sir John Charnell, Lord Audley, you do not doubt the courage of our friends of Gascony?" "Not I, sire," Lord Audley answered. "I have seen them fight too often not to know that they are very hardy and valiant gentlemen." "And so say I," quoth the other Englishman; "but, certes, there is no fear of our forgetting it while they have a tongue in their heads." "Nay, Sir John," said the prince reprovingly, "all peoples have their own use and customs. There are some who might call us cold and dull and silent. But you hear, my lords of Gascony, that these gentlemen had no thought to throw a slur upon your honor or your valor, so let all anger fade from your mind. Clisson, Captal, De Pommers, I have your word?" "We are your subjects, sire," said the Gascon barons, though with no very good grace. "Your words are our law." "Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon of Malvoisie," said the prince, cheerily. "Ho, there! the doors of the banquet-hall! I have been over long from my sweet spouse but I shall be back with you anon. Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!" He turned away, accompanied by the two monarchs, while the rest of the company, with many a compressed lip and menacing eye, filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth. CHAPTER XX. HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD. Whilst the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England. "How is it with the old man at Windsor?" asked one. "And how with the good Queen Philippa?" "And how with Dame Alice Perrers?" cried a third. "The devil take your tongue, Wat!" shouted a tall young man, seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. "The prince would take your head off for those words." "By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little," said another. "It is as empty as a beggar's wallet." "As empty as an English squire, coz," cried the first speaker. "What a devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet." "Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least," observed another, amid a burst of laughter. "And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm," cried the aggrieved Humphrey. "But how of England, my lads of Loring?" "I take it," said Ford, "that it is much as it was when you were there last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there." "And why less noise, young Solomon?" "Ah, that is

rugs

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years to his life? "Ha, my little heart of gold!" he cried, darting forward suddenly and throwing his arms round Sir Nigel. "I heard that you were here and have been seeking you." "My fair and dear lord," said the knight, returning the warrior's embrace, "I have indeed come back to you, for where else shall I go that I may learn to be a gentle and a hardy knight?" "By my troth!" said Chandos with a smile, "it is very fitting that we should be companions, Nigel, for since you have tied up one of your eyes, and I have had the mischance to lose one of mine, we have but a pair between us. Ah, Sir Oliver! you were on the blind side of me and I saw you not. A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me. We shall go in to the prince anon; but in truth he hath much upon his hands, for what with Pedro, and the King of Majorca, and the King of Navarre, who is no two days of the same mind, and the Gascon barons who are all chaffering for terms like so many hucksters, he hath an uneasy part to play. But how left you the Lady Loring?" "She was well, my fair lord, and sent her service and greetings to you." "I am ever her knight and slave. And your journey, I trust that it was pleasant?" "As heart could wish. We had sight of two rover galleys, and even came to have some slight bickering with them." "Ever in luck's way, Nigel!" quoth Sir John. "We must hear the tale anon. But I deem it best that ye should leave your squires and come with me, for, howsoe'er pressed the prince may be, I am very sure that he would be loth to keep two old comrades-in-arms upon the further side of the door. Follow close behind me, and I will forestall old Sir William, though I can scarce promise to roll forth your style and rank as is his wont." So saying, he led the way to the inner chamber, the two companions treading close at his heels, and nodding to right and left as they caught sight of familiar faces among the crowd. CHAPTER XIX. HOW THERE WAS STIR AT THE ABBEY OF ST. ANDREW'S. The prince's reception-room, although of no great size, was fitted up with all the state and luxury which the fame and power of its owner demanded. A high dais at the further end was roofed in by a broad canopy of scarlet velvet spangled with silver fleurs-de-lis, and supported at either corner by silver rods. This was approached by four steps carpeted with the same material, while all round were scattered rich cushions, oriental mats and costly rugs of fur. The choicest tapestries which the looms of Arras could furnish draped the walls, whereon the battles of Judas Maccabaeus were set forth, with the Jewish warriors in plate of proof, with crest and lance and banderole, as the naive artists of the day were wont to depict them. A few rich settles and bancals, choicely carved and decorated with glazed leather hangings of the sort termed _or basane_, completed the furniture of the apartment, save that at one side of the dais there stood a lofty perch, upon which a cast of three solemn Prussian gerfalcons sat, hooded and jesseled, as silent and motionless as the royal fowler who stood beside them. In the centre of the dais were two very high chairs with dorserets, which arched forwards over the heads of the occupants, the whole covered with light-blue silk thickly powdered with golden stars. On that to the right sat a very tall and well formed man with red hair, a livid face, and a cold blue eye, which had in it something peculiarly sinister and menacing. He lounged back in a careless position, and yawned repeatedly as though heartily weary of the proceedings, stooping from time to time to fondle a shaggy Spanish greyhound which lay stretched at his feet. On the other throne there was perched bolt upright, with prim demeanor, as though he felt himself to be upon his good behavior, a little, round, pippin faced person, who smiled and bobbed to every one whose eye he chanced to meet. Between and a little in front of them on a humble charette or stool, sat a slim, dark young man, whose quiet attire and modest manner would scarce proclaim him to be the most noted prince in Europe. A jupon of dark blue cloth, tagged with buckles and pendants of gold, seemed but a sombre and plain attire amidst the wealth of silk and ermine and gilt tissue of fustian with which he was surrounded. He sat with his two hands clasped round his knee, his head slightly bent, and an expression of impatience and of trouble upon his clear, well-chiselled features. Behind the thrones there stood two men in purple gowns, with ascetic, clean-shaven faces, and half a dozen other high dignitaries and office-holders of Aquitaine. Below on either side of the steps were forty or fifty barons, knights, and courtiers, ranged in a triple row to the right and the left, with a clear passage in the centre. "There sits the prince," whispered Sir John Chandos, as they entered. "He on the right is Pedro, whom we are about to put upon the Spanish throne. The other is Don James, whom we purpose with the aid of God to help to his throne in Majorca. Now follow me, and take it not to heart if he be a little short in his speech, for indeed his mind is full of many very weighty concerns." The prince, however, had already observed their entrance, and, springing to his feet, he had advanced with a winning smile and the light of welcome in his eyes. "We do not need your good offices as herald here, Sir John," said he in a low but clear voice; "these valiant knights are very well known to me. Welcome to Aquitaine, Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver Buttesthorn. Nay, keep your knee for my sweet father at Windsor. I would have your hands, my friends. We are like to give you some work to do ere you see the downs of Hampshire once more. Know you aught of Spain, Sir Oliver?" "Nought, my sire, save that I have heard men say that there is a dish named an olla which is prepared there, though I have never been clear in my mind as to whether it was but a ragout such as is to be found in the south, or whether there is some seasoning such as fennel or garlic which is peculiar to Spain." "Your doubts, Sir Oliver, shall soon be resolved," answered the prince, laughing heartily, as did many of the barons who surrounded them. "His majesty here will doubtless order that you have this dish hotly seasoned when we are all safely in Castile." "I will have a hotly seasoned dish for some folk I know of," answered Don Pedro with a cold smile. "But my friend Sir Oliver can fight right hardily without either bite or sup," remarked the prince. "Did I not see him at Poictiers, when for two days we had not more than a crust of bread and a cup of foul water, yet carrying himself most valiantly. With my own eyes I saw him in the rout sweep the head from a knight of Picardy with one blow of his sword." "The rogue got between me and the nearest French victual wain," muttered Sir Oliver, amid a fresh titter from those who were near enough to catch his words. "How many have you in your train?" asked the prince, assuming a graver mien. "I have forty men-at-arms, sire," said Sir Oliver. "And I have one hundred archers and a score of lancers, but there are two hundred men who wait for me on this side of the water upon the borders of Navarre." "And who are they, Sir Nigel?" "They are a free company, sire, and they are called the White Company." To the astonishment of the knight, his words provoked a burst of merriment from the barons round, in which the two kings and the prince were fain to join. Sir Nigel blinked mildly from one to the other, until at last perceiving a stout black-bearded knight at his elbow, whose laugh rang somewhat louder than the others, he touched him lightly upon the sleeve. "Perchance, my fair sir," he whispered, "there is some small vow of which I may relieve you. Might we not have some honorable debate upon the matter. Your gentle courtesy may perhaps grant me an exchange of thrusts." "Nay, nay, Sir Nigel," cried the prince, "fasten not the offence upon Sir Robert Briquet, for we are one and all bogged in the same mire. Truth to say, our ears have just been vexed by the doings of the same company, and I have even now made vow to hang the man who held the rank of captain over it. I little thought to find him among the bravest of my own chosen chieftains. But the vow is now nought, for, as you have never seen your company, it would be a fool's act to blame you for their doings." "My liege," said Sir Nigel, "it is a very small matter that I should be hanged, albeit the manner of death is somewhat more ignoble than I had hoped for. On the other hand, it would be a very grievous thing that you, the Prince of England and the flower of knighthood, should make a vow, whether in ignorance or no, and fail to bring it to fulfilment." "Vex not your mind on that," the prince answered, smiling. "We have had a citizen from Montauban here this very day, who told us such a tale of sack and murder and pillage that it moved our blood; but our wrath was turned upon the man who was in authority over them." "My dear and honored master," cried Nigel, in great anxiety, "I fear me much that in your gentleness of heart you are straining this vow which you have taken. If there be so much as a shadow of a doubt as to the form of it, it were a thousand times best----" "Peace! peace!" cried the prince impatiently. "I am very well able to look to my own vows and their performance. We hope to see you both in the banquet-hall anon. Meanwhile you will attend upon us with our train." He bowed, and Chandos, plucking Sir Oliver by the sleeve, led them both away to the back of the press of courtiers. "Why, little coz," he whispered, "you are very eager to have your neck in a noose. By my soul! had you asked as much from our new ally Don Pedro, he had not baulked you. Between friends, there is overmuch of the hangman in him, and too little of the prince. But indeed this White Company is a rough band, and may take some handling ere you find yourself safe in your captaincy." "I doubt not, with the help of St. Paul, that I shall bring them to some order," Sir Nigel answered. "But there are many faces here which are new to me, though others have been before me since first I waited upon my dear master, Sir Walter. I pray you to tell me, Sir John, who are these priests upon the dais?" "The one is the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Nigel, and the other the Bishop of Agen." "And the dark knight with gray-streaked beard? By my troth, he seems to be a man of much wisdom and valor." "He is Sir William Felton, who, with my unworthy self, is the chief counsellor of the prince, he being high steward and I the seneschal of Aquitaine." "And the knights upon the right, beside Don Pedro?" "They are cavaliers of Spain who have followed him in his exile. The one at his elbow is Fernando de Castro, who is as brave and true a man as heart could wish. In front to the right are the Gascon lords. You may well tell them by their clouded brows, for there hath been some ill-will of late betwixt the prince and them. The tall and burly man is the Captal de Buch, whom I doubt not that you know, for a braver knight never laid lance in rest. That heavy-faced cavalier who plucks his skirts and whispers in his ear is Lord Oliver de Clisson, known also as the butcher. He it is who stirs up strife, and forever blows the dying embers into flame. The man with the mole upon his cheek is the Lord Pommers, and his two brothers stand behind him, with the Lord Lesparre, Lord de Rosem, Lord de Mucident, Sir Perducas d'Albret, the Souldich de la Trane, and others. Further back are knights from Quercy, Limousin, Saintonge, Poitou, and Aquitaine, with the valiant Sir Guiscard d'Angle. That is he in the rose-colored doublet with the ermine." "And the knights upon this side?" "They are all Englishmen, some of the household and others who like yourself, are captains of companies. There is Lord Neville, Sir Stephen Cossington, and Sir Matthew Gourney, with Sir Walter Huet, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Thomas Felton, who is the brother of the high steward. Mark well the man with the high nose and flaxen beard who hath placed his hand upon the shoulder of the dark hard-faced cavalier in the rust-stained jupon." "Aye, by St. Paul!" observed Sir Nigel, "they both bear the print of their armor upon their cotes-hardies. Methinks they are men who breathe freer in a camp than a court." "There are many of us who do that, Nigel," said Chandos, "and the head of the court is, I dare warrant, among them. But of these two men the one is Sir Hugh Calverley, and the other is Sir Robert Knolles." Sir Nigel and Sir Oliver craned their necks to have the clearer view of these famous warriors, the one a chosen leader of free companies, the other a man who by his fierce valor and energy had raised himself from the lowest ranks until he was second only to Chandos himself in the esteem of the army. "He hath no light hand in war, hath Sir Robert," said Chandos. "If he passes through a country you may tell it for some years to come. I have heard that in the north it is still the use to call a house which hath but the two gable ends left, without walls or roof, a Knolles' mitre." "I have often heard of him," said Nigel, "and I have hoped to be so far honored as to run a course with him. But hark, Sir John, what is amiss with the prince?" Whilst Chandos had been conversing with the two knights a continuous stream of suitors had been ushered in, adventurers seeking to sell their swords and merchants clamoring over some grievance, a ship detained for the carriage of troops, or a tun of sweet wine which had the bottom knocked out by a troop of thirsty archers. A few words from the prince disposed of each case, and, if the applicant liked not the judgment, a quick glance from the prince's dark eyes sent him to the door with the grievance all gone out of him. The younger ruler had sat listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character. "How now, Don Martin de la Carra?" he cried. "How now, sirrah? What message do you bring to us from our brother of Navarre?" The new-comer to whom this abrupt query had been addressed was a tall and exceedingly handsome cavalier who had just been ushered into the apartment. His swarthy cheek and raven black hair spoke of the fiery south, and he wore his long black cloak swathed across his chest and over his shoulders in a graceful sweeping fashion, which was neither English nor French. With stately steps and many profound bows, he advanced to the foot of the dais before replying to the prince's question. "My powerful and illustrious master," he began, "Charles, King of Navarre, Earl of Evreux, Count of Champagne, who also writeth himself Overlord of Bearn, hereby sends his love and greetings to his dear cousin Edward, the Prince of Wales, Governor of Aquitaine, Grand Commander of----" "Tush! tush! Don Martin!" interrupted the prince, who had been beating the ground with his foot impatiently during this stately preamble. "We already know our cousin's titles and style, and, certes, we know our own. To the point, man, and at once. Are the passes open to us, or does your master go back from his word pledged to me at Libourne no later than last Michaelmas?" "It would ill become my gracious master, sire, to go back from promise given. He does but ask some delay and certain conditions and hostages----" "Conditions! Hostages! Is he speaking to the Prince of England, or is it to the bourgeois provost of some half-captured town! Conditions, quotha? He may find much to mend in his own condition ere long. The passes are, then, closed to us?" "Nay, sire----" "They are open, then?" "Nay, sire, if you would but----" "Enough, enough, Don Martin," cried the prince. "It is a sorry sight to see so true a knight pleading in so false a cause. We know the doings of our cousin Charles. We know that while with the right hand he takes our fifty thousand crowns for the holding of the passes open, he hath his left outstretched to Henry of Trastamare, or to the King of France, all ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered horse. He is----" "My lord," cried Don Martin, "I cannot stand there to hear such words of my master. Did they come from other lips, I should know better how to answer them." Don Pedro frowned and curled his lip, but the prince smiled and nodded his approbation. "Your bearing and your words, Don Martin, are such I should have looked for in you," he remarked. "You will tell the king, your master, that he hath been paid his price and that if he holds to his promise he hath my word for it that no scath shall come to his people, nor to their houses or gear. If, however, we have not his leave, I shall come close at the heels of this message without his leave, and bearing a key with me which shall open all that he may close." He stooped and whispered to Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Huge Calverley, who smiled as men well pleased, and hastened from the room. "Our cousin Charles has had experience of our friendship," the prince continued, "and now, by the Saints! he shall feel a touch of our displeasure. I send now a message to our cousin Charles which his whole kingdom may read. Let him take heed lest worse befall him. Where is my Lord Chandos? Ha, Sir John, I commend this worthy knight to your care. You will see that he hath refection, and such a purse of gold as may defray his charges, for indeed it is great honor to any court to have within it so noble and gentle a cavalier. How say you, sire?" he asked, turning to the Spanish refugee, while the herald of Navarre was conducted from the chamber by the old warrior. "It is not our custom in Spain to reward pertness in a messenger," Don Pedro answered, patting the head of his greyhound. "Yet we have all heard the lengths to which your royal generosity runs." "In sooth, yes," cried the King of Majorca. "Who should know it better than we?" said Don Pedro bitterly, "since we have had to fly to you in our trouble as to the natural protector of all who are weak." "Nay, nay, as brothers to a brother," cried the prince, with sparkling eyes. "We doubt not, with the help of God, to see you very soon restored to those thrones from which you have been so traitorously thrust." "When that happy day comes," said Pedro, "then Spain shall be to you as Aquitaine, and, be your project what it may, you may ever count on every troop and every ship over which flies the banner of Castile." "And," added the other, "upon every aid which the wealth and power of Majorca can bestow." "Touching the hundred thousand crowns in which I stand your debtor," continued Pedro carelessly, "it can no doubt----" "Not a word, sire, not a word!" cried the prince. "It is not now when you are in grief that I would vex your mind with such base and sordid matters. I have said once and forever that I am yours with every bow-string of my army and every florin in my coffers." "Ah! here is indeed a mirror of chivalry," said Don Pedro. "I think, Sir Fernando, since the prince's bounty is stretched so far, that we may make further use of his gracious goodness to the extent of fifty thousand crowns. Good Sir William Felton, here, will doubtless settle the matter with you." The stout old English counsellor looked somewhat blank at this prompt acceptance of his master's bounty. "If it please you, sire," he said, "the public funds are at their lowest, seeing that I have paid twelve thousand men of the companies, and the new taxes--the hearth-tax and the wine-tax--not yet come in. If you could wait until the promised help from England comes----" "Nay, nay, my sweet cousin," cried Don Pedro. "Had we known that your own coffers were so low, or that this sorry sum could have weighed one way or the other, we had been loth indeed----" "Enough, sire, enough!" said the prince, flushing with vexation. "If the public funds be, indeed, so backward, Sir William, there is still, I trust, my own private credit, which hath never been drawn upon for my own uses, but is now ready in the cause of a friend in adversity. Go, raise this money upon our own jewels, if nought else may serve, and see that it be paid over to Don Fernando." "In security I offer----" cried Don Pedro. "Tush! tush!" said the prince. "I am not a Lombard, sire. Your kingly pledge is my security, without bond or seal. But I have tidings for you, my lords and lieges, that our brother of Lancaster is on his way for our capital with four hundred lances and as many archers to aid us in our venture. When he hath come, and when our fair consort is recovered in her health, which I trust by the grace of God may be ere many weeks be past, we shall then join the army at Dax, and set our banners to the breeze once more." A buzz of joy at the prospect of immediate action rose up from the group of warriors. The prince smiled at the martial ardor which shone upon every face around him. "It will hearten you to know," he continued, "that I have sure advices that this Henry is a very valiant leader, and that he has it in his power to make such a stand against us as promises to give us much honor and pleasure. Of his own people he hath brought together, as I learn, some fifty thousand, with twelve thousand of the French free companies, who are, as you know very valiant and expert men-at-arms. It is certain also, that the brave and worthy Bertrand de Guesclin hath ridden into France to the Duke of Anjou, and purposes to take back with him great levies from Picardy and Brittany. We hold Bertrand in high esteem, for he has oft before been at great pains to furnish us with an honorable encounter. What think you of it, my worthy Captal? He took you at Cocherel, and, by my soul! you will have the chance now to pay that score." The Gascon warrior winced a little at the allusion, nor were his countrymen around him better pleased, for on the only occasion when they had encountered the arms of France without English aid they had met with a heavy defeat. "There are some who say, sire," said the burly De Clisson, "that the score is already overpaid, for that without Gascon help Bertrand had not been taken at Auray, nor had King John been overborne at Poictiers." "By heaven! but this is too much," cried an English nobleman. "Methinks that Gascony is too small a cock to crow so lustily." "The smaller cock, my Lord Audley, may have the longer spur," remarked the Captal de Buch. "May have its comb clipped if it make over-much noise," broke in an Englishman. "By our Lady of Rocamadour!" cried the Lord of Mucident, "this is more than I can abide. Sir John Charnell, you shall answer to me for those words!" "Freely, my lord, and when you will," returned the Englishman carelessly. "My Lord de Clisson," cried Lord Audley, "you look somewhat fixedly in my direction. By God's soul! I should be right glad to go further into the matter with you." "And you, my Lord of Pommers," said Sir Nigel, pushing his way to the front, "it is in my mind that we might break a lance in gentle and honorable debate over the question." For a moment a dozen challenges flashed backwards and forwards at this sudden bursting of the cloud which had lowered so long between the knights of the two nations. Furious and gesticulating the Gascons, white and cold and sneering the English, while the prince with a half smile glanced from one party to the other, like a man who loved to dwell upon a fiery scene, and yet dreaded least the mischief go so far that he might find it beyond his control. "Friends, friends!" he cried at last, "this quarrel must go no further. The man shall answer to me, be he Gascon or English, who carries it beyond this room. I have overmuch need for your swords that you should turn them upon each other. Sir John Charnell, Lord Audley, you do not doubt the courage of our friends of Gascony?" "Not I, sire," Lord Audley answered. "I have seen them fight too often not to know that they are very hardy and valiant gentlemen." "And so say I," quoth the other Englishman; "but, certes, there is no fear of our forgetting it while they have a tongue in their heads." "Nay, Sir John," said the prince reprovingly, "all peoples have their own use and customs. There are some who might call us cold and dull and silent. But you hear, my lords of Gascony, that these gentlemen had no thought to throw a slur upon your honor or your valor, so let all anger fade from your mind. Clisson, Captal, De Pommers, I have your word?" "We are your subjects, sire," said the Gascon barons, though with no very good grace. "Your words are our law." "Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon of Malvoisie," said the prince, cheerily. "Ho, there! the doors of the banquet-hall! I have been over long from my sweet spouse but I shall be back with you anon. Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!" He turned away, accompanied by the two monarchs, while the rest of the company, with many a compressed lip and menacing eye, filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth. CHAPTER XX. HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD. Whilst the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England. "How is it with the old man at Windsor?" asked one. "And how with the good Queen Philippa?" "And how with Dame Alice Perrers?" cried a third. "The devil take your tongue, Wat!" shouted a tall young man, seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. "The prince would take your head off for those words." "By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little," said another. "It is as empty as a beggar's wallet." "As empty as an English squire, coz," cried the first speaker. "What a devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet." "Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least," observed another, amid a burst of laughter. "And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm," cried the aggrieved Humphrey. "But how of England, my lads of Loring?" "I take it," said Ford, "that it is much as it was when you were there last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there." "And why less noise, young Solomon?" "Ah, that is

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years to his life? "Ha, my little heart of gold!" he cried, darting forward suddenly and throwing his arms round Sir Nigel. "I heard that you were here and have been seeking you." "My fair and dear lord," said the knight, returning the warrior's embrace, "I have indeed come back to you, for where else shall I go that I may learn to be a gentle and a hardy knight?" "By my troth!" said Chandos with a smile, "it is very fitting that we should be companions, Nigel, for since you have tied up one of your eyes, and I have had the mischance to lose one of mine, we have but a pair between us. Ah, Sir Oliver! you were on the blind side of me and I saw you not. A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me. We shall go in to the prince anon; but in truth he hath much upon his hands, for what with Pedro, and the King of Majorca, and the King of Navarre, who is no two days of the same mind, and the Gascon barons who are all chaffering for terms like so many hucksters, he hath an uneasy part to play. But how left you the Lady Loring?" "She was well, my fair lord, and sent her service and greetings to you." "I am ever her knight and slave. And your journey, I trust that it was pleasant?" "As heart could wish. We had sight of two rover galleys, and even came to have some slight bickering with them." "Ever in luck's way, Nigel!" quoth Sir John. "We must hear the tale anon. But I deem it best that ye should leave your squires and come with me, for, howsoe'er pressed the prince may be, I am very sure that he would be loth to keep two old comrades-in-arms upon the further side of the door. Follow close behind me, and I will forestall old Sir William, though I can scarce promise to roll forth your style and rank as is his wont." So saying, he led the way to the inner chamber, the two companions treading close at his heels, and nodding to right and left as they caught sight of familiar faces among the crowd. CHAPTER XIX. HOW THERE WAS STIR AT THE ABBEY OF ST. ANDREW'S. The prince's reception-room, although of no great size, was fitted up with all the state and luxury which the fame and power of its owner demanded. A high dais at the further end was roofed in by a broad canopy of scarlet velvet spangled with silver fleurs-de-lis, and supported at either corner by silver rods. This was approached by four steps carpeted with the same material, while all round were scattered rich cushions, oriental mats and costly rugs of fur. The choicest tapestries which the looms of Arras could furnish draped the walls, whereon the battles of Judas Maccabaeus were set forth, with the Jewish warriors in plate of proof, with crest and lance and banderole, as the naive artists of the day were wont to depict them. A few rich settles and bancals, choicely carved and decorated with glazed leather hangings of the sort termed _or basane_, completed the furniture of the apartment, save that at one side of the dais there stood a lofty perch, upon which a cast of three solemn Prussian gerfalcons sat, hooded and jesseled, as silent and motionless as the royal fowler who stood beside them. In the centre of the dais were two very high chairs with dorserets, which arched forwards over the heads of the occupants, the whole covered with light-blue silk thickly powdered with golden stars. On that to the right sat a very tall and well formed man with red hair, a livid face, and a cold blue eye, which had in it something peculiarly sinister and menacing. He lounged back in a careless position, and yawned repeatedly as though heartily weary of the proceedings, stooping from time to time to fondle a shaggy Spanish greyhound which lay stretched at his feet. On the other throne there was perched bolt upright, with prim demeanor, as though he felt himself to be upon his good behavior, a little, round, pippin faced person, who smiled and bobbed to every one whose eye he chanced to meet. Between and a little in front of them on a humble charette or stool, sat a slim, dark young man, whose quiet attire and modest manner would scarce proclaim him to be the most noted prince in Europe. A jupon of dark blue cloth, tagged with buckles and pendants of gold, seemed but a sombre and plain attire amidst the wealth of silk and ermine and gilt tissue of fustian with which he was surrounded. He sat with his two hands clasped round his knee, his head slightly bent, and an expression of impatience and of trouble upon his clear, well-chiselled features. Behind the thrones there stood two men in purple gowns, with ascetic, clean-shaven faces, and half a dozen other high dignitaries and office-holders of Aquitaine. Below on either side of the steps were forty or fifty barons, knights, and courtiers, ranged in a triple row to the right and the left, with a clear passage in the centre. "There sits the prince," whispered Sir John Chandos, as they entered. "He on the right is Pedro, whom we are about to put upon the Spanish throne. The other is Don James, whom we purpose with the aid of God to help to his throne in Majorca. Now follow me, and take it not to heart if he be a little short in his speech, for indeed his mind is full of many very weighty concerns." The prince, however, had already observed their entrance, and, springing to his feet, he had advanced with a winning smile and the light of welcome in his eyes. "We do not need your good offices as herald here, Sir John," said he in a low but clear voice; "these valiant knights are very well known to me. Welcome to Aquitaine, Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver Buttesthorn. Nay, keep your knee for my sweet father at Windsor. I would have your hands, my friends. We are like to give you some work to do ere you see the downs of Hampshire once more. Know you aught of Spain, Sir Oliver?" "Nought, my sire, save that I have heard men say that there is a dish named an olla which is prepared there, though I have never been clear in my mind as to whether it was but a ragout such as is to be found in the south, or whether there is some seasoning such as fennel or garlic which is peculiar to Spain." "Your doubts, Sir Oliver, shall soon be resolved," answered the prince, laughing heartily, as did many of the barons who surrounded them. "His majesty here will doubtless order that you have this dish hotly seasoned when we are all safely in Castile." "I will have a hotly seasoned dish for some folk I know of," answered Don Pedro with a cold smile. "But my friend Sir Oliver can fight right hardily without either bite or sup," remarked the prince. "Did I not see him at Poictiers, when for two days we had not more than a crust of bread and a cup of foul water, yet carrying himself most valiantly. With my own eyes I saw him in the rout sweep the head from a knight of Picardy with one blow of his sword." "The rogue got between me and the nearest French victual wain," muttered Sir Oliver, amid a fresh titter from those who were near enough to catch his words. "How many have you in your train?" asked the prince, assuming a graver mien. "I have forty men-at-arms, sire," said Sir Oliver. "And I have one hundred archers and a score of lancers, but there are two hundred men who wait for me on this side of the water upon the borders of Navarre." "And who are they, Sir Nigel?" "They are a free company, sire, and they are called the White Company." To the astonishment of the knight, his words provoked a burst of merriment from the barons round, in which the two kings and the prince were fain to join. Sir Nigel blinked mildly from one to the other, until at last perceiving a stout black-bearded knight at his elbow, whose laugh rang somewhat louder than the others, he touched him lightly upon the sleeve. "Perchance, my fair sir," he whispered, "there is some small vow of which I may relieve you. Might we not have some honorable debate upon the matter. Your gentle courtesy may perhaps grant me an exchange of thrusts." "Nay, nay, Sir Nigel," cried the prince, "fasten not the offence upon Sir Robert Briquet, for we are one and all bogged in the same mire. Truth to say, our ears have just been vexed by the doings of the same company, and I have even now made vow to hang the man who held the rank of captain over it. I little thought to find him among the bravest of my own chosen chieftains. But the vow is now nought, for, as you have never seen your company, it would be a fool's act to blame you for their doings." "My liege," said Sir Nigel, "it is a very small matter that I should be hanged, albeit the manner of death is somewhat more ignoble than I had hoped for. On the other hand, it would be a very grievous thing that you, the Prince of England and the flower of knighthood, should make a vow, whether in ignorance or no, and fail to bring it to fulfilment." "Vex not your mind on that," the prince answered, smiling. "We have had a citizen from Montauban here this very day, who told us such a tale of sack and murder and pillage that it moved our blood; but our wrath was turned upon the man who was in authority over them." "My dear and honored master," cried Nigel, in great anxiety, "I fear me much that in your gentleness of heart you are straining this vow which you have taken. If there be so much as a shadow of a doubt as to the form of it, it were a thousand times best----" "Peace! peace!" cried the prince impatiently. "I am very well able to look to my own vows and their performance. We hope to see you both in the banquet-hall anon. Meanwhile you will attend upon us with our train." He bowed, and Chandos, plucking Sir Oliver by the sleeve, led them both away to the back of the press of courtiers. "Why, little coz," he whispered, "you are very eager to have your neck in a noose. By my soul! had you asked as much from our new ally Don Pedro, he had not baulked you. Between friends, there is overmuch of the hangman in him, and too little of the prince. But indeed this White Company is a rough band, and may take some handling ere you find yourself safe in your captaincy." "I doubt not, with the help of St. Paul, that I shall bring them to some order," Sir Nigel answered. "But there are many faces here which are new to me, though others have been before me since first I waited upon my dear master, Sir Walter. I pray you to tell me, Sir John, who are these priests upon the dais?" "The one is the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Nigel, and the other the Bishop of Agen." "And the dark knight with gray-streaked beard? By my troth, he seems to be a man of much wisdom and valor." "He is Sir William Felton, who, with my unworthy self, is the chief counsellor of the prince, he being high steward and I the seneschal of Aquitaine." "And the knights upon the right, beside Don Pedro?" "They are cavaliers of Spain who have followed him in his exile. The one at his elbow is Fernando de Castro, who is as brave and true a man as heart could wish. In front to the right are the Gascon lords. You may well tell them by their clouded brows, for there hath been some ill-will of late betwixt the prince and them. The tall and burly man is the Captal de Buch, whom I doubt not that you know, for a braver knight never laid lance in rest. That heavy-faced cavalier who plucks his skirts and whispers in his ear is Lord Oliver de Clisson, known also as the butcher. He it is who stirs up strife, and forever blows the dying embers into flame. The man with the mole upon his cheek is the Lord Pommers, and his two brothers stand behind him, with the Lord Lesparre, Lord de Rosem, Lord de Mucident, Sir Perducas d'Albret, the Souldich de la Trane, and others. Further back are knights from Quercy, Limousin, Saintonge, Poitou, and Aquitaine, with the valiant Sir Guiscard d'Angle. That is he in the rose-colored doublet with the ermine." "And the knights upon this side?" "They are all Englishmen, some of the household and others who like yourself, are captains of companies. There is Lord Neville, Sir Stephen Cossington, and Sir Matthew Gourney, with Sir Walter Huet, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Thomas Felton, who is the brother of the high steward. Mark well the man with the high nose and flaxen beard who hath placed his hand upon the shoulder of the dark hard-faced cavalier in the rust-stained jupon." "Aye, by St. Paul!" observed Sir Nigel, "they both bear the print of their armor upon their cotes-hardies. Methinks they are men who breathe freer in a camp than a court." "There are many of us who do that, Nigel," said Chandos, "and the head of the court is, I dare warrant, among them. But of these two men the one is Sir Hugh Calverley, and the other is Sir Robert Knolles." Sir Nigel and Sir Oliver craned their necks to have the clearer view of these famous warriors, the one a chosen leader of free companies, the other a man who by his fierce valor and energy had raised himself from the lowest ranks until he was second only to Chandos himself in the esteem of the army. "He hath no light hand in war, hath Sir Robert," said Chandos. "If he passes through a country you may tell it for some years to come. I have heard that in the north it is still the use to call a house which hath but the two gable ends left, without walls or roof, a Knolles' mitre." "I have often heard of him," said Nigel, "and I have hoped to be so far honored as to run a course with him. But hark, Sir John, what is amiss with the prince?" Whilst Chandos had been conversing with the two knights a continuous stream of suitors had been ushered in, adventurers seeking to sell their swords and merchants clamoring over some grievance, a ship detained for the carriage of troops, or a tun of sweet wine which had the bottom knocked out by a troop of thirsty archers. A few words from the prince disposed of each case, and, if the applicant liked not the judgment, a quick glance from the prince's dark eyes sent him to the door with the grievance all gone out of him. The younger ruler had sat listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character. "How now, Don Martin de la Carra?" he cried. "How now, sirrah? What message do you bring to us from our brother of Navarre?" The new-comer to whom this abrupt query had been addressed was a tall and exceedingly handsome cavalier who had just been ushered into the apartment. His swarthy cheek and raven black hair spoke of the fiery south, and he wore his long black cloak swathed across his chest and over his shoulders in a graceful sweeping fashion, which was neither English nor French. With stately steps and many profound bows, he advanced to the foot of the dais before replying to the prince's question. "My powerful and illustrious master," he began, "Charles, King of Navarre, Earl of Evreux, Count of Champagne, who also writeth himself Overlord of Bearn, hereby sends his love and greetings to his dear cousin Edward, the Prince of Wales, Governor of Aquitaine, Grand Commander of----" "Tush! tush! Don Martin!" interrupted the prince, who had been beating the ground with his foot impatiently during this stately preamble. "We already know our cousin's titles and style, and, certes, we know our own. To the point, man, and at once. Are the passes open to us, or does your master go back from his word pledged to me at Libourne no later than last Michaelmas?" "It would ill become my gracious master, sire, to go back from promise given. He does but ask some delay and certain conditions and hostages----" "Conditions! Hostages! Is he speaking to the Prince of England, or is it to the bourgeois provost of some half-captured town! Conditions, quotha? He may find much to mend in his own condition ere long. The passes are, then, closed to us?" "Nay, sire----" "They are open, then?" "Nay, sire, if you would but----" "Enough, enough, Don Martin," cried the prince. "It is a sorry sight to see so true a knight pleading in so false a cause. We know the doings of our cousin Charles. We know that while with the right hand he takes our fifty thousand crowns for the holding of the passes open, he hath his left outstretched to Henry of Trastamare, or to the King of France, all ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered horse. He is----" "My lord," cried Don Martin, "I cannot stand there to hear such words of my master. Did they come from other lips, I should know better how to answer them." Don Pedro frowned and curled his lip, but the prince smiled and nodded his approbation. "Your bearing and your words, Don Martin, are such I should have looked for in you," he remarked. "You will tell the king, your master, that he hath been paid his price and that if he holds to his promise he hath my word for it that no scath shall come to his people, nor to their houses or gear. If, however, we have not his leave, I shall come close at the heels of this message without his leave, and bearing a key with me which shall open all that he may close." He stooped and whispered to Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Huge Calverley, who smiled as men well pleased, and hastened from the room. "Our cousin Charles has had experience of our friendship," the prince continued, "and now, by the Saints! he shall feel a touch of our displeasure. I send now a message to our cousin Charles which his whole kingdom may read. Let him take heed lest worse befall him. Where is my Lord Chandos? Ha, Sir John, I commend this worthy knight to your care. You will see that he hath refection, and such a purse of gold as may defray his charges, for indeed it is great honor to any court to have within it so noble and gentle a cavalier. How say you, sire?" he asked, turning to the Spanish refugee, while the herald of Navarre was conducted from the chamber by the old warrior. "It is not our custom in Spain to reward pertness in a messenger," Don Pedro answered, patting the head of his greyhound. "Yet we have all heard the lengths to which your royal generosity runs." "In sooth, yes," cried the King of Majorca. "Who should know it better than we?" said Don Pedro bitterly, "since we have had to fly to you in our trouble as to the natural protector of all who are weak." "Nay, nay, as brothers to a brother," cried the prince, with sparkling eyes. "We doubt not, with the help of God, to see you very soon restored to those thrones from which you have been so traitorously thrust." "When that happy day comes," said Pedro, "then Spain shall be to you as Aquitaine, and, be your project what it may, you may ever count on every troop and every ship over which flies the banner of Castile." "And," added the other, "upon every aid which the wealth and power of Majorca can bestow." "Touching the hundred thousand crowns in which I stand your debtor," continued Pedro carelessly, "it can no doubt----" "Not a word, sire, not a word!" cried the prince. "It is not now when you are in grief that I would vex your mind with such base and sordid matters. I have said once and forever that I am yours with every bow-string of my army and every florin in my coffers." "Ah! here is indeed a mirror of chivalry," said Don Pedro. "I think, Sir Fernando, since the prince's bounty is stretched so far, that we may make further use of his gracious goodness to the extent of fifty thousand crowns. Good Sir William Felton, here, will doubtless settle the matter with you." The stout old English counsellor looked somewhat blank at this prompt acceptance of his master's bounty. "If it please you, sire," he said, "the public funds are at their lowest, seeing that I have paid twelve thousand men of the companies, and the new taxes--the hearth-tax and the wine-tax--not yet come in. If you could wait until the promised help from England comes----" "Nay, nay, my sweet cousin," cried Don Pedro. "Had we known that your own coffers were so low, or that this sorry sum could have weighed one way or the other, we had been loth indeed----" "Enough, sire, enough!" said the prince, flushing with vexation. "If the public funds be, indeed, so backward, Sir William, there is still, I trust, my own private credit, which hath never been drawn upon for my own uses, but is now ready in the cause of a friend in adversity. Go, raise this money upon our own jewels, if nought else may serve, and see that it be paid over to Don Fernando." "In security I offer----" cried Don Pedro. "Tush! tush!" said the prince. "I am not a Lombard, sire. Your kingly pledge is my security, without bond or seal. But I have tidings for you, my lords and lieges, that our brother of Lancaster is on his way for our capital with four hundred lances and as many archers to aid us in our venture. When he hath come, and when our fair consort is recovered in her health, which I trust by the grace of God may be ere many weeks be past, we shall then join the army at Dax, and set our banners to the breeze once more." A buzz of joy at the prospect of immediate action rose up from the group of warriors. The prince smiled at the martial ardor which shone upon every face around him. "It will hearten you to know," he continued, "that I have sure advices that this Henry is a very valiant leader, and that he has it in his power to make such a stand against us as promises to give us much honor and pleasure. Of his own people he hath brought together, as I learn, some fifty thousand, with twelve thousand of the French free companies, who are, as you know very valiant and expert men-at-arms. It is certain also, that the brave and worthy Bertrand de Guesclin hath ridden into France to the Duke of Anjou, and purposes to take back with him great levies from Picardy and Brittany. We hold Bertrand in high esteem, for he has oft before been at great pains to furnish us with an honorable encounter. What think you of it, my worthy Captal? He took you at Cocherel, and, by my soul! you will have the chance now to pay that score." The Gascon warrior winced a little at the allusion, nor were his countrymen around him better pleased, for on the only occasion when they had encountered the arms of France without English aid they had met with a heavy defeat. "There are some who say, sire," said the burly De Clisson, "that the score is already overpaid, for that without Gascon help Bertrand had not been taken at Auray, nor had King John been overborne at Poictiers." "By heaven! but this is too much," cried an English nobleman. "Methinks that Gascony is too small a cock to crow so lustily." "The smaller cock, my Lord Audley, may have the longer spur," remarked the Captal de Buch. "May have its comb clipped if it make over-much noise," broke in an Englishman. "By our Lady of Rocamadour!" cried the Lord of Mucident, "this is more than I can abide. Sir John Charnell, you shall answer to me for those words!" "Freely, my lord, and when you will," returned the Englishman carelessly. "My Lord de Clisson," cried Lord Audley, "you look somewhat fixedly in my direction. By God's soul! I should be right glad to go further into the matter with you." "And you, my Lord of Pommers," said Sir Nigel, pushing his way to the front, "it is in my mind that we might break a lance in gentle and honorable debate over the question." For a moment a dozen challenges flashed backwards and forwards at this sudden bursting of the cloud which had lowered so long between the knights of the two nations. Furious and gesticulating the Gascons, white and cold and sneering the English, while the prince with a half smile glanced from one party to the other, like a man who loved to dwell upon a fiery scene, and yet dreaded least the mischief go so far that he might find it beyond his control. "Friends, friends!" he cried at last, "this quarrel must go no further. The man shall answer to me, be he Gascon or English, who carries it beyond this room. I have overmuch need for your swords that you should turn them upon each other. Sir John Charnell, Lord Audley, you do not doubt the courage of our friends of Gascony?" "Not I, sire," Lord Audley answered. "I have seen them fight too often not to know that they are very hardy and valiant gentlemen." "And so say I," quoth the other Englishman; "but, certes, there is no fear of our forgetting it while they have a tongue in their heads." "Nay, Sir John," said the prince reprovingly, "all peoples have their own use and customs. There are some who might call us cold and dull and silent. But you hear, my lords of Gascony, that these gentlemen had no thought to throw a slur upon your honor or your valor, so let all anger fade from your mind. Clisson, Captal, De Pommers, I have your word?" "We are your subjects, sire," said the Gascon barons, though with no very good grace. "Your words are our law." "Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon of Malvoisie," said the prince, cheerily. "Ho, there! the doors of the banquet-hall! I have been over long from my sweet spouse but I shall be back with you anon. Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!" He turned away, accompanied by the two monarchs, while the rest of the company, with many a compressed lip and menacing eye, filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth. CHAPTER XX. HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD. Whilst the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England. "How is it with the old man at Windsor?" asked one. "And how with the good Queen Philippa?" "And how with Dame Alice Perrers?" cried a third. "The devil take your tongue, Wat!" shouted a tall young man, seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. "The prince would take your head off for those words." "By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little," said another. "It is as empty as a beggar's wallet." "As empty as an English squire, coz," cried the first speaker. "What a devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet." "Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least," observed another, amid a burst of laughter. "And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm," cried the aggrieved Humphrey. "But how of England, my lads of Loring?" "I take it," said Ford, "that it is much as it was when you were there last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there." "And why less noise, young Solomon?" "Ah, that is

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years to his life? "Ha, my little heart of gold!" he cried, darting forward suddenly and throwing his arms round Sir Nigel. "I heard that you were here and have been seeking you." "My fair and dear lord," said the knight, returning the warrior's embrace, "I have indeed come back to you, for where else shall I go that I may learn to be a gentle and a hardy knight?" "By my troth!" said Chandos with a smile, "it is very fitting that we should be companions, Nigel, for since you have tied up one of your eyes, and I have had the mischance to lose one of mine, we have but a pair between us. Ah, Sir Oliver! you were on the blind side of me and I saw you not. A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me. We shall go in to the prince anon; but in truth he hath much upon his hands, for what with Pedro, and the King of Majorca, and the King of Navarre, who is no two days of the same mind, and the Gascon barons who are all chaffering for terms like so many hucksters, he hath an uneasy part to play. But how left you the Lady Loring?" "She was well, my fair lord, and sent her service and greetings to you." "I am ever her knight and slave. And your journey, I trust that it was pleasant?" "As heart could wish. We had sight of two rover galleys, and even came to have some slight bickering with them." "Ever in luck's way, Nigel!" quoth Sir John. "We must hear the tale anon. But I deem it best that ye should leave your squires and come with me, for, howsoe'er pressed the prince may be, I am very sure that he would be loth to keep two old comrades-in-arms upon the further side of the door. Follow close behind me, and I will forestall old Sir William, though I can scarce promise to roll forth your style and rank as is his wont." So saying, he led the way to the inner chamber, the two companions treading close at his heels, and nodding to right and left as they caught sight of familiar faces among the crowd. CHAPTER XIX. HOW THERE WAS STIR AT THE ABBEY OF ST. ANDREW'S. The prince's reception-room, although of no great size, was fitted up with all the state and luxury which the fame and power of its owner demanded. A high dais at the further end was roofed in by a broad canopy of scarlet velvet spangled with silver fleurs-de-lis, and supported at either corner by silver rods. This was approached by four steps carpeted with the same material, while all round were scattered rich cushions, oriental mats and costly rugs of fur. The choicest tapestries which the looms of Arras could furnish draped the walls, whereon the battles of Judas Maccabaeus were set forth, with the Jewish warriors in plate of proof, with crest and lance and banderole, as the naive artists of the day were wont to depict them. A few rich settles and bancals, choicely carved and decorated with glazed leather hangings of the sort termed _or basane_, completed the furniture of the apartment, save that at one side of the dais there stood a lofty perch, upon which a cast of three solemn Prussian gerfalcons sat, hooded and jesseled, as silent and motionless as the royal fowler who stood beside them. In the centre of the dais were two very high chairs with dorserets, which arched forwards over the heads of the occupants, the whole covered with light-blue silk thickly powdered with golden stars. On that to the right sat a very tall and well formed man with red hair, a livid face, and a cold blue eye, which had in it something peculiarly sinister and menacing. He lounged back in a careless position, and yawned repeatedly as though heartily weary of the proceedings, stooping from time to time to fondle a shaggy Spanish greyhound which lay stretched at his feet. On the other throne there was perched bolt upright, with prim demeanor, as though he felt himself to be upon his good behavior, a little, round, pippin faced person, who smiled and bobbed to every one whose eye he chanced to meet. Between and a little in front of them on a humble charette or stool, sat a slim, dark young man, whose quiet attire and modest manner would scarce proclaim him to be the most noted prince in Europe. A jupon of dark blue cloth, tagged with buckles and pendants of gold, seemed but a sombre and plain attire amidst the wealth of silk and ermine and gilt tissue of fustian with which he was surrounded. He sat with his two hands clasped round his knee, his head slightly bent, and an expression of impatience and of trouble upon his clear, well-chiselled features. Behind the thrones there stood two men in purple gowns, with ascetic, clean-shaven faces, and half a dozen other high dignitaries and office-holders of Aquitaine. Below on either side of the steps were forty or fifty barons, knights, and courtiers, ranged in a triple row to the right and the left, with a clear passage in the centre. "There sits the prince," whispered Sir John Chandos, as they entered. "He on the right is Pedro, whom we are about to put upon the Spanish throne. The other is Don James, whom we purpose with the aid of God to help to his throne in Majorca. Now follow me, and take it not to heart if he be a little short in his speech, for indeed his mind is full of many very weighty concerns." The prince, however, had already observed their entrance, and, springing to his feet, he had advanced with a winning smile and the light of welcome in his eyes. "We do not need your good offices as herald here, Sir John," said he in a low but clear voice; "these valiant knights are very well known to me. Welcome to Aquitaine, Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver Buttesthorn. Nay, keep your knee for my sweet father at Windsor. I would have your hands, my friends. We are like to give you some work to do ere you see the downs of Hampshire once more. Know you aught of Spain, Sir Oliver?" "Nought, my sire, save that I have heard men say that there is a dish named an olla which is prepared there, though I have never been clear in my mind as to whether it was but a ragout such as is to be found in the south, or whether there is some seasoning such as fennel or garlic which is peculiar to Spain." "Your doubts, Sir Oliver, shall soon be resolved," answered the prince, laughing heartily, as did many of the barons who surrounded them. "His majesty here will doubtless order that you have this dish hotly seasoned when we are all safely in Castile." "I will have a hotly seasoned dish for some folk I know of," answered Don Pedro with a cold smile. "But my friend Sir Oliver can fight right hardily without either bite or sup," remarked the prince. "Did I not see him at Poictiers, when for two days we had not more than a crust of bread and a cup of foul water, yet carrying himself most valiantly. With my own eyes I saw him in the rout sweep the head from a knight of Picardy with one blow of his sword." "The rogue got between me and the nearest French victual wain," muttered Sir Oliver, amid a fresh titter from those who were near enough to catch his words. "How many have you in your train?" asked the prince, assuming a graver mien. "I have forty men-at-arms, sire," said Sir Oliver. "And I have one hundred archers and a score of lancers, but there are two hundred men who wait for me on this side of the water upon the borders of Navarre." "And who are they, Sir Nigel?" "They are a free company, sire, and they are called the White Company." To the astonishment of the knight, his words provoked a burst of merriment from the barons round, in which the two kings and the prince were fain to join. Sir Nigel blinked mildly from one to the other, until at last perceiving a stout black-bearded knight at his elbow, whose laugh rang somewhat louder than the others, he touched him lightly upon the sleeve. "Perchance, my fair sir," he whispered, "there is some small vow of which I may relieve you. Might we not have some honorable debate upon the matter. Your gentle courtesy may perhaps grant me an exchange of thrusts." "Nay, nay, Sir Nigel," cried the prince, "fasten not the offence upon Sir Robert Briquet, for we are one and all bogged in the same mire. Truth to say, our ears have just been vexed by the doings of the same company, and I have even now made vow to hang the man who held the rank of captain over it. I little thought to find him among the bravest of my own chosen chieftains. But the vow is now nought, for, as you have never seen your company, it would be a fool's act to blame you for their doings." "My liege," said Sir Nigel, "it is a very small matter that I should be hanged, albeit the manner of death is somewhat more ignoble than I had hoped for. On the other hand, it would be a very grievous thing that you, the Prince of England and the flower of knighthood, should make a vow, whether in ignorance or no, and fail to bring it to fulfilment." "Vex not your mind on that," the prince answered, smiling. "We have had a citizen from Montauban here this very day, who told us such a tale of sack and murder and pillage that it moved our blood; but our wrath was turned upon the man who was in authority over them." "My dear and honored master," cried Nigel, in great anxiety, "I fear me much that in your gentleness of heart you are straining this vow which you have taken. If there be so much as a shadow of a doubt as to the form of it, it were a thousand times best----" "Peace! peace!" cried the prince impatiently. "I am very well able to look to my own vows and their performance. We hope to see you both in the banquet-hall anon. Meanwhile you will attend upon us with our train." He bowed, and Chandos, plucking Sir Oliver by the sleeve, led them both away to the back of the press of courtiers. "Why, little coz," he whispered, "you are very eager to have your neck in a noose. By my soul! had you asked as much from our new ally Don Pedro, he had not baulked you. Between friends, there is overmuch of the hangman in him, and too little of the prince. But indeed this White Company is a rough band, and may take some handling ere you find yourself safe in your captaincy." "I doubt not, with the help of St. Paul, that I shall bring them to some order," Sir Nigel answered. "But there are many faces here which are new to me, though others have been before me since first I waited upon my dear master, Sir Walter. I pray you to tell me, Sir John, who are these priests upon the dais?" "The one is the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Nigel, and the other the Bishop of Agen." "And the dark knight with gray-streaked beard? By my troth, he seems to be a man of much wisdom and valor." "He is Sir William Felton, who, with my unworthy self, is the chief counsellor of the prince, he being high steward and I the seneschal of Aquitaine." "And the knights upon the right, beside Don Pedro?" "They are cavaliers of Spain who have followed him in his exile. The one at his elbow is Fernando de Castro, who is as brave and true a man as heart could wish. In front to the right are the Gascon lords. You may well tell them by their clouded brows, for there hath been some ill-will of late betwixt the prince and them. The tall and burly man is the Captal de Buch, whom I doubt not that you know, for a braver knight never laid lance in rest. That heavy-faced cavalier who plucks his skirts and whispers in his ear is Lord Oliver de Clisson, known also as the butcher. He it is who stirs up strife, and forever blows the dying embers into flame. The man with the mole upon his cheek is the Lord Pommers, and his two brothers stand behind him, with the Lord Lesparre, Lord de Rosem, Lord de Mucident, Sir Perducas d'Albret, the Souldich de la Trane, and others. Further back are knights from Quercy, Limousin, Saintonge, Poitou, and Aquitaine, with the valiant Sir Guiscard d'Angle. That is he in the rose-colored doublet with the ermine." "And the knights upon this side?" "They are all Englishmen, some of the household and others who like yourself, are captains of companies. There is Lord Neville, Sir Stephen Cossington, and Sir Matthew Gourney, with Sir Walter Huet, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Thomas Felton, who is the brother of the high steward. Mark well the man with the high nose and flaxen beard who hath placed his hand upon the shoulder of the dark hard-faced cavalier in the rust-stained jupon." "Aye, by St. Paul!" observed Sir Nigel, "they both bear the print of their armor upon their cotes-hardies. Methinks they are men who breathe freer in a camp than a court." "There are many of us who do that, Nigel," said Chandos, "and the head of the court is, I dare warrant, among them. But of these two men the one is Sir Hugh Calverley, and the other is Sir Robert Knolles." Sir Nigel and Sir Oliver craned their necks to have the clearer view of these famous warriors, the one a chosen leader of free companies, the other a man who by his fierce valor and energy had raised himself from the lowest ranks until he was second only to Chandos himself in the esteem of the army. "He hath no light hand in war, hath Sir Robert," said Chandos. "If he passes through a country you may tell it for some years to come. I have heard that in the north it is still the use to call a house which hath but the two gable ends left, without walls or roof, a Knolles' mitre." "I have often heard of him," said Nigel, "and I have hoped to be so far honored as to run a course with him. But hark, Sir John, what is amiss with the prince?" Whilst Chandos had been conversing with the two knights a continuous stream of suitors had been ushered in, adventurers seeking to sell their swords and merchants clamoring over some grievance, a ship detained for the carriage of troops, or a tun of sweet wine which had the bottom knocked out by a troop of thirsty archers. A few words from the prince disposed of each case, and, if the applicant liked not the judgment, a quick glance from the prince's dark eyes sent him to the door with the grievance all gone out of him. The younger ruler had sat listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character. "How now, Don Martin de la Carra?" he cried. "How now, sirrah? What message do you bring to us from our brother of Navarre?" The new-comer to whom this abrupt query had been addressed was a tall and exceedingly handsome cavalier who had just been ushered into the apartment. His swarthy cheek and raven black hair spoke of the fiery south, and he wore his long black cloak swathed across his chest and over his shoulders in a graceful sweeping fashion, which was neither English nor French. With stately steps and many profound bows, he advanced to the foot of the dais before replying to the prince's question. "My powerful and illustrious master," he began, "Charles, King of Navarre, Earl of Evreux, Count of Champagne, who also writeth himself Overlord of Bearn, hereby sends his love and greetings to his dear cousin Edward, the Prince of Wales, Governor of Aquitaine, Grand Commander of----" "Tush! tush! Don Martin!" interrupted the prince, who had been beating the ground with his foot impatiently during this stately preamble. "We already know our cousin's titles and style, and, certes, we know our own. To the point, man, and at once. Are the passes open to us, or does your master go back from his word pledged to me at Libourne no later than last Michaelmas?" "It would ill become my gracious master, sire, to go back from promise given. He does but ask some delay and certain conditions and hostages----" "Conditions! Hostages! Is he speaking to the Prince of England, or is it to the bourgeois provost of some half-captured town! Conditions, quotha? He may find much to mend in his own condition ere long. The passes are, then, closed to us?" "Nay, sire----" "They are open, then?" "Nay, sire, if you would but----" "Enough, enough, Don Martin," cried the prince. "It is a sorry sight to see so true a knight pleading in so false a cause. We know the doings of our cousin Charles. We know that while with the right hand he takes our fifty thousand crowns for the holding of the passes open, he hath his left outstretched to Henry of Trastamare, or to the King of France, all ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered horse. He is----" "My lord," cried Don Martin, "I cannot stand there to hear such words of my master. Did they come from other lips, I should know better how to answer them." Don Pedro frowned and curled his lip, but the prince smiled and nodded his approbation. "Your bearing and your words, Don Martin, are such I should have looked for in you," he remarked. "You will tell the king, your master, that he hath been paid his price and that if he holds to his promise he hath my word for it that no scath shall come to his people, nor to their houses or gear. If, however, we have not his leave, I shall come close at the heels of this message without his leave, and bearing a key with me which shall open all that he may close." He stooped and whispered to Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Huge Calverley, who smiled as men well pleased, and hastened from the room. "Our cousin Charles has had experience of our friendship," the prince continued, "and now, by the Saints! he shall feel a touch of our displeasure. I send now a message to our cousin Charles which his whole kingdom may read. Let him take heed lest worse befall him. Where is my Lord Chandos? Ha, Sir John, I commend this worthy knight to your care. You will see that he hath refection, and such a purse of gold as may defray his charges, for indeed it is great honor to any court to have within it so noble and gentle a cavalier. How say you, sire?" he asked, turning to the Spanish refugee, while the herald of Navarre was conducted from the chamber by the old warrior. "It is not our custom in Spain to reward pertness in a messenger," Don Pedro answered, patting the head of his greyhound. "Yet we have all heard the lengths to which your royal generosity runs." "In sooth, yes," cried the King of Majorca. "Who should know it better than we?" said Don Pedro bitterly, "since we have had to fly to you in our trouble as to the natural protector of all who are weak." "Nay, nay, as brothers to a brother," cried the prince, with sparkling eyes. "We doubt not, with the help of God, to see you very soon restored to those thrones from which you have been so traitorously thrust." "When that happy day comes," said Pedro, "then Spain shall be to you as Aquitaine, and, be your project what it may, you may ever count on every troop and every ship over which flies the banner of Castile." "And," added the other, "upon every aid which the wealth and power of Majorca can bestow." "Touching the hundred thousand crowns in which I stand your debtor," continued Pedro carelessly, "it can no doubt----" "Not a word, sire, not a word!" cried the prince. "It is not now when you are in grief that I would vex your mind with such base and sordid matters. I have said once and forever that I am yours with every bow-string of my army and every florin in my coffers." "Ah! here is indeed a mirror of chivalry," said Don Pedro. "I think, Sir Fernando, since the prince's bounty is stretched so far, that we may make further use of his gracious goodness to the extent of fifty thousand crowns. Good Sir William Felton, here, will doubtless settle the matter with you." The stout old English counsellor looked somewhat blank at this prompt acceptance of his master's bounty. "If it please you, sire," he said, "the public funds are at their lowest, seeing that I have paid twelve thousand men of the companies, and the new taxes--the hearth-tax and the wine-tax--not yet come in. If you could wait until the promised help from England comes----" "Nay, nay, my sweet cousin," cried Don Pedro. "Had we known that your own coffers were so low, or that this sorry sum could have weighed one way or the other, we had been loth indeed----" "Enough, sire, enough!" said the prince, flushing with vexation. "If the public funds be, indeed, so backward, Sir William, there is still, I trust, my own private credit, which hath never been drawn upon for my own uses, but is now ready in the cause of a friend in adversity. Go, raise this money upon our own jewels, if nought else may serve, and see that it be paid over to Don Fernando." "In security I offer----" cried Don Pedro. "Tush! tush!" said the prince. "I am not a Lombard, sire. Your kingly pledge is my security, without bond or seal. But I have tidings for you, my lords and lieges, that our brother of Lancaster is on his way for our capital with four hundred lances and as many archers to aid us in our venture. When he hath come, and when our fair consort is recovered in her health, which I trust by the grace of God may be ere many weeks be past, we shall then join the army at Dax, and set our banners to the breeze once more." A buzz of joy at the prospect of immediate action rose up from the group of warriors. The prince smiled at the martial ardor which shone upon every face around him. "It will hearten you to know," he continued, "that I have sure advices that this Henry is a very valiant leader, and that he has it in his power to make such a stand against us as promises to give us much honor and pleasure. Of his own people he hath brought together, as I learn, some fifty thousand, with twelve thousand of the French free companies, who are, as you know very valiant and expert men-at-arms. It is certain also, that the brave and worthy Bertrand de Guesclin hath ridden into France to the Duke of Anjou, and purposes to take back with him great levies from Picardy and Brittany. We hold Bertrand in high esteem, for he has oft before been at great pains to furnish us with an honorable encounter. What think you of it, my worthy Captal? He took you at Cocherel, and, by my soul! you will have the chance now to pay that score." The Gascon warrior winced a little at the allusion, nor were his countrymen around him better pleased, for on the only occasion when they had encountered the arms of France without English aid they had met with a heavy defeat. "There are some who say, sire," said the burly De Clisson, "that the score is already overpaid, for that without Gascon help Bertrand had not been taken at Auray, nor had King John been overborne at Poictiers." "By heaven! but this is too much," cried an English nobleman. "Methinks that Gascony is too small a cock to crow so lustily." "The smaller cock, my Lord Audley, may have the longer spur," remarked the Captal de Buch. "May have its comb clipped if it make over-much noise," broke in an Englishman. "By our Lady of Rocamadour!" cried the Lord of Mucident, "this is more than I can abide. Sir John Charnell, you shall answer to me for those words!" "Freely, my lord, and when you will," returned the Englishman carelessly. "My Lord de Clisson," cried Lord Audley, "you look somewhat fixedly in my direction. By God's soul! I should be right glad to go further into the matter with you." "And you, my Lord of Pommers," said Sir Nigel, pushing his way to the front, "it is in my mind that we might break a lance in gentle and honorable debate over the question." For a moment a dozen challenges flashed backwards and forwards at this sudden bursting of the cloud which had lowered so long between the knights of the two nations. Furious and gesticulating the Gascons, white and cold and sneering the English, while the prince with a half smile glanced from one party to the other, like a man who loved to dwell upon a fiery scene, and yet dreaded least the mischief go so far that he might find it beyond his control. "Friends, friends!" he cried at last, "this quarrel must go no further. The man shall answer to me, be he Gascon or English, who carries it beyond this room. I have overmuch need for your swords that you should turn them upon each other. Sir John Charnell, Lord Audley, you do not doubt the courage of our friends of Gascony?" "Not I, sire," Lord Audley answered. "I have seen them fight too often not to know that they are very hardy and valiant gentlemen." "And so say I," quoth the other Englishman; "but, certes, there is no fear of our forgetting it while they have a tongue in their heads." "Nay, Sir John," said the prince reprovingly, "all peoples have their own use and customs. There are some who might call us cold and dull and silent. But you hear, my lords of Gascony, that these gentlemen had no thought to throw a slur upon your honor or your valor, so let all anger fade from your mind. Clisson, Captal, De Pommers, I have your word?" "We are your subjects, sire," said the Gascon barons, though with no very good grace. "Your words are our law." "Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon of Malvoisie," said the prince, cheerily. "Ho, there! the doors of the banquet-hall! I have been over long from my sweet spouse but I shall be back with you anon. Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!" He turned away, accompanied by the two monarchs, while the rest of the company, with many a compressed lip and menacing eye, filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth. CHAPTER XX. HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD. Whilst the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England. "How is it with the old man at Windsor?" asked one. "And how with the good Queen Philippa?" "And how with Dame Alice Perrers?" cried a third. "The devil take your tongue, Wat!" shouted a tall young man, seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. "The prince would take your head off for those words." "By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little," said another. "It is as empty as a beggar's wallet." "As empty as an English squire, coz," cried the first speaker. "What a devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet." "Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least," observed another, amid a burst of laughter. "And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm," cried the aggrieved Humphrey. "But how of England, my lads of Loring?" "I take it," said Ford, "that it is much as it was when you were there last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there." "And why less noise, young Solomon?" "Ah, that is

both

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

years to his life? "Ha, my little heart of gold!" he cried, darting forward suddenly and throwing his arms round Sir Nigel. "I heard that you were here and have been seeking you." "My fair and dear lord," said the knight, returning the warrior's embrace, "I have indeed come back to you, for where else shall I go that I may learn to be a gentle and a hardy knight?" "By my troth!" said Chandos with a smile, "it is very fitting that we should be companions, Nigel, for since you have tied up one of your eyes, and I have had the mischance to lose one of mine, we have but a pair between us. Ah, Sir Oliver! you were on the blind side of me and I saw you not. A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me. We shall go in to the prince anon; but in truth he hath much upon his hands, for what with Pedro, and the King of Majorca, and the King of Navarre, who is no two days of the same mind, and the Gascon barons who are all chaffering for terms like so many hucksters, he hath an uneasy part to play. But how left you the Lady Loring?" "She was well, my fair lord, and sent her service and greetings to you." "I am ever her knight and slave. And your journey, I trust that it was pleasant?" "As heart could wish. We had sight of two rover galleys, and even came to have some slight bickering with them." "Ever in luck's way, Nigel!" quoth Sir John. "We must hear the tale anon. But I deem it best that ye should leave your squires and come with me, for, howsoe'er pressed the prince may be, I am very sure that he would be loth to keep two old comrades-in-arms upon the further side of the door. Follow close behind me, and I will forestall old Sir William, though I can scarce promise to roll forth your style and rank as is his wont." So saying, he led the way to the inner chamber, the two companions treading close at his heels, and nodding to right and left as they caught sight of familiar faces among the crowd. CHAPTER XIX. HOW THERE WAS STIR AT THE ABBEY OF ST. ANDREW'S. The prince's reception-room, although of no great size, was fitted up with all the state and luxury which the fame and power of its owner demanded. A high dais at the further end was roofed in by a broad canopy of scarlet velvet spangled with silver fleurs-de-lis, and supported at either corner by silver rods. This was approached by four steps carpeted with the same material, while all round were scattered rich cushions, oriental mats and costly rugs of fur. The choicest tapestries which the looms of Arras could furnish draped the walls, whereon the battles of Judas Maccabaeus were set forth, with the Jewish warriors in plate of proof, with crest and lance and banderole, as the naive artists of the day were wont to depict them. A few rich settles and bancals, choicely carved and decorated with glazed leather hangings of the sort termed _or basane_, completed the furniture of the apartment, save that at one side of the dais there stood a lofty perch, upon which a cast of three solemn Prussian gerfalcons sat, hooded and jesseled, as silent and motionless as the royal fowler who stood beside them. In the centre of the dais were two very high chairs with dorserets, which arched forwards over the heads of the occupants, the whole covered with light-blue silk thickly powdered with golden stars. On that to the right sat a very tall and well formed man with red hair, a livid face, and a cold blue eye, which had in it something peculiarly sinister and menacing. He lounged back in a careless position, and yawned repeatedly as though heartily weary of the proceedings, stooping from time to time to fondle a shaggy Spanish greyhound which lay stretched at his feet. On the other throne there was perched bolt upright, with prim demeanor, as though he felt himself to be upon his good behavior, a little, round, pippin faced person, who smiled and bobbed to every one whose eye he chanced to meet. Between and a little in front of them on a humble charette or stool, sat a slim, dark young man, whose quiet attire and modest manner would scarce proclaim him to be the most noted prince in Europe. A jupon of dark blue cloth, tagged with buckles and pendants of gold, seemed but a sombre and plain attire amidst the wealth of silk and ermine and gilt tissue of fustian with which he was surrounded. He sat with his two hands clasped round his knee, his head slightly bent, and an expression of impatience and of trouble upon his clear, well-chiselled features. Behind the thrones there stood two men in purple gowns, with ascetic, clean-shaven faces, and half a dozen other high dignitaries and office-holders of Aquitaine. Below on either side of the steps were forty or fifty barons, knights, and courtiers, ranged in a triple row to the right and the left, with a clear passage in the centre. "There sits the prince," whispered Sir John Chandos, as they entered. "He on the right is Pedro, whom we are about to put upon the Spanish throne. The other is Don James, whom we purpose with the aid of God to help to his throne in Majorca. Now follow me, and take it not to heart if he be a little short in his speech, for indeed his mind is full of many very weighty concerns." The prince, however, had already observed their entrance, and, springing to his feet, he had advanced with a winning smile and the light of welcome in his eyes. "We do not need your good offices as herald here, Sir John," said he in a low but clear voice; "these valiant knights are very well known to me. Welcome to Aquitaine, Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver Buttesthorn. Nay, keep your knee for my sweet father at Windsor. I would have your hands, my friends. We are like to give you some work to do ere you see the downs of Hampshire once more. Know you aught of Spain, Sir Oliver?" "Nought, my sire, save that I have heard men say that there is a dish named an olla which is prepared there, though I have never been clear in my mind as to whether it was but a ragout such as is to be found in the south, or whether there is some seasoning such as fennel or garlic which is peculiar to Spain." "Your doubts, Sir Oliver, shall soon be resolved," answered the prince, laughing heartily, as did many of the barons who surrounded them. "His majesty here will doubtless order that you have this dish hotly seasoned when we are all safely in Castile." "I will have a hotly seasoned dish for some folk I know of," answered Don Pedro with a cold smile. "But my friend Sir Oliver can fight right hardily without either bite or sup," remarked the prince. "Did I not see him at Poictiers, when for two days we had not more than a crust of bread and a cup of foul water, yet carrying himself most valiantly. With my own eyes I saw him in the rout sweep the head from a knight of Picardy with one blow of his sword." "The rogue got between me and the nearest French victual wain," muttered Sir Oliver, amid a fresh titter from those who were near enough to catch his words. "How many have you in your train?" asked the prince, assuming a graver mien. "I have forty men-at-arms, sire," said Sir Oliver. "And I have one hundred archers and a score of lancers, but there are two hundred men who wait for me on this side of the water upon the borders of Navarre." "And who are they, Sir Nigel?" "They are a free company, sire, and they are called the White Company." To the astonishment of the knight, his words provoked a burst of merriment from the barons round, in which the two kings and the prince were fain to join. Sir Nigel blinked mildly from one to the other, until at last perceiving a stout black-bearded knight at his elbow, whose laugh rang somewhat louder than the others, he touched him lightly upon the sleeve. "Perchance, my fair sir," he whispered, "there is some small vow of which I may relieve you. Might we not have some honorable debate upon the matter. Your gentle courtesy may perhaps grant me an exchange of thrusts." "Nay, nay, Sir Nigel," cried the prince, "fasten not the offence upon Sir Robert Briquet, for we are one and all bogged in the same mire. Truth to say, our ears have just been vexed by the doings of the same company, and I have even now made vow to hang the man who held the rank of captain over it. I little thought to find him among the bravest of my own chosen chieftains. But the vow is now nought, for, as you have never seen your company, it would be a fool's act to blame you for their doings." "My liege," said Sir Nigel, "it is a very small matter that I should be hanged, albeit the manner of death is somewhat more ignoble than I had hoped for. On the other hand, it would be a very grievous thing that you, the Prince of England and the flower of knighthood, should make a vow, whether in ignorance or no, and fail to bring it to fulfilment." "Vex not your mind on that," the prince answered, smiling. "We have had a citizen from Montauban here this very day, who told us such a tale of sack and murder and pillage that it moved our blood; but our wrath was turned upon the man who was in authority over them." "My dear and honored master," cried Nigel, in great anxiety, "I fear me much that in your gentleness of heart you are straining this vow which you have taken. If there be so much as a shadow of a doubt as to the form of it, it were a thousand times best----" "Peace! peace!" cried the prince impatiently. "I am very well able to look to my own vows and their performance. We hope to see you both in the banquet-hall anon. Meanwhile you will attend upon us with our train." He bowed, and Chandos, plucking Sir Oliver by the sleeve, led them both away to the back of the press of courtiers. "Why, little coz," he whispered, "you are very eager to have your neck in a noose. By my soul! had you asked as much from our new ally Don Pedro, he had not baulked you. Between friends, there is overmuch of the hangman in him, and too little of the prince. But indeed this White Company is a rough band, and may take some handling ere you find yourself safe in your captaincy." "I doubt not, with the help of St. Paul, that I shall bring them to some order," Sir Nigel answered. "But there are many faces here which are new to me, though others have been before me since first I waited upon my dear master, Sir Walter. I pray you to tell me, Sir John, who are these priests upon the dais?" "The one is the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Nigel, and the other the Bishop of Agen." "And the dark knight with gray-streaked beard? By my troth, he seems to be a man of much wisdom and valor." "He is Sir William Felton, who, with my unworthy self, is the chief counsellor of the prince, he being high steward and I the seneschal of Aquitaine." "And the knights upon the right, beside Don Pedro?" "They are cavaliers of Spain who have followed him in his exile. The one at his elbow is Fernando de Castro, who is as brave and true a man as heart could wish. In front to the right are the Gascon lords. You may well tell them by their clouded brows, for there hath been some ill-will of late betwixt the prince and them. The tall and burly man is the Captal de Buch, whom I doubt not that you know, for a braver knight never laid lance in rest. That heavy-faced cavalier who plucks his skirts and whispers in his ear is Lord Oliver de Clisson, known also as the butcher. He it is who stirs up strife, and forever blows the dying embers into flame. The man with the mole upon his cheek is the Lord Pommers, and his two brothers stand behind him, with the Lord Lesparre, Lord de Rosem, Lord de Mucident, Sir Perducas d'Albret, the Souldich de la Trane, and others. Further back are knights from Quercy, Limousin, Saintonge, Poitou, and Aquitaine, with the valiant Sir Guiscard d'Angle. That is he in the rose-colored doublet with the ermine." "And the knights upon this side?" "They are all Englishmen, some of the household and others who like yourself, are captains of companies. There is Lord Neville, Sir Stephen Cossington, and Sir Matthew Gourney, with Sir Walter Huet, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Thomas Felton, who is the brother of the high steward. Mark well the man with the high nose and flaxen beard who hath placed his hand upon the shoulder of the dark hard-faced cavalier in the rust-stained jupon." "Aye, by St. Paul!" observed Sir Nigel, "they both bear the print of their armor upon their cotes-hardies. Methinks they are men who breathe freer in a camp than a court." "There are many of us who do that, Nigel," said Chandos, "and the head of the court is, I dare warrant, among them. But of these two men the one is Sir Hugh Calverley, and the other is Sir Robert Knolles." Sir Nigel and Sir Oliver craned their necks to have the clearer view of these famous warriors, the one a chosen leader of free companies, the other a man who by his fierce valor and energy had raised himself from the lowest ranks until he was second only to Chandos himself in the esteem of the army. "He hath no light hand in war, hath Sir Robert," said Chandos. "If he passes through a country you may tell it for some years to come. I have heard that in the north it is still the use to call a house which hath but the two gable ends left, without walls or roof, a Knolles' mitre." "I have often heard of him," said Nigel, "and I have hoped to be so far honored as to run a course with him. But hark, Sir John, what is amiss with the prince?" Whilst Chandos had been conversing with the two knights a continuous stream of suitors had been ushered in, adventurers seeking to sell their swords and merchants clamoring over some grievance, a ship detained for the carriage of troops, or a tun of sweet wine which had the bottom knocked out by a troop of thirsty archers. A few words from the prince disposed of each case, and, if the applicant liked not the judgment, a quick glance from the prince's dark eyes sent him to the door with the grievance all gone out of him. The younger ruler had sat listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character. "How now, Don Martin de la Carra?" he cried. "How now, sirrah? What message do you bring to us from our brother of Navarre?" The new-comer to whom this abrupt query had been addressed was a tall and exceedingly handsome cavalier who had just been ushered into the apartment. His swarthy cheek and raven black hair spoke of the fiery south, and he wore his long black cloak swathed across his chest and over his shoulders in a graceful sweeping fashion, which was neither English nor French. With stately steps and many profound bows, he advanced to the foot of the dais before replying to the prince's question. "My powerful and illustrious master," he began, "Charles, King of Navarre, Earl of Evreux, Count of Champagne, who also writeth himself Overlord of Bearn, hereby sends his love and greetings to his dear cousin Edward, the Prince of Wales, Governor of Aquitaine, Grand Commander of----" "Tush! tush! Don Martin!" interrupted the prince, who had been beating the ground with his foot impatiently during this stately preamble. "We already know our cousin's titles and style, and, certes, we know our own. To the point, man, and at once. Are the passes open to us, or does your master go back from his word pledged to me at Libourne no later than last Michaelmas?" "It would ill become my gracious master, sire, to go back from promise given. He does but ask some delay and certain conditions and hostages----" "Conditions! Hostages! Is he speaking to the Prince of England, or is it to the bourgeois provost of some half-captured town! Conditions, quotha? He may find much to mend in his own condition ere long. The passes are, then, closed to us?" "Nay, sire----" "They are open, then?" "Nay, sire, if you would but----" "Enough, enough, Don Martin," cried the prince. "It is a sorry sight to see so true a knight pleading in so false a cause. We know the doings of our cousin Charles. We know that while with the right hand he takes our fifty thousand crowns for the holding of the passes open, he hath his left outstretched to Henry of Trastamare, or to the King of France, all ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered horse. He is----" "My lord," cried Don Martin, "I cannot stand there to hear such words of my master. Did they come from other lips, I should know better how to answer them." Don Pedro frowned and curled his lip, but the prince smiled and nodded his approbation. "Your bearing and your words, Don Martin, are such I should have looked for in you," he remarked. "You will tell the king, your master, that he hath been paid his price and that if he holds to his promise he hath my word for it that no scath shall come to his people, nor to their houses or gear. If, however, we have not his leave, I shall come close at the heels of this message without his leave, and bearing a key with me which shall open all that he may close." He stooped and whispered to Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Huge Calverley, who smiled as men well pleased, and hastened from the room. "Our cousin Charles has had experience of our friendship," the prince continued, "and now, by the Saints! he shall feel a touch of our displeasure. I send now a message to our cousin Charles which his whole kingdom may read. Let him take heed lest worse befall him. Where is my Lord Chandos? Ha, Sir John, I commend this worthy knight to your care. You will see that he hath refection, and such a purse of gold as may defray his charges, for indeed it is great honor to any court to have within it so noble and gentle a cavalier. How say you, sire?" he asked, turning to the Spanish refugee, while the herald of Navarre was conducted from the chamber by the old warrior. "It is not our custom in Spain to reward pertness in a messenger," Don Pedro answered, patting the head of his greyhound. "Yet we have all heard the lengths to which your royal generosity runs." "In sooth, yes," cried the King of Majorca. "Who should know it better than we?" said Don Pedro bitterly, "since we have had to fly to you in our trouble as to the natural protector of all who are weak." "Nay, nay, as brothers to a brother," cried the prince, with sparkling eyes. "We doubt not, with the help of God, to see you very soon restored to those thrones from which you have been so traitorously thrust." "When that happy day comes," said Pedro, "then Spain shall be to you as Aquitaine, and, be your project what it may, you may ever count on every troop and every ship over which flies the banner of Castile." "And," added the other, "upon every aid which the wealth and power of Majorca can bestow." "Touching the hundred thousand crowns in which I stand your debtor," continued Pedro carelessly, "it can no doubt----" "Not a word, sire, not a word!" cried the prince. "It is not now when you are in grief that I would vex your mind with such base and sordid matters. I have said once and forever that I am yours with every bow-string of my army and every florin in my coffers." "Ah! here is indeed a mirror of chivalry," said Don Pedro. "I think, Sir Fernando, since the prince's bounty is stretched so far, that we may make further use of his gracious goodness to the extent of fifty thousand crowns. Good Sir William Felton, here, will doubtless settle the matter with you." The stout old English counsellor looked somewhat blank at this prompt acceptance of his master's bounty. "If it please you, sire," he said, "the public funds are at their lowest, seeing that I have paid twelve thousand men of the companies, and the new taxes--the hearth-tax and the wine-tax--not yet come in. If you could wait until the promised help from England comes----" "Nay, nay, my sweet cousin," cried Don Pedro. "Had we known that your own coffers were so low, or that this sorry sum could have weighed one way or the other, we had been loth indeed----" "Enough, sire, enough!" said the prince, flushing with vexation. "If the public funds be, indeed, so backward, Sir William, there is still, I trust, my own private credit, which hath never been drawn upon for my own uses, but is now ready in the cause of a friend in adversity. Go, raise this money upon our own jewels, if nought else may serve, and see that it be paid over to Don Fernando." "In security I offer----" cried Don Pedro. "Tush! tush!" said the prince. "I am not a Lombard, sire. Your kingly pledge is my security, without bond or seal. But I have tidings for you, my lords and lieges, that our brother of Lancaster is on his way for our capital with four hundred lances and as many archers to aid us in our venture. When he hath come, and when our fair consort is recovered in her health, which I trust by the grace of God may be ere many weeks be past, we shall then join the army at Dax, and set our banners to the breeze once more." A buzz of joy at the prospect of immediate action rose up from the group of warriors. The prince smiled at the martial ardor which shone upon every face around him. "It will hearten you to know," he continued, "that I have sure advices that this Henry is a very valiant leader, and that he has it in his power to make such a stand against us as promises to give us much honor and pleasure. Of his own people he hath brought together, as I learn, some fifty thousand, with twelve thousand of the French free companies, who are, as you know very valiant and expert men-at-arms. It is certain also, that the brave and worthy Bertrand de Guesclin hath ridden into France to the Duke of Anjou, and purposes to take back with him great levies from Picardy and Brittany. We hold Bertrand in high esteem, for he has oft before been at great pains to furnish us with an honorable encounter. What think you of it, my worthy Captal? He took you at Cocherel, and, by my soul! you will have the chance now to pay that score." The Gascon warrior winced a little at the allusion, nor were his countrymen around him better pleased, for on the only occasion when they had encountered the arms of France without English aid they had met with a heavy defeat. "There are some who say, sire," said the burly De Clisson, "that the score is already overpaid, for that without Gascon help Bertrand had not been taken at Auray, nor had King John been overborne at Poictiers." "By heaven! but this is too much," cried an English nobleman. "Methinks that Gascony is too small a cock to crow so lustily." "The smaller cock, my Lord Audley, may have the longer spur," remarked the Captal de Buch. "May have its comb clipped if it make over-much noise," broke in an Englishman. "By our Lady of Rocamadour!" cried the Lord of Mucident, "this is more than I can abide. Sir John Charnell, you shall answer to me for those words!" "Freely, my lord, and when you will," returned the Englishman carelessly. "My Lord de Clisson," cried Lord Audley, "you look somewhat fixedly in my direction. By God's soul! I should be right glad to go further into the matter with you." "And you, my Lord of Pommers," said Sir Nigel, pushing his way to the front, "it is in my mind that we might break a lance in gentle and honorable debate over the question." For a moment a dozen challenges flashed backwards and forwards at this sudden bursting of the cloud which had lowered so long between the knights of the two nations. Furious and gesticulating the Gascons, white and cold and sneering the English, while the prince with a half smile glanced from one party to the other, like a man who loved to dwell upon a fiery scene, and yet dreaded least the mischief go so far that he might find it beyond his control. "Friends, friends!" he cried at last, "this quarrel must go no further. The man shall answer to me, be he Gascon or English, who carries it beyond this room. I have overmuch need for your swords that you should turn them upon each other. Sir John Charnell, Lord Audley, you do not doubt the courage of our friends of Gascony?" "Not I, sire," Lord Audley answered. "I have seen them fight too often not to know that they are very hardy and valiant gentlemen." "And so say I," quoth the other Englishman; "but, certes, there is no fear of our forgetting it while they have a tongue in their heads." "Nay, Sir John," said the prince reprovingly, "all peoples have their own use and customs. There are some who might call us cold and dull and silent. But you hear, my lords of Gascony, that these gentlemen had no thought to throw a slur upon your honor or your valor, so let all anger fade from your mind. Clisson, Captal, De Pommers, I have your word?" "We are your subjects, sire," said the Gascon barons, though with no very good grace. "Your words are our law." "Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon of Malvoisie," said the prince, cheerily. "Ho, there! the doors of the banquet-hall! I have been over long from my sweet spouse but I shall be back with you anon. Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!" He turned away, accompanied by the two monarchs, while the rest of the company, with many a compressed lip and menacing eye, filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth. CHAPTER XX. HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD. Whilst the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England. "How is it with the old man at Windsor?" asked one. "And how with the good Queen Philippa?" "And how with Dame Alice Perrers?" cried a third. "The devil take your tongue, Wat!" shouted a tall young man, seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. "The prince would take your head off for those words." "By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little," said another. "It is as empty as a beggar's wallet." "As empty as an English squire, coz," cried the first speaker. "What a devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet." "Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least," observed another, amid a burst of laughter. "And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm," cried the aggrieved Humphrey. "But how of England, my lads of Loring?" "I take it," said Ford, "that it is much as it was when you were there last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there." "And why less noise, young Solomon?" "Ah, that is

blue

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years to his life? "Ha, my little heart of gold!" he cried, darting forward suddenly and throwing his arms round Sir Nigel. "I heard that you were here and have been seeking you." "My fair and dear lord," said the knight, returning the warrior's embrace, "I have indeed come back to you, for where else shall I go that I may learn to be a gentle and a hardy knight?" "By my troth!" said Chandos with a smile, "it is very fitting that we should be companions, Nigel, for since you have tied up one of your eyes, and I have had the mischance to lose one of mine, we have but a pair between us. Ah, Sir Oliver! you were on the blind side of me and I saw you not. A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me. We shall go in to the prince anon; but in truth he hath much upon his hands, for what with Pedro, and the King of Majorca, and the King of Navarre, who is no two days of the same mind, and the Gascon barons who are all chaffering for terms like so many hucksters, he hath an uneasy part to play. But how left you the Lady Loring?" "She was well, my fair lord, and sent her service and greetings to you." "I am ever her knight and slave. And your journey, I trust that it was pleasant?" "As heart could wish. We had sight of two rover galleys, and even came to have some slight bickering with them." "Ever in luck's way, Nigel!" quoth Sir John. "We must hear the tale anon. But I deem it best that ye should leave your squires and come with me, for, howsoe'er pressed the prince may be, I am very sure that he would be loth to keep two old comrades-in-arms upon the further side of the door. Follow close behind me, and I will forestall old Sir William, though I can scarce promise to roll forth your style and rank as is his wont." So saying, he led the way to the inner chamber, the two companions treading close at his heels, and nodding to right and left as they caught sight of familiar faces among the crowd. CHAPTER XIX. HOW THERE WAS STIR AT THE ABBEY OF ST. ANDREW'S. The prince's reception-room, although of no great size, was fitted up with all the state and luxury which the fame and power of its owner demanded. A high dais at the further end was roofed in by a broad canopy of scarlet velvet spangled with silver fleurs-de-lis, and supported at either corner by silver rods. This was approached by four steps carpeted with the same material, while all round were scattered rich cushions, oriental mats and costly rugs of fur. The choicest tapestries which the looms of Arras could furnish draped the walls, whereon the battles of Judas Maccabaeus were set forth, with the Jewish warriors in plate of proof, with crest and lance and banderole, as the naive artists of the day were wont to depict them. A few rich settles and bancals, choicely carved and decorated with glazed leather hangings of the sort termed _or basane_, completed the furniture of the apartment, save that at one side of the dais there stood a lofty perch, upon which a cast of three solemn Prussian gerfalcons sat, hooded and jesseled, as silent and motionless as the royal fowler who stood beside them. In the centre of the dais were two very high chairs with dorserets, which arched forwards over the heads of the occupants, the whole covered with light-blue silk thickly powdered with golden stars. On that to the right sat a very tall and well formed man with red hair, a livid face, and a cold blue eye, which had in it something peculiarly sinister and menacing. He lounged back in a careless position, and yawned repeatedly as though heartily weary of the proceedings, stooping from time to time to fondle a shaggy Spanish greyhound which lay stretched at his feet. On the other throne there was perched bolt upright, with prim demeanor, as though he felt himself to be upon his good behavior, a little, round, pippin faced person, who smiled and bobbed to every one whose eye he chanced to meet. Between and a little in front of them on a humble charette or stool, sat a slim, dark young man, whose quiet attire and modest manner would scarce proclaim him to be the most noted prince in Europe. A jupon of dark blue cloth, tagged with buckles and pendants of gold, seemed but a sombre and plain attire amidst the wealth of silk and ermine and gilt tissue of fustian with which he was surrounded. He sat with his two hands clasped round his knee, his head slightly bent, and an expression of impatience and of trouble upon his clear, well-chiselled features. Behind the thrones there stood two men in purple gowns, with ascetic, clean-shaven faces, and half a dozen other high dignitaries and office-holders of Aquitaine. Below on either side of the steps were forty or fifty barons, knights, and courtiers, ranged in a triple row to the right and the left, with a clear passage in the centre. "There sits the prince," whispered Sir John Chandos, as they entered. "He on the right is Pedro, whom we are about to put upon the Spanish throne. The other is Don James, whom we purpose with the aid of God to help to his throne in Majorca. Now follow me, and take it not to heart if he be a little short in his speech, for indeed his mind is full of many very weighty concerns." The prince, however, had already observed their entrance, and, springing to his feet, he had advanced with a winning smile and the light of welcome in his eyes. "We do not need your good offices as herald here, Sir John," said he in a low but clear voice; "these valiant knights are very well known to me. Welcome to Aquitaine, Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver Buttesthorn. Nay, keep your knee for my sweet father at Windsor. I would have your hands, my friends. We are like to give you some work to do ere you see the downs of Hampshire once more. Know you aught of Spain, Sir Oliver?" "Nought, my sire, save that I have heard men say that there is a dish named an olla which is prepared there, though I have never been clear in my mind as to whether it was but a ragout such as is to be found in the south, or whether there is some seasoning such as fennel or garlic which is peculiar to Spain." "Your doubts, Sir Oliver, shall soon be resolved," answered the prince, laughing heartily, as did many of the barons who surrounded them. "His majesty here will doubtless order that you have this dish hotly seasoned when we are all safely in Castile." "I will have a hotly seasoned dish for some folk I know of," answered Don Pedro with a cold smile. "But my friend Sir Oliver can fight right hardily without either bite or sup," remarked the prince. "Did I not see him at Poictiers, when for two days we had not more than a crust of bread and a cup of foul water, yet carrying himself most valiantly. With my own eyes I saw him in the rout sweep the head from a knight of Picardy with one blow of his sword." "The rogue got between me and the nearest French victual wain," muttered Sir Oliver, amid a fresh titter from those who were near enough to catch his words. "How many have you in your train?" asked the prince, assuming a graver mien. "I have forty men-at-arms, sire," said Sir Oliver. "And I have one hundred archers and a score of lancers, but there are two hundred men who wait for me on this side of the water upon the borders of Navarre." "And who are they, Sir Nigel?" "They are a free company, sire, and they are called the White Company." To the astonishment of the knight, his words provoked a burst of merriment from the barons round, in which the two kings and the prince were fain to join. Sir Nigel blinked mildly from one to the other, until at last perceiving a stout black-bearded knight at his elbow, whose laugh rang somewhat louder than the others, he touched him lightly upon the sleeve. "Perchance, my fair sir," he whispered, "there is some small vow of which I may relieve you. Might we not have some honorable debate upon the matter. Your gentle courtesy may perhaps grant me an exchange of thrusts." "Nay, nay, Sir Nigel," cried the prince, "fasten not the offence upon Sir Robert Briquet, for we are one and all bogged in the same mire. Truth to say, our ears have just been vexed by the doings of the same company, and I have even now made vow to hang the man who held the rank of captain over it. I little thought to find him among the bravest of my own chosen chieftains. But the vow is now nought, for, as you have never seen your company, it would be a fool's act to blame you for their doings." "My liege," said Sir Nigel, "it is a very small matter that I should be hanged, albeit the manner of death is somewhat more ignoble than I had hoped for. On the other hand, it would be a very grievous thing that you, the Prince of England and the flower of knighthood, should make a vow, whether in ignorance or no, and fail to bring it to fulfilment." "Vex not your mind on that," the prince answered, smiling. "We have had a citizen from Montauban here this very day, who told us such a tale of sack and murder and pillage that it moved our blood; but our wrath was turned upon the man who was in authority over them." "My dear and honored master," cried Nigel, in great anxiety, "I fear me much that in your gentleness of heart you are straining this vow which you have taken. If there be so much as a shadow of a doubt as to the form of it, it were a thousand times best----" "Peace! peace!" cried the prince impatiently. "I am very well able to look to my own vows and their performance. We hope to see you both in the banquet-hall anon. Meanwhile you will attend upon us with our train." He bowed, and Chandos, plucking Sir Oliver by the sleeve, led them both away to the back of the press of courtiers. "Why, little coz," he whispered, "you are very eager to have your neck in a noose. By my soul! had you asked as much from our new ally Don Pedro, he had not baulked you. Between friends, there is overmuch of the hangman in him, and too little of the prince. But indeed this White Company is a rough band, and may take some handling ere you find yourself safe in your captaincy." "I doubt not, with the help of St. Paul, that I shall bring them to some order," Sir Nigel answered. "But there are many faces here which are new to me, though others have been before me since first I waited upon my dear master, Sir Walter. I pray you to tell me, Sir John, who are these priests upon the dais?" "The one is the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Nigel, and the other the Bishop of Agen." "And the dark knight with gray-streaked beard? By my troth, he seems to be a man of much wisdom and valor." "He is Sir William Felton, who, with my unworthy self, is the chief counsellor of the prince, he being high steward and I the seneschal of Aquitaine." "And the knights upon the right, beside Don Pedro?" "They are cavaliers of Spain who have followed him in his exile. The one at his elbow is Fernando de Castro, who is as brave and true a man as heart could wish. In front to the right are the Gascon lords. You may well tell them by their clouded brows, for there hath been some ill-will of late betwixt the prince and them. The tall and burly man is the Captal de Buch, whom I doubt not that you know, for a braver knight never laid lance in rest. That heavy-faced cavalier who plucks his skirts and whispers in his ear is Lord Oliver de Clisson, known also as the butcher. He it is who stirs up strife, and forever blows the dying embers into flame. The man with the mole upon his cheek is the Lord Pommers, and his two brothers stand behind him, with the Lord Lesparre, Lord de Rosem, Lord de Mucident, Sir Perducas d'Albret, the Souldich de la Trane, and others. Further back are knights from Quercy, Limousin, Saintonge, Poitou, and Aquitaine, with the valiant Sir Guiscard d'Angle. That is he in the rose-colored doublet with the ermine." "And the knights upon this side?" "They are all Englishmen, some of the household and others who like yourself, are captains of companies. There is Lord Neville, Sir Stephen Cossington, and Sir Matthew Gourney, with Sir Walter Huet, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Thomas Felton, who is the brother of the high steward. Mark well the man with the high nose and flaxen beard who hath placed his hand upon the shoulder of the dark hard-faced cavalier in the rust-stained jupon." "Aye, by St. Paul!" observed Sir Nigel, "they both bear the print of their armor upon their cotes-hardies. Methinks they are men who breathe freer in a camp than a court." "There are many of us who do that, Nigel," said Chandos, "and the head of the court is, I dare warrant, among them. But of these two men the one is Sir Hugh Calverley, and the other is Sir Robert Knolles." Sir Nigel and Sir Oliver craned their necks to have the clearer view of these famous warriors, the one a chosen leader of free companies, the other a man who by his fierce valor and energy had raised himself from the lowest ranks until he was second only to Chandos himself in the esteem of the army. "He hath no light hand in war, hath Sir Robert," said Chandos. "If he passes through a country you may tell it for some years to come. I have heard that in the north it is still the use to call a house which hath but the two gable ends left, without walls or roof, a Knolles' mitre." "I have often heard of him," said Nigel, "and I have hoped to be so far honored as to run a course with him. But hark, Sir John, what is amiss with the prince?" Whilst Chandos had been conversing with the two knights a continuous stream of suitors had been ushered in, adventurers seeking to sell their swords and merchants clamoring over some grievance, a ship detained for the carriage of troops, or a tun of sweet wine which had the bottom knocked out by a troop of thirsty archers. A few words from the prince disposed of each case, and, if the applicant liked not the judgment, a quick glance from the prince's dark eyes sent him to the door with the grievance all gone out of him. The younger ruler had sat listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character. "How now, Don Martin de la Carra?" he cried. "How now, sirrah? What message do you bring to us from our brother of Navarre?" The new-comer to whom this abrupt query had been addressed was a tall and exceedingly handsome cavalier who had just been ushered into the apartment. His swarthy cheek and raven black hair spoke of the fiery south, and he wore his long black cloak swathed across his chest and over his shoulders in a graceful sweeping fashion, which was neither English nor French. With stately steps and many profound bows, he advanced to the foot of the dais before replying to the prince's question. "My powerful and illustrious master," he began, "Charles, King of Navarre, Earl of Evreux, Count of Champagne, who also writeth himself Overlord of Bearn, hereby sends his love and greetings to his dear cousin Edward, the Prince of Wales, Governor of Aquitaine, Grand Commander of----" "Tush! tush! Don Martin!" interrupted the prince, who had been beating the ground with his foot impatiently during this stately preamble. "We already know our cousin's titles and style, and, certes, we know our own. To the point, man, and at once. Are the passes open to us, or does your master go back from his word pledged to me at Libourne no later than last Michaelmas?" "It would ill become my gracious master, sire, to go back from promise given. He does but ask some delay and certain conditions and hostages----" "Conditions! Hostages! Is he speaking to the Prince of England, or is it to the bourgeois provost of some half-captured town! Conditions, quotha? He may find much to mend in his own condition ere long. The passes are, then, closed to us?" "Nay, sire----" "They are open, then?" "Nay, sire, if you would but----" "Enough, enough, Don Martin," cried the prince. "It is a sorry sight to see so true a knight pleading in so false a cause. We know the doings of our cousin Charles. We know that while with the right hand he takes our fifty thousand crowns for the holding of the passes open, he hath his left outstretched to Henry of Trastamare, or to the King of France, all ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered horse. He is----" "My lord," cried Don Martin, "I cannot stand there to hear such words of my master. Did they come from other lips, I should know better how to answer them." Don Pedro frowned and curled his lip, but the prince smiled and nodded his approbation. "Your bearing and your words, Don Martin, are such I should have looked for in you," he remarked. "You will tell the king, your master, that he hath been paid his price and that if he holds to his promise he hath my word for it that no scath shall come to his people, nor to their houses or gear. If, however, we have not his leave, I shall come close at the heels of this message without his leave, and bearing a key with me which shall open all that he may close." He stooped and whispered to Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Huge Calverley, who smiled as men well pleased, and hastened from the room. "Our cousin Charles has had experience of our friendship," the prince continued, "and now, by the Saints! he shall feel a touch of our displeasure. I send now a message to our cousin Charles which his whole kingdom may read. Let him take heed lest worse befall him. Where is my Lord Chandos? Ha, Sir John, I commend this worthy knight to your care. You will see that he hath refection, and such a purse of gold as may defray his charges, for indeed it is great honor to any court to have within it so noble and gentle a cavalier. How say you, sire?" he asked, turning to the Spanish refugee, while the herald of Navarre was conducted from the chamber by the old warrior. "It is not our custom in Spain to reward pertness in a messenger," Don Pedro answered, patting the head of his greyhound. "Yet we have all heard the lengths to which your royal generosity runs." "In sooth, yes," cried the King of Majorca. "Who should know it better than we?" said Don Pedro bitterly, "since we have had to fly to you in our trouble as to the natural protector of all who are weak." "Nay, nay, as brothers to a brother," cried the prince, with sparkling eyes. "We doubt not, with the help of God, to see you very soon restored to those thrones from which you have been so traitorously thrust." "When that happy day comes," said Pedro, "then Spain shall be to you as Aquitaine, and, be your project what it may, you may ever count on every troop and every ship over which flies the banner of Castile." "And," added the other, "upon every aid which the wealth and power of Majorca can bestow." "Touching the hundred thousand crowns in which I stand your debtor," continued Pedro carelessly, "it can no doubt----" "Not a word, sire, not a word!" cried the prince. "It is not now when you are in grief that I would vex your mind with such base and sordid matters. I have said once and forever that I am yours with every bow-string of my army and every florin in my coffers." "Ah! here is indeed a mirror of chivalry," said Don Pedro. "I think, Sir Fernando, since the prince's bounty is stretched so far, that we may make further use of his gracious goodness to the extent of fifty thousand crowns. Good Sir William Felton, here, will doubtless settle the matter with you." The stout old English counsellor looked somewhat blank at this prompt acceptance of his master's bounty. "If it please you, sire," he said, "the public funds are at their lowest, seeing that I have paid twelve thousand men of the companies, and the new taxes--the hearth-tax and the wine-tax--not yet come in. If you could wait until the promised help from England comes----" "Nay, nay, my sweet cousin," cried Don Pedro. "Had we known that your own coffers were so low, or that this sorry sum could have weighed one way or the other, we had been loth indeed----" "Enough, sire, enough!" said the prince, flushing with vexation. "If the public funds be, indeed, so backward, Sir William, there is still, I trust, my own private credit, which hath never been drawn upon for my own uses, but is now ready in the cause of a friend in adversity. Go, raise this money upon our own jewels, if nought else may serve, and see that it be paid over to Don Fernando." "In security I offer----" cried Don Pedro. "Tush! tush!" said the prince. "I am not a Lombard, sire. Your kingly pledge is my security, without bond or seal. But I have tidings for you, my lords and lieges, that our brother of Lancaster is on his way for our capital with four hundred lances and as many archers to aid us in our venture. When he hath come, and when our fair consort is recovered in her health, which I trust by the grace of God may be ere many weeks be past, we shall then join the army at Dax, and set our banners to the breeze once more." A buzz of joy at the prospect of immediate action rose up from the group of warriors. The prince smiled at the martial ardor which shone upon every face around him. "It will hearten you to know," he continued, "that I have sure advices that this Henry is a very valiant leader, and that he has it in his power to make such a stand against us as promises to give us much honor and pleasure. Of his own people he hath brought together, as I learn, some fifty thousand, with twelve thousand of the French free companies, who are, as you know very valiant and expert men-at-arms. It is certain also, that the brave and worthy Bertrand de Guesclin hath ridden into France to the Duke of Anjou, and purposes to take back with him great levies from Picardy and Brittany. We hold Bertrand in high esteem, for he has oft before been at great pains to furnish us with an honorable encounter. What think you of it, my worthy Captal? He took you at Cocherel, and, by my soul! you will have the chance now to pay that score." The Gascon warrior winced a little at the allusion, nor were his countrymen around him better pleased, for on the only occasion when they had encountered the arms of France without English aid they had met with a heavy defeat. "There are some who say, sire," said the burly De Clisson, "that the score is already overpaid, for that without Gascon help Bertrand had not been taken at Auray, nor had King John been overborne at Poictiers." "By heaven! but this is too much," cried an English nobleman. "Methinks that Gascony is too small a cock to crow so lustily." "The smaller cock, my Lord Audley, may have the longer spur," remarked the Captal de Buch. "May have its comb clipped if it make over-much noise," broke in an Englishman. "By our Lady of Rocamadour!" cried the Lord of Mucident, "this is more than I can abide. Sir John Charnell, you shall answer to me for those words!" "Freely, my lord, and when you will," returned the Englishman carelessly. "My Lord de Clisson," cried Lord Audley, "you look somewhat fixedly in my direction. By God's soul! I should be right glad to go further into the matter with you." "And you, my Lord of Pommers," said Sir Nigel, pushing his way to the front, "it is in my mind that we might break a lance in gentle and honorable debate over the question." For a moment a dozen challenges flashed backwards and forwards at this sudden bursting of the cloud which had lowered so long between the knights of the two nations. Furious and gesticulating the Gascons, white and cold and sneering the English, while the prince with a half smile glanced from one party to the other, like a man who loved to dwell upon a fiery scene, and yet dreaded least the mischief go so far that he might find it beyond his control. "Friends, friends!" he cried at last, "this quarrel must go no further. The man shall answer to me, be he Gascon or English, who carries it beyond this room. I have overmuch need for your swords that you should turn them upon each other. Sir John Charnell, Lord Audley, you do not doubt the courage of our friends of Gascony?" "Not I, sire," Lord Audley answered. "I have seen them fight too often not to know that they are very hardy and valiant gentlemen." "And so say I," quoth the other Englishman; "but, certes, there is no fear of our forgetting it while they have a tongue in their heads." "Nay, Sir John," said the prince reprovingly, "all peoples have their own use and customs. There are some who might call us cold and dull and silent. But you hear, my lords of Gascony, that these gentlemen had no thought to throw a slur upon your honor or your valor, so let all anger fade from your mind. Clisson, Captal, De Pommers, I have your word?" "We are your subjects, sire," said the Gascon barons, though with no very good grace. "Your words are our law." "Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon of Malvoisie," said the prince, cheerily. "Ho, there! the doors of the banquet-hall! I have been over long from my sweet spouse but I shall be back with you anon. Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!" He turned away, accompanied by the two monarchs, while the rest of the company, with many a compressed lip and menacing eye, filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth. CHAPTER XX. HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD. Whilst the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England. "How is it with the old man at Windsor?" asked one. "And how with the good Queen Philippa?" "And how with Dame Alice Perrers?" cried a third. "The devil take your tongue, Wat!" shouted a tall young man, seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. "The prince would take your head off for those words." "By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little," said another. "It is as empty as a beggar's wallet." "As empty as an English squire, coz," cried the first speaker. "What a devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet." "Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least," observed another, amid a burst of laughter. "And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm," cried the aggrieved Humphrey. "But how of England, my lads of Loring?" "I take it," said Ford, "that it is much as it was when you were there last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there." "And why less noise, young Solomon?" "Ah, that is

blame

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

years to his life? "Ha, my little heart of gold!" he cried, darting forward suddenly and throwing his arms round Sir Nigel. "I heard that you were here and have been seeking you." "My fair and dear lord," said the knight, returning the warrior's embrace, "I have indeed come back to you, for where else shall I go that I may learn to be a gentle and a hardy knight?" "By my troth!" said Chandos with a smile, "it is very fitting that we should be companions, Nigel, for since you have tied up one of your eyes, and I have had the mischance to lose one of mine, we have but a pair between us. Ah, Sir Oliver! you were on the blind side of me and I saw you not. A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me. We shall go in to the prince anon; but in truth he hath much upon his hands, for what with Pedro, and the King of Majorca, and the King of Navarre, who is no two days of the same mind, and the Gascon barons who are all chaffering for terms like so many hucksters, he hath an uneasy part to play. But how left you the Lady Loring?" "She was well, my fair lord, and sent her service and greetings to you." "I am ever her knight and slave. And your journey, I trust that it was pleasant?" "As heart could wish. We had sight of two rover galleys, and even came to have some slight bickering with them." "Ever in luck's way, Nigel!" quoth Sir John. "We must hear the tale anon. But I deem it best that ye should leave your squires and come with me, for, howsoe'er pressed the prince may be, I am very sure that he would be loth to keep two old comrades-in-arms upon the further side of the door. Follow close behind me, and I will forestall old Sir William, though I can scarce promise to roll forth your style and rank as is his wont." So saying, he led the way to the inner chamber, the two companions treading close at his heels, and nodding to right and left as they caught sight of familiar faces among the crowd. CHAPTER XIX. HOW THERE WAS STIR AT THE ABBEY OF ST. ANDREW'S. The prince's reception-room, although of no great size, was fitted up with all the state and luxury which the fame and power of its owner demanded. A high dais at the further end was roofed in by a broad canopy of scarlet velvet spangled with silver fleurs-de-lis, and supported at either corner by silver rods. This was approached by four steps carpeted with the same material, while all round were scattered rich cushions, oriental mats and costly rugs of fur. The choicest tapestries which the looms of Arras could furnish draped the walls, whereon the battles of Judas Maccabaeus were set forth, with the Jewish warriors in plate of proof, with crest and lance and banderole, as the naive artists of the day were wont to depict them. A few rich settles and bancals, choicely carved and decorated with glazed leather hangings of the sort termed _or basane_, completed the furniture of the apartment, save that at one side of the dais there stood a lofty perch, upon which a cast of three solemn Prussian gerfalcons sat, hooded and jesseled, as silent and motionless as the royal fowler who stood beside them. In the centre of the dais were two very high chairs with dorserets, which arched forwards over the heads of the occupants, the whole covered with light-blue silk thickly powdered with golden stars. On that to the right sat a very tall and well formed man with red hair, a livid face, and a cold blue eye, which had in it something peculiarly sinister and menacing. He lounged back in a careless position, and yawned repeatedly as though heartily weary of the proceedings, stooping from time to time to fondle a shaggy Spanish greyhound which lay stretched at his feet. On the other throne there was perched bolt upright, with prim demeanor, as though he felt himself to be upon his good behavior, a little, round, pippin faced person, who smiled and bobbed to every one whose eye he chanced to meet. Between and a little in front of them on a humble charette or stool, sat a slim, dark young man, whose quiet attire and modest manner would scarce proclaim him to be the most noted prince in Europe. A jupon of dark blue cloth, tagged with buckles and pendants of gold, seemed but a sombre and plain attire amidst the wealth of silk and ermine and gilt tissue of fustian with which he was surrounded. He sat with his two hands clasped round his knee, his head slightly bent, and an expression of impatience and of trouble upon his clear, well-chiselled features. Behind the thrones there stood two men in purple gowns, with ascetic, clean-shaven faces, and half a dozen other high dignitaries and office-holders of Aquitaine. Below on either side of the steps were forty or fifty barons, knights, and courtiers, ranged in a triple row to the right and the left, with a clear passage in the centre. "There sits the prince," whispered Sir John Chandos, as they entered. "He on the right is Pedro, whom we are about to put upon the Spanish throne. The other is Don James, whom we purpose with the aid of God to help to his throne in Majorca. Now follow me, and take it not to heart if he be a little short in his speech, for indeed his mind is full of many very weighty concerns." The prince, however, had already observed their entrance, and, springing to his feet, he had advanced with a winning smile and the light of welcome in his eyes. "We do not need your good offices as herald here, Sir John," said he in a low but clear voice; "these valiant knights are very well known to me. Welcome to Aquitaine, Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver Buttesthorn. Nay, keep your knee for my sweet father at Windsor. I would have your hands, my friends. We are like to give you some work to do ere you see the downs of Hampshire once more. Know you aught of Spain, Sir Oliver?" "Nought, my sire, save that I have heard men say that there is a dish named an olla which is prepared there, though I have never been clear in my mind as to whether it was but a ragout such as is to be found in the south, or whether there is some seasoning such as fennel or garlic which is peculiar to Spain." "Your doubts, Sir Oliver, shall soon be resolved," answered the prince, laughing heartily, as did many of the barons who surrounded them. "His majesty here will doubtless order that you have this dish hotly seasoned when we are all safely in Castile." "I will have a hotly seasoned dish for some folk I know of," answered Don Pedro with a cold smile. "But my friend Sir Oliver can fight right hardily without either bite or sup," remarked the prince. "Did I not see him at Poictiers, when for two days we had not more than a crust of bread and a cup of foul water, yet carrying himself most valiantly. With my own eyes I saw him in the rout sweep the head from a knight of Picardy with one blow of his sword." "The rogue got between me and the nearest French victual wain," muttered Sir Oliver, amid a fresh titter from those who were near enough to catch his words. "How many have you in your train?" asked the prince, assuming a graver mien. "I have forty men-at-arms, sire," said Sir Oliver. "And I have one hundred archers and a score of lancers, but there are two hundred men who wait for me on this side of the water upon the borders of Navarre." "And who are they, Sir Nigel?" "They are a free company, sire, and they are called the White Company." To the astonishment of the knight, his words provoked a burst of merriment from the barons round, in which the two kings and the prince were fain to join. Sir Nigel blinked mildly from one to the other, until at last perceiving a stout black-bearded knight at his elbow, whose laugh rang somewhat louder than the others, he touched him lightly upon the sleeve. "Perchance, my fair sir," he whispered, "there is some small vow of which I may relieve you. Might we not have some honorable debate upon the matter. Your gentle courtesy may perhaps grant me an exchange of thrusts." "Nay, nay, Sir Nigel," cried the prince, "fasten not the offence upon Sir Robert Briquet, for we are one and all bogged in the same mire. Truth to say, our ears have just been vexed by the doings of the same company, and I have even now made vow to hang the man who held the rank of captain over it. I little thought to find him among the bravest of my own chosen chieftains. But the vow is now nought, for, as you have never seen your company, it would be a fool's act to blame you for their doings." "My liege," said Sir Nigel, "it is a very small matter that I should be hanged, albeit the manner of death is somewhat more ignoble than I had hoped for. On the other hand, it would be a very grievous thing that you, the Prince of England and the flower of knighthood, should make a vow, whether in ignorance or no, and fail to bring it to fulfilment." "Vex not your mind on that," the prince answered, smiling. "We have had a citizen from Montauban here this very day, who told us such a tale of sack and murder and pillage that it moved our blood; but our wrath was turned upon the man who was in authority over them." "My dear and honored master," cried Nigel, in great anxiety, "I fear me much that in your gentleness of heart you are straining this vow which you have taken. If there be so much as a shadow of a doubt as to the form of it, it were a thousand times best----" "Peace! peace!" cried the prince impatiently. "I am very well able to look to my own vows and their performance. We hope to see you both in the banquet-hall anon. Meanwhile you will attend upon us with our train." He bowed, and Chandos, plucking Sir Oliver by the sleeve, led them both away to the back of the press of courtiers. "Why, little coz," he whispered, "you are very eager to have your neck in a noose. By my soul! had you asked as much from our new ally Don Pedro, he had not baulked you. Between friends, there is overmuch of the hangman in him, and too little of the prince. But indeed this White Company is a rough band, and may take some handling ere you find yourself safe in your captaincy." "I doubt not, with the help of St. Paul, that I shall bring them to some order," Sir Nigel answered. "But there are many faces here which are new to me, though others have been before me since first I waited upon my dear master, Sir Walter. I pray you to tell me, Sir John, who are these priests upon the dais?" "The one is the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Nigel, and the other the Bishop of Agen." "And the dark knight with gray-streaked beard? By my troth, he seems to be a man of much wisdom and valor." "He is Sir William Felton, who, with my unworthy self, is the chief counsellor of the prince, he being high steward and I the seneschal of Aquitaine." "And the knights upon the right, beside Don Pedro?" "They are cavaliers of Spain who have followed him in his exile. The one at his elbow is Fernando de Castro, who is as brave and true a man as heart could wish. In front to the right are the Gascon lords. You may well tell them by their clouded brows, for there hath been some ill-will of late betwixt the prince and them. The tall and burly man is the Captal de Buch, whom I doubt not that you know, for a braver knight never laid lance in rest. That heavy-faced cavalier who plucks his skirts and whispers in his ear is Lord Oliver de Clisson, known also as the butcher. He it is who stirs up strife, and forever blows the dying embers into flame. The man with the mole upon his cheek is the Lord Pommers, and his two brothers stand behind him, with the Lord Lesparre, Lord de Rosem, Lord de Mucident, Sir Perducas d'Albret, the Souldich de la Trane, and others. Further back are knights from Quercy, Limousin, Saintonge, Poitou, and Aquitaine, with the valiant Sir Guiscard d'Angle. That is he in the rose-colored doublet with the ermine." "And the knights upon this side?" "They are all Englishmen, some of the household and others who like yourself, are captains of companies. There is Lord Neville, Sir Stephen Cossington, and Sir Matthew Gourney, with Sir Walter Huet, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Thomas Felton, who is the brother of the high steward. Mark well the man with the high nose and flaxen beard who hath placed his hand upon the shoulder of the dark hard-faced cavalier in the rust-stained jupon." "Aye, by St. Paul!" observed Sir Nigel, "they both bear the print of their armor upon their cotes-hardies. Methinks they are men who breathe freer in a camp than a court." "There are many of us who do that, Nigel," said Chandos, "and the head of the court is, I dare warrant, among them. But of these two men the one is Sir Hugh Calverley, and the other is Sir Robert Knolles." Sir Nigel and Sir Oliver craned their necks to have the clearer view of these famous warriors, the one a chosen leader of free companies, the other a man who by his fierce valor and energy had raised himself from the lowest ranks until he was second only to Chandos himself in the esteem of the army. "He hath no light hand in war, hath Sir Robert," said Chandos. "If he passes through a country you may tell it for some years to come. I have heard that in the north it is still the use to call a house which hath but the two gable ends left, without walls or roof, a Knolles' mitre." "I have often heard of him," said Nigel, "and I have hoped to be so far honored as to run a course with him. But hark, Sir John, what is amiss with the prince?" Whilst Chandos had been conversing with the two knights a continuous stream of suitors had been ushered in, adventurers seeking to sell their swords and merchants clamoring over some grievance, a ship detained for the carriage of troops, or a tun of sweet wine which had the bottom knocked out by a troop of thirsty archers. A few words from the prince disposed of each case, and, if the applicant liked not the judgment, a quick glance from the prince's dark eyes sent him to the door with the grievance all gone out of him. The younger ruler had sat listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character. "How now, Don Martin de la Carra?" he cried. "How now, sirrah? What message do you bring to us from our brother of Navarre?" The new-comer to whom this abrupt query had been addressed was a tall and exceedingly handsome cavalier who had just been ushered into the apartment. His swarthy cheek and raven black hair spoke of the fiery south, and he wore his long black cloak swathed across his chest and over his shoulders in a graceful sweeping fashion, which was neither English nor French. With stately steps and many profound bows, he advanced to the foot of the dais before replying to the prince's question. "My powerful and illustrious master," he began, "Charles, King of Navarre, Earl of Evreux, Count of Champagne, who also writeth himself Overlord of Bearn, hereby sends his love and greetings to his dear cousin Edward, the Prince of Wales, Governor of Aquitaine, Grand Commander of----" "Tush! tush! Don Martin!" interrupted the prince, who had been beating the ground with his foot impatiently during this stately preamble. "We already know our cousin's titles and style, and, certes, we know our own. To the point, man, and at once. Are the passes open to us, or does your master go back from his word pledged to me at Libourne no later than last Michaelmas?" "It would ill become my gracious master, sire, to go back from promise given. He does but ask some delay and certain conditions and hostages----" "Conditions! Hostages! Is he speaking to the Prince of England, or is it to the bourgeois provost of some half-captured town! Conditions, quotha? He may find much to mend in his own condition ere long. The passes are, then, closed to us?" "Nay, sire----" "They are open, then?" "Nay, sire, if you would but----" "Enough, enough, Don Martin," cried the prince. "It is a sorry sight to see so true a knight pleading in so false a cause. We know the doings of our cousin Charles. We know that while with the right hand he takes our fifty thousand crowns for the holding of the passes open, he hath his left outstretched to Henry of Trastamare, or to the King of France, all ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered horse. He is----" "My lord," cried Don Martin, "I cannot stand there to hear such words of my master. Did they come from other lips, I should know better how to answer them." Don Pedro frowned and curled his lip, but the prince smiled and nodded his approbation. "Your bearing and your words, Don Martin, are such I should have looked for in you," he remarked. "You will tell the king, your master, that he hath been paid his price and that if he holds to his promise he hath my word for it that no scath shall come to his people, nor to their houses or gear. If, however, we have not his leave, I shall come close at the heels of this message without his leave, and bearing a key with me which shall open all that he may close." He stooped and whispered to Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Huge Calverley, who smiled as men well pleased, and hastened from the room. "Our cousin Charles has had experience of our friendship," the prince continued, "and now, by the Saints! he shall feel a touch of our displeasure. I send now a message to our cousin Charles which his whole kingdom may read. Let him take heed lest worse befall him. Where is my Lord Chandos? Ha, Sir John, I commend this worthy knight to your care. You will see that he hath refection, and such a purse of gold as may defray his charges, for indeed it is great honor to any court to have within it so noble and gentle a cavalier. How say you, sire?" he asked, turning to the Spanish refugee, while the herald of Navarre was conducted from the chamber by the old warrior. "It is not our custom in Spain to reward pertness in a messenger," Don Pedro answered, patting the head of his greyhound. "Yet we have all heard the lengths to which your royal generosity runs." "In sooth, yes," cried the King of Majorca. "Who should know it better than we?" said Don Pedro bitterly, "since we have had to fly to you in our trouble as to the natural protector of all who are weak." "Nay, nay, as brothers to a brother," cried the prince, with sparkling eyes. "We doubt not, with the help of God, to see you very soon restored to those thrones from which you have been so traitorously thrust." "When that happy day comes," said Pedro, "then Spain shall be to you as Aquitaine, and, be your project what it may, you may ever count on every troop and every ship over which flies the banner of Castile." "And," added the other, "upon every aid which the wealth and power of Majorca can bestow." "Touching the hundred thousand crowns in which I stand your debtor," continued Pedro carelessly, "it can no doubt----" "Not a word, sire, not a word!" cried the prince. "It is not now when you are in grief that I would vex your mind with such base and sordid matters. I have said once and forever that I am yours with every bow-string of my army and every florin in my coffers." "Ah! here is indeed a mirror of chivalry," said Don Pedro. "I think, Sir Fernando, since the prince's bounty is stretched so far, that we may make further use of his gracious goodness to the extent of fifty thousand crowns. Good Sir William Felton, here, will doubtless settle the matter with you." The stout old English counsellor looked somewhat blank at this prompt acceptance of his master's bounty. "If it please you, sire," he said, "the public funds are at their lowest, seeing that I have paid twelve thousand men of the companies, and the new taxes--the hearth-tax and the wine-tax--not yet come in. If you could wait until the promised help from England comes----" "Nay, nay, my sweet cousin," cried Don Pedro. "Had we known that your own coffers were so low, or that this sorry sum could have weighed one way or the other, we had been loth indeed----" "Enough, sire, enough!" said the prince, flushing with vexation. "If the public funds be, indeed, so backward, Sir William, there is still, I trust, my own private credit, which hath never been drawn upon for my own uses, but is now ready in the cause of a friend in adversity. Go, raise this money upon our own jewels, if nought else may serve, and see that it be paid over to Don Fernando." "In security I offer----" cried Don Pedro. "Tush! tush!" said the prince. "I am not a Lombard, sire. Your kingly pledge is my security, without bond or seal. But I have tidings for you, my lords and lieges, that our brother of Lancaster is on his way for our capital with four hundred lances and as many archers to aid us in our venture. When he hath come, and when our fair consort is recovered in her health, which I trust by the grace of God may be ere many weeks be past, we shall then join the army at Dax, and set our banners to the breeze once more." A buzz of joy at the prospect of immediate action rose up from the group of warriors. The prince smiled at the martial ardor which shone upon every face around him. "It will hearten you to know," he continued, "that I have sure advices that this Henry is a very valiant leader, and that he has it in his power to make such a stand against us as promises to give us much honor and pleasure. Of his own people he hath brought together, as I learn, some fifty thousand, with twelve thousand of the French free companies, who are, as you know very valiant and expert men-at-arms. It is certain also, that the brave and worthy Bertrand de Guesclin hath ridden into France to the Duke of Anjou, and purposes to take back with him great levies from Picardy and Brittany. We hold Bertrand in high esteem, for he has oft before been at great pains to furnish us with an honorable encounter. What think you of it, my worthy Captal? He took you at Cocherel, and, by my soul! you will have the chance now to pay that score." The Gascon warrior winced a little at the allusion, nor were his countrymen around him better pleased, for on the only occasion when they had encountered the arms of France without English aid they had met with a heavy defeat. "There are some who say, sire," said the burly De Clisson, "that the score is already overpaid, for that without Gascon help Bertrand had not been taken at Auray, nor had King John been overborne at Poictiers." "By heaven! but this is too much," cried an English nobleman. "Methinks that Gascony is too small a cock to crow so lustily." "The smaller cock, my Lord Audley, may have the longer spur," remarked the Captal de Buch. "May have its comb clipped if it make over-much noise," broke in an Englishman. "By our Lady of Rocamadour!" cried the Lord of Mucident, "this is more than I can abide. Sir John Charnell, you shall answer to me for those words!" "Freely, my lord, and when you will," returned the Englishman carelessly. "My Lord de Clisson," cried Lord Audley, "you look somewhat fixedly in my direction. By God's soul! I should be right glad to go further into the matter with you." "And you, my Lord of Pommers," said Sir Nigel, pushing his way to the front, "it is in my mind that we might break a lance in gentle and honorable debate over the question." For a moment a dozen challenges flashed backwards and forwards at this sudden bursting of the cloud which had lowered so long between the knights of the two nations. Furious and gesticulating the Gascons, white and cold and sneering the English, while the prince with a half smile glanced from one party to the other, like a man who loved to dwell upon a fiery scene, and yet dreaded least the mischief go so far that he might find it beyond his control. "Friends, friends!" he cried at last, "this quarrel must go no further. The man shall answer to me, be he Gascon or English, who carries it beyond this room. I have overmuch need for your swords that you should turn them upon each other. Sir John Charnell, Lord Audley, you do not doubt the courage of our friends of Gascony?" "Not I, sire," Lord Audley answered. "I have seen them fight too often not to know that they are very hardy and valiant gentlemen." "And so say I," quoth the other Englishman; "but, certes, there is no fear of our forgetting it while they have a tongue in their heads." "Nay, Sir John," said the prince reprovingly, "all peoples have their own use and customs. There are some who might call us cold and dull and silent. But you hear, my lords of Gascony, that these gentlemen had no thought to throw a slur upon your honor or your valor, so let all anger fade from your mind. Clisson, Captal, De Pommers, I have your word?" "We are your subjects, sire," said the Gascon barons, though with no very good grace. "Your words are our law." "Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon of Malvoisie," said the prince, cheerily. "Ho, there! the doors of the banquet-hall! I have been over long from my sweet spouse but I shall be back with you anon. Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!" He turned away, accompanied by the two monarchs, while the rest of the company, with many a compressed lip and menacing eye, filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth. CHAPTER XX. HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD. Whilst the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England. "How is it with the old man at Windsor?" asked one. "And how with the good Queen Philippa?" "And how with Dame Alice Perrers?" cried a third. "The devil take your tongue, Wat!" shouted a tall young man, seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. "The prince would take your head off for those words." "By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little," said another. "It is as empty as a beggar's wallet." "As empty as an English squire, coz," cried the first speaker. "What a devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet." "Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least," observed another, amid a burst of laughter. "And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm," cried the aggrieved Humphrey. "But how of England, my lads of Loring?" "I take it," said Ford, "that it is much as it was when you were there last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there." "And why less noise, young Solomon?" "Ah, that is

clearly

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

years to his life? "Ha, my little heart of gold!" he cried, darting forward suddenly and throwing his arms round Sir Nigel. "I heard that you were here and have been seeking you." "My fair and dear lord," said the knight, returning the warrior's embrace, "I have indeed come back to you, for where else shall I go that I may learn to be a gentle and a hardy knight?" "By my troth!" said Chandos with a smile, "it is very fitting that we should be companions, Nigel, for since you have tied up one of your eyes, and I have had the mischance to lose one of mine, we have but a pair between us. Ah, Sir Oliver! you were on the blind side of me and I saw you not. A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me. We shall go in to the prince anon; but in truth he hath much upon his hands, for what with Pedro, and the King of Majorca, and the King of Navarre, who is no two days of the same mind, and the Gascon barons who are all chaffering for terms like so many hucksters, he hath an uneasy part to play. But how left you the Lady Loring?" "She was well, my fair lord, and sent her service and greetings to you." "I am ever her knight and slave. And your journey, I trust that it was pleasant?" "As heart could wish. We had sight of two rover galleys, and even came to have some slight bickering with them." "Ever in luck's way, Nigel!" quoth Sir John. "We must hear the tale anon. But I deem it best that ye should leave your squires and come with me, for, howsoe'er pressed the prince may be, I am very sure that he would be loth to keep two old comrades-in-arms upon the further side of the door. Follow close behind me, and I will forestall old Sir William, though I can scarce promise to roll forth your style and rank as is his wont." So saying, he led the way to the inner chamber, the two companions treading close at his heels, and nodding to right and left as they caught sight of familiar faces among the crowd. CHAPTER XIX. HOW THERE WAS STIR AT THE ABBEY OF ST. ANDREW'S. The prince's reception-room, although of no great size, was fitted up with all the state and luxury which the fame and power of its owner demanded. A high dais at the further end was roofed in by a broad canopy of scarlet velvet spangled with silver fleurs-de-lis, and supported at either corner by silver rods. This was approached by four steps carpeted with the same material, while all round were scattered rich cushions, oriental mats and costly rugs of fur. The choicest tapestries which the looms of Arras could furnish draped the walls, whereon the battles of Judas Maccabaeus were set forth, with the Jewish warriors in plate of proof, with crest and lance and banderole, as the naive artists of the day were wont to depict them. A few rich settles and bancals, choicely carved and decorated with glazed leather hangings of the sort termed _or basane_, completed the furniture of the apartment, save that at one side of the dais there stood a lofty perch, upon which a cast of three solemn Prussian gerfalcons sat, hooded and jesseled, as silent and motionless as the royal fowler who stood beside them. In the centre of the dais were two very high chairs with dorserets, which arched forwards over the heads of the occupants, the whole covered with light-blue silk thickly powdered with golden stars. On that to the right sat a very tall and well formed man with red hair, a livid face, and a cold blue eye, which had in it something peculiarly sinister and menacing. He lounged back in a careless position, and yawned repeatedly as though heartily weary of the proceedings, stooping from time to time to fondle a shaggy Spanish greyhound which lay stretched at his feet. On the other throne there was perched bolt upright, with prim demeanor, as though he felt himself to be upon his good behavior, a little, round, pippin faced person, who smiled and bobbed to every one whose eye he chanced to meet. Between and a little in front of them on a humble charette or stool, sat a slim, dark young man, whose quiet attire and modest manner would scarce proclaim him to be the most noted prince in Europe. A jupon of dark blue cloth, tagged with buckles and pendants of gold, seemed but a sombre and plain attire amidst the wealth of silk and ermine and gilt tissue of fustian with which he was surrounded. He sat with his two hands clasped round his knee, his head slightly bent, and an expression of impatience and of trouble upon his clear, well-chiselled features. Behind the thrones there stood two men in purple gowns, with ascetic, clean-shaven faces, and half a dozen other high dignitaries and office-holders of Aquitaine. Below on either side of the steps were forty or fifty barons, knights, and courtiers, ranged in a triple row to the right and the left, with a clear passage in the centre. "There sits the prince," whispered Sir John Chandos, as they entered. "He on the right is Pedro, whom we are about to put upon the Spanish throne. The other is Don James, whom we purpose with the aid of God to help to his throne in Majorca. Now follow me, and take it not to heart if he be a little short in his speech, for indeed his mind is full of many very weighty concerns." The prince, however, had already observed their entrance, and, springing to his feet, he had advanced with a winning smile and the light of welcome in his eyes. "We do not need your good offices as herald here, Sir John," said he in a low but clear voice; "these valiant knights are very well known to me. Welcome to Aquitaine, Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver Buttesthorn. Nay, keep your knee for my sweet father at Windsor. I would have your hands, my friends. We are like to give you some work to do ere you see the downs of Hampshire once more. Know you aught of Spain, Sir Oliver?" "Nought, my sire, save that I have heard men say that there is a dish named an olla which is prepared there, though I have never been clear in my mind as to whether it was but a ragout such as is to be found in the south, or whether there is some seasoning such as fennel or garlic which is peculiar to Spain." "Your doubts, Sir Oliver, shall soon be resolved," answered the prince, laughing heartily, as did many of the barons who surrounded them. "His majesty here will doubtless order that you have this dish hotly seasoned when we are all safely in Castile." "I will have a hotly seasoned dish for some folk I know of," answered Don Pedro with a cold smile. "But my friend Sir Oliver can fight right hardily without either bite or sup," remarked the prince. "Did I not see him at Poictiers, when for two days we had not more than a crust of bread and a cup of foul water, yet carrying himself most valiantly. With my own eyes I saw him in the rout sweep the head from a knight of Picardy with one blow of his sword." "The rogue got between me and the nearest French victual wain," muttered Sir Oliver, amid a fresh titter from those who were near enough to catch his words. "How many have you in your train?" asked the prince, assuming a graver mien. "I have forty men-at-arms, sire," said Sir Oliver. "And I have one hundred archers and a score of lancers, but there are two hundred men who wait for me on this side of the water upon the borders of Navarre." "And who are they, Sir Nigel?" "They are a free company, sire, and they are called the White Company." To the astonishment of the knight, his words provoked a burst of merriment from the barons round, in which the two kings and the prince were fain to join. Sir Nigel blinked mildly from one to the other, until at last perceiving a stout black-bearded knight at his elbow, whose laugh rang somewhat louder than the others, he touched him lightly upon the sleeve. "Perchance, my fair sir," he whispered, "there is some small vow of which I may relieve you. Might we not have some honorable debate upon the matter. Your gentle courtesy may perhaps grant me an exchange of thrusts." "Nay, nay, Sir Nigel," cried the prince, "fasten not the offence upon Sir Robert Briquet, for we are one and all bogged in the same mire. Truth to say, our ears have just been vexed by the doings of the same company, and I have even now made vow to hang the man who held the rank of captain over it. I little thought to find him among the bravest of my own chosen chieftains. But the vow is now nought, for, as you have never seen your company, it would be a fool's act to blame you for their doings." "My liege," said Sir Nigel, "it is a very small matter that I should be hanged, albeit the manner of death is somewhat more ignoble than I had hoped for. On the other hand, it would be a very grievous thing that you, the Prince of England and the flower of knighthood, should make a vow, whether in ignorance or no, and fail to bring it to fulfilment." "Vex not your mind on that," the prince answered, smiling. "We have had a citizen from Montauban here this very day, who told us such a tale of sack and murder and pillage that it moved our blood; but our wrath was turned upon the man who was in authority over them." "My dear and honored master," cried Nigel, in great anxiety, "I fear me much that in your gentleness of heart you are straining this vow which you have taken. If there be so much as a shadow of a doubt as to the form of it, it were a thousand times best----" "Peace! peace!" cried the prince impatiently. "I am very well able to look to my own vows and their performance. We hope to see you both in the banquet-hall anon. Meanwhile you will attend upon us with our train." He bowed, and Chandos, plucking Sir Oliver by the sleeve, led them both away to the back of the press of courtiers. "Why, little coz," he whispered, "you are very eager to have your neck in a noose. By my soul! had you asked as much from our new ally Don Pedro, he had not baulked you. Between friends, there is overmuch of the hangman in him, and too little of the prince. But indeed this White Company is a rough band, and may take some handling ere you find yourself safe in your captaincy." "I doubt not, with the help of St. Paul, that I shall bring them to some order," Sir Nigel answered. "But there are many faces here which are new to me, though others have been before me since first I waited upon my dear master, Sir Walter. I pray you to tell me, Sir John, who are these priests upon the dais?" "The one is the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Nigel, and the other the Bishop of Agen." "And the dark knight with gray-streaked beard? By my troth, he seems to be a man of much wisdom and valor." "He is Sir William Felton, who, with my unworthy self, is the chief counsellor of the prince, he being high steward and I the seneschal of Aquitaine." "And the knights upon the right, beside Don Pedro?" "They are cavaliers of Spain who have followed him in his exile. The one at his elbow is Fernando de Castro, who is as brave and true a man as heart could wish. In front to the right are the Gascon lords. You may well tell them by their clouded brows, for there hath been some ill-will of late betwixt the prince and them. The tall and burly man is the Captal de Buch, whom I doubt not that you know, for a braver knight never laid lance in rest. That heavy-faced cavalier who plucks his skirts and whispers in his ear is Lord Oliver de Clisson, known also as the butcher. He it is who stirs up strife, and forever blows the dying embers into flame. The man with the mole upon his cheek is the Lord Pommers, and his two brothers stand behind him, with the Lord Lesparre, Lord de Rosem, Lord de Mucident, Sir Perducas d'Albret, the Souldich de la Trane, and others. Further back are knights from Quercy, Limousin, Saintonge, Poitou, and Aquitaine, with the valiant Sir Guiscard d'Angle. That is he in the rose-colored doublet with the ermine." "And the knights upon this side?" "They are all Englishmen, some of the household and others who like yourself, are captains of companies. There is Lord Neville, Sir Stephen Cossington, and Sir Matthew Gourney, with Sir Walter Huet, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Thomas Felton, who is the brother of the high steward. Mark well the man with the high nose and flaxen beard who hath placed his hand upon the shoulder of the dark hard-faced cavalier in the rust-stained jupon." "Aye, by St. Paul!" observed Sir Nigel, "they both bear the print of their armor upon their cotes-hardies. Methinks they are men who breathe freer in a camp than a court." "There are many of us who do that, Nigel," said Chandos, "and the head of the court is, I dare warrant, among them. But of these two men the one is Sir Hugh Calverley, and the other is Sir Robert Knolles." Sir Nigel and Sir Oliver craned their necks to have the clearer view of these famous warriors, the one a chosen leader of free companies, the other a man who by his fierce valor and energy had raised himself from the lowest ranks until he was second only to Chandos himself in the esteem of the army. "He hath no light hand in war, hath Sir Robert," said Chandos. "If he passes through a country you may tell it for some years to come. I have heard that in the north it is still the use to call a house which hath but the two gable ends left, without walls or roof, a Knolles' mitre." "I have often heard of him," said Nigel, "and I have hoped to be so far honored as to run a course with him. But hark, Sir John, what is amiss with the prince?" Whilst Chandos had been conversing with the two knights a continuous stream of suitors had been ushered in, adventurers seeking to sell their swords and merchants clamoring over some grievance, a ship detained for the carriage of troops, or a tun of sweet wine which had the bottom knocked out by a troop of thirsty archers. A few words from the prince disposed of each case, and, if the applicant liked not the judgment, a quick glance from the prince's dark eyes sent him to the door with the grievance all gone out of him. The younger ruler had sat listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character. "How now, Don Martin de la Carra?" he cried. "How now, sirrah? What message do you bring to us from our brother of Navarre?" The new-comer to whom this abrupt query had been addressed was a tall and exceedingly handsome cavalier who had just been ushered into the apartment. His swarthy cheek and raven black hair spoke of the fiery south, and he wore his long black cloak swathed across his chest and over his shoulders in a graceful sweeping fashion, which was neither English nor French. With stately steps and many profound bows, he advanced to the foot of the dais before replying to the prince's question. "My powerful and illustrious master," he began, "Charles, King of Navarre, Earl of Evreux, Count of Champagne, who also writeth himself Overlord of Bearn, hereby sends his love and greetings to his dear cousin Edward, the Prince of Wales, Governor of Aquitaine, Grand Commander of----" "Tush! tush! Don Martin!" interrupted the prince, who had been beating the ground with his foot impatiently during this stately preamble. "We already know our cousin's titles and style, and, certes, we know our own. To the point, man, and at once. Are the passes open to us, or does your master go back from his word pledged to me at Libourne no later than last Michaelmas?" "It would ill become my gracious master, sire, to go back from promise given. He does but ask some delay and certain conditions and hostages----" "Conditions! Hostages! Is he speaking to the Prince of England, or is it to the bourgeois provost of some half-captured town! Conditions, quotha? He may find much to mend in his own condition ere long. The passes are, then, closed to us?" "Nay, sire----" "They are open, then?" "Nay, sire, if you would but----" "Enough, enough, Don Martin," cried the prince. "It is a sorry sight to see so true a knight pleading in so false a cause. We know the doings of our cousin Charles. We know that while with the right hand he takes our fifty thousand crowns for the holding of the passes open, he hath his left outstretched to Henry of Trastamare, or to the King of France, all ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered horse. He is----" "My lord," cried Don Martin, "I cannot stand there to hear such words of my master. Did they come from other lips, I should know better how to answer them." Don Pedro frowned and curled his lip, but the prince smiled and nodded his approbation. "Your bearing and your words, Don Martin, are such I should have looked for in you," he remarked. "You will tell the king, your master, that he hath been paid his price and that if he holds to his promise he hath my word for it that no scath shall come to his people, nor to their houses or gear. If, however, we have not his leave, I shall come close at the heels of this message without his leave, and bearing a key with me which shall open all that he may close." He stooped and whispered to Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Huge Calverley, who smiled as men well pleased, and hastened from the room. "Our cousin Charles has had experience of our friendship," the prince continued, "and now, by the Saints! he shall feel a touch of our displeasure. I send now a message to our cousin Charles which his whole kingdom may read. Let him take heed lest worse befall him. Where is my Lord Chandos? Ha, Sir John, I commend this worthy knight to your care. You will see that he hath refection, and such a purse of gold as may defray his charges, for indeed it is great honor to any court to have within it so noble and gentle a cavalier. How say you, sire?" he asked, turning to the Spanish refugee, while the herald of Navarre was conducted from the chamber by the old warrior. "It is not our custom in Spain to reward pertness in a messenger," Don Pedro answered, patting the head of his greyhound. "Yet we have all heard the lengths to which your royal generosity runs." "In sooth, yes," cried the King of Majorca. "Who should know it better than we?" said Don Pedro bitterly, "since we have had to fly to you in our trouble as to the natural protector of all who are weak." "Nay, nay, as brothers to a brother," cried the prince, with sparkling eyes. "We doubt not, with the help of God, to see you very soon restored to those thrones from which you have been so traitorously thrust." "When that happy day comes," said Pedro, "then Spain shall be to you as Aquitaine, and, be your project what it may, you may ever count on every troop and every ship over which flies the banner of Castile." "And," added the other, "upon every aid which the wealth and power of Majorca can bestow." "Touching the hundred thousand crowns in which I stand your debtor," continued Pedro carelessly, "it can no doubt----" "Not a word, sire, not a word!" cried the prince. "It is not now when you are in grief that I would vex your mind with such base and sordid matters. I have said once and forever that I am yours with every bow-string of my army and every florin in my coffers." "Ah! here is indeed a mirror of chivalry," said Don Pedro. "I think, Sir Fernando, since the prince's bounty is stretched so far, that we may make further use of his gracious goodness to the extent of fifty thousand crowns. Good Sir William Felton, here, will doubtless settle the matter with you." The stout old English counsellor looked somewhat blank at this prompt acceptance of his master's bounty. "If it please you, sire," he said, "the public funds are at their lowest, seeing that I have paid twelve thousand men of the companies, and the new taxes--the hearth-tax and the wine-tax--not yet come in. If you could wait until the promised help from England comes----" "Nay, nay, my sweet cousin," cried Don Pedro. "Had we known that your own coffers were so low, or that this sorry sum could have weighed one way or the other, we had been loth indeed----" "Enough, sire, enough!" said the prince, flushing with vexation. "If the public funds be, indeed, so backward, Sir William, there is still, I trust, my own private credit, which hath never been drawn upon for my own uses, but is now ready in the cause of a friend in adversity. Go, raise this money upon our own jewels, if nought else may serve, and see that it be paid over to Don Fernando." "In security I offer----" cried Don Pedro. "Tush! tush!" said the prince. "I am not a Lombard, sire. Your kingly pledge is my security, without bond or seal. But I have tidings for you, my lords and lieges, that our brother of Lancaster is on his way for our capital with four hundred lances and as many archers to aid us in our venture. When he hath come, and when our fair consort is recovered in her health, which I trust by the grace of God may be ere many weeks be past, we shall then join the army at Dax, and set our banners to the breeze once more." A buzz of joy at the prospect of immediate action rose up from the group of warriors. The prince smiled at the martial ardor which shone upon every face around him. "It will hearten you to know," he continued, "that I have sure advices that this Henry is a very valiant leader, and that he has it in his power to make such a stand against us as promises to give us much honor and pleasure. Of his own people he hath brought together, as I learn, some fifty thousand, with twelve thousand of the French free companies, who are, as you know very valiant and expert men-at-arms. It is certain also, that the brave and worthy Bertrand de Guesclin hath ridden into France to the Duke of Anjou, and purposes to take back with him great levies from Picardy and Brittany. We hold Bertrand in high esteem, for he has oft before been at great pains to furnish us with an honorable encounter. What think you of it, my worthy Captal? He took you at Cocherel, and, by my soul! you will have the chance now to pay that score." The Gascon warrior winced a little at the allusion, nor were his countrymen around him better pleased, for on the only occasion when they had encountered the arms of France without English aid they had met with a heavy defeat. "There are some who say, sire," said the burly De Clisson, "that the score is already overpaid, for that without Gascon help Bertrand had not been taken at Auray, nor had King John been overborne at Poictiers." "By heaven! but this is too much," cried an English nobleman. "Methinks that Gascony is too small a cock to crow so lustily." "The smaller cock, my Lord Audley, may have the longer spur," remarked the Captal de Buch. "May have its comb clipped if it make over-much noise," broke in an Englishman. "By our Lady of Rocamadour!" cried the Lord of Mucident, "this is more than I can abide. Sir John Charnell, you shall answer to me for those words!" "Freely, my lord, and when you will," returned the Englishman carelessly. "My Lord de Clisson," cried Lord Audley, "you look somewhat fixedly in my direction. By God's soul! I should be right glad to go further into the matter with you." "And you, my Lord of Pommers," said Sir Nigel, pushing his way to the front, "it is in my mind that we might break a lance in gentle and honorable debate over the question." For a moment a dozen challenges flashed backwards and forwards at this sudden bursting of the cloud which had lowered so long between the knights of the two nations. Furious and gesticulating the Gascons, white and cold and sneering the English, while the prince with a half smile glanced from one party to the other, like a man who loved to dwell upon a fiery scene, and yet dreaded least the mischief go so far that he might find it beyond his control. "Friends, friends!" he cried at last, "this quarrel must go no further. The man shall answer to me, be he Gascon or English, who carries it beyond this room. I have overmuch need for your swords that you should turn them upon each other. Sir John Charnell, Lord Audley, you do not doubt the courage of our friends of Gascony?" "Not I, sire," Lord Audley answered. "I have seen them fight too often not to know that they are very hardy and valiant gentlemen." "And so say I," quoth the other Englishman; "but, certes, there is no fear of our forgetting it while they have a tongue in their heads." "Nay, Sir John," said the prince reprovingly, "all peoples have their own use and customs. There are some who might call us cold and dull and silent. But you hear, my lords of Gascony, that these gentlemen had no thought to throw a slur upon your honor or your valor, so let all anger fade from your mind. Clisson, Captal, De Pommers, I have your word?" "We are your subjects, sire," said the Gascon barons, though with no very good grace. "Your words are our law." "Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon of Malvoisie," said the prince, cheerily. "Ho, there! the doors of the banquet-hall! I have been over long from my sweet spouse but I shall be back with you anon. Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!" He turned away, accompanied by the two monarchs, while the rest of the company, with many a compressed lip and menacing eye, filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth. CHAPTER XX. HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD. Whilst the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England. "How is it with the old man at Windsor?" asked one. "And how with the good Queen Philippa?" "And how with Dame Alice Perrers?" cried a third. "The devil take your tongue, Wat!" shouted a tall young man, seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. "The prince would take your head off for those words." "By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little," said another. "It is as empty as a beggar's wallet." "As empty as an English squire, coz," cried the first speaker. "What a devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet." "Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least," observed another, amid a burst of laughter. "And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm," cried the aggrieved Humphrey. "But how of England, my lads of Loring?" "I take it," said Ford, "that it is much as it was when you were there last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there." "And why less noise, young Solomon?" "Ah, that is

sped

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

years to his life? "Ha, my little heart of gold!" he cried, darting forward suddenly and throwing his arms round Sir Nigel. "I heard that you were here and have been seeking you." "My fair and dear lord," said the knight, returning the warrior's embrace, "I have indeed come back to you, for where else shall I go that I may learn to be a gentle and a hardy knight?" "By my troth!" said Chandos with a smile, "it is very fitting that we should be companions, Nigel, for since you have tied up one of your eyes, and I have had the mischance to lose one of mine, we have but a pair between us. Ah, Sir Oliver! you were on the blind side of me and I saw you not. A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me. We shall go in to the prince anon; but in truth he hath much upon his hands, for what with Pedro, and the King of Majorca, and the King of Navarre, who is no two days of the same mind, and the Gascon barons who are all chaffering for terms like so many hucksters, he hath an uneasy part to play. But how left you the Lady Loring?" "She was well, my fair lord, and sent her service and greetings to you." "I am ever her knight and slave. And your journey, I trust that it was pleasant?" "As heart could wish. We had sight of two rover galleys, and even came to have some slight bickering with them." "Ever in luck's way, Nigel!" quoth Sir John. "We must hear the tale anon. But I deem it best that ye should leave your squires and come with me, for, howsoe'er pressed the prince may be, I am very sure that he would be loth to keep two old comrades-in-arms upon the further side of the door. Follow close behind me, and I will forestall old Sir William, though I can scarce promise to roll forth your style and rank as is his wont." So saying, he led the way to the inner chamber, the two companions treading close at his heels, and nodding to right and left as they caught sight of familiar faces among the crowd. CHAPTER XIX. HOW THERE WAS STIR AT THE ABBEY OF ST. ANDREW'S. The prince's reception-room, although of no great size, was fitted up with all the state and luxury which the fame and power of its owner demanded. A high dais at the further end was roofed in by a broad canopy of scarlet velvet spangled with silver fleurs-de-lis, and supported at either corner by silver rods. This was approached by four steps carpeted with the same material, while all round were scattered rich cushions, oriental mats and costly rugs of fur. The choicest tapestries which the looms of Arras could furnish draped the walls, whereon the battles of Judas Maccabaeus were set forth, with the Jewish warriors in plate of proof, with crest and lance and banderole, as the naive artists of the day were wont to depict them. A few rich settles and bancals, choicely carved and decorated with glazed leather hangings of the sort termed _or basane_, completed the furniture of the apartment, save that at one side of the dais there stood a lofty perch, upon which a cast of three solemn Prussian gerfalcons sat, hooded and jesseled, as silent and motionless as the royal fowler who stood beside them. In the centre of the dais were two very high chairs with dorserets, which arched forwards over the heads of the occupants, the whole covered with light-blue silk thickly powdered with golden stars. On that to the right sat a very tall and well formed man with red hair, a livid face, and a cold blue eye, which had in it something peculiarly sinister and menacing. He lounged back in a careless position, and yawned repeatedly as though heartily weary of the proceedings, stooping from time to time to fondle a shaggy Spanish greyhound which lay stretched at his feet. On the other throne there was perched bolt upright, with prim demeanor, as though he felt himself to be upon his good behavior, a little, round, pippin faced person, who smiled and bobbed to every one whose eye he chanced to meet. Between and a little in front of them on a humble charette or stool, sat a slim, dark young man, whose quiet attire and modest manner would scarce proclaim him to be the most noted prince in Europe. A jupon of dark blue cloth, tagged with buckles and pendants of gold, seemed but a sombre and plain attire amidst the wealth of silk and ermine and gilt tissue of fustian with which he was surrounded. He sat with his two hands clasped round his knee, his head slightly bent, and an expression of impatience and of trouble upon his clear, well-chiselled features. Behind the thrones there stood two men in purple gowns, with ascetic, clean-shaven faces, and half a dozen other high dignitaries and office-holders of Aquitaine. Below on either side of the steps were forty or fifty barons, knights, and courtiers, ranged in a triple row to the right and the left, with a clear passage in the centre. "There sits the prince," whispered Sir John Chandos, as they entered. "He on the right is Pedro, whom we are about to put upon the Spanish throne. The other is Don James, whom we purpose with the aid of God to help to his throne in Majorca. Now follow me, and take it not to heart if he be a little short in his speech, for indeed his mind is full of many very weighty concerns." The prince, however, had already observed their entrance, and, springing to his feet, he had advanced with a winning smile and the light of welcome in his eyes. "We do not need your good offices as herald here, Sir John," said he in a low but clear voice; "these valiant knights are very well known to me. Welcome to Aquitaine, Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver Buttesthorn. Nay, keep your knee for my sweet father at Windsor. I would have your hands, my friends. We are like to give you some work to do ere you see the downs of Hampshire once more. Know you aught of Spain, Sir Oliver?" "Nought, my sire, save that I have heard men say that there is a dish named an olla which is prepared there, though I have never been clear in my mind as to whether it was but a ragout such as is to be found in the south, or whether there is some seasoning such as fennel or garlic which is peculiar to Spain." "Your doubts, Sir Oliver, shall soon be resolved," answered the prince, laughing heartily, as did many of the barons who surrounded them. "His majesty here will doubtless order that you have this dish hotly seasoned when we are all safely in Castile." "I will have a hotly seasoned dish for some folk I know of," answered Don Pedro with a cold smile. "But my friend Sir Oliver can fight right hardily without either bite or sup," remarked the prince. "Did I not see him at Poictiers, when for two days we had not more than a crust of bread and a cup of foul water, yet carrying himself most valiantly. With my own eyes I saw him in the rout sweep the head from a knight of Picardy with one blow of his sword." "The rogue got between me and the nearest French victual wain," muttered Sir Oliver, amid a fresh titter from those who were near enough to catch his words. "How many have you in your train?" asked the prince, assuming a graver mien. "I have forty men-at-arms, sire," said Sir Oliver. "And I have one hundred archers and a score of lancers, but there are two hundred men who wait for me on this side of the water upon the borders of Navarre." "And who are they, Sir Nigel?" "They are a free company, sire, and they are called the White Company." To the astonishment of the knight, his words provoked a burst of merriment from the barons round, in which the two kings and the prince were fain to join. Sir Nigel blinked mildly from one to the other, until at last perceiving a stout black-bearded knight at his elbow, whose laugh rang somewhat louder than the others, he touched him lightly upon the sleeve. "Perchance, my fair sir," he whispered, "there is some small vow of which I may relieve you. Might we not have some honorable debate upon the matter. Your gentle courtesy may perhaps grant me an exchange of thrusts." "Nay, nay, Sir Nigel," cried the prince, "fasten not the offence upon Sir Robert Briquet, for we are one and all bogged in the same mire. Truth to say, our ears have just been vexed by the doings of the same company, and I have even now made vow to hang the man who held the rank of captain over it. I little thought to find him among the bravest of my own chosen chieftains. But the vow is now nought, for, as you have never seen your company, it would be a fool's act to blame you for their doings." "My liege," said Sir Nigel, "it is a very small matter that I should be hanged, albeit the manner of death is somewhat more ignoble than I had hoped for. On the other hand, it would be a very grievous thing that you, the Prince of England and the flower of knighthood, should make a vow, whether in ignorance or no, and fail to bring it to fulfilment." "Vex not your mind on that," the prince answered, smiling. "We have had a citizen from Montauban here this very day, who told us such a tale of sack and murder and pillage that it moved our blood; but our wrath was turned upon the man who was in authority over them." "My dear and honored master," cried Nigel, in great anxiety, "I fear me much that in your gentleness of heart you are straining this vow which you have taken. If there be so much as a shadow of a doubt as to the form of it, it were a thousand times best----" "Peace! peace!" cried the prince impatiently. "I am very well able to look to my own vows and their performance. We hope to see you both in the banquet-hall anon. Meanwhile you will attend upon us with our train." He bowed, and Chandos, plucking Sir Oliver by the sleeve, led them both away to the back of the press of courtiers. "Why, little coz," he whispered, "you are very eager to have your neck in a noose. By my soul! had you asked as much from our new ally Don Pedro, he had not baulked you. Between friends, there is overmuch of the hangman in him, and too little of the prince. But indeed this White Company is a rough band, and may take some handling ere you find yourself safe in your captaincy." "I doubt not, with the help of St. Paul, that I shall bring them to some order," Sir Nigel answered. "But there are many faces here which are new to me, though others have been before me since first I waited upon my dear master, Sir Walter. I pray you to tell me, Sir John, who are these priests upon the dais?" "The one is the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Nigel, and the other the Bishop of Agen." "And the dark knight with gray-streaked beard? By my troth, he seems to be a man of much wisdom and valor." "He is Sir William Felton, who, with my unworthy self, is the chief counsellor of the prince, he being high steward and I the seneschal of Aquitaine." "And the knights upon the right, beside Don Pedro?" "They are cavaliers of Spain who have followed him in his exile. The one at his elbow is Fernando de Castro, who is as brave and true a man as heart could wish. In front to the right are the Gascon lords. You may well tell them by their clouded brows, for there hath been some ill-will of late betwixt the prince and them. The tall and burly man is the Captal de Buch, whom I doubt not that you know, for a braver knight never laid lance in rest. That heavy-faced cavalier who plucks his skirts and whispers in his ear is Lord Oliver de Clisson, known also as the butcher. He it is who stirs up strife, and forever blows the dying embers into flame. The man with the mole upon his cheek is the Lord Pommers, and his two brothers stand behind him, with the Lord Lesparre, Lord de Rosem, Lord de Mucident, Sir Perducas d'Albret, the Souldich de la Trane, and others. Further back are knights from Quercy, Limousin, Saintonge, Poitou, and Aquitaine, with the valiant Sir Guiscard d'Angle. That is he in the rose-colored doublet with the ermine." "And the knights upon this side?" "They are all Englishmen, some of the household and others who like yourself, are captains of companies. There is Lord Neville, Sir Stephen Cossington, and Sir Matthew Gourney, with Sir Walter Huet, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Thomas Felton, who is the brother of the high steward. Mark well the man with the high nose and flaxen beard who hath placed his hand upon the shoulder of the dark hard-faced cavalier in the rust-stained jupon." "Aye, by St. Paul!" observed Sir Nigel, "they both bear the print of their armor upon their cotes-hardies. Methinks they are men who breathe freer in a camp than a court." "There are many of us who do that, Nigel," said Chandos, "and the head of the court is, I dare warrant, among them. But of these two men the one is Sir Hugh Calverley, and the other is Sir Robert Knolles." Sir Nigel and Sir Oliver craned their necks to have the clearer view of these famous warriors, the one a chosen leader of free companies, the other a man who by his fierce valor and energy had raised himself from the lowest ranks until he was second only to Chandos himself in the esteem of the army. "He hath no light hand in war, hath Sir Robert," said Chandos. "If he passes through a country you may tell it for some years to come. I have heard that in the north it is still the use to call a house which hath but the two gable ends left, without walls or roof, a Knolles' mitre." "I have often heard of him," said Nigel, "and I have hoped to be so far honored as to run a course with him. But hark, Sir John, what is amiss with the prince?" Whilst Chandos had been conversing with the two knights a continuous stream of suitors had been ushered in, adventurers seeking to sell their swords and merchants clamoring over some grievance, a ship detained for the carriage of troops, or a tun of sweet wine which had the bottom knocked out by a troop of thirsty archers. A few words from the prince disposed of each case, and, if the applicant liked not the judgment, a quick glance from the prince's dark eyes sent him to the door with the grievance all gone out of him. The younger ruler had sat listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character. "How now, Don Martin de la Carra?" he cried. "How now, sirrah? What message do you bring to us from our brother of Navarre?" The new-comer to whom this abrupt query had been addressed was a tall and exceedingly handsome cavalier who had just been ushered into the apartment. His swarthy cheek and raven black hair spoke of the fiery south, and he wore his long black cloak swathed across his chest and over his shoulders in a graceful sweeping fashion, which was neither English nor French. With stately steps and many profound bows, he advanced to the foot of the dais before replying to the prince's question. "My powerful and illustrious master," he began, "Charles, King of Navarre, Earl of Evreux, Count of Champagne, who also writeth himself Overlord of Bearn, hereby sends his love and greetings to his dear cousin Edward, the Prince of Wales, Governor of Aquitaine, Grand Commander of----" "Tush! tush! Don Martin!" interrupted the prince, who had been beating the ground with his foot impatiently during this stately preamble. "We already know our cousin's titles and style, and, certes, we know our own. To the point, man, and at once. Are the passes open to us, or does your master go back from his word pledged to me at Libourne no later than last Michaelmas?" "It would ill become my gracious master, sire, to go back from promise given. He does but ask some delay and certain conditions and hostages----" "Conditions! Hostages! Is he speaking to the Prince of England, or is it to the bourgeois provost of some half-captured town! Conditions, quotha? He may find much to mend in his own condition ere long. The passes are, then, closed to us?" "Nay, sire----" "They are open, then?" "Nay, sire, if you would but----" "Enough, enough, Don Martin," cried the prince. "It is a sorry sight to see so true a knight pleading in so false a cause. We know the doings of our cousin Charles. We know that while with the right hand he takes our fifty thousand crowns for the holding of the passes open, he hath his left outstretched to Henry of Trastamare, or to the King of France, all ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered horse. He is----" "My lord," cried Don Martin, "I cannot stand there to hear such words of my master. Did they come from other lips, I should know better how to answer them." Don Pedro frowned and curled his lip, but the prince smiled and nodded his approbation. "Your bearing and your words, Don Martin, are such I should have looked for in you," he remarked. "You will tell the king, your master, that he hath been paid his price and that if he holds to his promise he hath my word for it that no scath shall come to his people, nor to their houses or gear. If, however, we have not his leave, I shall come close at the heels of this message without his leave, and bearing a key with me which shall open all that he may close." He stooped and whispered to Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Huge Calverley, who smiled as men well pleased, and hastened from the room. "Our cousin Charles has had experience of our friendship," the prince continued, "and now, by the Saints! he shall feel a touch of our displeasure. I send now a message to our cousin Charles which his whole kingdom may read. Let him take heed lest worse befall him. Where is my Lord Chandos? Ha, Sir John, I commend this worthy knight to your care. You will see that he hath refection, and such a purse of gold as may defray his charges, for indeed it is great honor to any court to have within it so noble and gentle a cavalier. How say you, sire?" he asked, turning to the Spanish refugee, while the herald of Navarre was conducted from the chamber by the old warrior. "It is not our custom in Spain to reward pertness in a messenger," Don Pedro answered, patting the head of his greyhound. "Yet we have all heard the lengths to which your royal generosity runs." "In sooth, yes," cried the King of Majorca. "Who should know it better than we?" said Don Pedro bitterly, "since we have had to fly to you in our trouble as to the natural protector of all who are weak." "Nay, nay, as brothers to a brother," cried the prince, with sparkling eyes. "We doubt not, with the help of God, to see you very soon restored to those thrones from which you have been so traitorously thrust." "When that happy day comes," said Pedro, "then Spain shall be to you as Aquitaine, and, be your project what it may, you may ever count on every troop and every ship over which flies the banner of Castile." "And," added the other, "upon every aid which the wealth and power of Majorca can bestow." "Touching the hundred thousand crowns in which I stand your debtor," continued Pedro carelessly, "it can no doubt----" "Not a word, sire, not a word!" cried the prince. "It is not now when you are in grief that I would vex your mind with such base and sordid matters. I have said once and forever that I am yours with every bow-string of my army and every florin in my coffers." "Ah! here is indeed a mirror of chivalry," said Don Pedro. "I think, Sir Fernando, since the prince's bounty is stretched so far, that we may make further use of his gracious goodness to the extent of fifty thousand crowns. Good Sir William Felton, here, will doubtless settle the matter with you." The stout old English counsellor looked somewhat blank at this prompt acceptance of his master's bounty. "If it please you, sire," he said, "the public funds are at their lowest, seeing that I have paid twelve thousand men of the companies, and the new taxes--the hearth-tax and the wine-tax--not yet come in. If you could wait until the promised help from England comes----" "Nay, nay, my sweet cousin," cried Don Pedro. "Had we known that your own coffers were so low, or that this sorry sum could have weighed one way or the other, we had been loth indeed----" "Enough, sire, enough!" said the prince, flushing with vexation. "If the public funds be, indeed, so backward, Sir William, there is still, I trust, my own private credit, which hath never been drawn upon for my own uses, but is now ready in the cause of a friend in adversity. Go, raise this money upon our own jewels, if nought else may serve, and see that it be paid over to Don Fernando." "In security I offer----" cried Don Pedro. "Tush! tush!" said the prince. "I am not a Lombard, sire. Your kingly pledge is my security, without bond or seal. But I have tidings for you, my lords and lieges, that our brother of Lancaster is on his way for our capital with four hundred lances and as many archers to aid us in our venture. When he hath come, and when our fair consort is recovered in her health, which I trust by the grace of God may be ere many weeks be past, we shall then join the army at Dax, and set our banners to the breeze once more." A buzz of joy at the prospect of immediate action rose up from the group of warriors. The prince smiled at the martial ardor which shone upon every face around him. "It will hearten you to know," he continued, "that I have sure advices that this Henry is a very valiant leader, and that he has it in his power to make such a stand against us as promises to give us much honor and pleasure. Of his own people he hath brought together, as I learn, some fifty thousand, with twelve thousand of the French free companies, who are, as you know very valiant and expert men-at-arms. It is certain also, that the brave and worthy Bertrand de Guesclin hath ridden into France to the Duke of Anjou, and purposes to take back with him great levies from Picardy and Brittany. We hold Bertrand in high esteem, for he has oft before been at great pains to furnish us with an honorable encounter. What think you of it, my worthy Captal? He took you at Cocherel, and, by my soul! you will have the chance now to pay that score." The Gascon warrior winced a little at the allusion, nor were his countrymen around him better pleased, for on the only occasion when they had encountered the arms of France without English aid they had met with a heavy defeat. "There are some who say, sire," said the burly De Clisson, "that the score is already overpaid, for that without Gascon help Bertrand had not been taken at Auray, nor had King John been overborne at Poictiers." "By heaven! but this is too much," cried an English nobleman. "Methinks that Gascony is too small a cock to crow so lustily." "The smaller cock, my Lord Audley, may have the longer spur," remarked the Captal de Buch. "May have its comb clipped if it make over-much noise," broke in an Englishman. "By our Lady of Rocamadour!" cried the Lord of Mucident, "this is more than I can abide. Sir John Charnell, you shall answer to me for those words!" "Freely, my lord, and when you will," returned the Englishman carelessly. "My Lord de Clisson," cried Lord Audley, "you look somewhat fixedly in my direction. By God's soul! I should be right glad to go further into the matter with you." "And you, my Lord of Pommers," said Sir Nigel, pushing his way to the front, "it is in my mind that we might break a lance in gentle and honorable debate over the question." For a moment a dozen challenges flashed backwards and forwards at this sudden bursting of the cloud which had lowered so long between the knights of the two nations. Furious and gesticulating the Gascons, white and cold and sneering the English, while the prince with a half smile glanced from one party to the other, like a man who loved to dwell upon a fiery scene, and yet dreaded least the mischief go so far that he might find it beyond his control. "Friends, friends!" he cried at last, "this quarrel must go no further. The man shall answer to me, be he Gascon or English, who carries it beyond this room. I have overmuch need for your swords that you should turn them upon each other. Sir John Charnell, Lord Audley, you do not doubt the courage of our friends of Gascony?" "Not I, sire," Lord Audley answered. "I have seen them fight too often not to know that they are very hardy and valiant gentlemen." "And so say I," quoth the other Englishman; "but, certes, there is no fear of our forgetting it while they have a tongue in their heads." "Nay, Sir John," said the prince reprovingly, "all peoples have their own use and customs. There are some who might call us cold and dull and silent. But you hear, my lords of Gascony, that these gentlemen had no thought to throw a slur upon your honor or your valor, so let all anger fade from your mind. Clisson, Captal, De Pommers, I have your word?" "We are your subjects, sire," said the Gascon barons, though with no very good grace. "Your words are our law." "Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon of Malvoisie," said the prince, cheerily. "Ho, there! the doors of the banquet-hall! I have been over long from my sweet spouse but I shall be back with you anon. Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!" He turned away, accompanied by the two monarchs, while the rest of the company, with many a compressed lip and menacing eye, filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth. CHAPTER XX. HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD. Whilst the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England. "How is it with the old man at Windsor?" asked one. "And how with the good Queen Philippa?" "And how with Dame Alice Perrers?" cried a third. "The devil take your tongue, Wat!" shouted a tall young man, seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. "The prince would take your head off for those words." "By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little," said another. "It is as empty as a beggar's wallet." "As empty as an English squire, coz," cried the first speaker. "What a devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet." "Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least," observed another, amid a burst of laughter. "And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm," cried the aggrieved Humphrey. "But how of England, my lads of Loring?" "I take it," said Ford, "that it is much as it was when you were there last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there." "And why less noise, young Solomon?" "Ah, that is

judas

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

years to his life? "Ha, my little heart of gold!" he cried, darting forward suddenly and throwing his arms round Sir Nigel. "I heard that you were here and have been seeking you." "My fair and dear lord," said the knight, returning the warrior's embrace, "I have indeed come back to you, for where else shall I go that I may learn to be a gentle and a hardy knight?" "By my troth!" said Chandos with a smile, "it is very fitting that we should be companions, Nigel, for since you have tied up one of your eyes, and I have had the mischance to lose one of mine, we have but a pair between us. Ah, Sir Oliver! you were on the blind side of me and I saw you not. A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me. We shall go in to the prince anon; but in truth he hath much upon his hands, for what with Pedro, and the King of Majorca, and the King of Navarre, who is no two days of the same mind, and the Gascon barons who are all chaffering for terms like so many hucksters, he hath an uneasy part to play. But how left you the Lady Loring?" "She was well, my fair lord, and sent her service and greetings to you." "I am ever her knight and slave. And your journey, I trust that it was pleasant?" "As heart could wish. We had sight of two rover galleys, and even came to have some slight bickering with them." "Ever in luck's way, Nigel!" quoth Sir John. "We must hear the tale anon. But I deem it best that ye should leave your squires and come with me, for, howsoe'er pressed the prince may be, I am very sure that he would be loth to keep two old comrades-in-arms upon the further side of the door. Follow close behind me, and I will forestall old Sir William, though I can scarce promise to roll forth your style and rank as is his wont." So saying, he led the way to the inner chamber, the two companions treading close at his heels, and nodding to right and left as they caught sight of familiar faces among the crowd. CHAPTER XIX. HOW THERE WAS STIR AT THE ABBEY OF ST. ANDREW'S. The prince's reception-room, although of no great size, was fitted up with all the state and luxury which the fame and power of its owner demanded. A high dais at the further end was roofed in by a broad canopy of scarlet velvet spangled with silver fleurs-de-lis, and supported at either corner by silver rods. This was approached by four steps carpeted with the same material, while all round were scattered rich cushions, oriental mats and costly rugs of fur. The choicest tapestries which the looms of Arras could furnish draped the walls, whereon the battles of Judas Maccabaeus were set forth, with the Jewish warriors in plate of proof, with crest and lance and banderole, as the naive artists of the day were wont to depict them. A few rich settles and bancals, choicely carved and decorated with glazed leather hangings of the sort termed _or basane_, completed the furniture of the apartment, save that at one side of the dais there stood a lofty perch, upon which a cast of three solemn Prussian gerfalcons sat, hooded and jesseled, as silent and motionless as the royal fowler who stood beside them. In the centre of the dais were two very high chairs with dorserets, which arched forwards over the heads of the occupants, the whole covered with light-blue silk thickly powdered with golden stars. On that to the right sat a very tall and well formed man with red hair, a livid face, and a cold blue eye, which had in it something peculiarly sinister and menacing. He lounged back in a careless position, and yawned repeatedly as though heartily weary of the proceedings, stooping from time to time to fondle a shaggy Spanish greyhound which lay stretched at his feet. On the other throne there was perched bolt upright, with prim demeanor, as though he felt himself to be upon his good behavior, a little, round, pippin faced person, who smiled and bobbed to every one whose eye he chanced to meet. Between and a little in front of them on a humble charette or stool, sat a slim, dark young man, whose quiet attire and modest manner would scarce proclaim him to be the most noted prince in Europe. A jupon of dark blue cloth, tagged with buckles and pendants of gold, seemed but a sombre and plain attire amidst the wealth of silk and ermine and gilt tissue of fustian with which he was surrounded. He sat with his two hands clasped round his knee, his head slightly bent, and an expression of impatience and of trouble upon his clear, well-chiselled features. Behind the thrones there stood two men in purple gowns, with ascetic, clean-shaven faces, and half a dozen other high dignitaries and office-holders of Aquitaine. Below on either side of the steps were forty or fifty barons, knights, and courtiers, ranged in a triple row to the right and the left, with a clear passage in the centre. "There sits the prince," whispered Sir John Chandos, as they entered. "He on the right is Pedro, whom we are about to put upon the Spanish throne. The other is Don James, whom we purpose with the aid of God to help to his throne in Majorca. Now follow me, and take it not to heart if he be a little short in his speech, for indeed his mind is full of many very weighty concerns." The prince, however, had already observed their entrance, and, springing to his feet, he had advanced with a winning smile and the light of welcome in his eyes. "We do not need your good offices as herald here, Sir John," said he in a low but clear voice; "these valiant knights are very well known to me. Welcome to Aquitaine, Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver Buttesthorn. Nay, keep your knee for my sweet father at Windsor. I would have your hands, my friends. We are like to give you some work to do ere you see the downs of Hampshire once more. Know you aught of Spain, Sir Oliver?" "Nought, my sire, save that I have heard men say that there is a dish named an olla which is prepared there, though I have never been clear in my mind as to whether it was but a ragout such as is to be found in the south, or whether there is some seasoning such as fennel or garlic which is peculiar to Spain." "Your doubts, Sir Oliver, shall soon be resolved," answered the prince, laughing heartily, as did many of the barons who surrounded them. "His majesty here will doubtless order that you have this dish hotly seasoned when we are all safely in Castile." "I will have a hotly seasoned dish for some folk I know of," answered Don Pedro with a cold smile. "But my friend Sir Oliver can fight right hardily without either bite or sup," remarked the prince. "Did I not see him at Poictiers, when for two days we had not more than a crust of bread and a cup of foul water, yet carrying himself most valiantly. With my own eyes I saw him in the rout sweep the head from a knight of Picardy with one blow of his sword." "The rogue got between me and the nearest French victual wain," muttered Sir Oliver, amid a fresh titter from those who were near enough to catch his words. "How many have you in your train?" asked the prince, assuming a graver mien. "I have forty men-at-arms, sire," said Sir Oliver. "And I have one hundred archers and a score of lancers, but there are two hundred men who wait for me on this side of the water upon the borders of Navarre." "And who are they, Sir Nigel?" "They are a free company, sire, and they are called the White Company." To the astonishment of the knight, his words provoked a burst of merriment from the barons round, in which the two kings and the prince were fain to join. Sir Nigel blinked mildly from one to the other, until at last perceiving a stout black-bearded knight at his elbow, whose laugh rang somewhat louder than the others, he touched him lightly upon the sleeve. "Perchance, my fair sir," he whispered, "there is some small vow of which I may relieve you. Might we not have some honorable debate upon the matter. Your gentle courtesy may perhaps grant me an exchange of thrusts." "Nay, nay, Sir Nigel," cried the prince, "fasten not the offence upon Sir Robert Briquet, for we are one and all bogged in the same mire. Truth to say, our ears have just been vexed by the doings of the same company, and I have even now made vow to hang the man who held the rank of captain over it. I little thought to find him among the bravest of my own chosen chieftains. But the vow is now nought, for, as you have never seen your company, it would be a fool's act to blame you for their doings." "My liege," said Sir Nigel, "it is a very small matter that I should be hanged, albeit the manner of death is somewhat more ignoble than I had hoped for. On the other hand, it would be a very grievous thing that you, the Prince of England and the flower of knighthood, should make a vow, whether in ignorance or no, and fail to bring it to fulfilment." "Vex not your mind on that," the prince answered, smiling. "We have had a citizen from Montauban here this very day, who told us such a tale of sack and murder and pillage that it moved our blood; but our wrath was turned upon the man who was in authority over them." "My dear and honored master," cried Nigel, in great anxiety, "I fear me much that in your gentleness of heart you are straining this vow which you have taken. If there be so much as a shadow of a doubt as to the form of it, it were a thousand times best----" "Peace! peace!" cried the prince impatiently. "I am very well able to look to my own vows and their performance. We hope to see you both in the banquet-hall anon. Meanwhile you will attend upon us with our train." He bowed, and Chandos, plucking Sir Oliver by the sleeve, led them both away to the back of the press of courtiers. "Why, little coz," he whispered, "you are very eager to have your neck in a noose. By my soul! had you asked as much from our new ally Don Pedro, he had not baulked you. Between friends, there is overmuch of the hangman in him, and too little of the prince. But indeed this White Company is a rough band, and may take some handling ere you find yourself safe in your captaincy." "I doubt not, with the help of St. Paul, that I shall bring them to some order," Sir Nigel answered. "But there are many faces here which are new to me, though others have been before me since first I waited upon my dear master, Sir Walter. I pray you to tell me, Sir John, who are these priests upon the dais?" "The one is the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Nigel, and the other the Bishop of Agen." "And the dark knight with gray-streaked beard? By my troth, he seems to be a man of much wisdom and valor." "He is Sir William Felton, who, with my unworthy self, is the chief counsellor of the prince, he being high steward and I the seneschal of Aquitaine." "And the knights upon the right, beside Don Pedro?" "They are cavaliers of Spain who have followed him in his exile. The one at his elbow is Fernando de Castro, who is as brave and true a man as heart could wish. In front to the right are the Gascon lords. You may well tell them by their clouded brows, for there hath been some ill-will of late betwixt the prince and them. The tall and burly man is the Captal de Buch, whom I doubt not that you know, for a braver knight never laid lance in rest. That heavy-faced cavalier who plucks his skirts and whispers in his ear is Lord Oliver de Clisson, known also as the butcher. He it is who stirs up strife, and forever blows the dying embers into flame. The man with the mole upon his cheek is the Lord Pommers, and his two brothers stand behind him, with the Lord Lesparre, Lord de Rosem, Lord de Mucident, Sir Perducas d'Albret, the Souldich de la Trane, and others. Further back are knights from Quercy, Limousin, Saintonge, Poitou, and Aquitaine, with the valiant Sir Guiscard d'Angle. That is he in the rose-colored doublet with the ermine." "And the knights upon this side?" "They are all Englishmen, some of the household and others who like yourself, are captains of companies. There is Lord Neville, Sir Stephen Cossington, and Sir Matthew Gourney, with Sir Walter Huet, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Thomas Felton, who is the brother of the high steward. Mark well the man with the high nose and flaxen beard who hath placed his hand upon the shoulder of the dark hard-faced cavalier in the rust-stained jupon." "Aye, by St. Paul!" observed Sir Nigel, "they both bear the print of their armor upon their cotes-hardies. Methinks they are men who breathe freer in a camp than a court." "There are many of us who do that, Nigel," said Chandos, "and the head of the court is, I dare warrant, among them. But of these two men the one is Sir Hugh Calverley, and the other is Sir Robert Knolles." Sir Nigel and Sir Oliver craned their necks to have the clearer view of these famous warriors, the one a chosen leader of free companies, the other a man who by his fierce valor and energy had raised himself from the lowest ranks until he was second only to Chandos himself in the esteem of the army. "He hath no light hand in war, hath Sir Robert," said Chandos. "If he passes through a country you may tell it for some years to come. I have heard that in the north it is still the use to call a house which hath but the two gable ends left, without walls or roof, a Knolles' mitre." "I have often heard of him," said Nigel, "and I have hoped to be so far honored as to run a course with him. But hark, Sir John, what is amiss with the prince?" Whilst Chandos had been conversing with the two knights a continuous stream of suitors had been ushered in, adventurers seeking to sell their swords and merchants clamoring over some grievance, a ship detained for the carriage of troops, or a tun of sweet wine which had the bottom knocked out by a troop of thirsty archers. A few words from the prince disposed of each case, and, if the applicant liked not the judgment, a quick glance from the prince's dark eyes sent him to the door with the grievance all gone out of him. The younger ruler had sat listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character. "How now, Don Martin de la Carra?" he cried. "How now, sirrah? What message do you bring to us from our brother of Navarre?" The new-comer to whom this abrupt query had been addressed was a tall and exceedingly handsome cavalier who had just been ushered into the apartment. His swarthy cheek and raven black hair spoke of the fiery south, and he wore his long black cloak swathed across his chest and over his shoulders in a graceful sweeping fashion, which was neither English nor French. With stately steps and many profound bows, he advanced to the foot of the dais before replying to the prince's question. "My powerful and illustrious master," he began, "Charles, King of Navarre, Earl of Evreux, Count of Champagne, who also writeth himself Overlord of Bearn, hereby sends his love and greetings to his dear cousin Edward, the Prince of Wales, Governor of Aquitaine, Grand Commander of----" "Tush! tush! Don Martin!" interrupted the prince, who had been beating the ground with his foot impatiently during this stately preamble. "We already know our cousin's titles and style, and, certes, we know our own. To the point, man, and at once. Are the passes open to us, or does your master go back from his word pledged to me at Libourne no later than last Michaelmas?" "It would ill become my gracious master, sire, to go back from promise given. He does but ask some delay and certain conditions and hostages----" "Conditions! Hostages! Is he speaking to the Prince of England, or is it to the bourgeois provost of some half-captured town! Conditions, quotha? He may find much to mend in his own condition ere long. The passes are, then, closed to us?" "Nay, sire----" "They are open, then?" "Nay, sire, if you would but----" "Enough, enough, Don Martin," cried the prince. "It is a sorry sight to see so true a knight pleading in so false a cause. We know the doings of our cousin Charles. We know that while with the right hand he takes our fifty thousand crowns for the holding of the passes open, he hath his left outstretched to Henry of Trastamare, or to the King of France, all ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered horse. He is----" "My lord," cried Don Martin, "I cannot stand there to hear such words of my master. Did they come from other lips, I should know better how to answer them." Don Pedro frowned and curled his lip, but the prince smiled and nodded his approbation. "Your bearing and your words, Don Martin, are such I should have looked for in you," he remarked. "You will tell the king, your master, that he hath been paid his price and that if he holds to his promise he hath my word for it that no scath shall come to his people, nor to their houses or gear. If, however, we have not his leave, I shall come close at the heels of this message without his leave, and bearing a key with me which shall open all that he may close." He stooped and whispered to Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Huge Calverley, who smiled as men well pleased, and hastened from the room. "Our cousin Charles has had experience of our friendship," the prince continued, "and now, by the Saints! he shall feel a touch of our displeasure. I send now a message to our cousin Charles which his whole kingdom may read. Let him take heed lest worse befall him. Where is my Lord Chandos? Ha, Sir John, I commend this worthy knight to your care. You will see that he hath refection, and such a purse of gold as may defray his charges, for indeed it is great honor to any court to have within it so noble and gentle a cavalier. How say you, sire?" he asked, turning to the Spanish refugee, while the herald of Navarre was conducted from the chamber by the old warrior. "It is not our custom in Spain to reward pertness in a messenger," Don Pedro answered, patting the head of his greyhound. "Yet we have all heard the lengths to which your royal generosity runs." "In sooth, yes," cried the King of Majorca. "Who should know it better than we?" said Don Pedro bitterly, "since we have had to fly to you in our trouble as to the natural protector of all who are weak." "Nay, nay, as brothers to a brother," cried the prince, with sparkling eyes. "We doubt not, with the help of God, to see you very soon restored to those thrones from which you have been so traitorously thrust." "When that happy day comes," said Pedro, "then Spain shall be to you as Aquitaine, and, be your project what it may, you may ever count on every troop and every ship over which flies the banner of Castile." "And," added the other, "upon every aid which the wealth and power of Majorca can bestow." "Touching the hundred thousand crowns in which I stand your debtor," continued Pedro carelessly, "it can no doubt----" "Not a word, sire, not a word!" cried the prince. "It is not now when you are in grief that I would vex your mind with such base and sordid matters. I have said once and forever that I am yours with every bow-string of my army and every florin in my coffers." "Ah! here is indeed a mirror of chivalry," said Don Pedro. "I think, Sir Fernando, since the prince's bounty is stretched so far, that we may make further use of his gracious goodness to the extent of fifty thousand crowns. Good Sir William Felton, here, will doubtless settle the matter with you." The stout old English counsellor looked somewhat blank at this prompt acceptance of his master's bounty. "If it please you, sire," he said, "the public funds are at their lowest, seeing that I have paid twelve thousand men of the companies, and the new taxes--the hearth-tax and the wine-tax--not yet come in. If you could wait until the promised help from England comes----" "Nay, nay, my sweet cousin," cried Don Pedro. "Had we known that your own coffers were so low, or that this sorry sum could have weighed one way or the other, we had been loth indeed----" "Enough, sire, enough!" said the prince, flushing with vexation. "If the public funds be, indeed, so backward, Sir William, there is still, I trust, my own private credit, which hath never been drawn upon for my own uses, but is now ready in the cause of a friend in adversity. Go, raise this money upon our own jewels, if nought else may serve, and see that it be paid over to Don Fernando." "In security I offer----" cried Don Pedro. "Tush! tush!" said the prince. "I am not a Lombard, sire. Your kingly pledge is my security, without bond or seal. But I have tidings for you, my lords and lieges, that our brother of Lancaster is on his way for our capital with four hundred lances and as many archers to aid us in our venture. When he hath come, and when our fair consort is recovered in her health, which I trust by the grace of God may be ere many weeks be past, we shall then join the army at Dax, and set our banners to the breeze once more." A buzz of joy at the prospect of immediate action rose up from the group of warriors. The prince smiled at the martial ardor which shone upon every face around him. "It will hearten you to know," he continued, "that I have sure advices that this Henry is a very valiant leader, and that he has it in his power to make such a stand against us as promises to give us much honor and pleasure. Of his own people he hath brought together, as I learn, some fifty thousand, with twelve thousand of the French free companies, who are, as you know very valiant and expert men-at-arms. It is certain also, that the brave and worthy Bertrand de Guesclin hath ridden into France to the Duke of Anjou, and purposes to take back with him great levies from Picardy and Brittany. We hold Bertrand in high esteem, for he has oft before been at great pains to furnish us with an honorable encounter. What think you of it, my worthy Captal? He took you at Cocherel, and, by my soul! you will have the chance now to pay that score." The Gascon warrior winced a little at the allusion, nor were his countrymen around him better pleased, for on the only occasion when they had encountered the arms of France without English aid they had met with a heavy defeat. "There are some who say, sire," said the burly De Clisson, "that the score is already overpaid, for that without Gascon help Bertrand had not been taken at Auray, nor had King John been overborne at Poictiers." "By heaven! but this is too much," cried an English nobleman. "Methinks that Gascony is too small a cock to crow so lustily." "The smaller cock, my Lord Audley, may have the longer spur," remarked the Captal de Buch. "May have its comb clipped if it make over-much noise," broke in an Englishman. "By our Lady of Rocamadour!" cried the Lord of Mucident, "this is more than I can abide. Sir John Charnell, you shall answer to me for those words!" "Freely, my lord, and when you will," returned the Englishman carelessly. "My Lord de Clisson," cried Lord Audley, "you look somewhat fixedly in my direction. By God's soul! I should be right glad to go further into the matter with you." "And you, my Lord of Pommers," said Sir Nigel, pushing his way to the front, "it is in my mind that we might break a lance in gentle and honorable debate over the question." For a moment a dozen challenges flashed backwards and forwards at this sudden bursting of the cloud which had lowered so long between the knights of the two nations. Furious and gesticulating the Gascons, white and cold and sneering the English, while the prince with a half smile glanced from one party to the other, like a man who loved to dwell upon a fiery scene, and yet dreaded least the mischief go so far that he might find it beyond his control. "Friends, friends!" he cried at last, "this quarrel must go no further. The man shall answer to me, be he Gascon or English, who carries it beyond this room. I have overmuch need for your swords that you should turn them upon each other. Sir John Charnell, Lord Audley, you do not doubt the courage of our friends of Gascony?" "Not I, sire," Lord Audley answered. "I have seen them fight too often not to know that they are very hardy and valiant gentlemen." "And so say I," quoth the other Englishman; "but, certes, there is no fear of our forgetting it while they have a tongue in their heads." "Nay, Sir John," said the prince reprovingly, "all peoples have their own use and customs. There are some who might call us cold and dull and silent. But you hear, my lords of Gascony, that these gentlemen had no thought to throw a slur upon your honor or your valor, so let all anger fade from your mind. Clisson, Captal, De Pommers, I have your word?" "We are your subjects, sire," said the Gascon barons, though with no very good grace. "Your words are our law." "Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon of Malvoisie," said the prince, cheerily. "Ho, there! the doors of the banquet-hall! I have been over long from my sweet spouse but I shall be back with you anon. Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!" He turned away, accompanied by the two monarchs, while the rest of the company, with many a compressed lip and menacing eye, filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth. CHAPTER XX. HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD. Whilst the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England. "How is it with the old man at Windsor?" asked one. "And how with the good Queen Philippa?" "And how with Dame Alice Perrers?" cried a third. "The devil take your tongue, Wat!" shouted a tall young man, seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. "The prince would take your head off for those words." "By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little," said another. "It is as empty as a beggar's wallet." "As empty as an English squire, coz," cried the first speaker. "What a devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet." "Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least," observed another, amid a burst of laughter. "And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm," cried the aggrieved Humphrey. "But how of England, my lads of Loring?" "I take it," said Ford, "that it is much as it was when you were there last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there." "And why less noise, young Solomon?" "Ah, that is

mind

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years to his life? "Ha, my little heart of gold!" he cried, darting forward suddenly and throwing his arms round Sir Nigel. "I heard that you were here and have been seeking you." "My fair and dear lord," said the knight, returning the warrior's embrace, "I have indeed come back to you, for where else shall I go that I may learn to be a gentle and a hardy knight?" "By my troth!" said Chandos with a smile, "it is very fitting that we should be companions, Nigel, for since you have tied up one of your eyes, and I have had the mischance to lose one of mine, we have but a pair between us. Ah, Sir Oliver! you were on the blind side of me and I saw you not. A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me. We shall go in to the prince anon; but in truth he hath much upon his hands, for what with Pedro, and the King of Majorca, and the King of Navarre, who is no two days of the same mind, and the Gascon barons who are all chaffering for terms like so many hucksters, he hath an uneasy part to play. But how left you the Lady Loring?" "She was well, my fair lord, and sent her service and greetings to you." "I am ever her knight and slave. And your journey, I trust that it was pleasant?" "As heart could wish. We had sight of two rover galleys, and even came to have some slight bickering with them." "Ever in luck's way, Nigel!" quoth Sir John. "We must hear the tale anon. But I deem it best that ye should leave your squires and come with me, for, howsoe'er pressed the prince may be, I am very sure that he would be loth to keep two old comrades-in-arms upon the further side of the door. Follow close behind me, and I will forestall old Sir William, though I can scarce promise to roll forth your style and rank as is his wont." So saying, he led the way to the inner chamber, the two companions treading close at his heels, and nodding to right and left as they caught sight of familiar faces among the crowd. CHAPTER XIX. HOW THERE WAS STIR AT THE ABBEY OF ST. ANDREW'S. The prince's reception-room, although of no great size, was fitted up with all the state and luxury which the fame and power of its owner demanded. A high dais at the further end was roofed in by a broad canopy of scarlet velvet spangled with silver fleurs-de-lis, and supported at either corner by silver rods. This was approached by four steps carpeted with the same material, while all round were scattered rich cushions, oriental mats and costly rugs of fur. The choicest tapestries which the looms of Arras could furnish draped the walls, whereon the battles of Judas Maccabaeus were set forth, with the Jewish warriors in plate of proof, with crest and lance and banderole, as the naive artists of the day were wont to depict them. A few rich settles and bancals, choicely carved and decorated with glazed leather hangings of the sort termed _or basane_, completed the furniture of the apartment, save that at one side of the dais there stood a lofty perch, upon which a cast of three solemn Prussian gerfalcons sat, hooded and jesseled, as silent and motionless as the royal fowler who stood beside them. In the centre of the dais were two very high chairs with dorserets, which arched forwards over the heads of the occupants, the whole covered with light-blue silk thickly powdered with golden stars. On that to the right sat a very tall and well formed man with red hair, a livid face, and a cold blue eye, which had in it something peculiarly sinister and menacing. He lounged back in a careless position, and yawned repeatedly as though heartily weary of the proceedings, stooping from time to time to fondle a shaggy Spanish greyhound which lay stretched at his feet. On the other throne there was perched bolt upright, with prim demeanor, as though he felt himself to be upon his good behavior, a little, round, pippin faced person, who smiled and bobbed to every one whose eye he chanced to meet. Between and a little in front of them on a humble charette or stool, sat a slim, dark young man, whose quiet attire and modest manner would scarce proclaim him to be the most noted prince in Europe. A jupon of dark blue cloth, tagged with buckles and pendants of gold, seemed but a sombre and plain attire amidst the wealth of silk and ermine and gilt tissue of fustian with which he was surrounded. He sat with his two hands clasped round his knee, his head slightly bent, and an expression of impatience and of trouble upon his clear, well-chiselled features. Behind the thrones there stood two men in purple gowns, with ascetic, clean-shaven faces, and half a dozen other high dignitaries and office-holders of Aquitaine. Below on either side of the steps were forty or fifty barons, knights, and courtiers, ranged in a triple row to the right and the left, with a clear passage in the centre. "There sits the prince," whispered Sir John Chandos, as they entered. "He on the right is Pedro, whom we are about to put upon the Spanish throne. The other is Don James, whom we purpose with the aid of God to help to his throne in Majorca. Now follow me, and take it not to heart if he be a little short in his speech, for indeed his mind is full of many very weighty concerns." The prince, however, had already observed their entrance, and, springing to his feet, he had advanced with a winning smile and the light of welcome in his eyes. "We do not need your good offices as herald here, Sir John," said he in a low but clear voice; "these valiant knights are very well known to me. Welcome to Aquitaine, Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver Buttesthorn. Nay, keep your knee for my sweet father at Windsor. I would have your hands, my friends. We are like to give you some work to do ere you see the downs of Hampshire once more. Know you aught of Spain, Sir Oliver?" "Nought, my sire, save that I have heard men say that there is a dish named an olla which is prepared there, though I have never been clear in my mind as to whether it was but a ragout such as is to be found in the south, or whether there is some seasoning such as fennel or garlic which is peculiar to Spain." "Your doubts, Sir Oliver, shall soon be resolved," answered the prince, laughing heartily, as did many of the barons who surrounded them. "His majesty here will doubtless order that you have this dish hotly seasoned when we are all safely in Castile." "I will have a hotly seasoned dish for some folk I know of," answered Don Pedro with a cold smile. "But my friend Sir Oliver can fight right hardily without either bite or sup," remarked the prince. "Did I not see him at Poictiers, when for two days we had not more than a crust of bread and a cup of foul water, yet carrying himself most valiantly. With my own eyes I saw him in the rout sweep the head from a knight of Picardy with one blow of his sword." "The rogue got between me and the nearest French victual wain," muttered Sir Oliver, amid a fresh titter from those who were near enough to catch his words. "How many have you in your train?" asked the prince, assuming a graver mien. "I have forty men-at-arms, sire," said Sir Oliver. "And I have one hundred archers and a score of lancers, but there are two hundred men who wait for me on this side of the water upon the borders of Navarre." "And who are they, Sir Nigel?" "They are a free company, sire, and they are called the White Company." To the astonishment of the knight, his words provoked a burst of merriment from the barons round, in which the two kings and the prince were fain to join. Sir Nigel blinked mildly from one to the other, until at last perceiving a stout black-bearded knight at his elbow, whose laugh rang somewhat louder than the others, he touched him lightly upon the sleeve. "Perchance, my fair sir," he whispered, "there is some small vow of which I may relieve you. Might we not have some honorable debate upon the matter. Your gentle courtesy may perhaps grant me an exchange of thrusts." "Nay, nay, Sir Nigel," cried the prince, "fasten not the offence upon Sir Robert Briquet, for we are one and all bogged in the same mire. Truth to say, our ears have just been vexed by the doings of the same company, and I have even now made vow to hang the man who held the rank of captain over it. I little thought to find him among the bravest of my own chosen chieftains. But the vow is now nought, for, as you have never seen your company, it would be a fool's act to blame you for their doings." "My liege," said Sir Nigel, "it is a very small matter that I should be hanged, albeit the manner of death is somewhat more ignoble than I had hoped for. On the other hand, it would be a very grievous thing that you, the Prince of England and the flower of knighthood, should make a vow, whether in ignorance or no, and fail to bring it to fulfilment." "Vex not your mind on that," the prince answered, smiling. "We have had a citizen from Montauban here this very day, who told us such a tale of sack and murder and pillage that it moved our blood; but our wrath was turned upon the man who was in authority over them." "My dear and honored master," cried Nigel, in great anxiety, "I fear me much that in your gentleness of heart you are straining this vow which you have taken. If there be so much as a shadow of a doubt as to the form of it, it were a thousand times best----" "Peace! peace!" cried the prince impatiently. "I am very well able to look to my own vows and their performance. We hope to see you both in the banquet-hall anon. Meanwhile you will attend upon us with our train." He bowed, and Chandos, plucking Sir Oliver by the sleeve, led them both away to the back of the press of courtiers. "Why, little coz," he whispered, "you are very eager to have your neck in a noose. By my soul! had you asked as much from our new ally Don Pedro, he had not baulked you. Between friends, there is overmuch of the hangman in him, and too little of the prince. But indeed this White Company is a rough band, and may take some handling ere you find yourself safe in your captaincy." "I doubt not, with the help of St. Paul, that I shall bring them to some order," Sir Nigel answered. "But there are many faces here which are new to me, though others have been before me since first I waited upon my dear master, Sir Walter. I pray you to tell me, Sir John, who are these priests upon the dais?" "The one is the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Nigel, and the other the Bishop of Agen." "And the dark knight with gray-streaked beard? By my troth, he seems to be a man of much wisdom and valor." "He is Sir William Felton, who, with my unworthy self, is the chief counsellor of the prince, he being high steward and I the seneschal of Aquitaine." "And the knights upon the right, beside Don Pedro?" "They are cavaliers of Spain who have followed him in his exile. The one at his elbow is Fernando de Castro, who is as brave and true a man as heart could wish. In front to the right are the Gascon lords. You may well tell them by their clouded brows, for there hath been some ill-will of late betwixt the prince and them. The tall and burly man is the Captal de Buch, whom I doubt not that you know, for a braver knight never laid lance in rest. That heavy-faced cavalier who plucks his skirts and whispers in his ear is Lord Oliver de Clisson, known also as the butcher. He it is who stirs up strife, and forever blows the dying embers into flame. The man with the mole upon his cheek is the Lord Pommers, and his two brothers stand behind him, with the Lord Lesparre, Lord de Rosem, Lord de Mucident, Sir Perducas d'Albret, the Souldich de la Trane, and others. Further back are knights from Quercy, Limousin, Saintonge, Poitou, and Aquitaine, with the valiant Sir Guiscard d'Angle. That is he in the rose-colored doublet with the ermine." "And the knights upon this side?" "They are all Englishmen, some of the household and others who like yourself, are captains of companies. There is Lord Neville, Sir Stephen Cossington, and Sir Matthew Gourney, with Sir Walter Huet, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Thomas Felton, who is the brother of the high steward. Mark well the man with the high nose and flaxen beard who hath placed his hand upon the shoulder of the dark hard-faced cavalier in the rust-stained jupon." "Aye, by St. Paul!" observed Sir Nigel, "they both bear the print of their armor upon their cotes-hardies. Methinks they are men who breathe freer in a camp than a court." "There are many of us who do that, Nigel," said Chandos, "and the head of the court is, I dare warrant, among them. But of these two men the one is Sir Hugh Calverley, and the other is Sir Robert Knolles." Sir Nigel and Sir Oliver craned their necks to have the clearer view of these famous warriors, the one a chosen leader of free companies, the other a man who by his fierce valor and energy had raised himself from the lowest ranks until he was second only to Chandos himself in the esteem of the army. "He hath no light hand in war, hath Sir Robert," said Chandos. "If he passes through a country you may tell it for some years to come. I have heard that in the north it is still the use to call a house which hath but the two gable ends left, without walls or roof, a Knolles' mitre." "I have often heard of him," said Nigel, "and I have hoped to be so far honored as to run a course with him. But hark, Sir John, what is amiss with the prince?" Whilst Chandos had been conversing with the two knights a continuous stream of suitors had been ushered in, adventurers seeking to sell their swords and merchants clamoring over some grievance, a ship detained for the carriage of troops, or a tun of sweet wine which had the bottom knocked out by a troop of thirsty archers. A few words from the prince disposed of each case, and, if the applicant liked not the judgment, a quick glance from the prince's dark eyes sent him to the door with the grievance all gone out of him. The younger ruler had sat listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character. "How now, Don Martin de la Carra?" he cried. "How now, sirrah? What message do you bring to us from our brother of Navarre?" The new-comer to whom this abrupt query had been addressed was a tall and exceedingly handsome cavalier who had just been ushered into the apartment. His swarthy cheek and raven black hair spoke of the fiery south, and he wore his long black cloak swathed across his chest and over his shoulders in a graceful sweeping fashion, which was neither English nor French. With stately steps and many profound bows, he advanced to the foot of the dais before replying to the prince's question. "My powerful and illustrious master," he began, "Charles, King of Navarre, Earl of Evreux, Count of Champagne, who also writeth himself Overlord of Bearn, hereby sends his love and greetings to his dear cousin Edward, the Prince of Wales, Governor of Aquitaine, Grand Commander of----" "Tush! tush! Don Martin!" interrupted the prince, who had been beating the ground with his foot impatiently during this stately preamble. "We already know our cousin's titles and style, and, certes, we know our own. To the point, man, and at once. Are the passes open to us, or does your master go back from his word pledged to me at Libourne no later than last Michaelmas?" "It would ill become my gracious master, sire, to go back from promise given. He does but ask some delay and certain conditions and hostages----" "Conditions! Hostages! Is he speaking to the Prince of England, or is it to the bourgeois provost of some half-captured town! Conditions, quotha? He may find much to mend in his own condition ere long. The passes are, then, closed to us?" "Nay, sire----" "They are open, then?" "Nay, sire, if you would but----" "Enough, enough, Don Martin," cried the prince. "It is a sorry sight to see so true a knight pleading in so false a cause. We know the doings of our cousin Charles. We know that while with the right hand he takes our fifty thousand crowns for the holding of the passes open, he hath his left outstretched to Henry of Trastamare, or to the King of France, all ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered horse. He is----" "My lord," cried Don Martin, "I cannot stand there to hear such words of my master. Did they come from other lips, I should know better how to answer them." Don Pedro frowned and curled his lip, but the prince smiled and nodded his approbation. "Your bearing and your words, Don Martin, are such I should have looked for in you," he remarked. "You will tell the king, your master, that he hath been paid his price and that if he holds to his promise he hath my word for it that no scath shall come to his people, nor to their houses or gear. If, however, we have not his leave, I shall come close at the heels of this message without his leave, and bearing a key with me which shall open all that he may close." He stooped and whispered to Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Huge Calverley, who smiled as men well pleased, and hastened from the room. "Our cousin Charles has had experience of our friendship," the prince continued, "and now, by the Saints! he shall feel a touch of our displeasure. I send now a message to our cousin Charles which his whole kingdom may read. Let him take heed lest worse befall him. Where is my Lord Chandos? Ha, Sir John, I commend this worthy knight to your care. You will see that he hath refection, and such a purse of gold as may defray his charges, for indeed it is great honor to any court to have within it so noble and gentle a cavalier. How say you, sire?" he asked, turning to the Spanish refugee, while the herald of Navarre was conducted from the chamber by the old warrior. "It is not our custom in Spain to reward pertness in a messenger," Don Pedro answered, patting the head of his greyhound. "Yet we have all heard the lengths to which your royal generosity runs." "In sooth, yes," cried the King of Majorca. "Who should know it better than we?" said Don Pedro bitterly, "since we have had to fly to you in our trouble as to the natural protector of all who are weak." "Nay, nay, as brothers to a brother," cried the prince, with sparkling eyes. "We doubt not, with the help of God, to see you very soon restored to those thrones from which you have been so traitorously thrust." "When that happy day comes," said Pedro, "then Spain shall be to you as Aquitaine, and, be your project what it may, you may ever count on every troop and every ship over which flies the banner of Castile." "And," added the other, "upon every aid which the wealth and power of Majorca can bestow." "Touching the hundred thousand crowns in which I stand your debtor," continued Pedro carelessly, "it can no doubt----" "Not a word, sire, not a word!" cried the prince. "It is not now when you are in grief that I would vex your mind with such base and sordid matters. I have said once and forever that I am yours with every bow-string of my army and every florin in my coffers." "Ah! here is indeed a mirror of chivalry," said Don Pedro. "I think, Sir Fernando, since the prince's bounty is stretched so far, that we may make further use of his gracious goodness to the extent of fifty thousand crowns. Good Sir William Felton, here, will doubtless settle the matter with you." The stout old English counsellor looked somewhat blank at this prompt acceptance of his master's bounty. "If it please you, sire," he said, "the public funds are at their lowest, seeing that I have paid twelve thousand men of the companies, and the new taxes--the hearth-tax and the wine-tax--not yet come in. If you could wait until the promised help from England comes----" "Nay, nay, my sweet cousin," cried Don Pedro. "Had we known that your own coffers were so low, or that this sorry sum could have weighed one way or the other, we had been loth indeed----" "Enough, sire, enough!" said the prince, flushing with vexation. "If the public funds be, indeed, so backward, Sir William, there is still, I trust, my own private credit, which hath never been drawn upon for my own uses, but is now ready in the cause of a friend in adversity. Go, raise this money upon our own jewels, if nought else may serve, and see that it be paid over to Don Fernando." "In security I offer----" cried Don Pedro. "Tush! tush!" said the prince. "I am not a Lombard, sire. Your kingly pledge is my security, without bond or seal. But I have tidings for you, my lords and lieges, that our brother of Lancaster is on his way for our capital with four hundred lances and as many archers to aid us in our venture. When he hath come, and when our fair consort is recovered in her health, which I trust by the grace of God may be ere many weeks be past, we shall then join the army at Dax, and set our banners to the breeze once more." A buzz of joy at the prospect of immediate action rose up from the group of warriors. The prince smiled at the martial ardor which shone upon every face around him. "It will hearten you to know," he continued, "that I have sure advices that this Henry is a very valiant leader, and that he has it in his power to make such a stand against us as promises to give us much honor and pleasure. Of his own people he hath brought together, as I learn, some fifty thousand, with twelve thousand of the French free companies, who are, as you know very valiant and expert men-at-arms. It is certain also, that the brave and worthy Bertrand de Guesclin hath ridden into France to the Duke of Anjou, and purposes to take back with him great levies from Picardy and Brittany. We hold Bertrand in high esteem, for he has oft before been at great pains to furnish us with an honorable encounter. What think you of it, my worthy Captal? He took you at Cocherel, and, by my soul! you will have the chance now to pay that score." The Gascon warrior winced a little at the allusion, nor were his countrymen around him better pleased, for on the only occasion when they had encountered the arms of France without English aid they had met with a heavy defeat. "There are some who say, sire," said the burly De Clisson, "that the score is already overpaid, for that without Gascon help Bertrand had not been taken at Auray, nor had King John been overborne at Poictiers." "By heaven! but this is too much," cried an English nobleman. "Methinks that Gascony is too small a cock to crow so lustily." "The smaller cock, my Lord Audley, may have the longer spur," remarked the Captal de Buch. "May have its comb clipped if it make over-much noise," broke in an Englishman. "By our Lady of Rocamadour!" cried the Lord of Mucident, "this is more than I can abide. Sir John Charnell, you shall answer to me for those words!" "Freely, my lord, and when you will," returned the Englishman carelessly. "My Lord de Clisson," cried Lord Audley, "you look somewhat fixedly in my direction. By God's soul! I should be right glad to go further into the matter with you." "And you, my Lord of Pommers," said Sir Nigel, pushing his way to the front, "it is in my mind that we might break a lance in gentle and honorable debate over the question." For a moment a dozen challenges flashed backwards and forwards at this sudden bursting of the cloud which had lowered so long between the knights of the two nations. Furious and gesticulating the Gascons, white and cold and sneering the English, while the prince with a half smile glanced from one party to the other, like a man who loved to dwell upon a fiery scene, and yet dreaded least the mischief go so far that he might find it beyond his control. "Friends, friends!" he cried at last, "this quarrel must go no further. The man shall answer to me, be he Gascon or English, who carries it beyond this room. I have overmuch need for your swords that you should turn them upon each other. Sir John Charnell, Lord Audley, you do not doubt the courage of our friends of Gascony?" "Not I, sire," Lord Audley answered. "I have seen them fight too often not to know that they are very hardy and valiant gentlemen." "And so say I," quoth the other Englishman; "but, certes, there is no fear of our forgetting it while they have a tongue in their heads." "Nay, Sir John," said the prince reprovingly, "all peoples have their own use and customs. There are some who might call us cold and dull and silent. But you hear, my lords of Gascony, that these gentlemen had no thought to throw a slur upon your honor or your valor, so let all anger fade from your mind. Clisson, Captal, De Pommers, I have your word?" "We are your subjects, sire," said the Gascon barons, though with no very good grace. "Your words are our law." "Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon of Malvoisie," said the prince, cheerily. "Ho, there! the doors of the banquet-hall! I have been over long from my sweet spouse but I shall be back with you anon. Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!" He turned away, accompanied by the two monarchs, while the rest of the company, with many a compressed lip and menacing eye, filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth. CHAPTER XX. HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD. Whilst the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England. "How is it with the old man at Windsor?" asked one. "And how with the good Queen Philippa?" "And how with Dame Alice Perrers?" cried a third. "The devil take your tongue, Wat!" shouted a tall young man, seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. "The prince would take your head off for those words." "By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little," said another. "It is as empty as a beggar's wallet." "As empty as an English squire, coz," cried the first speaker. "What a devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet." "Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least," observed another, amid a burst of laughter. "And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm," cried the aggrieved Humphrey. "But how of England, my lads of Loring?" "I take it," said Ford, "that it is much as it was when you were there last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there." "And why less noise, young Solomon?" "Ah, that is

day--

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years to his life? "Ha, my little heart of gold!" he cried, darting forward suddenly and throwing his arms round Sir Nigel. "I heard that you were here and have been seeking you." "My fair and dear lord," said the knight, returning the warrior's embrace, "I have indeed come back to you, for where else shall I go that I may learn to be a gentle and a hardy knight?" "By my troth!" said Chandos with a smile, "it is very fitting that we should be companions, Nigel, for since you have tied up one of your eyes, and I have had the mischance to lose one of mine, we have but a pair between us. Ah, Sir Oliver! you were on the blind side of me and I saw you not. A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me. We shall go in to the prince anon; but in truth he hath much upon his hands, for what with Pedro, and the King of Majorca, and the King of Navarre, who is no two days of the same mind, and the Gascon barons who are all chaffering for terms like so many hucksters, he hath an uneasy part to play. But how left you the Lady Loring?" "She was well, my fair lord, and sent her service and greetings to you." "I am ever her knight and slave. And your journey, I trust that it was pleasant?" "As heart could wish. We had sight of two rover galleys, and even came to have some slight bickering with them." "Ever in luck's way, Nigel!" quoth Sir John. "We must hear the tale anon. But I deem it best that ye should leave your squires and come with me, for, howsoe'er pressed the prince may be, I am very sure that he would be loth to keep two old comrades-in-arms upon the further side of the door. Follow close behind me, and I will forestall old Sir William, though I can scarce promise to roll forth your style and rank as is his wont." So saying, he led the way to the inner chamber, the two companions treading close at his heels, and nodding to right and left as they caught sight of familiar faces among the crowd. CHAPTER XIX. HOW THERE WAS STIR AT THE ABBEY OF ST. ANDREW'S. The prince's reception-room, although of no great size, was fitted up with all the state and luxury which the fame and power of its owner demanded. A high dais at the further end was roofed in by a broad canopy of scarlet velvet spangled with silver fleurs-de-lis, and supported at either corner by silver rods. This was approached by four steps carpeted with the same material, while all round were scattered rich cushions, oriental mats and costly rugs of fur. The choicest tapestries which the looms of Arras could furnish draped the walls, whereon the battles of Judas Maccabaeus were set forth, with the Jewish warriors in plate of proof, with crest and lance and banderole, as the naive artists of the day were wont to depict them. A few rich settles and bancals, choicely carved and decorated with glazed leather hangings of the sort termed _or basane_, completed the furniture of the apartment, save that at one side of the dais there stood a lofty perch, upon which a cast of three solemn Prussian gerfalcons sat, hooded and jesseled, as silent and motionless as the royal fowler who stood beside them. In the centre of the dais were two very high chairs with dorserets, which arched forwards over the heads of the occupants, the whole covered with light-blue silk thickly powdered with golden stars. On that to the right sat a very tall and well formed man with red hair, a livid face, and a cold blue eye, which had in it something peculiarly sinister and menacing. He lounged back in a careless position, and yawned repeatedly as though heartily weary of the proceedings, stooping from time to time to fondle a shaggy Spanish greyhound which lay stretched at his feet. On the other throne there was perched bolt upright, with prim demeanor, as though he felt himself to be upon his good behavior, a little, round, pippin faced person, who smiled and bobbed to every one whose eye he chanced to meet. Between and a little in front of them on a humble charette or stool, sat a slim, dark young man, whose quiet attire and modest manner would scarce proclaim him to be the most noted prince in Europe. A jupon of dark blue cloth, tagged with buckles and pendants of gold, seemed but a sombre and plain attire amidst the wealth of silk and ermine and gilt tissue of fustian with which he was surrounded. He sat with his two hands clasped round his knee, his head slightly bent, and an expression of impatience and of trouble upon his clear, well-chiselled features. Behind the thrones there stood two men in purple gowns, with ascetic, clean-shaven faces, and half a dozen other high dignitaries and office-holders of Aquitaine. Below on either side of the steps were forty or fifty barons, knights, and courtiers, ranged in a triple row to the right and the left, with a clear passage in the centre. "There sits the prince," whispered Sir John Chandos, as they entered. "He on the right is Pedro, whom we are about to put upon the Spanish throne. The other is Don James, whom we purpose with the aid of God to help to his throne in Majorca. Now follow me, and take it not to heart if he be a little short in his speech, for indeed his mind is full of many very weighty concerns." The prince, however, had already observed their entrance, and, springing to his feet, he had advanced with a winning smile and the light of welcome in his eyes. "We do not need your good offices as herald here, Sir John," said he in a low but clear voice; "these valiant knights are very well known to me. Welcome to Aquitaine, Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver Buttesthorn. Nay, keep your knee for my sweet father at Windsor. I would have your hands, my friends. We are like to give you some work to do ere you see the downs of Hampshire once more. Know you aught of Spain, Sir Oliver?" "Nought, my sire, save that I have heard men say that there is a dish named an olla which is prepared there, though I have never been clear in my mind as to whether it was but a ragout such as is to be found in the south, or whether there is some seasoning such as fennel or garlic which is peculiar to Spain." "Your doubts, Sir Oliver, shall soon be resolved," answered the prince, laughing heartily, as did many of the barons who surrounded them. "His majesty here will doubtless order that you have this dish hotly seasoned when we are all safely in Castile." "I will have a hotly seasoned dish for some folk I know of," answered Don Pedro with a cold smile. "But my friend Sir Oliver can fight right hardily without either bite or sup," remarked the prince. "Did I not see him at Poictiers, when for two days we had not more than a crust of bread and a cup of foul water, yet carrying himself most valiantly. With my own eyes I saw him in the rout sweep the head from a knight of Picardy with one blow of his sword." "The rogue got between me and the nearest French victual wain," muttered Sir Oliver, amid a fresh titter from those who were near enough to catch his words. "How many have you in your train?" asked the prince, assuming a graver mien. "I have forty men-at-arms, sire," said Sir Oliver. "And I have one hundred archers and a score of lancers, but there are two hundred men who wait for me on this side of the water upon the borders of Navarre." "And who are they, Sir Nigel?" "They are a free company, sire, and they are called the White Company." To the astonishment of the knight, his words provoked a burst of merriment from the barons round, in which the two kings and the prince were fain to join. Sir Nigel blinked mildly from one to the other, until at last perceiving a stout black-bearded knight at his elbow, whose laugh rang somewhat louder than the others, he touched him lightly upon the sleeve. "Perchance, my fair sir," he whispered, "there is some small vow of which I may relieve you. Might we not have some honorable debate upon the matter. Your gentle courtesy may perhaps grant me an exchange of thrusts." "Nay, nay, Sir Nigel," cried the prince, "fasten not the offence upon Sir Robert Briquet, for we are one and all bogged in the same mire. Truth to say, our ears have just been vexed by the doings of the same company, and I have even now made vow to hang the man who held the rank of captain over it. I little thought to find him among the bravest of my own chosen chieftains. But the vow is now nought, for, as you have never seen your company, it would be a fool's act to blame you for their doings." "My liege," said Sir Nigel, "it is a very small matter that I should be hanged, albeit the manner of death is somewhat more ignoble than I had hoped for. On the other hand, it would be a very grievous thing that you, the Prince of England and the flower of knighthood, should make a vow, whether in ignorance or no, and fail to bring it to fulfilment." "Vex not your mind on that," the prince answered, smiling. "We have had a citizen from Montauban here this very day, who told us such a tale of sack and murder and pillage that it moved our blood; but our wrath was turned upon the man who was in authority over them." "My dear and honored master," cried Nigel, in great anxiety, "I fear me much that in your gentleness of heart you are straining this vow which you have taken. If there be so much as a shadow of a doubt as to the form of it, it were a thousand times best----" "Peace! peace!" cried the prince impatiently. "I am very well able to look to my own vows and their performance. We hope to see you both in the banquet-hall anon. Meanwhile you will attend upon us with our train." He bowed, and Chandos, plucking Sir Oliver by the sleeve, led them both away to the back of the press of courtiers. "Why, little coz," he whispered, "you are very eager to have your neck in a noose. By my soul! had you asked as much from our new ally Don Pedro, he had not baulked you. Between friends, there is overmuch of the hangman in him, and too little of the prince. But indeed this White Company is a rough band, and may take some handling ere you find yourself safe in your captaincy." "I doubt not, with the help of St. Paul, that I shall bring them to some order," Sir Nigel answered. "But there are many faces here which are new to me, though others have been before me since first I waited upon my dear master, Sir Walter. I pray you to tell me, Sir John, who are these priests upon the dais?" "The one is the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Nigel, and the other the Bishop of Agen." "And the dark knight with gray-streaked beard? By my troth, he seems to be a man of much wisdom and valor." "He is Sir William Felton, who, with my unworthy self, is the chief counsellor of the prince, he being high steward and I the seneschal of Aquitaine." "And the knights upon the right, beside Don Pedro?" "They are cavaliers of Spain who have followed him in his exile. The one at his elbow is Fernando de Castro, who is as brave and true a man as heart could wish. In front to the right are the Gascon lords. You may well tell them by their clouded brows, for there hath been some ill-will of late betwixt the prince and them. The tall and burly man is the Captal de Buch, whom I doubt not that you know, for a braver knight never laid lance in rest. That heavy-faced cavalier who plucks his skirts and whispers in his ear is Lord Oliver de Clisson, known also as the butcher. He it is who stirs up strife, and forever blows the dying embers into flame. The man with the mole upon his cheek is the Lord Pommers, and his two brothers stand behind him, with the Lord Lesparre, Lord de Rosem, Lord de Mucident, Sir Perducas d'Albret, the Souldich de la Trane, and others. Further back are knights from Quercy, Limousin, Saintonge, Poitou, and Aquitaine, with the valiant Sir Guiscard d'Angle. That is he in the rose-colored doublet with the ermine." "And the knights upon this side?" "They are all Englishmen, some of the household and others who like yourself, are captains of companies. There is Lord Neville, Sir Stephen Cossington, and Sir Matthew Gourney, with Sir Walter Huet, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Thomas Felton, who is the brother of the high steward. Mark well the man with the high nose and flaxen beard who hath placed his hand upon the shoulder of the dark hard-faced cavalier in the rust-stained jupon." "Aye, by St. Paul!" observed Sir Nigel, "they both bear the print of their armor upon their cotes-hardies. Methinks they are men who breathe freer in a camp than a court." "There are many of us who do that, Nigel," said Chandos, "and the head of the court is, I dare warrant, among them. But of these two men the one is Sir Hugh Calverley, and the other is Sir Robert Knolles." Sir Nigel and Sir Oliver craned their necks to have the clearer view of these famous warriors, the one a chosen leader of free companies, the other a man who by his fierce valor and energy had raised himself from the lowest ranks until he was second only to Chandos himself in the esteem of the army. "He hath no light hand in war, hath Sir Robert," said Chandos. "If he passes through a country you may tell it for some years to come. I have heard that in the north it is still the use to call a house which hath but the two gable ends left, without walls or roof, a Knolles' mitre." "I have often heard of him," said Nigel, "and I have hoped to be so far honored as to run a course with him. But hark, Sir John, what is amiss with the prince?" Whilst Chandos had been conversing with the two knights a continuous stream of suitors had been ushered in, adventurers seeking to sell their swords and merchants clamoring over some grievance, a ship detained for the carriage of troops, or a tun of sweet wine which had the bottom knocked out by a troop of thirsty archers. A few words from the prince disposed of each case, and, if the applicant liked not the judgment, a quick glance from the prince's dark eyes sent him to the door with the grievance all gone out of him. The younger ruler had sat listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character. "How now, Don Martin de la Carra?" he cried. "How now, sirrah? What message do you bring to us from our brother of Navarre?" The new-comer to whom this abrupt query had been addressed was a tall and exceedingly handsome cavalier who had just been ushered into the apartment. His swarthy cheek and raven black hair spoke of the fiery south, and he wore his long black cloak swathed across his chest and over his shoulders in a graceful sweeping fashion, which was neither English nor French. With stately steps and many profound bows, he advanced to the foot of the dais before replying to the prince's question. "My powerful and illustrious master," he began, "Charles, King of Navarre, Earl of Evreux, Count of Champagne, who also writeth himself Overlord of Bearn, hereby sends his love and greetings to his dear cousin Edward, the Prince of Wales, Governor of Aquitaine, Grand Commander of----" "Tush! tush! Don Martin!" interrupted the prince, who had been beating the ground with his foot impatiently during this stately preamble. "We already know our cousin's titles and style, and, certes, we know our own. To the point, man, and at once. Are the passes open to us, or does your master go back from his word pledged to me at Libourne no later than last Michaelmas?" "It would ill become my gracious master, sire, to go back from promise given. He does but ask some delay and certain conditions and hostages----" "Conditions! Hostages! Is he speaking to the Prince of England, or is it to the bourgeois provost of some half-captured town! Conditions, quotha? He may find much to mend in his own condition ere long. The passes are, then, closed to us?" "Nay, sire----" "They are open, then?" "Nay, sire, if you would but----" "Enough, enough, Don Martin," cried the prince. "It is a sorry sight to see so true a knight pleading in so false a cause. We know the doings of our cousin Charles. We know that while with the right hand he takes our fifty thousand crowns for the holding of the passes open, he hath his left outstretched to Henry of Trastamare, or to the King of France, all ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered horse. He is----" "My lord," cried Don Martin, "I cannot stand there to hear such words of my master. Did they come from other lips, I should know better how to answer them." Don Pedro frowned and curled his lip, but the prince smiled and nodded his approbation. "Your bearing and your words, Don Martin, are such I should have looked for in you," he remarked. "You will tell the king, your master, that he hath been paid his price and that if he holds to his promise he hath my word for it that no scath shall come to his people, nor to their houses or gear. If, however, we have not his leave, I shall come close at the heels of this message without his leave, and bearing a key with me which shall open all that he may close." He stooped and whispered to Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Huge Calverley, who smiled as men well pleased, and hastened from the room. "Our cousin Charles has had experience of our friendship," the prince continued, "and now, by the Saints! he shall feel a touch of our displeasure. I send now a message to our cousin Charles which his whole kingdom may read. Let him take heed lest worse befall him. Where is my Lord Chandos? Ha, Sir John, I commend this worthy knight to your care. You will see that he hath refection, and such a purse of gold as may defray his charges, for indeed it is great honor to any court to have within it so noble and gentle a cavalier. How say you, sire?" he asked, turning to the Spanish refugee, while the herald of Navarre was conducted from the chamber by the old warrior. "It is not our custom in Spain to reward pertness in a messenger," Don Pedro answered, patting the head of his greyhound. "Yet we have all heard the lengths to which your royal generosity runs." "In sooth, yes," cried the King of Majorca. "Who should know it better than we?" said Don Pedro bitterly, "since we have had to fly to you in our trouble as to the natural protector of all who are weak." "Nay, nay, as brothers to a brother," cried the prince, with sparkling eyes. "We doubt not, with the help of God, to see you very soon restored to those thrones from which you have been so traitorously thrust." "When that happy day comes," said Pedro, "then Spain shall be to you as Aquitaine, and, be your project what it may, you may ever count on every troop and every ship over which flies the banner of Castile." "And," added the other, "upon every aid which the wealth and power of Majorca can bestow." "Touching the hundred thousand crowns in which I stand your debtor," continued Pedro carelessly, "it can no doubt----" "Not a word, sire, not a word!" cried the prince. "It is not now when you are in grief that I would vex your mind with such base and sordid matters. I have said once and forever that I am yours with every bow-string of my army and every florin in my coffers." "Ah! here is indeed a mirror of chivalry," said Don Pedro. "I think, Sir Fernando, since the prince's bounty is stretched so far, that we may make further use of his gracious goodness to the extent of fifty thousand crowns. Good Sir William Felton, here, will doubtless settle the matter with you." The stout old English counsellor looked somewhat blank at this prompt acceptance of his master's bounty. "If it please you, sire," he said, "the public funds are at their lowest, seeing that I have paid twelve thousand men of the companies, and the new taxes--the hearth-tax and the wine-tax--not yet come in. If you could wait until the promised help from England comes----" "Nay, nay, my sweet cousin," cried Don Pedro. "Had we known that your own coffers were so low, or that this sorry sum could have weighed one way or the other, we had been loth indeed----" "Enough, sire, enough!" said the prince, flushing with vexation. "If the public funds be, indeed, so backward, Sir William, there is still, I trust, my own private credit, which hath never been drawn upon for my own uses, but is now ready in the cause of a friend in adversity. Go, raise this money upon our own jewels, if nought else may serve, and see that it be paid over to Don Fernando." "In security I offer----" cried Don Pedro. "Tush! tush!" said the prince. "I am not a Lombard, sire. Your kingly pledge is my security, without bond or seal. But I have tidings for you, my lords and lieges, that our brother of Lancaster is on his way for our capital with four hundred lances and as many archers to aid us in our venture. When he hath come, and when our fair consort is recovered in her health, which I trust by the grace of God may be ere many weeks be past, we shall then join the army at Dax, and set our banners to the breeze once more." A buzz of joy at the prospect of immediate action rose up from the group of warriors. The prince smiled at the martial ardor which shone upon every face around him. "It will hearten you to know," he continued, "that I have sure advices that this Henry is a very valiant leader, and that he has it in his power to make such a stand against us as promises to give us much honor and pleasure. Of his own people he hath brought together, as I learn, some fifty thousand, with twelve thousand of the French free companies, who are, as you know very valiant and expert men-at-arms. It is certain also, that the brave and worthy Bertrand de Guesclin hath ridden into France to the Duke of Anjou, and purposes to take back with him great levies from Picardy and Brittany. We hold Bertrand in high esteem, for he has oft before been at great pains to furnish us with an honorable encounter. What think you of it, my worthy Captal? He took you at Cocherel, and, by my soul! you will have the chance now to pay that score." The Gascon warrior winced a little at the allusion, nor were his countrymen around him better pleased, for on the only occasion when they had encountered the arms of France without English aid they had met with a heavy defeat. "There are some who say, sire," said the burly De Clisson, "that the score is already overpaid, for that without Gascon help Bertrand had not been taken at Auray, nor had King John been overborne at Poictiers." "By heaven! but this is too much," cried an English nobleman. "Methinks that Gascony is too small a cock to crow so lustily." "The smaller cock, my Lord Audley, may have the longer spur," remarked the Captal de Buch. "May have its comb clipped if it make over-much noise," broke in an Englishman. "By our Lady of Rocamadour!" cried the Lord of Mucident, "this is more than I can abide. Sir John Charnell, you shall answer to me for those words!" "Freely, my lord, and when you will," returned the Englishman carelessly. "My Lord de Clisson," cried Lord Audley, "you look somewhat fixedly in my direction. By God's soul! I should be right glad to go further into the matter with you." "And you, my Lord of Pommers," said Sir Nigel, pushing his way to the front, "it is in my mind that we might break a lance in gentle and honorable debate over the question." For a moment a dozen challenges flashed backwards and forwards at this sudden bursting of the cloud which had lowered so long between the knights of the two nations. Furious and gesticulating the Gascons, white and cold and sneering the English, while the prince with a half smile glanced from one party to the other, like a man who loved to dwell upon a fiery scene, and yet dreaded least the mischief go so far that he might find it beyond his control. "Friends, friends!" he cried at last, "this quarrel must go no further. The man shall answer to me, be he Gascon or English, who carries it beyond this room. I have overmuch need for your swords that you should turn them upon each other. Sir John Charnell, Lord Audley, you do not doubt the courage of our friends of Gascony?" "Not I, sire," Lord Audley answered. "I have seen them fight too often not to know that they are very hardy and valiant gentlemen." "And so say I," quoth the other Englishman; "but, certes, there is no fear of our forgetting it while they have a tongue in their heads." "Nay, Sir John," said the prince reprovingly, "all peoples have their own use and customs. There are some who might call us cold and dull and silent. But you hear, my lords of Gascony, that these gentlemen had no thought to throw a slur upon your honor or your valor, so let all anger fade from your mind. Clisson, Captal, De Pommers, I have your word?" "We are your subjects, sire," said the Gascon barons, though with no very good grace. "Your words are our law." "Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon of Malvoisie," said the prince, cheerily. "Ho, there! the doors of the banquet-hall! I have been over long from my sweet spouse but I shall be back with you anon. Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!" He turned away, accompanied by the two monarchs, while the rest of the company, with many a compressed lip and menacing eye, filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth. CHAPTER XX. HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD. Whilst the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England. "How is it with the old man at Windsor?" asked one. "And how with the good Queen Philippa?" "And how with Dame Alice Perrers?" cried a third. "The devil take your tongue, Wat!" shouted a tall young man, seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. "The prince would take your head off for those words." "By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little," said another. "It is as empty as a beggar's wallet." "As empty as an English squire, coz," cried the first speaker. "What a devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet." "Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least," observed another, amid a burst of laughter. "And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm," cried the aggrieved Humphrey. "But how of England, my lads of Loring?" "I take it," said Ford, "that it is much as it was when you were there last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there." "And why less noise, young Solomon?" "Ah, that is

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years to his life? "Ha, my little heart of gold!" he cried, darting forward suddenly and throwing his arms round Sir Nigel. "I heard that you were here and have been seeking you." "My fair and dear lord," said the knight, returning the warrior's embrace, "I have indeed come back to you, for where else shall I go that I may learn to be a gentle and a hardy knight?" "By my troth!" said Chandos with a smile, "it is very fitting that we should be companions, Nigel, for since you have tied up one of your eyes, and I have had the mischance to lose one of mine, we have but a pair between us. Ah, Sir Oliver! you were on the blind side of me and I saw you not. A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me. We shall go in to the prince anon; but in truth he hath much upon his hands, for what with Pedro, and the King of Majorca, and the King of Navarre, who is no two days of the same mind, and the Gascon barons who are all chaffering for terms like so many hucksters, he hath an uneasy part to play. But how left you the Lady Loring?" "She was well, my fair lord, and sent her service and greetings to you." "I am ever her knight and slave. And your journey, I trust that it was pleasant?" "As heart could wish. We had sight of two rover galleys, and even came to have some slight bickering with them." "Ever in luck's way, Nigel!" quoth Sir John. "We must hear the tale anon. But I deem it best that ye should leave your squires and come with me, for, howsoe'er pressed the prince may be, I am very sure that he would be loth to keep two old comrades-in-arms upon the further side of the door. Follow close behind me, and I will forestall old Sir William, though I can scarce promise to roll forth your style and rank as is his wont." So saying, he led the way to the inner chamber, the two companions treading close at his heels, and nodding to right and left as they caught sight of familiar faces among the crowd. CHAPTER XIX. HOW THERE WAS STIR AT THE ABBEY OF ST. ANDREW'S. The prince's reception-room, although of no great size, was fitted up with all the state and luxury which the fame and power of its owner demanded. A high dais at the further end was roofed in by a broad canopy of scarlet velvet spangled with silver fleurs-de-lis, and supported at either corner by silver rods. This was approached by four steps carpeted with the same material, while all round were scattered rich cushions, oriental mats and costly rugs of fur. The choicest tapestries which the looms of Arras could furnish draped the walls, whereon the battles of Judas Maccabaeus were set forth, with the Jewish warriors in plate of proof, with crest and lance and banderole, as the naive artists of the day were wont to depict them. A few rich settles and bancals, choicely carved and decorated with glazed leather hangings of the sort termed _or basane_, completed the furniture of the apartment, save that at one side of the dais there stood a lofty perch, upon which a cast of three solemn Prussian gerfalcons sat, hooded and jesseled, as silent and motionless as the royal fowler who stood beside them. In the centre of the dais were two very high chairs with dorserets, which arched forwards over the heads of the occupants, the whole covered with light-blue silk thickly powdered with golden stars. On that to the right sat a very tall and well formed man with red hair, a livid face, and a cold blue eye, which had in it something peculiarly sinister and menacing. He lounged back in a careless position, and yawned repeatedly as though heartily weary of the proceedings, stooping from time to time to fondle a shaggy Spanish greyhound which lay stretched at his feet. On the other throne there was perched bolt upright, with prim demeanor, as though he felt himself to be upon his good behavior, a little, round, pippin faced person, who smiled and bobbed to every one whose eye he chanced to meet. Between and a little in front of them on a humble charette or stool, sat a slim, dark young man, whose quiet attire and modest manner would scarce proclaim him to be the most noted prince in Europe. A jupon of dark blue cloth, tagged with buckles and pendants of gold, seemed but a sombre and plain attire amidst the wealth of silk and ermine and gilt tissue of fustian with which he was surrounded. He sat with his two hands clasped round his knee, his head slightly bent, and an expression of impatience and of trouble upon his clear, well-chiselled features. Behind the thrones there stood two men in purple gowns, with ascetic, clean-shaven faces, and half a dozen other high dignitaries and office-holders of Aquitaine. Below on either side of the steps were forty or fifty barons, knights, and courtiers, ranged in a triple row to the right and the left, with a clear passage in the centre. "There sits the prince," whispered Sir John Chandos, as they entered. "He on the right is Pedro, whom we are about to put upon the Spanish throne. The other is Don James, whom we purpose with the aid of God to help to his throne in Majorca. Now follow me, and take it not to heart if he be a little short in his speech, for indeed his mind is full of many very weighty concerns." The prince, however, had already observed their entrance, and, springing to his feet, he had advanced with a winning smile and the light of welcome in his eyes. "We do not need your good offices as herald here, Sir John," said he in a low but clear voice; "these valiant knights are very well known to me. Welcome to Aquitaine, Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver Buttesthorn. Nay, keep your knee for my sweet father at Windsor. I would have your hands, my friends. We are like to give you some work to do ere you see the downs of Hampshire once more. Know you aught of Spain, Sir Oliver?" "Nought, my sire, save that I have heard men say that there is a dish named an olla which is prepared there, though I have never been clear in my mind as to whether it was but a ragout such as is to be found in the south, or whether there is some seasoning such as fennel or garlic which is peculiar to Spain." "Your doubts, Sir Oliver, shall soon be resolved," answered the prince, laughing heartily, as did many of the barons who surrounded them. "His majesty here will doubtless order that you have this dish hotly seasoned when we are all safely in Castile." "I will have a hotly seasoned dish for some folk I know of," answered Don Pedro with a cold smile. "But my friend Sir Oliver can fight right hardily without either bite or sup," remarked the prince. "Did I not see him at Poictiers, when for two days we had not more than a crust of bread and a cup of foul water, yet carrying himself most valiantly. With my own eyes I saw him in the rout sweep the head from a knight of Picardy with one blow of his sword." "The rogue got between me and the nearest French victual wain," muttered Sir Oliver, amid a fresh titter from those who were near enough to catch his words. "How many have you in your train?" asked the prince, assuming a graver mien. "I have forty men-at-arms, sire," said Sir Oliver. "And I have one hundred archers and a score of lancers, but there are two hundred men who wait for me on this side of the water upon the borders of Navarre." "And who are they, Sir Nigel?" "They are a free company, sire, and they are called the White Company." To the astonishment of the knight, his words provoked a burst of merriment from the barons round, in which the two kings and the prince were fain to join. Sir Nigel blinked mildly from one to the other, until at last perceiving a stout black-bearded knight at his elbow, whose laugh rang somewhat louder than the others, he touched him lightly upon the sleeve. "Perchance, my fair sir," he whispered, "there is some small vow of which I may relieve you. Might we not have some honorable debate upon the matter. Your gentle courtesy may perhaps grant me an exchange of thrusts." "Nay, nay, Sir Nigel," cried the prince, "fasten not the offence upon Sir Robert Briquet, for we are one and all bogged in the same mire. Truth to say, our ears have just been vexed by the doings of the same company, and I have even now made vow to hang the man who held the rank of captain over it. I little thought to find him among the bravest of my own chosen chieftains. But the vow is now nought, for, as you have never seen your company, it would be a fool's act to blame you for their doings." "My liege," said Sir Nigel, "it is a very small matter that I should be hanged, albeit the manner of death is somewhat more ignoble than I had hoped for. On the other hand, it would be a very grievous thing that you, the Prince of England and the flower of knighthood, should make a vow, whether in ignorance or no, and fail to bring it to fulfilment." "Vex not your mind on that," the prince answered, smiling. "We have had a citizen from Montauban here this very day, who told us such a tale of sack and murder and pillage that it moved our blood; but our wrath was turned upon the man who was in authority over them." "My dear and honored master," cried Nigel, in great anxiety, "I fear me much that in your gentleness of heart you are straining this vow which you have taken. If there be so much as a shadow of a doubt as to the form of it, it were a thousand times best----" "Peace! peace!" cried the prince impatiently. "I am very well able to look to my own vows and their performance. We hope to see you both in the banquet-hall anon. Meanwhile you will attend upon us with our train." He bowed, and Chandos, plucking Sir Oliver by the sleeve, led them both away to the back of the press of courtiers. "Why, little coz," he whispered, "you are very eager to have your neck in a noose. By my soul! had you asked as much from our new ally Don Pedro, he had not baulked you. Between friends, there is overmuch of the hangman in him, and too little of the prince. But indeed this White Company is a rough band, and may take some handling ere you find yourself safe in your captaincy." "I doubt not, with the help of St. Paul, that I shall bring them to some order," Sir Nigel answered. "But there are many faces here which are new to me, though others have been before me since first I waited upon my dear master, Sir Walter. I pray you to tell me, Sir John, who are these priests upon the dais?" "The one is the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Nigel, and the other the Bishop of Agen." "And the dark knight with gray-streaked beard? By my troth, he seems to be a man of much wisdom and valor." "He is Sir William Felton, who, with my unworthy self, is the chief counsellor of the prince, he being high steward and I the seneschal of Aquitaine." "And the knights upon the right, beside Don Pedro?" "They are cavaliers of Spain who have followed him in his exile. The one at his elbow is Fernando de Castro, who is as brave and true a man as heart could wish. In front to the right are the Gascon lords. You may well tell them by their clouded brows, for there hath been some ill-will of late betwixt the prince and them. The tall and burly man is the Captal de Buch, whom I doubt not that you know, for a braver knight never laid lance in rest. That heavy-faced cavalier who plucks his skirts and whispers in his ear is Lord Oliver de Clisson, known also as the butcher. He it is who stirs up strife, and forever blows the dying embers into flame. The man with the mole upon his cheek is the Lord Pommers, and his two brothers stand behind him, with the Lord Lesparre, Lord de Rosem, Lord de Mucident, Sir Perducas d'Albret, the Souldich de la Trane, and others. Further back are knights from Quercy, Limousin, Saintonge, Poitou, and Aquitaine, with the valiant Sir Guiscard d'Angle. That is he in the rose-colored doublet with the ermine." "And the knights upon this side?" "They are all Englishmen, some of the household and others who like yourself, are captains of companies. There is Lord Neville, Sir Stephen Cossington, and Sir Matthew Gourney, with Sir Walter Huet, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Thomas Felton, who is the brother of the high steward. Mark well the man with the high nose and flaxen beard who hath placed his hand upon the shoulder of the dark hard-faced cavalier in the rust-stained jupon." "Aye, by St. Paul!" observed Sir Nigel, "they both bear the print of their armor upon their cotes-hardies. Methinks they are men who breathe freer in a camp than a court." "There are many of us who do that, Nigel," said Chandos, "and the head of the court is, I dare warrant, among them. But of these two men the one is Sir Hugh Calverley, and the other is Sir Robert Knolles." Sir Nigel and Sir Oliver craned their necks to have the clearer view of these famous warriors, the one a chosen leader of free companies, the other a man who by his fierce valor and energy had raised himself from the lowest ranks until he was second only to Chandos himself in the esteem of the army. "He hath no light hand in war, hath Sir Robert," said Chandos. "If he passes through a country you may tell it for some years to come. I have heard that in the north it is still the use to call a house which hath but the two gable ends left, without walls or roof, a Knolles' mitre." "I have often heard of him," said Nigel, "and I have hoped to be so far honored as to run a course with him. But hark, Sir John, what is amiss with the prince?" Whilst Chandos had been conversing with the two knights a continuous stream of suitors had been ushered in, adventurers seeking to sell their swords and merchants clamoring over some grievance, a ship detained for the carriage of troops, or a tun of sweet wine which had the bottom knocked out by a troop of thirsty archers. A few words from the prince disposed of each case, and, if the applicant liked not the judgment, a quick glance from the prince's dark eyes sent him to the door with the grievance all gone out of him. The younger ruler had sat listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character. "How now, Don Martin de la Carra?" he cried. "How now, sirrah? What message do you bring to us from our brother of Navarre?" The new-comer to whom this abrupt query had been addressed was a tall and exceedingly handsome cavalier who had just been ushered into the apartment. His swarthy cheek and raven black hair spoke of the fiery south, and he wore his long black cloak swathed across his chest and over his shoulders in a graceful sweeping fashion, which was neither English nor French. With stately steps and many profound bows, he advanced to the foot of the dais before replying to the prince's question. "My powerful and illustrious master," he began, "Charles, King of Navarre, Earl of Evreux, Count of Champagne, who also writeth himself Overlord of Bearn, hereby sends his love and greetings to his dear cousin Edward, the Prince of Wales, Governor of Aquitaine, Grand Commander of----" "Tush! tush! Don Martin!" interrupted the prince, who had been beating the ground with his foot impatiently during this stately preamble. "We already know our cousin's titles and style, and, certes, we know our own. To the point, man, and at once. Are the passes open to us, or does your master go back from his word pledged to me at Libourne no later than last Michaelmas?" "It would ill become my gracious master, sire, to go back from promise given. He does but ask some delay and certain conditions and hostages----" "Conditions! Hostages! Is he speaking to the Prince of England, or is it to the bourgeois provost of some half-captured town! Conditions, quotha? He may find much to mend in his own condition ere long. The passes are, then, closed to us?" "Nay, sire----" "They are open, then?" "Nay, sire, if you would but----" "Enough, enough, Don Martin," cried the prince. "It is a sorry sight to see so true a knight pleading in so false a cause. We know the doings of our cousin Charles. We know that while with the right hand he takes our fifty thousand crowns for the holding of the passes open, he hath his left outstretched to Henry of Trastamare, or to the King of France, all ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered horse. He is----" "My lord," cried Don Martin, "I cannot stand there to hear such words of my master. Did they come from other lips, I should know better how to answer them." Don Pedro frowned and curled his lip, but the prince smiled and nodded his approbation. "Your bearing and your words, Don Martin, are such I should have looked for in you," he remarked. "You will tell the king, your master, that he hath been paid his price and that if he holds to his promise he hath my word for it that no scath shall come to his people, nor to their houses or gear. If, however, we have not his leave, I shall come close at the heels of this message without his leave, and bearing a key with me which shall open all that he may close." He stooped and whispered to Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Huge Calverley, who smiled as men well pleased, and hastened from the room. "Our cousin Charles has had experience of our friendship," the prince continued, "and now, by the Saints! he shall feel a touch of our displeasure. I send now a message to our cousin Charles which his whole kingdom may read. Let him take heed lest worse befall him. Where is my Lord Chandos? Ha, Sir John, I commend this worthy knight to your care. You will see that he hath refection, and such a purse of gold as may defray his charges, for indeed it is great honor to any court to have within it so noble and gentle a cavalier. How say you, sire?" he asked, turning to the Spanish refugee, while the herald of Navarre was conducted from the chamber by the old warrior. "It is not our custom in Spain to reward pertness in a messenger," Don Pedro answered, patting the head of his greyhound. "Yet we have all heard the lengths to which your royal generosity runs." "In sooth, yes," cried the King of Majorca. "Who should know it better than we?" said Don Pedro bitterly, "since we have had to fly to you in our trouble as to the natural protector of all who are weak." "Nay, nay, as brothers to a brother," cried the prince, with sparkling eyes. "We doubt not, with the help of God, to see you very soon restored to those thrones from which you have been so traitorously thrust." "When that happy day comes," said Pedro, "then Spain shall be to you as Aquitaine, and, be your project what it may, you may ever count on every troop and every ship over which flies the banner of Castile." "And," added the other, "upon every aid which the wealth and power of Majorca can bestow." "Touching the hundred thousand crowns in which I stand your debtor," continued Pedro carelessly, "it can no doubt----" "Not a word, sire, not a word!" cried the prince. "It is not now when you are in grief that I would vex your mind with such base and sordid matters. I have said once and forever that I am yours with every bow-string of my army and every florin in my coffers." "Ah! here is indeed a mirror of chivalry," said Don Pedro. "I think, Sir Fernando, since the prince's bounty is stretched so far, that we may make further use of his gracious goodness to the extent of fifty thousand crowns. Good Sir William Felton, here, will doubtless settle the matter with you." The stout old English counsellor looked somewhat blank at this prompt acceptance of his master's bounty. "If it please you, sire," he said, "the public funds are at their lowest, seeing that I have paid twelve thousand men of the companies, and the new taxes--the hearth-tax and the wine-tax--not yet come in. If you could wait until the promised help from England comes----" "Nay, nay, my sweet cousin," cried Don Pedro. "Had we known that your own coffers were so low, or that this sorry sum could have weighed one way or the other, we had been loth indeed----" "Enough, sire, enough!" said the prince, flushing with vexation. "If the public funds be, indeed, so backward, Sir William, there is still, I trust, my own private credit, which hath never been drawn upon for my own uses, but is now ready in the cause of a friend in adversity. Go, raise this money upon our own jewels, if nought else may serve, and see that it be paid over to Don Fernando." "In security I offer----" cried Don Pedro. "Tush! tush!" said the prince. "I am not a Lombard, sire. Your kingly pledge is my security, without bond or seal. But I have tidings for you, my lords and lieges, that our brother of Lancaster is on his way for our capital with four hundred lances and as many archers to aid us in our venture. When he hath come, and when our fair consort is recovered in her health, which I trust by the grace of God may be ere many weeks be past, we shall then join the army at Dax, and set our banners to the breeze once more." A buzz of joy at the prospect of immediate action rose up from the group of warriors. The prince smiled at the martial ardor which shone upon every face around him. "It will hearten you to know," he continued, "that I have sure advices that this Henry is a very valiant leader, and that he has it in his power to make such a stand against us as promises to give us much honor and pleasure. Of his own people he hath brought together, as I learn, some fifty thousand, with twelve thousand of the French free companies, who are, as you know very valiant and expert men-at-arms. It is certain also, that the brave and worthy Bertrand de Guesclin hath ridden into France to the Duke of Anjou, and purposes to take back with him great levies from Picardy and Brittany. We hold Bertrand in high esteem, for he has oft before been at great pains to furnish us with an honorable encounter. What think you of it, my worthy Captal? He took you at Cocherel, and, by my soul! you will have the chance now to pay that score." The Gascon warrior winced a little at the allusion, nor were his countrymen around him better pleased, for on the only occasion when they had encountered the arms of France without English aid they had met with a heavy defeat. "There are some who say, sire," said the burly De Clisson, "that the score is already overpaid, for that without Gascon help Bertrand had not been taken at Auray, nor had King John been overborne at Poictiers." "By heaven! but this is too much," cried an English nobleman. "Methinks that Gascony is too small a cock to crow so lustily." "The smaller cock, my Lord Audley, may have the longer spur," remarked the Captal de Buch. "May have its comb clipped if it make over-much noise," broke in an Englishman. "By our Lady of Rocamadour!" cried the Lord of Mucident, "this is more than I can abide. Sir John Charnell, you shall answer to me for those words!" "Freely, my lord, and when you will," returned the Englishman carelessly. "My Lord de Clisson," cried Lord Audley, "you look somewhat fixedly in my direction. By God's soul! I should be right glad to go further into the matter with you." "And you, my Lord of Pommers," said Sir Nigel, pushing his way to the front, "it is in my mind that we might break a lance in gentle and honorable debate over the question." For a moment a dozen challenges flashed backwards and forwards at this sudden bursting of the cloud which had lowered so long between the knights of the two nations. Furious and gesticulating the Gascons, white and cold and sneering the English, while the prince with a half smile glanced from one party to the other, like a man who loved to dwell upon a fiery scene, and yet dreaded least the mischief go so far that he might find it beyond his control. "Friends, friends!" he cried at last, "this quarrel must go no further. The man shall answer to me, be he Gascon or English, who carries it beyond this room. I have overmuch need for your swords that you should turn them upon each other. Sir John Charnell, Lord Audley, you do not doubt the courage of our friends of Gascony?" "Not I, sire," Lord Audley answered. "I have seen them fight too often not to know that they are very hardy and valiant gentlemen." "And so say I," quoth the other Englishman; "but, certes, there is no fear of our forgetting it while they have a tongue in their heads." "Nay, Sir John," said the prince reprovingly, "all peoples have their own use and customs. There are some who might call us cold and dull and silent. But you hear, my lords of Gascony, that these gentlemen had no thought to throw a slur upon your honor or your valor, so let all anger fade from your mind. Clisson, Captal, De Pommers, I have your word?" "We are your subjects, sire," said the Gascon barons, though with no very good grace. "Your words are our law." "Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon of Malvoisie," said the prince, cheerily. "Ho, there! the doors of the banquet-hall! I have been over long from my sweet spouse but I shall be back with you anon. Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!" He turned away, accompanied by the two monarchs, while the rest of the company, with many a compressed lip and menacing eye, filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth. CHAPTER XX. HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD. Whilst the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England. "How is it with the old man at Windsor?" asked one. "And how with the good Queen Philippa?" "And how with Dame Alice Perrers?" cried a third. "The devil take your tongue, Wat!" shouted a tall young man, seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. "The prince would take your head off for those words." "By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little," said another. "It is as empty as a beggar's wallet." "As empty as an English squire, coz," cried the first speaker. "What a devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet." "Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least," observed another, amid a burst of laughter. "And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm," cried the aggrieved Humphrey. "But how of England, my lads of Loring?" "I take it," said Ford, "that it is much as it was when you were there last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there." "And why less noise, young Solomon?" "Ah, that is

heinous

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

years to his life? "Ha, my little heart of gold!" he cried, darting forward suddenly and throwing his arms round Sir Nigel. "I heard that you were here and have been seeking you." "My fair and dear lord," said the knight, returning the warrior's embrace, "I have indeed come back to you, for where else shall I go that I may learn to be a gentle and a hardy knight?" "By my troth!" said Chandos with a smile, "it is very fitting that we should be companions, Nigel, for since you have tied up one of your eyes, and I have had the mischance to lose one of mine, we have but a pair between us. Ah, Sir Oliver! you were on the blind side of me and I saw you not. A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me. We shall go in to the prince anon; but in truth he hath much upon his hands, for what with Pedro, and the King of Majorca, and the King of Navarre, who is no two days of the same mind, and the Gascon barons who are all chaffering for terms like so many hucksters, he hath an uneasy part to play. But how left you the Lady Loring?" "She was well, my fair lord, and sent her service and greetings to you." "I am ever her knight and slave. And your journey, I trust that it was pleasant?" "As heart could wish. We had sight of two rover galleys, and even came to have some slight bickering with them." "Ever in luck's way, Nigel!" quoth Sir John. "We must hear the tale anon. But I deem it best that ye should leave your squires and come with me, for, howsoe'er pressed the prince may be, I am very sure that he would be loth to keep two old comrades-in-arms upon the further side of the door. Follow close behind me, and I will forestall old Sir William, though I can scarce promise to roll forth your style and rank as is his wont." So saying, he led the way to the inner chamber, the two companions treading close at his heels, and nodding to right and left as they caught sight of familiar faces among the crowd. CHAPTER XIX. HOW THERE WAS STIR AT THE ABBEY OF ST. ANDREW'S. The prince's reception-room, although of no great size, was fitted up with all the state and luxury which the fame and power of its owner demanded. A high dais at the further end was roofed in by a broad canopy of scarlet velvet spangled with silver fleurs-de-lis, and supported at either corner by silver rods. This was approached by four steps carpeted with the same material, while all round were scattered rich cushions, oriental mats and costly rugs of fur. The choicest tapestries which the looms of Arras could furnish draped the walls, whereon the battles of Judas Maccabaeus were set forth, with the Jewish warriors in plate of proof, with crest and lance and banderole, as the naive artists of the day were wont to depict them. A few rich settles and bancals, choicely carved and decorated with glazed leather hangings of the sort termed _or basane_, completed the furniture of the apartment, save that at one side of the dais there stood a lofty perch, upon which a cast of three solemn Prussian gerfalcons sat, hooded and jesseled, as silent and motionless as the royal fowler who stood beside them. In the centre of the dais were two very high chairs with dorserets, which arched forwards over the heads of the occupants, the whole covered with light-blue silk thickly powdered with golden stars. On that to the right sat a very tall and well formed man with red hair, a livid face, and a cold blue eye, which had in it something peculiarly sinister and menacing. He lounged back in a careless position, and yawned repeatedly as though heartily weary of the proceedings, stooping from time to time to fondle a shaggy Spanish greyhound which lay stretched at his feet. On the other throne there was perched bolt upright, with prim demeanor, as though he felt himself to be upon his good behavior, a little, round, pippin faced person, who smiled and bobbed to every one whose eye he chanced to meet. Between and a little in front of them on a humble charette or stool, sat a slim, dark young man, whose quiet attire and modest manner would scarce proclaim him to be the most noted prince in Europe. A jupon of dark blue cloth, tagged with buckles and pendants of gold, seemed but a sombre and plain attire amidst the wealth of silk and ermine and gilt tissue of fustian with which he was surrounded. He sat with his two hands clasped round his knee, his head slightly bent, and an expression of impatience and of trouble upon his clear, well-chiselled features. Behind the thrones there stood two men in purple gowns, with ascetic, clean-shaven faces, and half a dozen other high dignitaries and office-holders of Aquitaine. Below on either side of the steps were forty or fifty barons, knights, and courtiers, ranged in a triple row to the right and the left, with a clear passage in the centre. "There sits the prince," whispered Sir John Chandos, as they entered. "He on the right is Pedro, whom we are about to put upon the Spanish throne. The other is Don James, whom we purpose with the aid of God to help to his throne in Majorca. Now follow me, and take it not to heart if he be a little short in his speech, for indeed his mind is full of many very weighty concerns." The prince, however, had already observed their entrance, and, springing to his feet, he had advanced with a winning smile and the light of welcome in his eyes. "We do not need your good offices as herald here, Sir John," said he in a low but clear voice; "these valiant knights are very well known to me. Welcome to Aquitaine, Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver Buttesthorn. Nay, keep your knee for my sweet father at Windsor. I would have your hands, my friends. We are like to give you some work to do ere you see the downs of Hampshire once more. Know you aught of Spain, Sir Oliver?" "Nought, my sire, save that I have heard men say that there is a dish named an olla which is prepared there, though I have never been clear in my mind as to whether it was but a ragout such as is to be found in the south, or whether there is some seasoning such as fennel or garlic which is peculiar to Spain." "Your doubts, Sir Oliver, shall soon be resolved," answered the prince, laughing heartily, as did many of the barons who surrounded them. "His majesty here will doubtless order that you have this dish hotly seasoned when we are all safely in Castile." "I will have a hotly seasoned dish for some folk I know of," answered Don Pedro with a cold smile. "But my friend Sir Oliver can fight right hardily without either bite or sup," remarked the prince. "Did I not see him at Poictiers, when for two days we had not more than a crust of bread and a cup of foul water, yet carrying himself most valiantly. With my own eyes I saw him in the rout sweep the head from a knight of Picardy with one blow of his sword." "The rogue got between me and the nearest French victual wain," muttered Sir Oliver, amid a fresh titter from those who were near enough to catch his words. "How many have you in your train?" asked the prince, assuming a graver mien. "I have forty men-at-arms, sire," said Sir Oliver. "And I have one hundred archers and a score of lancers, but there are two hundred men who wait for me on this side of the water upon the borders of Navarre." "And who are they, Sir Nigel?" "They are a free company, sire, and they are called the White Company." To the astonishment of the knight, his words provoked a burst of merriment from the barons round, in which the two kings and the prince were fain to join. Sir Nigel blinked mildly from one to the other, until at last perceiving a stout black-bearded knight at his elbow, whose laugh rang somewhat louder than the others, he touched him lightly upon the sleeve. "Perchance, my fair sir," he whispered, "there is some small vow of which I may relieve you. Might we not have some honorable debate upon the matter. Your gentle courtesy may perhaps grant me an exchange of thrusts." "Nay, nay, Sir Nigel," cried the prince, "fasten not the offence upon Sir Robert Briquet, for we are one and all bogged in the same mire. Truth to say, our ears have just been vexed by the doings of the same company, and I have even now made vow to hang the man who held the rank of captain over it. I little thought to find him among the bravest of my own chosen chieftains. But the vow is now nought, for, as you have never seen your company, it would be a fool's act to blame you for their doings." "My liege," said Sir Nigel, "it is a very small matter that I should be hanged, albeit the manner of death is somewhat more ignoble than I had hoped for. On the other hand, it would be a very grievous thing that you, the Prince of England and the flower of knighthood, should make a vow, whether in ignorance or no, and fail to bring it to fulfilment." "Vex not your mind on that," the prince answered, smiling. "We have had a citizen from Montauban here this very day, who told us such a tale of sack and murder and pillage that it moved our blood; but our wrath was turned upon the man who was in authority over them." "My dear and honored master," cried Nigel, in great anxiety, "I fear me much that in your gentleness of heart you are straining this vow which you have taken. If there be so much as a shadow of a doubt as to the form of it, it were a thousand times best----" "Peace! peace!" cried the prince impatiently. "I am very well able to look to my own vows and their performance. We hope to see you both in the banquet-hall anon. Meanwhile you will attend upon us with our train." He bowed, and Chandos, plucking Sir Oliver by the sleeve, led them both away to the back of the press of courtiers. "Why, little coz," he whispered, "you are very eager to have your neck in a noose. By my soul! had you asked as much from our new ally Don Pedro, he had not baulked you. Between friends, there is overmuch of the hangman in him, and too little of the prince. But indeed this White Company is a rough band, and may take some handling ere you find yourself safe in your captaincy." "I doubt not, with the help of St. Paul, that I shall bring them to some order," Sir Nigel answered. "But there are many faces here which are new to me, though others have been before me since first I waited upon my dear master, Sir Walter. I pray you to tell me, Sir John, who are these priests upon the dais?" "The one is the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Nigel, and the other the Bishop of Agen." "And the dark knight with gray-streaked beard? By my troth, he seems to be a man of much wisdom and valor." "He is Sir William Felton, who, with my unworthy self, is the chief counsellor of the prince, he being high steward and I the seneschal of Aquitaine." "And the knights upon the right, beside Don Pedro?" "They are cavaliers of Spain who have followed him in his exile. The one at his elbow is Fernando de Castro, who is as brave and true a man as heart could wish. In front to the right are the Gascon lords. You may well tell them by their clouded brows, for there hath been some ill-will of late betwixt the prince and them. The tall and burly man is the Captal de Buch, whom I doubt not that you know, for a braver knight never laid lance in rest. That heavy-faced cavalier who plucks his skirts and whispers in his ear is Lord Oliver de Clisson, known also as the butcher. He it is who stirs up strife, and forever blows the dying embers into flame. The man with the mole upon his cheek is the Lord Pommers, and his two brothers stand behind him, with the Lord Lesparre, Lord de Rosem, Lord de Mucident, Sir Perducas d'Albret, the Souldich de la Trane, and others. Further back are knights from Quercy, Limousin, Saintonge, Poitou, and Aquitaine, with the valiant Sir Guiscard d'Angle. That is he in the rose-colored doublet with the ermine." "And the knights upon this side?" "They are all Englishmen, some of the household and others who like yourself, are captains of companies. There is Lord Neville, Sir Stephen Cossington, and Sir Matthew Gourney, with Sir Walter Huet, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Thomas Felton, who is the brother of the high steward. Mark well the man with the high nose and flaxen beard who hath placed his hand upon the shoulder of the dark hard-faced cavalier in the rust-stained jupon." "Aye, by St. Paul!" observed Sir Nigel, "they both bear the print of their armor upon their cotes-hardies. Methinks they are men who breathe freer in a camp than a court." "There are many of us who do that, Nigel," said Chandos, "and the head of the court is, I dare warrant, among them. But of these two men the one is Sir Hugh Calverley, and the other is Sir Robert Knolles." Sir Nigel and Sir Oliver craned their necks to have the clearer view of these famous warriors, the one a chosen leader of free companies, the other a man who by his fierce valor and energy had raised himself from the lowest ranks until he was second only to Chandos himself in the esteem of the army. "He hath no light hand in war, hath Sir Robert," said Chandos. "If he passes through a country you may tell it for some years to come. I have heard that in the north it is still the use to call a house which hath but the two gable ends left, without walls or roof, a Knolles' mitre." "I have often heard of him," said Nigel, "and I have hoped to be so far honored as to run a course with him. But hark, Sir John, what is amiss with the prince?" Whilst Chandos had been conversing with the two knights a continuous stream of suitors had been ushered in, adventurers seeking to sell their swords and merchants clamoring over some grievance, a ship detained for the carriage of troops, or a tun of sweet wine which had the bottom knocked out by a troop of thirsty archers. A few words from the prince disposed of each case, and, if the applicant liked not the judgment, a quick glance from the prince's dark eyes sent him to the door with the grievance all gone out of him. The younger ruler had sat listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character. "How now, Don Martin de la Carra?" he cried. "How now, sirrah? What message do you bring to us from our brother of Navarre?" The new-comer to whom this abrupt query had been addressed was a tall and exceedingly handsome cavalier who had just been ushered into the apartment. His swarthy cheek and raven black hair spoke of the fiery south, and he wore his long black cloak swathed across his chest and over his shoulders in a graceful sweeping fashion, which was neither English nor French. With stately steps and many profound bows, he advanced to the foot of the dais before replying to the prince's question. "My powerful and illustrious master," he began, "Charles, King of Navarre, Earl of Evreux, Count of Champagne, who also writeth himself Overlord of Bearn, hereby sends his love and greetings to his dear cousin Edward, the Prince of Wales, Governor of Aquitaine, Grand Commander of----" "Tush! tush! Don Martin!" interrupted the prince, who had been beating the ground with his foot impatiently during this stately preamble. "We already know our cousin's titles and style, and, certes, we know our own. To the point, man, and at once. Are the passes open to us, or does your master go back from his word pledged to me at Libourne no later than last Michaelmas?" "It would ill become my gracious master, sire, to go back from promise given. He does but ask some delay and certain conditions and hostages----" "Conditions! Hostages! Is he speaking to the Prince of England, or is it to the bourgeois provost of some half-captured town! Conditions, quotha? He may find much to mend in his own condition ere long. The passes are, then, closed to us?" "Nay, sire----" "They are open, then?" "Nay, sire, if you would but----" "Enough, enough, Don Martin," cried the prince. "It is a sorry sight to see so true a knight pleading in so false a cause. We know the doings of our cousin Charles. We know that while with the right hand he takes our fifty thousand crowns for the holding of the passes open, he hath his left outstretched to Henry of Trastamare, or to the King of France, all ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered horse. He is----" "My lord," cried Don Martin, "I cannot stand there to hear such words of my master. Did they come from other lips, I should know better how to answer them." Don Pedro frowned and curled his lip, but the prince smiled and nodded his approbation. "Your bearing and your words, Don Martin, are such I should have looked for in you," he remarked. "You will tell the king, your master, that he hath been paid his price and that if he holds to his promise he hath my word for it that no scath shall come to his people, nor to their houses or gear. If, however, we have not his leave, I shall come close at the heels of this message without his leave, and bearing a key with me which shall open all that he may close." He stooped and whispered to Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Huge Calverley, who smiled as men well pleased, and hastened from the room. "Our cousin Charles has had experience of our friendship," the prince continued, "and now, by the Saints! he shall feel a touch of our displeasure. I send now a message to our cousin Charles which his whole kingdom may read. Let him take heed lest worse befall him. Where is my Lord Chandos? Ha, Sir John, I commend this worthy knight to your care. You will see that he hath refection, and such a purse of gold as may defray his charges, for indeed it is great honor to any court to have within it so noble and gentle a cavalier. How say you, sire?" he asked, turning to the Spanish refugee, while the herald of Navarre was conducted from the chamber by the old warrior. "It is not our custom in Spain to reward pertness in a messenger," Don Pedro answered, patting the head of his greyhound. "Yet we have all heard the lengths to which your royal generosity runs." "In sooth, yes," cried the King of Majorca. "Who should know it better than we?" said Don Pedro bitterly, "since we have had to fly to you in our trouble as to the natural protector of all who are weak." "Nay, nay, as brothers to a brother," cried the prince, with sparkling eyes. "We doubt not, with the help of God, to see you very soon restored to those thrones from which you have been so traitorously thrust." "When that happy day comes," said Pedro, "then Spain shall be to you as Aquitaine, and, be your project what it may, you may ever count on every troop and every ship over which flies the banner of Castile." "And," added the other, "upon every aid which the wealth and power of Majorca can bestow." "Touching the hundred thousand crowns in which I stand your debtor," continued Pedro carelessly, "it can no doubt----" "Not a word, sire, not a word!" cried the prince. "It is not now when you are in grief that I would vex your mind with such base and sordid matters. I have said once and forever that I am yours with every bow-string of my army and every florin in my coffers." "Ah! here is indeed a mirror of chivalry," said Don Pedro. "I think, Sir Fernando, since the prince's bounty is stretched so far, that we may make further use of his gracious goodness to the extent of fifty thousand crowns. Good Sir William Felton, here, will doubtless settle the matter with you." The stout old English counsellor looked somewhat blank at this prompt acceptance of his master's bounty. "If it please you, sire," he said, "the public funds are at their lowest, seeing that I have paid twelve thousand men of the companies, and the new taxes--the hearth-tax and the wine-tax--not yet come in. If you could wait until the promised help from England comes----" "Nay, nay, my sweet cousin," cried Don Pedro. "Had we known that your own coffers were so low, or that this sorry sum could have weighed one way or the other, we had been loth indeed----" "Enough, sire, enough!" said the prince, flushing with vexation. "If the public funds be, indeed, so backward, Sir William, there is still, I trust, my own private credit, which hath never been drawn upon for my own uses, but is now ready in the cause of a friend in adversity. Go, raise this money upon our own jewels, if nought else may serve, and see that it be paid over to Don Fernando." "In security I offer----" cried Don Pedro. "Tush! tush!" said the prince. "I am not a Lombard, sire. Your kingly pledge is my security, without bond or seal. But I have tidings for you, my lords and lieges, that our brother of Lancaster is on his way for our capital with four hundred lances and as many archers to aid us in our venture. When he hath come, and when our fair consort is recovered in her health, which I trust by the grace of God may be ere many weeks be past, we shall then join the army at Dax, and set our banners to the breeze once more." A buzz of joy at the prospect of immediate action rose up from the group of warriors. The prince smiled at the martial ardor which shone upon every face around him. "It will hearten you to know," he continued, "that I have sure advices that this Henry is a very valiant leader, and that he has it in his power to make such a stand against us as promises to give us much honor and pleasure. Of his own people he hath brought together, as I learn, some fifty thousand, with twelve thousand of the French free companies, who are, as you know very valiant and expert men-at-arms. It is certain also, that the brave and worthy Bertrand de Guesclin hath ridden into France to the Duke of Anjou, and purposes to take back with him great levies from Picardy and Brittany. We hold Bertrand in high esteem, for he has oft before been at great pains to furnish us with an honorable encounter. What think you of it, my worthy Captal? He took you at Cocherel, and, by my soul! you will have the chance now to pay that score." The Gascon warrior winced a little at the allusion, nor were his countrymen around him better pleased, for on the only occasion when they had encountered the arms of France without English aid they had met with a heavy defeat. "There are some who say, sire," said the burly De Clisson, "that the score is already overpaid, for that without Gascon help Bertrand had not been taken at Auray, nor had King John been overborne at Poictiers." "By heaven! but this is too much," cried an English nobleman. "Methinks that Gascony is too small a cock to crow so lustily." "The smaller cock, my Lord Audley, may have the longer spur," remarked the Captal de Buch. "May have its comb clipped if it make over-much noise," broke in an Englishman. "By our Lady of Rocamadour!" cried the Lord of Mucident, "this is more than I can abide. Sir John Charnell, you shall answer to me for those words!" "Freely, my lord, and when you will," returned the Englishman carelessly. "My Lord de Clisson," cried Lord Audley, "you look somewhat fixedly in my direction. By God's soul! I should be right glad to go further into the matter with you." "And you, my Lord of Pommers," said Sir Nigel, pushing his way to the front, "it is in my mind that we might break a lance in gentle and honorable debate over the question." For a moment a dozen challenges flashed backwards and forwards at this sudden bursting of the cloud which had lowered so long between the knights of the two nations. Furious and gesticulating the Gascons, white and cold and sneering the English, while the prince with a half smile glanced from one party to the other, like a man who loved to dwell upon a fiery scene, and yet dreaded least the mischief go so far that he might find it beyond his control. "Friends, friends!" he cried at last, "this quarrel must go no further. The man shall answer to me, be he Gascon or English, who carries it beyond this room. I have overmuch need for your swords that you should turn them upon each other. Sir John Charnell, Lord Audley, you do not doubt the courage of our friends of Gascony?" "Not I, sire," Lord Audley answered. "I have seen them fight too often not to know that they are very hardy and valiant gentlemen." "And so say I," quoth the other Englishman; "but, certes, there is no fear of our forgetting it while they have a tongue in their heads." "Nay, Sir John," said the prince reprovingly, "all peoples have their own use and customs. There are some who might call us cold and dull and silent. But you hear, my lords of Gascony, that these gentlemen had no thought to throw a slur upon your honor or your valor, so let all anger fade from your mind. Clisson, Captal, De Pommers, I have your word?" "We are your subjects, sire," said the Gascon barons, though with no very good grace. "Your words are our law." "Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon of Malvoisie," said the prince, cheerily. "Ho, there! the doors of the banquet-hall! I have been over long from my sweet spouse but I shall be back with you anon. Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!" He turned away, accompanied by the two monarchs, while the rest of the company, with many a compressed lip and menacing eye, filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth. CHAPTER XX. HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD. Whilst the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England. "How is it with the old man at Windsor?" asked one. "And how with the good Queen Philippa?" "And how with Dame Alice Perrers?" cried a third. "The devil take your tongue, Wat!" shouted a tall young man, seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. "The prince would take your head off for those words." "By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little," said another. "It is as empty as a beggar's wallet." "As empty as an English squire, coz," cried the first speaker. "What a devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet." "Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least," observed another, amid a burst of laughter. "And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm," cried the aggrieved Humphrey. "But how of England, my lads of Loring?" "I take it," said Ford, "that it is much as it was when you were there last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there." "And why less noise, young Solomon?" "Ah, that is

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years to his life? "Ha, my little heart of gold!" he cried, darting forward suddenly and throwing his arms round Sir Nigel. "I heard that you were here and have been seeking you." "My fair and dear lord," said the knight, returning the warrior's embrace, "I have indeed come back to you, for where else shall I go that I may learn to be a gentle and a hardy knight?" "By my troth!" said Chandos with a smile, "it is very fitting that we should be companions, Nigel, for since you have tied up one of your eyes, and I have had the mischance to lose one of mine, we have but a pair between us. Ah, Sir Oliver! you were on the blind side of me and I saw you not. A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me. We shall go in to the prince anon; but in truth he hath much upon his hands, for what with Pedro, and the King of Majorca, and the King of Navarre, who is no two days of the same mind, and the Gascon barons who are all chaffering for terms like so many hucksters, he hath an uneasy part to play. But how left you the Lady Loring?" "She was well, my fair lord, and sent her service and greetings to you." "I am ever her knight and slave. And your journey, I trust that it was pleasant?" "As heart could wish. We had sight of two rover galleys, and even came to have some slight bickering with them." "Ever in luck's way, Nigel!" quoth Sir John. "We must hear the tale anon. But I deem it best that ye should leave your squires and come with me, for, howsoe'er pressed the prince may be, I am very sure that he would be loth to keep two old comrades-in-arms upon the further side of the door. Follow close behind me, and I will forestall old Sir William, though I can scarce promise to roll forth your style and rank as is his wont." So saying, he led the way to the inner chamber, the two companions treading close at his heels, and nodding to right and left as they caught sight of familiar faces among the crowd. CHAPTER XIX. HOW THERE WAS STIR AT THE ABBEY OF ST. ANDREW'S. The prince's reception-room, although of no great size, was fitted up with all the state and luxury which the fame and power of its owner demanded. A high dais at the further end was roofed in by a broad canopy of scarlet velvet spangled with silver fleurs-de-lis, and supported at either corner by silver rods. This was approached by four steps carpeted with the same material, while all round were scattered rich cushions, oriental mats and costly rugs of fur. The choicest tapestries which the looms of Arras could furnish draped the walls, whereon the battles of Judas Maccabaeus were set forth, with the Jewish warriors in plate of proof, with crest and lance and banderole, as the naive artists of the day were wont to depict them. A few rich settles and bancals, choicely carved and decorated with glazed leather hangings of the sort termed _or basane_, completed the furniture of the apartment, save that at one side of the dais there stood a lofty perch, upon which a cast of three solemn Prussian gerfalcons sat, hooded and jesseled, as silent and motionless as the royal fowler who stood beside them. In the centre of the dais were two very high chairs with dorserets, which arched forwards over the heads of the occupants, the whole covered with light-blue silk thickly powdered with golden stars. On that to the right sat a very tall and well formed man with red hair, a livid face, and a cold blue eye, which had in it something peculiarly sinister and menacing. He lounged back in a careless position, and yawned repeatedly as though heartily weary of the proceedings, stooping from time to time to fondle a shaggy Spanish greyhound which lay stretched at his feet. On the other throne there was perched bolt upright, with prim demeanor, as though he felt himself to be upon his good behavior, a little, round, pippin faced person, who smiled and bobbed to every one whose eye he chanced to meet. Between and a little in front of them on a humble charette or stool, sat a slim, dark young man, whose quiet attire and modest manner would scarce proclaim him to be the most noted prince in Europe. A jupon of dark blue cloth, tagged with buckles and pendants of gold, seemed but a sombre and plain attire amidst the wealth of silk and ermine and gilt tissue of fustian with which he was surrounded. He sat with his two hands clasped round his knee, his head slightly bent, and an expression of impatience and of trouble upon his clear, well-chiselled features. Behind the thrones there stood two men in purple gowns, with ascetic, clean-shaven faces, and half a dozen other high dignitaries and office-holders of Aquitaine. Below on either side of the steps were forty or fifty barons, knights, and courtiers, ranged in a triple row to the right and the left, with a clear passage in the centre. "There sits the prince," whispered Sir John Chandos, as they entered. "He on the right is Pedro, whom we are about to put upon the Spanish throne. The other is Don James, whom we purpose with the aid of God to help to his throne in Majorca. Now follow me, and take it not to heart if he be a little short in his speech, for indeed his mind is full of many very weighty concerns." The prince, however, had already observed their entrance, and, springing to his feet, he had advanced with a winning smile and the light of welcome in his eyes. "We do not need your good offices as herald here, Sir John," said he in a low but clear voice; "these valiant knights are very well known to me. Welcome to Aquitaine, Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver Buttesthorn. Nay, keep your knee for my sweet father at Windsor. I would have your hands, my friends. We are like to give you some work to do ere you see the downs of Hampshire once more. Know you aught of Spain, Sir Oliver?" "Nought, my sire, save that I have heard men say that there is a dish named an olla which is prepared there, though I have never been clear in my mind as to whether it was but a ragout such as is to be found in the south, or whether there is some seasoning such as fennel or garlic which is peculiar to Spain." "Your doubts, Sir Oliver, shall soon be resolved," answered the prince, laughing heartily, as did many of the barons who surrounded them. "His majesty here will doubtless order that you have this dish hotly seasoned when we are all safely in Castile." "I will have a hotly seasoned dish for some folk I know of," answered Don Pedro with a cold smile. "But my friend Sir Oliver can fight right hardily without either bite or sup," remarked the prince. "Did I not see him at Poictiers, when for two days we had not more than a crust of bread and a cup of foul water, yet carrying himself most valiantly. With my own eyes I saw him in the rout sweep the head from a knight of Picardy with one blow of his sword." "The rogue got between me and the nearest French victual wain," muttered Sir Oliver, amid a fresh titter from those who were near enough to catch his words. "How many have you in your train?" asked the prince, assuming a graver mien. "I have forty men-at-arms, sire," said Sir Oliver. "And I have one hundred archers and a score of lancers, but there are two hundred men who wait for me on this side of the water upon the borders of Navarre." "And who are they, Sir Nigel?" "They are a free company, sire, and they are called the White Company." To the astonishment of the knight, his words provoked a burst of merriment from the barons round, in which the two kings and the prince were fain to join. Sir Nigel blinked mildly from one to the other, until at last perceiving a stout black-bearded knight at his elbow, whose laugh rang somewhat louder than the others, he touched him lightly upon the sleeve. "Perchance, my fair sir," he whispered, "there is some small vow of which I may relieve you. Might we not have some honorable debate upon the matter. Your gentle courtesy may perhaps grant me an exchange of thrusts." "Nay, nay, Sir Nigel," cried the prince, "fasten not the offence upon Sir Robert Briquet, for we are one and all bogged in the same mire. Truth to say, our ears have just been vexed by the doings of the same company, and I have even now made vow to hang the man who held the rank of captain over it. I little thought to find him among the bravest of my own chosen chieftains. But the vow is now nought, for, as you have never seen your company, it would be a fool's act to blame you for their doings." "My liege," said Sir Nigel, "it is a very small matter that I should be hanged, albeit the manner of death is somewhat more ignoble than I had hoped for. On the other hand, it would be a very grievous thing that you, the Prince of England and the flower of knighthood, should make a vow, whether in ignorance or no, and fail to bring it to fulfilment." "Vex not your mind on that," the prince answered, smiling. "We have had a citizen from Montauban here this very day, who told us such a tale of sack and murder and pillage that it moved our blood; but our wrath was turned upon the man who was in authority over them." "My dear and honored master," cried Nigel, in great anxiety, "I fear me much that in your gentleness of heart you are straining this vow which you have taken. If there be so much as a shadow of a doubt as to the form of it, it were a thousand times best----" "Peace! peace!" cried the prince impatiently. "I am very well able to look to my own vows and their performance. We hope to see you both in the banquet-hall anon. Meanwhile you will attend upon us with our train." He bowed, and Chandos, plucking Sir Oliver by the sleeve, led them both away to the back of the press of courtiers. "Why, little coz," he whispered, "you are very eager to have your neck in a noose. By my soul! had you asked as much from our new ally Don Pedro, he had not baulked you. Between friends, there is overmuch of the hangman in him, and too little of the prince. But indeed this White Company is a rough band, and may take some handling ere you find yourself safe in your captaincy." "I doubt not, with the help of St. Paul, that I shall bring them to some order," Sir Nigel answered. "But there are many faces here which are new to me, though others have been before me since first I waited upon my dear master, Sir Walter. I pray you to tell me, Sir John, who are these priests upon the dais?" "The one is the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Nigel, and the other the Bishop of Agen." "And the dark knight with gray-streaked beard? By my troth, he seems to be a man of much wisdom and valor." "He is Sir William Felton, who, with my unworthy self, is the chief counsellor of the prince, he being high steward and I the seneschal of Aquitaine." "And the knights upon the right, beside Don Pedro?" "They are cavaliers of Spain who have followed him in his exile. The one at his elbow is Fernando de Castro, who is as brave and true a man as heart could wish. In front to the right are the Gascon lords. You may well tell them by their clouded brows, for there hath been some ill-will of late betwixt the prince and them. The tall and burly man is the Captal de Buch, whom I doubt not that you know, for a braver knight never laid lance in rest. That heavy-faced cavalier who plucks his skirts and whispers in his ear is Lord Oliver de Clisson, known also as the butcher. He it is who stirs up strife, and forever blows the dying embers into flame. The man with the mole upon his cheek is the Lord Pommers, and his two brothers stand behind him, with the Lord Lesparre, Lord de Rosem, Lord de Mucident, Sir Perducas d'Albret, the Souldich de la Trane, and others. Further back are knights from Quercy, Limousin, Saintonge, Poitou, and Aquitaine, with the valiant Sir Guiscard d'Angle. That is he in the rose-colored doublet with the ermine." "And the knights upon this side?" "They are all Englishmen, some of the household and others who like yourself, are captains of companies. There is Lord Neville, Sir Stephen Cossington, and Sir Matthew Gourney, with Sir Walter Huet, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Thomas Felton, who is the brother of the high steward. Mark well the man with the high nose and flaxen beard who hath placed his hand upon the shoulder of the dark hard-faced cavalier in the rust-stained jupon." "Aye, by St. Paul!" observed Sir Nigel, "they both bear the print of their armor upon their cotes-hardies. Methinks they are men who breathe freer in a camp than a court." "There are many of us who do that, Nigel," said Chandos, "and the head of the court is, I dare warrant, among them. But of these two men the one is Sir Hugh Calverley, and the other is Sir Robert Knolles." Sir Nigel and Sir Oliver craned their necks to have the clearer view of these famous warriors, the one a chosen leader of free companies, the other a man who by his fierce valor and energy had raised himself from the lowest ranks until he was second only to Chandos himself in the esteem of the army. "He hath no light hand in war, hath Sir Robert," said Chandos. "If he passes through a country you may tell it for some years to come. I have heard that in the north it is still the use to call a house which hath but the two gable ends left, without walls or roof, a Knolles' mitre." "I have often heard of him," said Nigel, "and I have hoped to be so far honored as to run a course with him. But hark, Sir John, what is amiss with the prince?" Whilst Chandos had been conversing with the two knights a continuous stream of suitors had been ushered in, adventurers seeking to sell their swords and merchants clamoring over some grievance, a ship detained for the carriage of troops, or a tun of sweet wine which had the bottom knocked out by a troop of thirsty archers. A few words from the prince disposed of each case, and, if the applicant liked not the judgment, a quick glance from the prince's dark eyes sent him to the door with the grievance all gone out of him. The younger ruler had sat listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character. "How now, Don Martin de la Carra?" he cried. "How now, sirrah? What message do you bring to us from our brother of Navarre?" The new-comer to whom this abrupt query had been addressed was a tall and exceedingly handsome cavalier who had just been ushered into the apartment. His swarthy cheek and raven black hair spoke of the fiery south, and he wore his long black cloak swathed across his chest and over his shoulders in a graceful sweeping fashion, which was neither English nor French. With stately steps and many profound bows, he advanced to the foot of the dais before replying to the prince's question. "My powerful and illustrious master," he began, "Charles, King of Navarre, Earl of Evreux, Count of Champagne, who also writeth himself Overlord of Bearn, hereby sends his love and greetings to his dear cousin Edward, the Prince of Wales, Governor of Aquitaine, Grand Commander of----" "Tush! tush! Don Martin!" interrupted the prince, who had been beating the ground with his foot impatiently during this stately preamble. "We already know our cousin's titles and style, and, certes, we know our own. To the point, man, and at once. Are the passes open to us, or does your master go back from his word pledged to me at Libourne no later than last Michaelmas?" "It would ill become my gracious master, sire, to go back from promise given. He does but ask some delay and certain conditions and hostages----" "Conditions! Hostages! Is he speaking to the Prince of England, or is it to the bourgeois provost of some half-captured town! Conditions, quotha? He may find much to mend in his own condition ere long. The passes are, then, closed to us?" "Nay, sire----" "They are open, then?" "Nay, sire, if you would but----" "Enough, enough, Don Martin," cried the prince. "It is a sorry sight to see so true a knight pleading in so false a cause. We know the doings of our cousin Charles. We know that while with the right hand he takes our fifty thousand crowns for the holding of the passes open, he hath his left outstretched to Henry of Trastamare, or to the King of France, all ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered horse. He is----" "My lord," cried Don Martin, "I cannot stand there to hear such words of my master. Did they come from other lips, I should know better how to answer them." Don Pedro frowned and curled his lip, but the prince smiled and nodded his approbation. "Your bearing and your words, Don Martin, are such I should have looked for in you," he remarked. "You will tell the king, your master, that he hath been paid his price and that if he holds to his promise he hath my word for it that no scath shall come to his people, nor to their houses or gear. If, however, we have not his leave, I shall come close at the heels of this message without his leave, and bearing a key with me which shall open all that he may close." He stooped and whispered to Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Huge Calverley, who smiled as men well pleased, and hastened from the room. "Our cousin Charles has had experience of our friendship," the prince continued, "and now, by the Saints! he shall feel a touch of our displeasure. I send now a message to our cousin Charles which his whole kingdom may read. Let him take heed lest worse befall him. Where is my Lord Chandos? Ha, Sir John, I commend this worthy knight to your care. You will see that he hath refection, and such a purse of gold as may defray his charges, for indeed it is great honor to any court to have within it so noble and gentle a cavalier. How say you, sire?" he asked, turning to the Spanish refugee, while the herald of Navarre was conducted from the chamber by the old warrior. "It is not our custom in Spain to reward pertness in a messenger," Don Pedro answered, patting the head of his greyhound. "Yet we have all heard the lengths to which your royal generosity runs." "In sooth, yes," cried the King of Majorca. "Who should know it better than we?" said Don Pedro bitterly, "since we have had to fly to you in our trouble as to the natural protector of all who are weak." "Nay, nay, as brothers to a brother," cried the prince, with sparkling eyes. "We doubt not, with the help of God, to see you very soon restored to those thrones from which you have been so traitorously thrust." "When that happy day comes," said Pedro, "then Spain shall be to you as Aquitaine, and, be your project what it may, you may ever count on every troop and every ship over which flies the banner of Castile." "And," added the other, "upon every aid which the wealth and power of Majorca can bestow." "Touching the hundred thousand crowns in which I stand your debtor," continued Pedro carelessly, "it can no doubt----" "Not a word, sire, not a word!" cried the prince. "It is not now when you are in grief that I would vex your mind with such base and sordid matters. I have said once and forever that I am yours with every bow-string of my army and every florin in my coffers." "Ah! here is indeed a mirror of chivalry," said Don Pedro. "I think, Sir Fernando, since the prince's bounty is stretched so far, that we may make further use of his gracious goodness to the extent of fifty thousand crowns. Good Sir William Felton, here, will doubtless settle the matter with you." The stout old English counsellor looked somewhat blank at this prompt acceptance of his master's bounty. "If it please you, sire," he said, "the public funds are at their lowest, seeing that I have paid twelve thousand men of the companies, and the new taxes--the hearth-tax and the wine-tax--not yet come in. If you could wait until the promised help from England comes----" "Nay, nay, my sweet cousin," cried Don Pedro. "Had we known that your own coffers were so low, or that this sorry sum could have weighed one way or the other, we had been loth indeed----" "Enough, sire, enough!" said the prince, flushing with vexation. "If the public funds be, indeed, so backward, Sir William, there is still, I trust, my own private credit, which hath never been drawn upon for my own uses, but is now ready in the cause of a friend in adversity. Go, raise this money upon our own jewels, if nought else may serve, and see that it be paid over to Don Fernando." "In security I offer----" cried Don Pedro. "Tush! tush!" said the prince. "I am not a Lombard, sire. Your kingly pledge is my security, without bond or seal. But I have tidings for you, my lords and lieges, that our brother of Lancaster is on his way for our capital with four hundred lances and as many archers to aid us in our venture. When he hath come, and when our fair consort is recovered in her health, which I trust by the grace of God may be ere many weeks be past, we shall then join the army at Dax, and set our banners to the breeze once more." A buzz of joy at the prospect of immediate action rose up from the group of warriors. The prince smiled at the martial ardor which shone upon every face around him. "It will hearten you to know," he continued, "that I have sure advices that this Henry is a very valiant leader, and that he has it in his power to make such a stand against us as promises to give us much honor and pleasure. Of his own people he hath brought together, as I learn, some fifty thousand, with twelve thousand of the French free companies, who are, as you know very valiant and expert men-at-arms. It is certain also, that the brave and worthy Bertrand de Guesclin hath ridden into France to the Duke of Anjou, and purposes to take back with him great levies from Picardy and Brittany. We hold Bertrand in high esteem, for he has oft before been at great pains to furnish us with an honorable encounter. What think you of it, my worthy Captal? He took you at Cocherel, and, by my soul! you will have the chance now to pay that score." The Gascon warrior winced a little at the allusion, nor were his countrymen around him better pleased, for on the only occasion when they had encountered the arms of France without English aid they had met with a heavy defeat. "There are some who say, sire," said the burly De Clisson, "that the score is already overpaid, for that without Gascon help Bertrand had not been taken at Auray, nor had King John been overborne at Poictiers." "By heaven! but this is too much," cried an English nobleman. "Methinks that Gascony is too small a cock to crow so lustily." "The smaller cock, my Lord Audley, may have the longer spur," remarked the Captal de Buch. "May have its comb clipped if it make over-much noise," broke in an Englishman. "By our Lady of Rocamadour!" cried the Lord of Mucident, "this is more than I can abide. Sir John Charnell, you shall answer to me for those words!" "Freely, my lord, and when you will," returned the Englishman carelessly. "My Lord de Clisson," cried Lord Audley, "you look somewhat fixedly in my direction. By God's soul! I should be right glad to go further into the matter with you." "And you, my Lord of Pommers," said Sir Nigel, pushing his way to the front, "it is in my mind that we might break a lance in gentle and honorable debate over the question." For a moment a dozen challenges flashed backwards and forwards at this sudden bursting of the cloud which had lowered so long between the knights of the two nations. Furious and gesticulating the Gascons, white and cold and sneering the English, while the prince with a half smile glanced from one party to the other, like a man who loved to dwell upon a fiery scene, and yet dreaded least the mischief go so far that he might find it beyond his control. "Friends, friends!" he cried at last, "this quarrel must go no further. The man shall answer to me, be he Gascon or English, who carries it beyond this room. I have overmuch need for your swords that you should turn them upon each other. Sir John Charnell, Lord Audley, you do not doubt the courage of our friends of Gascony?" "Not I, sire," Lord Audley answered. "I have seen them fight too often not to know that they are very hardy and valiant gentlemen." "And so say I," quoth the other Englishman; "but, certes, there is no fear of our forgetting it while they have a tongue in their heads." "Nay, Sir John," said the prince reprovingly, "all peoples have their own use and customs. There are some who might call us cold and dull and silent. But you hear, my lords of Gascony, that these gentlemen had no thought to throw a slur upon your honor or your valor, so let all anger fade from your mind. Clisson, Captal, De Pommers, I have your word?" "We are your subjects, sire," said the Gascon barons, though with no very good grace. "Your words are our law." "Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon of Malvoisie," said the prince, cheerily. "Ho, there! the doors of the banquet-hall! I have been over long from my sweet spouse but I shall be back with you anon. Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!" He turned away, accompanied by the two monarchs, while the rest of the company, with many a compressed lip and menacing eye, filed slowly through the side-door to the great chamber in which the royal tables were set forth. CHAPTER XX. HOW ALLEYNE WON HIS PLACE IN AN HONORABLE GUILD. Whilst the prince's council was sitting, Alleyne and Ford had remained in the outer hall, where they were soon surrounded by a noisy group of young Englishmen of their own rank, all eager to hear the latest news from England. "How is it with the old man at Windsor?" asked one. "And how with the good Queen Philippa?" "And how with Dame Alice Perrers?" cried a third. "The devil take your tongue, Wat!" shouted a tall young man, seizing the last speaker by the collar and giving him an admonitory shake. "The prince would take your head off for those words." "By God's coif! Wat would miss it but little," said another. "It is as empty as a beggar's wallet." "As empty as an English squire, coz," cried the first speaker. "What a devil has become of the maitre-des-tables and his sewers? They have not put forth the trestles yet." "Mon Dieu! if a man could eat himself into knighthood, Humphrey, you had been a banneret at the least," observed another, amid a burst of laughter. "And if you could drink yourself in, old leather-head, you had been first baron of the realm," cried the aggrieved Humphrey. "But how of England, my lads of Loring?" "I take it," said Ford, "that it is much as it was when you were there last, save that perchance there is a little less noise there." "And why less noise, young Solomon?" "Ah, that is

light

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yielding, and gentle to his wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope. It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband's absence from the house, and was as follows:-- Acrobats, Thursday. DEAR EMILY, I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours, F. O. The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs. Trevelyan, when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she was minded to obey him. Had he included in his demand any requirement that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters, and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note, and then sent it down to be put on Mr. Trevelyan's table in an envelope addressed to him. "If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he has wronged me," said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child's features were in all respects the very same as his father's, and that, come what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought. What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel, out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the dust be better for her than that? "It is a very poor thing to be a woman," she said to her sister. "It is perhaps better than being a dog," said Nora; "but, of course, we can't compare ourselves to men." "It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn't be made to suffer so much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough for a few days, but she gets over it in a week." There was a pause then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current of her sister's thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment which she could say on that subject. "It is very hard for a woman to know what to do," continued Emily, "but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some one, though he may not trust his wife." "I will never wittingly marry a fool," said Nora. "You will marry Mr. Glascock, of course. I don't say that he is a fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows itself in perversity." "If he asked me, I should not have him;--and he will never ask me." "He will ask you, and, of course, you'll take him. Why not? You can't be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it." "All the same, I shall not marry Mr. Glascock. A woman can die, at any rate," said Nora. "No, she can't. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is very indecent. She can't die, and she mustn't be in want, and she oughtn't to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you'd mind taking that down-stairs to his table? I don't like to send it by the servant; and I don't want to go myself." Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis Trevelyan would be sure to find it. He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel Osborne's note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address another man's wife as "Dear Emily?" At the moment Trevelyan remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife, that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him, to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as "Dear Emily," according to this man's judgment and wish, and not according to his judgment and wish,--not according to the judgment and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! "Of course you will tell T. now." This was intolerable to him. It made him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and bestowed upon her the half of all that he had simply for herself, asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money, position, a name,--all that makes life worth having. He had found her in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages of family or social standing,--so circumstanced that any friend would have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in return but that he should be all in all to her,--that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,--another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying, that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a good wife. As he thought of all this, he almost regretted that he had ever visited the Mandarins, or ever heard the name of Sir Marmaduke Rowley. He should have nourished no such thoughts in his heart. He had, indeed, been generous to his wife and to his wife's family; but we may almost say that the man who is really generous in such matters, is unconscious of his own generosity. The giver who gives the most, gives, and does not know that he gives. And had not she given too? In that matter of giving between a man and his wife, if each gives all, the two are equal, let the things given be what they may! King Cophetua did nothing for his beggar maid, unless she were to him, after he had married her, as royal a queen as though he had taken her from the oldest stock of reigning families then extant. Trevelyan knew all this himself,--had said so to himself a score of times, though not probably in spoken words or formed sentences. But, that all was equal between himself and the wife of his bosom, had been a thing ascertained by him as a certainty. There was no debt of gratitude from her to him which he did not acknowledge to exist also as from him to her. But yet, in his anger, he could not keep himself from thinking of the gifts he had showered upon her. And he had been, was, would ever be, if she would only allow it, so true to her! He had selected no other friend to take her place in his councils! There was no "dear Mary," or "dear Augusta," with whom he had secrets to be kept from his wife. When there arose with him any question of interest,--question of interest such as was this of the return of Sir Marmaduke to her,--he would show it in all its bearings to his wife. He had his secrets too, but his secrets had all been made secrets for her also. There was not a woman in the world in whose company he took special delight in her absence. And if there had been, how much less would have been her ground of complaint? Let a man have any such friendships,--what friendships he may,--he does not disgrace his wife. He felt himself to be so true of heart that he desired no such friendships; but for a man indulging in such friendships there might be excuse. Even though a man be false, a woman is not shamed and brought unto the dust before all the world. But the slightest rumour on a woman's name is a load of infamy on her husband's shoulders. It was not enough for C sar that his wife should be true; it was necessary to C sar that she should not even be suspected. Trevelyan told himself that he suspected his wife of no sin. God forbid that it should ever come to that, both for his sake and for hers; and, above all, for the sake of that boy who was so dear to them both! But there would be the vile whispers, and dirty slanders would be dropped from envious tongues into envious ears, and minds prone to evil would think evil of him and of his. Had not Lady Milborough already cautioned him? Oh, that he should have lived to have been cautioned about his wife;--that he should be told that eyes outside had looked into the sacred shrine of his heart and seen that things there were fatally amiss! And yet Lady Milborough was quite right. Had he not in his hand at this moment a document that proved her to be right? "Dear Emily!" He took this note and crushed it in his fist, and then pulled it into fragments. But what should he do? There was, first of all considerations, the duty which he owed to his wife, and the love which he bore her. That she was ignorant and innocent he was sure; but then she was so contumacious that he hardly knew how to take a step in the direction of guarding her from the effects of her ignorance, and maintaining for her the advantages of her innocence. He was her master, and she must know that he was her master. But how was he to proceed when she refused to obey the plainest and most necessary command which he laid upon her? Let a man be ever so much his wife's master, he cannot maintain his masterdom by any power which the law places in his hands. He had asked his wife for a promise of obedience, and she would not give it to him! What was he to do next? He could, no doubt,--at least he thought so,--keep the man from her presence. He could order the servant not to admit the man, and the servant would doubtless obey him. But to what a condition would he then have been brought! Would not the world then be over for him,--over for him as the husband of a wife whom he could not love unless he respected her? Better that there should be no such world, than call in the aid of a servant to guard the conduct of his wife! As he thought of it all it seemed to him that if she would not obey him, and give him this promise, they must be separated. He would not live with her, he would not give her the privileges of his wife, if she refused to render to him the obedience which was his privilege. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that he ought not to yield to her. Let her once yield to him, and then his tenderness should begin, and there should be no limit to it. But he would not see her till she had yielded. He would not see her; and if he should find that she did see Colonel Osborne, then he would tell her that she could no longer dwell under the same roof with him. His resolution on these points was very strong, and yet there came over him a feeling that it was his duty to be gentle. There was a feeling also that that privilege of receiving obedience, which was so indubitably his own, could only be maintained by certain wise practices on his part, in which gentleness must predominate. Wives are bound to obey their husbands, but obedience cannot be exacted from wives, as it may from servants, by aid of law and with penalties, or as from a horse, by punishments and manger curtailments. A man should be master in his own house, but he should make his mastery palatable, equitable, smooth, soft to the touch, a thing almost unfelt. How was he to do all this now, when he had already given an order to which obedience had been refused unless under certain stipulations,--an agreement with which would be degradation to him? He had pointed out to his wife her duty, and she had said she would do her duty as pointed out, on condition that he would beg her pardon for having pointed it out! This he could not and would not do. Let the heavens fall,--and the falling of the heavens in this case was a separation between him and his wife,--but he would not consent to such injustice as that! But what was he to do at this moment,--especially with reference to that note which he had destroyed. At last he resolved to write to his wife, and he consequently did write and send to her the following letter:-- May 4. DEAREST EMILY, If Colonel Osborne should write to you again, it will be better that you should not open his letter. As you know his handwriting, you will have no difficulty in so arranging. Should any further letter come from Colonel Osborne addressed to you, you had better put it under cover to me, and take no notice of it yourself. I shall dine at the club to-day. We were to have gone to Mrs. Peacock's in the evening. You had better write a line to say that we shall not be there. I am very sorry that Nora should lose her evening. Pray think very carefully over what I have asked of you. My request to you is, that you shall give me a promise that you will not willingly see Colonel Osborne again. Of course you will understand that this is not supposed to extend to accidental meetings, as to which, should they occur,--and they would be sure to occur,--you would find that they would be wholly unnoticed by me. But I must request that you will comply with my wish in this matter. If you will send for me, I will go to you instantly, and after one word from you to the desired effect, you will find that there will be no recurrence by me to a subject so hateful. As I have done, and am doing what I think to be right, I cannot stultify myself by saying that I think I have been wrong. Yours always, dearest Emily, With the most thorough love, LOUIS TREVELYAN. This letter he himself put on his wife's dressing-room table, and then he went out to his club. CHAPTER VI. SHEWING HOW RECONCILIATION WAS MADE. "Look at that," said Mrs. Trevelyan, when her sister came into her room about an hour before dinner-time. Nora read the letter, and then asked her sister what she meant to do. "I have written to Mrs. Peacock. I don't know what else I can do. It is very hard upon you,--that you should have been kept at home. But I don't suppose Mr. Glascock would have been at Mrs. Peacock's." "And what else will you do, Emily?" "Nothing;--simply live deserted and forlorn till he shall choose to find his wits again. There is nothing else that a woman can do. If he chooses to dine at his club every day, I can't help it. We must put off all the engagements, and that will be hard upon you." "Don't talk about me. It is too terrible to think that there should be such a quarrel." "What can I do? Have I been wrong?" "Simply do what he tells you, whether it is wrong or right. If it's right, it ought to be done, and if it's wrong, it will not be your fault." "That's very easily said, and it sounds logical; but you must know it's unreasonable." "I don't care about reason. He is your husband, and if he wishes it you should do it. And what will be the harm? You don't mean to see Colonel Osborne any more. You have already said that he's not to be admitted." "I have said that nobody is to be admitted. Louis has driven me to that. How can I look the servant in the face and tell him that any special gentleman is not to be admitted to see me? Oh dear! oh dear! have I done anything to deserve it? Was ever so monstrous an accusation made against any woman! If it were not for my boy, I would defy him to do his worst." On the day following, Nora again became a messenger between the husband and wife, and before dinner-time a reconciliation had been effected. Of course the wife gave way at last; and of course she gave way so cunningly that the husband received none of the gratification which he had expected in her surrender. "Tell him to come," Nora had urged. "Of course he can come if he pleases," Emily had replied. Then Nora had told Louis to come, and Louis had demanded whether, if he did so, the promise which he had exacted would be given. It is to be feared that Nora perverted the truth a little; but if ever such perversion may be forgiven, forgiveness was due to her. If they could only be brought together, she was sure that there would be a reconciliation. They were brought together, and there was a reconciliation. "Dearest Emily, I am so glad to come to you," said the husband, walking up to his wife in their bed-room, and taking her in his arms. [Illustration: Shewing how reconciliation was made.] "I have been very unhappy, Louis, for the last two days," said she, very gravely,--returning his kiss, but returning it somewhat coldly. "We have both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that it was to be made without reserve,--as an act on her part which she had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far as he could judge, either repentant or submissive. "Nora said that you would make me the promise which I ask from you." "I cannot think, Louis, how you can want such a promise from me." "I think it right to ask it; I do indeed." "Can you imagine that I shall ever willingly see this gentleman again after what has occurred? It will be for you to tell the servant. I do not know how I can do that. But, as a matter of course, I will encourage no person to come to your house of whom you disapprove. It would be exactly the same of any man or of any woman." "That is all that I ask." "I am surprised that you should have thought it necessary to make any formal request in the matter. Your word was quite sufficient. That you should find cause of complaint in Colonel Osborne's coming here is of course a different thing." "Quite a different thing," said he. "I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears. I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil thought to me." "Indeed, indeed, I never have," said the husband. "That I can assure you I regard as a matter of course," said the wife. "But you know, Emily, the way in which the world talks." "The world! And do you regard the world, Louis?" "Lady Milborough, I believe, spoke to yourself." "Lady Milborough! No, she did not speak to me. She began to do so, but I was careful to silence her at once. From you, Louis, I am bound to hear whatever you may choose to say to me; but I will not hear from any other lips a single word that may be injurious to your honour." This she said very quietly, with much dignity, and he felt that he had better not answer her. She had given him the promise which he had demanded, and he began to fear that if he pushed the matter further she might go back even from that amount of submission. So he kissed her again, and had the boy brought into the room, and by the time that he went to dress for dinner he was able, at any rate, to seem to be well pleased. "Richard," he said to the servant, as soon as he was down-stairs, "when Colonel Osborne calls again, say that your mistress is--not at home." He gave the order in the most indifferent tone of voice which he could assume; but as he gave it he felt thoroughly ashamed of it. Richard, who, with the other servants, had of course known that there had been a quarrel between his master and mistress for the last two days, no doubt understood all about it. While they were sitting at dinner on the next day, a Saturday, there came another note from Colonel Osborne. The servant brought it to his mistress, and she, when she had looked at it, put it down by her plate. Trevelyan knew immediately from whom the letter had come, and understood how impossible it was for his wife to give it up in the servant's presence. The letter lay there till the man was out of the room, and then she handed it to Nora. "Will you give that to Louis?" she said. "It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover." "Emily!" said he, jumping from his seat, "how can you allow words so horrible and so untrue to fall from your mouth?" "If it be not so, why am I to be placed in such a position as this? The servant knows, of course, from whom the letter comes, and sees that I have been forbidden to open it." Then the man returned to the room, and the remainder of the dinner passed off almost in silence. It was their custom when they dined without company to leave the dining-room together, but on this evening Trevelyan remained for a few minutes that he might read Colonel Osborne's letter. He waited, standing on the rug with his face to the fire-place, till he was quite alone, and then he opened it. It ran as follows:-- House of Commons, Saturday. DEAR EMILY,-- Trevelyan, as he read this, cursed Colonel Osborne between his teeth. DEAR EMILY, I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent now till the middle of June, and that he could not be in London, let him do what he would, till the end of July. They hope to have the session over by that time, and therefore the committee is to be put off till next session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada, and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next, and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months. All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll call to-morrow at luncheon time. Yours always, F. O. There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the "Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife. But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece, thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she was sitting, "you had better read that letter." "I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily. "Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally." Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are not to come after all," said she, "till next February." "And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan. "Something about the session. I don't quite understand." "Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would." "But what has that to do with papa?" "I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora. "I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all is so much of a favour that it is almost a job." "I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody is wanted, and nobody can know more of the service than papa does. But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he say anything about mamma, Nora?" "You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit. "No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too. Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them." This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him, if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this matter." "I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs. Trevelyan. There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his chair and walked round to

moment

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

yielding, and gentle to his wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope. It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband's absence from the house, and was as follows:-- Acrobats, Thursday. DEAR EMILY, I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours, F. O. The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs. Trevelyan, when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she was minded to obey him. Had he included in his demand any requirement that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters, and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note, and then sent it down to be put on Mr. Trevelyan's table in an envelope addressed to him. "If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he has wronged me," said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child's features were in all respects the very same as his father's, and that, come what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought. What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel, out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the dust be better for her than that? "It is a very poor thing to be a woman," she said to her sister. "It is perhaps better than being a dog," said Nora; "but, of course, we can't compare ourselves to men." "It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn't be made to suffer so much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough for a few days, but she gets over it in a week." There was a pause then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current of her sister's thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment which she could say on that subject. "It is very hard for a woman to know what to do," continued Emily, "but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some one, though he may not trust his wife." "I will never wittingly marry a fool," said Nora. "You will marry Mr. Glascock, of course. I don't say that he is a fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows itself in perversity." "If he asked me, I should not have him;--and he will never ask me." "He will ask you, and, of course, you'll take him. Why not? You can't be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it." "All the same, I shall not marry Mr. Glascock. A woman can die, at any rate," said Nora. "No, she can't. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is very indecent. She can't die, and she mustn't be in want, and she oughtn't to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you'd mind taking that down-stairs to his table? I don't like to send it by the servant; and I don't want to go myself." Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis Trevelyan would be sure to find it. He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel Osborne's note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address another man's wife as "Dear Emily?" At the moment Trevelyan remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife, that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him, to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as "Dear Emily," according to this man's judgment and wish, and not according to his judgment and wish,--not according to the judgment and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! "Of course you will tell T. now." This was intolerable to him. It made him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and bestowed upon her the half of all that he had simply for herself, asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money, position, a name,--all that makes life worth having. He had found her in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages of family or social standing,--so circumstanced that any friend would have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in return but that he should be all in all to her,--that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,--another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying, that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a good wife. As he thought of all this, he almost regretted that he had ever visited the Mandarins, or ever heard the name of Sir Marmaduke Rowley. He should have nourished no such thoughts in his heart. He had, indeed, been generous to his wife and to his wife's family; but we may almost say that the man who is really generous in such matters, is unconscious of his own generosity. The giver who gives the most, gives, and does not know that he gives. And had not she given too? In that matter of giving between a man and his wife, if each gives all, the two are equal, let the things given be what they may! King Cophetua did nothing for his beggar maid, unless she were to him, after he had married her, as royal a queen as though he had taken her from the oldest stock of reigning families then extant. Trevelyan knew all this himself,--had said so to himself a score of times, though not probably in spoken words or formed sentences. But, that all was equal between himself and the wife of his bosom, had been a thing ascertained by him as a certainty. There was no debt of gratitude from her to him which he did not acknowledge to exist also as from him to her. But yet, in his anger, he could not keep himself from thinking of the gifts he had showered upon her. And he had been, was, would ever be, if she would only allow it, so true to her! He had selected no other friend to take her place in his councils! There was no "dear Mary," or "dear Augusta," with whom he had secrets to be kept from his wife. When there arose with him any question of interest,--question of interest such as was this of the return of Sir Marmaduke to her,--he would show it in all its bearings to his wife. He had his secrets too, but his secrets had all been made secrets for her also. There was not a woman in the world in whose company he took special delight in her absence. And if there had been, how much less would have been her ground of complaint? Let a man have any such friendships,--what friendships he may,--he does not disgrace his wife. He felt himself to be so true of heart that he desired no such friendships; but for a man indulging in such friendships there might be excuse. Even though a man be false, a woman is not shamed and brought unto the dust before all the world. But the slightest rumour on a woman's name is a load of infamy on her husband's shoulders. It was not enough for C sar that his wife should be true; it was necessary to C sar that she should not even be suspected. Trevelyan told himself that he suspected his wife of no sin. God forbid that it should ever come to that, both for his sake and for hers; and, above all, for the sake of that boy who was so dear to them both! But there would be the vile whispers, and dirty slanders would be dropped from envious tongues into envious ears, and minds prone to evil would think evil of him and of his. Had not Lady Milborough already cautioned him? Oh, that he should have lived to have been cautioned about his wife;--that he should be told that eyes outside had looked into the sacred shrine of his heart and seen that things there were fatally amiss! And yet Lady Milborough was quite right. Had he not in his hand at this moment a document that proved her to be right? "Dear Emily!" He took this note and crushed it in his fist, and then pulled it into fragments. But what should he do? There was, first of all considerations, the duty which he owed to his wife, and the love which he bore her. That she was ignorant and innocent he was sure; but then she was so contumacious that he hardly knew how to take a step in the direction of guarding her from the effects of her ignorance, and maintaining for her the advantages of her innocence. He was her master, and she must know that he was her master. But how was he to proceed when she refused to obey the plainest and most necessary command which he laid upon her? Let a man be ever so much his wife's master, he cannot maintain his masterdom by any power which the law places in his hands. He had asked his wife for a promise of obedience, and she would not give it to him! What was he to do next? He could, no doubt,--at least he thought so,--keep the man from her presence. He could order the servant not to admit the man, and the servant would doubtless obey him. But to what a condition would he then have been brought! Would not the world then be over for him,--over for him as the husband of a wife whom he could not love unless he respected her? Better that there should be no such world, than call in the aid of a servant to guard the conduct of his wife! As he thought of it all it seemed to him that if she would not obey him, and give him this promise, they must be separated. He would not live with her, he would not give her the privileges of his wife, if she refused to render to him the obedience which was his privilege. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that he ought not to yield to her. Let her once yield to him, and then his tenderness should begin, and there should be no limit to it. But he would not see her till she had yielded. He would not see her; and if he should find that she did see Colonel Osborne, then he would tell her that she could no longer dwell under the same roof with him. His resolution on these points was very strong, and yet there came over him a feeling that it was his duty to be gentle. There was a feeling also that that privilege of receiving obedience, which was so indubitably his own, could only be maintained by certain wise practices on his part, in which gentleness must predominate. Wives are bound to obey their husbands, but obedience cannot be exacted from wives, as it may from servants, by aid of law and with penalties, or as from a horse, by punishments and manger curtailments. A man should be master in his own house, but he should make his mastery palatable, equitable, smooth, soft to the touch, a thing almost unfelt. How was he to do all this now, when he had already given an order to which obedience had been refused unless under certain stipulations,--an agreement with which would be degradation to him? He had pointed out to his wife her duty, and she had said she would do her duty as pointed out, on condition that he would beg her pardon for having pointed it out! This he could not and would not do. Let the heavens fall,--and the falling of the heavens in this case was a separation between him and his wife,--but he would not consent to such injustice as that! But what was he to do at this moment,--especially with reference to that note which he had destroyed. At last he resolved to write to his wife, and he consequently did write and send to her the following letter:-- May 4. DEAREST EMILY, If Colonel Osborne should write to you again, it will be better that you should not open his letter. As you know his handwriting, you will have no difficulty in so arranging. Should any further letter come from Colonel Osborne addressed to you, you had better put it under cover to me, and take no notice of it yourself. I shall dine at the club to-day. We were to have gone to Mrs. Peacock's in the evening. You had better write a line to say that we shall not be there. I am very sorry that Nora should lose her evening. Pray think very carefully over what I have asked of you. My request to you is, that you shall give me a promise that you will not willingly see Colonel Osborne again. Of course you will understand that this is not supposed to extend to accidental meetings, as to which, should they occur,--and they would be sure to occur,--you would find that they would be wholly unnoticed by me. But I must request that you will comply with my wish in this matter. If you will send for me, I will go to you instantly, and after one word from you to the desired effect, you will find that there will be no recurrence by me to a subject so hateful. As I have done, and am doing what I think to be right, I cannot stultify myself by saying that I think I have been wrong. Yours always, dearest Emily, With the most thorough love, LOUIS TREVELYAN. This letter he himself put on his wife's dressing-room table, and then he went out to his club. CHAPTER VI. SHEWING HOW RECONCILIATION WAS MADE. "Look at that," said Mrs. Trevelyan, when her sister came into her room about an hour before dinner-time. Nora read the letter, and then asked her sister what she meant to do. "I have written to Mrs. Peacock. I don't know what else I can do. It is very hard upon you,--that you should have been kept at home. But I don't suppose Mr. Glascock would have been at Mrs. Peacock's." "And what else will you do, Emily?" "Nothing;--simply live deserted and forlorn till he shall choose to find his wits again. There is nothing else that a woman can do. If he chooses to dine at his club every day, I can't help it. We must put off all the engagements, and that will be hard upon you." "Don't talk about me. It is too terrible to think that there should be such a quarrel." "What can I do? Have I been wrong?" "Simply do what he tells you, whether it is wrong or right. If it's right, it ought to be done, and if it's wrong, it will not be your fault." "That's very easily said, and it sounds logical; but you must know it's unreasonable." "I don't care about reason. He is your husband, and if he wishes it you should do it. And what will be the harm? You don't mean to see Colonel Osborne any more. You have already said that he's not to be admitted." "I have said that nobody is to be admitted. Louis has driven me to that. How can I look the servant in the face and tell him that any special gentleman is not to be admitted to see me? Oh dear! oh dear! have I done anything to deserve it? Was ever so monstrous an accusation made against any woman! If it were not for my boy, I would defy him to do his worst." On the day following, Nora again became a messenger between the husband and wife, and before dinner-time a reconciliation had been effected. Of course the wife gave way at last; and of course she gave way so cunningly that the husband received none of the gratification which he had expected in her surrender. "Tell him to come," Nora had urged. "Of course he can come if he pleases," Emily had replied. Then Nora had told Louis to come, and Louis had demanded whether, if he did so, the promise which he had exacted would be given. It is to be feared that Nora perverted the truth a little; but if ever such perversion may be forgiven, forgiveness was due to her. If they could only be brought together, she was sure that there would be a reconciliation. They were brought together, and there was a reconciliation. "Dearest Emily, I am so glad to come to you," said the husband, walking up to his wife in their bed-room, and taking her in his arms. [Illustration: Shewing how reconciliation was made.] "I have been very unhappy, Louis, for the last two days," said she, very gravely,--returning his kiss, but returning it somewhat coldly. "We have both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that it was to be made without reserve,--as an act on her part which she had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far as he could judge, either repentant or submissive. "Nora said that you would make me the promise which I ask from you." "I cannot think, Louis, how you can want such a promise from me." "I think it right to ask it; I do indeed." "Can you imagine that I shall ever willingly see this gentleman again after what has occurred? It will be for you to tell the servant. I do not know how I can do that. But, as a matter of course, I will encourage no person to come to your house of whom you disapprove. It would be exactly the same of any man or of any woman." "That is all that I ask." "I am surprised that you should have thought it necessary to make any formal request in the matter. Your word was quite sufficient. That you should find cause of complaint in Colonel Osborne's coming here is of course a different thing." "Quite a different thing," said he. "I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears. I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil thought to me." "Indeed, indeed, I never have," said the husband. "That I can assure you I regard as a matter of course," said the wife. "But you know, Emily, the way in which the world talks." "The world! And do you regard the world, Louis?" "Lady Milborough, I believe, spoke to yourself." "Lady Milborough! No, she did not speak to me. She began to do so, but I was careful to silence her at once. From you, Louis, I am bound to hear whatever you may choose to say to me; but I will not hear from any other lips a single word that may be injurious to your honour." This she said very quietly, with much dignity, and he felt that he had better not answer her. She had given him the promise which he had demanded, and he began to fear that if he pushed the matter further she might go back even from that amount of submission. So he kissed her again, and had the boy brought into the room, and by the time that he went to dress for dinner he was able, at any rate, to seem to be well pleased. "Richard," he said to the servant, as soon as he was down-stairs, "when Colonel Osborne calls again, say that your mistress is--not at home." He gave the order in the most indifferent tone of voice which he could assume; but as he gave it he felt thoroughly ashamed of it. Richard, who, with the other servants, had of course known that there had been a quarrel between his master and mistress for the last two days, no doubt understood all about it. While they were sitting at dinner on the next day, a Saturday, there came another note from Colonel Osborne. The servant brought it to his mistress, and she, when she had looked at it, put it down by her plate. Trevelyan knew immediately from whom the letter had come, and understood how impossible it was for his wife to give it up in the servant's presence. The letter lay there till the man was out of the room, and then she handed it to Nora. "Will you give that to Louis?" she said. "It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover." "Emily!" said he, jumping from his seat, "how can you allow words so horrible and so untrue to fall from your mouth?" "If it be not so, why am I to be placed in such a position as this? The servant knows, of course, from whom the letter comes, and sees that I have been forbidden to open it." Then the man returned to the room, and the remainder of the dinner passed off almost in silence. It was their custom when they dined without company to leave the dining-room together, but on this evening Trevelyan remained for a few minutes that he might read Colonel Osborne's letter. He waited, standing on the rug with his face to the fire-place, till he was quite alone, and then he opened it. It ran as follows:-- House of Commons, Saturday. DEAR EMILY,-- Trevelyan, as he read this, cursed Colonel Osborne between his teeth. DEAR EMILY, I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent now till the middle of June, and that he could not be in London, let him do what he would, till the end of July. They hope to have the session over by that time, and therefore the committee is to be put off till next session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada, and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next, and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months. All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll call to-morrow at luncheon time. Yours always, F. O. There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the "Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife. But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece, thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she was sitting, "you had better read that letter." "I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily. "Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally." Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are not to come after all," said she, "till next February." "And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan. "Something about the session. I don't quite understand." "Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would." "But what has that to do with papa?" "I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora. "I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all is so much of a favour that it is almost a job." "I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody is wanted, and nobody can know more of the service than papa does. But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he say anything about mamma, Nora?" "You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit. "No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too. Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them." This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him, if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this matter." "I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs. Trevelyan. There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his chair and walked round to

augusta

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

yielding, and gentle to his wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope. It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband's absence from the house, and was as follows:-- Acrobats, Thursday. DEAR EMILY, I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours, F. O. The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs. Trevelyan, when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she was minded to obey him. Had he included in his demand any requirement that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters, and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note, and then sent it down to be put on Mr. Trevelyan's table in an envelope addressed to him. "If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he has wronged me," said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child's features were in all respects the very same as his father's, and that, come what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought. What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel, out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the dust be better for her than that? "It is a very poor thing to be a woman," she said to her sister. "It is perhaps better than being a dog," said Nora; "but, of course, we can't compare ourselves to men." "It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn't be made to suffer so much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough for a few days, but she gets over it in a week." There was a pause then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current of her sister's thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment which she could say on that subject. "It is very hard for a woman to know what to do," continued Emily, "but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some one, though he may not trust his wife." "I will never wittingly marry a fool," said Nora. "You will marry Mr. Glascock, of course. I don't say that he is a fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows itself in perversity." "If he asked me, I should not have him;--and he will never ask me." "He will ask you, and, of course, you'll take him. Why not? You can't be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it." "All the same, I shall not marry Mr. Glascock. A woman can die, at any rate," said Nora. "No, she can't. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is very indecent. She can't die, and she mustn't be in want, and she oughtn't to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you'd mind taking that down-stairs to his table? I don't like to send it by the servant; and I don't want to go myself." Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis Trevelyan would be sure to find it. He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel Osborne's note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address another man's wife as "Dear Emily?" At the moment Trevelyan remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife, that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him, to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as "Dear Emily," according to this man's judgment and wish, and not according to his judgment and wish,--not according to the judgment and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! "Of course you will tell T. now." This was intolerable to him. It made him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and bestowed upon her the half of all that he had simply for herself, asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money, position, a name,--all that makes life worth having. He had found her in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages of family or social standing,--so circumstanced that any friend would have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in return but that he should be all in all to her,--that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,--another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying, that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a good wife. As he thought of all this, he almost regretted that he had ever visited the Mandarins, or ever heard the name of Sir Marmaduke Rowley. He should have nourished no such thoughts in his heart. He had, indeed, been generous to his wife and to his wife's family; but we may almost say that the man who is really generous in such matters, is unconscious of his own generosity. The giver who gives the most, gives, and does not know that he gives. And had not she given too? In that matter of giving between a man and his wife, if each gives all, the two are equal, let the things given be what they may! King Cophetua did nothing for his beggar maid, unless she were to him, after he had married her, as royal a queen as though he had taken her from the oldest stock of reigning families then extant. Trevelyan knew all this himself,--had said so to himself a score of times, though not probably in spoken words or formed sentences. But, that all was equal between himself and the wife of his bosom, had been a thing ascertained by him as a certainty. There was no debt of gratitude from her to him which he did not acknowledge to exist also as from him to her. But yet, in his anger, he could not keep himself from thinking of the gifts he had showered upon her. And he had been, was, would ever be, if she would only allow it, so true to her! He had selected no other friend to take her place in his councils! There was no "dear Mary," or "dear Augusta," with whom he had secrets to be kept from his wife. When there arose with him any question of interest,--question of interest such as was this of the return of Sir Marmaduke to her,--he would show it in all its bearings to his wife. He had his secrets too, but his secrets had all been made secrets for her also. There was not a woman in the world in whose company he took special delight in her absence. And if there had been, how much less would have been her ground of complaint? Let a man have any such friendships,--what friendships he may,--he does not disgrace his wife. He felt himself to be so true of heart that he desired no such friendships; but for a man indulging in such friendships there might be excuse. Even though a man be false, a woman is not shamed and brought unto the dust before all the world. But the slightest rumour on a woman's name is a load of infamy on her husband's shoulders. It was not enough for C sar that his wife should be true; it was necessary to C sar that she should not even be suspected. Trevelyan told himself that he suspected his wife of no sin. God forbid that it should ever come to that, both for his sake and for hers; and, above all, for the sake of that boy who was so dear to them both! But there would be the vile whispers, and dirty slanders would be dropped from envious tongues into envious ears, and minds prone to evil would think evil of him and of his. Had not Lady Milborough already cautioned him? Oh, that he should have lived to have been cautioned about his wife;--that he should be told that eyes outside had looked into the sacred shrine of his heart and seen that things there were fatally amiss! And yet Lady Milborough was quite right. Had he not in his hand at this moment a document that proved her to be right? "Dear Emily!" He took this note and crushed it in his fist, and then pulled it into fragments. But what should he do? There was, first of all considerations, the duty which he owed to his wife, and the love which he bore her. That she was ignorant and innocent he was sure; but then she was so contumacious that he hardly knew how to take a step in the direction of guarding her from the effects of her ignorance, and maintaining for her the advantages of her innocence. He was her master, and she must know that he was her master. But how was he to proceed when she refused to obey the plainest and most necessary command which he laid upon her? Let a man be ever so much his wife's master, he cannot maintain his masterdom by any power which the law places in his hands. He had asked his wife for a promise of obedience, and she would not give it to him! What was he to do next? He could, no doubt,--at least he thought so,--keep the man from her presence. He could order the servant not to admit the man, and the servant would doubtless obey him. But to what a condition would he then have been brought! Would not the world then be over for him,--over for him as the husband of a wife whom he could not love unless he respected her? Better that there should be no such world, than call in the aid of a servant to guard the conduct of his wife! As he thought of it all it seemed to him that if she would not obey him, and give him this promise, they must be separated. He would not live with her, he would not give her the privileges of his wife, if she refused to render to him the obedience which was his privilege. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that he ought not to yield to her. Let her once yield to him, and then his tenderness should begin, and there should be no limit to it. But he would not see her till she had yielded. He would not see her; and if he should find that she did see Colonel Osborne, then he would tell her that she could no longer dwell under the same roof with him. His resolution on these points was very strong, and yet there came over him a feeling that it was his duty to be gentle. There was a feeling also that that privilege of receiving obedience, which was so indubitably his own, could only be maintained by certain wise practices on his part, in which gentleness must predominate. Wives are bound to obey their husbands, but obedience cannot be exacted from wives, as it may from servants, by aid of law and with penalties, or as from a horse, by punishments and manger curtailments. A man should be master in his own house, but he should make his mastery palatable, equitable, smooth, soft to the touch, a thing almost unfelt. How was he to do all this now, when he had already given an order to which obedience had been refused unless under certain stipulations,--an agreement with which would be degradation to him? He had pointed out to his wife her duty, and she had said she would do her duty as pointed out, on condition that he would beg her pardon for having pointed it out! This he could not and would not do. Let the heavens fall,--and the falling of the heavens in this case was a separation between him and his wife,--but he would not consent to such injustice as that! But what was he to do at this moment,--especially with reference to that note which he had destroyed. At last he resolved to write to his wife, and he consequently did write and send to her the following letter:-- May 4. DEAREST EMILY, If Colonel Osborne should write to you again, it will be better that you should not open his letter. As you know his handwriting, you will have no difficulty in so arranging. Should any further letter come from Colonel Osborne addressed to you, you had better put it under cover to me, and take no notice of it yourself. I shall dine at the club to-day. We were to have gone to Mrs. Peacock's in the evening. You had better write a line to say that we shall not be there. I am very sorry that Nora should lose her evening. Pray think very carefully over what I have asked of you. My request to you is, that you shall give me a promise that you will not willingly see Colonel Osborne again. Of course you will understand that this is not supposed to extend to accidental meetings, as to which, should they occur,--and they would be sure to occur,--you would find that they would be wholly unnoticed by me. But I must request that you will comply with my wish in this matter. If you will send for me, I will go to you instantly, and after one word from you to the desired effect, you will find that there will be no recurrence by me to a subject so hateful. As I have done, and am doing what I think to be right, I cannot stultify myself by saying that I think I have been wrong. Yours always, dearest Emily, With the most thorough love, LOUIS TREVELYAN. This letter he himself put on his wife's dressing-room table, and then he went out to his club. CHAPTER VI. SHEWING HOW RECONCILIATION WAS MADE. "Look at that," said Mrs. Trevelyan, when her sister came into her room about an hour before dinner-time. Nora read the letter, and then asked her sister what she meant to do. "I have written to Mrs. Peacock. I don't know what else I can do. It is very hard upon you,--that you should have been kept at home. But I don't suppose Mr. Glascock would have been at Mrs. Peacock's." "And what else will you do, Emily?" "Nothing;--simply live deserted and forlorn till he shall choose to find his wits again. There is nothing else that a woman can do. If he chooses to dine at his club every day, I can't help it. We must put off all the engagements, and that will be hard upon you." "Don't talk about me. It is too terrible to think that there should be such a quarrel." "What can I do? Have I been wrong?" "Simply do what he tells you, whether it is wrong or right. If it's right, it ought to be done, and if it's wrong, it will not be your fault." "That's very easily said, and it sounds logical; but you must know it's unreasonable." "I don't care about reason. He is your husband, and if he wishes it you should do it. And what will be the harm? You don't mean to see Colonel Osborne any more. You have already said that he's not to be admitted." "I have said that nobody is to be admitted. Louis has driven me to that. How can I look the servant in the face and tell him that any special gentleman is not to be admitted to see me? Oh dear! oh dear! have I done anything to deserve it? Was ever so monstrous an accusation made against any woman! If it were not for my boy, I would defy him to do his worst." On the day following, Nora again became a messenger between the husband and wife, and before dinner-time a reconciliation had been effected. Of course the wife gave way at last; and of course she gave way so cunningly that the husband received none of the gratification which he had expected in her surrender. "Tell him to come," Nora had urged. "Of course he can come if he pleases," Emily had replied. Then Nora had told Louis to come, and Louis had demanded whether, if he did so, the promise which he had exacted would be given. It is to be feared that Nora perverted the truth a little; but if ever such perversion may be forgiven, forgiveness was due to her. If they could only be brought together, she was sure that there would be a reconciliation. They were brought together, and there was a reconciliation. "Dearest Emily, I am so glad to come to you," said the husband, walking up to his wife in their bed-room, and taking her in his arms. [Illustration: Shewing how reconciliation was made.] "I have been very unhappy, Louis, for the last two days," said she, very gravely,--returning his kiss, but returning it somewhat coldly. "We have both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that it was to be made without reserve,--as an act on her part which she had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far as he could judge, either repentant or submissive. "Nora said that you would make me the promise which I ask from you." "I cannot think, Louis, how you can want such a promise from me." "I think it right to ask it; I do indeed." "Can you imagine that I shall ever willingly see this gentleman again after what has occurred? It will be for you to tell the servant. I do not know how I can do that. But, as a matter of course, I will encourage no person to come to your house of whom you disapprove. It would be exactly the same of any man or of any woman." "That is all that I ask." "I am surprised that you should have thought it necessary to make any formal request in the matter. Your word was quite sufficient. That you should find cause of complaint in Colonel Osborne's coming here is of course a different thing." "Quite a different thing," said he. "I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears. I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil thought to me." "Indeed, indeed, I never have," said the husband. "That I can assure you I regard as a matter of course," said the wife. "But you know, Emily, the way in which the world talks." "The world! And do you regard the world, Louis?" "Lady Milborough, I believe, spoke to yourself." "Lady Milborough! No, she did not speak to me. She began to do so, but I was careful to silence her at once. From you, Louis, I am bound to hear whatever you may choose to say to me; but I will not hear from any other lips a single word that may be injurious to your honour." This she said very quietly, with much dignity, and he felt that he had better not answer her. She had given him the promise which he had demanded, and he began to fear that if he pushed the matter further she might go back even from that amount of submission. So he kissed her again, and had the boy brought into the room, and by the time that he went to dress for dinner he was able, at any rate, to seem to be well pleased. "Richard," he said to the servant, as soon as he was down-stairs, "when Colonel Osborne calls again, say that your mistress is--not at home." He gave the order in the most indifferent tone of voice which he could assume; but as he gave it he felt thoroughly ashamed of it. Richard, who, with the other servants, had of course known that there had been a quarrel between his master and mistress for the last two days, no doubt understood all about it. While they were sitting at dinner on the next day, a Saturday, there came another note from Colonel Osborne. The servant brought it to his mistress, and she, when she had looked at it, put it down by her plate. Trevelyan knew immediately from whom the letter had come, and understood how impossible it was for his wife to give it up in the servant's presence. The letter lay there till the man was out of the room, and then she handed it to Nora. "Will you give that to Louis?" she said. "It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover." "Emily!" said he, jumping from his seat, "how can you allow words so horrible and so untrue to fall from your mouth?" "If it be not so, why am I to be placed in such a position as this? The servant knows, of course, from whom the letter comes, and sees that I have been forbidden to open it." Then the man returned to the room, and the remainder of the dinner passed off almost in silence. It was their custom when they dined without company to leave the dining-room together, but on this evening Trevelyan remained for a few minutes that he might read Colonel Osborne's letter. He waited, standing on the rug with his face to the fire-place, till he was quite alone, and then he opened it. It ran as follows:-- House of Commons, Saturday. DEAR EMILY,-- Trevelyan, as he read this, cursed Colonel Osborne between his teeth. DEAR EMILY, I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent now till the middle of June, and that he could not be in London, let him do what he would, till the end of July. They hope to have the session over by that time, and therefore the committee is to be put off till next session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada, and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next, and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months. All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll call to-morrow at luncheon time. Yours always, F. O. There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the "Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife. But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece, thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she was sitting, "you had better read that letter." "I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily. "Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally." Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are not to come after all," said she, "till next February." "And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan. "Something about the session. I don't quite understand." "Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would." "But what has that to do with papa?" "I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora. "I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all is so much of a favour that it is almost a job." "I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody is wanted, and nobody can know more of the service than papa does. But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he say anything about mamma, Nora?" "You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit. "No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too. Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them." This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him, if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this matter." "I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs. Trevelyan. There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his chair and walked round to

fortune

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

yielding, and gentle to his wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope. It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband's absence from the house, and was as follows:-- Acrobats, Thursday. DEAR EMILY, I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours, F. O. The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs. Trevelyan, when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she was minded to obey him. Had he included in his demand any requirement that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters, and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note, and then sent it down to be put on Mr. Trevelyan's table in an envelope addressed to him. "If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he has wronged me," said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child's features were in all respects the very same as his father's, and that, come what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought. What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel, out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the dust be better for her than that? "It is a very poor thing to be a woman," she said to her sister. "It is perhaps better than being a dog," said Nora; "but, of course, we can't compare ourselves to men." "It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn't be made to suffer so much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough for a few days, but she gets over it in a week." There was a pause then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current of her sister's thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment which she could say on that subject. "It is very hard for a woman to know what to do," continued Emily, "but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some one, though he may not trust his wife." "I will never wittingly marry a fool," said Nora. "You will marry Mr. Glascock, of course. I don't say that he is a fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows itself in perversity." "If he asked me, I should not have him;--and he will never ask me." "He will ask you, and, of course, you'll take him. Why not? You can't be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it." "All the same, I shall not marry Mr. Glascock. A woman can die, at any rate," said Nora. "No, she can't. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is very indecent. She can't die, and she mustn't be in want, and she oughtn't to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you'd mind taking that down-stairs to his table? I don't like to send it by the servant; and I don't want to go myself." Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis Trevelyan would be sure to find it. He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel Osborne's note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address another man's wife as "Dear Emily?" At the moment Trevelyan remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife, that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him, to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as "Dear Emily," according to this man's judgment and wish, and not according to his judgment and wish,--not according to the judgment and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! "Of course you will tell T. now." This was intolerable to him. It made him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and bestowed upon her the half of all that he had simply for herself, asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money, position, a name,--all that makes life worth having. He had found her in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages of family or social standing,--so circumstanced that any friend would have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in return but that he should be all in all to her,--that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,--another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying, that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a good wife. As he thought of all this, he almost regretted that he had ever visited the Mandarins, or ever heard the name of Sir Marmaduke Rowley. He should have nourished no such thoughts in his heart. He had, indeed, been generous to his wife and to his wife's family; but we may almost say that the man who is really generous in such matters, is unconscious of his own generosity. The giver who gives the most, gives, and does not know that he gives. And had not she given too? In that matter of giving between a man and his wife, if each gives all, the two are equal, let the things given be what they may! King Cophetua did nothing for his beggar maid, unless she were to him, after he had married her, as royal a queen as though he had taken her from the oldest stock of reigning families then extant. Trevelyan knew all this himself,--had said so to himself a score of times, though not probably in spoken words or formed sentences. But, that all was equal between himself and the wife of his bosom, had been a thing ascertained by him as a certainty. There was no debt of gratitude from her to him which he did not acknowledge to exist also as from him to her. But yet, in his anger, he could not keep himself from thinking of the gifts he had showered upon her. And he had been, was, would ever be, if she would only allow it, so true to her! He had selected no other friend to take her place in his councils! There was no "dear Mary," or "dear Augusta," with whom he had secrets to be kept from his wife. When there arose with him any question of interest,--question of interest such as was this of the return of Sir Marmaduke to her,--he would show it in all its bearings to his wife. He had his secrets too, but his secrets had all been made secrets for her also. There was not a woman in the world in whose company he took special delight in her absence. And if there had been, how much less would have been her ground of complaint? Let a man have any such friendships,--what friendships he may,--he does not disgrace his wife. He felt himself to be so true of heart that he desired no such friendships; but for a man indulging in such friendships there might be excuse. Even though a man be false, a woman is not shamed and brought unto the dust before all the world. But the slightest rumour on a woman's name is a load of infamy on her husband's shoulders. It was not enough for C sar that his wife should be true; it was necessary to C sar that she should not even be suspected. Trevelyan told himself that he suspected his wife of no sin. God forbid that it should ever come to that, both for his sake and for hers; and, above all, for the sake of that boy who was so dear to them both! But there would be the vile whispers, and dirty slanders would be dropped from envious tongues into envious ears, and minds prone to evil would think evil of him and of his. Had not Lady Milborough already cautioned him? Oh, that he should have lived to have been cautioned about his wife;--that he should be told that eyes outside had looked into the sacred shrine of his heart and seen that things there were fatally amiss! And yet Lady Milborough was quite right. Had he not in his hand at this moment a document that proved her to be right? "Dear Emily!" He took this note and crushed it in his fist, and then pulled it into fragments. But what should he do? There was, first of all considerations, the duty which he owed to his wife, and the love which he bore her. That she was ignorant and innocent he was sure; but then she was so contumacious that he hardly knew how to take a step in the direction of guarding her from the effects of her ignorance, and maintaining for her the advantages of her innocence. He was her master, and she must know that he was her master. But how was he to proceed when she refused to obey the plainest and most necessary command which he laid upon her? Let a man be ever so much his wife's master, he cannot maintain his masterdom by any power which the law places in his hands. He had asked his wife for a promise of obedience, and she would not give it to him! What was he to do next? He could, no doubt,--at least he thought so,--keep the man from her presence. He could order the servant not to admit the man, and the servant would doubtless obey him. But to what a condition would he then have been brought! Would not the world then be over for him,--over for him as the husband of a wife whom he could not love unless he respected her? Better that there should be no such world, than call in the aid of a servant to guard the conduct of his wife! As he thought of it all it seemed to him that if she would not obey him, and give him this promise, they must be separated. He would not live with her, he would not give her the privileges of his wife, if she refused to render to him the obedience which was his privilege. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that he ought not to yield to her. Let her once yield to him, and then his tenderness should begin, and there should be no limit to it. But he would not see her till she had yielded. He would not see her; and if he should find that she did see Colonel Osborne, then he would tell her that she could no longer dwell under the same roof with him. His resolution on these points was very strong, and yet there came over him a feeling that it was his duty to be gentle. There was a feeling also that that privilege of receiving obedience, which was so indubitably his own, could only be maintained by certain wise practices on his part, in which gentleness must predominate. Wives are bound to obey their husbands, but obedience cannot be exacted from wives, as it may from servants, by aid of law and with penalties, or as from a horse, by punishments and manger curtailments. A man should be master in his own house, but he should make his mastery palatable, equitable, smooth, soft to the touch, a thing almost unfelt. How was he to do all this now, when he had already given an order to which obedience had been refused unless under certain stipulations,--an agreement with which would be degradation to him? He had pointed out to his wife her duty, and she had said she would do her duty as pointed out, on condition that he would beg her pardon for having pointed it out! This he could not and would not do. Let the heavens fall,--and the falling of the heavens in this case was a separation between him and his wife,--but he would not consent to such injustice as that! But what was he to do at this moment,--especially with reference to that note which he had destroyed. At last he resolved to write to his wife, and he consequently did write and send to her the following letter:-- May 4. DEAREST EMILY, If Colonel Osborne should write to you again, it will be better that you should not open his letter. As you know his handwriting, you will have no difficulty in so arranging. Should any further letter come from Colonel Osborne addressed to you, you had better put it under cover to me, and take no notice of it yourself. I shall dine at the club to-day. We were to have gone to Mrs. Peacock's in the evening. You had better write a line to say that we shall not be there. I am very sorry that Nora should lose her evening. Pray think very carefully over what I have asked of you. My request to you is, that you shall give me a promise that you will not willingly see Colonel Osborne again. Of course you will understand that this is not supposed to extend to accidental meetings, as to which, should they occur,--and they would be sure to occur,--you would find that they would be wholly unnoticed by me. But I must request that you will comply with my wish in this matter. If you will send for me, I will go to you instantly, and after one word from you to the desired effect, you will find that there will be no recurrence by me to a subject so hateful. As I have done, and am doing what I think to be right, I cannot stultify myself by saying that I think I have been wrong. Yours always, dearest Emily, With the most thorough love, LOUIS TREVELYAN. This letter he himself put on his wife's dressing-room table, and then he went out to his club. CHAPTER VI. SHEWING HOW RECONCILIATION WAS MADE. "Look at that," said Mrs. Trevelyan, when her sister came into her room about an hour before dinner-time. Nora read the letter, and then asked her sister what she meant to do. "I have written to Mrs. Peacock. I don't know what else I can do. It is very hard upon you,--that you should have been kept at home. But I don't suppose Mr. Glascock would have been at Mrs. Peacock's." "And what else will you do, Emily?" "Nothing;--simply live deserted and forlorn till he shall choose to find his wits again. There is nothing else that a woman can do. If he chooses to dine at his club every day, I can't help it. We must put off all the engagements, and that will be hard upon you." "Don't talk about me. It is too terrible to think that there should be such a quarrel." "What can I do? Have I been wrong?" "Simply do what he tells you, whether it is wrong or right. If it's right, it ought to be done, and if it's wrong, it will not be your fault." "That's very easily said, and it sounds logical; but you must know it's unreasonable." "I don't care about reason. He is your husband, and if he wishes it you should do it. And what will be the harm? You don't mean to see Colonel Osborne any more. You have already said that he's not to be admitted." "I have said that nobody is to be admitted. Louis has driven me to that. How can I look the servant in the face and tell him that any special gentleman is not to be admitted to see me? Oh dear! oh dear! have I done anything to deserve it? Was ever so monstrous an accusation made against any woman! If it were not for my boy, I would defy him to do his worst." On the day following, Nora again became a messenger between the husband and wife, and before dinner-time a reconciliation had been effected. Of course the wife gave way at last; and of course she gave way so cunningly that the husband received none of the gratification which he had expected in her surrender. "Tell him to come," Nora had urged. "Of course he can come if he pleases," Emily had replied. Then Nora had told Louis to come, and Louis had demanded whether, if he did so, the promise which he had exacted would be given. It is to be feared that Nora perverted the truth a little; but if ever such perversion may be forgiven, forgiveness was due to her. If they could only be brought together, she was sure that there would be a reconciliation. They were brought together, and there was a reconciliation. "Dearest Emily, I am so glad to come to you," said the husband, walking up to his wife in their bed-room, and taking her in his arms. [Illustration: Shewing how reconciliation was made.] "I have been very unhappy, Louis, for the last two days," said she, very gravely,--returning his kiss, but returning it somewhat coldly. "We have both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that it was to be made without reserve,--as an act on her part which she had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far as he could judge, either repentant or submissive. "Nora said that you would make me the promise which I ask from you." "I cannot think, Louis, how you can want such a promise from me." "I think it right to ask it; I do indeed." "Can you imagine that I shall ever willingly see this gentleman again after what has occurred? It will be for you to tell the servant. I do not know how I can do that. But, as a matter of course, I will encourage no person to come to your house of whom you disapprove. It would be exactly the same of any man or of any woman." "That is all that I ask." "I am surprised that you should have thought it necessary to make any formal request in the matter. Your word was quite sufficient. That you should find cause of complaint in Colonel Osborne's coming here is of course a different thing." "Quite a different thing," said he. "I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears. I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil thought to me." "Indeed, indeed, I never have," said the husband. "That I can assure you I regard as a matter of course," said the wife. "But you know, Emily, the way in which the world talks." "The world! And do you regard the world, Louis?" "Lady Milborough, I believe, spoke to yourself." "Lady Milborough! No, she did not speak to me. She began to do so, but I was careful to silence her at once. From you, Louis, I am bound to hear whatever you may choose to say to me; but I will not hear from any other lips a single word that may be injurious to your honour." This she said very quietly, with much dignity, and he felt that he had better not answer her. She had given him the promise which he had demanded, and he began to fear that if he pushed the matter further she might go back even from that amount of submission. So he kissed her again, and had the boy brought into the room, and by the time that he went to dress for dinner he was able, at any rate, to seem to be well pleased. "Richard," he said to the servant, as soon as he was down-stairs, "when Colonel Osborne calls again, say that your mistress is--not at home." He gave the order in the most indifferent tone of voice which he could assume; but as he gave it he felt thoroughly ashamed of it. Richard, who, with the other servants, had of course known that there had been a quarrel between his master and mistress for the last two days, no doubt understood all about it. While they were sitting at dinner on the next day, a Saturday, there came another note from Colonel Osborne. The servant brought it to his mistress, and she, when she had looked at it, put it down by her plate. Trevelyan knew immediately from whom the letter had come, and understood how impossible it was for his wife to give it up in the servant's presence. The letter lay there till the man was out of the room, and then she handed it to Nora. "Will you give that to Louis?" she said. "It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover." "Emily!" said he, jumping from his seat, "how can you allow words so horrible and so untrue to fall from your mouth?" "If it be not so, why am I to be placed in such a position as this? The servant knows, of course, from whom the letter comes, and sees that I have been forbidden to open it." Then the man returned to the room, and the remainder of the dinner passed off almost in silence. It was their custom when they dined without company to leave the dining-room together, but on this evening Trevelyan remained for a few minutes that he might read Colonel Osborne's letter. He waited, standing on the rug with his face to the fire-place, till he was quite alone, and then he opened it. It ran as follows:-- House of Commons, Saturday. DEAR EMILY,-- Trevelyan, as he read this, cursed Colonel Osborne between his teeth. DEAR EMILY, I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent now till the middle of June, and that he could not be in London, let him do what he would, till the end of July. They hope to have the session over by that time, and therefore the committee is to be put off till next session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada, and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next, and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months. All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll call to-morrow at luncheon time. Yours always, F. O. There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the "Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife. But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece, thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she was sitting, "you had better read that letter." "I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily. "Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally." Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are not to come after all," said she, "till next February." "And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan. "Something about the session. I don't quite understand." "Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would." "But what has that to do with papa?" "I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora. "I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all is so much of a favour that it is almost a job." "I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody is wanted, and nobody can know more of the service than papa does. But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he say anything about mamma, Nora?" "You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit. "No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too. Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them." This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him, if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this matter." "I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs. Trevelyan. There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his chair and walked round to

hurled

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

yielding, and gentle to his wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope. It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband's absence from the house, and was as follows:-- Acrobats, Thursday. DEAR EMILY, I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours, F. O. The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs. Trevelyan, when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she was minded to obey him. Had he included in his demand any requirement that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters, and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note, and then sent it down to be put on Mr. Trevelyan's table in an envelope addressed to him. "If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he has wronged me," said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child's features were in all respects the very same as his father's, and that, come what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought. What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel, out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the dust be better for her than that? "It is a very poor thing to be a woman," she said to her sister. "It is perhaps better than being a dog," said Nora; "but, of course, we can't compare ourselves to men." "It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn't be made to suffer so much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough for a few days, but she gets over it in a week." There was a pause then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current of her sister's thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment which she could say on that subject. "It is very hard for a woman to know what to do," continued Emily, "but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some one, though he may not trust his wife." "I will never wittingly marry a fool," said Nora. "You will marry Mr. Glascock, of course. I don't say that he is a fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows itself in perversity." "If he asked me, I should not have him;--and he will never ask me." "He will ask you, and, of course, you'll take him. Why not? You can't be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it." "All the same, I shall not marry Mr. Glascock. A woman can die, at any rate," said Nora. "No, she can't. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is very indecent. She can't die, and she mustn't be in want, and she oughtn't to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you'd mind taking that down-stairs to his table? I don't like to send it by the servant; and I don't want to go myself." Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis Trevelyan would be sure to find it. He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel Osborne's note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address another man's wife as "Dear Emily?" At the moment Trevelyan remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife, that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him, to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as "Dear Emily," according to this man's judgment and wish, and not according to his judgment and wish,--not according to the judgment and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! "Of course you will tell T. now." This was intolerable to him. It made him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and bestowed upon her the half of all that he had simply for herself, asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money, position, a name,--all that makes life worth having. He had found her in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages of family or social standing,--so circumstanced that any friend would have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in return but that he should be all in all to her,--that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,--another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying, that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a good wife. As he thought of all this, he almost regretted that he had ever visited the Mandarins, or ever heard the name of Sir Marmaduke Rowley. He should have nourished no such thoughts in his heart. He had, indeed, been generous to his wife and to his wife's family; but we may almost say that the man who is really generous in such matters, is unconscious of his own generosity. The giver who gives the most, gives, and does not know that he gives. And had not she given too? In that matter of giving between a man and his wife, if each gives all, the two are equal, let the things given be what they may! King Cophetua did nothing for his beggar maid, unless she were to him, after he had married her, as royal a queen as though he had taken her from the oldest stock of reigning families then extant. Trevelyan knew all this himself,--had said so to himself a score of times, though not probably in spoken words or formed sentences. But, that all was equal between himself and the wife of his bosom, had been a thing ascertained by him as a certainty. There was no debt of gratitude from her to him which he did not acknowledge to exist also as from him to her. But yet, in his anger, he could not keep himself from thinking of the gifts he had showered upon her. And he had been, was, would ever be, if she would only allow it, so true to her! He had selected no other friend to take her place in his councils! There was no "dear Mary," or "dear Augusta," with whom he had secrets to be kept from his wife. When there arose with him any question of interest,--question of interest such as was this of the return of Sir Marmaduke to her,--he would show it in all its bearings to his wife. He had his secrets too, but his secrets had all been made secrets for her also. There was not a woman in the world in whose company he took special delight in her absence. And if there had been, how much less would have been her ground of complaint? Let a man have any such friendships,--what friendships he may,--he does not disgrace his wife. He felt himself to be so true of heart that he desired no such friendships; but for a man indulging in such friendships there might be excuse. Even though a man be false, a woman is not shamed and brought unto the dust before all the world. But the slightest rumour on a woman's name is a load of infamy on her husband's shoulders. It was not enough for C sar that his wife should be true; it was necessary to C sar that she should not even be suspected. Trevelyan told himself that he suspected his wife of no sin. God forbid that it should ever come to that, both for his sake and for hers; and, above all, for the sake of that boy who was so dear to them both! But there would be the vile whispers, and dirty slanders would be dropped from envious tongues into envious ears, and minds prone to evil would think evil of him and of his. Had not Lady Milborough already cautioned him? Oh, that he should have lived to have been cautioned about his wife;--that he should be told that eyes outside had looked into the sacred shrine of his heart and seen that things there were fatally amiss! And yet Lady Milborough was quite right. Had he not in his hand at this moment a document that proved her to be right? "Dear Emily!" He took this note and crushed it in his fist, and then pulled it into fragments. But what should he do? There was, first of all considerations, the duty which he owed to his wife, and the love which he bore her. That she was ignorant and innocent he was sure; but then she was so contumacious that he hardly knew how to take a step in the direction of guarding her from the effects of her ignorance, and maintaining for her the advantages of her innocence. He was her master, and she must know that he was her master. But how was he to proceed when she refused to obey the plainest and most necessary command which he laid upon her? Let a man be ever so much his wife's master, he cannot maintain his masterdom by any power which the law places in his hands. He had asked his wife for a promise of obedience, and she would not give it to him! What was he to do next? He could, no doubt,--at least he thought so,--keep the man from her presence. He could order the servant not to admit the man, and the servant would doubtless obey him. But to what a condition would he then have been brought! Would not the world then be over for him,--over for him as the husband of a wife whom he could not love unless he respected her? Better that there should be no such world, than call in the aid of a servant to guard the conduct of his wife! As he thought of it all it seemed to him that if she would not obey him, and give him this promise, they must be separated. He would not live with her, he would not give her the privileges of his wife, if she refused to render to him the obedience which was his privilege. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that he ought not to yield to her. Let her once yield to him, and then his tenderness should begin, and there should be no limit to it. But he would not see her till she had yielded. He would not see her; and if he should find that she did see Colonel Osborne, then he would tell her that she could no longer dwell under the same roof with him. His resolution on these points was very strong, and yet there came over him a feeling that it was his duty to be gentle. There was a feeling also that that privilege of receiving obedience, which was so indubitably his own, could only be maintained by certain wise practices on his part, in which gentleness must predominate. Wives are bound to obey their husbands, but obedience cannot be exacted from wives, as it may from servants, by aid of law and with penalties, or as from a horse, by punishments and manger curtailments. A man should be master in his own house, but he should make his mastery palatable, equitable, smooth, soft to the touch, a thing almost unfelt. How was he to do all this now, when he had already given an order to which obedience had been refused unless under certain stipulations,--an agreement with which would be degradation to him? He had pointed out to his wife her duty, and she had said she would do her duty as pointed out, on condition that he would beg her pardon for having pointed it out! This he could not and would not do. Let the heavens fall,--and the falling of the heavens in this case was a separation between him and his wife,--but he would not consent to such injustice as that! But what was he to do at this moment,--especially with reference to that note which he had destroyed. At last he resolved to write to his wife, and he consequently did write and send to her the following letter:-- May 4. DEAREST EMILY, If Colonel Osborne should write to you again, it will be better that you should not open his letter. As you know his handwriting, you will have no difficulty in so arranging. Should any further letter come from Colonel Osborne addressed to you, you had better put it under cover to me, and take no notice of it yourself. I shall dine at the club to-day. We were to have gone to Mrs. Peacock's in the evening. You had better write a line to say that we shall not be there. I am very sorry that Nora should lose her evening. Pray think very carefully over what I have asked of you. My request to you is, that you shall give me a promise that you will not willingly see Colonel Osborne again. Of course you will understand that this is not supposed to extend to accidental meetings, as to which, should they occur,--and they would be sure to occur,--you would find that they would be wholly unnoticed by me. But I must request that you will comply with my wish in this matter. If you will send for me, I will go to you instantly, and after one word from you to the desired effect, you will find that there will be no recurrence by me to a subject so hateful. As I have done, and am doing what I think to be right, I cannot stultify myself by saying that I think I have been wrong. Yours always, dearest Emily, With the most thorough love, LOUIS TREVELYAN. This letter he himself put on his wife's dressing-room table, and then he went out to his club. CHAPTER VI. SHEWING HOW RECONCILIATION WAS MADE. "Look at that," said Mrs. Trevelyan, when her sister came into her room about an hour before dinner-time. Nora read the letter, and then asked her sister what she meant to do. "I have written to Mrs. Peacock. I don't know what else I can do. It is very hard upon you,--that you should have been kept at home. But I don't suppose Mr. Glascock would have been at Mrs. Peacock's." "And what else will you do, Emily?" "Nothing;--simply live deserted and forlorn till he shall choose to find his wits again. There is nothing else that a woman can do. If he chooses to dine at his club every day, I can't help it. We must put off all the engagements, and that will be hard upon you." "Don't talk about me. It is too terrible to think that there should be such a quarrel." "What can I do? Have I been wrong?" "Simply do what he tells you, whether it is wrong or right. If it's right, it ought to be done, and if it's wrong, it will not be your fault." "That's very easily said, and it sounds logical; but you must know it's unreasonable." "I don't care about reason. He is your husband, and if he wishes it you should do it. And what will be the harm? You don't mean to see Colonel Osborne any more. You have already said that he's not to be admitted." "I have said that nobody is to be admitted. Louis has driven me to that. How can I look the servant in the face and tell him that any special gentleman is not to be admitted to see me? Oh dear! oh dear! have I done anything to deserve it? Was ever so monstrous an accusation made against any woman! If it were not for my boy, I would defy him to do his worst." On the day following, Nora again became a messenger between the husband and wife, and before dinner-time a reconciliation had been effected. Of course the wife gave way at last; and of course she gave way so cunningly that the husband received none of the gratification which he had expected in her surrender. "Tell him to come," Nora had urged. "Of course he can come if he pleases," Emily had replied. Then Nora had told Louis to come, and Louis had demanded whether, if he did so, the promise which he had exacted would be given. It is to be feared that Nora perverted the truth a little; but if ever such perversion may be forgiven, forgiveness was due to her. If they could only be brought together, she was sure that there would be a reconciliation. They were brought together, and there was a reconciliation. "Dearest Emily, I am so glad to come to you," said the husband, walking up to his wife in their bed-room, and taking her in his arms. [Illustration: Shewing how reconciliation was made.] "I have been very unhappy, Louis, for the last two days," said she, very gravely,--returning his kiss, but returning it somewhat coldly. "We have both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that it was to be made without reserve,--as an act on her part which she had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far as he could judge, either repentant or submissive. "Nora said that you would make me the promise which I ask from you." "I cannot think, Louis, how you can want such a promise from me." "I think it right to ask it; I do indeed." "Can you imagine that I shall ever willingly see this gentleman again after what has occurred? It will be for you to tell the servant. I do not know how I can do that. But, as a matter of course, I will encourage no person to come to your house of whom you disapprove. It would be exactly the same of any man or of any woman." "That is all that I ask." "I am surprised that you should have thought it necessary to make any formal request in the matter. Your word was quite sufficient. That you should find cause of complaint in Colonel Osborne's coming here is of course a different thing." "Quite a different thing," said he. "I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears. I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil thought to me." "Indeed, indeed, I never have," said the husband. "That I can assure you I regard as a matter of course," said the wife. "But you know, Emily, the way in which the world talks." "The world! And do you regard the world, Louis?" "Lady Milborough, I believe, spoke to yourself." "Lady Milborough! No, she did not speak to me. She began to do so, but I was careful to silence her at once. From you, Louis, I am bound to hear whatever you may choose to say to me; but I will not hear from any other lips a single word that may be injurious to your honour." This she said very quietly, with much dignity, and he felt that he had better not answer her. She had given him the promise which he had demanded, and he began to fear that if he pushed the matter further she might go back even from that amount of submission. So he kissed her again, and had the boy brought into the room, and by the time that he went to dress for dinner he was able, at any rate, to seem to be well pleased. "Richard," he said to the servant, as soon as he was down-stairs, "when Colonel Osborne calls again, say that your mistress is--not at home." He gave the order in the most indifferent tone of voice which he could assume; but as he gave it he felt thoroughly ashamed of it. Richard, who, with the other servants, had of course known that there had been a quarrel between his master and mistress for the last two days, no doubt understood all about it. While they were sitting at dinner on the next day, a Saturday, there came another note from Colonel Osborne. The servant brought it to his mistress, and she, when she had looked at it, put it down by her plate. Trevelyan knew immediately from whom the letter had come, and understood how impossible it was for his wife to give it up in the servant's presence. The letter lay there till the man was out of the room, and then she handed it to Nora. "Will you give that to Louis?" she said. "It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover." "Emily!" said he, jumping from his seat, "how can you allow words so horrible and so untrue to fall from your mouth?" "If it be not so, why am I to be placed in such a position as this? The servant knows, of course, from whom the letter comes, and sees that I have been forbidden to open it." Then the man returned to the room, and the remainder of the dinner passed off almost in silence. It was their custom when they dined without company to leave the dining-room together, but on this evening Trevelyan remained for a few minutes that he might read Colonel Osborne's letter. He waited, standing on the rug with his face to the fire-place, till he was quite alone, and then he opened it. It ran as follows:-- House of Commons, Saturday. DEAR EMILY,-- Trevelyan, as he read this, cursed Colonel Osborne between his teeth. DEAR EMILY, I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent now till the middle of June, and that he could not be in London, let him do what he would, till the end of July. They hope to have the session over by that time, and therefore the committee is to be put off till next session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada, and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next, and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months. All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll call to-morrow at luncheon time. Yours always, F. O. There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the "Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife. But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece, thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she was sitting, "you had better read that letter." "I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily. "Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally." Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are not to come after all," said she, "till next February." "And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan. "Something about the session. I don't quite understand." "Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would." "But what has that to do with papa?" "I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora. "I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all is so much of a favour that it is almost a job." "I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody is wanted, and nobody can know more of the service than papa does. But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he say anything about mamma, Nora?" "You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit. "No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too. Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them." This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him, if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this matter." "I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs. Trevelyan. There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his chair and walked round to

say

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

yielding, and gentle to his wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope. It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband's absence from the house, and was as follows:-- Acrobats, Thursday. DEAR EMILY, I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours, F. O. The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs. Trevelyan, when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she was minded to obey him. Had he included in his demand any requirement that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters, and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note, and then sent it down to be put on Mr. Trevelyan's table in an envelope addressed to him. "If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he has wronged me," said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child's features were in all respects the very same as his father's, and that, come what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought. What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel, out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the dust be better for her than that? "It is a very poor thing to be a woman," she said to her sister. "It is perhaps better than being a dog," said Nora; "but, of course, we can't compare ourselves to men." "It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn't be made to suffer so much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough for a few days, but she gets over it in a week." There was a pause then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current of her sister's thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment which she could say on that subject. "It is very hard for a woman to know what to do," continued Emily, "but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some one, though he may not trust his wife." "I will never wittingly marry a fool," said Nora. "You will marry Mr. Glascock, of course. I don't say that he is a fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows itself in perversity." "If he asked me, I should not have him;--and he will never ask me." "He will ask you, and, of course, you'll take him. Why not? You can't be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it." "All the same, I shall not marry Mr. Glascock. A woman can die, at any rate," said Nora. "No, she can't. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is very indecent. She can't die, and she mustn't be in want, and she oughtn't to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you'd mind taking that down-stairs to his table? I don't like to send it by the servant; and I don't want to go myself." Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis Trevelyan would be sure to find it. He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel Osborne's note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address another man's wife as "Dear Emily?" At the moment Trevelyan remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife, that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him, to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as "Dear Emily," according to this man's judgment and wish, and not according to his judgment and wish,--not according to the judgment and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! "Of course you will tell T. now." This was intolerable to him. It made him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and bestowed upon her the half of all that he had simply for herself, asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money, position, a name,--all that makes life worth having. He had found her in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages of family or social standing,--so circumstanced that any friend would have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in return but that he should be all in all to her,--that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,--another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying, that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a good wife. As he thought of all this, he almost regretted that he had ever visited the Mandarins, or ever heard the name of Sir Marmaduke Rowley. He should have nourished no such thoughts in his heart. He had, indeed, been generous to his wife and to his wife's family; but we may almost say that the man who is really generous in such matters, is unconscious of his own generosity. The giver who gives the most, gives, and does not know that he gives. And had not she given too? In that matter of giving between a man and his wife, if each gives all, the two are equal, let the things given be what they may! King Cophetua did nothing for his beggar maid, unless she were to him, after he had married her, as royal a queen as though he had taken her from the oldest stock of reigning families then extant. Trevelyan knew all this himself,--had said so to himself a score of times, though not probably in spoken words or formed sentences. But, that all was equal between himself and the wife of his bosom, had been a thing ascertained by him as a certainty. There was no debt of gratitude from her to him which he did not acknowledge to exist also as from him to her. But yet, in his anger, he could not keep himself from thinking of the gifts he had showered upon her. And he had been, was, would ever be, if she would only allow it, so true to her! He had selected no other friend to take her place in his councils! There was no "dear Mary," or "dear Augusta," with whom he had secrets to be kept from his wife. When there arose with him any question of interest,--question of interest such as was this of the return of Sir Marmaduke to her,--he would show it in all its bearings to his wife. He had his secrets too, but his secrets had all been made secrets for her also. There was not a woman in the world in whose company he took special delight in her absence. And if there had been, how much less would have been her ground of complaint? Let a man have any such friendships,--what friendships he may,--he does not disgrace his wife. He felt himself to be so true of heart that he desired no such friendships; but for a man indulging in such friendships there might be excuse. Even though a man be false, a woman is not shamed and brought unto the dust before all the world. But the slightest rumour on a woman's name is a load of infamy on her husband's shoulders. It was not enough for C sar that his wife should be true; it was necessary to C sar that she should not even be suspected. Trevelyan told himself that he suspected his wife of no sin. God forbid that it should ever come to that, both for his sake and for hers; and, above all, for the sake of that boy who was so dear to them both! But there would be the vile whispers, and dirty slanders would be dropped from envious tongues into envious ears, and minds prone to evil would think evil of him and of his. Had not Lady Milborough already cautioned him? Oh, that he should have lived to have been cautioned about his wife;--that he should be told that eyes outside had looked into the sacred shrine of his heart and seen that things there were fatally amiss! And yet Lady Milborough was quite right. Had he not in his hand at this moment a document that proved her to be right? "Dear Emily!" He took this note and crushed it in his fist, and then pulled it into fragments. But what should he do? There was, first of all considerations, the duty which he owed to his wife, and the love which he bore her. That she was ignorant and innocent he was sure; but then she was so contumacious that he hardly knew how to take a step in the direction of guarding her from the effects of her ignorance, and maintaining for her the advantages of her innocence. He was her master, and she must know that he was her master. But how was he to proceed when she refused to obey the plainest and most necessary command which he laid upon her? Let a man be ever so much his wife's master, he cannot maintain his masterdom by any power which the law places in his hands. He had asked his wife for a promise of obedience, and she would not give it to him! What was he to do next? He could, no doubt,--at least he thought so,--keep the man from her presence. He could order the servant not to admit the man, and the servant would doubtless obey him. But to what a condition would he then have been brought! Would not the world then be over for him,--over for him as the husband of a wife whom he could not love unless he respected her? Better that there should be no such world, than call in the aid of a servant to guard the conduct of his wife! As he thought of it all it seemed to him that if she would not obey him, and give him this promise, they must be separated. He would not live with her, he would not give her the privileges of his wife, if she refused to render to him the obedience which was his privilege. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that he ought not to yield to her. Let her once yield to him, and then his tenderness should begin, and there should be no limit to it. But he would not see her till she had yielded. He would not see her; and if he should find that she did see Colonel Osborne, then he would tell her that she could no longer dwell under the same roof with him. His resolution on these points was very strong, and yet there came over him a feeling that it was his duty to be gentle. There was a feeling also that that privilege of receiving obedience, which was so indubitably his own, could only be maintained by certain wise practices on his part, in which gentleness must predominate. Wives are bound to obey their husbands, but obedience cannot be exacted from wives, as it may from servants, by aid of law and with penalties, or as from a horse, by punishments and manger curtailments. A man should be master in his own house, but he should make his mastery palatable, equitable, smooth, soft to the touch, a thing almost unfelt. How was he to do all this now, when he had already given an order to which obedience had been refused unless under certain stipulations,--an agreement with which would be degradation to him? He had pointed out to his wife her duty, and she had said she would do her duty as pointed out, on condition that he would beg her pardon for having pointed it out! This he could not and would not do. Let the heavens fall,--and the falling of the heavens in this case was a separation between him and his wife,--but he would not consent to such injustice as that! But what was he to do at this moment,--especially with reference to that note which he had destroyed. At last he resolved to write to his wife, and he consequently did write and send to her the following letter:-- May 4. DEAREST EMILY, If Colonel Osborne should write to you again, it will be better that you should not open his letter. As you know his handwriting, you will have no difficulty in so arranging. Should any further letter come from Colonel Osborne addressed to you, you had better put it under cover to me, and take no notice of it yourself. I shall dine at the club to-day. We were to have gone to Mrs. Peacock's in the evening. You had better write a line to say that we shall not be there. I am very sorry that Nora should lose her evening. Pray think very carefully over what I have asked of you. My request to you is, that you shall give me a promise that you will not willingly see Colonel Osborne again. Of course you will understand that this is not supposed to extend to accidental meetings, as to which, should they occur,--and they would be sure to occur,--you would find that they would be wholly unnoticed by me. But I must request that you will comply with my wish in this matter. If you will send for me, I will go to you instantly, and after one word from you to the desired effect, you will find that there will be no recurrence by me to a subject so hateful. As I have done, and am doing what I think to be right, I cannot stultify myself by saying that I think I have been wrong. Yours always, dearest Emily, With the most thorough love, LOUIS TREVELYAN. This letter he himself put on his wife's dressing-room table, and then he went out to his club. CHAPTER VI. SHEWING HOW RECONCILIATION WAS MADE. "Look at that," said Mrs. Trevelyan, when her sister came into her room about an hour before dinner-time. Nora read the letter, and then asked her sister what she meant to do. "I have written to Mrs. Peacock. I don't know what else I can do. It is very hard upon you,--that you should have been kept at home. But I don't suppose Mr. Glascock would have been at Mrs. Peacock's." "And what else will you do, Emily?" "Nothing;--simply live deserted and forlorn till he shall choose to find his wits again. There is nothing else that a woman can do. If he chooses to dine at his club every day, I can't help it. We must put off all the engagements, and that will be hard upon you." "Don't talk about me. It is too terrible to think that there should be such a quarrel." "What can I do? Have I been wrong?" "Simply do what he tells you, whether it is wrong or right. If it's right, it ought to be done, and if it's wrong, it will not be your fault." "That's very easily said, and it sounds logical; but you must know it's unreasonable." "I don't care about reason. He is your husband, and if he wishes it you should do it. And what will be the harm? You don't mean to see Colonel Osborne any more. You have already said that he's not to be admitted." "I have said that nobody is to be admitted. Louis has driven me to that. How can I look the servant in the face and tell him that any special gentleman is not to be admitted to see me? Oh dear! oh dear! have I done anything to deserve it? Was ever so monstrous an accusation made against any woman! If it were not for my boy, I would defy him to do his worst." On the day following, Nora again became a messenger between the husband and wife, and before dinner-time a reconciliation had been effected. Of course the wife gave way at last; and of course she gave way so cunningly that the husband received none of the gratification which he had expected in her surrender. "Tell him to come," Nora had urged. "Of course he can come if he pleases," Emily had replied. Then Nora had told Louis to come, and Louis had demanded whether, if he did so, the promise which he had exacted would be given. It is to be feared that Nora perverted the truth a little; but if ever such perversion may be forgiven, forgiveness was due to her. If they could only be brought together, she was sure that there would be a reconciliation. They were brought together, and there was a reconciliation. "Dearest Emily, I am so glad to come to you," said the husband, walking up to his wife in their bed-room, and taking her in his arms. [Illustration: Shewing how reconciliation was made.] "I have been very unhappy, Louis, for the last two days," said she, very gravely,--returning his kiss, but returning it somewhat coldly. "We have both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that it was to be made without reserve,--as an act on her part which she had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far as he could judge, either repentant or submissive. "Nora said that you would make me the promise which I ask from you." "I cannot think, Louis, how you can want such a promise from me." "I think it right to ask it; I do indeed." "Can you imagine that I shall ever willingly see this gentleman again after what has occurred? It will be for you to tell the servant. I do not know how I can do that. But, as a matter of course, I will encourage no person to come to your house of whom you disapprove. It would be exactly the same of any man or of any woman." "That is all that I ask." "I am surprised that you should have thought it necessary to make any formal request in the matter. Your word was quite sufficient. That you should find cause of complaint in Colonel Osborne's coming here is of course a different thing." "Quite a different thing," said he. "I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears. I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil thought to me." "Indeed, indeed, I never have," said the husband. "That I can assure you I regard as a matter of course," said the wife. "But you know, Emily, the way in which the world talks." "The world! And do you regard the world, Louis?" "Lady Milborough, I believe, spoke to yourself." "Lady Milborough! No, she did not speak to me. She began to do so, but I was careful to silence her at once. From you, Louis, I am bound to hear whatever you may choose to say to me; but I will not hear from any other lips a single word that may be injurious to your honour." This she said very quietly, with much dignity, and he felt that he had better not answer her. She had given him the promise which he had demanded, and he began to fear that if he pushed the matter further she might go back even from that amount of submission. So he kissed her again, and had the boy brought into the room, and by the time that he went to dress for dinner he was able, at any rate, to seem to be well pleased. "Richard," he said to the servant, as soon as he was down-stairs, "when Colonel Osborne calls again, say that your mistress is--not at home." He gave the order in the most indifferent tone of voice which he could assume; but as he gave it he felt thoroughly ashamed of it. Richard, who, with the other servants, had of course known that there had been a quarrel between his master and mistress for the last two days, no doubt understood all about it. While they were sitting at dinner on the next day, a Saturday, there came another note from Colonel Osborne. The servant brought it to his mistress, and she, when she had looked at it, put it down by her plate. Trevelyan knew immediately from whom the letter had come, and understood how impossible it was for his wife to give it up in the servant's presence. The letter lay there till the man was out of the room, and then she handed it to Nora. "Will you give that to Louis?" she said. "It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover." "Emily!" said he, jumping from his seat, "how can you allow words so horrible and so untrue to fall from your mouth?" "If it be not so, why am I to be placed in such a position as this? The servant knows, of course, from whom the letter comes, and sees that I have been forbidden to open it." Then the man returned to the room, and the remainder of the dinner passed off almost in silence. It was their custom when they dined without company to leave the dining-room together, but on this evening Trevelyan remained for a few minutes that he might read Colonel Osborne's letter. He waited, standing on the rug with his face to the fire-place, till he was quite alone, and then he opened it. It ran as follows:-- House of Commons, Saturday. DEAR EMILY,-- Trevelyan, as he read this, cursed Colonel Osborne between his teeth. DEAR EMILY, I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent now till the middle of June, and that he could not be in London, let him do what he would, till the end of July. They hope to have the session over by that time, and therefore the committee is to be put off till next session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada, and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next, and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months. All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll call to-morrow at luncheon time. Yours always, F. O. There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the "Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife. But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece, thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she was sitting, "you had better read that letter." "I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily. "Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally." Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are not to come after all," said she, "till next February." "And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan. "Something about the session. I don't quite understand." "Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would." "But what has that to do with papa?" "I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora. "I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all is so much of a favour that it is almost a job." "I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody is wanted, and nobody can know more of the service than papa does. But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he say anything about mamma, Nora?" "You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit. "No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too. Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them." This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him, if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this matter." "I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs. Trevelyan. There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his chair and walked round to

over

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

yielding, and gentle to his wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope. It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband's absence from the house, and was as follows:-- Acrobats, Thursday. DEAR EMILY, I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours, F. O. The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs. Trevelyan, when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she was minded to obey him. Had he included in his demand any requirement that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters, and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note, and then sent it down to be put on Mr. Trevelyan's table in an envelope addressed to him. "If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he has wronged me," said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child's features were in all respects the very same as his father's, and that, come what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought. What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel, out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the dust be better for her than that? "It is a very poor thing to be a woman," she said to her sister. "It is perhaps better than being a dog," said Nora; "but, of course, we can't compare ourselves to men." "It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn't be made to suffer so much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough for a few days, but she gets over it in a week." There was a pause then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current of her sister's thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment which she could say on that subject. "It is very hard for a woman to know what to do," continued Emily, "but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some one, though he may not trust his wife." "I will never wittingly marry a fool," said Nora. "You will marry Mr. Glascock, of course. I don't say that he is a fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows itself in perversity." "If he asked me, I should not have him;--and he will never ask me." "He will ask you, and, of course, you'll take him. Why not? You can't be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it." "All the same, I shall not marry Mr. Glascock. A woman can die, at any rate," said Nora. "No, she can't. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is very indecent. She can't die, and she mustn't be in want, and she oughtn't to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you'd mind taking that down-stairs to his table? I don't like to send it by the servant; and I don't want to go myself." Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis Trevelyan would be sure to find it. He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel Osborne's note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address another man's wife as "Dear Emily?" At the moment Trevelyan remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife, that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him, to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as "Dear Emily," according to this man's judgment and wish, and not according to his judgment and wish,--not according to the judgment and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! "Of course you will tell T. now." This was intolerable to him. It made him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and bestowed upon her the half of all that he had simply for herself, asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money, position, a name,--all that makes life worth having. He had found her in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages of family or social standing,--so circumstanced that any friend would have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in return but that he should be all in all to her,--that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,--another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying, that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a good wife. As he thought of all this, he almost regretted that he had ever visited the Mandarins, or ever heard the name of Sir Marmaduke Rowley. He should have nourished no such thoughts in his heart. He had, indeed, been generous to his wife and to his wife's family; but we may almost say that the man who is really generous in such matters, is unconscious of his own generosity. The giver who gives the most, gives, and does not know that he gives. And had not she given too? In that matter of giving between a man and his wife, if each gives all, the two are equal, let the things given be what they may! King Cophetua did nothing for his beggar maid, unless she were to him, after he had married her, as royal a queen as though he had taken her from the oldest stock of reigning families then extant. Trevelyan knew all this himself,--had said so to himself a score of times, though not probably in spoken words or formed sentences. But, that all was equal between himself and the wife of his bosom, had been a thing ascertained by him as a certainty. There was no debt of gratitude from her to him which he did not acknowledge to exist also as from him to her. But yet, in his anger, he could not keep himself from thinking of the gifts he had showered upon her. And he had been, was, would ever be, if she would only allow it, so true to her! He had selected no other friend to take her place in his councils! There was no "dear Mary," or "dear Augusta," with whom he had secrets to be kept from his wife. When there arose with him any question of interest,--question of interest such as was this of the return of Sir Marmaduke to her,--he would show it in all its bearings to his wife. He had his secrets too, but his secrets had all been made secrets for her also. There was not a woman in the world in whose company he took special delight in her absence. And if there had been, how much less would have been her ground of complaint? Let a man have any such friendships,--what friendships he may,--he does not disgrace his wife. He felt himself to be so true of heart that he desired no such friendships; but for a man indulging in such friendships there might be excuse. Even though a man be false, a woman is not shamed and brought unto the dust before all the world. But the slightest rumour on a woman's name is a load of infamy on her husband's shoulders. It was not enough for C sar that his wife should be true; it was necessary to C sar that she should not even be suspected. Trevelyan told himself that he suspected his wife of no sin. God forbid that it should ever come to that, both for his sake and for hers; and, above all, for the sake of that boy who was so dear to them both! But there would be the vile whispers, and dirty slanders would be dropped from envious tongues into envious ears, and minds prone to evil would think evil of him and of his. Had not Lady Milborough already cautioned him? Oh, that he should have lived to have been cautioned about his wife;--that he should be told that eyes outside had looked into the sacred shrine of his heart and seen that things there were fatally amiss! And yet Lady Milborough was quite right. Had he not in his hand at this moment a document that proved her to be right? "Dear Emily!" He took this note and crushed it in his fist, and then pulled it into fragments. But what should he do? There was, first of all considerations, the duty which he owed to his wife, and the love which he bore her. That she was ignorant and innocent he was sure; but then she was so contumacious that he hardly knew how to take a step in the direction of guarding her from the effects of her ignorance, and maintaining for her the advantages of her innocence. He was her master, and she must know that he was her master. But how was he to proceed when she refused to obey the plainest and most necessary command which he laid upon her? Let a man be ever so much his wife's master, he cannot maintain his masterdom by any power which the law places in his hands. He had asked his wife for a promise of obedience, and she would not give it to him! What was he to do next? He could, no doubt,--at least he thought so,--keep the man from her presence. He could order the servant not to admit the man, and the servant would doubtless obey him. But to what a condition would he then have been brought! Would not the world then be over for him,--over for him as the husband of a wife whom he could not love unless he respected her? Better that there should be no such world, than call in the aid of a servant to guard the conduct of his wife! As he thought of it all it seemed to him that if she would not obey him, and give him this promise, they must be separated. He would not live with her, he would not give her the privileges of his wife, if she refused to render to him the obedience which was his privilege. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that he ought not to yield to her. Let her once yield to him, and then his tenderness should begin, and there should be no limit to it. But he would not see her till she had yielded. He would not see her; and if he should find that she did see Colonel Osborne, then he would tell her that she could no longer dwell under the same roof with him. His resolution on these points was very strong, and yet there came over him a feeling that it was his duty to be gentle. There was a feeling also that that privilege of receiving obedience, which was so indubitably his own, could only be maintained by certain wise practices on his part, in which gentleness must predominate. Wives are bound to obey their husbands, but obedience cannot be exacted from wives, as it may from servants, by aid of law and with penalties, or as from a horse, by punishments and manger curtailments. A man should be master in his own house, but he should make his mastery palatable, equitable, smooth, soft to the touch, a thing almost unfelt. How was he to do all this now, when he had already given an order to which obedience had been refused unless under certain stipulations,--an agreement with which would be degradation to him? He had pointed out to his wife her duty, and she had said she would do her duty as pointed out, on condition that he would beg her pardon for having pointed it out! This he could not and would not do. Let the heavens fall,--and the falling of the heavens in this case was a separation between him and his wife,--but he would not consent to such injustice as that! But what was he to do at this moment,--especially with reference to that note which he had destroyed. At last he resolved to write to his wife, and he consequently did write and send to her the following letter:-- May 4. DEAREST EMILY, If Colonel Osborne should write to you again, it will be better that you should not open his letter. As you know his handwriting, you will have no difficulty in so arranging. Should any further letter come from Colonel Osborne addressed to you, you had better put it under cover to me, and take no notice of it yourself. I shall dine at the club to-day. We were to have gone to Mrs. Peacock's in the evening. You had better write a line to say that we shall not be there. I am very sorry that Nora should lose her evening. Pray think very carefully over what I have asked of you. My request to you is, that you shall give me a promise that you will not willingly see Colonel Osborne again. Of course you will understand that this is not supposed to extend to accidental meetings, as to which, should they occur,--and they would be sure to occur,--you would find that they would be wholly unnoticed by me. But I must request that you will comply with my wish in this matter. If you will send for me, I will go to you instantly, and after one word from you to the desired effect, you will find that there will be no recurrence by me to a subject so hateful. As I have done, and am doing what I think to be right, I cannot stultify myself by saying that I think I have been wrong. Yours always, dearest Emily, With the most thorough love, LOUIS TREVELYAN. This letter he himself put on his wife's dressing-room table, and then he went out to his club. CHAPTER VI. SHEWING HOW RECONCILIATION WAS MADE. "Look at that," said Mrs. Trevelyan, when her sister came into her room about an hour before dinner-time. Nora read the letter, and then asked her sister what she meant to do. "I have written to Mrs. Peacock. I don't know what else I can do. It is very hard upon you,--that you should have been kept at home. But I don't suppose Mr. Glascock would have been at Mrs. Peacock's." "And what else will you do, Emily?" "Nothing;--simply live deserted and forlorn till he shall choose to find his wits again. There is nothing else that a woman can do. If he chooses to dine at his club every day, I can't help it. We must put off all the engagements, and that will be hard upon you." "Don't talk about me. It is too terrible to think that there should be such a quarrel." "What can I do? Have I been wrong?" "Simply do what he tells you, whether it is wrong or right. If it's right, it ought to be done, and if it's wrong, it will not be your fault." "That's very easily said, and it sounds logical; but you must know it's unreasonable." "I don't care about reason. He is your husband, and if he wishes it you should do it. And what will be the harm? You don't mean to see Colonel Osborne any more. You have already said that he's not to be admitted." "I have said that nobody is to be admitted. Louis has driven me to that. How can I look the servant in the face and tell him that any special gentleman is not to be admitted to see me? Oh dear! oh dear! have I done anything to deserve it? Was ever so monstrous an accusation made against any woman! If it were not for my boy, I would defy him to do his worst." On the day following, Nora again became a messenger between the husband and wife, and before dinner-time a reconciliation had been effected. Of course the wife gave way at last; and of course she gave way so cunningly that the husband received none of the gratification which he had expected in her surrender. "Tell him to come," Nora had urged. "Of course he can come if he pleases," Emily had replied. Then Nora had told Louis to come, and Louis had demanded whether, if he did so, the promise which he had exacted would be given. It is to be feared that Nora perverted the truth a little; but if ever such perversion may be forgiven, forgiveness was due to her. If they could only be brought together, she was sure that there would be a reconciliation. They were brought together, and there was a reconciliation. "Dearest Emily, I am so glad to come to you," said the husband, walking up to his wife in their bed-room, and taking her in his arms. [Illustration: Shewing how reconciliation was made.] "I have been very unhappy, Louis, for the last two days," said she, very gravely,--returning his kiss, but returning it somewhat coldly. "We have both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that it was to be made without reserve,--as an act on her part which she had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far as he could judge, either repentant or submissive. "Nora said that you would make me the promise which I ask from you." "I cannot think, Louis, how you can want such a promise from me." "I think it right to ask it; I do indeed." "Can you imagine that I shall ever willingly see this gentleman again after what has occurred? It will be for you to tell the servant. I do not know how I can do that. But, as a matter of course, I will encourage no person to come to your house of whom you disapprove. It would be exactly the same of any man or of any woman." "That is all that I ask." "I am surprised that you should have thought it necessary to make any formal request in the matter. Your word was quite sufficient. That you should find cause of complaint in Colonel Osborne's coming here is of course a different thing." "Quite a different thing," said he. "I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears. I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil thought to me." "Indeed, indeed, I never have," said the husband. "That I can assure you I regard as a matter of course," said the wife. "But you know, Emily, the way in which the world talks." "The world! And do you regard the world, Louis?" "Lady Milborough, I believe, spoke to yourself." "Lady Milborough! No, she did not speak to me. She began to do so, but I was careful to silence her at once. From you, Louis, I am bound to hear whatever you may choose to say to me; but I will not hear from any other lips a single word that may be injurious to your honour." This she said very quietly, with much dignity, and he felt that he had better not answer her. She had given him the promise which he had demanded, and he began to fear that if he pushed the matter further she might go back even from that amount of submission. So he kissed her again, and had the boy brought into the room, and by the time that he went to dress for dinner he was able, at any rate, to seem to be well pleased. "Richard," he said to the servant, as soon as he was down-stairs, "when Colonel Osborne calls again, say that your mistress is--not at home." He gave the order in the most indifferent tone of voice which he could assume; but as he gave it he felt thoroughly ashamed of it. Richard, who, with the other servants, had of course known that there had been a quarrel between his master and mistress for the last two days, no doubt understood all about it. While they were sitting at dinner on the next day, a Saturday, there came another note from Colonel Osborne. The servant brought it to his mistress, and she, when she had looked at it, put it down by her plate. Trevelyan knew immediately from whom the letter had come, and understood how impossible it was for his wife to give it up in the servant's presence. The letter lay there till the man was out of the room, and then she handed it to Nora. "Will you give that to Louis?" she said. "It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover." "Emily!" said he, jumping from his seat, "how can you allow words so horrible and so untrue to fall from your mouth?" "If it be not so, why am I to be placed in such a position as this? The servant knows, of course, from whom the letter comes, and sees that I have been forbidden to open it." Then the man returned to the room, and the remainder of the dinner passed off almost in silence. It was their custom when they dined without company to leave the dining-room together, but on this evening Trevelyan remained for a few minutes that he might read Colonel Osborne's letter. He waited, standing on the rug with his face to the fire-place, till he was quite alone, and then he opened it. It ran as follows:-- House of Commons, Saturday. DEAR EMILY,-- Trevelyan, as he read this, cursed Colonel Osborne between his teeth. DEAR EMILY, I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent now till the middle of June, and that he could not be in London, let him do what he would, till the end of July. They hope to have the session over by that time, and therefore the committee is to be put off till next session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada, and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next, and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months. All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll call to-morrow at luncheon time. Yours always, F. O. There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the "Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife. But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece, thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she was sitting, "you had better read that letter." "I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily. "Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally." Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are not to come after all," said she, "till next February." "And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan. "Something about the session. I don't quite understand." "Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would." "But what has that to do with papa?" "I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora. "I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all is so much of a favour that it is almost a job." "I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody is wanted, and nobody can know more of the service than papa does. But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he say anything about mamma, Nora?" "You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit. "No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too. Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them." This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him, if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this matter." "I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs. Trevelyan. There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his chair and walked round to

advantages

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

yielding, and gentle to his wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope. It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband's absence from the house, and was as follows:-- Acrobats, Thursday. DEAR EMILY, I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours, F. O. The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs. Trevelyan, when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she was minded to obey him. Had he included in his demand any requirement that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters, and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note, and then sent it down to be put on Mr. Trevelyan's table in an envelope addressed to him. "If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he has wronged me," said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child's features were in all respects the very same as his father's, and that, come what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought. What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel, out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the dust be better for her than that? "It is a very poor thing to be a woman," she said to her sister. "It is perhaps better than being a dog," said Nora; "but, of course, we can't compare ourselves to men." "It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn't be made to suffer so much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough for a few days, but she gets over it in a week." There was a pause then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current of her sister's thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment which she could say on that subject. "It is very hard for a woman to know what to do," continued Emily, "but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some one, though he may not trust his wife." "I will never wittingly marry a fool," said Nora. "You will marry Mr. Glascock, of course. I don't say that he is a fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows itself in perversity." "If he asked me, I should not have him;--and he will never ask me." "He will ask you, and, of course, you'll take him. Why not? You can't be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it." "All the same, I shall not marry Mr. Glascock. A woman can die, at any rate," said Nora. "No, she can't. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is very indecent. She can't die, and she mustn't be in want, and she oughtn't to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you'd mind taking that down-stairs to his table? I don't like to send it by the servant; and I don't want to go myself." Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis Trevelyan would be sure to find it. He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel Osborne's note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address another man's wife as "Dear Emily?" At the moment Trevelyan remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife, that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him, to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as "Dear Emily," according to this man's judgment and wish, and not according to his judgment and wish,--not according to the judgment and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! "Of course you will tell T. now." This was intolerable to him. It made him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and bestowed upon her the half of all that he had simply for herself, asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money, position, a name,--all that makes life worth having. He had found her in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages of family or social standing,--so circumstanced that any friend would have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in return but that he should be all in all to her,--that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,--another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying, that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a good wife. As he thought of all this, he almost regretted that he had ever visited the Mandarins, or ever heard the name of Sir Marmaduke Rowley. He should have nourished no such thoughts in his heart. He had, indeed, been generous to his wife and to his wife's family; but we may almost say that the man who is really generous in such matters, is unconscious of his own generosity. The giver who gives the most, gives, and does not know that he gives. And had not she given too? In that matter of giving between a man and his wife, if each gives all, the two are equal, let the things given be what they may! King Cophetua did nothing for his beggar maid, unless she were to him, after he had married her, as royal a queen as though he had taken her from the oldest stock of reigning families then extant. Trevelyan knew all this himself,--had said so to himself a score of times, though not probably in spoken words or formed sentences. But, that all was equal between himself and the wife of his bosom, had been a thing ascertained by him as a certainty. There was no debt of gratitude from her to him which he did not acknowledge to exist also as from him to her. But yet, in his anger, he could not keep himself from thinking of the gifts he had showered upon her. And he had been, was, would ever be, if she would only allow it, so true to her! He had selected no other friend to take her place in his councils! There was no "dear Mary," or "dear Augusta," with whom he had secrets to be kept from his wife. When there arose with him any question of interest,--question of interest such as was this of the return of Sir Marmaduke to her,--he would show it in all its bearings to his wife. He had his secrets too, but his secrets had all been made secrets for her also. There was not a woman in the world in whose company he took special delight in her absence. And if there had been, how much less would have been her ground of complaint? Let a man have any such friendships,--what friendships he may,--he does not disgrace his wife. He felt himself to be so true of heart that he desired no such friendships; but for a man indulging in such friendships there might be excuse. Even though a man be false, a woman is not shamed and brought unto the dust before all the world. But the slightest rumour on a woman's name is a load of infamy on her husband's shoulders. It was not enough for C sar that his wife should be true; it was necessary to C sar that she should not even be suspected. Trevelyan told himself that he suspected his wife of no sin. God forbid that it should ever come to that, both for his sake and for hers; and, above all, for the sake of that boy who was so dear to them both! But there would be the vile whispers, and dirty slanders would be dropped from envious tongues into envious ears, and minds prone to evil would think evil of him and of his. Had not Lady Milborough already cautioned him? Oh, that he should have lived to have been cautioned about his wife;--that he should be told that eyes outside had looked into the sacred shrine of his heart and seen that things there were fatally amiss! And yet Lady Milborough was quite right. Had he not in his hand at this moment a document that proved her to be right? "Dear Emily!" He took this note and crushed it in his fist, and then pulled it into fragments. But what should he do? There was, first of all considerations, the duty which he owed to his wife, and the love which he bore her. That she was ignorant and innocent he was sure; but then she was so contumacious that he hardly knew how to take a step in the direction of guarding her from the effects of her ignorance, and maintaining for her the advantages of her innocence. He was her master, and she must know that he was her master. But how was he to proceed when she refused to obey the plainest and most necessary command which he laid upon her? Let a man be ever so much his wife's master, he cannot maintain his masterdom by any power which the law places in his hands. He had asked his wife for a promise of obedience, and she would not give it to him! What was he to do next? He could, no doubt,--at least he thought so,--keep the man from her presence. He could order the servant not to admit the man, and the servant would doubtless obey him. But to what a condition would he then have been brought! Would not the world then be over for him,--over for him as the husband of a wife whom he could not love unless he respected her? Better that there should be no such world, than call in the aid of a servant to guard the conduct of his wife! As he thought of it all it seemed to him that if she would not obey him, and give him this promise, they must be separated. He would not live with her, he would not give her the privileges of his wife, if she refused to render to him the obedience which was his privilege. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that he ought not to yield to her. Let her once yield to him, and then his tenderness should begin, and there should be no limit to it. But he would not see her till she had yielded. He would not see her; and if he should find that she did see Colonel Osborne, then he would tell her that she could no longer dwell under the same roof with him. His resolution on these points was very strong, and yet there came over him a feeling that it was his duty to be gentle. There was a feeling also that that privilege of receiving obedience, which was so indubitably his own, could only be maintained by certain wise practices on his part, in which gentleness must predominate. Wives are bound to obey their husbands, but obedience cannot be exacted from wives, as it may from servants, by aid of law and with penalties, or as from a horse, by punishments and manger curtailments. A man should be master in his own house, but he should make his mastery palatable, equitable, smooth, soft to the touch, a thing almost unfelt. How was he to do all this now, when he had already given an order to which obedience had been refused unless under certain stipulations,--an agreement with which would be degradation to him? He had pointed out to his wife her duty, and she had said she would do her duty as pointed out, on condition that he would beg her pardon for having pointed it out! This he could not and would not do. Let the heavens fall,--and the falling of the heavens in this case was a separation between him and his wife,--but he would not consent to such injustice as that! But what was he to do at this moment,--especially with reference to that note which he had destroyed. At last he resolved to write to his wife, and he consequently did write and send to her the following letter:-- May 4. DEAREST EMILY, If Colonel Osborne should write to you again, it will be better that you should not open his letter. As you know his handwriting, you will have no difficulty in so arranging. Should any further letter come from Colonel Osborne addressed to you, you had better put it under cover to me, and take no notice of it yourself. I shall dine at the club to-day. We were to have gone to Mrs. Peacock's in the evening. You had better write a line to say that we shall not be there. I am very sorry that Nora should lose her evening. Pray think very carefully over what I have asked of you. My request to you is, that you shall give me a promise that you will not willingly see Colonel Osborne again. Of course you will understand that this is not supposed to extend to accidental meetings, as to which, should they occur,--and they would be sure to occur,--you would find that they would be wholly unnoticed by me. But I must request that you will comply with my wish in this matter. If you will send for me, I will go to you instantly, and after one word from you to the desired effect, you will find that there will be no recurrence by me to a subject so hateful. As I have done, and am doing what I think to be right, I cannot stultify myself by saying that I think I have been wrong. Yours always, dearest Emily, With the most thorough love, LOUIS TREVELYAN. This letter he himself put on his wife's dressing-room table, and then he went out to his club. CHAPTER VI. SHEWING HOW RECONCILIATION WAS MADE. "Look at that," said Mrs. Trevelyan, when her sister came into her room about an hour before dinner-time. Nora read the letter, and then asked her sister what she meant to do. "I have written to Mrs. Peacock. I don't know what else I can do. It is very hard upon you,--that you should have been kept at home. But I don't suppose Mr. Glascock would have been at Mrs. Peacock's." "And what else will you do, Emily?" "Nothing;--simply live deserted and forlorn till he shall choose to find his wits again. There is nothing else that a woman can do. If he chooses to dine at his club every day, I can't help it. We must put off all the engagements, and that will be hard upon you." "Don't talk about me. It is too terrible to think that there should be such a quarrel." "What can I do? Have I been wrong?" "Simply do what he tells you, whether it is wrong or right. If it's right, it ought to be done, and if it's wrong, it will not be your fault." "That's very easily said, and it sounds logical; but you must know it's unreasonable." "I don't care about reason. He is your husband, and if he wishes it you should do it. And what will be the harm? You don't mean to see Colonel Osborne any more. You have already said that he's not to be admitted." "I have said that nobody is to be admitted. Louis has driven me to that. How can I look the servant in the face and tell him that any special gentleman is not to be admitted to see me? Oh dear! oh dear! have I done anything to deserve it? Was ever so monstrous an accusation made against any woman! If it were not for my boy, I would defy him to do his worst." On the day following, Nora again became a messenger between the husband and wife, and before dinner-time a reconciliation had been effected. Of course the wife gave way at last; and of course she gave way so cunningly that the husband received none of the gratification which he had expected in her surrender. "Tell him to come," Nora had urged. "Of course he can come if he pleases," Emily had replied. Then Nora had told Louis to come, and Louis had demanded whether, if he did so, the promise which he had exacted would be given. It is to be feared that Nora perverted the truth a little; but if ever such perversion may be forgiven, forgiveness was due to her. If they could only be brought together, she was sure that there would be a reconciliation. They were brought together, and there was a reconciliation. "Dearest Emily, I am so glad to come to you," said the husband, walking up to his wife in their bed-room, and taking her in his arms. [Illustration: Shewing how reconciliation was made.] "I have been very unhappy, Louis, for the last two days," said she, very gravely,--returning his kiss, but returning it somewhat coldly. "We have both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that it was to be made without reserve,--as an act on her part which she had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far as he could judge, either repentant or submissive. "Nora said that you would make me the promise which I ask from you." "I cannot think, Louis, how you can want such a promise from me." "I think it right to ask it; I do indeed." "Can you imagine that I shall ever willingly see this gentleman again after what has occurred? It will be for you to tell the servant. I do not know how I can do that. But, as a matter of course, I will encourage no person to come to your house of whom you disapprove. It would be exactly the same of any man or of any woman." "That is all that I ask." "I am surprised that you should have thought it necessary to make any formal request in the matter. Your word was quite sufficient. That you should find cause of complaint in Colonel Osborne's coming here is of course a different thing." "Quite a different thing," said he. "I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears. I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil thought to me." "Indeed, indeed, I never have," said the husband. "That I can assure you I regard as a matter of course," said the wife. "But you know, Emily, the way in which the world talks." "The world! And do you regard the world, Louis?" "Lady Milborough, I believe, spoke to yourself." "Lady Milborough! No, she did not speak to me. She began to do so, but I was careful to silence her at once. From you, Louis, I am bound to hear whatever you may choose to say to me; but I will not hear from any other lips a single word that may be injurious to your honour." This she said very quietly, with much dignity, and he felt that he had better not answer her. She had given him the promise which he had demanded, and he began to fear that if he pushed the matter further she might go back even from that amount of submission. So he kissed her again, and had the boy brought into the room, and by the time that he went to dress for dinner he was able, at any rate, to seem to be well pleased. "Richard," he said to the servant, as soon as he was down-stairs, "when Colonel Osborne calls again, say that your mistress is--not at home." He gave the order in the most indifferent tone of voice which he could assume; but as he gave it he felt thoroughly ashamed of it. Richard, who, with the other servants, had of course known that there had been a quarrel between his master and mistress for the last two days, no doubt understood all about it. While they were sitting at dinner on the next day, a Saturday, there came another note from Colonel Osborne. The servant brought it to his mistress, and she, when she had looked at it, put it down by her plate. Trevelyan knew immediately from whom the letter had come, and understood how impossible it was for his wife to give it up in the servant's presence. The letter lay there till the man was out of the room, and then she handed it to Nora. "Will you give that to Louis?" she said. "It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover." "Emily!" said he, jumping from his seat, "how can you allow words so horrible and so untrue to fall from your mouth?" "If it be not so, why am I to be placed in such a position as this? The servant knows, of course, from whom the letter comes, and sees that I have been forbidden to open it." Then the man returned to the room, and the remainder of the dinner passed off almost in silence. It was their custom when they dined without company to leave the dining-room together, but on this evening Trevelyan remained for a few minutes that he might read Colonel Osborne's letter. He waited, standing on the rug with his face to the fire-place, till he was quite alone, and then he opened it. It ran as follows:-- House of Commons, Saturday. DEAR EMILY,-- Trevelyan, as he read this, cursed Colonel Osborne between his teeth. DEAR EMILY, I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent now till the middle of June, and that he could not be in London, let him do what he would, till the end of July. They hope to have the session over by that time, and therefore the committee is to be put off till next session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada, and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next, and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months. All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll call to-morrow at luncheon time. Yours always, F. O. There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the "Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife. But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece, thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she was sitting, "you had better read that letter." "I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily. "Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally." Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are not to come after all," said she, "till next February." "And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan. "Something about the session. I don't quite understand." "Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would." "But what has that to do with papa?" "I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora. "I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all is so much of a favour that it is almost a job." "I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody is wanted, and nobody can know more of the service than papa does. But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he say anything about mamma, Nora?" "You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit. "No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too. Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them." This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him, if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this matter." "I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs. Trevelyan. There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his chair and walked round to

regarded

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

yielding, and gentle to his wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope. It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband's absence from the house, and was as follows:-- Acrobats, Thursday. DEAR EMILY, I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours, F. O. The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs. Trevelyan, when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she was minded to obey him. Had he included in his demand any requirement that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters, and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note, and then sent it down to be put on Mr. Trevelyan's table in an envelope addressed to him. "If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he has wronged me," said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child's features were in all respects the very same as his father's, and that, come what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought. What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel, out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the dust be better for her than that? "It is a very poor thing to be a woman," she said to her sister. "It is perhaps better than being a dog," said Nora; "but, of course, we can't compare ourselves to men." "It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn't be made to suffer so much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough for a few days, but she gets over it in a week." There was a pause then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current of her sister's thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment which she could say on that subject. "It is very hard for a woman to know what to do," continued Emily, "but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some one, though he may not trust his wife." "I will never wittingly marry a fool," said Nora. "You will marry Mr. Glascock, of course. I don't say that he is a fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows itself in perversity." "If he asked me, I should not have him;--and he will never ask me." "He will ask you, and, of course, you'll take him. Why not? You can't be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it." "All the same, I shall not marry Mr. Glascock. A woman can die, at any rate," said Nora. "No, she can't. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is very indecent. She can't die, and she mustn't be in want, and she oughtn't to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you'd mind taking that down-stairs to his table? I don't like to send it by the servant; and I don't want to go myself." Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis Trevelyan would be sure to find it. He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel Osborne's note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address another man's wife as "Dear Emily?" At the moment Trevelyan remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife, that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him, to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as "Dear Emily," according to this man's judgment and wish, and not according to his judgment and wish,--not according to the judgment and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! "Of course you will tell T. now." This was intolerable to him. It made him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and bestowed upon her the half of all that he had simply for herself, asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money, position, a name,--all that makes life worth having. He had found her in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages of family or social standing,--so circumstanced that any friend would have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in return but that he should be all in all to her,--that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,--another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying, that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a good wife. As he thought of all this, he almost regretted that he had ever visited the Mandarins, or ever heard the name of Sir Marmaduke Rowley. He should have nourished no such thoughts in his heart. He had, indeed, been generous to his wife and to his wife's family; but we may almost say that the man who is really generous in such matters, is unconscious of his own generosity. The giver who gives the most, gives, and does not know that he gives. And had not she given too? In that matter of giving between a man and his wife, if each gives all, the two are equal, let the things given be what they may! King Cophetua did nothing for his beggar maid, unless she were to him, after he had married her, as royal a queen as though he had taken her from the oldest stock of reigning families then extant. Trevelyan knew all this himself,--had said so to himself a score of times, though not probably in spoken words or formed sentences. But, that all was equal between himself and the wife of his bosom, had been a thing ascertained by him as a certainty. There was no debt of gratitude from her to him which he did not acknowledge to exist also as from him to her. But yet, in his anger, he could not keep himself from thinking of the gifts he had showered upon her. And he had been, was, would ever be, if she would only allow it, so true to her! He had selected no other friend to take her place in his councils! There was no "dear Mary," or "dear Augusta," with whom he had secrets to be kept from his wife. When there arose with him any question of interest,--question of interest such as was this of the return of Sir Marmaduke to her,--he would show it in all its bearings to his wife. He had his secrets too, but his secrets had all been made secrets for her also. There was not a woman in the world in whose company he took special delight in her absence. And if there had been, how much less would have been her ground of complaint? Let a man have any such friendships,--what friendships he may,--he does not disgrace his wife. He felt himself to be so true of heart that he desired no such friendships; but for a man indulging in such friendships there might be excuse. Even though a man be false, a woman is not shamed and brought unto the dust before all the world. But the slightest rumour on a woman's name is a load of infamy on her husband's shoulders. It was not enough for C sar that his wife should be true; it was necessary to C sar that she should not even be suspected. Trevelyan told himself that he suspected his wife of no sin. God forbid that it should ever come to that, both for his sake and for hers; and, above all, for the sake of that boy who was so dear to them both! But there would be the vile whispers, and dirty slanders would be dropped from envious tongues into envious ears, and minds prone to evil would think evil of him and of his. Had not Lady Milborough already cautioned him? Oh, that he should have lived to have been cautioned about his wife;--that he should be told that eyes outside had looked into the sacred shrine of his heart and seen that things there were fatally amiss! And yet Lady Milborough was quite right. Had he not in his hand at this moment a document that proved her to be right? "Dear Emily!" He took this note and crushed it in his fist, and then pulled it into fragments. But what should he do? There was, first of all considerations, the duty which he owed to his wife, and the love which he bore her. That she was ignorant and innocent he was sure; but then she was so contumacious that he hardly knew how to take a step in the direction of guarding her from the effects of her ignorance, and maintaining for her the advantages of her innocence. He was her master, and she must know that he was her master. But how was he to proceed when she refused to obey the plainest and most necessary command which he laid upon her? Let a man be ever so much his wife's master, he cannot maintain his masterdom by any power which the law places in his hands. He had asked his wife for a promise of obedience, and she would not give it to him! What was he to do next? He could, no doubt,--at least he thought so,--keep the man from her presence. He could order the servant not to admit the man, and the servant would doubtless obey him. But to what a condition would he then have been brought! Would not the world then be over for him,--over for him as the husband of a wife whom he could not love unless he respected her? Better that there should be no such world, than call in the aid of a servant to guard the conduct of his wife! As he thought of it all it seemed to him that if she would not obey him, and give him this promise, they must be separated. He would not live with her, he would not give her the privileges of his wife, if she refused to render to him the obedience which was his privilege. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that he ought not to yield to her. Let her once yield to him, and then his tenderness should begin, and there should be no limit to it. But he would not see her till she had yielded. He would not see her; and if he should find that she did see Colonel Osborne, then he would tell her that she could no longer dwell under the same roof with him. His resolution on these points was very strong, and yet there came over him a feeling that it was his duty to be gentle. There was a feeling also that that privilege of receiving obedience, which was so indubitably his own, could only be maintained by certain wise practices on his part, in which gentleness must predominate. Wives are bound to obey their husbands, but obedience cannot be exacted from wives, as it may from servants, by aid of law and with penalties, or as from a horse, by punishments and manger curtailments. A man should be master in his own house, but he should make his mastery palatable, equitable, smooth, soft to the touch, a thing almost unfelt. How was he to do all this now, when he had already given an order to which obedience had been refused unless under certain stipulations,--an agreement with which would be degradation to him? He had pointed out to his wife her duty, and she had said she would do her duty as pointed out, on condition that he would beg her pardon for having pointed it out! This he could not and would not do. Let the heavens fall,--and the falling of the heavens in this case was a separation between him and his wife,--but he would not consent to such injustice as that! But what was he to do at this moment,--especially with reference to that note which he had destroyed. At last he resolved to write to his wife, and he consequently did write and send to her the following letter:-- May 4. DEAREST EMILY, If Colonel Osborne should write to you again, it will be better that you should not open his letter. As you know his handwriting, you will have no difficulty in so arranging. Should any further letter come from Colonel Osborne addressed to you, you had better put it under cover to me, and take no notice of it yourself. I shall dine at the club to-day. We were to have gone to Mrs. Peacock's in the evening. You had better write a line to say that we shall not be there. I am very sorry that Nora should lose her evening. Pray think very carefully over what I have asked of you. My request to you is, that you shall give me a promise that you will not willingly see Colonel Osborne again. Of course you will understand that this is not supposed to extend to accidental meetings, as to which, should they occur,--and they would be sure to occur,--you would find that they would be wholly unnoticed by me. But I must request that you will comply with my wish in this matter. If you will send for me, I will go to you instantly, and after one word from you to the desired effect, you will find that there will be no recurrence by me to a subject so hateful. As I have done, and am doing what I think to be right, I cannot stultify myself by saying that I think I have been wrong. Yours always, dearest Emily, With the most thorough love, LOUIS TREVELYAN. This letter he himself put on his wife's dressing-room table, and then he went out to his club. CHAPTER VI. SHEWING HOW RECONCILIATION WAS MADE. "Look at that," said Mrs. Trevelyan, when her sister came into her room about an hour before dinner-time. Nora read the letter, and then asked her sister what she meant to do. "I have written to Mrs. Peacock. I don't know what else I can do. It is very hard upon you,--that you should have been kept at home. But I don't suppose Mr. Glascock would have been at Mrs. Peacock's." "And what else will you do, Emily?" "Nothing;--simply live deserted and forlorn till he shall choose to find his wits again. There is nothing else that a woman can do. If he chooses to dine at his club every day, I can't help it. We must put off all the engagements, and that will be hard upon you." "Don't talk about me. It is too terrible to think that there should be such a quarrel." "What can I do? Have I been wrong?" "Simply do what he tells you, whether it is wrong or right. If it's right, it ought to be done, and if it's wrong, it will not be your fault." "That's very easily said, and it sounds logical; but you must know it's unreasonable." "I don't care about reason. He is your husband, and if he wishes it you should do it. And what will be the harm? You don't mean to see Colonel Osborne any more. You have already said that he's not to be admitted." "I have said that nobody is to be admitted. Louis has driven me to that. How can I look the servant in the face and tell him that any special gentleman is not to be admitted to see me? Oh dear! oh dear! have I done anything to deserve it? Was ever so monstrous an accusation made against any woman! If it were not for my boy, I would defy him to do his worst." On the day following, Nora again became a messenger between the husband and wife, and before dinner-time a reconciliation had been effected. Of course the wife gave way at last; and of course she gave way so cunningly that the husband received none of the gratification which he had expected in her surrender. "Tell him to come," Nora had urged. "Of course he can come if he pleases," Emily had replied. Then Nora had told Louis to come, and Louis had demanded whether, if he did so, the promise which he had exacted would be given. It is to be feared that Nora perverted the truth a little; but if ever such perversion may be forgiven, forgiveness was due to her. If they could only be brought together, she was sure that there would be a reconciliation. They were brought together, and there was a reconciliation. "Dearest Emily, I am so glad to come to you," said the husband, walking up to his wife in their bed-room, and taking her in his arms. [Illustration: Shewing how reconciliation was made.] "I have been very unhappy, Louis, for the last two days," said she, very gravely,--returning his kiss, but returning it somewhat coldly. "We have both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that it was to be made without reserve,--as an act on her part which she had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far as he could judge, either repentant or submissive. "Nora said that you would make me the promise which I ask from you." "I cannot think, Louis, how you can want such a promise from me." "I think it right to ask it; I do indeed." "Can you imagine that I shall ever willingly see this gentleman again after what has occurred? It will be for you to tell the servant. I do not know how I can do that. But, as a matter of course, I will encourage no person to come to your house of whom you disapprove. It would be exactly the same of any man or of any woman." "That is all that I ask." "I am surprised that you should have thought it necessary to make any formal request in the matter. Your word was quite sufficient. That you should find cause of complaint in Colonel Osborne's coming here is of course a different thing." "Quite a different thing," said he. "I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears. I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil thought to me." "Indeed, indeed, I never have," said the husband. "That I can assure you I regard as a matter of course," said the wife. "But you know, Emily, the way in which the world talks." "The world! And do you regard the world, Louis?" "Lady Milborough, I believe, spoke to yourself." "Lady Milborough! No, she did not speak to me. She began to do so, but I was careful to silence her at once. From you, Louis, I am bound to hear whatever you may choose to say to me; but I will not hear from any other lips a single word that may be injurious to your honour." This she said very quietly, with much dignity, and he felt that he had better not answer her. She had given him the promise which he had demanded, and he began to fear that if he pushed the matter further she might go back even from that amount of submission. So he kissed her again, and had the boy brought into the room, and by the time that he went to dress for dinner he was able, at any rate, to seem to be well pleased. "Richard," he said to the servant, as soon as he was down-stairs, "when Colonel Osborne calls again, say that your mistress is--not at home." He gave the order in the most indifferent tone of voice which he could assume; but as he gave it he felt thoroughly ashamed of it. Richard, who, with the other servants, had of course known that there had been a quarrel between his master and mistress for the last two days, no doubt understood all about it. While they were sitting at dinner on the next day, a Saturday, there came another note from Colonel Osborne. The servant brought it to his mistress, and she, when she had looked at it, put it down by her plate. Trevelyan knew immediately from whom the letter had come, and understood how impossible it was for his wife to give it up in the servant's presence. The letter lay there till the man was out of the room, and then she handed it to Nora. "Will you give that to Louis?" she said. "It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover." "Emily!" said he, jumping from his seat, "how can you allow words so horrible and so untrue to fall from your mouth?" "If it be not so, why am I to be placed in such a position as this? The servant knows, of course, from whom the letter comes, and sees that I have been forbidden to open it." Then the man returned to the room, and the remainder of the dinner passed off almost in silence. It was their custom when they dined without company to leave the dining-room together, but on this evening Trevelyan remained for a few minutes that he might read Colonel Osborne's letter. He waited, standing on the rug with his face to the fire-place, till he was quite alone, and then he opened it. It ran as follows:-- House of Commons, Saturday. DEAR EMILY,-- Trevelyan, as he read this, cursed Colonel Osborne between his teeth. DEAR EMILY, I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent now till the middle of June, and that he could not be in London, let him do what he would, till the end of July. They hope to have the session over by that time, and therefore the committee is to be put off till next session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada, and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next, and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months. All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll call to-morrow at luncheon time. Yours always, F. O. There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the "Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife. But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece, thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she was sitting, "you had better read that letter." "I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily. "Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally." Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are not to come after all," said she, "till next February." "And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan. "Something about the session. I don't quite understand." "Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would." "But what has that to do with papa?" "I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora. "I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all is so much of a favour that it is almost a job." "I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody is wanted, and nobody can know more of the service than papa does. But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he say anything about mamma, Nora?" "You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit. "No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too. Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them." This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him, if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this matter." "I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs. Trevelyan. There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his chair and walked round to

true

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

yielding, and gentle to his wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope. It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband's absence from the house, and was as follows:-- Acrobats, Thursday. DEAR EMILY, I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours, F. O. The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs. Trevelyan, when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she was minded to obey him. Had he included in his demand any requirement that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters, and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note, and then sent it down to be put on Mr. Trevelyan's table in an envelope addressed to him. "If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he has wronged me," said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child's features were in all respects the very same as his father's, and that, come what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought. What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel, out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the dust be better for her than that? "It is a very poor thing to be a woman," she said to her sister. "It is perhaps better than being a dog," said Nora; "but, of course, we can't compare ourselves to men." "It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn't be made to suffer so much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough for a few days, but she gets over it in a week." There was a pause then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current of her sister's thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment which she could say on that subject. "It is very hard for a woman to know what to do," continued Emily, "but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some one, though he may not trust his wife." "I will never wittingly marry a fool," said Nora. "You will marry Mr. Glascock, of course. I don't say that he is a fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows itself in perversity." "If he asked me, I should not have him;--and he will never ask me." "He will ask you, and, of course, you'll take him. Why not? You can't be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it." "All the same, I shall not marry Mr. Glascock. A woman can die, at any rate," said Nora. "No, she can't. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is very indecent. She can't die, and she mustn't be in want, and she oughtn't to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you'd mind taking that down-stairs to his table? I don't like to send it by the servant; and I don't want to go myself." Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis Trevelyan would be sure to find it. He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel Osborne's note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address another man's wife as "Dear Emily?" At the moment Trevelyan remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife, that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him, to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as "Dear Emily," according to this man's judgment and wish, and not according to his judgment and wish,--not according to the judgment and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! "Of course you will tell T. now." This was intolerable to him. It made him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and bestowed upon her the half of all that he had simply for herself, asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money, position, a name,--all that makes life worth having. He had found her in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages of family or social standing,--so circumstanced that any friend would have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in return but that he should be all in all to her,--that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,--another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying, that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a good wife. As he thought of all this, he almost regretted that he had ever visited the Mandarins, or ever heard the name of Sir Marmaduke Rowley. He should have nourished no such thoughts in his heart. He had, indeed, been generous to his wife and to his wife's family; but we may almost say that the man who is really generous in such matters, is unconscious of his own generosity. The giver who gives the most, gives, and does not know that he gives. And had not she given too? In that matter of giving between a man and his wife, if each gives all, the two are equal, let the things given be what they may! King Cophetua did nothing for his beggar maid, unless she were to him, after he had married her, as royal a queen as though he had taken her from the oldest stock of reigning families then extant. Trevelyan knew all this himself,--had said so to himself a score of times, though not probably in spoken words or formed sentences. But, that all was equal between himself and the wife of his bosom, had been a thing ascertained by him as a certainty. There was no debt of gratitude from her to him which he did not acknowledge to exist also as from him to her. But yet, in his anger, he could not keep himself from thinking of the gifts he had showered upon her. And he had been, was, would ever be, if she would only allow it, so true to her! He had selected no other friend to take her place in his councils! There was no "dear Mary," or "dear Augusta," with whom he had secrets to be kept from his wife. When there arose with him any question of interest,--question of interest such as was this of the return of Sir Marmaduke to her,--he would show it in all its bearings to his wife. He had his secrets too, but his secrets had all been made secrets for her also. There was not a woman in the world in whose company he took special delight in her absence. And if there had been, how much less would have been her ground of complaint? Let a man have any such friendships,--what friendships he may,--he does not disgrace his wife. He felt himself to be so true of heart that he desired no such friendships; but for a man indulging in such friendships there might be excuse. Even though a man be false, a woman is not shamed and brought unto the dust before all the world. But the slightest rumour on a woman's name is a load of infamy on her husband's shoulders. It was not enough for C sar that his wife should be true; it was necessary to C sar that she should not even be suspected. Trevelyan told himself that he suspected his wife of no sin. God forbid that it should ever come to that, both for his sake and for hers; and, above all, for the sake of that boy who was so dear to them both! But there would be the vile whispers, and dirty slanders would be dropped from envious tongues into envious ears, and minds prone to evil would think evil of him and of his. Had not Lady Milborough already cautioned him? Oh, that he should have lived to have been cautioned about his wife;--that he should be told that eyes outside had looked into the sacred shrine of his heart and seen that things there were fatally amiss! And yet Lady Milborough was quite right. Had he not in his hand at this moment a document that proved her to be right? "Dear Emily!" He took this note and crushed it in his fist, and then pulled it into fragments. But what should he do? There was, first of all considerations, the duty which he owed to his wife, and the love which he bore her. That she was ignorant and innocent he was sure; but then she was so contumacious that he hardly knew how to take a step in the direction of guarding her from the effects of her ignorance, and maintaining for her the advantages of her innocence. He was her master, and she must know that he was her master. But how was he to proceed when she refused to obey the plainest and most necessary command which he laid upon her? Let a man be ever so much his wife's master, he cannot maintain his masterdom by any power which the law places in his hands. He had asked his wife for a promise of obedience, and she would not give it to him! What was he to do next? He could, no doubt,--at least he thought so,--keep the man from her presence. He could order the servant not to admit the man, and the servant would doubtless obey him. But to what a condition would he then have been brought! Would not the world then be over for him,--over for him as the husband of a wife whom he could not love unless he respected her? Better that there should be no such world, than call in the aid of a servant to guard the conduct of his wife! As he thought of it all it seemed to him that if she would not obey him, and give him this promise, they must be separated. He would not live with her, he would not give her the privileges of his wife, if she refused to render to him the obedience which was his privilege. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that he ought not to yield to her. Let her once yield to him, and then his tenderness should begin, and there should be no limit to it. But he would not see her till she had yielded. He would not see her; and if he should find that she did see Colonel Osborne, then he would tell her that she could no longer dwell under the same roof with him. His resolution on these points was very strong, and yet there came over him a feeling that it was his duty to be gentle. There was a feeling also that that privilege of receiving obedience, which was so indubitably his own, could only be maintained by certain wise practices on his part, in which gentleness must predominate. Wives are bound to obey their husbands, but obedience cannot be exacted from wives, as it may from servants, by aid of law and with penalties, or as from a horse, by punishments and manger curtailments. A man should be master in his own house, but he should make his mastery palatable, equitable, smooth, soft to the touch, a thing almost unfelt. How was he to do all this now, when he had already given an order to which obedience had been refused unless under certain stipulations,--an agreement with which would be degradation to him? He had pointed out to his wife her duty, and she had said she would do her duty as pointed out, on condition that he would beg her pardon for having pointed it out! This he could not and would not do. Let the heavens fall,--and the falling of the heavens in this case was a separation between him and his wife,--but he would not consent to such injustice as that! But what was he to do at this moment,--especially with reference to that note which he had destroyed. At last he resolved to write to his wife, and he consequently did write and send to her the following letter:-- May 4. DEAREST EMILY, If Colonel Osborne should write to you again, it will be better that you should not open his letter. As you know his handwriting, you will have no difficulty in so arranging. Should any further letter come from Colonel Osborne addressed to you, you had better put it under cover to me, and take no notice of it yourself. I shall dine at the club to-day. We were to have gone to Mrs. Peacock's in the evening. You had better write a line to say that we shall not be there. I am very sorry that Nora should lose her evening. Pray think very carefully over what I have asked of you. My request to you is, that you shall give me a promise that you will not willingly see Colonel Osborne again. Of course you will understand that this is not supposed to extend to accidental meetings, as to which, should they occur,--and they would be sure to occur,--you would find that they would be wholly unnoticed by me. But I must request that you will comply with my wish in this matter. If you will send for me, I will go to you instantly, and after one word from you to the desired effect, you will find that there will be no recurrence by me to a subject so hateful. As I have done, and am doing what I think to be right, I cannot stultify myself by saying that I think I have been wrong. Yours always, dearest Emily, With the most thorough love, LOUIS TREVELYAN. This letter he himself put on his wife's dressing-room table, and then he went out to his club. CHAPTER VI. SHEWING HOW RECONCILIATION WAS MADE. "Look at that," said Mrs. Trevelyan, when her sister came into her room about an hour before dinner-time. Nora read the letter, and then asked her sister what she meant to do. "I have written to Mrs. Peacock. I don't know what else I can do. It is very hard upon you,--that you should have been kept at home. But I don't suppose Mr. Glascock would have been at Mrs. Peacock's." "And what else will you do, Emily?" "Nothing;--simply live deserted and forlorn till he shall choose to find his wits again. There is nothing else that a woman can do. If he chooses to dine at his club every day, I can't help it. We must put off all the engagements, and that will be hard upon you." "Don't talk about me. It is too terrible to think that there should be such a quarrel." "What can I do? Have I been wrong?" "Simply do what he tells you, whether it is wrong or right. If it's right, it ought to be done, and if it's wrong, it will not be your fault." "That's very easily said, and it sounds logical; but you must know it's unreasonable." "I don't care about reason. He is your husband, and if he wishes it you should do it. And what will be the harm? You don't mean to see Colonel Osborne any more. You have already said that he's not to be admitted." "I have said that nobody is to be admitted. Louis has driven me to that. How can I look the servant in the face and tell him that any special gentleman is not to be admitted to see me? Oh dear! oh dear! have I done anything to deserve it? Was ever so monstrous an accusation made against any woman! If it were not for my boy, I would defy him to do his worst." On the day following, Nora again became a messenger between the husband and wife, and before dinner-time a reconciliation had been effected. Of course the wife gave way at last; and of course she gave way so cunningly that the husband received none of the gratification which he had expected in her surrender. "Tell him to come," Nora had urged. "Of course he can come if he pleases," Emily had replied. Then Nora had told Louis to come, and Louis had demanded whether, if he did so, the promise which he had exacted would be given. It is to be feared that Nora perverted the truth a little; but if ever such perversion may be forgiven, forgiveness was due to her. If they could only be brought together, she was sure that there would be a reconciliation. They were brought together, and there was a reconciliation. "Dearest Emily, I am so glad to come to you," said the husband, walking up to his wife in their bed-room, and taking her in his arms. [Illustration: Shewing how reconciliation was made.] "I have been very unhappy, Louis, for the last two days," said she, very gravely,--returning his kiss, but returning it somewhat coldly. "We have both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that it was to be made without reserve,--as an act on her part which she had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far as he could judge, either repentant or submissive. "Nora said that you would make me the promise which I ask from you." "I cannot think, Louis, how you can want such a promise from me." "I think it right to ask it; I do indeed." "Can you imagine that I shall ever willingly see this gentleman again after what has occurred? It will be for you to tell the servant. I do not know how I can do that. But, as a matter of course, I will encourage no person to come to your house of whom you disapprove. It would be exactly the same of any man or of any woman." "That is all that I ask." "I am surprised that you should have thought it necessary to make any formal request in the matter. Your word was quite sufficient. That you should find cause of complaint in Colonel Osborne's coming here is of course a different thing." "Quite a different thing," said he. "I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears. I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil thought to me." "Indeed, indeed, I never have," said the husband. "That I can assure you I regard as a matter of course," said the wife. "But you know, Emily, the way in which the world talks." "The world! And do you regard the world, Louis?" "Lady Milborough, I believe, spoke to yourself." "Lady Milborough! No, she did not speak to me. She began to do so, but I was careful to silence her at once. From you, Louis, I am bound to hear whatever you may choose to say to me; but I will not hear from any other lips a single word that may be injurious to your honour." This she said very quietly, with much dignity, and he felt that he had better not answer her. She had given him the promise which he had demanded, and he began to fear that if he pushed the matter further she might go back even from that amount of submission. So he kissed her again, and had the boy brought into the room, and by the time that he went to dress for dinner he was able, at any rate, to seem to be well pleased. "Richard," he said to the servant, as soon as he was down-stairs, "when Colonel Osborne calls again, say that your mistress is--not at home." He gave the order in the most indifferent tone of voice which he could assume; but as he gave it he felt thoroughly ashamed of it. Richard, who, with the other servants, had of course known that there had been a quarrel between his master and mistress for the last two days, no doubt understood all about it. While they were sitting at dinner on the next day, a Saturday, there came another note from Colonel Osborne. The servant brought it to his mistress, and she, when she had looked at it, put it down by her plate. Trevelyan knew immediately from whom the letter had come, and understood how impossible it was for his wife to give it up in the servant's presence. The letter lay there till the man was out of the room, and then she handed it to Nora. "Will you give that to Louis?" she said. "It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover." "Emily!" said he, jumping from his seat, "how can you allow words so horrible and so untrue to fall from your mouth?" "If it be not so, why am I to be placed in such a position as this? The servant knows, of course, from whom the letter comes, and sees that I have been forbidden to open it." Then the man returned to the room, and the remainder of the dinner passed off almost in silence. It was their custom when they dined without company to leave the dining-room together, but on this evening Trevelyan remained for a few minutes that he might read Colonel Osborne's letter. He waited, standing on the rug with his face to the fire-place, till he was quite alone, and then he opened it. It ran as follows:-- House of Commons, Saturday. DEAR EMILY,-- Trevelyan, as he read this, cursed Colonel Osborne between his teeth. DEAR EMILY, I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent now till the middle of June, and that he could not be in London, let him do what he would, till the end of July. They hope to have the session over by that time, and therefore the committee is to be put off till next session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada, and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next, and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months. All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll call to-morrow at luncheon time. Yours always, F. O. There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the "Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife. But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece, thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she was sitting, "you had better read that letter." "I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily. "Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally." Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are not to come after all," said she, "till next February." "And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan. "Something about the session. I don't quite understand." "Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would." "But what has that to do with papa?" "I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora. "I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all is so much of a favour that it is almost a job." "I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody is wanted, and nobody can know more of the service than papa does. But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he say anything about mamma, Nora?" "You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit. "No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too. Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them." This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him, if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this matter." "I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs. Trevelyan. There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his chair and walked round to

dust

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

yielding, and gentle to his wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope. It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband's absence from the house, and was as follows:-- Acrobats, Thursday. DEAR EMILY, I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours, F. O. The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs. Trevelyan, when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she was minded to obey him. Had he included in his demand any requirement that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters, and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note, and then sent it down to be put on Mr. Trevelyan's table in an envelope addressed to him. "If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he has wronged me," said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child's features were in all respects the very same as his father's, and that, come what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought. What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel, out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the dust be better for her than that? "It is a very poor thing to be a woman," she said to her sister. "It is perhaps better than being a dog," said Nora; "but, of course, we can't compare ourselves to men." "It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn't be made to suffer so much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough for a few days, but she gets over it in a week." There was a pause then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current of her sister's thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment which she could say on that subject. "It is very hard for a woman to know what to do," continued Emily, "but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some one, though he may not trust his wife." "I will never wittingly marry a fool," said Nora. "You will marry Mr. Glascock, of course. I don't say that he is a fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows itself in perversity." "If he asked me, I should not have him;--and he will never ask me." "He will ask you, and, of course, you'll take him. Why not? You can't be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it." "All the same, I shall not marry Mr. Glascock. A woman can die, at any rate," said Nora. "No, she can't. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is very indecent. She can't die, and she mustn't be in want, and she oughtn't to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you'd mind taking that down-stairs to his table? I don't like to send it by the servant; and I don't want to go myself." Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis Trevelyan would be sure to find it. He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel Osborne's note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address another man's wife as "Dear Emily?" At the moment Trevelyan remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife, that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him, to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as "Dear Emily," according to this man's judgment and wish, and not according to his judgment and wish,--not according to the judgment and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! "Of course you will tell T. now." This was intolerable to him. It made him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and bestowed upon her the half of all that he had simply for herself, asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money, position, a name,--all that makes life worth having. He had found her in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages of family or social standing,--so circumstanced that any friend would have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in return but that he should be all in all to her,--that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,--another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying, that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a good wife. As he thought of all this, he almost regretted that he had ever visited the Mandarins, or ever heard the name of Sir Marmaduke Rowley. He should have nourished no such thoughts in his heart. He had, indeed, been generous to his wife and to his wife's family; but we may almost say that the man who is really generous in such matters, is unconscious of his own generosity. The giver who gives the most, gives, and does not know that he gives. And had not she given too? In that matter of giving between a man and his wife, if each gives all, the two are equal, let the things given be what they may! King Cophetua did nothing for his beggar maid, unless she were to him, after he had married her, as royal a queen as though he had taken her from the oldest stock of reigning families then extant. Trevelyan knew all this himself,--had said so to himself a score of times, though not probably in spoken words or formed sentences. But, that all was equal between himself and the wife of his bosom, had been a thing ascertained by him as a certainty. There was no debt of gratitude from her to him which he did not acknowledge to exist also as from him to her. But yet, in his anger, he could not keep himself from thinking of the gifts he had showered upon her. And he had been, was, would ever be, if she would only allow it, so true to her! He had selected no other friend to take her place in his councils! There was no "dear Mary," or "dear Augusta," with whom he had secrets to be kept from his wife. When there arose with him any question of interest,--question of interest such as was this of the return of Sir Marmaduke to her,--he would show it in all its bearings to his wife. He had his secrets too, but his secrets had all been made secrets for her also. There was not a woman in the world in whose company he took special delight in her absence. And if there had been, how much less would have been her ground of complaint? Let a man have any such friendships,--what friendships he may,--he does not disgrace his wife. He felt himself to be so true of heart that he desired no such friendships; but for a man indulging in such friendships there might be excuse. Even though a man be false, a woman is not shamed and brought unto the dust before all the world. But the slightest rumour on a woman's name is a load of infamy on her husband's shoulders. It was not enough for C sar that his wife should be true; it was necessary to C sar that she should not even be suspected. Trevelyan told himself that he suspected his wife of no sin. God forbid that it should ever come to that, both for his sake and for hers; and, above all, for the sake of that boy who was so dear to them both! But there would be the vile whispers, and dirty slanders would be dropped from envious tongues into envious ears, and minds prone to evil would think evil of him and of his. Had not Lady Milborough already cautioned him? Oh, that he should have lived to have been cautioned about his wife;--that he should be told that eyes outside had looked into the sacred shrine of his heart and seen that things there were fatally amiss! And yet Lady Milborough was quite right. Had he not in his hand at this moment a document that proved her to be right? "Dear Emily!" He took this note and crushed it in his fist, and then pulled it into fragments. But what should he do? There was, first of all considerations, the duty which he owed to his wife, and the love which he bore her. That she was ignorant and innocent he was sure; but then she was so contumacious that he hardly knew how to take a step in the direction of guarding her from the effects of her ignorance, and maintaining for her the advantages of her innocence. He was her master, and she must know that he was her master. But how was he to proceed when she refused to obey the plainest and most necessary command which he laid upon her? Let a man be ever so much his wife's master, he cannot maintain his masterdom by any power which the law places in his hands. He had asked his wife for a promise of obedience, and she would not give it to him! What was he to do next? He could, no doubt,--at least he thought so,--keep the man from her presence. He could order the servant not to admit the man, and the servant would doubtless obey him. But to what a condition would he then have been brought! Would not the world then be over for him,--over for him as the husband of a wife whom he could not love unless he respected her? Better that there should be no such world, than call in the aid of a servant to guard the conduct of his wife! As he thought of it all it seemed to him that if she would not obey him, and give him this promise, they must be separated. He would not live with her, he would not give her the privileges of his wife, if she refused to render to him the obedience which was his privilege. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that he ought not to yield to her. Let her once yield to him, and then his tenderness should begin, and there should be no limit to it. But he would not see her till she had yielded. He would not see her; and if he should find that she did see Colonel Osborne, then he would tell her that she could no longer dwell under the same roof with him. His resolution on these points was very strong, and yet there came over him a feeling that it was his duty to be gentle. There was a feeling also that that privilege of receiving obedience, which was so indubitably his own, could only be maintained by certain wise practices on his part, in which gentleness must predominate. Wives are bound to obey their husbands, but obedience cannot be exacted from wives, as it may from servants, by aid of law and with penalties, or as from a horse, by punishments and manger curtailments. A man should be master in his own house, but he should make his mastery palatable, equitable, smooth, soft to the touch, a thing almost unfelt. How was he to do all this now, when he had already given an order to which obedience had been refused unless under certain stipulations,--an agreement with which would be degradation to him? He had pointed out to his wife her duty, and she had said she would do her duty as pointed out, on condition that he would beg her pardon for having pointed it out! This he could not and would not do. Let the heavens fall,--and the falling of the heavens in this case was a separation between him and his wife,--but he would not consent to such injustice as that! But what was he to do at this moment,--especially with reference to that note which he had destroyed. At last he resolved to write to his wife, and he consequently did write and send to her the following letter:-- May 4. DEAREST EMILY, If Colonel Osborne should write to you again, it will be better that you should not open his letter. As you know his handwriting, you will have no difficulty in so arranging. Should any further letter come from Colonel Osborne addressed to you, you had better put it under cover to me, and take no notice of it yourself. I shall dine at the club to-day. We were to have gone to Mrs. Peacock's in the evening. You had better write a line to say that we shall not be there. I am very sorry that Nora should lose her evening. Pray think very carefully over what I have asked of you. My request to you is, that you shall give me a promise that you will not willingly see Colonel Osborne again. Of course you will understand that this is not supposed to extend to accidental meetings, as to which, should they occur,--and they would be sure to occur,--you would find that they would be wholly unnoticed by me. But I must request that you will comply with my wish in this matter. If you will send for me, I will go to you instantly, and after one word from you to the desired effect, you will find that there will be no recurrence by me to a subject so hateful. As I have done, and am doing what I think to be right, I cannot stultify myself by saying that I think I have been wrong. Yours always, dearest Emily, With the most thorough love, LOUIS TREVELYAN. This letter he himself put on his wife's dressing-room table, and then he went out to his club. CHAPTER VI. SHEWING HOW RECONCILIATION WAS MADE. "Look at that," said Mrs. Trevelyan, when her sister came into her room about an hour before dinner-time. Nora read the letter, and then asked her sister what she meant to do. "I have written to Mrs. Peacock. I don't know what else I can do. It is very hard upon you,--that you should have been kept at home. But I don't suppose Mr. Glascock would have been at Mrs. Peacock's." "And what else will you do, Emily?" "Nothing;--simply live deserted and forlorn till he shall choose to find his wits again. There is nothing else that a woman can do. If he chooses to dine at his club every day, I can't help it. We must put off all the engagements, and that will be hard upon you." "Don't talk about me. It is too terrible to think that there should be such a quarrel." "What can I do? Have I been wrong?" "Simply do what he tells you, whether it is wrong or right. If it's right, it ought to be done, and if it's wrong, it will not be your fault." "That's very easily said, and it sounds logical; but you must know it's unreasonable." "I don't care about reason. He is your husband, and if he wishes it you should do it. And what will be the harm? You don't mean to see Colonel Osborne any more. You have already said that he's not to be admitted." "I have said that nobody is to be admitted. Louis has driven me to that. How can I look the servant in the face and tell him that any special gentleman is not to be admitted to see me? Oh dear! oh dear! have I done anything to deserve it? Was ever so monstrous an accusation made against any woman! If it were not for my boy, I would defy him to do his worst." On the day following, Nora again became a messenger between the husband and wife, and before dinner-time a reconciliation had been effected. Of course the wife gave way at last; and of course she gave way so cunningly that the husband received none of the gratification which he had expected in her surrender. "Tell him to come," Nora had urged. "Of course he can come if he pleases," Emily had replied. Then Nora had told Louis to come, and Louis had demanded whether, if he did so, the promise which he had exacted would be given. It is to be feared that Nora perverted the truth a little; but if ever such perversion may be forgiven, forgiveness was due to her. If they could only be brought together, she was sure that there would be a reconciliation. They were brought together, and there was a reconciliation. "Dearest Emily, I am so glad to come to you," said the husband, walking up to his wife in their bed-room, and taking her in his arms. [Illustration: Shewing how reconciliation was made.] "I have been very unhappy, Louis, for the last two days," said she, very gravely,--returning his kiss, but returning it somewhat coldly. "We have both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that it was to be made without reserve,--as an act on her part which she had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far as he could judge, either repentant or submissive. "Nora said that you would make me the promise which I ask from you." "I cannot think, Louis, how you can want such a promise from me." "I think it right to ask it; I do indeed." "Can you imagine that I shall ever willingly see this gentleman again after what has occurred? It will be for you to tell the servant. I do not know how I can do that. But, as a matter of course, I will encourage no person to come to your house of whom you disapprove. It would be exactly the same of any man or of any woman." "That is all that I ask." "I am surprised that you should have thought it necessary to make any formal request in the matter. Your word was quite sufficient. That you should find cause of complaint in Colonel Osborne's coming here is of course a different thing." "Quite a different thing," said he. "I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears. I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil thought to me." "Indeed, indeed, I never have," said the husband. "That I can assure you I regard as a matter of course," said the wife. "But you know, Emily, the way in which the world talks." "The world! And do you regard the world, Louis?" "Lady Milborough, I believe, spoke to yourself." "Lady Milborough! No, she did not speak to me. She began to do so, but I was careful to silence her at once. From you, Louis, I am bound to hear whatever you may choose to say to me; but I will not hear from any other lips a single word that may be injurious to your honour." This she said very quietly, with much dignity, and he felt that he had better not answer her. She had given him the promise which he had demanded, and he began to fear that if he pushed the matter further she might go back even from that amount of submission. So he kissed her again, and had the boy brought into the room, and by the time that he went to dress for dinner he was able, at any rate, to seem to be well pleased. "Richard," he said to the servant, as soon as he was down-stairs, "when Colonel Osborne calls again, say that your mistress is--not at home." He gave the order in the most indifferent tone of voice which he could assume; but as he gave it he felt thoroughly ashamed of it. Richard, who, with the other servants, had of course known that there had been a quarrel between his master and mistress for the last two days, no doubt understood all about it. While they were sitting at dinner on the next day, a Saturday, there came another note from Colonel Osborne. The servant brought it to his mistress, and she, when she had looked at it, put it down by her plate. Trevelyan knew immediately from whom the letter had come, and understood how impossible it was for his wife to give it up in the servant's presence. The letter lay there till the man was out of the room, and then she handed it to Nora. "Will you give that to Louis?" she said. "It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover." "Emily!" said he, jumping from his seat, "how can you allow words so horrible and so untrue to fall from your mouth?" "If it be not so, why am I to be placed in such a position as this? The servant knows, of course, from whom the letter comes, and sees that I have been forbidden to open it." Then the man returned to the room, and the remainder of the dinner passed off almost in silence. It was their custom when they dined without company to leave the dining-room together, but on this evening Trevelyan remained for a few minutes that he might read Colonel Osborne's letter. He waited, standing on the rug with his face to the fire-place, till he was quite alone, and then he opened it. It ran as follows:-- House of Commons, Saturday. DEAR EMILY,-- Trevelyan, as he read this, cursed Colonel Osborne between his teeth. DEAR EMILY, I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent now till the middle of June, and that he could not be in London, let him do what he would, till the end of July. They hope to have the session over by that time, and therefore the committee is to be put off till next session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada, and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next, and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months. All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll call to-morrow at luncheon time. Yours always, F. O. There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the "Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife. But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece, thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she was sitting, "you had better read that letter." "I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily. "Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally." Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are not to come after all," said she, "till next February." "And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan. "Something about the session. I don't quite understand." "Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would." "But what has that to do with papa?" "I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora. "I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all is so much of a favour that it is almost a job." "I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody is wanted, and nobody can know more of the service than papa does. But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he say anything about mamma, Nora?" "You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit. "No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too. Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them." This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him, if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this matter." "I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs. Trevelyan. There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his chair and walked round to

manger

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

yielding, and gentle to his wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope. It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband's absence from the house, and was as follows:-- Acrobats, Thursday. DEAR EMILY, I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours, F. O. The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs. Trevelyan, when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she was minded to obey him. Had he included in his demand any requirement that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters, and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note, and then sent it down to be put on Mr. Trevelyan's table in an envelope addressed to him. "If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he has wronged me," said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child's features were in all respects the very same as his father's, and that, come what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought. What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel, out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the dust be better for her than that? "It is a very poor thing to be a woman," she said to her sister. "It is perhaps better than being a dog," said Nora; "but, of course, we can't compare ourselves to men." "It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn't be made to suffer so much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough for a few days, but she gets over it in a week." There was a pause then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current of her sister's thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment which she could say on that subject. "It is very hard for a woman to know what to do," continued Emily, "but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some one, though he may not trust his wife." "I will never wittingly marry a fool," said Nora. "You will marry Mr. Glascock, of course. I don't say that he is a fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows itself in perversity." "If he asked me, I should not have him;--and he will never ask me." "He will ask you, and, of course, you'll take him. Why not? You can't be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it." "All the same, I shall not marry Mr. Glascock. A woman can die, at any rate," said Nora. "No, she can't. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is very indecent. She can't die, and she mustn't be in want, and she oughtn't to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you'd mind taking that down-stairs to his table? I don't like to send it by the servant; and I don't want to go myself." Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis Trevelyan would be sure to find it. He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel Osborne's note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address another man's wife as "Dear Emily?" At the moment Trevelyan remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife, that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him, to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as "Dear Emily," according to this man's judgment and wish, and not according to his judgment and wish,--not according to the judgment and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! "Of course you will tell T. now." This was intolerable to him. It made him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and bestowed upon her the half of all that he had simply for herself, asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money, position, a name,--all that makes life worth having. He had found her in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages of family or social standing,--so circumstanced that any friend would have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in return but that he should be all in all to her,--that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,--another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying, that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a good wife. As he thought of all this, he almost regretted that he had ever visited the Mandarins, or ever heard the name of Sir Marmaduke Rowley. He should have nourished no such thoughts in his heart. He had, indeed, been generous to his wife and to his wife's family; but we may almost say that the man who is really generous in such matters, is unconscious of his own generosity. The giver who gives the most, gives, and does not know that he gives. And had not she given too? In that matter of giving between a man and his wife, if each gives all, the two are equal, let the things given be what they may! King Cophetua did nothing for his beggar maid, unless she were to him, after he had married her, as royal a queen as though he had taken her from the oldest stock of reigning families then extant. Trevelyan knew all this himself,--had said so to himself a score of times, though not probably in spoken words or formed sentences. But, that all was equal between himself and the wife of his bosom, had been a thing ascertained by him as a certainty. There was no debt of gratitude from her to him which he did not acknowledge to exist also as from him to her. But yet, in his anger, he could not keep himself from thinking of the gifts he had showered upon her. And he had been, was, would ever be, if she would only allow it, so true to her! He had selected no other friend to take her place in his councils! There was no "dear Mary," or "dear Augusta," with whom he had secrets to be kept from his wife. When there arose with him any question of interest,--question of interest such as was this of the return of Sir Marmaduke to her,--he would show it in all its bearings to his wife. He had his secrets too, but his secrets had all been made secrets for her also. There was not a woman in the world in whose company he took special delight in her absence. And if there had been, how much less would have been her ground of complaint? Let a man have any such friendships,--what friendships he may,--he does not disgrace his wife. He felt himself to be so true of heart that he desired no such friendships; but for a man indulging in such friendships there might be excuse. Even though a man be false, a woman is not shamed and brought unto the dust before all the world. But the slightest rumour on a woman's name is a load of infamy on her husband's shoulders. It was not enough for C sar that his wife should be true; it was necessary to C sar that she should not even be suspected. Trevelyan told himself that he suspected his wife of no sin. God forbid that it should ever come to that, both for his sake and for hers; and, above all, for the sake of that boy who was so dear to them both! But there would be the vile whispers, and dirty slanders would be dropped from envious tongues into envious ears, and minds prone to evil would think evil of him and of his. Had not Lady Milborough already cautioned him? Oh, that he should have lived to have been cautioned about his wife;--that he should be told that eyes outside had looked into the sacred shrine of his heart and seen that things there were fatally amiss! And yet Lady Milborough was quite right. Had he not in his hand at this moment a document that proved her to be right? "Dear Emily!" He took this note and crushed it in his fist, and then pulled it into fragments. But what should he do? There was, first of all considerations, the duty which he owed to his wife, and the love which he bore her. That she was ignorant and innocent he was sure; but then she was so contumacious that he hardly knew how to take a step in the direction of guarding her from the effects of her ignorance, and maintaining for her the advantages of her innocence. He was her master, and she must know that he was her master. But how was he to proceed when she refused to obey the plainest and most necessary command which he laid upon her? Let a man be ever so much his wife's master, he cannot maintain his masterdom by any power which the law places in his hands. He had asked his wife for a promise of obedience, and she would not give it to him! What was he to do next? He could, no doubt,--at least he thought so,--keep the man from her presence. He could order the servant not to admit the man, and the servant would doubtless obey him. But to what a condition would he then have been brought! Would not the world then be over for him,--over for him as the husband of a wife whom he could not love unless he respected her? Better that there should be no such world, than call in the aid of a servant to guard the conduct of his wife! As he thought of it all it seemed to him that if she would not obey him, and give him this promise, they must be separated. He would not live with her, he would not give her the privileges of his wife, if she refused to render to him the obedience which was his privilege. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that he ought not to yield to her. Let her once yield to him, and then his tenderness should begin, and there should be no limit to it. But he would not see her till she had yielded. He would not see her; and if he should find that she did see Colonel Osborne, then he would tell her that she could no longer dwell under the same roof with him. His resolution on these points was very strong, and yet there came over him a feeling that it was his duty to be gentle. There was a feeling also that that privilege of receiving obedience, which was so indubitably his own, could only be maintained by certain wise practices on his part, in which gentleness must predominate. Wives are bound to obey their husbands, but obedience cannot be exacted from wives, as it may from servants, by aid of law and with penalties, or as from a horse, by punishments and manger curtailments. A man should be master in his own house, but he should make his mastery palatable, equitable, smooth, soft to the touch, a thing almost unfelt. How was he to do all this now, when he had already given an order to which obedience had been refused unless under certain stipulations,--an agreement with which would be degradation to him? He had pointed out to his wife her duty, and she had said she would do her duty as pointed out, on condition that he would beg her pardon for having pointed it out! This he could not and would not do. Let the heavens fall,--and the falling of the heavens in this case was a separation between him and his wife,--but he would not consent to such injustice as that! But what was he to do at this moment,--especially with reference to that note which he had destroyed. At last he resolved to write to his wife, and he consequently did write and send to her the following letter:-- May 4. DEAREST EMILY, If Colonel Osborne should write to you again, it will be better that you should not open his letter. As you know his handwriting, you will have no difficulty in so arranging. Should any further letter come from Colonel Osborne addressed to you, you had better put it under cover to me, and take no notice of it yourself. I shall dine at the club to-day. We were to have gone to Mrs. Peacock's in the evening. You had better write a line to say that we shall not be there. I am very sorry that Nora should lose her evening. Pray think very carefully over what I have asked of you. My request to you is, that you shall give me a promise that you will not willingly see Colonel Osborne again. Of course you will understand that this is not supposed to extend to accidental meetings, as to which, should they occur,--and they would be sure to occur,--you would find that they would be wholly unnoticed by me. But I must request that you will comply with my wish in this matter. If you will send for me, I will go to you instantly, and after one word from you to the desired effect, you will find that there will be no recurrence by me to a subject so hateful. As I have done, and am doing what I think to be right, I cannot stultify myself by saying that I think I have been wrong. Yours always, dearest Emily, With the most thorough love, LOUIS TREVELYAN. This letter he himself put on his wife's dressing-room table, and then he went out to his club. CHAPTER VI. SHEWING HOW RECONCILIATION WAS MADE. "Look at that," said Mrs. Trevelyan, when her sister came into her room about an hour before dinner-time. Nora read the letter, and then asked her sister what she meant to do. "I have written to Mrs. Peacock. I don't know what else I can do. It is very hard upon you,--that you should have been kept at home. But I don't suppose Mr. Glascock would have been at Mrs. Peacock's." "And what else will you do, Emily?" "Nothing;--simply live deserted and forlorn till he shall choose to find his wits again. There is nothing else that a woman can do. If he chooses to dine at his club every day, I can't help it. We must put off all the engagements, and that will be hard upon you." "Don't talk about me. It is too terrible to think that there should be such a quarrel." "What can I do? Have I been wrong?" "Simply do what he tells you, whether it is wrong or right. If it's right, it ought to be done, and if it's wrong, it will not be your fault." "That's very easily said, and it sounds logical; but you must know it's unreasonable." "I don't care about reason. He is your husband, and if he wishes it you should do it. And what will be the harm? You don't mean to see Colonel Osborne any more. You have already said that he's not to be admitted." "I have said that nobody is to be admitted. Louis has driven me to that. How can I look the servant in the face and tell him that any special gentleman is not to be admitted to see me? Oh dear! oh dear! have I done anything to deserve it? Was ever so monstrous an accusation made against any woman! If it were not for my boy, I would defy him to do his worst." On the day following, Nora again became a messenger between the husband and wife, and before dinner-time a reconciliation had been effected. Of course the wife gave way at last; and of course she gave way so cunningly that the husband received none of the gratification which he had expected in her surrender. "Tell him to come," Nora had urged. "Of course he can come if he pleases," Emily had replied. Then Nora had told Louis to come, and Louis had demanded whether, if he did so, the promise which he had exacted would be given. It is to be feared that Nora perverted the truth a little; but if ever such perversion may be forgiven, forgiveness was due to her. If they could only be brought together, she was sure that there would be a reconciliation. They were brought together, and there was a reconciliation. "Dearest Emily, I am so glad to come to you," said the husband, walking up to his wife in their bed-room, and taking her in his arms. [Illustration: Shewing how reconciliation was made.] "I have been very unhappy, Louis, for the last two days," said she, very gravely,--returning his kiss, but returning it somewhat coldly. "We have both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that it was to be made without reserve,--as an act on her part which she had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far as he could judge, either repentant or submissive. "Nora said that you would make me the promise which I ask from you." "I cannot think, Louis, how you can want such a promise from me." "I think it right to ask it; I do indeed." "Can you imagine that I shall ever willingly see this gentleman again after what has occurred? It will be for you to tell the servant. I do not know how I can do that. But, as a matter of course, I will encourage no person to come to your house of whom you disapprove. It would be exactly the same of any man or of any woman." "That is all that I ask." "I am surprised that you should have thought it necessary to make any formal request in the matter. Your word was quite sufficient. That you should find cause of complaint in Colonel Osborne's coming here is of course a different thing." "Quite a different thing," said he. "I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears. I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil thought to me." "Indeed, indeed, I never have," said the husband. "That I can assure you I regard as a matter of course," said the wife. "But you know, Emily, the way in which the world talks." "The world! And do you regard the world, Louis?" "Lady Milborough, I believe, spoke to yourself." "Lady Milborough! No, she did not speak to me. She began to do so, but I was careful to silence her at once. From you, Louis, I am bound to hear whatever you may choose to say to me; but I will not hear from any other lips a single word that may be injurious to your honour." This she said very quietly, with much dignity, and he felt that he had better not answer her. She had given him the promise which he had demanded, and he began to fear that if he pushed the matter further she might go back even from that amount of submission. So he kissed her again, and had the boy brought into the room, and by the time that he went to dress for dinner he was able, at any rate, to seem to be well pleased. "Richard," he said to the servant, as soon as he was down-stairs, "when Colonel Osborne calls again, say that your mistress is--not at home." He gave the order in the most indifferent tone of voice which he could assume; but as he gave it he felt thoroughly ashamed of it. Richard, who, with the other servants, had of course known that there had been a quarrel between his master and mistress for the last two days, no doubt understood all about it. While they were sitting at dinner on the next day, a Saturday, there came another note from Colonel Osborne. The servant brought it to his mistress, and she, when she had looked at it, put it down by her plate. Trevelyan knew immediately from whom the letter had come, and understood how impossible it was for his wife to give it up in the servant's presence. The letter lay there till the man was out of the room, and then she handed it to Nora. "Will you give that to Louis?" she said. "It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover." "Emily!" said he, jumping from his seat, "how can you allow words so horrible and so untrue to fall from your mouth?" "If it be not so, why am I to be placed in such a position as this? The servant knows, of course, from whom the letter comes, and sees that I have been forbidden to open it." Then the man returned to the room, and the remainder of the dinner passed off almost in silence. It was their custom when they dined without company to leave the dining-room together, but on this evening Trevelyan remained for a few minutes that he might read Colonel Osborne's letter. He waited, standing on the rug with his face to the fire-place, till he was quite alone, and then he opened it. It ran as follows:-- House of Commons, Saturday. DEAR EMILY,-- Trevelyan, as he read this, cursed Colonel Osborne between his teeth. DEAR EMILY, I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent now till the middle of June, and that he could not be in London, let him do what he would, till the end of July. They hope to have the session over by that time, and therefore the committee is to be put off till next session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada, and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next, and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months. All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll call to-morrow at luncheon time. Yours always, F. O. There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the "Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife. But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece, thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she was sitting, "you had better read that letter." "I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily. "Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally." Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are not to come after all," said she, "till next February." "And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan. "Something about the session. I don't quite understand." "Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would." "But what has that to do with papa?" "I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora. "I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all is so much of a favour that it is almost a job." "I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody is wanted, and nobody can know more of the service than papa does. But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he say anything about mamma, Nora?" "You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit. "No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too. Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them." This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him, if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this matter." "I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs. Trevelyan. There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his chair and walked round to

mongrel

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

yielding, and gentle to his wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope. It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband's absence from the house, and was as follows:-- Acrobats, Thursday. DEAR EMILY, I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours, F. O. The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs. Trevelyan, when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she was minded to obey him. Had he included in his demand any requirement that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters, and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note, and then sent it down to be put on Mr. Trevelyan's table in an envelope addressed to him. "If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he has wronged me," said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child's features were in all respects the very same as his father's, and that, come what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought. What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel, out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the dust be better for her than that? "It is a very poor thing to be a woman," she said to her sister. "It is perhaps better than being a dog," said Nora; "but, of course, we can't compare ourselves to men." "It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn't be made to suffer so much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough for a few days, but she gets over it in a week." There was a pause then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current of her sister's thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment which she could say on that subject. "It is very hard for a woman to know what to do," continued Emily, "but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some one, though he may not trust his wife." "I will never wittingly marry a fool," said Nora. "You will marry Mr. Glascock, of course. I don't say that he is a fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows itself in perversity." "If he asked me, I should not have him;--and he will never ask me." "He will ask you, and, of course, you'll take him. Why not? You can't be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it." "All the same, I shall not marry Mr. Glascock. A woman can die, at any rate," said Nora. "No, she can't. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is very indecent. She can't die, and she mustn't be in want, and she oughtn't to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you'd mind taking that down-stairs to his table? I don't like to send it by the servant; and I don't want to go myself." Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis Trevelyan would be sure to find it. He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel Osborne's note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address another man's wife as "Dear Emily?" At the moment Trevelyan remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife, that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him, to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as "Dear Emily," according to this man's judgment and wish, and not according to his judgment and wish,--not according to the judgment and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! "Of course you will tell T. now." This was intolerable to him. It made him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and bestowed upon her the half of all that he had simply for herself, asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money, position, a name,--all that makes life worth having. He had found her in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages of family or social standing,--so circumstanced that any friend would have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in return but that he should be all in all to her,--that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,--another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying, that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a good wife. As he thought of all this, he almost regretted that he had ever visited the Mandarins, or ever heard the name of Sir Marmaduke Rowley. He should have nourished no such thoughts in his heart. He had, indeed, been generous to his wife and to his wife's family; but we may almost say that the man who is really generous in such matters, is unconscious of his own generosity. The giver who gives the most, gives, and does not know that he gives. And had not she given too? In that matter of giving between a man and his wife, if each gives all, the two are equal, let the things given be what they may! King Cophetua did nothing for his beggar maid, unless she were to him, after he had married her, as royal a queen as though he had taken her from the oldest stock of reigning families then extant. Trevelyan knew all this himself,--had said so to himself a score of times, though not probably in spoken words or formed sentences. But, that all was equal between himself and the wife of his bosom, had been a thing ascertained by him as a certainty. There was no debt of gratitude from her to him which he did not acknowledge to exist also as from him to her. But yet, in his anger, he could not keep himself from thinking of the gifts he had showered upon her. And he had been, was, would ever be, if she would only allow it, so true to her! He had selected no other friend to take her place in his councils! There was no "dear Mary," or "dear Augusta," with whom he had secrets to be kept from his wife. When there arose with him any question of interest,--question of interest such as was this of the return of Sir Marmaduke to her,--he would show it in all its bearings to his wife. He had his secrets too, but his secrets had all been made secrets for her also. There was not a woman in the world in whose company he took special delight in her absence. And if there had been, how much less would have been her ground of complaint? Let a man have any such friendships,--what friendships he may,--he does not disgrace his wife. He felt himself to be so true of heart that he desired no such friendships; but for a man indulging in such friendships there might be excuse. Even though a man be false, a woman is not shamed and brought unto the dust before all the world. But the slightest rumour on a woman's name is a load of infamy on her husband's shoulders. It was not enough for C sar that his wife should be true; it was necessary to C sar that she should not even be suspected. Trevelyan told himself that he suspected his wife of no sin. God forbid that it should ever come to that, both for his sake and for hers; and, above all, for the sake of that boy who was so dear to them both! But there would be the vile whispers, and dirty slanders would be dropped from envious tongues into envious ears, and minds prone to evil would think evil of him and of his. Had not Lady Milborough already cautioned him? Oh, that he should have lived to have been cautioned about his wife;--that he should be told that eyes outside had looked into the sacred shrine of his heart and seen that things there were fatally amiss! And yet Lady Milborough was quite right. Had he not in his hand at this moment a document that proved her to be right? "Dear Emily!" He took this note and crushed it in his fist, and then pulled it into fragments. But what should he do? There was, first of all considerations, the duty which he owed to his wife, and the love which he bore her. That she was ignorant and innocent he was sure; but then she was so contumacious that he hardly knew how to take a step in the direction of guarding her from the effects of her ignorance, and maintaining for her the advantages of her innocence. He was her master, and she must know that he was her master. But how was he to proceed when she refused to obey the plainest and most necessary command which he laid upon her? Let a man be ever so much his wife's master, he cannot maintain his masterdom by any power which the law places in his hands. He had asked his wife for a promise of obedience, and she would not give it to him! What was he to do next? He could, no doubt,--at least he thought so,--keep the man from her presence. He could order the servant not to admit the man, and the servant would doubtless obey him. But to what a condition would he then have been brought! Would not the world then be over for him,--over for him as the husband of a wife whom he could not love unless he respected her? Better that there should be no such world, than call in the aid of a servant to guard the conduct of his wife! As he thought of it all it seemed to him that if she would not obey him, and give him this promise, they must be separated. He would not live with her, he would not give her the privileges of his wife, if she refused to render to him the obedience which was his privilege. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that he ought not to yield to her. Let her once yield to him, and then his tenderness should begin, and there should be no limit to it. But he would not see her till she had yielded. He would not see her; and if he should find that she did see Colonel Osborne, then he would tell her that she could no longer dwell under the same roof with him. His resolution on these points was very strong, and yet there came over him a feeling that it was his duty to be gentle. There was a feeling also that that privilege of receiving obedience, which was so indubitably his own, could only be maintained by certain wise practices on his part, in which gentleness must predominate. Wives are bound to obey their husbands, but obedience cannot be exacted from wives, as it may from servants, by aid of law and with penalties, or as from a horse, by punishments and manger curtailments. A man should be master in his own house, but he should make his mastery palatable, equitable, smooth, soft to the touch, a thing almost unfelt. How was he to do all this now, when he had already given an order to which obedience had been refused unless under certain stipulations,--an agreement with which would be degradation to him? He had pointed out to his wife her duty, and she had said she would do her duty as pointed out, on condition that he would beg her pardon for having pointed it out! This he could not and would not do. Let the heavens fall,--and the falling of the heavens in this case was a separation between him and his wife,--but he would not consent to such injustice as that! But what was he to do at this moment,--especially with reference to that note which he had destroyed. At last he resolved to write to his wife, and he consequently did write and send to her the following letter:-- May 4. DEAREST EMILY, If Colonel Osborne should write to you again, it will be better that you should not open his letter. As you know his handwriting, you will have no difficulty in so arranging. Should any further letter come from Colonel Osborne addressed to you, you had better put it under cover to me, and take no notice of it yourself. I shall dine at the club to-day. We were to have gone to Mrs. Peacock's in the evening. You had better write a line to say that we shall not be there. I am very sorry that Nora should lose her evening. Pray think very carefully over what I have asked of you. My request to you is, that you shall give me a promise that you will not willingly see Colonel Osborne again. Of course you will understand that this is not supposed to extend to accidental meetings, as to which, should they occur,--and they would be sure to occur,--you would find that they would be wholly unnoticed by me. But I must request that you will comply with my wish in this matter. If you will send for me, I will go to you instantly, and after one word from you to the desired effect, you will find that there will be no recurrence by me to a subject so hateful. As I have done, and am doing what I think to be right, I cannot stultify myself by saying that I think I have been wrong. Yours always, dearest Emily, With the most thorough love, LOUIS TREVELYAN. This letter he himself put on his wife's dressing-room table, and then he went out to his club. CHAPTER VI. SHEWING HOW RECONCILIATION WAS MADE. "Look at that," said Mrs. Trevelyan, when her sister came into her room about an hour before dinner-time. Nora read the letter, and then asked her sister what she meant to do. "I have written to Mrs. Peacock. I don't know what else I can do. It is very hard upon you,--that you should have been kept at home. But I don't suppose Mr. Glascock would have been at Mrs. Peacock's." "And what else will you do, Emily?" "Nothing;--simply live deserted and forlorn till he shall choose to find his wits again. There is nothing else that a woman can do. If he chooses to dine at his club every day, I can't help it. We must put off all the engagements, and that will be hard upon you." "Don't talk about me. It is too terrible to think that there should be such a quarrel." "What can I do? Have I been wrong?" "Simply do what he tells you, whether it is wrong or right. If it's right, it ought to be done, and if it's wrong, it will not be your fault." "That's very easily said, and it sounds logical; but you must know it's unreasonable." "I don't care about reason. He is your husband, and if he wishes it you should do it. And what will be the harm? You don't mean to see Colonel Osborne any more. You have already said that he's not to be admitted." "I have said that nobody is to be admitted. Louis has driven me to that. How can I look the servant in the face and tell him that any special gentleman is not to be admitted to see me? Oh dear! oh dear! have I done anything to deserve it? Was ever so monstrous an accusation made against any woman! If it were not for my boy, I would defy him to do his worst." On the day following, Nora again became a messenger between the husband and wife, and before dinner-time a reconciliation had been effected. Of course the wife gave way at last; and of course she gave way so cunningly that the husband received none of the gratification which he had expected in her surrender. "Tell him to come," Nora had urged. "Of course he can come if he pleases," Emily had replied. Then Nora had told Louis to come, and Louis had demanded whether, if he did so, the promise which he had exacted would be given. It is to be feared that Nora perverted the truth a little; but if ever such perversion may be forgiven, forgiveness was due to her. If they could only be brought together, she was sure that there would be a reconciliation. They were brought together, and there was a reconciliation. "Dearest Emily, I am so glad to come to you," said the husband, walking up to his wife in their bed-room, and taking her in his arms. [Illustration: Shewing how reconciliation was made.] "I have been very unhappy, Louis, for the last two days," said she, very gravely,--returning his kiss, but returning it somewhat coldly. "We have both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that it was to be made without reserve,--as an act on her part which she had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far as he could judge, either repentant or submissive. "Nora said that you would make me the promise which I ask from you." "I cannot think, Louis, how you can want such a promise from me." "I think it right to ask it; I do indeed." "Can you imagine that I shall ever willingly see this gentleman again after what has occurred? It will be for you to tell the servant. I do not know how I can do that. But, as a matter of course, I will encourage no person to come to your house of whom you disapprove. It would be exactly the same of any man or of any woman." "That is all that I ask." "I am surprised that you should have thought it necessary to make any formal request in the matter. Your word was quite sufficient. That you should find cause of complaint in Colonel Osborne's coming here is of course a different thing." "Quite a different thing," said he. "I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears. I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil thought to me." "Indeed, indeed, I never have," said the husband. "That I can assure you I regard as a matter of course," said the wife. "But you know, Emily, the way in which the world talks." "The world! And do you regard the world, Louis?" "Lady Milborough, I believe, spoke to yourself." "Lady Milborough! No, she did not speak to me. She began to do so, but I was careful to silence her at once. From you, Louis, I am bound to hear whatever you may choose to say to me; but I will not hear from any other lips a single word that may be injurious to your honour." This she said very quietly, with much dignity, and he felt that he had better not answer her. She had given him the promise which he had demanded, and he began to fear that if he pushed the matter further she might go back even from that amount of submission. So he kissed her again, and had the boy brought into the room, and by the time that he went to dress for dinner he was able, at any rate, to seem to be well pleased. "Richard," he said to the servant, as soon as he was down-stairs, "when Colonel Osborne calls again, say that your mistress is--not at home." He gave the order in the most indifferent tone of voice which he could assume; but as he gave it he felt thoroughly ashamed of it. Richard, who, with the other servants, had of course known that there had been a quarrel between his master and mistress for the last two days, no doubt understood all about it. While they were sitting at dinner on the next day, a Saturday, there came another note from Colonel Osborne. The servant brought it to his mistress, and she, when she had looked at it, put it down by her plate. Trevelyan knew immediately from whom the letter had come, and understood how impossible it was for his wife to give it up in the servant's presence. The letter lay there till the man was out of the room, and then she handed it to Nora. "Will you give that to Louis?" she said. "It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover." "Emily!" said he, jumping from his seat, "how can you allow words so horrible and so untrue to fall from your mouth?" "If it be not so, why am I to be placed in such a position as this? The servant knows, of course, from whom the letter comes, and sees that I have been forbidden to open it." Then the man returned to the room, and the remainder of the dinner passed off almost in silence. It was their custom when they dined without company to leave the dining-room together, but on this evening Trevelyan remained for a few minutes that he might read Colonel Osborne's letter. He waited, standing on the rug with his face to the fire-place, till he was quite alone, and then he opened it. It ran as follows:-- House of Commons, Saturday. DEAR EMILY,-- Trevelyan, as he read this, cursed Colonel Osborne between his teeth. DEAR EMILY, I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent now till the middle of June, and that he could not be in London, let him do what he would, till the end of July. They hope to have the session over by that time, and therefore the committee is to be put off till next session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada, and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next, and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months. All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll call to-morrow at luncheon time. Yours always, F. O. There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the "Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife. But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece, thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she was sitting, "you had better read that letter." "I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily. "Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally." Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are not to come after all," said she, "till next February." "And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan. "Something about the session. I don't quite understand." "Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would." "But what has that to do with papa?" "I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora. "I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all is so much of a favour that it is almost a job." "I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody is wanted, and nobody can know more of the service than papa does. But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he say anything about mamma, Nora?" "You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit. "No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too. Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them." This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him, if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this matter." "I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs. Trevelyan. There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his chair and walked round to

against

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

yielding, and gentle to his wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope. It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband's absence from the house, and was as follows:-- Acrobats, Thursday. DEAR EMILY, I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours, F. O. The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs. Trevelyan, when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she was minded to obey him. Had he included in his demand any requirement that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters, and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note, and then sent it down to be put on Mr. Trevelyan's table in an envelope addressed to him. "If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he has wronged me," said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child's features were in all respects the very same as his father's, and that, come what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought. What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel, out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the dust be better for her than that? "It is a very poor thing to be a woman," she said to her sister. "It is perhaps better than being a dog," said Nora; "but, of course, we can't compare ourselves to men." "It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn't be made to suffer so much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough for a few days, but she gets over it in a week." There was a pause then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current of her sister's thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment which she could say on that subject. "It is very hard for a woman to know what to do," continued Emily, "but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some one, though he may not trust his wife." "I will never wittingly marry a fool," said Nora. "You will marry Mr. Glascock, of course. I don't say that he is a fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows itself in perversity." "If he asked me, I should not have him;--and he will never ask me." "He will ask you, and, of course, you'll take him. Why not? You can't be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it." "All the same, I shall not marry Mr. Glascock. A woman can die, at any rate," said Nora. "No, she can't. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is very indecent. She can't die, and she mustn't be in want, and she oughtn't to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you'd mind taking that down-stairs to his table? I don't like to send it by the servant; and I don't want to go myself." Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis Trevelyan would be sure to find it. He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel Osborne's note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address another man's wife as "Dear Emily?" At the moment Trevelyan remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife, that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him, to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as "Dear Emily," according to this man's judgment and wish, and not according to his judgment and wish,--not according to the judgment and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! "Of course you will tell T. now." This was intolerable to him. It made him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and bestowed upon her the half of all that he had simply for herself, asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money, position, a name,--all that makes life worth having. He had found her in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages of family or social standing,--so circumstanced that any friend would have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in return but that he should be all in all to her,--that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,--another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying, that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a good wife. As he thought of all this, he almost regretted that he had ever visited the Mandarins, or ever heard the name of Sir Marmaduke Rowley. He should have nourished no such thoughts in his heart. He had, indeed, been generous to his wife and to his wife's family; but we may almost say that the man who is really generous in such matters, is unconscious of his own generosity. The giver who gives the most, gives, and does not know that he gives. And had not she given too? In that matter of giving between a man and his wife, if each gives all, the two are equal, let the things given be what they may! King Cophetua did nothing for his beggar maid, unless she were to him, after he had married her, as royal a queen as though he had taken her from the oldest stock of reigning families then extant. Trevelyan knew all this himself,--had said so to himself a score of times, though not probably in spoken words or formed sentences. But, that all was equal between himself and the wife of his bosom, had been a thing ascertained by him as a certainty. There was no debt of gratitude from her to him which he did not acknowledge to exist also as from him to her. But yet, in his anger, he could not keep himself from thinking of the gifts he had showered upon her. And he had been, was, would ever be, if she would only allow it, so true to her! He had selected no other friend to take her place in his councils! There was no "dear Mary," or "dear Augusta," with whom he had secrets to be kept from his wife. When there arose with him any question of interest,--question of interest such as was this of the return of Sir Marmaduke to her,--he would show it in all its bearings to his wife. He had his secrets too, but his secrets had all been made secrets for her also. There was not a woman in the world in whose company he took special delight in her absence. And if there had been, how much less would have been her ground of complaint? Let a man have any such friendships,--what friendships he may,--he does not disgrace his wife. He felt himself to be so true of heart that he desired no such friendships; but for a man indulging in such friendships there might be excuse. Even though a man be false, a woman is not shamed and brought unto the dust before all the world. But the slightest rumour on a woman's name is a load of infamy on her husband's shoulders. It was not enough for C sar that his wife should be true; it was necessary to C sar that she should not even be suspected. Trevelyan told himself that he suspected his wife of no sin. God forbid that it should ever come to that, both for his sake and for hers; and, above all, for the sake of that boy who was so dear to them both! But there would be the vile whispers, and dirty slanders would be dropped from envious tongues into envious ears, and minds prone to evil would think evil of him and of his. Had not Lady Milborough already cautioned him? Oh, that he should have lived to have been cautioned about his wife;--that he should be told that eyes outside had looked into the sacred shrine of his heart and seen that things there were fatally amiss! And yet Lady Milborough was quite right. Had he not in his hand at this moment a document that proved her to be right? "Dear Emily!" He took this note and crushed it in his fist, and then pulled it into fragments. But what should he do? There was, first of all considerations, the duty which he owed to his wife, and the love which he bore her. That she was ignorant and innocent he was sure; but then she was so contumacious that he hardly knew how to take a step in the direction of guarding her from the effects of her ignorance, and maintaining for her the advantages of her innocence. He was her master, and she must know that he was her master. But how was he to proceed when she refused to obey the plainest and most necessary command which he laid upon her? Let a man be ever so much his wife's master, he cannot maintain his masterdom by any power which the law places in his hands. He had asked his wife for a promise of obedience, and she would not give it to him! What was he to do next? He could, no doubt,--at least he thought so,--keep the man from her presence. He could order the servant not to admit the man, and the servant would doubtless obey him. But to what a condition would he then have been brought! Would not the world then be over for him,--over for him as the husband of a wife whom he could not love unless he respected her? Better that there should be no such world, than call in the aid of a servant to guard the conduct of his wife! As he thought of it all it seemed to him that if she would not obey him, and give him this promise, they must be separated. He would not live with her, he would not give her the privileges of his wife, if she refused to render to him the obedience which was his privilege. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that he ought not to yield to her. Let her once yield to him, and then his tenderness should begin, and there should be no limit to it. But he would not see her till she had yielded. He would not see her; and if he should find that she did see Colonel Osborne, then he would tell her that she could no longer dwell under the same roof with him. His resolution on these points was very strong, and yet there came over him a feeling that it was his duty to be gentle. There was a feeling also that that privilege of receiving obedience, which was so indubitably his own, could only be maintained by certain wise practices on his part, in which gentleness must predominate. Wives are bound to obey their husbands, but obedience cannot be exacted from wives, as it may from servants, by aid of law and with penalties, or as from a horse, by punishments and manger curtailments. A man should be master in his own house, but he should make his mastery palatable, equitable, smooth, soft to the touch, a thing almost unfelt. How was he to do all this now, when he had already given an order to which obedience had been refused unless under certain stipulations,--an agreement with which would be degradation to him? He had pointed out to his wife her duty, and she had said she would do her duty as pointed out, on condition that he would beg her pardon for having pointed it out! This he could not and would not do. Let the heavens fall,--and the falling of the heavens in this case was a separation between him and his wife,--but he would not consent to such injustice as that! But what was he to do at this moment,--especially with reference to that note which he had destroyed. At last he resolved to write to his wife, and he consequently did write and send to her the following letter:-- May 4. DEAREST EMILY, If Colonel Osborne should write to you again, it will be better that you should not open his letter. As you know his handwriting, you will have no difficulty in so arranging. Should any further letter come from Colonel Osborne addressed to you, you had better put it under cover to me, and take no notice of it yourself. I shall dine at the club to-day. We were to have gone to Mrs. Peacock's in the evening. You had better write a line to say that we shall not be there. I am very sorry that Nora should lose her evening. Pray think very carefully over what I have asked of you. My request to you is, that you shall give me a promise that you will not willingly see Colonel Osborne again. Of course you will understand that this is not supposed to extend to accidental meetings, as to which, should they occur,--and they would be sure to occur,--you would find that they would be wholly unnoticed by me. But I must request that you will comply with my wish in this matter. If you will send for me, I will go to you instantly, and after one word from you to the desired effect, you will find that there will be no recurrence by me to a subject so hateful. As I have done, and am doing what I think to be right, I cannot stultify myself by saying that I think I have been wrong. Yours always, dearest Emily, With the most thorough love, LOUIS TREVELYAN. This letter he himself put on his wife's dressing-room table, and then he went out to his club. CHAPTER VI. SHEWING HOW RECONCILIATION WAS MADE. "Look at that," said Mrs. Trevelyan, when her sister came into her room about an hour before dinner-time. Nora read the letter, and then asked her sister what she meant to do. "I have written to Mrs. Peacock. I don't know what else I can do. It is very hard upon you,--that you should have been kept at home. But I don't suppose Mr. Glascock would have been at Mrs. Peacock's." "And what else will you do, Emily?" "Nothing;--simply live deserted and forlorn till he shall choose to find his wits again. There is nothing else that a woman can do. If he chooses to dine at his club every day, I can't help it. We must put off all the engagements, and that will be hard upon you." "Don't talk about me. It is too terrible to think that there should be such a quarrel." "What can I do? Have I been wrong?" "Simply do what he tells you, whether it is wrong or right. If it's right, it ought to be done, and if it's wrong, it will not be your fault." "That's very easily said, and it sounds logical; but you must know it's unreasonable." "I don't care about reason. He is your husband, and if he wishes it you should do it. And what will be the harm? You don't mean to see Colonel Osborne any more. You have already said that he's not to be admitted." "I have said that nobody is to be admitted. Louis has driven me to that. How can I look the servant in the face and tell him that any special gentleman is not to be admitted to see me? Oh dear! oh dear! have I done anything to deserve it? Was ever so monstrous an accusation made against any woman! If it were not for my boy, I would defy him to do his worst." On the day following, Nora again became a messenger between the husband and wife, and before dinner-time a reconciliation had been effected. Of course the wife gave way at last; and of course she gave way so cunningly that the husband received none of the gratification which he had expected in her surrender. "Tell him to come," Nora had urged. "Of course he can come if he pleases," Emily had replied. Then Nora had told Louis to come, and Louis had demanded whether, if he did so, the promise which he had exacted would be given. It is to be feared that Nora perverted the truth a little; but if ever such perversion may be forgiven, forgiveness was due to her. If they could only be brought together, she was sure that there would be a reconciliation. They were brought together, and there was a reconciliation. "Dearest Emily, I am so glad to come to you," said the husband, walking up to his wife in their bed-room, and taking her in his arms. [Illustration: Shewing how reconciliation was made.] "I have been very unhappy, Louis, for the last two days," said she, very gravely,--returning his kiss, but returning it somewhat coldly. "We have both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that it was to be made without reserve,--as an act on her part which she had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far as he could judge, either repentant or submissive. "Nora said that you would make me the promise which I ask from you." "I cannot think, Louis, how you can want such a promise from me." "I think it right to ask it; I do indeed." "Can you imagine that I shall ever willingly see this gentleman again after what has occurred? It will be for you to tell the servant. I do not know how I can do that. But, as a matter of course, I will encourage no person to come to your house of whom you disapprove. It would be exactly the same of any man or of any woman." "That is all that I ask." "I am surprised that you should have thought it necessary to make any formal request in the matter. Your word was quite sufficient. That you should find cause of complaint in Colonel Osborne's coming here is of course a different thing." "Quite a different thing," said he. "I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears. I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil thought to me." "Indeed, indeed, I never have," said the husband. "That I can assure you I regard as a matter of course," said the wife. "But you know, Emily, the way in which the world talks." "The world! And do you regard the world, Louis?" "Lady Milborough, I believe, spoke to yourself." "Lady Milborough! No, she did not speak to me. She began to do so, but I was careful to silence her at once. From you, Louis, I am bound to hear whatever you may choose to say to me; but I will not hear from any other lips a single word that may be injurious to your honour." This she said very quietly, with much dignity, and he felt that he had better not answer her. She had given him the promise which he had demanded, and he began to fear that if he pushed the matter further she might go back even from that amount of submission. So he kissed her again, and had the boy brought into the room, and by the time that he went to dress for dinner he was able, at any rate, to seem to be well pleased. "Richard," he said to the servant, as soon as he was down-stairs, "when Colonel Osborne calls again, say that your mistress is--not at home." He gave the order in the most indifferent tone of voice which he could assume; but as he gave it he felt thoroughly ashamed of it. Richard, who, with the other servants, had of course known that there had been a quarrel between his master and mistress for the last two days, no doubt understood all about it. While they were sitting at dinner on the next day, a Saturday, there came another note from Colonel Osborne. The servant brought it to his mistress, and she, when she had looked at it, put it down by her plate. Trevelyan knew immediately from whom the letter had come, and understood how impossible it was for his wife to give it up in the servant's presence. The letter lay there till the man was out of the room, and then she handed it to Nora. "Will you give that to Louis?" she said. "It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover." "Emily!" said he, jumping from his seat, "how can you allow words so horrible and so untrue to fall from your mouth?" "If it be not so, why am I to be placed in such a position as this? The servant knows, of course, from whom the letter comes, and sees that I have been forbidden to open it." Then the man returned to the room, and the remainder of the dinner passed off almost in silence. It was their custom when they dined without company to leave the dining-room together, but on this evening Trevelyan remained for a few minutes that he might read Colonel Osborne's letter. He waited, standing on the rug with his face to the fire-place, till he was quite alone, and then he opened it. It ran as follows:-- House of Commons, Saturday. DEAR EMILY,-- Trevelyan, as he read this, cursed Colonel Osborne between his teeth. DEAR EMILY, I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent now till the middle of June, and that he could not be in London, let him do what he would, till the end of July. They hope to have the session over by that time, and therefore the committee is to be put off till next session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada, and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next, and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months. All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll call to-morrow at luncheon time. Yours always, F. O. There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the "Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife. But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece, thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she was sitting, "you had better read that letter." "I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily. "Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally." Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are not to come after all," said she, "till next February." "And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan. "Something about the session. I don't quite understand." "Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would." "But what has that to do with papa?" "I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora. "I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all is so much of a favour that it is almost a job." "I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody is wanted, and nobody can know more of the service than papa does. But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he say anything about mamma, Nora?" "You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit. "No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too. Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them." This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him, if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this matter." "I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs. Trevelyan. There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his chair and walked round to

impertinent

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

yielding, and gentle to his wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope. It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband's absence from the house, and was as follows:-- Acrobats, Thursday. DEAR EMILY, I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours, F. O. The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs. Trevelyan, when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she was minded to obey him. Had he included in his demand any requirement that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters, and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note, and then sent it down to be put on Mr. Trevelyan's table in an envelope addressed to him. "If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he has wronged me," said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child's features were in all respects the very same as his father's, and that, come what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought. What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel, out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the dust be better for her than that? "It is a very poor thing to be a woman," she said to her sister. "It is perhaps better than being a dog," said Nora; "but, of course, we can't compare ourselves to men." "It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn't be made to suffer so much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough for a few days, but she gets over it in a week." There was a pause then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current of her sister's thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment which she could say on that subject. "It is very hard for a woman to know what to do," continued Emily, "but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some one, though he may not trust his wife." "I will never wittingly marry a fool," said Nora. "You will marry Mr. Glascock, of course. I don't say that he is a fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows itself in perversity." "If he asked me, I should not have him;--and he will never ask me." "He will ask you, and, of course, you'll take him. Why not? You can't be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it." "All the same, I shall not marry Mr. Glascock. A woman can die, at any rate," said Nora. "No, she can't. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is very indecent. She can't die, and she mustn't be in want, and she oughtn't to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you'd mind taking that down-stairs to his table? I don't like to send it by the servant; and I don't want to go myself." Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis Trevelyan would be sure to find it. He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel Osborne's note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address another man's wife as "Dear Emily?" At the moment Trevelyan remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife, that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him, to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as "Dear Emily," according to this man's judgment and wish, and not according to his judgment and wish,--not according to the judgment and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! "Of course you will tell T. now." This was intolerable to him. It made him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and bestowed upon her the half of all that he had simply for herself, asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money, position, a name,--all that makes life worth having. He had found her in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages of family or social standing,--so circumstanced that any friend would have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in return but that he should be all in all to her,--that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,--another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying, that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a good wife. As he thought of all this, he almost regretted that he had ever visited the Mandarins, or ever heard the name of Sir Marmaduke Rowley. He should have nourished no such thoughts in his heart. He had, indeed, been generous to his wife and to his wife's family; but we may almost say that the man who is really generous in such matters, is unconscious of his own generosity. The giver who gives the most, gives, and does not know that he gives. And had not she given too? In that matter of giving between a man and his wife, if each gives all, the two are equal, let the things given be what they may! King Cophetua did nothing for his beggar maid, unless she were to him, after he had married her, as royal a queen as though he had taken her from the oldest stock of reigning families then extant. Trevelyan knew all this himself,--had said so to himself a score of times, though not probably in spoken words or formed sentences. But, that all was equal between himself and the wife of his bosom, had been a thing ascertained by him as a certainty. There was no debt of gratitude from her to him which he did not acknowledge to exist also as from him to her. But yet, in his anger, he could not keep himself from thinking of the gifts he had showered upon her. And he had been, was, would ever be, if she would only allow it, so true to her! He had selected no other friend to take her place in his councils! There was no "dear Mary," or "dear Augusta," with whom he had secrets to be kept from his wife. When there arose with him any question of interest,--question of interest such as was this of the return of Sir Marmaduke to her,--he would show it in all its bearings to his wife. He had his secrets too, but his secrets had all been made secrets for her also. There was not a woman in the world in whose company he took special delight in her absence. And if there had been, how much less would have been her ground of complaint? Let a man have any such friendships,--what friendships he may,--he does not disgrace his wife. He felt himself to be so true of heart that he desired no such friendships; but for a man indulging in such friendships there might be excuse. Even though a man be false, a woman is not shamed and brought unto the dust before all the world. But the slightest rumour on a woman's name is a load of infamy on her husband's shoulders. It was not enough for C sar that his wife should be true; it was necessary to C sar that she should not even be suspected. Trevelyan told himself that he suspected his wife of no sin. God forbid that it should ever come to that, both for his sake and for hers; and, above all, for the sake of that boy who was so dear to them both! But there would be the vile whispers, and dirty slanders would be dropped from envious tongues into envious ears, and minds prone to evil would think evil of him and of his. Had not Lady Milborough already cautioned him? Oh, that he should have lived to have been cautioned about his wife;--that he should be told that eyes outside had looked into the sacred shrine of his heart and seen that things there were fatally amiss! And yet Lady Milborough was quite right. Had he not in his hand at this moment a document that proved her to be right? "Dear Emily!" He took this note and crushed it in his fist, and then pulled it into fragments. But what should he do? There was, first of all considerations, the duty which he owed to his wife, and the love which he bore her. That she was ignorant and innocent he was sure; but then she was so contumacious that he hardly knew how to take a step in the direction of guarding her from the effects of her ignorance, and maintaining for her the advantages of her innocence. He was her master, and she must know that he was her master. But how was he to proceed when she refused to obey the plainest and most necessary command which he laid upon her? Let a man be ever so much his wife's master, he cannot maintain his masterdom by any power which the law places in his hands. He had asked his wife for a promise of obedience, and she would not give it to him! What was he to do next? He could, no doubt,--at least he thought so,--keep the man from her presence. He could order the servant not to admit the man, and the servant would doubtless obey him. But to what a condition would he then have been brought! Would not the world then be over for him,--over for him as the husband of a wife whom he could not love unless he respected her? Better that there should be no such world, than call in the aid of a servant to guard the conduct of his wife! As he thought of it all it seemed to him that if she would not obey him, and give him this promise, they must be separated. He would not live with her, he would not give her the privileges of his wife, if she refused to render to him the obedience which was his privilege. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that he ought not to yield to her. Let her once yield to him, and then his tenderness should begin, and there should be no limit to it. But he would not see her till she had yielded. He would not see her; and if he should find that she did see Colonel Osborne, then he would tell her that she could no longer dwell under the same roof with him. His resolution on these points was very strong, and yet there came over him a feeling that it was his duty to be gentle. There was a feeling also that that privilege of receiving obedience, which was so indubitably his own, could only be maintained by certain wise practices on his part, in which gentleness must predominate. Wives are bound to obey their husbands, but obedience cannot be exacted from wives, as it may from servants, by aid of law and with penalties, or as from a horse, by punishments and manger curtailments. A man should be master in his own house, but he should make his mastery palatable, equitable, smooth, soft to the touch, a thing almost unfelt. How was he to do all this now, when he had already given an order to which obedience had been refused unless under certain stipulations,--an agreement with which would be degradation to him? He had pointed out to his wife her duty, and she had said she would do her duty as pointed out, on condition that he would beg her pardon for having pointed it out! This he could not and would not do. Let the heavens fall,--and the falling of the heavens in this case was a separation between him and his wife,--but he would not consent to such injustice as that! But what was he to do at this moment,--especially with reference to that note which he had destroyed. At last he resolved to write to his wife, and he consequently did write and send to her the following letter:-- May 4. DEAREST EMILY, If Colonel Osborne should write to you again, it will be better that you should not open his letter. As you know his handwriting, you will have no difficulty in so arranging. Should any further letter come from Colonel Osborne addressed to you, you had better put it under cover to me, and take no notice of it yourself. I shall dine at the club to-day. We were to have gone to Mrs. Peacock's in the evening. You had better write a line to say that we shall not be there. I am very sorry that Nora should lose her evening. Pray think very carefully over what I have asked of you. My request to you is, that you shall give me a promise that you will not willingly see Colonel Osborne again. Of course you will understand that this is not supposed to extend to accidental meetings, as to which, should they occur,--and they would be sure to occur,--you would find that they would be wholly unnoticed by me. But I must request that you will comply with my wish in this matter. If you will send for me, I will go to you instantly, and after one word from you to the desired effect, you will find that there will be no recurrence by me to a subject so hateful. As I have done, and am doing what I think to be right, I cannot stultify myself by saying that I think I have been wrong. Yours always, dearest Emily, With the most thorough love, LOUIS TREVELYAN. This letter he himself put on his wife's dressing-room table, and then he went out to his club. CHAPTER VI. SHEWING HOW RECONCILIATION WAS MADE. "Look at that," said Mrs. Trevelyan, when her sister came into her room about an hour before dinner-time. Nora read the letter, and then asked her sister what she meant to do. "I have written to Mrs. Peacock. I don't know what else I can do. It is very hard upon you,--that you should have been kept at home. But I don't suppose Mr. Glascock would have been at Mrs. Peacock's." "And what else will you do, Emily?" "Nothing;--simply live deserted and forlorn till he shall choose to find his wits again. There is nothing else that a woman can do. If he chooses to dine at his club every day, I can't help it. We must put off all the engagements, and that will be hard upon you." "Don't talk about me. It is too terrible to think that there should be such a quarrel." "What can I do? Have I been wrong?" "Simply do what he tells you, whether it is wrong or right. If it's right, it ought to be done, and if it's wrong, it will not be your fault." "That's very easily said, and it sounds logical; but you must know it's unreasonable." "I don't care about reason. He is your husband, and if he wishes it you should do it. And what will be the harm? You don't mean to see Colonel Osborne any more. You have already said that he's not to be admitted." "I have said that nobody is to be admitted. Louis has driven me to that. How can I look the servant in the face and tell him that any special gentleman is not to be admitted to see me? Oh dear! oh dear! have I done anything to deserve it? Was ever so monstrous an accusation made against any woman! If it were not for my boy, I would defy him to do his worst." On the day following, Nora again became a messenger between the husband and wife, and before dinner-time a reconciliation had been effected. Of course the wife gave way at last; and of course she gave way so cunningly that the husband received none of the gratification which he had expected in her surrender. "Tell him to come," Nora had urged. "Of course he can come if he pleases," Emily had replied. Then Nora had told Louis to come, and Louis had demanded whether, if he did so, the promise which he had exacted would be given. It is to be feared that Nora perverted the truth a little; but if ever such perversion may be forgiven, forgiveness was due to her. If they could only be brought together, she was sure that there would be a reconciliation. They were brought together, and there was a reconciliation. "Dearest Emily, I am so glad to come to you," said the husband, walking up to his wife in their bed-room, and taking her in his arms. [Illustration: Shewing how reconciliation was made.] "I have been very unhappy, Louis, for the last two days," said she, very gravely,--returning his kiss, but returning it somewhat coldly. "We have both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that it was to be made without reserve,--as an act on her part which she had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far as he could judge, either repentant or submissive. "Nora said that you would make me the promise which I ask from you." "I cannot think, Louis, how you can want such a promise from me." "I think it right to ask it; I do indeed." "Can you imagine that I shall ever willingly see this gentleman again after what has occurred? It will be for you to tell the servant. I do not know how I can do that. But, as a matter of course, I will encourage no person to come to your house of whom you disapprove. It would be exactly the same of any man or of any woman." "That is all that I ask." "I am surprised that you should have thought it necessary to make any formal request in the matter. Your word was quite sufficient. That you should find cause of complaint in Colonel Osborne's coming here is of course a different thing." "Quite a different thing," said he. "I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears. I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil thought to me." "Indeed, indeed, I never have," said the husband. "That I can assure you I regard as a matter of course," said the wife. "But you know, Emily, the way in which the world talks." "The world! And do you regard the world, Louis?" "Lady Milborough, I believe, spoke to yourself." "Lady Milborough! No, she did not speak to me. She began to do so, but I was careful to silence her at once. From you, Louis, I am bound to hear whatever you may choose to say to me; but I will not hear from any other lips a single word that may be injurious to your honour." This she said very quietly, with much dignity, and he felt that he had better not answer her. She had given him the promise which he had demanded, and he began to fear that if he pushed the matter further she might go back even from that amount of submission. So he kissed her again, and had the boy brought into the room, and by the time that he went to dress for dinner he was able, at any rate, to seem to be well pleased. "Richard," he said to the servant, as soon as he was down-stairs, "when Colonel Osborne calls again, say that your mistress is--not at home." He gave the order in the most indifferent tone of voice which he could assume; but as he gave it he felt thoroughly ashamed of it. Richard, who, with the other servants, had of course known that there had been a quarrel between his master and mistress for the last two days, no doubt understood all about it. While they were sitting at dinner on the next day, a Saturday, there came another note from Colonel Osborne. The servant brought it to his mistress, and she, when she had looked at it, put it down by her plate. Trevelyan knew immediately from whom the letter had come, and understood how impossible it was for his wife to give it up in the servant's presence. The letter lay there till the man was out of the room, and then she handed it to Nora. "Will you give that to Louis?" she said. "It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover." "Emily!" said he, jumping from his seat, "how can you allow words so horrible and so untrue to fall from your mouth?" "If it be not so, why am I to be placed in such a position as this? The servant knows, of course, from whom the letter comes, and sees that I have been forbidden to open it." Then the man returned to the room, and the remainder of the dinner passed off almost in silence. It was their custom when they dined without company to leave the dining-room together, but on this evening Trevelyan remained for a few minutes that he might read Colonel Osborne's letter. He waited, standing on the rug with his face to the fire-place, till he was quite alone, and then he opened it. It ran as follows:-- House of Commons, Saturday. DEAR EMILY,-- Trevelyan, as he read this, cursed Colonel Osborne between his teeth. DEAR EMILY, I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent now till the middle of June, and that he could not be in London, let him do what he would, till the end of July. They hope to have the session over by that time, and therefore the committee is to be put off till next session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada, and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next, and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months. All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll call to-morrow at luncheon time. Yours always, F. O. There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the "Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife. But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece, thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she was sitting, "you had better read that letter." "I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily. "Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally." Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are not to come after all," said she, "till next February." "And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan. "Something about the session. I don't quite understand." "Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would." "But what has that to do with papa?" "I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora. "I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all is so much of a favour that it is almost a job." "I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody is wanted, and nobody can know more of the service than papa does. But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he say anything about mamma, Nora?" "You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit. "No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too. Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them." This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him, if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this matter." "I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs. Trevelyan. There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his chair and walked round to

planning

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

yielding, and gentle to his wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope. It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband's absence from the house, and was as follows:-- Acrobats, Thursday. DEAR EMILY, I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours, F. O. The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs. Trevelyan, when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she was minded to obey him. Had he included in his demand any requirement that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters, and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note, and then sent it down to be put on Mr. Trevelyan's table in an envelope addressed to him. "If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he has wronged me," said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child's features were in all respects the very same as his father's, and that, come what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought. What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel, out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the dust be better for her than that? "It is a very poor thing to be a woman," she said to her sister. "It is perhaps better than being a dog," said Nora; "but, of course, we can't compare ourselves to men." "It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn't be made to suffer so much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough for a few days, but she gets over it in a week." There was a pause then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current of her sister's thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment which she could say on that subject. "It is very hard for a woman to know what to do," continued Emily, "but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some one, though he may not trust his wife." "I will never wittingly marry a fool," said Nora. "You will marry Mr. Glascock, of course. I don't say that he is a fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows itself in perversity." "If he asked me, I should not have him;--and he will never ask me." "He will ask you, and, of course, you'll take him. Why not? You can't be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it." "All the same, I shall not marry Mr. Glascock. A woman can die, at any rate," said Nora. "No, she can't. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is very indecent. She can't die, and she mustn't be in want, and she oughtn't to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you'd mind taking that down-stairs to his table? I don't like to send it by the servant; and I don't want to go myself." Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis Trevelyan would be sure to find it. He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel Osborne's note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address another man's wife as "Dear Emily?" At the moment Trevelyan remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife, that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him, to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as "Dear Emily," according to this man's judgment and wish, and not according to his judgment and wish,--not according to the judgment and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! "Of course you will tell T. now." This was intolerable to him. It made him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and bestowed upon her the half of all that he had simply for herself, asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money, position, a name,--all that makes life worth having. He had found her in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages of family or social standing,--so circumstanced that any friend would have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in return but that he should be all in all to her,--that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,--another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying, that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a good wife. As he thought of all this, he almost regretted that he had ever visited the Mandarins, or ever heard the name of Sir Marmaduke Rowley. He should have nourished no such thoughts in his heart. He had, indeed, been generous to his wife and to his wife's family; but we may almost say that the man who is really generous in such matters, is unconscious of his own generosity. The giver who gives the most, gives, and does not know that he gives. And had not she given too? In that matter of giving between a man and his wife, if each gives all, the two are equal, let the things given be what they may! King Cophetua did nothing for his beggar maid, unless she were to him, after he had married her, as royal a queen as though he had taken her from the oldest stock of reigning families then extant. Trevelyan knew all this himself,--had said so to himself a score of times, though not probably in spoken words or formed sentences. But, that all was equal between himself and the wife of his bosom, had been a thing ascertained by him as a certainty. There was no debt of gratitude from her to him which he did not acknowledge to exist also as from him to her. But yet, in his anger, he could not keep himself from thinking of the gifts he had showered upon her. And he had been, was, would ever be, if she would only allow it, so true to her! He had selected no other friend to take her place in his councils! There was no "dear Mary," or "dear Augusta," with whom he had secrets to be kept from his wife. When there arose with him any question of interest,--question of interest such as was this of the return of Sir Marmaduke to her,--he would show it in all its bearings to his wife. He had his secrets too, but his secrets had all been made secrets for her also. There was not a woman in the world in whose company he took special delight in her absence. And if there had been, how much less would have been her ground of complaint? Let a man have any such friendships,--what friendships he may,--he does not disgrace his wife. He felt himself to be so true of heart that he desired no such friendships; but for a man indulging in such friendships there might be excuse. Even though a man be false, a woman is not shamed and brought unto the dust before all the world. But the slightest rumour on a woman's name is a load of infamy on her husband's shoulders. It was not enough for C sar that his wife should be true; it was necessary to C sar that she should not even be suspected. Trevelyan told himself that he suspected his wife of no sin. God forbid that it should ever come to that, both for his sake and for hers; and, above all, for the sake of that boy who was so dear to them both! But there would be the vile whispers, and dirty slanders would be dropped from envious tongues into envious ears, and minds prone to evil would think evil of him and of his. Had not Lady Milborough already cautioned him? Oh, that he should have lived to have been cautioned about his wife;--that he should be told that eyes outside had looked into the sacred shrine of his heart and seen that things there were fatally amiss! And yet Lady Milborough was quite right. Had he not in his hand at this moment a document that proved her to be right? "Dear Emily!" He took this note and crushed it in his fist, and then pulled it into fragments. But what should he do? There was, first of all considerations, the duty which he owed to his wife, and the love which he bore her. That she was ignorant and innocent he was sure; but then she was so contumacious that he hardly knew how to take a step in the direction of guarding her from the effects of her ignorance, and maintaining for her the advantages of her innocence. He was her master, and she must know that he was her master. But how was he to proceed when she refused to obey the plainest and most necessary command which he laid upon her? Let a man be ever so much his wife's master, he cannot maintain his masterdom by any power which the law places in his hands. He had asked his wife for a promise of obedience, and she would not give it to him! What was he to do next? He could, no doubt,--at least he thought so,--keep the man from her presence. He could order the servant not to admit the man, and the servant would doubtless obey him. But to what a condition would he then have been brought! Would not the world then be over for him,--over for him as the husband of a wife whom he could not love unless he respected her? Better that there should be no such world, than call in the aid of a servant to guard the conduct of his wife! As he thought of it all it seemed to him that if she would not obey him, and give him this promise, they must be separated. He would not live with her, he would not give her the privileges of his wife, if she refused to render to him the obedience which was his privilege. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that he ought not to yield to her. Let her once yield to him, and then his tenderness should begin, and there should be no limit to it. But he would not see her till she had yielded. He would not see her; and if he should find that she did see Colonel Osborne, then he would tell her that she could no longer dwell under the same roof with him. His resolution on these points was very strong, and yet there came over him a feeling that it was his duty to be gentle. There was a feeling also that that privilege of receiving obedience, which was so indubitably his own, could only be maintained by certain wise practices on his part, in which gentleness must predominate. Wives are bound to obey their husbands, but obedience cannot be exacted from wives, as it may from servants, by aid of law and with penalties, or as from a horse, by punishments and manger curtailments. A man should be master in his own house, but he should make his mastery palatable, equitable, smooth, soft to the touch, a thing almost unfelt. How was he to do all this now, when he had already given an order to which obedience had been refused unless under certain stipulations,--an agreement with which would be degradation to him? He had pointed out to his wife her duty, and she had said she would do her duty as pointed out, on condition that he would beg her pardon for having pointed it out! This he could not and would not do. Let the heavens fall,--and the falling of the heavens in this case was a separation between him and his wife,--but he would not consent to such injustice as that! But what was he to do at this moment,--especially with reference to that note which he had destroyed. At last he resolved to write to his wife, and he consequently did write and send to her the following letter:-- May 4. DEAREST EMILY, If Colonel Osborne should write to you again, it will be better that you should not open his letter. As you know his handwriting, you will have no difficulty in so arranging. Should any further letter come from Colonel Osborne addressed to you, you had better put it under cover to me, and take no notice of it yourself. I shall dine at the club to-day. We were to have gone to Mrs. Peacock's in the evening. You had better write a line to say that we shall not be there. I am very sorry that Nora should lose her evening. Pray think very carefully over what I have asked of you. My request to you is, that you shall give me a promise that you will not willingly see Colonel Osborne again. Of course you will understand that this is not supposed to extend to accidental meetings, as to which, should they occur,--and they would be sure to occur,--you would find that they would be wholly unnoticed by me. But I must request that you will comply with my wish in this matter. If you will send for me, I will go to you instantly, and after one word from you to the desired effect, you will find that there will be no recurrence by me to a subject so hateful. As I have done, and am doing what I think to be right, I cannot stultify myself by saying that I think I have been wrong. Yours always, dearest Emily, With the most thorough love, LOUIS TREVELYAN. This letter he himself put on his wife's dressing-room table, and then he went out to his club. CHAPTER VI. SHEWING HOW RECONCILIATION WAS MADE. "Look at that," said Mrs. Trevelyan, when her sister came into her room about an hour before dinner-time. Nora read the letter, and then asked her sister what she meant to do. "I have written to Mrs. Peacock. I don't know what else I can do. It is very hard upon you,--that you should have been kept at home. But I don't suppose Mr. Glascock would have been at Mrs. Peacock's." "And what else will you do, Emily?" "Nothing;--simply live deserted and forlorn till he shall choose to find his wits again. There is nothing else that a woman can do. If he chooses to dine at his club every day, I can't help it. We must put off all the engagements, and that will be hard upon you." "Don't talk about me. It is too terrible to think that there should be such a quarrel." "What can I do? Have I been wrong?" "Simply do what he tells you, whether it is wrong or right. If it's right, it ought to be done, and if it's wrong, it will not be your fault." "That's very easily said, and it sounds logical; but you must know it's unreasonable." "I don't care about reason. He is your husband, and if he wishes it you should do it. And what will be the harm? You don't mean to see Colonel Osborne any more. You have already said that he's not to be admitted." "I have said that nobody is to be admitted. Louis has driven me to that. How can I look the servant in the face and tell him that any special gentleman is not to be admitted to see me? Oh dear! oh dear! have I done anything to deserve it? Was ever so monstrous an accusation made against any woman! If it were not for my boy, I would defy him to do his worst." On the day following, Nora again became a messenger between the husband and wife, and before dinner-time a reconciliation had been effected. Of course the wife gave way at last; and of course she gave way so cunningly that the husband received none of the gratification which he had expected in her surrender. "Tell him to come," Nora had urged. "Of course he can come if he pleases," Emily had replied. Then Nora had told Louis to come, and Louis had demanded whether, if he did so, the promise which he had exacted would be given. It is to be feared that Nora perverted the truth a little; but if ever such perversion may be forgiven, forgiveness was due to her. If they could only be brought together, she was sure that there would be a reconciliation. They were brought together, and there was a reconciliation. "Dearest Emily, I am so glad to come to you," said the husband, walking up to his wife in their bed-room, and taking her in his arms. [Illustration: Shewing how reconciliation was made.] "I have been very unhappy, Louis, for the last two days," said she, very gravely,--returning his kiss, but returning it somewhat coldly. "We have both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that it was to be made without reserve,--as an act on her part which she had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far as he could judge, either repentant or submissive. "Nora said that you would make me the promise which I ask from you." "I cannot think, Louis, how you can want such a promise from me." "I think it right to ask it; I do indeed." "Can you imagine that I shall ever willingly see this gentleman again after what has occurred? It will be for you to tell the servant. I do not know how I can do that. But, as a matter of course, I will encourage no person to come to your house of whom you disapprove. It would be exactly the same of any man or of any woman." "That is all that I ask." "I am surprised that you should have thought it necessary to make any formal request in the matter. Your word was quite sufficient. That you should find cause of complaint in Colonel Osborne's coming here is of course a different thing." "Quite a different thing," said he. "I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears. I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil thought to me." "Indeed, indeed, I never have," said the husband. "That I can assure you I regard as a matter of course," said the wife. "But you know, Emily, the way in which the world talks." "The world! And do you regard the world, Louis?" "Lady Milborough, I believe, spoke to yourself." "Lady Milborough! No, she did not speak to me. She began to do so, but I was careful to silence her at once. From you, Louis, I am bound to hear whatever you may choose to say to me; but I will not hear from any other lips a single word that may be injurious to your honour." This she said very quietly, with much dignity, and he felt that he had better not answer her. She had given him the promise which he had demanded, and he began to fear that if he pushed the matter further she might go back even from that amount of submission. So he kissed her again, and had the boy brought into the room, and by the time that he went to dress for dinner he was able, at any rate, to seem to be well pleased. "Richard," he said to the servant, as soon as he was down-stairs, "when Colonel Osborne calls again, say that your mistress is--not at home." He gave the order in the most indifferent tone of voice which he could assume; but as he gave it he felt thoroughly ashamed of it. Richard, who, with the other servants, had of course known that there had been a quarrel between his master and mistress for the last two days, no doubt understood all about it. While they were sitting at dinner on the next day, a Saturday, there came another note from Colonel Osborne. The servant brought it to his mistress, and she, when she had looked at it, put it down by her plate. Trevelyan knew immediately from whom the letter had come, and understood how impossible it was for his wife to give it up in the servant's presence. The letter lay there till the man was out of the room, and then she handed it to Nora. "Will you give that to Louis?" she said. "It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover." "Emily!" said he, jumping from his seat, "how can you allow words so horrible and so untrue to fall from your mouth?" "If it be not so, why am I to be placed in such a position as this? The servant knows, of course, from whom the letter comes, and sees that I have been forbidden to open it." Then the man returned to the room, and the remainder of the dinner passed off almost in silence. It was their custom when they dined without company to leave the dining-room together, but on this evening Trevelyan remained for a few minutes that he might read Colonel Osborne's letter. He waited, standing on the rug with his face to the fire-place, till he was quite alone, and then he opened it. It ran as follows:-- House of Commons, Saturday. DEAR EMILY,-- Trevelyan, as he read this, cursed Colonel Osborne between his teeth. DEAR EMILY, I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent now till the middle of June, and that he could not be in London, let him do what he would, till the end of July. They hope to have the session over by that time, and therefore the committee is to be put off till next session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada, and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next, and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months. All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll call to-morrow at luncheon time. Yours always, F. O. There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the "Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife. But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece, thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she was sitting, "you had better read that letter." "I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily. "Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally." Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are not to come after all," said she, "till next February." "And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan. "Something about the session. I don't quite understand." "Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would." "But what has that to do with papa?" "I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora. "I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all is so much of a favour that it is almost a job." "I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody is wanted, and nobody can know more of the service than papa does. But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he say anything about mamma, Nora?" "You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit. "No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too. Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them." This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him, if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this matter." "I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs. Trevelyan. There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his chair and walked round to

thursday

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

yielding, and gentle to his wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope. It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband's absence from the house, and was as follows:-- Acrobats, Thursday. DEAR EMILY, I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours, F. O. The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs. Trevelyan, when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she was minded to obey him. Had he included in his demand any requirement that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters, and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note, and then sent it down to be put on Mr. Trevelyan's table in an envelope addressed to him. "If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he has wronged me," said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child's features were in all respects the very same as his father's, and that, come what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought. What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel, out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the dust be better for her than that? "It is a very poor thing to be a woman," she said to her sister. "It is perhaps better than being a dog," said Nora; "but, of course, we can't compare ourselves to men." "It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn't be made to suffer so much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough for a few days, but she gets over it in a week." There was a pause then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current of her sister's thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment which she could say on that subject. "It is very hard for a woman to know what to do," continued Emily, "but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some one, though he may not trust his wife." "I will never wittingly marry a fool," said Nora. "You will marry Mr. Glascock, of course. I don't say that he is a fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows itself in perversity." "If he asked me, I should not have him;--and he will never ask me." "He will ask you, and, of course, you'll take him. Why not? You can't be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it." "All the same, I shall not marry Mr. Glascock. A woman can die, at any rate," said Nora. "No, she can't. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is very indecent. She can't die, and she mustn't be in want, and she oughtn't to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you'd mind taking that down-stairs to his table? I don't like to send it by the servant; and I don't want to go myself." Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis Trevelyan would be sure to find it. He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel Osborne's note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address another man's wife as "Dear Emily?" At the moment Trevelyan remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife, that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him, to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as "Dear Emily," according to this man's judgment and wish, and not according to his judgment and wish,--not according to the judgment and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! "Of course you will tell T. now." This was intolerable to him. It made him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and bestowed upon her the half of all that he had simply for herself, asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money, position, a name,--all that makes life worth having. He had found her in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages of family or social standing,--so circumstanced that any friend would have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in return but that he should be all in all to her,--that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,--another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying, that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a good wife. As he thought of all this, he almost regretted that he had ever visited the Mandarins, or ever heard the name of Sir Marmaduke Rowley. He should have nourished no such thoughts in his heart. He had, indeed, been generous to his wife and to his wife's family; but we may almost say that the man who is really generous in such matters, is unconscious of his own generosity. The giver who gives the most, gives, and does not know that he gives. And had not she given too? In that matter of giving between a man and his wife, if each gives all, the two are equal, let the things given be what they may! King Cophetua did nothing for his beggar maid, unless she were to him, after he had married her, as royal a queen as though he had taken her from the oldest stock of reigning families then extant. Trevelyan knew all this himself,--had said so to himself a score of times, though not probably in spoken words or formed sentences. But, that all was equal between himself and the wife of his bosom, had been a thing ascertained by him as a certainty. There was no debt of gratitude from her to him which he did not acknowledge to exist also as from him to her. But yet, in his anger, he could not keep himself from thinking of the gifts he had showered upon her. And he had been, was, would ever be, if she would only allow it, so true to her! He had selected no other friend to take her place in his councils! There was no "dear Mary," or "dear Augusta," with whom he had secrets to be kept from his wife. When there arose with him any question of interest,--question of interest such as was this of the return of Sir Marmaduke to her,--he would show it in all its bearings to his wife. He had his secrets too, but his secrets had all been made secrets for her also. There was not a woman in the world in whose company he took special delight in her absence. And if there had been, how much less would have been her ground of complaint? Let a man have any such friendships,--what friendships he may,--he does not disgrace his wife. He felt himself to be so true of heart that he desired no such friendships; but for a man indulging in such friendships there might be excuse. Even though a man be false, a woman is not shamed and brought unto the dust before all the world. But the slightest rumour on a woman's name is a load of infamy on her husband's shoulders. It was not enough for C sar that his wife should be true; it was necessary to C sar that she should not even be suspected. Trevelyan told himself that he suspected his wife of no sin. God forbid that it should ever come to that, both for his sake and for hers; and, above all, for the sake of that boy who was so dear to them both! But there would be the vile whispers, and dirty slanders would be dropped from envious tongues into envious ears, and minds prone to evil would think evil of him and of his. Had not Lady Milborough already cautioned him? Oh, that he should have lived to have been cautioned about his wife;--that he should be told that eyes outside had looked into the sacred shrine of his heart and seen that things there were fatally amiss! And yet Lady Milborough was quite right. Had he not in his hand at this moment a document that proved her to be right? "Dear Emily!" He took this note and crushed it in his fist, and then pulled it into fragments. But what should he do? There was, first of all considerations, the duty which he owed to his wife, and the love which he bore her. That she was ignorant and innocent he was sure; but then she was so contumacious that he hardly knew how to take a step in the direction of guarding her from the effects of her ignorance, and maintaining for her the advantages of her innocence. He was her master, and she must know that he was her master. But how was he to proceed when she refused to obey the plainest and most necessary command which he laid upon her? Let a man be ever so much his wife's master, he cannot maintain his masterdom by any power which the law places in his hands. He had asked his wife for a promise of obedience, and she would not give it to him! What was he to do next? He could, no doubt,--at least he thought so,--keep the man from her presence. He could order the servant not to admit the man, and the servant would doubtless obey him. But to what a condition would he then have been brought! Would not the world then be over for him,--over for him as the husband of a wife whom he could not love unless he respected her? Better that there should be no such world, than call in the aid of a servant to guard the conduct of his wife! As he thought of it all it seemed to him that if she would not obey him, and give him this promise, they must be separated. He would not live with her, he would not give her the privileges of his wife, if she refused to render to him the obedience which was his privilege. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that he ought not to yield to her. Let her once yield to him, and then his tenderness should begin, and there should be no limit to it. But he would not see her till she had yielded. He would not see her; and if he should find that she did see Colonel Osborne, then he would tell her that she could no longer dwell under the same roof with him. His resolution on these points was very strong, and yet there came over him a feeling that it was his duty to be gentle. There was a feeling also that that privilege of receiving obedience, which was so indubitably his own, could only be maintained by certain wise practices on his part, in which gentleness must predominate. Wives are bound to obey their husbands, but obedience cannot be exacted from wives, as it may from servants, by aid of law and with penalties, or as from a horse, by punishments and manger curtailments. A man should be master in his own house, but he should make his mastery palatable, equitable, smooth, soft to the touch, a thing almost unfelt. How was he to do all this now, when he had already given an order to which obedience had been refused unless under certain stipulations,--an agreement with which would be degradation to him? He had pointed out to his wife her duty, and she had said she would do her duty as pointed out, on condition that he would beg her pardon for having pointed it out! This he could not and would not do. Let the heavens fall,--and the falling of the heavens in this case was a separation between him and his wife,--but he would not consent to such injustice as that! But what was he to do at this moment,--especially with reference to that note which he had destroyed. At last he resolved to write to his wife, and he consequently did write and send to her the following letter:-- May 4. DEAREST EMILY, If Colonel Osborne should write to you again, it will be better that you should not open his letter. As you know his handwriting, you will have no difficulty in so arranging. Should any further letter come from Colonel Osborne addressed to you, you had better put it under cover to me, and take no notice of it yourself. I shall dine at the club to-day. We were to have gone to Mrs. Peacock's in the evening. You had better write a line to say that we shall not be there. I am very sorry that Nora should lose her evening. Pray think very carefully over what I have asked of you. My request to you is, that you shall give me a promise that you will not willingly see Colonel Osborne again. Of course you will understand that this is not supposed to extend to accidental meetings, as to which, should they occur,--and they would be sure to occur,--you would find that they would be wholly unnoticed by me. But I must request that you will comply with my wish in this matter. If you will send for me, I will go to you instantly, and after one word from you to the desired effect, you will find that there will be no recurrence by me to a subject so hateful. As I have done, and am doing what I think to be right, I cannot stultify myself by saying that I think I have been wrong. Yours always, dearest Emily, With the most thorough love, LOUIS TREVELYAN. This letter he himself put on his wife's dressing-room table, and then he went out to his club. CHAPTER VI. SHEWING HOW RECONCILIATION WAS MADE. "Look at that," said Mrs. Trevelyan, when her sister came into her room about an hour before dinner-time. Nora read the letter, and then asked her sister what she meant to do. "I have written to Mrs. Peacock. I don't know what else I can do. It is very hard upon you,--that you should have been kept at home. But I don't suppose Mr. Glascock would have been at Mrs. Peacock's." "And what else will you do, Emily?" "Nothing;--simply live deserted and forlorn till he shall choose to find his wits again. There is nothing else that a woman can do. If he chooses to dine at his club every day, I can't help it. We must put off all the engagements, and that will be hard upon you." "Don't talk about me. It is too terrible to think that there should be such a quarrel." "What can I do? Have I been wrong?" "Simply do what he tells you, whether it is wrong or right. If it's right, it ought to be done, and if it's wrong, it will not be your fault." "That's very easily said, and it sounds logical; but you must know it's unreasonable." "I don't care about reason. He is your husband, and if he wishes it you should do it. And what will be the harm? You don't mean to see Colonel Osborne any more. You have already said that he's not to be admitted." "I have said that nobody is to be admitted. Louis has driven me to that. How can I look the servant in the face and tell him that any special gentleman is not to be admitted to see me? Oh dear! oh dear! have I done anything to deserve it? Was ever so monstrous an accusation made against any woman! If it were not for my boy, I would defy him to do his worst." On the day following, Nora again became a messenger between the husband and wife, and before dinner-time a reconciliation had been effected. Of course the wife gave way at last; and of course she gave way so cunningly that the husband received none of the gratification which he had expected in her surrender. "Tell him to come," Nora had urged. "Of course he can come if he pleases," Emily had replied. Then Nora had told Louis to come, and Louis had demanded whether, if he did so, the promise which he had exacted would be given. It is to be feared that Nora perverted the truth a little; but if ever such perversion may be forgiven, forgiveness was due to her. If they could only be brought together, she was sure that there would be a reconciliation. They were brought together, and there was a reconciliation. "Dearest Emily, I am so glad to come to you," said the husband, walking up to his wife in their bed-room, and taking her in his arms. [Illustration: Shewing how reconciliation was made.] "I have been very unhappy, Louis, for the last two days," said she, very gravely,--returning his kiss, but returning it somewhat coldly. "We have both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that it was to be made without reserve,--as an act on her part which she had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far as he could judge, either repentant or submissive. "Nora said that you would make me the promise which I ask from you." "I cannot think, Louis, how you can want such a promise from me." "I think it right to ask it; I do indeed." "Can you imagine that I shall ever willingly see this gentleman again after what has occurred? It will be for you to tell the servant. I do not know how I can do that. But, as a matter of course, I will encourage no person to come to your house of whom you disapprove. It would be exactly the same of any man or of any woman." "That is all that I ask." "I am surprised that you should have thought it necessary to make any formal request in the matter. Your word was quite sufficient. That you should find cause of complaint in Colonel Osborne's coming here is of course a different thing." "Quite a different thing," said he. "I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears. I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil thought to me." "Indeed, indeed, I never have," said the husband. "That I can assure you I regard as a matter of course," said the wife. "But you know, Emily, the way in which the world talks." "The world! And do you regard the world, Louis?" "Lady Milborough, I believe, spoke to yourself." "Lady Milborough! No, she did not speak to me. She began to do so, but I was careful to silence her at once. From you, Louis, I am bound to hear whatever you may choose to say to me; but I will not hear from any other lips a single word that may be injurious to your honour." This she said very quietly, with much dignity, and he felt that he had better not answer her. She had given him the promise which he had demanded, and he began to fear that if he pushed the matter further she might go back even from that amount of submission. So he kissed her again, and had the boy brought into the room, and by the time that he went to dress for dinner he was able, at any rate, to seem to be well pleased. "Richard," he said to the servant, as soon as he was down-stairs, "when Colonel Osborne calls again, say that your mistress is--not at home." He gave the order in the most indifferent tone of voice which he could assume; but as he gave it he felt thoroughly ashamed of it. Richard, who, with the other servants, had of course known that there had been a quarrel between his master and mistress for the last two days, no doubt understood all about it. While they were sitting at dinner on the next day, a Saturday, there came another note from Colonel Osborne. The servant brought it to his mistress, and she, when she had looked at it, put it down by her plate. Trevelyan knew immediately from whom the letter had come, and understood how impossible it was for his wife to give it up in the servant's presence. The letter lay there till the man was out of the room, and then she handed it to Nora. "Will you give that to Louis?" she said. "It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover." "Emily!" said he, jumping from his seat, "how can you allow words so horrible and so untrue to fall from your mouth?" "If it be not so, why am I to be placed in such a position as this? The servant knows, of course, from whom the letter comes, and sees that I have been forbidden to open it." Then the man returned to the room, and the remainder of the dinner passed off almost in silence. It was their custom when they dined without company to leave the dining-room together, but on this evening Trevelyan remained for a few minutes that he might read Colonel Osborne's letter. He waited, standing on the rug with his face to the fire-place, till he was quite alone, and then he opened it. It ran as follows:-- House of Commons, Saturday. DEAR EMILY,-- Trevelyan, as he read this, cursed Colonel Osborne between his teeth. DEAR EMILY, I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent now till the middle of June, and that he could not be in London, let him do what he would, till the end of July. They hope to have the session over by that time, and therefore the committee is to be put off till next session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada, and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next, and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months. All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll call to-morrow at luncheon time. Yours always, F. O. There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the "Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife. But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece, thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she was sitting, "you had better read that letter." "I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily. "Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally." Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are not to come after all," said she, "till next February." "And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan. "Something about the session. I don't quite understand." "Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would." "But what has that to do with papa?" "I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora. "I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all is so much of a favour that it is almost a job." "I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody is wanted, and nobody can know more of the service than papa does. But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he say anything about mamma, Nora?" "You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit. "No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too. Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them." This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him, if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this matter." "I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs. Trevelyan. There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his chair and walked round to

so

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

yielding, and gentle to his wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope. It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband's absence from the house, and was as follows:-- Acrobats, Thursday. DEAR EMILY, I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours, F. O. The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs. Trevelyan, when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she was minded to obey him. Had he included in his demand any requirement that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters, and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note, and then sent it down to be put on Mr. Trevelyan's table in an envelope addressed to him. "If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he has wronged me," said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child's features were in all respects the very same as his father's, and that, come what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought. What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel, out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the dust be better for her than that? "It is a very poor thing to be a woman," she said to her sister. "It is perhaps better than being a dog," said Nora; "but, of course, we can't compare ourselves to men." "It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn't be made to suffer so much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough for a few days, but she gets over it in a week." There was a pause then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current of her sister's thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment which she could say on that subject. "It is very hard for a woman to know what to do," continued Emily, "but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some one, though he may not trust his wife." "I will never wittingly marry a fool," said Nora. "You will marry Mr. Glascock, of course. I don't say that he is a fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows itself in perversity." "If he asked me, I should not have him;--and he will never ask me." "He will ask you, and, of course, you'll take him. Why not? You can't be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it." "All the same, I shall not marry Mr. Glascock. A woman can die, at any rate," said Nora. "No, she can't. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is very indecent. She can't die, and she mustn't be in want, and she oughtn't to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you'd mind taking that down-stairs to his table? I don't like to send it by the servant; and I don't want to go myself." Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis Trevelyan would be sure to find it. He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel Osborne's note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address another man's wife as "Dear Emily?" At the moment Trevelyan remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife, that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him, to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as "Dear Emily," according to this man's judgment and wish, and not according to his judgment and wish,--not according to the judgment and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! "Of course you will tell T. now." This was intolerable to him. It made him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and bestowed upon her the half of all that he had simply for herself, asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money, position, a name,--all that makes life worth having. He had found her in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages of family or social standing,--so circumstanced that any friend would have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in return but that he should be all in all to her,--that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,--another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying, that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a good wife. As he thought of all this, he almost regretted that he had ever visited the Mandarins, or ever heard the name of Sir Marmaduke Rowley. He should have nourished no such thoughts in his heart. He had, indeed, been generous to his wife and to his wife's family; but we may almost say that the man who is really generous in such matters, is unconscious of his own generosity. The giver who gives the most, gives, and does not know that he gives. And had not she given too? In that matter of giving between a man and his wife, if each gives all, the two are equal, let the things given be what they may! King Cophetua did nothing for his beggar maid, unless she were to him, after he had married her, as royal a queen as though he had taken her from the oldest stock of reigning families then extant. Trevelyan knew all this himself,--had said so to himself a score of times, though not probably in spoken words or formed sentences. But, that all was equal between himself and the wife of his bosom, had been a thing ascertained by him as a certainty. There was no debt of gratitude from her to him which he did not acknowledge to exist also as from him to her. But yet, in his anger, he could not keep himself from thinking of the gifts he had showered upon her. And he had been, was, would ever be, if she would only allow it, so true to her! He had selected no other friend to take her place in his councils! There was no "dear Mary," or "dear Augusta," with whom he had secrets to be kept from his wife. When there arose with him any question of interest,--question of interest such as was this of the return of Sir Marmaduke to her,--he would show it in all its bearings to his wife. He had his secrets too, but his secrets had all been made secrets for her also. There was not a woman in the world in whose company he took special delight in her absence. And if there had been, how much less would have been her ground of complaint? Let a man have any such friendships,--what friendships he may,--he does not disgrace his wife. He felt himself to be so true of heart that he desired no such friendships; but for a man indulging in such friendships there might be excuse. Even though a man be false, a woman is not shamed and brought unto the dust before all the world. But the slightest rumour on a woman's name is a load of infamy on her husband's shoulders. It was not enough for C sar that his wife should be true; it was necessary to C sar that she should not even be suspected. Trevelyan told himself that he suspected his wife of no sin. God forbid that it should ever come to that, both for his sake and for hers; and, above all, for the sake of that boy who was so dear to them both! But there would be the vile whispers, and dirty slanders would be dropped from envious tongues into envious ears, and minds prone to evil would think evil of him and of his. Had not Lady Milborough already cautioned him? Oh, that he should have lived to have been cautioned about his wife;--that he should be told that eyes outside had looked into the sacred shrine of his heart and seen that things there were fatally amiss! And yet Lady Milborough was quite right. Had he not in his hand at this moment a document that proved her to be right? "Dear Emily!" He took this note and crushed it in his fist, and then pulled it into fragments. But what should he do? There was, first of all considerations, the duty which he owed to his wife, and the love which he bore her. That she was ignorant and innocent he was sure; but then she was so contumacious that he hardly knew how to take a step in the direction of guarding her from the effects of her ignorance, and maintaining for her the advantages of her innocence. He was her master, and she must know that he was her master. But how was he to proceed when she refused to obey the plainest and most necessary command which he laid upon her? Let a man be ever so much his wife's master, he cannot maintain his masterdom by any power which the law places in his hands. He had asked his wife for a promise of obedience, and she would not give it to him! What was he to do next? He could, no doubt,--at least he thought so,--keep the man from her presence. He could order the servant not to admit the man, and the servant would doubtless obey him. But to what a condition would he then have been brought! Would not the world then be over for him,--over for him as the husband of a wife whom he could not love unless he respected her? Better that there should be no such world, than call in the aid of a servant to guard the conduct of his wife! As he thought of it all it seemed to him that if she would not obey him, and give him this promise, they must be separated. He would not live with her, he would not give her the privileges of his wife, if she refused to render to him the obedience which was his privilege. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that he ought not to yield to her. Let her once yield to him, and then his tenderness should begin, and there should be no limit to it. But he would not see her till she had yielded. He would not see her; and if he should find that she did see Colonel Osborne, then he would tell her that she could no longer dwell under the same roof with him. His resolution on these points was very strong, and yet there came over him a feeling that it was his duty to be gentle. There was a feeling also that that privilege of receiving obedience, which was so indubitably his own, could only be maintained by certain wise practices on his part, in which gentleness must predominate. Wives are bound to obey their husbands, but obedience cannot be exacted from wives, as it may from servants, by aid of law and with penalties, or as from a horse, by punishments and manger curtailments. A man should be master in his own house, but he should make his mastery palatable, equitable, smooth, soft to the touch, a thing almost unfelt. How was he to do all this now, when he had already given an order to which obedience had been refused unless under certain stipulations,--an agreement with which would be degradation to him? He had pointed out to his wife her duty, and she had said she would do her duty as pointed out, on condition that he would beg her pardon for having pointed it out! This he could not and would not do. Let the heavens fall,--and the falling of the heavens in this case was a separation between him and his wife,--but he would not consent to such injustice as that! But what was he to do at this moment,--especially with reference to that note which he had destroyed. At last he resolved to write to his wife, and he consequently did write and send to her the following letter:-- May 4. DEAREST EMILY, If Colonel Osborne should write to you again, it will be better that you should not open his letter. As you know his handwriting, you will have no difficulty in so arranging. Should any further letter come from Colonel Osborne addressed to you, you had better put it under cover to me, and take no notice of it yourself. I shall dine at the club to-day. We were to have gone to Mrs. Peacock's in the evening. You had better write a line to say that we shall not be there. I am very sorry that Nora should lose her evening. Pray think very carefully over what I have asked of you. My request to you is, that you shall give me a promise that you will not willingly see Colonel Osborne again. Of course you will understand that this is not supposed to extend to accidental meetings, as to which, should they occur,--and they would be sure to occur,--you would find that they would be wholly unnoticed by me. But I must request that you will comply with my wish in this matter. If you will send for me, I will go to you instantly, and after one word from you to the desired effect, you will find that there will be no recurrence by me to a subject so hateful. As I have done, and am doing what I think to be right, I cannot stultify myself by saying that I think I have been wrong. Yours always, dearest Emily, With the most thorough love, LOUIS TREVELYAN. This letter he himself put on his wife's dressing-room table, and then he went out to his club. CHAPTER VI. SHEWING HOW RECONCILIATION WAS MADE. "Look at that," said Mrs. Trevelyan, when her sister came into her room about an hour before dinner-time. Nora read the letter, and then asked her sister what she meant to do. "I have written to Mrs. Peacock. I don't know what else I can do. It is very hard upon you,--that you should have been kept at home. But I don't suppose Mr. Glascock would have been at Mrs. Peacock's." "And what else will you do, Emily?" "Nothing;--simply live deserted and forlorn till he shall choose to find his wits again. There is nothing else that a woman can do. If he chooses to dine at his club every day, I can't help it. We must put off all the engagements, and that will be hard upon you." "Don't talk about me. It is too terrible to think that there should be such a quarrel." "What can I do? Have I been wrong?" "Simply do what he tells you, whether it is wrong or right. If it's right, it ought to be done, and if it's wrong, it will not be your fault." "That's very easily said, and it sounds logical; but you must know it's unreasonable." "I don't care about reason. He is your husband, and if he wishes it you should do it. And what will be the harm? You don't mean to see Colonel Osborne any more. You have already said that he's not to be admitted." "I have said that nobody is to be admitted. Louis has driven me to that. How can I look the servant in the face and tell him that any special gentleman is not to be admitted to see me? Oh dear! oh dear! have I done anything to deserve it? Was ever so monstrous an accusation made against any woman! If it were not for my boy, I would defy him to do his worst." On the day following, Nora again became a messenger between the husband and wife, and before dinner-time a reconciliation had been effected. Of course the wife gave way at last; and of course she gave way so cunningly that the husband received none of the gratification which he had expected in her surrender. "Tell him to come," Nora had urged. "Of course he can come if he pleases," Emily had replied. Then Nora had told Louis to come, and Louis had demanded whether, if he did so, the promise which he had exacted would be given. It is to be feared that Nora perverted the truth a little; but if ever such perversion may be forgiven, forgiveness was due to her. If they could only be brought together, she was sure that there would be a reconciliation. They were brought together, and there was a reconciliation. "Dearest Emily, I am so glad to come to you," said the husband, walking up to his wife in their bed-room, and taking her in his arms. [Illustration: Shewing how reconciliation was made.] "I have been very unhappy, Louis, for the last two days," said she, very gravely,--returning his kiss, but returning it somewhat coldly. "We have both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that it was to be made without reserve,--as an act on her part which she had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far as he could judge, either repentant or submissive. "Nora said that you would make me the promise which I ask from you." "I cannot think, Louis, how you can want such a promise from me." "I think it right to ask it; I do indeed." "Can you imagine that I shall ever willingly see this gentleman again after what has occurred? It will be for you to tell the servant. I do not know how I can do that. But, as a matter of course, I will encourage no person to come to your house of whom you disapprove. It would be exactly the same of any man or of any woman." "That is all that I ask." "I am surprised that you should have thought it necessary to make any formal request in the matter. Your word was quite sufficient. That you should find cause of complaint in Colonel Osborne's coming here is of course a different thing." "Quite a different thing," said he. "I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears. I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil thought to me." "Indeed, indeed, I never have," said the husband. "That I can assure you I regard as a matter of course," said the wife. "But you know, Emily, the way in which the world talks." "The world! And do you regard the world, Louis?" "Lady Milborough, I believe, spoke to yourself." "Lady Milborough! No, she did not speak to me. She began to do so, but I was careful to silence her at once. From you, Louis, I am bound to hear whatever you may choose to say to me; but I will not hear from any other lips a single word that may be injurious to your honour." This she said very quietly, with much dignity, and he felt that he had better not answer her. She had given him the promise which he had demanded, and he began to fear that if he pushed the matter further she might go back even from that amount of submission. So he kissed her again, and had the boy brought into the room, and by the time that he went to dress for dinner he was able, at any rate, to seem to be well pleased. "Richard," he said to the servant, as soon as he was down-stairs, "when Colonel Osborne calls again, say that your mistress is--not at home." He gave the order in the most indifferent tone of voice which he could assume; but as he gave it he felt thoroughly ashamed of it. Richard, who, with the other servants, had of course known that there had been a quarrel between his master and mistress for the last two days, no doubt understood all about it. While they were sitting at dinner on the next day, a Saturday, there came another note from Colonel Osborne. The servant brought it to his mistress, and she, when she had looked at it, put it down by her plate. Trevelyan knew immediately from whom the letter had come, and understood how impossible it was for his wife to give it up in the servant's presence. The letter lay there till the man was out of the room, and then she handed it to Nora. "Will you give that to Louis?" she said. "It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover." "Emily!" said he, jumping from his seat, "how can you allow words so horrible and so untrue to fall from your mouth?" "If it be not so, why am I to be placed in such a position as this? The servant knows, of course, from whom the letter comes, and sees that I have been forbidden to open it." Then the man returned to the room, and the remainder of the dinner passed off almost in silence. It was their custom when they dined without company to leave the dining-room together, but on this evening Trevelyan remained for a few minutes that he might read Colonel Osborne's letter. He waited, standing on the rug with his face to the fire-place, till he was quite alone, and then he opened it. It ran as follows:-- House of Commons, Saturday. DEAR EMILY,-- Trevelyan, as he read this, cursed Colonel Osborne between his teeth. DEAR EMILY, I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent now till the middle of June, and that he could not be in London, let him do what he would, till the end of July. They hope to have the session over by that time, and therefore the committee is to be put off till next session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada, and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next, and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months. All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll call to-morrow at luncheon time. Yours always, F. O. There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the "Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife. But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece, thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she was sitting, "you had better read that letter." "I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily. "Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally." Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are not to come after all," said she, "till next February." "And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan. "Something about the session. I don't quite understand." "Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would." "But what has that to do with papa?" "I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora. "I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all is so much of a favour that it is almost a job." "I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody is wanted, and nobody can know more of the service than papa does. But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he say anything about mamma, Nora?" "You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit. "No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too. Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them." This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him, if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this matter." "I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs. Trevelyan. There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his chair and walked round to

power

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

yielding, and gentle to his wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope. It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband's absence from the house, and was as follows:-- Acrobats, Thursday. DEAR EMILY, I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours, F. O. The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs. Trevelyan, when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she was minded to obey him. Had he included in his demand any requirement that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters, and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note, and then sent it down to be put on Mr. Trevelyan's table in an envelope addressed to him. "If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he has wronged me," said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child's features were in all respects the very same as his father's, and that, come what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought. What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel, out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the dust be better for her than that? "It is a very poor thing to be a woman," she said to her sister. "It is perhaps better than being a dog," said Nora; "but, of course, we can't compare ourselves to men." "It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn't be made to suffer so much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough for a few days, but she gets over it in a week." There was a pause then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current of her sister's thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment which she could say on that subject. "It is very hard for a woman to know what to do," continued Emily, "but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some one, though he may not trust his wife." "I will never wittingly marry a fool," said Nora. "You will marry Mr. Glascock, of course. I don't say that he is a fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows itself in perversity." "If he asked me, I should not have him;--and he will never ask me." "He will ask you, and, of course, you'll take him. Why not? You can't be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it." "All the same, I shall not marry Mr. Glascock. A woman can die, at any rate," said Nora. "No, she can't. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is very indecent. She can't die, and she mustn't be in want, and she oughtn't to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you'd mind taking that down-stairs to his table? I don't like to send it by the servant; and I don't want to go myself." Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis Trevelyan would be sure to find it. He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel Osborne's note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address another man's wife as "Dear Emily?" At the moment Trevelyan remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife, that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him, to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as "Dear Emily," according to this man's judgment and wish, and not according to his judgment and wish,--not according to the judgment and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! "Of course you will tell T. now." This was intolerable to him. It made him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and bestowed upon her the half of all that he had simply for herself, asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money, position, a name,--all that makes life worth having. He had found her in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages of family or social standing,--so circumstanced that any friend would have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in return but that he should be all in all to her,--that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,--another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying, that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a good wife. As he thought of all this, he almost regretted that he had ever visited the Mandarins, or ever heard the name of Sir Marmaduke Rowley. He should have nourished no such thoughts in his heart. He had, indeed, been generous to his wife and to his wife's family; but we may almost say that the man who is really generous in such matters, is unconscious of his own generosity. The giver who gives the most, gives, and does not know that he gives. And had not she given too? In that matter of giving between a man and his wife, if each gives all, the two are equal, let the things given be what they may! King Cophetua did nothing for his beggar maid, unless she were to him, after he had married her, as royal a queen as though he had taken her from the oldest stock of reigning families then extant. Trevelyan knew all this himself,--had said so to himself a score of times, though not probably in spoken words or formed sentences. But, that all was equal between himself and the wife of his bosom, had been a thing ascertained by him as a certainty. There was no debt of gratitude from her to him which he did not acknowledge to exist also as from him to her. But yet, in his anger, he could not keep himself from thinking of the gifts he had showered upon her. And he had been, was, would ever be, if she would only allow it, so true to her! He had selected no other friend to take her place in his councils! There was no "dear Mary," or "dear Augusta," with whom he had secrets to be kept from his wife. When there arose with him any question of interest,--question of interest such as was this of the return of Sir Marmaduke to her,--he would show it in all its bearings to his wife. He had his secrets too, but his secrets had all been made secrets for her also. There was not a woman in the world in whose company he took special delight in her absence. And if there had been, how much less would have been her ground of complaint? Let a man have any such friendships,--what friendships he may,--he does not disgrace his wife. He felt himself to be so true of heart that he desired no such friendships; but for a man indulging in such friendships there might be excuse. Even though a man be false, a woman is not shamed and brought unto the dust before all the world. But the slightest rumour on a woman's name is a load of infamy on her husband's shoulders. It was not enough for C sar that his wife should be true; it was necessary to C sar that she should not even be suspected. Trevelyan told himself that he suspected his wife of no sin. God forbid that it should ever come to that, both for his sake and for hers; and, above all, for the sake of that boy who was so dear to them both! But there would be the vile whispers, and dirty slanders would be dropped from envious tongues into envious ears, and minds prone to evil would think evil of him and of his. Had not Lady Milborough already cautioned him? Oh, that he should have lived to have been cautioned about his wife;--that he should be told that eyes outside had looked into the sacred shrine of his heart and seen that things there were fatally amiss! And yet Lady Milborough was quite right. Had he not in his hand at this moment a document that proved her to be right? "Dear Emily!" He took this note and crushed it in his fist, and then pulled it into fragments. But what should he do? There was, first of all considerations, the duty which he owed to his wife, and the love which he bore her. That she was ignorant and innocent he was sure; but then she was so contumacious that he hardly knew how to take a step in the direction of guarding her from the effects of her ignorance, and maintaining for her the advantages of her innocence. He was her master, and she must know that he was her master. But how was he to proceed when she refused to obey the plainest and most necessary command which he laid upon her? Let a man be ever so much his wife's master, he cannot maintain his masterdom by any power which the law places in his hands. He had asked his wife for a promise of obedience, and she would not give it to him! What was he to do next? He could, no doubt,--at least he thought so,--keep the man from her presence. He could order the servant not to admit the man, and the servant would doubtless obey him. But to what a condition would he then have been brought! Would not the world then be over for him,--over for him as the husband of a wife whom he could not love unless he respected her? Better that there should be no such world, than call in the aid of a servant to guard the conduct of his wife! As he thought of it all it seemed to him that if she would not obey him, and give him this promise, they must be separated. He would not live with her, he would not give her the privileges of his wife, if she refused to render to him the obedience which was his privilege. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that he ought not to yield to her. Let her once yield to him, and then his tenderness should begin, and there should be no limit to it. But he would not see her till she had yielded. He would not see her; and if he should find that she did see Colonel Osborne, then he would tell her that she could no longer dwell under the same roof with him. His resolution on these points was very strong, and yet there came over him a feeling that it was his duty to be gentle. There was a feeling also that that privilege of receiving obedience, which was so indubitably his own, could only be maintained by certain wise practices on his part, in which gentleness must predominate. Wives are bound to obey their husbands, but obedience cannot be exacted from wives, as it may from servants, by aid of law and with penalties, or as from a horse, by punishments and manger curtailments. A man should be master in his own house, but he should make his mastery palatable, equitable, smooth, soft to the touch, a thing almost unfelt. How was he to do all this now, when he had already given an order to which obedience had been refused unless under certain stipulations,--an agreement with which would be degradation to him? He had pointed out to his wife her duty, and she had said she would do her duty as pointed out, on condition that he would beg her pardon for having pointed it out! This he could not and would not do. Let the heavens fall,--and the falling of the heavens in this case was a separation between him and his wife,--but he would not consent to such injustice as that! But what was he to do at this moment,--especially with reference to that note which he had destroyed. At last he resolved to write to his wife, and he consequently did write and send to her the following letter:-- May 4. DEAREST EMILY, If Colonel Osborne should write to you again, it will be better that you should not open his letter. As you know his handwriting, you will have no difficulty in so arranging. Should any further letter come from Colonel Osborne addressed to you, you had better put it under cover to me, and take no notice of it yourself. I shall dine at the club to-day. We were to have gone to Mrs. Peacock's in the evening. You had better write a line to say that we shall not be there. I am very sorry that Nora should lose her evening. Pray think very carefully over what I have asked of you. My request to you is, that you shall give me a promise that you will not willingly see Colonel Osborne again. Of course you will understand that this is not supposed to extend to accidental meetings, as to which, should they occur,--and they would be sure to occur,--you would find that they would be wholly unnoticed by me. But I must request that you will comply with my wish in this matter. If you will send for me, I will go to you instantly, and after one word from you to the desired effect, you will find that there will be no recurrence by me to a subject so hateful. As I have done, and am doing what I think to be right, I cannot stultify myself by saying that I think I have been wrong. Yours always, dearest Emily, With the most thorough love, LOUIS TREVELYAN. This letter he himself put on his wife's dressing-room table, and then he went out to his club. CHAPTER VI. SHEWING HOW RECONCILIATION WAS MADE. "Look at that," said Mrs. Trevelyan, when her sister came into her room about an hour before dinner-time. Nora read the letter, and then asked her sister what she meant to do. "I have written to Mrs. Peacock. I don't know what else I can do. It is very hard upon you,--that you should have been kept at home. But I don't suppose Mr. Glascock would have been at Mrs. Peacock's." "And what else will you do, Emily?" "Nothing;--simply live deserted and forlorn till he shall choose to find his wits again. There is nothing else that a woman can do. If he chooses to dine at his club every day, I can't help it. We must put off all the engagements, and that will be hard upon you." "Don't talk about me. It is too terrible to think that there should be such a quarrel." "What can I do? Have I been wrong?" "Simply do what he tells you, whether it is wrong or right. If it's right, it ought to be done, and if it's wrong, it will not be your fault." "That's very easily said, and it sounds logical; but you must know it's unreasonable." "I don't care about reason. He is your husband, and if he wishes it you should do it. And what will be the harm? You don't mean to see Colonel Osborne any more. You have already said that he's not to be admitted." "I have said that nobody is to be admitted. Louis has driven me to that. How can I look the servant in the face and tell him that any special gentleman is not to be admitted to see me? Oh dear! oh dear! have I done anything to deserve it? Was ever so monstrous an accusation made against any woman! If it were not for my boy, I would defy him to do his worst." On the day following, Nora again became a messenger between the husband and wife, and before dinner-time a reconciliation had been effected. Of course the wife gave way at last; and of course she gave way so cunningly that the husband received none of the gratification which he had expected in her surrender. "Tell him to come," Nora had urged. "Of course he can come if he pleases," Emily had replied. Then Nora had told Louis to come, and Louis had demanded whether, if he did so, the promise which he had exacted would be given. It is to be feared that Nora perverted the truth a little; but if ever such perversion may be forgiven, forgiveness was due to her. If they could only be brought together, she was sure that there would be a reconciliation. They were brought together, and there was a reconciliation. "Dearest Emily, I am so glad to come to you," said the husband, walking up to his wife in their bed-room, and taking her in his arms. [Illustration: Shewing how reconciliation was made.] "I have been very unhappy, Louis, for the last two days," said she, very gravely,--returning his kiss, but returning it somewhat coldly. "We have both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that it was to be made without reserve,--as an act on her part which she had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far as he could judge, either repentant or submissive. "Nora said that you would make me the promise which I ask from you." "I cannot think, Louis, how you can want such a promise from me." "I think it right to ask it; I do indeed." "Can you imagine that I shall ever willingly see this gentleman again after what has occurred? It will be for you to tell the servant. I do not know how I can do that. But, as a matter of course, I will encourage no person to come to your house of whom you disapprove. It would be exactly the same of any man or of any woman." "That is all that I ask." "I am surprised that you should have thought it necessary to make any formal request in the matter. Your word was quite sufficient. That you should find cause of complaint in Colonel Osborne's coming here is of course a different thing." "Quite a different thing," said he. "I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears. I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil thought to me." "Indeed, indeed, I never have," said the husband. "That I can assure you I regard as a matter of course," said the wife. "But you know, Emily, the way in which the world talks." "The world! And do you regard the world, Louis?" "Lady Milborough, I believe, spoke to yourself." "Lady Milborough! No, she did not speak to me. She began to do so, but I was careful to silence her at once. From you, Louis, I am bound to hear whatever you may choose to say to me; but I will not hear from any other lips a single word that may be injurious to your honour." This she said very quietly, with much dignity, and he felt that he had better not answer her. She had given him the promise which he had demanded, and he began to fear that if he pushed the matter further she might go back even from that amount of submission. So he kissed her again, and had the boy brought into the room, and by the time that he went to dress for dinner he was able, at any rate, to seem to be well pleased. "Richard," he said to the servant, as soon as he was down-stairs, "when Colonel Osborne calls again, say that your mistress is--not at home." He gave the order in the most indifferent tone of voice which he could assume; but as he gave it he felt thoroughly ashamed of it. Richard, who, with the other servants, had of course known that there had been a quarrel between his master and mistress for the last two days, no doubt understood all about it. While they were sitting at dinner on the next day, a Saturday, there came another note from Colonel Osborne. The servant brought it to his mistress, and she, when she had looked at it, put it down by her plate. Trevelyan knew immediately from whom the letter had come, and understood how impossible it was for his wife to give it up in the servant's presence. The letter lay there till the man was out of the room, and then she handed it to Nora. "Will you give that to Louis?" she said. "It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover." "Emily!" said he, jumping from his seat, "how can you allow words so horrible and so untrue to fall from your mouth?" "If it be not so, why am I to be placed in such a position as this? The servant knows, of course, from whom the letter comes, and sees that I have been forbidden to open it." Then the man returned to the room, and the remainder of the dinner passed off almost in silence. It was their custom when they dined without company to leave the dining-room together, but on this evening Trevelyan remained for a few minutes that he might read Colonel Osborne's letter. He waited, standing on the rug with his face to the fire-place, till he was quite alone, and then he opened it. It ran as follows:-- House of Commons, Saturday. DEAR EMILY,-- Trevelyan, as he read this, cursed Colonel Osborne between his teeth. DEAR EMILY, I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent now till the middle of June, and that he could not be in London, let him do what he would, till the end of July. They hope to have the session over by that time, and therefore the committee is to be put off till next session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada, and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next, and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months. All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll call to-morrow at luncheon time. Yours always, F. O. There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the "Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife. But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece, thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she was sitting, "you had better read that letter." "I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily. "Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally." Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are not to come after all," said she, "till next February." "And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan. "Something about the session. I don't quite understand." "Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would." "But what has that to do with papa?" "I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora. "I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all is so much of a favour that it is almost a job." "I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody is wanted, and nobody can know more of the service than papa does. But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he say anything about mamma, Nora?" "You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit. "No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too. Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them." This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him, if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this matter." "I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs. Trevelyan. There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his chair and walked round to

lump

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yielding, and gentle to his wife. But there was not a word written by his wife within the envelope. It contained simply another letter, already opened, addressed to her. This letter had been brought up to her during her husband's absence from the house, and was as follows:-- Acrobats, Thursday. DEAR EMILY, I have just come from the Colonial Office. It is all settled, and Sir M. has been sent for. Of course, you will tell T. now. Yours, F. O. The letter was, of course, from Colonel Osborne, and Mrs. Trevelyan, when she received it, had had great doubts whether she would enclose it to her husband opened or unopened. She had hitherto refused to make the promise which her husband exacted, but nevertheless, she was minded to obey him. Had he included in his demand any requirement that she should receive no letter from Colonel Osborne, she would not have opened this one. But nothing had been said about letters, and she would not shew herself to be afraid. So she read the note, and then sent it down to be put on Mr. Trevelyan's table in an envelope addressed to him. "If he is not altogether blinded, it will show him how cruelly he has wronged me," said she to her sister. She was sitting at the time with her boy in her lap, telling herself that the child's features were in all respects the very same as his father's, and that, come what come might, the child should always be taught by her to love and respect his father. And then there came a horrible thought. What if the child should be taken away from her? If this quarrel, out of which she saw no present mode of escape, were to lead to a separation between her and her husband, would not the law, and the judges, and the courts, and all the Lady Milboroughs of their joint acquaintance into the bargain, say that the child should go with his father? The judges, and the courts, and the Lady Milboroughs would, of course, say that she was the sinner. And what could she do without her boy? Would not any humility, any grovelling in the dust be better for her than that? "It is a very poor thing to be a woman," she said to her sister. "It is perhaps better than being a dog," said Nora; "but, of course, we can't compare ourselves to men." "It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn't be made to suffer so much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad enough for a few days, but she gets over it in a week." There was a pause then for a few moments. Nora knew well which way ran the current of her sister's thoughts, and had nothing at the present moment which she could say on that subject. "It is very hard for a woman to know what to do," continued Emily, "but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool. After all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will trust some one, though he may not trust his wife." "I will never wittingly marry a fool," said Nora. "You will marry Mr. Glascock, of course. I don't say that he is a fool; but I do not think he has that kind of strength which shows itself in perversity." "If he asked me, I should not have him;--and he will never ask me." "He will ask you, and, of course, you'll take him. Why not? You can't be otherwise than a woman. And you must marry. And this man is a gentleman, and will be a peer. There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire. Louis intends to set the Thames on fire some day, and see what comes of it." "All the same, I shall not marry Mr. Glascock. A woman can die, at any rate," said Nora. "No, she can't. A woman must be decent; and to die of want is very indecent. She can't die, and she mustn't be in want, and she oughtn't to be a burden. I suppose it was thought necessary that every man should have two to choose from; and therefore there are so many more of us than the world wants. I wonder whether you'd mind taking that down-stairs to his table? I don't like to send it by the servant; and I don't want to go myself." Then Nora had taken the letter down, and left it where Louis Trevelyan would be sure to find it. He did find it, and was sorely disappointed when he perceived that it contained no word from his wife to himself. He opened Colonel Osborne's note, and read it, and became, as he did so, almost more angry than before. Who was this man that he should dare to address another man's wife as "Dear Emily?" At the moment Trevelyan remembered well enough that he had heard the man so call his wife, that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, was to show to him, to her husband, or was not to show to him, the letter which she received from this man, the letter in which she was addressed as "Dear Emily," according to this man's judgment and wish, and not according to his judgment and wish,--not according to the judgment and wish of him who was her husband, her lord, and her master! "Of course you will tell T. now." This was intolerable to him. It made him feel that he was to be regarded as second, and this man to be regarded as first. And then he began to recapitulate all the good things he had done for his wife, and all the causes which he had given her for gratitude. Had he not taken her to his bosom, and bestowed upon her the half of all that he had simply for herself, asking for nothing more than her love? He had possessed money, position, a name,--all that makes life worth having. He had found her in a remote corner of the world, with no fortune, with no advantages of family or social standing,--so circumstanced that any friend would have warned him against such a marriage; but he had given her his heart, and his hand, and his house, and had asked for nothing in return but that he should be all in all to her,--that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,--another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around her. He thought that he could remember to have heard it said in early days, long before he himself had had an idea of marrying, that no man should look for a wife from among the tropics, that women educated amidst the languors of those sunny climes rarely came to possess those high ideas of conjugal duty and feminine truth which a man should regard as the first requisites of a good wife. As he thought of all this, he almost regretted that he had ever visited the Mandarins, or ever heard the name of Sir Marmaduke Rowley. He should have nourished no such thoughts in his heart. He had, indeed, been generous to his wife and to his wife's family; but we may almost say that the man who is really generous in such matters, is unconscious of his own generosity. The giver who gives the most, gives, and does not know that he gives. And had not she given too? In that matter of giving between a man and his wife, if each gives all, the two are equal, let the things given be what they may! King Cophetua did nothing for his beggar maid, unless she were to him, after he had married her, as royal a queen as though he had taken her from the oldest stock of reigning families then extant. Trevelyan knew all this himself,--had said so to himself a score of times, though not probably in spoken words or formed sentences. But, that all was equal between himself and the wife of his bosom, had been a thing ascertained by him as a certainty. There was no debt of gratitude from her to him which he did not acknowledge to exist also as from him to her. But yet, in his anger, he could not keep himself from thinking of the gifts he had showered upon her. And he had been, was, would ever be, if she would only allow it, so true to her! He had selected no other friend to take her place in his councils! There was no "dear Mary," or "dear Augusta," with whom he had secrets to be kept from his wife. When there arose with him any question of interest,--question of interest such as was this of the return of Sir Marmaduke to her,--he would show it in all its bearings to his wife. He had his secrets too, but his secrets had all been made secrets for her also. There was not a woman in the world in whose company he took special delight in her absence. And if there had been, how much less would have been her ground of complaint? Let a man have any such friendships,--what friendships he may,--he does not disgrace his wife. He felt himself to be so true of heart that he desired no such friendships; but for a man indulging in such friendships there might be excuse. Even though a man be false, a woman is not shamed and brought unto the dust before all the world. But the slightest rumour on a woman's name is a load of infamy on her husband's shoulders. It was not enough for C sar that his wife should be true; it was necessary to C sar that she should not even be suspected. Trevelyan told himself that he suspected his wife of no sin. God forbid that it should ever come to that, both for his sake and for hers; and, above all, for the sake of that boy who was so dear to them both! But there would be the vile whispers, and dirty slanders would be dropped from envious tongues into envious ears, and minds prone to evil would think evil of him and of his. Had not Lady Milborough already cautioned him? Oh, that he should have lived to have been cautioned about his wife;--that he should be told that eyes outside had looked into the sacred shrine of his heart and seen that things there were fatally amiss! And yet Lady Milborough was quite right. Had he not in his hand at this moment a document that proved her to be right? "Dear Emily!" He took this note and crushed it in his fist, and then pulled it into fragments. But what should he do? There was, first of all considerations, the duty which he owed to his wife, and the love which he bore her. That she was ignorant and innocent he was sure; but then she was so contumacious that he hardly knew how to take a step in the direction of guarding her from the effects of her ignorance, and maintaining for her the advantages of her innocence. He was her master, and she must know that he was her master. But how was he to proceed when she refused to obey the plainest and most necessary command which he laid upon her? Let a man be ever so much his wife's master, he cannot maintain his masterdom by any power which the law places in his hands. He had asked his wife for a promise of obedience, and she would not give it to him! What was he to do next? He could, no doubt,--at least he thought so,--keep the man from her presence. He could order the servant not to admit the man, and the servant would doubtless obey him. But to what a condition would he then have been brought! Would not the world then be over for him,--over for him as the husband of a wife whom he could not love unless he respected her? Better that there should be no such world, than call in the aid of a servant to guard the conduct of his wife! As he thought of it all it seemed to him that if she would not obey him, and give him this promise, they must be separated. He would not live with her, he would not give her the privileges of his wife, if she refused to render to him the obedience which was his privilege. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that he ought not to yield to her. Let her once yield to him, and then his tenderness should begin, and there should be no limit to it. But he would not see her till she had yielded. He would not see her; and if he should find that she did see Colonel Osborne, then he would tell her that she could no longer dwell under the same roof with him. His resolution on these points was very strong, and yet there came over him a feeling that it was his duty to be gentle. There was a feeling also that that privilege of receiving obedience, which was so indubitably his own, could only be maintained by certain wise practices on his part, in which gentleness must predominate. Wives are bound to obey their husbands, but obedience cannot be exacted from wives, as it may from servants, by aid of law and with penalties, or as from a horse, by punishments and manger curtailments. A man should be master in his own house, but he should make his mastery palatable, equitable, smooth, soft to the touch, a thing almost unfelt. How was he to do all this now, when he had already given an order to which obedience had been refused unless under certain stipulations,--an agreement with which would be degradation to him? He had pointed out to his wife her duty, and she had said she would do her duty as pointed out, on condition that he would beg her pardon for having pointed it out! This he could not and would not do. Let the heavens fall,--and the falling of the heavens in this case was a separation between him and his wife,--but he would not consent to such injustice as that! But what was he to do at this moment,--especially with reference to that note which he had destroyed. At last he resolved to write to his wife, and he consequently did write and send to her the following letter:-- May 4. DEAREST EMILY, If Colonel Osborne should write to you again, it will be better that you should not open his letter. As you know his handwriting, you will have no difficulty in so arranging. Should any further letter come from Colonel Osborne addressed to you, you had better put it under cover to me, and take no notice of it yourself. I shall dine at the club to-day. We were to have gone to Mrs. Peacock's in the evening. You had better write a line to say that we shall not be there. I am very sorry that Nora should lose her evening. Pray think very carefully over what I have asked of you. My request to you is, that you shall give me a promise that you will not willingly see Colonel Osborne again. Of course you will understand that this is not supposed to extend to accidental meetings, as to which, should they occur,--and they would be sure to occur,--you would find that they would be wholly unnoticed by me. But I must request that you will comply with my wish in this matter. If you will send for me, I will go to you instantly, and after one word from you to the desired effect, you will find that there will be no recurrence by me to a subject so hateful. As I have done, and am doing what I think to be right, I cannot stultify myself by saying that I think I have been wrong. Yours always, dearest Emily, With the most thorough love, LOUIS TREVELYAN. This letter he himself put on his wife's dressing-room table, and then he went out to his club. CHAPTER VI. SHEWING HOW RECONCILIATION WAS MADE. "Look at that," said Mrs. Trevelyan, when her sister came into her room about an hour before dinner-time. Nora read the letter, and then asked her sister what she meant to do. "I have written to Mrs. Peacock. I don't know what else I can do. It is very hard upon you,--that you should have been kept at home. But I don't suppose Mr. Glascock would have been at Mrs. Peacock's." "And what else will you do, Emily?" "Nothing;--simply live deserted and forlorn till he shall choose to find his wits again. There is nothing else that a woman can do. If he chooses to dine at his club every day, I can't help it. We must put off all the engagements, and that will be hard upon you." "Don't talk about me. It is too terrible to think that there should be such a quarrel." "What can I do? Have I been wrong?" "Simply do what he tells you, whether it is wrong or right. If it's right, it ought to be done, and if it's wrong, it will not be your fault." "That's very easily said, and it sounds logical; but you must know it's unreasonable." "I don't care about reason. He is your husband, and if he wishes it you should do it. And what will be the harm? You don't mean to see Colonel Osborne any more. You have already said that he's not to be admitted." "I have said that nobody is to be admitted. Louis has driven me to that. How can I look the servant in the face and tell him that any special gentleman is not to be admitted to see me? Oh dear! oh dear! have I done anything to deserve it? Was ever so monstrous an accusation made against any woman! If it were not for my boy, I would defy him to do his worst." On the day following, Nora again became a messenger between the husband and wife, and before dinner-time a reconciliation had been effected. Of course the wife gave way at last; and of course she gave way so cunningly that the husband received none of the gratification which he had expected in her surrender. "Tell him to come," Nora had urged. "Of course he can come if he pleases," Emily had replied. Then Nora had told Louis to come, and Louis had demanded whether, if he did so, the promise which he had exacted would be given. It is to be feared that Nora perverted the truth a little; but if ever such perversion may be forgiven, forgiveness was due to her. If they could only be brought together, she was sure that there would be a reconciliation. They were brought together, and there was a reconciliation. "Dearest Emily, I am so glad to come to you," said the husband, walking up to his wife in their bed-room, and taking her in his arms. [Illustration: Shewing how reconciliation was made.] "I have been very unhappy, Louis, for the last two days," said she, very gravely,--returning his kiss, but returning it somewhat coldly. "We have both been unhappy, I am sure," said he. Then he paused that the promise might be made to him. He had certainly understood that it was to be made without reserve,--as an act on her part which she had fully consented to perform. But she stood silent, with one hand on the dressing-table, looking away from him, very beautiful, and dignified too, in her manner; but not, as far as he could judge, either repentant or submissive. "Nora said that you would make me the promise which I ask from you." "I cannot think, Louis, how you can want such a promise from me." "I think it right to ask it; I do indeed." "Can you imagine that I shall ever willingly see this gentleman again after what has occurred? It will be for you to tell the servant. I do not know how I can do that. But, as a matter of course, I will encourage no person to come to your house of whom you disapprove. It would be exactly the same of any man or of any woman." "That is all that I ask." "I am surprised that you should have thought it necessary to make any formal request in the matter. Your word was quite sufficient. That you should find cause of complaint in Colonel Osborne's coming here is of course a different thing." "Quite a different thing," said he. "I cannot pretend to understand either your motives or your fears. I do not understand them. My own self-respect prevents me from supposing it to be possible that you have attributed an evil thought to me." "Indeed, indeed, I never have," said the husband. "That I can assure you I regard as a matter of course," said the wife. "But you know, Emily, the way in which the world talks." "The world! And do you regard the world, Louis?" "Lady Milborough, I believe, spoke to yourself." "Lady Milborough! No, she did not speak to me. She began to do so, but I was careful to silence her at once. From you, Louis, I am bound to hear whatever you may choose to say to me; but I will not hear from any other lips a single word that may be injurious to your honour." This she said very quietly, with much dignity, and he felt that he had better not answer her. She had given him the promise which he had demanded, and he began to fear that if he pushed the matter further she might go back even from that amount of submission. So he kissed her again, and had the boy brought into the room, and by the time that he went to dress for dinner he was able, at any rate, to seem to be well pleased. "Richard," he said to the servant, as soon as he was down-stairs, "when Colonel Osborne calls again, say that your mistress is--not at home." He gave the order in the most indifferent tone of voice which he could assume; but as he gave it he felt thoroughly ashamed of it. Richard, who, with the other servants, had of course known that there had been a quarrel between his master and mistress for the last two days, no doubt understood all about it. While they were sitting at dinner on the next day, a Saturday, there came another note from Colonel Osborne. The servant brought it to his mistress, and she, when she had looked at it, put it down by her plate. Trevelyan knew immediately from whom the letter had come, and understood how impossible it was for his wife to give it up in the servant's presence. The letter lay there till the man was out of the room, and then she handed it to Nora. "Will you give that to Louis?" she said. "It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover." "Emily!" said he, jumping from his seat, "how can you allow words so horrible and so untrue to fall from your mouth?" "If it be not so, why am I to be placed in such a position as this? The servant knows, of course, from whom the letter comes, and sees that I have been forbidden to open it." Then the man returned to the room, and the remainder of the dinner passed off almost in silence. It was their custom when they dined without company to leave the dining-room together, but on this evening Trevelyan remained for a few minutes that he might read Colonel Osborne's letter. He waited, standing on the rug with his face to the fire-place, till he was quite alone, and then he opened it. It ran as follows:-- House of Commons, Saturday. DEAR EMILY,-- Trevelyan, as he read this, cursed Colonel Osborne between his teeth. DEAR EMILY, I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent now till the middle of June, and that he could not be in London, let him do what he would, till the end of July. They hope to have the session over by that time, and therefore the committee is to be put off till next session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada, and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next, and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months. All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll call to-morrow at luncheon time. Yours always, F. O. There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the "Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife. But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece, thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she was sitting, "you had better read that letter." "I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily. "Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally." Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are not to come after all," said she, "till next February." "And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan. "Something about the session. I don't quite understand." "Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would." "But what has that to do with papa?" "I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora. "I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all is so much of a favour that it is almost a job." "I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody is wanted, and nobody can know more of the service than papa does. But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he say anything about mamma, Nora?" "You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit. "No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too. Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them." This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him, if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this matter." "I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs. Trevelyan. There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his chair and walked round to

find

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you WILL be,--you'll HAVE to, if I do the picture--which will make a lovely memento")--Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: "Pure bluff, you know--Jim couldn't pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll's high and dry since the Ararat investigation." She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue. "You mean they've lost their money? Won't they give their fancy ball, then?" Van Degen shrugged. "Nobody knows how it's coming out That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball--says he's going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street-railways." Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen's announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt's name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the "Ararat Trust Investigation," but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt--the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!--could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he "saw things big"; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be "loafing and fooling," as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course--I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress." The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge. "It doesn't look like a last year's face, anyhow--that's what makes them all wild," Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple's tea. But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dress-maker to take it back. "Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. "I don't know--I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot." "Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold." Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where are you off to?" "West End Avenue, of course--if I can find a cab to take me there." It was not the least of Undine's grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg's first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg's financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, more-over, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy's birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house. But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother's plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation--the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: "Do let me give you a lift home, dear--Oh, I'd forgotten! I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far--" It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on "lifts," openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!) but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being "out of things." Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. "Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mind the open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner." The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin. "Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on a strap in the elevated." The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter's sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his "bad" real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way--she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be "talked about" with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for "nice women." She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good. Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor. "What's the matter? Isn't everything all right?" His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary "niceness" seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material "bothers"--as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he "didn't care to part"); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he'd give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: "Oh, hang waiting for the bill--won't a couple of thou make it all right?" in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life. The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down--with a nod for his "Everything jolly again now?"--to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy--and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his "nagging" that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs. "Mercy! It's the boy's birthday--I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I'd forgotten!" XV In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. "No sign of her. She's simply forgotten." Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock. "Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late." Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come." She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled. "Put them out, please," she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen. "It's all so unlucky--my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boy here at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's always breaking her engagements." "She has so many that it's inevitable some should get broken." "All if she'd only choose! Now that Ralph has had into business, and is kept in his office so late, it's cruel of her to drag him out every night. He told us the other day they hadn't dined at home for a month. Undine doesn't seem to notice how hard he works." Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. "No--why should she?" "Why SHOULD she? Really, Charles--!" "Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?" "She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it's her extravagance that's forced him into it." Mrs. Fairford looked at Bowen reproachfully. "You talk as if you were on her side!" "Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartially from the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view of the whole problem of American marriages." Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh. "If that's what you want you must make haste! Most of them don't last long enough to be classified." "I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is so frequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it." "What do you call the weak point?" He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife." Mrs. Fairford was up with a spring. "If that's where paradox lands you!" Bowen mildly stood his ground. "Well--doesn't he prove it? How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph for instance--you say his wife's extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that's not what's wrong. It's normal for a man to work hard for a woman--what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it." "To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!" "Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again--I don't mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in THEM." Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her. "YOU don't? The American man doesn't--the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing--?" "Yes; and the most indifferent: there's the point. The 'slaving's' no argument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they've ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn't know what else to do with it." "Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?" "Not necessarily--but it's a want of imagination to fancy it's all he owes her. Look about you and you'll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middle of the picture. I'm not implying that Ralph isn't interested in his wife--he's a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman's drawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? The emotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In America the real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement in wrecking railways than homes." Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. "Isn't that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we'd give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what's the result--how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy's with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male--the money and the motors and the clothes--and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT'S what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you're going to say--it's less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping out of some man's way!" Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: "And is Undine one of the exceptions?" Her companion took the shot with a smile. "No--she's a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It's Ralph who's the victim and the exception." "Ah, poor Ralph!" Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. "I hear him now. I suppose," she added in an undertone, "we can't give him your explanation for his wife's having forgotten to come?" Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered. "Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles--have you been celebrating too?" Ralph turned to his sister. "It's outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren't look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays." He returned Mrs. Fairford's kiss. "Don't tell me the party's over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?" As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell. "Sit down, Ralph--you look tired. I'll give you some tea." He dropped into an arm-chair. "I did have rather a rush to get here--but hadn't I better join the revellers? Where are they?" He walked to the end of the room and threw open the dining-room doors. "Hallo--where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!" He went up to it. "Why, it's never even been cut!" Mrs. Fairford called after him: "Come and have your tea first." "No, no--tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with my grandfather? I must make my peace with Undine--" His sister put her arm through his, and drew him back to the fire. "Undine didn't come." "Didn't come? Who brought the boy, then?" "He didn't come either. That's why the cake's not cut." Ralph frowned. "What's the mystery? Is he ill, or what's happened?" "Nothing's happened--Paul's all right. Apparently Undine forgot. She never went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late to come." She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew out his cigarette case. "Poor little Paul--poor chap!" He moved toward the fire. "Yes, please--some tea." He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if some strong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but before the tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was on his feet again. "But this won't do. I must rush home and see the poor chap before dinner. And my mother--and my grandfather? I want to say a word to them--I must make Paul's excuses!" "Grandfather's taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for a postponed committee meeting--she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn't coming." "Ah, I see." He sat down again. "Yes, make the strong, please. I've had a beastly fagging sort of day." He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother under lowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralph presently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into his former attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staring apathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and started up. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels at the door. "There's Undine! I wonder what could have kept her." He jumped up and walked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight of him she gave a little murmur of pleasure. "What luck to find you! No, not luck--I came because I knew you'd be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!" Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford and then turned back to Ralph. "Yes, I knew I'd catch you here. I knew it was the boy's birthday, and I've brought him a present: a vulgar expensive Van Degen offering. I've not enough imagination left to find the right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When I look for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: 'I want this or that'--I simply say: 'Give me something that costs so much.'" She drew a parcel from her muff. "Where's the victim of my vulgarity? Let me crush him under the weight of my gold." Mrs. Fairford sighed out "Clare--Clare!" and Ralph smiled at his cousin. "I'm sorry; but you'll have to depute me to present it. The birthday's over; you're too late." She looked surprised. "Why, I've just left Mamie Driscoll, and she told me Undine was still at Popple's studio a few minutes ago: Popple's giving a tea to show the picture." "Popple's giving a tea?" Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. "Ah, in that case--! In Popple's society who wouldn't forget the flight of time?" He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. Van Degen's words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. "Will you trust me with your present for the boy?" Clare gave him the parcel. "I'm sorry not to give it myself. I said what I did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking--but it's really a battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our revered great-grandmother." "What--the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. "That's dear of you!" She threw him one of her strange glances. "Why not say: 'That's like you?' But you don't remember what I'm like." She turned away to glance at the clock. "It's late, and I must be off. I'm going to a big dinner at the Chauncey Ellings'--but you must be going there too, Ralph? You'd better let me drive you home." In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawn over their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-topped objects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through the crowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare's presence at his side gave him a vague sense of ease. For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, not this relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small daily deceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, marked by one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment that formed the point beyond which there was no returning. It was the moment, a month or two before his boy's birth, when, glancing over a batch of belated Paris bills, he had come on one from the jeweller he had once found in private conference with Undine. The bill was not large, but two of its items stood out sharply. "Resetting pearl and diamond pendant. Resetting sapphire and diamond ring." The pearl and diamond pendant was his mother's wedding present; the ring was the one he had given Undine on their engagement. That they were both family relics, kept unchanged through several generations, scarcely mattered to him at the time: he felt only the stab of his wife's deception. She had assured him in Paris that she had not had her jewels reset. He had noticed, soon after their return to New York, that she had left off her engagement-ring; but the others were soon discarded also, and in answer to his question she had told him that, in her ailing state, rings "worried" her. Now he saw she had deceived him, and, forgetting everything else, he went to her, bill in hand. Her tears and distress filled him with immediate contrition. Was this a time to torment her about trifles? His anger seemed to cause her actual physical fear, and at the sight he abased himself in entreaties for forgiveness. When the scene ended she had pardoned him, and the reset ring was on her finger... Soon afterward, the birth of the boy seemed to wipe out these humiliating memories; yet Marvell found in time that they were not effaced, but only momentarily crowded out of sight. In reality, the incident had a meaning out of proportion to its apparent seriousness, for it put in his hand a clue to a new side of his wife's character. He no longer minded her having lied about the jeweller; what pained him was that she had been unconscious of the wound she inflicted in destroying the identity of the jewels. He saw that, even after their explanation, she still supposed he was angry only because she had deceived him; and the discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feeling on which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in their relation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare Van Degen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him more alive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. After all, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. She was light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose; but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have lied to him or traded on his tenderness. Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voiced mood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did not sound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things: of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of the costume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurring rumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysterious personality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street was beginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after his marriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with a firm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first time with the drama of "business," and whenever he could turn his attention from his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierce interplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard things of Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd of money-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, the humorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests; and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the fact that no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired the information which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "I should like to see him," Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of the one of the few picturesque types we've got." "Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesque types in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room." Clare considered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing them together." "Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?" "Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must have been some years ago. Yes--it was one night at the theatre, just after you announced your engagement." He fancied her voice trembled slightly, as though she thought he might notice her way of dating her memories. "You came into our box," she went on, "and I asked you the name of the red-faced man who was sitting in the stall next to Undine. You didn't know, but some one told us it was Moffatt." Marvell was more struck by her tone than by what she was saying. "If Undine knows him it's odd she's never mentioned it," he answered indifferently. The motor stopped at his door and Clare, as she held out her hand, turned a first full look on him. "Why do you never come to see me? I miss you more than ever," she said. He pressed her hand without answering, but after the motor had rolled away he stood for a while on the pavement, looking after it. When he entered the house the hall

carry

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

you WILL be,--you'll HAVE to, if I do the picture--which will make a lovely memento")--Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: "Pure bluff, you know--Jim couldn't pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll's high and dry since the Ararat investigation." She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue. "You mean they've lost their money? Won't they give their fancy ball, then?" Van Degen shrugged. "Nobody knows how it's coming out That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball--says he's going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street-railways." Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen's announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt's name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the "Ararat Trust Investigation," but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt--the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!--could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he "saw things big"; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be "loafing and fooling," as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course--I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress." The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge. "It doesn't look like a last year's face, anyhow--that's what makes them all wild," Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple's tea. But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dress-maker to take it back. "Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. "I don't know--I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot." "Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold." Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where are you off to?" "West End Avenue, of course--if I can find a cab to take me there." It was not the least of Undine's grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg's first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg's financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, more-over, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy's birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house. But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother's plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation--the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: "Do let me give you a lift home, dear--Oh, I'd forgotten! I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far--" It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on "lifts," openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!) but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being "out of things." Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. "Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mind the open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner." The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin. "Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on a strap in the elevated." The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter's sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his "bad" real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way--she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be "talked about" with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for "nice women." She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good. Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor. "What's the matter? Isn't everything all right?" His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary "niceness" seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material "bothers"--as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he "didn't care to part"); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he'd give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: "Oh, hang waiting for the bill--won't a couple of thou make it all right?" in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life. The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down--with a nod for his "Everything jolly again now?"--to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy--and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his "nagging" that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs. "Mercy! It's the boy's birthday--I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I'd forgotten!" XV In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. "No sign of her. She's simply forgotten." Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock. "Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late." Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come." She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled. "Put them out, please," she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen. "It's all so unlucky--my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boy here at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's always breaking her engagements." "She has so many that it's inevitable some should get broken." "All if she'd only choose! Now that Ralph has had into business, and is kept in his office so late, it's cruel of her to drag him out every night. He told us the other day they hadn't dined at home for a month. Undine doesn't seem to notice how hard he works." Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. "No--why should she?" "Why SHOULD she? Really, Charles--!" "Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?" "She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it's her extravagance that's forced him into it." Mrs. Fairford looked at Bowen reproachfully. "You talk as if you were on her side!" "Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartially from the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view of the whole problem of American marriages." Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh. "If that's what you want you must make haste! Most of them don't last long enough to be classified." "I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is so frequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it." "What do you call the weak point?" He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife." Mrs. Fairford was up with a spring. "If that's where paradox lands you!" Bowen mildly stood his ground. "Well--doesn't he prove it? How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph for instance--you say his wife's extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that's not what's wrong. It's normal for a man to work hard for a woman--what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it." "To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!" "Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again--I don't mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in THEM." Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her. "YOU don't? The American man doesn't--the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing--?" "Yes; and the most indifferent: there's the point. The 'slaving's' no argument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they've ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn't know what else to do with it." "Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?" "Not necessarily--but it's a want of imagination to fancy it's all he owes her. Look about you and you'll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middle of the picture. I'm not implying that Ralph isn't interested in his wife--he's a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman's drawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? The emotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In America the real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement in wrecking railways than homes." Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. "Isn't that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we'd give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what's the result--how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy's with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male--the money and the motors and the clothes--and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT'S what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you're going to say--it's less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping out of some man's way!" Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: "And is Undine one of the exceptions?" Her companion took the shot with a smile. "No--she's a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It's Ralph who's the victim and the exception." "Ah, poor Ralph!" Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. "I hear him now. I suppose," she added in an undertone, "we can't give him your explanation for his wife's having forgotten to come?" Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered. "Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles--have you been celebrating too?" Ralph turned to his sister. "It's outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren't look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays." He returned Mrs. Fairford's kiss. "Don't tell me the party's over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?" As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell. "Sit down, Ralph--you look tired. I'll give you some tea." He dropped into an arm-chair. "I did have rather a rush to get here--but hadn't I better join the revellers? Where are they?" He walked to the end of the room and threw open the dining-room doors. "Hallo--where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!" He went up to it. "Why, it's never even been cut!" Mrs. Fairford called after him: "Come and have your tea first." "No, no--tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with my grandfather? I must make my peace with Undine--" His sister put her arm through his, and drew him back to the fire. "Undine didn't come." "Didn't come? Who brought the boy, then?" "He didn't come either. That's why the cake's not cut." Ralph frowned. "What's the mystery? Is he ill, or what's happened?" "Nothing's happened--Paul's all right. Apparently Undine forgot. She never went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late to come." She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew out his cigarette case. "Poor little Paul--poor chap!" He moved toward the fire. "Yes, please--some tea." He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if some strong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but before the tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was on his feet again. "But this won't do. I must rush home and see the poor chap before dinner. And my mother--and my grandfather? I want to say a word to them--I must make Paul's excuses!" "Grandfather's taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for a postponed committee meeting--she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn't coming." "Ah, I see." He sat down again. "Yes, make the strong, please. I've had a beastly fagging sort of day." He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother under lowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralph presently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into his former attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staring apathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and started up. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels at the door. "There's Undine! I wonder what could have kept her." He jumped up and walked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight of him she gave a little murmur of pleasure. "What luck to find you! No, not luck--I came because I knew you'd be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!" Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford and then turned back to Ralph. "Yes, I knew I'd catch you here. I knew it was the boy's birthday, and I've brought him a present: a vulgar expensive Van Degen offering. I've not enough imagination left to find the right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When I look for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: 'I want this or that'--I simply say: 'Give me something that costs so much.'" She drew a parcel from her muff. "Where's the victim of my vulgarity? Let me crush him under the weight of my gold." Mrs. Fairford sighed out "Clare--Clare!" and Ralph smiled at his cousin. "I'm sorry; but you'll have to depute me to present it. The birthday's over; you're too late." She looked surprised. "Why, I've just left Mamie Driscoll, and she told me Undine was still at Popple's studio a few minutes ago: Popple's giving a tea to show the picture." "Popple's giving a tea?" Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. "Ah, in that case--! In Popple's society who wouldn't forget the flight of time?" He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. Van Degen's words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. "Will you trust me with your present for the boy?" Clare gave him the parcel. "I'm sorry not to give it myself. I said what I did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking--but it's really a battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our revered great-grandmother." "What--the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. "That's dear of you!" She threw him one of her strange glances. "Why not say: 'That's like you?' But you don't remember what I'm like." She turned away to glance at the clock. "It's late, and I must be off. I'm going to a big dinner at the Chauncey Ellings'--but you must be going there too, Ralph? You'd better let me drive you home." In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawn over their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-topped objects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through the crowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare's presence at his side gave him a vague sense of ease. For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, not this relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small daily deceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, marked by one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment that formed the point beyond which there was no returning. It was the moment, a month or two before his boy's birth, when, glancing over a batch of belated Paris bills, he had come on one from the jeweller he had once found in private conference with Undine. The bill was not large, but two of its items stood out sharply. "Resetting pearl and diamond pendant. Resetting sapphire and diamond ring." The pearl and diamond pendant was his mother's wedding present; the ring was the one he had given Undine on their engagement. That they were both family relics, kept unchanged through several generations, scarcely mattered to him at the time: he felt only the stab of his wife's deception. She had assured him in Paris that she had not had her jewels reset. He had noticed, soon after their return to New York, that she had left off her engagement-ring; but the others were soon discarded also, and in answer to his question she had told him that, in her ailing state, rings "worried" her. Now he saw she had deceived him, and, forgetting everything else, he went to her, bill in hand. Her tears and distress filled him with immediate contrition. Was this a time to torment her about trifles? His anger seemed to cause her actual physical fear, and at the sight he abased himself in entreaties for forgiveness. When the scene ended she had pardoned him, and the reset ring was on her finger... Soon afterward, the birth of the boy seemed to wipe out these humiliating memories; yet Marvell found in time that they were not effaced, but only momentarily crowded out of sight. In reality, the incident had a meaning out of proportion to its apparent seriousness, for it put in his hand a clue to a new side of his wife's character. He no longer minded her having lied about the jeweller; what pained him was that she had been unconscious of the wound she inflicted in destroying the identity of the jewels. He saw that, even after their explanation, she still supposed he was angry only because she had deceived him; and the discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feeling on which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in their relation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare Van Degen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him more alive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. After all, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. She was light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose; but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have lied to him or traded on his tenderness. Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voiced mood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did not sound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things: of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of the costume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurring rumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysterious personality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street was beginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after his marriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with a firm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first time with the drama of "business," and whenever he could turn his attention from his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierce interplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard things of Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd of money-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, the humorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests; and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the fact that no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired the information which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "I should like to see him," Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of the one of the few picturesque types we've got." "Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesque types in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room." Clare considered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing them together." "Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?" "Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must have been some years ago. Yes--it was one night at the theatre, just after you announced your engagement." He fancied her voice trembled slightly, as though she thought he might notice her way of dating her memories. "You came into our box," she went on, "and I asked you the name of the red-faced man who was sitting in the stall next to Undine. You didn't know, but some one told us it was Moffatt." Marvell was more struck by her tone than by what she was saying. "If Undine knows him it's odd she's never mentioned it," he answered indifferently. The motor stopped at his door and Clare, as she held out her hand, turned a first full look on him. "Why do you never come to see me? I miss you more than ever," she said. He pressed her hand without answering, but after the motor had rolled away he stood for a while on the pavement, looking after it. When he entered the house the hall

command

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

you WILL be,--you'll HAVE to, if I do the picture--which will make a lovely memento")--Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: "Pure bluff, you know--Jim couldn't pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll's high and dry since the Ararat investigation." She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue. "You mean they've lost their money? Won't they give their fancy ball, then?" Van Degen shrugged. "Nobody knows how it's coming out That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball--says he's going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street-railways." Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen's announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt's name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the "Ararat Trust Investigation," but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt--the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!--could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he "saw things big"; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be "loafing and fooling," as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course--I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress." The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge. "It doesn't look like a last year's face, anyhow--that's what makes them all wild," Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple's tea. But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dress-maker to take it back. "Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. "I don't know--I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot." "Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold." Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where are you off to?" "West End Avenue, of course--if I can find a cab to take me there." It was not the least of Undine's grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg's first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg's financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, more-over, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy's birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house. But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother's plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation--the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: "Do let me give you a lift home, dear--Oh, I'd forgotten! I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far--" It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on "lifts," openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!) but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being "out of things." Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. "Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mind the open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner." The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin. "Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on a strap in the elevated." The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter's sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his "bad" real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way--she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be "talked about" with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for "nice women." She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good. Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor. "What's the matter? Isn't everything all right?" His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary "niceness" seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material "bothers"--as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he "didn't care to part"); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he'd give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: "Oh, hang waiting for the bill--won't a couple of thou make it all right?" in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life. The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down--with a nod for his "Everything jolly again now?"--to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy--and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his "nagging" that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs. "Mercy! It's the boy's birthday--I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I'd forgotten!" XV In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. "No sign of her. She's simply forgotten." Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock. "Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late." Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come." She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled. "Put them out, please," she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen. "It's all so unlucky--my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boy here at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's always breaking her engagements." "She has so many that it's inevitable some should get broken." "All if she'd only choose! Now that Ralph has had into business, and is kept in his office so late, it's cruel of her to drag him out every night. He told us the other day they hadn't dined at home for a month. Undine doesn't seem to notice how hard he works." Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. "No--why should she?" "Why SHOULD she? Really, Charles--!" "Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?" "She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it's her extravagance that's forced him into it." Mrs. Fairford looked at Bowen reproachfully. "You talk as if you were on her side!" "Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartially from the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view of the whole problem of American marriages." Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh. "If that's what you want you must make haste! Most of them don't last long enough to be classified." "I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is so frequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it." "What do you call the weak point?" He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife." Mrs. Fairford was up with a spring. "If that's where paradox lands you!" Bowen mildly stood his ground. "Well--doesn't he prove it? How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph for instance--you say his wife's extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that's not what's wrong. It's normal for a man to work hard for a woman--what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it." "To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!" "Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again--I don't mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in THEM." Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her. "YOU don't? The American man doesn't--the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing--?" "Yes; and the most indifferent: there's the point. The 'slaving's' no argument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they've ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn't know what else to do with it." "Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?" "Not necessarily--but it's a want of imagination to fancy it's all he owes her. Look about you and you'll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middle of the picture. I'm not implying that Ralph isn't interested in his wife--he's a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman's drawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? The emotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In America the real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement in wrecking railways than homes." Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. "Isn't that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we'd give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what's the result--how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy's with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male--the money and the motors and the clothes--and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT'S what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you're going to say--it's less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping out of some man's way!" Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: "And is Undine one of the exceptions?" Her companion took the shot with a smile. "No--she's a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It's Ralph who's the victim and the exception." "Ah, poor Ralph!" Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. "I hear him now. I suppose," she added in an undertone, "we can't give him your explanation for his wife's having forgotten to come?" Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered. "Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles--have you been celebrating too?" Ralph turned to his sister. "It's outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren't look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays." He returned Mrs. Fairford's kiss. "Don't tell me the party's over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?" As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell. "Sit down, Ralph--you look tired. I'll give you some tea." He dropped into an arm-chair. "I did have rather a rush to get here--but hadn't I better join the revellers? Where are they?" He walked to the end of the room and threw open the dining-room doors. "Hallo--where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!" He went up to it. "Why, it's never even been cut!" Mrs. Fairford called after him: "Come and have your tea first." "No, no--tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with my grandfather? I must make my peace with Undine--" His sister put her arm through his, and drew him back to the fire. "Undine didn't come." "Didn't come? Who brought the boy, then?" "He didn't come either. That's why the cake's not cut." Ralph frowned. "What's the mystery? Is he ill, or what's happened?" "Nothing's happened--Paul's all right. Apparently Undine forgot. She never went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late to come." She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew out his cigarette case. "Poor little Paul--poor chap!" He moved toward the fire. "Yes, please--some tea." He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if some strong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but before the tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was on his feet again. "But this won't do. I must rush home and see the poor chap before dinner. And my mother--and my grandfather? I want to say a word to them--I must make Paul's excuses!" "Grandfather's taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for a postponed committee meeting--she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn't coming." "Ah, I see." He sat down again. "Yes, make the strong, please. I've had a beastly fagging sort of day." He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother under lowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralph presently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into his former attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staring apathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and started up. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels at the door. "There's Undine! I wonder what could have kept her." He jumped up and walked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight of him she gave a little murmur of pleasure. "What luck to find you! No, not luck--I came because I knew you'd be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!" Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford and then turned back to Ralph. "Yes, I knew I'd catch you here. I knew it was the boy's birthday, and I've brought him a present: a vulgar expensive Van Degen offering. I've not enough imagination left to find the right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When I look for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: 'I want this or that'--I simply say: 'Give me something that costs so much.'" She drew a parcel from her muff. "Where's the victim of my vulgarity? Let me crush him under the weight of my gold." Mrs. Fairford sighed out "Clare--Clare!" and Ralph smiled at his cousin. "I'm sorry; but you'll have to depute me to present it. The birthday's over; you're too late." She looked surprised. "Why, I've just left Mamie Driscoll, and she told me Undine was still at Popple's studio a few minutes ago: Popple's giving a tea to show the picture." "Popple's giving a tea?" Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. "Ah, in that case--! In Popple's society who wouldn't forget the flight of time?" He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. Van Degen's words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. "Will you trust me with your present for the boy?" Clare gave him the parcel. "I'm sorry not to give it myself. I said what I did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking--but it's really a battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our revered great-grandmother." "What--the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. "That's dear of you!" She threw him one of her strange glances. "Why not say: 'That's like you?' But you don't remember what I'm like." She turned away to glance at the clock. "It's late, and I must be off. I'm going to a big dinner at the Chauncey Ellings'--but you must be going there too, Ralph? You'd better let me drive you home." In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawn over their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-topped objects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through the crowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare's presence at his side gave him a vague sense of ease. For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, not this relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small daily deceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, marked by one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment that formed the point beyond which there was no returning. It was the moment, a month or two before his boy's birth, when, glancing over a batch of belated Paris bills, he had come on one from the jeweller he had once found in private conference with Undine. The bill was not large, but two of its items stood out sharply. "Resetting pearl and diamond pendant. Resetting sapphire and diamond ring." The pearl and diamond pendant was his mother's wedding present; the ring was the one he had given Undine on their engagement. That they were both family relics, kept unchanged through several generations, scarcely mattered to him at the time: he felt only the stab of his wife's deception. She had assured him in Paris that she had not had her jewels reset. He had noticed, soon after their return to New York, that she had left off her engagement-ring; but the others were soon discarded also, and in answer to his question she had told him that, in her ailing state, rings "worried" her. Now he saw she had deceived him, and, forgetting everything else, he went to her, bill in hand. Her tears and distress filled him with immediate contrition. Was this a time to torment her about trifles? His anger seemed to cause her actual physical fear, and at the sight he abased himself in entreaties for forgiveness. When the scene ended she had pardoned him, and the reset ring was on her finger... Soon afterward, the birth of the boy seemed to wipe out these humiliating memories; yet Marvell found in time that they were not effaced, but only momentarily crowded out of sight. In reality, the incident had a meaning out of proportion to its apparent seriousness, for it put in his hand a clue to a new side of his wife's character. He no longer minded her having lied about the jeweller; what pained him was that she had been unconscious of the wound she inflicted in destroying the identity of the jewels. He saw that, even after their explanation, she still supposed he was angry only because she had deceived him; and the discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feeling on which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in their relation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare Van Degen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him more alive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. After all, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. She was light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose; but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have lied to him or traded on his tenderness. Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voiced mood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did not sound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things: of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of the costume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurring rumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysterious personality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street was beginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after his marriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with a firm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first time with the drama of "business," and whenever he could turn his attention from his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierce interplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard things of Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd of money-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, the humorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests; and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the fact that no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired the information which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "I should like to see him," Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of the one of the few picturesque types we've got." "Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesque types in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room." Clare considered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing them together." "Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?" "Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must have been some years ago. Yes--it was one night at the theatre, just after you announced your engagement." He fancied her voice trembled slightly, as though she thought he might notice her way of dating her memories. "You came into our box," she went on, "and I asked you the name of the red-faced man who was sitting in the stall next to Undine. You didn't know, but some one told us it was Moffatt." Marvell was more struck by her tone than by what she was saying. "If Undine knows him it's odd she's never mentioned it," he answered indifferently. The motor stopped at his door and Clare, as she held out her hand, turned a first full look on him. "Why do you never come to see me? I miss you more than ever," she said. He pressed her hand without answering, but after the motor had rolled away he stood for a while on the pavement, looking after it. When he entered the house the hall

since

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

you WILL be,--you'll HAVE to, if I do the picture--which will make a lovely memento")--Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: "Pure bluff, you know--Jim couldn't pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll's high and dry since the Ararat investigation." She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue. "You mean they've lost their money? Won't they give their fancy ball, then?" Van Degen shrugged. "Nobody knows how it's coming out That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball--says he's going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street-railways." Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen's announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt's name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the "Ararat Trust Investigation," but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt--the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!--could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he "saw things big"; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be "loafing and fooling," as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course--I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress." The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge. "It doesn't look like a last year's face, anyhow--that's what makes them all wild," Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple's tea. But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dress-maker to take it back. "Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. "I don't know--I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot." "Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold." Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where are you off to?" "West End Avenue, of course--if I can find a cab to take me there." It was not the least of Undine's grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg's first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg's financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, more-over, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy's birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house. But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother's plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation--the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: "Do let me give you a lift home, dear--Oh, I'd forgotten! I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far--" It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on "lifts," openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!) but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being "out of things." Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. "Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mind the open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner." The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin. "Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on a strap in the elevated." The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter's sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his "bad" real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way--she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be "talked about" with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for "nice women." She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good. Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor. "What's the matter? Isn't everything all right?" His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary "niceness" seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material "bothers"--as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he "didn't care to part"); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he'd give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: "Oh, hang waiting for the bill--won't a couple of thou make it all right?" in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life. The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down--with a nod for his "Everything jolly again now?"--to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy--and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his "nagging" that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs. "Mercy! It's the boy's birthday--I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I'd forgotten!" XV In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. "No sign of her. She's simply forgotten." Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock. "Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late." Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come." She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled. "Put them out, please," she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen. "It's all so unlucky--my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boy here at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's always breaking her engagements." "She has so many that it's inevitable some should get broken." "All if she'd only choose! Now that Ralph has had into business, and is kept in his office so late, it's cruel of her to drag him out every night. He told us the other day they hadn't dined at home for a month. Undine doesn't seem to notice how hard he works." Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. "No--why should she?" "Why SHOULD she? Really, Charles--!" "Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?" "She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it's her extravagance that's forced him into it." Mrs. Fairford looked at Bowen reproachfully. "You talk as if you were on her side!" "Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartially from the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view of the whole problem of American marriages." Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh. "If that's what you want you must make haste! Most of them don't last long enough to be classified." "I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is so frequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it." "What do you call the weak point?" He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife." Mrs. Fairford was up with a spring. "If that's where paradox lands you!" Bowen mildly stood his ground. "Well--doesn't he prove it? How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph for instance--you say his wife's extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that's not what's wrong. It's normal for a man to work hard for a woman--what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it." "To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!" "Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again--I don't mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in THEM." Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her. "YOU don't? The American man doesn't--the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing--?" "Yes; and the most indifferent: there's the point. The 'slaving's' no argument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they've ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn't know what else to do with it." "Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?" "Not necessarily--but it's a want of imagination to fancy it's all he owes her. Look about you and you'll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middle of the picture. I'm not implying that Ralph isn't interested in his wife--he's a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman's drawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? The emotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In America the real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement in wrecking railways than homes." Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. "Isn't that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we'd give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what's the result--how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy's with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male--the money and the motors and the clothes--and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT'S what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you're going to say--it's less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping out of some man's way!" Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: "And is Undine one of the exceptions?" Her companion took the shot with a smile. "No--she's a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It's Ralph who's the victim and the exception." "Ah, poor Ralph!" Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. "I hear him now. I suppose," she added in an undertone, "we can't give him your explanation for his wife's having forgotten to come?" Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered. "Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles--have you been celebrating too?" Ralph turned to his sister. "It's outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren't look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays." He returned Mrs. Fairford's kiss. "Don't tell me the party's over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?" As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell. "Sit down, Ralph--you look tired. I'll give you some tea." He dropped into an arm-chair. "I did have rather a rush to get here--but hadn't I better join the revellers? Where are they?" He walked to the end of the room and threw open the dining-room doors. "Hallo--where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!" He went up to it. "Why, it's never even been cut!" Mrs. Fairford called after him: "Come and have your tea first." "No, no--tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with my grandfather? I must make my peace with Undine--" His sister put her arm through his, and drew him back to the fire. "Undine didn't come." "Didn't come? Who brought the boy, then?" "He didn't come either. That's why the cake's not cut." Ralph frowned. "What's the mystery? Is he ill, or what's happened?" "Nothing's happened--Paul's all right. Apparently Undine forgot. She never went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late to come." She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew out his cigarette case. "Poor little Paul--poor chap!" He moved toward the fire. "Yes, please--some tea." He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if some strong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but before the tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was on his feet again. "But this won't do. I must rush home and see the poor chap before dinner. And my mother--and my grandfather? I want to say a word to them--I must make Paul's excuses!" "Grandfather's taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for a postponed committee meeting--she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn't coming." "Ah, I see." He sat down again. "Yes, make the strong, please. I've had a beastly fagging sort of day." He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother under lowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralph presently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into his former attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staring apathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and started up. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels at the door. "There's Undine! I wonder what could have kept her." He jumped up and walked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight of him she gave a little murmur of pleasure. "What luck to find you! No, not luck--I came because I knew you'd be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!" Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford and then turned back to Ralph. "Yes, I knew I'd catch you here. I knew it was the boy's birthday, and I've brought him a present: a vulgar expensive Van Degen offering. I've not enough imagination left to find the right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When I look for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: 'I want this or that'--I simply say: 'Give me something that costs so much.'" She drew a parcel from her muff. "Where's the victim of my vulgarity? Let me crush him under the weight of my gold." Mrs. Fairford sighed out "Clare--Clare!" and Ralph smiled at his cousin. "I'm sorry; but you'll have to depute me to present it. The birthday's over; you're too late." She looked surprised. "Why, I've just left Mamie Driscoll, and she told me Undine was still at Popple's studio a few minutes ago: Popple's giving a tea to show the picture." "Popple's giving a tea?" Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. "Ah, in that case--! In Popple's society who wouldn't forget the flight of time?" He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. Van Degen's words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. "Will you trust me with your present for the boy?" Clare gave him the parcel. "I'm sorry not to give it myself. I said what I did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking--but it's really a battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our revered great-grandmother." "What--the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. "That's dear of you!" She threw him one of her strange glances. "Why not say: 'That's like you?' But you don't remember what I'm like." She turned away to glance at the clock. "It's late, and I must be off. I'm going to a big dinner at the Chauncey Ellings'--but you must be going there too, Ralph? You'd better let me drive you home." In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawn over their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-topped objects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through the crowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare's presence at his side gave him a vague sense of ease. For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, not this relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small daily deceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, marked by one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment that formed the point beyond which there was no returning. It was the moment, a month or two before his boy's birth, when, glancing over a batch of belated Paris bills, he had come on one from the jeweller he had once found in private conference with Undine. The bill was not large, but two of its items stood out sharply. "Resetting pearl and diamond pendant. Resetting sapphire and diamond ring." The pearl and diamond pendant was his mother's wedding present; the ring was the one he had given Undine on their engagement. That they were both family relics, kept unchanged through several generations, scarcely mattered to him at the time: he felt only the stab of his wife's deception. She had assured him in Paris that she had not had her jewels reset. He had noticed, soon after their return to New York, that she had left off her engagement-ring; but the others were soon discarded also, and in answer to his question she had told him that, in her ailing state, rings "worried" her. Now he saw she had deceived him, and, forgetting everything else, he went to her, bill in hand. Her tears and distress filled him with immediate contrition. Was this a time to torment her about trifles? His anger seemed to cause her actual physical fear, and at the sight he abased himself in entreaties for forgiveness. When the scene ended she had pardoned him, and the reset ring was on her finger... Soon afterward, the birth of the boy seemed to wipe out these humiliating memories; yet Marvell found in time that they were not effaced, but only momentarily crowded out of sight. In reality, the incident had a meaning out of proportion to its apparent seriousness, for it put in his hand a clue to a new side of his wife's character. He no longer minded her having lied about the jeweller; what pained him was that she had been unconscious of the wound she inflicted in destroying the identity of the jewels. He saw that, even after their explanation, she still supposed he was angry only because she had deceived him; and the discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feeling on which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in their relation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare Van Degen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him more alive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. After all, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. She was light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose; but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have lied to him or traded on his tenderness. Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voiced mood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did not sound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things: of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of the costume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurring rumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysterious personality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street was beginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after his marriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with a firm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first time with the drama of "business," and whenever he could turn his attention from his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierce interplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard things of Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd of money-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, the humorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests; and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the fact that no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired the information which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "I should like to see him," Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of the one of the few picturesque types we've got." "Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesque types in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room." Clare considered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing them together." "Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?" "Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must have been some years ago. Yes--it was one night at the theatre, just after you announced your engagement." He fancied her voice trembled slightly, as though she thought he might notice her way of dating her memories. "You came into our box," she went on, "and I asked you the name of the red-faced man who was sitting in the stall next to Undine. You didn't know, but some one told us it was Moffatt." Marvell was more struck by her tone than by what she was saying. "If Undine knows him it's odd she's never mentioned it," he answered indifferently. The motor stopped at his door and Clare, as she held out her hand, turned a first full look on him. "Why do you never come to see me? I miss you more than ever," she said. He pressed her hand without answering, but after the motor had rolled away he stood for a while on the pavement, looking after it. When he entered the house the hall

end

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

you WILL be,--you'll HAVE to, if I do the picture--which will make a lovely memento")--Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: "Pure bluff, you know--Jim couldn't pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll's high and dry since the Ararat investigation." She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue. "You mean they've lost their money? Won't they give their fancy ball, then?" Van Degen shrugged. "Nobody knows how it's coming out That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball--says he's going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street-railways." Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen's announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt's name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the "Ararat Trust Investigation," but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt--the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!--could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he "saw things big"; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be "loafing and fooling," as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course--I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress." The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge. "It doesn't look like a last year's face, anyhow--that's what makes them all wild," Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple's tea. But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dress-maker to take it back. "Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. "I don't know--I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot." "Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold." Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where are you off to?" "West End Avenue, of course--if I can find a cab to take me there." It was not the least of Undine's grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg's first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg's financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, more-over, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy's birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house. But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother's plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation--the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: "Do let me give you a lift home, dear--Oh, I'd forgotten! I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far--" It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on "lifts," openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!) but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being "out of things." Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. "Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mind the open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner." The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin. "Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on a strap in the elevated." The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter's sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his "bad" real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way--she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be "talked about" with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for "nice women." She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good. Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor. "What's the matter? Isn't everything all right?" His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary "niceness" seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material "bothers"--as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he "didn't care to part"); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he'd give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: "Oh, hang waiting for the bill--won't a couple of thou make it all right?" in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life. The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down--with a nod for his "Everything jolly again now?"--to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy--and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his "nagging" that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs. "Mercy! It's the boy's birthday--I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I'd forgotten!" XV In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. "No sign of her. She's simply forgotten." Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock. "Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late." Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come." She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled. "Put them out, please," she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen. "It's all so unlucky--my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boy here at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's always breaking her engagements." "She has so many that it's inevitable some should get broken." "All if she'd only choose! Now that Ralph has had into business, and is kept in his office so late, it's cruel of her to drag him out every night. He told us the other day they hadn't dined at home for a month. Undine doesn't seem to notice how hard he works." Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. "No--why should she?" "Why SHOULD she? Really, Charles--!" "Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?" "She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it's her extravagance that's forced him into it." Mrs. Fairford looked at Bowen reproachfully. "You talk as if you were on her side!" "Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartially from the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view of the whole problem of American marriages." Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh. "If that's what you want you must make haste! Most of them don't last long enough to be classified." "I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is so frequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it." "What do you call the weak point?" He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife." Mrs. Fairford was up with a spring. "If that's where paradox lands you!" Bowen mildly stood his ground. "Well--doesn't he prove it? How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph for instance--you say his wife's extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that's not what's wrong. It's normal for a man to work hard for a woman--what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it." "To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!" "Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again--I don't mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in THEM." Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her. "YOU don't? The American man doesn't--the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing--?" "Yes; and the most indifferent: there's the point. The 'slaving's' no argument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they've ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn't know what else to do with it." "Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?" "Not necessarily--but it's a want of imagination to fancy it's all he owes her. Look about you and you'll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middle of the picture. I'm not implying that Ralph isn't interested in his wife--he's a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman's drawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? The emotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In America the real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement in wrecking railways than homes." Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. "Isn't that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we'd give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what's the result--how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy's with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male--the money and the motors and the clothes--and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT'S what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you're going to say--it's less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping out of some man's way!" Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: "And is Undine one of the exceptions?" Her companion took the shot with a smile. "No--she's a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It's Ralph who's the victim and the exception." "Ah, poor Ralph!" Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. "I hear him now. I suppose," she added in an undertone, "we can't give him your explanation for his wife's having forgotten to come?" Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered. "Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles--have you been celebrating too?" Ralph turned to his sister. "It's outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren't look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays." He returned Mrs. Fairford's kiss. "Don't tell me the party's over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?" As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell. "Sit down, Ralph--you look tired. I'll give you some tea." He dropped into an arm-chair. "I did have rather a rush to get here--but hadn't I better join the revellers? Where are they?" He walked to the end of the room and threw open the dining-room doors. "Hallo--where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!" He went up to it. "Why, it's never even been cut!" Mrs. Fairford called after him: "Come and have your tea first." "No, no--tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with my grandfather? I must make my peace with Undine--" His sister put her arm through his, and drew him back to the fire. "Undine didn't come." "Didn't come? Who brought the boy, then?" "He didn't come either. That's why the cake's not cut." Ralph frowned. "What's the mystery? Is he ill, or what's happened?" "Nothing's happened--Paul's all right. Apparently Undine forgot. She never went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late to come." She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew out his cigarette case. "Poor little Paul--poor chap!" He moved toward the fire. "Yes, please--some tea." He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if some strong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but before the tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was on his feet again. "But this won't do. I must rush home and see the poor chap before dinner. And my mother--and my grandfather? I want to say a word to them--I must make Paul's excuses!" "Grandfather's taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for a postponed committee meeting--she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn't coming." "Ah, I see." He sat down again. "Yes, make the strong, please. I've had a beastly fagging sort of day." He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother under lowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralph presently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into his former attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staring apathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and started up. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels at the door. "There's Undine! I wonder what could have kept her." He jumped up and walked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight of him she gave a little murmur of pleasure. "What luck to find you! No, not luck--I came because I knew you'd be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!" Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford and then turned back to Ralph. "Yes, I knew I'd catch you here. I knew it was the boy's birthday, and I've brought him a present: a vulgar expensive Van Degen offering. I've not enough imagination left to find the right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When I look for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: 'I want this or that'--I simply say: 'Give me something that costs so much.'" She drew a parcel from her muff. "Where's the victim of my vulgarity? Let me crush him under the weight of my gold." Mrs. Fairford sighed out "Clare--Clare!" and Ralph smiled at his cousin. "I'm sorry; but you'll have to depute me to present it. The birthday's over; you're too late." She looked surprised. "Why, I've just left Mamie Driscoll, and she told me Undine was still at Popple's studio a few minutes ago: Popple's giving a tea to show the picture." "Popple's giving a tea?" Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. "Ah, in that case--! In Popple's society who wouldn't forget the flight of time?" He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. Van Degen's words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. "Will you trust me with your present for the boy?" Clare gave him the parcel. "I'm sorry not to give it myself. I said what I did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking--but it's really a battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our revered great-grandmother." "What--the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. "That's dear of you!" She threw him one of her strange glances. "Why not say: 'That's like you?' But you don't remember what I'm like." She turned away to glance at the clock. "It's late, and I must be off. I'm going to a big dinner at the Chauncey Ellings'--but you must be going there too, Ralph? You'd better let me drive you home." In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawn over their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-topped objects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through the crowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare's presence at his side gave him a vague sense of ease. For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, not this relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small daily deceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, marked by one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment that formed the point beyond which there was no returning. It was the moment, a month or two before his boy's birth, when, glancing over a batch of belated Paris bills, he had come on one from the jeweller he had once found in private conference with Undine. The bill was not large, but two of its items stood out sharply. "Resetting pearl and diamond pendant. Resetting sapphire and diamond ring." The pearl and diamond pendant was his mother's wedding present; the ring was the one he had given Undine on their engagement. That they were both family relics, kept unchanged through several generations, scarcely mattered to him at the time: he felt only the stab of his wife's deception. She had assured him in Paris that she had not had her jewels reset. He had noticed, soon after their return to New York, that she had left off her engagement-ring; but the others were soon discarded also, and in answer to his question she had told him that, in her ailing state, rings "worried" her. Now he saw she had deceived him, and, forgetting everything else, he went to her, bill in hand. Her tears and distress filled him with immediate contrition. Was this a time to torment her about trifles? His anger seemed to cause her actual physical fear, and at the sight he abased himself in entreaties for forgiveness. When the scene ended she had pardoned him, and the reset ring was on her finger... Soon afterward, the birth of the boy seemed to wipe out these humiliating memories; yet Marvell found in time that they were not effaced, but only momentarily crowded out of sight. In reality, the incident had a meaning out of proportion to its apparent seriousness, for it put in his hand a clue to a new side of his wife's character. He no longer minded her having lied about the jeweller; what pained him was that she had been unconscious of the wound she inflicted in destroying the identity of the jewels. He saw that, even after their explanation, she still supposed he was angry only because she had deceived him; and the discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feeling on which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in their relation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare Van Degen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him more alive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. After all, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. She was light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose; but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have lied to him or traded on his tenderness. Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voiced mood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did not sound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things: of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of the costume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurring rumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysterious personality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street was beginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after his marriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with a firm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first time with the drama of "business," and whenever he could turn his attention from his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierce interplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard things of Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd of money-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, the humorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests; and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the fact that no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired the information which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "I should like to see him," Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of the one of the few picturesque types we've got." "Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesque types in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room." Clare considered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing them together." "Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?" "Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must have been some years ago. Yes--it was one night at the theatre, just after you announced your engagement." He fancied her voice trembled slightly, as though she thought he might notice her way of dating her memories. "You came into our box," she went on, "and I asked you the name of the red-faced man who was sitting in the stall next to Undine. You didn't know, but some one told us it was Moffatt." Marvell was more struck by her tone than by what she was saying. "If Undine knows him it's odd she's never mentioned it," he answered indifferently. The motor stopped at his door and Clare, as she held out her hand, turned a first full look on him. "Why do you never come to see me? I miss you more than ever," she said. He pressed her hand without answering, but after the motor had rolled away he stood for a while on the pavement, looking after it. When he entered the house the hall

leaning

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

you WILL be,--you'll HAVE to, if I do the picture--which will make a lovely memento")--Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: "Pure bluff, you know--Jim couldn't pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll's high and dry since the Ararat investigation." She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue. "You mean they've lost their money? Won't they give their fancy ball, then?" Van Degen shrugged. "Nobody knows how it's coming out That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball--says he's going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street-railways." Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen's announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt's name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the "Ararat Trust Investigation," but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt--the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!--could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he "saw things big"; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be "loafing and fooling," as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course--I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress." The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge. "It doesn't look like a last year's face, anyhow--that's what makes them all wild," Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple's tea. But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dress-maker to take it back. "Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. "I don't know--I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot." "Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold." Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where are you off to?" "West End Avenue, of course--if I can find a cab to take me there." It was not the least of Undine's grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg's first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg's financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, more-over, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy's birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house. But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother's plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation--the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: "Do let me give you a lift home, dear--Oh, I'd forgotten! I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far--" It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on "lifts," openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!) but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being "out of things." Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. "Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mind the open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner." The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin. "Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on a strap in the elevated." The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter's sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his "bad" real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way--she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be "talked about" with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for "nice women." She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good. Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor. "What's the matter? Isn't everything all right?" His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary "niceness" seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material "bothers"--as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he "didn't care to part"); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he'd give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: "Oh, hang waiting for the bill--won't a couple of thou make it all right?" in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life. The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down--with a nod for his "Everything jolly again now?"--to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy--and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his "nagging" that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs. "Mercy! It's the boy's birthday--I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I'd forgotten!" XV In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. "No sign of her. She's simply forgotten." Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock. "Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late." Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come." She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled. "Put them out, please," she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen. "It's all so unlucky--my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boy here at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's always breaking her engagements." "She has so many that it's inevitable some should get broken." "All if she'd only choose! Now that Ralph has had into business, and is kept in his office so late, it's cruel of her to drag him out every night. He told us the other day they hadn't dined at home for a month. Undine doesn't seem to notice how hard he works." Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. "No--why should she?" "Why SHOULD she? Really, Charles--!" "Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?" "She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it's her extravagance that's forced him into it." Mrs. Fairford looked at Bowen reproachfully. "You talk as if you were on her side!" "Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartially from the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view of the whole problem of American marriages." Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh. "If that's what you want you must make haste! Most of them don't last long enough to be classified." "I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is so frequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it." "What do you call the weak point?" He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife." Mrs. Fairford was up with a spring. "If that's where paradox lands you!" Bowen mildly stood his ground. "Well--doesn't he prove it? How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph for instance--you say his wife's extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that's not what's wrong. It's normal for a man to work hard for a woman--what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it." "To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!" "Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again--I don't mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in THEM." Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her. "YOU don't? The American man doesn't--the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing--?" "Yes; and the most indifferent: there's the point. The 'slaving's' no argument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they've ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn't know what else to do with it." "Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?" "Not necessarily--but it's a want of imagination to fancy it's all he owes her. Look about you and you'll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middle of the picture. I'm not implying that Ralph isn't interested in his wife--he's a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman's drawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? The emotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In America the real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement in wrecking railways than homes." Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. "Isn't that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we'd give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what's the result--how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy's with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male--the money and the motors and the clothes--and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT'S what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you're going to say--it's less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping out of some man's way!" Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: "And is Undine one of the exceptions?" Her companion took the shot with a smile. "No--she's a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It's Ralph who's the victim and the exception." "Ah, poor Ralph!" Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. "I hear him now. I suppose," she added in an undertone, "we can't give him your explanation for his wife's having forgotten to come?" Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered. "Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles--have you been celebrating too?" Ralph turned to his sister. "It's outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren't look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays." He returned Mrs. Fairford's kiss. "Don't tell me the party's over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?" As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell. "Sit down, Ralph--you look tired. I'll give you some tea." He dropped into an arm-chair. "I did have rather a rush to get here--but hadn't I better join the revellers? Where are they?" He walked to the end of the room and threw open the dining-room doors. "Hallo--where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!" He went up to it. "Why, it's never even been cut!" Mrs. Fairford called after him: "Come and have your tea first." "No, no--tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with my grandfather? I must make my peace with Undine--" His sister put her arm through his, and drew him back to the fire. "Undine didn't come." "Didn't come? Who brought the boy, then?" "He didn't come either. That's why the cake's not cut." Ralph frowned. "What's the mystery? Is he ill, or what's happened?" "Nothing's happened--Paul's all right. Apparently Undine forgot. She never went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late to come." She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew out his cigarette case. "Poor little Paul--poor chap!" He moved toward the fire. "Yes, please--some tea." He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if some strong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but before the tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was on his feet again. "But this won't do. I must rush home and see the poor chap before dinner. And my mother--and my grandfather? I want to say a word to them--I must make Paul's excuses!" "Grandfather's taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for a postponed committee meeting--she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn't coming." "Ah, I see." He sat down again. "Yes, make the strong, please. I've had a beastly fagging sort of day." He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother under lowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralph presently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into his former attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staring apathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and started up. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels at the door. "There's Undine! I wonder what could have kept her." He jumped up and walked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight of him she gave a little murmur of pleasure. "What luck to find you! No, not luck--I came because I knew you'd be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!" Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford and then turned back to Ralph. "Yes, I knew I'd catch you here. I knew it was the boy's birthday, and I've brought him a present: a vulgar expensive Van Degen offering. I've not enough imagination left to find the right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When I look for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: 'I want this or that'--I simply say: 'Give me something that costs so much.'" She drew a parcel from her muff. "Where's the victim of my vulgarity? Let me crush him under the weight of my gold." Mrs. Fairford sighed out "Clare--Clare!" and Ralph smiled at his cousin. "I'm sorry; but you'll have to depute me to present it. The birthday's over; you're too late." She looked surprised. "Why, I've just left Mamie Driscoll, and she told me Undine was still at Popple's studio a few minutes ago: Popple's giving a tea to show the picture." "Popple's giving a tea?" Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. "Ah, in that case--! In Popple's society who wouldn't forget the flight of time?" He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. Van Degen's words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. "Will you trust me with your present for the boy?" Clare gave him the parcel. "I'm sorry not to give it myself. I said what I did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking--but it's really a battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our revered great-grandmother." "What--the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. "That's dear of you!" She threw him one of her strange glances. "Why not say: 'That's like you?' But you don't remember what I'm like." She turned away to glance at the clock. "It's late, and I must be off. I'm going to a big dinner at the Chauncey Ellings'--but you must be going there too, Ralph? You'd better let me drive you home." In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawn over their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-topped objects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through the crowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare's presence at his side gave him a vague sense of ease. For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, not this relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small daily deceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, marked by one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment that formed the point beyond which there was no returning. It was the moment, a month or two before his boy's birth, when, glancing over a batch of belated Paris bills, he had come on one from the jeweller he had once found in private conference with Undine. The bill was not large, but two of its items stood out sharply. "Resetting pearl and diamond pendant. Resetting sapphire and diamond ring." The pearl and diamond pendant was his mother's wedding present; the ring was the one he had given Undine on their engagement. That they were both family relics, kept unchanged through several generations, scarcely mattered to him at the time: he felt only the stab of his wife's deception. She had assured him in Paris that she had not had her jewels reset. He had noticed, soon after their return to New York, that she had left off her engagement-ring; but the others were soon discarded also, and in answer to his question she had told him that, in her ailing state, rings "worried" her. Now he saw she had deceived him, and, forgetting everything else, he went to her, bill in hand. Her tears and distress filled him with immediate contrition. Was this a time to torment her about trifles? His anger seemed to cause her actual physical fear, and at the sight he abased himself in entreaties for forgiveness. When the scene ended she had pardoned him, and the reset ring was on her finger... Soon afterward, the birth of the boy seemed to wipe out these humiliating memories; yet Marvell found in time that they were not effaced, but only momentarily crowded out of sight. In reality, the incident had a meaning out of proportion to its apparent seriousness, for it put in his hand a clue to a new side of his wife's character. He no longer minded her having lied about the jeweller; what pained him was that she had been unconscious of the wound she inflicted in destroying the identity of the jewels. He saw that, even after their explanation, she still supposed he was angry only because she had deceived him; and the discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feeling on which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in their relation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare Van Degen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him more alive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. After all, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. She was light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose; but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have lied to him or traded on his tenderness. Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voiced mood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did not sound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things: of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of the costume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurring rumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysterious personality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street was beginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after his marriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with a firm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first time with the drama of "business," and whenever he could turn his attention from his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierce interplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard things of Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd of money-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, the humorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests; and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the fact that no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired the information which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "I should like to see him," Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of the one of the few picturesque types we've got." "Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesque types in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room." Clare considered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing them together." "Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?" "Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must have been some years ago. Yes--it was one night at the theatre, just after you announced your engagement." He fancied her voice trembled slightly, as though she thought he might notice her way of dating her memories. "You came into our box," she went on, "and I asked you the name of the red-faced man who was sitting in the stall next to Undine. You didn't know, but some one told us it was Moffatt." Marvell was more struck by her tone than by what she was saying. "If Undine knows him it's odd she's never mentioned it," he answered indifferently. The motor stopped at his door and Clare, as she held out her hand, turned a first full look on him. "Why do you never come to see me? I miss you more than ever," she said. He pressed her hand without answering, but after the motor had rolled away he stood for a while on the pavement, looking after it. When he entered the house the hall

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you WILL be,--you'll HAVE to, if I do the picture--which will make a lovely memento")--Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: "Pure bluff, you know--Jim couldn't pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll's high and dry since the Ararat investigation." She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue. "You mean they've lost their money? Won't they give their fancy ball, then?" Van Degen shrugged. "Nobody knows how it's coming out That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball--says he's going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street-railways." Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen's announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt's name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the "Ararat Trust Investigation," but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt--the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!--could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he "saw things big"; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be "loafing and fooling," as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course--I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress." The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge. "It doesn't look like a last year's face, anyhow--that's what makes them all wild," Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple's tea. But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dress-maker to take it back. "Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. "I don't know--I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot." "Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold." Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where are you off to?" "West End Avenue, of course--if I can find a cab to take me there." It was not the least of Undine's grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg's first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg's financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, more-over, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy's birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house. But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother's plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation--the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: "Do let me give you a lift home, dear--Oh, I'd forgotten! I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far--" It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on "lifts," openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!) but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being "out of things." Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. "Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mind the open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner." The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin. "Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on a strap in the elevated." The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter's sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his "bad" real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way--she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be "talked about" with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for "nice women." She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good. Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor. "What's the matter? Isn't everything all right?" His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary "niceness" seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material "bothers"--as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he "didn't care to part"); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he'd give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: "Oh, hang waiting for the bill--won't a couple of thou make it all right?" in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life. The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down--with a nod for his "Everything jolly again now?"--to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy--and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his "nagging" that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs. "Mercy! It's the boy's birthday--I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I'd forgotten!" XV In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. "No sign of her. She's simply forgotten." Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock. "Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late." Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come." She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled. "Put them out, please," she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen. "It's all so unlucky--my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boy here at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's always breaking her engagements." "She has so many that it's inevitable some should get broken." "All if she'd only choose! Now that Ralph has had into business, and is kept in his office so late, it's cruel of her to drag him out every night. He told us the other day they hadn't dined at home for a month. Undine doesn't seem to notice how hard he works." Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. "No--why should she?" "Why SHOULD she? Really, Charles--!" "Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?" "She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it's her extravagance that's forced him into it." Mrs. Fairford looked at Bowen reproachfully. "You talk as if you were on her side!" "Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartially from the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view of the whole problem of American marriages." Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh. "If that's what you want you must make haste! Most of them don't last long enough to be classified." "I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is so frequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it." "What do you call the weak point?" He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife." Mrs. Fairford was up with a spring. "If that's where paradox lands you!" Bowen mildly stood his ground. "Well--doesn't he prove it? How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph for instance--you say his wife's extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that's not what's wrong. It's normal for a man to work hard for a woman--what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it." "To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!" "Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again--I don't mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in THEM." Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her. "YOU don't? The American man doesn't--the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing--?" "Yes; and the most indifferent: there's the point. The 'slaving's' no argument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they've ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn't know what else to do with it." "Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?" "Not necessarily--but it's a want of imagination to fancy it's all he owes her. Look about you and you'll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middle of the picture. I'm not implying that Ralph isn't interested in his wife--he's a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman's drawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? The emotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In America the real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement in wrecking railways than homes." Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. "Isn't that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we'd give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what's the result--how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy's with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male--the money and the motors and the clothes--and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT'S what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you're going to say--it's less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping out of some man's way!" Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: "And is Undine one of the exceptions?" Her companion took the shot with a smile. "No--she's a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It's Ralph who's the victim and the exception." "Ah, poor Ralph!" Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. "I hear him now. I suppose," she added in an undertone, "we can't give him your explanation for his wife's having forgotten to come?" Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered. "Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles--have you been celebrating too?" Ralph turned to his sister. "It's outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren't look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays." He returned Mrs. Fairford's kiss. "Don't tell me the party's over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?" As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell. "Sit down, Ralph--you look tired. I'll give you some tea." He dropped into an arm-chair. "I did have rather a rush to get here--but hadn't I better join the revellers? Where are they?" He walked to the end of the room and threw open the dining-room doors. "Hallo--where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!" He went up to it. "Why, it's never even been cut!" Mrs. Fairford called after him: "Come and have your tea first." "No, no--tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with my grandfather? I must make my peace with Undine--" His sister put her arm through his, and drew him back to the fire. "Undine didn't come." "Didn't come? Who brought the boy, then?" "He didn't come either. That's why the cake's not cut." Ralph frowned. "What's the mystery? Is he ill, or what's happened?" "Nothing's happened--Paul's all right. Apparently Undine forgot. She never went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late to come." She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew out his cigarette case. "Poor little Paul--poor chap!" He moved toward the fire. "Yes, please--some tea." He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if some strong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but before the tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was on his feet again. "But this won't do. I must rush home and see the poor chap before dinner. And my mother--and my grandfather? I want to say a word to them--I must make Paul's excuses!" "Grandfather's taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for a postponed committee meeting--she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn't coming." "Ah, I see." He sat down again. "Yes, make the strong, please. I've had a beastly fagging sort of day." He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother under lowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralph presently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into his former attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staring apathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and started up. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels at the door. "There's Undine! I wonder what could have kept her." He jumped up and walked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight of him she gave a little murmur of pleasure. "What luck to find you! No, not luck--I came because I knew you'd be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!" Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford and then turned back to Ralph. "Yes, I knew I'd catch you here. I knew it was the boy's birthday, and I've brought him a present: a vulgar expensive Van Degen offering. I've not enough imagination left to find the right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When I look for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: 'I want this or that'--I simply say: 'Give me something that costs so much.'" She drew a parcel from her muff. "Where's the victim of my vulgarity? Let me crush him under the weight of my gold." Mrs. Fairford sighed out "Clare--Clare!" and Ralph smiled at his cousin. "I'm sorry; but you'll have to depute me to present it. The birthday's over; you're too late." She looked surprised. "Why, I've just left Mamie Driscoll, and she told me Undine was still at Popple's studio a few minutes ago: Popple's giving a tea to show the picture." "Popple's giving a tea?" Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. "Ah, in that case--! In Popple's society who wouldn't forget the flight of time?" He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. Van Degen's words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. "Will you trust me with your present for the boy?" Clare gave him the parcel. "I'm sorry not to give it myself. I said what I did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking--but it's really a battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our revered great-grandmother." "What--the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. "That's dear of you!" She threw him one of her strange glances. "Why not say: 'That's like you?' But you don't remember what I'm like." She turned away to glance at the clock. "It's late, and I must be off. I'm going to a big dinner at the Chauncey Ellings'--but you must be going there too, Ralph? You'd better let me drive you home." In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawn over their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-topped objects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through the crowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare's presence at his side gave him a vague sense of ease. For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, not this relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small daily deceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, marked by one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment that formed the point beyond which there was no returning. It was the moment, a month or two before his boy's birth, when, glancing over a batch of belated Paris bills, he had come on one from the jeweller he had once found in private conference with Undine. The bill was not large, but two of its items stood out sharply. "Resetting pearl and diamond pendant. Resetting sapphire and diamond ring." The pearl and diamond pendant was his mother's wedding present; the ring was the one he had given Undine on their engagement. That they were both family relics, kept unchanged through several generations, scarcely mattered to him at the time: he felt only the stab of his wife's deception. She had assured him in Paris that she had not had her jewels reset. He had noticed, soon after their return to New York, that she had left off her engagement-ring; but the others were soon discarded also, and in answer to his question she had told him that, in her ailing state, rings "worried" her. Now he saw she had deceived him, and, forgetting everything else, he went to her, bill in hand. Her tears and distress filled him with immediate contrition. Was this a time to torment her about trifles? His anger seemed to cause her actual physical fear, and at the sight he abased himself in entreaties for forgiveness. When the scene ended she had pardoned him, and the reset ring was on her finger... Soon afterward, the birth of the boy seemed to wipe out these humiliating memories; yet Marvell found in time that they were not effaced, but only momentarily crowded out of sight. In reality, the incident had a meaning out of proportion to its apparent seriousness, for it put in his hand a clue to a new side of his wife's character. He no longer minded her having lied about the jeweller; what pained him was that she had been unconscious of the wound she inflicted in destroying the identity of the jewels. He saw that, even after their explanation, she still supposed he was angry only because she had deceived him; and the discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feeling on which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in their relation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare Van Degen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him more alive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. After all, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. She was light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose; but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have lied to him or traded on his tenderness. Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voiced mood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did not sound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things: of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of the costume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurring rumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysterious personality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street was beginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after his marriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with a firm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first time with the drama of "business," and whenever he could turn his attention from his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierce interplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard things of Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd of money-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, the humorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests; and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the fact that no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired the information which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "I should like to see him," Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of the one of the few picturesque types we've got." "Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesque types in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room." Clare considered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing them together." "Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?" "Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must have been some years ago. Yes--it was one night at the theatre, just after you announced your engagement." He fancied her voice trembled slightly, as though she thought he might notice her way of dating her memories. "You came into our box," she went on, "and I asked you the name of the red-faced man who was sitting in the stall next to Undine. You didn't know, but some one told us it was Moffatt." Marvell was more struck by her tone than by what she was saying. "If Undine knows him it's odd she's never mentioned it," he answered indifferently. The motor stopped at his door and Clare, as she held out her hand, turned a first full look on him. "Why do you never come to see me? I miss you more than ever," she said. He pressed her hand without answering, but after the motor had rolled away he stood for a while on the pavement, looking after it. When he entered the house the hall

ground

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you WILL be,--you'll HAVE to, if I do the picture--which will make a lovely memento")--Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: "Pure bluff, you know--Jim couldn't pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll's high and dry since the Ararat investigation." She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue. "You mean they've lost their money? Won't they give their fancy ball, then?" Van Degen shrugged. "Nobody knows how it's coming out That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball--says he's going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street-railways." Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen's announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt's name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the "Ararat Trust Investigation," but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt--the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!--could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he "saw things big"; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be "loafing and fooling," as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course--I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress." The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge. "It doesn't look like a last year's face, anyhow--that's what makes them all wild," Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple's tea. But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dress-maker to take it back. "Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. "I don't know--I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot." "Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold." Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where are you off to?" "West End Avenue, of course--if I can find a cab to take me there." It was not the least of Undine's grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg's first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg's financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, more-over, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy's birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house. But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother's plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation--the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: "Do let me give you a lift home, dear--Oh, I'd forgotten! I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far--" It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on "lifts," openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!) but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being "out of things." Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. "Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mind the open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner." The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin. "Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on a strap in the elevated." The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter's sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his "bad" real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way--she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be "talked about" with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for "nice women." She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good. Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor. "What's the matter? Isn't everything all right?" His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary "niceness" seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material "bothers"--as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he "didn't care to part"); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he'd give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: "Oh, hang waiting for the bill--won't a couple of thou make it all right?" in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life. The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down--with a nod for his "Everything jolly again now?"--to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy--and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his "nagging" that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs. "Mercy! It's the boy's birthday--I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I'd forgotten!" XV In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. "No sign of her. She's simply forgotten." Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock. "Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late." Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come." She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled. "Put them out, please," she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen. "It's all so unlucky--my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boy here at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's always breaking her engagements." "She has so many that it's inevitable some should get broken." "All if she'd only choose! Now that Ralph has had into business, and is kept in his office so late, it's cruel of her to drag him out every night. He told us the other day they hadn't dined at home for a month. Undine doesn't seem to notice how hard he works." Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. "No--why should she?" "Why SHOULD she? Really, Charles--!" "Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?" "She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it's her extravagance that's forced him into it." Mrs. Fairford looked at Bowen reproachfully. "You talk as if you were on her side!" "Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartially from the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view of the whole problem of American marriages." Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh. "If that's what you want you must make haste! Most of them don't last long enough to be classified." "I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is so frequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it." "What do you call the weak point?" He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife." Mrs. Fairford was up with a spring. "If that's where paradox lands you!" Bowen mildly stood his ground. "Well--doesn't he prove it? How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph for instance--you say his wife's extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that's not what's wrong. It's normal for a man to work hard for a woman--what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it." "To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!" "Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again--I don't mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in THEM." Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her. "YOU don't? The American man doesn't--the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing--?" "Yes; and the most indifferent: there's the point. The 'slaving's' no argument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they've ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn't know what else to do with it." "Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?" "Not necessarily--but it's a want of imagination to fancy it's all he owes her. Look about you and you'll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middle of the picture. I'm not implying that Ralph isn't interested in his wife--he's a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman's drawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? The emotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In America the real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement in wrecking railways than homes." Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. "Isn't that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we'd give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what's the result--how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy's with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male--the money and the motors and the clothes--and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT'S what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you're going to say--it's less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping out of some man's way!" Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: "And is Undine one of the exceptions?" Her companion took the shot with a smile. "No--she's a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It's Ralph who's the victim and the exception." "Ah, poor Ralph!" Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. "I hear him now. I suppose," she added in an undertone, "we can't give him your explanation for his wife's having forgotten to come?" Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered. "Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles--have you been celebrating too?" Ralph turned to his sister. "It's outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren't look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays." He returned Mrs. Fairford's kiss. "Don't tell me the party's over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?" As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell. "Sit down, Ralph--you look tired. I'll give you some tea." He dropped into an arm-chair. "I did have rather a rush to get here--but hadn't I better join the revellers? Where are they?" He walked to the end of the room and threw open the dining-room doors. "Hallo--where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!" He went up to it. "Why, it's never even been cut!" Mrs. Fairford called after him: "Come and have your tea first." "No, no--tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with my grandfather? I must make my peace with Undine--" His sister put her arm through his, and drew him back to the fire. "Undine didn't come." "Didn't come? Who brought the boy, then?" "He didn't come either. That's why the cake's not cut." Ralph frowned. "What's the mystery? Is he ill, or what's happened?" "Nothing's happened--Paul's all right. Apparently Undine forgot. She never went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late to come." She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew out his cigarette case. "Poor little Paul--poor chap!" He moved toward the fire. "Yes, please--some tea." He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if some strong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but before the tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was on his feet again. "But this won't do. I must rush home and see the poor chap before dinner. And my mother--and my grandfather? I want to say a word to them--I must make Paul's excuses!" "Grandfather's taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for a postponed committee meeting--she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn't coming." "Ah, I see." He sat down again. "Yes, make the strong, please. I've had a beastly fagging sort of day." He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother under lowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralph presently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into his former attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staring apathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and started up. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels at the door. "There's Undine! I wonder what could have kept her." He jumped up and walked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight of him she gave a little murmur of pleasure. "What luck to find you! No, not luck--I came because I knew you'd be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!" Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford and then turned back to Ralph. "Yes, I knew I'd catch you here. I knew it was the boy's birthday, and I've brought him a present: a vulgar expensive Van Degen offering. I've not enough imagination left to find the right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When I look for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: 'I want this or that'--I simply say: 'Give me something that costs so much.'" She drew a parcel from her muff. "Where's the victim of my vulgarity? Let me crush him under the weight of my gold." Mrs. Fairford sighed out "Clare--Clare!" and Ralph smiled at his cousin. "I'm sorry; but you'll have to depute me to present it. The birthday's over; you're too late." She looked surprised. "Why, I've just left Mamie Driscoll, and she told me Undine was still at Popple's studio a few minutes ago: Popple's giving a tea to show the picture." "Popple's giving a tea?" Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. "Ah, in that case--! In Popple's society who wouldn't forget the flight of time?" He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. Van Degen's words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. "Will you trust me with your present for the boy?" Clare gave him the parcel. "I'm sorry not to give it myself. I said what I did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking--but it's really a battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our revered great-grandmother." "What--the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. "That's dear of you!" She threw him one of her strange glances. "Why not say: 'That's like you?' But you don't remember what I'm like." She turned away to glance at the clock. "It's late, and I must be off. I'm going to a big dinner at the Chauncey Ellings'--but you must be going there too, Ralph? You'd better let me drive you home." In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawn over their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-topped objects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through the crowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare's presence at his side gave him a vague sense of ease. For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, not this relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small daily deceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, marked by one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment that formed the point beyond which there was no returning. It was the moment, a month or two before his boy's birth, when, glancing over a batch of belated Paris bills, he had come on one from the jeweller he had once found in private conference with Undine. The bill was not large, but two of its items stood out sharply. "Resetting pearl and diamond pendant. Resetting sapphire and diamond ring." The pearl and diamond pendant was his mother's wedding present; the ring was the one he had given Undine on their engagement. That they were both family relics, kept unchanged through several generations, scarcely mattered to him at the time: he felt only the stab of his wife's deception. She had assured him in Paris that she had not had her jewels reset. He had noticed, soon after their return to New York, that she had left off her engagement-ring; but the others were soon discarded also, and in answer to his question she had told him that, in her ailing state, rings "worried" her. Now he saw she had deceived him, and, forgetting everything else, he went to her, bill in hand. Her tears and distress filled him with immediate contrition. Was this a time to torment her about trifles? His anger seemed to cause her actual physical fear, and at the sight he abased himself in entreaties for forgiveness. When the scene ended she had pardoned him, and the reset ring was on her finger... Soon afterward, the birth of the boy seemed to wipe out these humiliating memories; yet Marvell found in time that they were not effaced, but only momentarily crowded out of sight. In reality, the incident had a meaning out of proportion to its apparent seriousness, for it put in his hand a clue to a new side of his wife's character. He no longer minded her having lied about the jeweller; what pained him was that she had been unconscious of the wound she inflicted in destroying the identity of the jewels. He saw that, even after their explanation, she still supposed he was angry only because she had deceived him; and the discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feeling on which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in their relation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare Van Degen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him more alive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. After all, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. She was light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose; but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have lied to him or traded on his tenderness. Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voiced mood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did not sound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things: of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of the costume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurring rumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysterious personality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street was beginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after his marriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with a firm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first time with the drama of "business," and whenever he could turn his attention from his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierce interplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard things of Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd of money-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, the humorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests; and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the fact that no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired the information which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "I should like to see him," Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of the one of the few picturesque types we've got." "Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesque types in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room." Clare considered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing them together." "Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?" "Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must have been some years ago. Yes--it was one night at the theatre, just after you announced your engagement." He fancied her voice trembled slightly, as though she thought he might notice her way of dating her memories. "You came into our box," she went on, "and I asked you the name of the red-faced man who was sitting in the stall next to Undine. You didn't know, but some one told us it was Moffatt." Marvell was more struck by her tone than by what she was saying. "If Undine knows him it's odd she's never mentioned it," he answered indifferently. The motor stopped at his door and Clare, as she held out her hand, turned a first full look on him. "Why do you never come to see me? I miss you more than ever," she said. He pressed her hand without answering, but after the motor had rolled away he stood for a while on the pavement, looking after it. When he entered the house the hall

though

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you WILL be,--you'll HAVE to, if I do the picture--which will make a lovely memento")--Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: "Pure bluff, you know--Jim couldn't pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll's high and dry since the Ararat investigation." She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue. "You mean they've lost their money? Won't they give their fancy ball, then?" Van Degen shrugged. "Nobody knows how it's coming out That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball--says he's going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street-railways." Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen's announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt's name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the "Ararat Trust Investigation," but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt--the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!--could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he "saw things big"; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be "loafing and fooling," as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course--I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress." The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge. "It doesn't look like a last year's face, anyhow--that's what makes them all wild," Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple's tea. But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dress-maker to take it back. "Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. "I don't know--I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot." "Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold." Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where are you off to?" "West End Avenue, of course--if I can find a cab to take me there." It was not the least of Undine's grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg's first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg's financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, more-over, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy's birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house. But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother's plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation--the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: "Do let me give you a lift home, dear--Oh, I'd forgotten! I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far--" It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on "lifts," openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!) but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being "out of things." Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. "Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mind the open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner." The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin. "Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on a strap in the elevated." The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter's sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his "bad" real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way--she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be "talked about" with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for "nice women." She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good. Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor. "What's the matter? Isn't everything all right?" His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary "niceness" seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material "bothers"--as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he "didn't care to part"); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he'd give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: "Oh, hang waiting for the bill--won't a couple of thou make it all right?" in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life. The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down--with a nod for his "Everything jolly again now?"--to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy--and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his "nagging" that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs. "Mercy! It's the boy's birthday--I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I'd forgotten!" XV In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. "No sign of her. She's simply forgotten." Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock. "Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late." Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come." She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled. "Put them out, please," she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen. "It's all so unlucky--my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boy here at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's always breaking her engagements." "She has so many that it's inevitable some should get broken." "All if she'd only choose! Now that Ralph has had into business, and is kept in his office so late, it's cruel of her to drag him out every night. He told us the other day they hadn't dined at home for a month. Undine doesn't seem to notice how hard he works." Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. "No--why should she?" "Why SHOULD she? Really, Charles--!" "Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?" "She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it's her extravagance that's forced him into it." Mrs. Fairford looked at Bowen reproachfully. "You talk as if you were on her side!" "Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartially from the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view of the whole problem of American marriages." Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh. "If that's what you want you must make haste! Most of them don't last long enough to be classified." "I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is so frequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it." "What do you call the weak point?" He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife." Mrs. Fairford was up with a spring. "If that's where paradox lands you!" Bowen mildly stood his ground. "Well--doesn't he prove it? How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph for instance--you say his wife's extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that's not what's wrong. It's normal for a man to work hard for a woman--what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it." "To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!" "Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again--I don't mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in THEM." Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her. "YOU don't? The American man doesn't--the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing--?" "Yes; and the most indifferent: there's the point. The 'slaving's' no argument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they've ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn't know what else to do with it." "Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?" "Not necessarily--but it's a want of imagination to fancy it's all he owes her. Look about you and you'll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middle of the picture. I'm not implying that Ralph isn't interested in his wife--he's a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman's drawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? The emotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In America the real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement in wrecking railways than homes." Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. "Isn't that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we'd give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what's the result--how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy's with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male--the money and the motors and the clothes--and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT'S what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you're going to say--it's less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping out of some man's way!" Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: "And is Undine one of the exceptions?" Her companion took the shot with a smile. "No--she's a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It's Ralph who's the victim and the exception." "Ah, poor Ralph!" Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. "I hear him now. I suppose," she added in an undertone, "we can't give him your explanation for his wife's having forgotten to come?" Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered. "Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles--have you been celebrating too?" Ralph turned to his sister. "It's outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren't look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays." He returned Mrs. Fairford's kiss. "Don't tell me the party's over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?" As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell. "Sit down, Ralph--you look tired. I'll give you some tea." He dropped into an arm-chair. "I did have rather a rush to get here--but hadn't I better join the revellers? Where are they?" He walked to the end of the room and threw open the dining-room doors. "Hallo--where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!" He went up to it. "Why, it's never even been cut!" Mrs. Fairford called after him: "Come and have your tea first." "No, no--tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with my grandfather? I must make my peace with Undine--" His sister put her arm through his, and drew him back to the fire. "Undine didn't come." "Didn't come? Who brought the boy, then?" "He didn't come either. That's why the cake's not cut." Ralph frowned. "What's the mystery? Is he ill, or what's happened?" "Nothing's happened--Paul's all right. Apparently Undine forgot. She never went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late to come." She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew out his cigarette case. "Poor little Paul--poor chap!" He moved toward the fire. "Yes, please--some tea." He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if some strong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but before the tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was on his feet again. "But this won't do. I must rush home and see the poor chap before dinner. And my mother--and my grandfather? I want to say a word to them--I must make Paul's excuses!" "Grandfather's taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for a postponed committee meeting--she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn't coming." "Ah, I see." He sat down again. "Yes, make the strong, please. I've had a beastly fagging sort of day." He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother under lowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralph presently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into his former attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staring apathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and started up. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels at the door. "There's Undine! I wonder what could have kept her." He jumped up and walked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight of him she gave a little murmur of pleasure. "What luck to find you! No, not luck--I came because I knew you'd be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!" Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford and then turned back to Ralph. "Yes, I knew I'd catch you here. I knew it was the boy's birthday, and I've brought him a present: a vulgar expensive Van Degen offering. I've not enough imagination left to find the right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When I look for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: 'I want this or that'--I simply say: 'Give me something that costs so much.'" She drew a parcel from her muff. "Where's the victim of my vulgarity? Let me crush him under the weight of my gold." Mrs. Fairford sighed out "Clare--Clare!" and Ralph smiled at his cousin. "I'm sorry; but you'll have to depute me to present it. The birthday's over; you're too late." She looked surprised. "Why, I've just left Mamie Driscoll, and she told me Undine was still at Popple's studio a few minutes ago: Popple's giving a tea to show the picture." "Popple's giving a tea?" Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. "Ah, in that case--! In Popple's society who wouldn't forget the flight of time?" He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. Van Degen's words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. "Will you trust me with your present for the boy?" Clare gave him the parcel. "I'm sorry not to give it myself. I said what I did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking--but it's really a battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our revered great-grandmother." "What--the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. "That's dear of you!" She threw him one of her strange glances. "Why not say: 'That's like you?' But you don't remember what I'm like." She turned away to glance at the clock. "It's late, and I must be off. I'm going to a big dinner at the Chauncey Ellings'--but you must be going there too, Ralph? You'd better let me drive you home." In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawn over their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-topped objects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through the crowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare's presence at his side gave him a vague sense of ease. For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, not this relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small daily deceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, marked by one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment that formed the point beyond which there was no returning. It was the moment, a month or two before his boy's birth, when, glancing over a batch of belated Paris bills, he had come on one from the jeweller he had once found in private conference with Undine. The bill was not large, but two of its items stood out sharply. "Resetting pearl and diamond pendant. Resetting sapphire and diamond ring." The pearl and diamond pendant was his mother's wedding present; the ring was the one he had given Undine on their engagement. That they were both family relics, kept unchanged through several generations, scarcely mattered to him at the time: he felt only the stab of his wife's deception. She had assured him in Paris that she had not had her jewels reset. He had noticed, soon after their return to New York, that she had left off her engagement-ring; but the others were soon discarded also, and in answer to his question she had told him that, in her ailing state, rings "worried" her. Now he saw she had deceived him, and, forgetting everything else, he went to her, bill in hand. Her tears and distress filled him with immediate contrition. Was this a time to torment her about trifles? His anger seemed to cause her actual physical fear, and at the sight he abased himself in entreaties for forgiveness. When the scene ended she had pardoned him, and the reset ring was on her finger... Soon afterward, the birth of the boy seemed to wipe out these humiliating memories; yet Marvell found in time that they were not effaced, but only momentarily crowded out of sight. In reality, the incident had a meaning out of proportion to its apparent seriousness, for it put in his hand a clue to a new side of his wife's character. He no longer minded her having lied about the jeweller; what pained him was that she had been unconscious of the wound she inflicted in destroying the identity of the jewels. He saw that, even after their explanation, she still supposed he was angry only because she had deceived him; and the discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feeling on which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in their relation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare Van Degen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him more alive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. After all, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. She was light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose; but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have lied to him or traded on his tenderness. Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voiced mood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did not sound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things: of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of the costume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurring rumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysterious personality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street was beginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after his marriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with a firm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first time with the drama of "business," and whenever he could turn his attention from his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierce interplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard things of Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd of money-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, the humorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests; and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the fact that no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired the information which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "I should like to see him," Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of the one of the few picturesque types we've got." "Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesque types in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room." Clare considered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing them together." "Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?" "Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must have been some years ago. Yes--it was one night at the theatre, just after you announced your engagement." He fancied her voice trembled slightly, as though she thought he might notice her way of dating her memories. "You came into our box," she went on, "and I asked you the name of the red-faced man who was sitting in the stall next to Undine. You didn't know, but some one told us it was Moffatt." Marvell was more struck by her tone than by what she was saying. "If Undine knows him it's odd she's never mentioned it," he answered indifferently. The motor stopped at his door and Clare, as she held out her hand, turned a first full look on him. "Why do you never come to see me? I miss you more than ever," she said. He pressed her hand without answering, but after the motor had rolled away he stood for a while on the pavement, looking after it. When he entered the house the hall

argument

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

you WILL be,--you'll HAVE to, if I do the picture--which will make a lovely memento")--Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: "Pure bluff, you know--Jim couldn't pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll's high and dry since the Ararat investigation." She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue. "You mean they've lost their money? Won't they give their fancy ball, then?" Van Degen shrugged. "Nobody knows how it's coming out That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball--says he's going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street-railways." Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen's announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt's name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the "Ararat Trust Investigation," but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt--the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!--could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he "saw things big"; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be "loafing and fooling," as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course--I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress." The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge. "It doesn't look like a last year's face, anyhow--that's what makes them all wild," Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple's tea. But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dress-maker to take it back. "Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. "I don't know--I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot." "Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold." Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where are you off to?" "West End Avenue, of course--if I can find a cab to take me there." It was not the least of Undine's grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg's first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg's financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, more-over, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy's birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house. But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother's plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation--the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: "Do let me give you a lift home, dear--Oh, I'd forgotten! I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far--" It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on "lifts," openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!) but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being "out of things." Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. "Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mind the open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner." The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin. "Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on a strap in the elevated." The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter's sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his "bad" real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way--she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be "talked about" with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for "nice women." She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good. Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor. "What's the matter? Isn't everything all right?" His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary "niceness" seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material "bothers"--as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he "didn't care to part"); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he'd give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: "Oh, hang waiting for the bill--won't a couple of thou make it all right?" in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life. The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down--with a nod for his "Everything jolly again now?"--to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy--and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his "nagging" that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs. "Mercy! It's the boy's birthday--I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I'd forgotten!" XV In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. "No sign of her. She's simply forgotten." Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock. "Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late." Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come." She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled. "Put them out, please," she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen. "It's all so unlucky--my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boy here at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's always breaking her engagements." "She has so many that it's inevitable some should get broken." "All if she'd only choose! Now that Ralph has had into business, and is kept in his office so late, it's cruel of her to drag him out every night. He told us the other day they hadn't dined at home for a month. Undine doesn't seem to notice how hard he works." Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. "No--why should she?" "Why SHOULD she? Really, Charles--!" "Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?" "She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it's her extravagance that's forced him into it." Mrs. Fairford looked at Bowen reproachfully. "You talk as if you were on her side!" "Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartially from the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view of the whole problem of American marriages." Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh. "If that's what you want you must make haste! Most of them don't last long enough to be classified." "I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is so frequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it." "What do you call the weak point?" He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife." Mrs. Fairford was up with a spring. "If that's where paradox lands you!" Bowen mildly stood his ground. "Well--doesn't he prove it? How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph for instance--you say his wife's extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that's not what's wrong. It's normal for a man to work hard for a woman--what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it." "To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!" "Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again--I don't mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in THEM." Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her. "YOU don't? The American man doesn't--the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing--?" "Yes; and the most indifferent: there's the point. The 'slaving's' no argument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they've ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn't know what else to do with it." "Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?" "Not necessarily--but it's a want of imagination to fancy it's all he owes her. Look about you and you'll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middle of the picture. I'm not implying that Ralph isn't interested in his wife--he's a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman's drawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? The emotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In America the real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement in wrecking railways than homes." Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. "Isn't that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we'd give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what's the result--how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy's with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male--the money and the motors and the clothes--and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT'S what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you're going to say--it's less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping out of some man's way!" Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: "And is Undine one of the exceptions?" Her companion took the shot with a smile. "No--she's a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It's Ralph who's the victim and the exception." "Ah, poor Ralph!" Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. "I hear him now. I suppose," she added in an undertone, "we can't give him your explanation for his wife's having forgotten to come?" Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered. "Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles--have you been celebrating too?" Ralph turned to his sister. "It's outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren't look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays." He returned Mrs. Fairford's kiss. "Don't tell me the party's over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?" As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell. "Sit down, Ralph--you look tired. I'll give you some tea." He dropped into an arm-chair. "I did have rather a rush to get here--but hadn't I better join the revellers? Where are they?" He walked to the end of the room and threw open the dining-room doors. "Hallo--where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!" He went up to it. "Why, it's never even been cut!" Mrs. Fairford called after him: "Come and have your tea first." "No, no--tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with my grandfather? I must make my peace with Undine--" His sister put her arm through his, and drew him back to the fire. "Undine didn't come." "Didn't come? Who brought the boy, then?" "He didn't come either. That's why the cake's not cut." Ralph frowned. "What's the mystery? Is he ill, or what's happened?" "Nothing's happened--Paul's all right. Apparently Undine forgot. She never went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late to come." She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew out his cigarette case. "Poor little Paul--poor chap!" He moved toward the fire. "Yes, please--some tea." He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if some strong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but before the tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was on his feet again. "But this won't do. I must rush home and see the poor chap before dinner. And my mother--and my grandfather? I want to say a word to them--I must make Paul's excuses!" "Grandfather's taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for a postponed committee meeting--she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn't coming." "Ah, I see." He sat down again. "Yes, make the strong, please. I've had a beastly fagging sort of day." He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother under lowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralph presently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into his former attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staring apathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and started up. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels at the door. "There's Undine! I wonder what could have kept her." He jumped up and walked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight of him she gave a little murmur of pleasure. "What luck to find you! No, not luck--I came because I knew you'd be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!" Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford and then turned back to Ralph. "Yes, I knew I'd catch you here. I knew it was the boy's birthday, and I've brought him a present: a vulgar expensive Van Degen offering. I've not enough imagination left to find the right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When I look for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: 'I want this or that'--I simply say: 'Give me something that costs so much.'" She drew a parcel from her muff. "Where's the victim of my vulgarity? Let me crush him under the weight of my gold." Mrs. Fairford sighed out "Clare--Clare!" and Ralph smiled at his cousin. "I'm sorry; but you'll have to depute me to present it. The birthday's over; you're too late." She looked surprised. "Why, I've just left Mamie Driscoll, and she told me Undine was still at Popple's studio a few minutes ago: Popple's giving a tea to show the picture." "Popple's giving a tea?" Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. "Ah, in that case--! In Popple's society who wouldn't forget the flight of time?" He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. Van Degen's words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. "Will you trust me with your present for the boy?" Clare gave him the parcel. "I'm sorry not to give it myself. I said what I did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking--but it's really a battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our revered great-grandmother." "What--the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. "That's dear of you!" She threw him one of her strange glances. "Why not say: 'That's like you?' But you don't remember what I'm like." She turned away to glance at the clock. "It's late, and I must be off. I'm going to a big dinner at the Chauncey Ellings'--but you must be going there too, Ralph? You'd better let me drive you home." In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawn over their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-topped objects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through the crowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare's presence at his side gave him a vague sense of ease. For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, not this relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small daily deceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, marked by one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment that formed the point beyond which there was no returning. It was the moment, a month or two before his boy's birth, when, glancing over a batch of belated Paris bills, he had come on one from the jeweller he had once found in private conference with Undine. The bill was not large, but two of its items stood out sharply. "Resetting pearl and diamond pendant. Resetting sapphire and diamond ring." The pearl and diamond pendant was his mother's wedding present; the ring was the one he had given Undine on their engagement. That they were both family relics, kept unchanged through several generations, scarcely mattered to him at the time: he felt only the stab of his wife's deception. She had assured him in Paris that she had not had her jewels reset. He had noticed, soon after their return to New York, that she had left off her engagement-ring; but the others were soon discarded also, and in answer to his question she had told him that, in her ailing state, rings "worried" her. Now he saw she had deceived him, and, forgetting everything else, he went to her, bill in hand. Her tears and distress filled him with immediate contrition. Was this a time to torment her about trifles? His anger seemed to cause her actual physical fear, and at the sight he abased himself in entreaties for forgiveness. When the scene ended she had pardoned him, and the reset ring was on her finger... Soon afterward, the birth of the boy seemed to wipe out these humiliating memories; yet Marvell found in time that they were not effaced, but only momentarily crowded out of sight. In reality, the incident had a meaning out of proportion to its apparent seriousness, for it put in his hand a clue to a new side of his wife's character. He no longer minded her having lied about the jeweller; what pained him was that she had been unconscious of the wound she inflicted in destroying the identity of the jewels. He saw that, even after their explanation, she still supposed he was angry only because she had deceived him; and the discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feeling on which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in their relation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare Van Degen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him more alive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. After all, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. She was light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose; but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have lied to him or traded on his tenderness. Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voiced mood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did not sound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things: of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of the costume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurring rumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysterious personality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street was beginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after his marriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with a firm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first time with the drama of "business," and whenever he could turn his attention from his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierce interplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard things of Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd of money-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, the humorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests; and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the fact that no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired the information which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "I should like to see him," Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of the one of the few picturesque types we've got." "Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesque types in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room." Clare considered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing them together." "Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?" "Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must have been some years ago. Yes--it was one night at the theatre, just after you announced your engagement." He fancied her voice trembled slightly, as though she thought he might notice her way of dating her memories. "You came into our box," she went on, "and I asked you the name of the red-faced man who was sitting in the stall next to Undine. You didn't know, but some one told us it was Moffatt." Marvell was more struck by her tone than by what she was saying. "If Undine knows him it's odd she's never mentioned it," he answered indifferently. The motor stopped at his door and Clare, as she held out her hand, turned a first full look on him. "Why do you never come to see me? I miss you more than ever," she said. He pressed her hand without answering, but after the motor had rolled away he stood for a while on the pavement, looking after it. When he entered the house the hall

house

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

you WILL be,--you'll HAVE to, if I do the picture--which will make a lovely memento")--Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: "Pure bluff, you know--Jim couldn't pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll's high and dry since the Ararat investigation." She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue. "You mean they've lost their money? Won't they give their fancy ball, then?" Van Degen shrugged. "Nobody knows how it's coming out That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball--says he's going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street-railways." Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen's announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt's name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the "Ararat Trust Investigation," but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt--the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!--could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he "saw things big"; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be "loafing and fooling," as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course--I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress." The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge. "It doesn't look like a last year's face, anyhow--that's what makes them all wild," Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple's tea. But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dress-maker to take it back. "Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. "I don't know--I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot." "Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold." Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where are you off to?" "West End Avenue, of course--if I can find a cab to take me there." It was not the least of Undine's grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg's first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg's financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, more-over, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy's birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house. But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother's plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation--the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: "Do let me give you a lift home, dear--Oh, I'd forgotten! I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far--" It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on "lifts," openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!) but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being "out of things." Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. "Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mind the open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner." The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin. "Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on a strap in the elevated." The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter's sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his "bad" real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way--she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be "talked about" with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for "nice women." She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good. Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor. "What's the matter? Isn't everything all right?" His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary "niceness" seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material "bothers"--as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he "didn't care to part"); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he'd give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: "Oh, hang waiting for the bill--won't a couple of thou make it all right?" in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life. The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down--with a nod for his "Everything jolly again now?"--to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy--and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his "nagging" that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs. "Mercy! It's the boy's birthday--I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I'd forgotten!" XV In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. "No sign of her. She's simply forgotten." Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock. "Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late." Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come." She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled. "Put them out, please," she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen. "It's all so unlucky--my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boy here at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's always breaking her engagements." "She has so many that it's inevitable some should get broken." "All if she'd only choose! Now that Ralph has had into business, and is kept in his office so late, it's cruel of her to drag him out every night. He told us the other day they hadn't dined at home for a month. Undine doesn't seem to notice how hard he works." Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. "No--why should she?" "Why SHOULD she? Really, Charles--!" "Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?" "She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it's her extravagance that's forced him into it." Mrs. Fairford looked at Bowen reproachfully. "You talk as if you were on her side!" "Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartially from the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view of the whole problem of American marriages." Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh. "If that's what you want you must make haste! Most of them don't last long enough to be classified." "I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is so frequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it." "What do you call the weak point?" He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife." Mrs. Fairford was up with a spring. "If that's where paradox lands you!" Bowen mildly stood his ground. "Well--doesn't he prove it? How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph for instance--you say his wife's extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that's not what's wrong. It's normal for a man to work hard for a woman--what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it." "To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!" "Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again--I don't mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in THEM." Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her. "YOU don't? The American man doesn't--the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing--?" "Yes; and the most indifferent: there's the point. The 'slaving's' no argument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they've ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn't know what else to do with it." "Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?" "Not necessarily--but it's a want of imagination to fancy it's all he owes her. Look about you and you'll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middle of the picture. I'm not implying that Ralph isn't interested in his wife--he's a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman's drawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? The emotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In America the real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement in wrecking railways than homes." Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. "Isn't that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we'd give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what's the result--how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy's with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male--the money and the motors and the clothes--and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT'S what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you're going to say--it's less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping out of some man's way!" Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: "And is Undine one of the exceptions?" Her companion took the shot with a smile. "No--she's a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It's Ralph who's the victim and the exception." "Ah, poor Ralph!" Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. "I hear him now. I suppose," she added in an undertone, "we can't give him your explanation for his wife's having forgotten to come?" Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered. "Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles--have you been celebrating too?" Ralph turned to his sister. "It's outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren't look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays." He returned Mrs. Fairford's kiss. "Don't tell me the party's over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?" As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell. "Sit down, Ralph--you look tired. I'll give you some tea." He dropped into an arm-chair. "I did have rather a rush to get here--but hadn't I better join the revellers? Where are they?" He walked to the end of the room and threw open the dining-room doors. "Hallo--where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!" He went up to it. "Why, it's never even been cut!" Mrs. Fairford called after him: "Come and have your tea first." "No, no--tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with my grandfather? I must make my peace with Undine--" His sister put her arm through his, and drew him back to the fire. "Undine didn't come." "Didn't come? Who brought the boy, then?" "He didn't come either. That's why the cake's not cut." Ralph frowned. "What's the mystery? Is he ill, or what's happened?" "Nothing's happened--Paul's all right. Apparently Undine forgot. She never went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late to come." She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew out his cigarette case. "Poor little Paul--poor chap!" He moved toward the fire. "Yes, please--some tea." He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if some strong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but before the tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was on his feet again. "But this won't do. I must rush home and see the poor chap before dinner. And my mother--and my grandfather? I want to say a word to them--I must make Paul's excuses!" "Grandfather's taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for a postponed committee meeting--she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn't coming." "Ah, I see." He sat down again. "Yes, make the strong, please. I've had a beastly fagging sort of day." He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother under lowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralph presently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into his former attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staring apathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and started up. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels at the door. "There's Undine! I wonder what could have kept her." He jumped up and walked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight of him she gave a little murmur of pleasure. "What luck to find you! No, not luck--I came because I knew you'd be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!" Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford and then turned back to Ralph. "Yes, I knew I'd catch you here. I knew it was the boy's birthday, and I've brought him a present: a vulgar expensive Van Degen offering. I've not enough imagination left to find the right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When I look for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: 'I want this or that'--I simply say: 'Give me something that costs so much.'" She drew a parcel from her muff. "Where's the victim of my vulgarity? Let me crush him under the weight of my gold." Mrs. Fairford sighed out "Clare--Clare!" and Ralph smiled at his cousin. "I'm sorry; but you'll have to depute me to present it. The birthday's over; you're too late." She looked surprised. "Why, I've just left Mamie Driscoll, and she told me Undine was still at Popple's studio a few minutes ago: Popple's giving a tea to show the picture." "Popple's giving a tea?" Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. "Ah, in that case--! In Popple's society who wouldn't forget the flight of time?" He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. Van Degen's words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. "Will you trust me with your present for the boy?" Clare gave him the parcel. "I'm sorry not to give it myself. I said what I did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking--but it's really a battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our revered great-grandmother." "What--the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. "That's dear of you!" She threw him one of her strange glances. "Why not say: 'That's like you?' But you don't remember what I'm like." She turned away to glance at the clock. "It's late, and I must be off. I'm going to a big dinner at the Chauncey Ellings'--but you must be going there too, Ralph? You'd better let me drive you home." In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawn over their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-topped objects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through the crowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare's presence at his side gave him a vague sense of ease. For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, not this relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small daily deceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, marked by one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment that formed the point beyond which there was no returning. It was the moment, a month or two before his boy's birth, when, glancing over a batch of belated Paris bills, he had come on one from the jeweller he had once found in private conference with Undine. The bill was not large, but two of its items stood out sharply. "Resetting pearl and diamond pendant. Resetting sapphire and diamond ring." The pearl and diamond pendant was his mother's wedding present; the ring was the one he had given Undine on their engagement. That they were both family relics, kept unchanged through several generations, scarcely mattered to him at the time: he felt only the stab of his wife's deception. She had assured him in Paris that she had not had her jewels reset. He had noticed, soon after their return to New York, that she had left off her engagement-ring; but the others were soon discarded also, and in answer to his question she had told him that, in her ailing state, rings "worried" her. Now he saw she had deceived him, and, forgetting everything else, he went to her, bill in hand. Her tears and distress filled him with immediate contrition. Was this a time to torment her about trifles? His anger seemed to cause her actual physical fear, and at the sight he abased himself in entreaties for forgiveness. When the scene ended she had pardoned him, and the reset ring was on her finger... Soon afterward, the birth of the boy seemed to wipe out these humiliating memories; yet Marvell found in time that they were not effaced, but only momentarily crowded out of sight. In reality, the incident had a meaning out of proportion to its apparent seriousness, for it put in his hand a clue to a new side of his wife's character. He no longer minded her having lied about the jeweller; what pained him was that she had been unconscious of the wound she inflicted in destroying the identity of the jewels. He saw that, even after their explanation, she still supposed he was angry only because she had deceived him; and the discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feeling on which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in their relation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare Van Degen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him more alive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. After all, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. She was light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose; but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have lied to him or traded on his tenderness. Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voiced mood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did not sound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things: of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of the costume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurring rumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysterious personality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street was beginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after his marriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with a firm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first time with the drama of "business," and whenever he could turn his attention from his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierce interplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard things of Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd of money-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, the humorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests; and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the fact that no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired the information which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "I should like to see him," Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of the one of the few picturesque types we've got." "Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesque types in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room." Clare considered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing them together." "Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?" "Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must have been some years ago. Yes--it was one night at the theatre, just after you announced your engagement." He fancied her voice trembled slightly, as though she thought he might notice her way of dating her memories. "You came into our box," she went on, "and I asked you the name of the red-faced man who was sitting in the stall next to Undine. You didn't know, but some one told us it was Moffatt." Marvell was more struck by her tone than by what she was saying. "If Undine knows him it's odd she's never mentioned it," he answered indifferently. The motor stopped at his door and Clare, as she held out her hand, turned a first full look on him. "Why do you never come to see me? I miss you more than ever," she said. He pressed her hand without answering, but after the motor had rolled away he stood for a while on the pavement, looking after it. When he entered the house the hall

dizzy

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

you WILL be,--you'll HAVE to, if I do the picture--which will make a lovely memento")--Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: "Pure bluff, you know--Jim couldn't pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll's high and dry since the Ararat investigation." She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue. "You mean they've lost their money? Won't they give their fancy ball, then?" Van Degen shrugged. "Nobody knows how it's coming out That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball--says he's going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street-railways." Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen's announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt's name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the "Ararat Trust Investigation," but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt--the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!--could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he "saw things big"; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be "loafing and fooling," as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course--I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress." The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge. "It doesn't look like a last year's face, anyhow--that's what makes them all wild," Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple's tea. But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dress-maker to take it back. "Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. "I don't know--I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot." "Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold." Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where are you off to?" "West End Avenue, of course--if I can find a cab to take me there." It was not the least of Undine's grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg's first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg's financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, more-over, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy's birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house. But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother's plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation--the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: "Do let me give you a lift home, dear--Oh, I'd forgotten! I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far--" It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on "lifts," openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!) but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being "out of things." Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. "Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mind the open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner." The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin. "Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on a strap in the elevated." The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter's sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his "bad" real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way--she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be "talked about" with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for "nice women." She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good. Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor. "What's the matter? Isn't everything all right?" His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary "niceness" seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material "bothers"--as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he "didn't care to part"); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he'd give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: "Oh, hang waiting for the bill--won't a couple of thou make it all right?" in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life. The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down--with a nod for his "Everything jolly again now?"--to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy--and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his "nagging" that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs. "Mercy! It's the boy's birthday--I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I'd forgotten!" XV In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. "No sign of her. She's simply forgotten." Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock. "Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late." Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come." She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled. "Put them out, please," she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen. "It's all so unlucky--my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boy here at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's always breaking her engagements." "She has so many that it's inevitable some should get broken." "All if she'd only choose! Now that Ralph has had into business, and is kept in his office so late, it's cruel of her to drag him out every night. He told us the other day they hadn't dined at home for a month. Undine doesn't seem to notice how hard he works." Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. "No--why should she?" "Why SHOULD she? Really, Charles--!" "Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?" "She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it's her extravagance that's forced him into it." Mrs. Fairford looked at Bowen reproachfully. "You talk as if you were on her side!" "Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartially from the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view of the whole problem of American marriages." Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh. "If that's what you want you must make haste! Most of them don't last long enough to be classified." "I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is so frequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it." "What do you call the weak point?" He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife." Mrs. Fairford was up with a spring. "If that's where paradox lands you!" Bowen mildly stood his ground. "Well--doesn't he prove it? How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph for instance--you say his wife's extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that's not what's wrong. It's normal for a man to work hard for a woman--what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it." "To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!" "Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again--I don't mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in THEM." Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her. "YOU don't? The American man doesn't--the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing--?" "Yes; and the most indifferent: there's the point. The 'slaving's' no argument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they've ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn't know what else to do with it." "Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?" "Not necessarily--but it's a want of imagination to fancy it's all he owes her. Look about you and you'll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middle of the picture. I'm not implying that Ralph isn't interested in his wife--he's a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman's drawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? The emotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In America the real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement in wrecking railways than homes." Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. "Isn't that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we'd give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what's the result--how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy's with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male--the money and the motors and the clothes--and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT'S what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you're going to say--it's less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping out of some man's way!" Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: "And is Undine one of the exceptions?" Her companion took the shot with a smile. "No--she's a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It's Ralph who's the victim and the exception." "Ah, poor Ralph!" Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. "I hear him now. I suppose," she added in an undertone, "we can't give him your explanation for his wife's having forgotten to come?" Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered. "Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles--have you been celebrating too?" Ralph turned to his sister. "It's outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren't look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays." He returned Mrs. Fairford's kiss. "Don't tell me the party's over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?" As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell. "Sit down, Ralph--you look tired. I'll give you some tea." He dropped into an arm-chair. "I did have rather a rush to get here--but hadn't I better join the revellers? Where are they?" He walked to the end of the room and threw open the dining-room doors. "Hallo--where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!" He went up to it. "Why, it's never even been cut!" Mrs. Fairford called after him: "Come and have your tea first." "No, no--tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with my grandfather? I must make my peace with Undine--" His sister put her arm through his, and drew him back to the fire. "Undine didn't come." "Didn't come? Who brought the boy, then?" "He didn't come either. That's why the cake's not cut." Ralph frowned. "What's the mystery? Is he ill, or what's happened?" "Nothing's happened--Paul's all right. Apparently Undine forgot. She never went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late to come." She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew out his cigarette case. "Poor little Paul--poor chap!" He moved toward the fire. "Yes, please--some tea." He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if some strong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but before the tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was on his feet again. "But this won't do. I must rush home and see the poor chap before dinner. And my mother--and my grandfather? I want to say a word to them--I must make Paul's excuses!" "Grandfather's taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for a postponed committee meeting--she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn't coming." "Ah, I see." He sat down again. "Yes, make the strong, please. I've had a beastly fagging sort of day." He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother under lowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralph presently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into his former attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staring apathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and started up. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels at the door. "There's Undine! I wonder what could have kept her." He jumped up and walked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight of him she gave a little murmur of pleasure. "What luck to find you! No, not luck--I came because I knew you'd be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!" Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford and then turned back to Ralph. "Yes, I knew I'd catch you here. I knew it was the boy's birthday, and I've brought him a present: a vulgar expensive Van Degen offering. I've not enough imagination left to find the right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When I look for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: 'I want this or that'--I simply say: 'Give me something that costs so much.'" She drew a parcel from her muff. "Where's the victim of my vulgarity? Let me crush him under the weight of my gold." Mrs. Fairford sighed out "Clare--Clare!" and Ralph smiled at his cousin. "I'm sorry; but you'll have to depute me to present it. The birthday's over; you're too late." She looked surprised. "Why, I've just left Mamie Driscoll, and she told me Undine was still at Popple's studio a few minutes ago: Popple's giving a tea to show the picture." "Popple's giving a tea?" Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. "Ah, in that case--! In Popple's society who wouldn't forget the flight of time?" He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. Van Degen's words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. "Will you trust me with your present for the boy?" Clare gave him the parcel. "I'm sorry not to give it myself. I said what I did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking--but it's really a battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our revered great-grandmother." "What--the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. "That's dear of you!" She threw him one of her strange glances. "Why not say: 'That's like you?' But you don't remember what I'm like." She turned away to glance at the clock. "It's late, and I must be off. I'm going to a big dinner at the Chauncey Ellings'--but you must be going there too, Ralph? You'd better let me drive you home." In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawn over their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-topped objects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through the crowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare's presence at his side gave him a vague sense of ease. For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, not this relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small daily deceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, marked by one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment that formed the point beyond which there was no returning. It was the moment, a month or two before his boy's birth, when, glancing over a batch of belated Paris bills, he had come on one from the jeweller he had once found in private conference with Undine. The bill was not large, but two of its items stood out sharply. "Resetting pearl and diamond pendant. Resetting sapphire and diamond ring." The pearl and diamond pendant was his mother's wedding present; the ring was the one he had given Undine on their engagement. That they were both family relics, kept unchanged through several generations, scarcely mattered to him at the time: he felt only the stab of his wife's deception. She had assured him in Paris that she had not had her jewels reset. He had noticed, soon after their return to New York, that she had left off her engagement-ring; but the others were soon discarded also, and in answer to his question she had told him that, in her ailing state, rings "worried" her. Now he saw she had deceived him, and, forgetting everything else, he went to her, bill in hand. Her tears and distress filled him with immediate contrition. Was this a time to torment her about trifles? His anger seemed to cause her actual physical fear, and at the sight he abased himself in entreaties for forgiveness. When the scene ended she had pardoned him, and the reset ring was on her finger... Soon afterward, the birth of the boy seemed to wipe out these humiliating memories; yet Marvell found in time that they were not effaced, but only momentarily crowded out of sight. In reality, the incident had a meaning out of proportion to its apparent seriousness, for it put in his hand a clue to a new side of his wife's character. He no longer minded her having lied about the jeweller; what pained him was that she had been unconscious of the wound she inflicted in destroying the identity of the jewels. He saw that, even after their explanation, she still supposed he was angry only because she had deceived him; and the discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feeling on which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in their relation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare Van Degen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him more alive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. After all, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. She was light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose; but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have lied to him or traded on his tenderness. Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voiced mood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did not sound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things: of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of the costume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurring rumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysterious personality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street was beginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after his marriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with a firm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first time with the drama of "business," and whenever he could turn his attention from his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierce interplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard things of Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd of money-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, the humorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests; and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the fact that no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired the information which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "I should like to see him," Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of the one of the few picturesque types we've got." "Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesque types in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room." Clare considered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing them together." "Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?" "Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must have been some years ago. Yes--it was one night at the theatre, just after you announced your engagement." He fancied her voice trembled slightly, as though she thought he might notice her way of dating her memories. "You came into our box," she went on, "and I asked you the name of the red-faced man who was sitting in the stall next to Undine. You didn't know, but some one told us it was Moffatt." Marvell was more struck by her tone than by what she was saying. "If Undine knows him it's odd she's never mentioned it," he answered indifferently. The motor stopped at his door and Clare, as she held out her hand, turned a first full look on him. "Why do you never come to see me? I miss you more than ever," she said. He pressed her hand without answering, but after the motor had rolled away he stood for a while on the pavement, looking after it. When he entered the house the hall

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you WILL be,--you'll HAVE to, if I do the picture--which will make a lovely memento")--Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: "Pure bluff, you know--Jim couldn't pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll's high and dry since the Ararat investigation." She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue. "You mean they've lost their money? Won't they give their fancy ball, then?" Van Degen shrugged. "Nobody knows how it's coming out That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball--says he's going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street-railways." Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen's announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt's name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the "Ararat Trust Investigation," but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt--the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!--could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he "saw things big"; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be "loafing and fooling," as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course--I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress." The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge. "It doesn't look like a last year's face, anyhow--that's what makes them all wild," Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple's tea. But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dress-maker to take it back. "Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. "I don't know--I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot." "Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold." Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where are you off to?" "West End Avenue, of course--if I can find a cab to take me there." It was not the least of Undine's grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg's first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg's financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, more-over, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy's birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house. But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother's plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation--the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: "Do let me give you a lift home, dear--Oh, I'd forgotten! I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far--" It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on "lifts," openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!) but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being "out of things." Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. "Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mind the open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner." The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin. "Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on a strap in the elevated." The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter's sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his "bad" real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way--she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be "talked about" with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for "nice women." She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good. Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor. "What's the matter? Isn't everything all right?" His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary "niceness" seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material "bothers"--as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he "didn't care to part"); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he'd give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: "Oh, hang waiting for the bill--won't a couple of thou make it all right?" in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life. The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down--with a nod for his "Everything jolly again now?"--to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy--and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his "nagging" that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs. "Mercy! It's the boy's birthday--I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I'd forgotten!" XV In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. "No sign of her. She's simply forgotten." Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock. "Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late." Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come." She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled. "Put them out, please," she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen. "It's all so unlucky--my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boy here at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's always breaking her engagements." "She has so many that it's inevitable some should get broken." "All if she'd only choose! Now that Ralph has had into business, and is kept in his office so late, it's cruel of her to drag him out every night. He told us the other day they hadn't dined at home for a month. Undine doesn't seem to notice how hard he works." Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. "No--why should she?" "Why SHOULD she? Really, Charles--!" "Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?" "She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it's her extravagance that's forced him into it." Mrs. Fairford looked at Bowen reproachfully. "You talk as if you were on her side!" "Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartially from the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view of the whole problem of American marriages." Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh. "If that's what you want you must make haste! Most of them don't last long enough to be classified." "I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is so frequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it." "What do you call the weak point?" He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife." Mrs. Fairford was up with a spring. "If that's where paradox lands you!" Bowen mildly stood his ground. "Well--doesn't he prove it? How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph for instance--you say his wife's extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that's not what's wrong. It's normal for a man to work hard for a woman--what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it." "To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!" "Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again--I don't mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in THEM." Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her. "YOU don't? The American man doesn't--the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing--?" "Yes; and the most indifferent: there's the point. The 'slaving's' no argument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they've ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn't know what else to do with it." "Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?" "Not necessarily--but it's a want of imagination to fancy it's all he owes her. Look about you and you'll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middle of the picture. I'm not implying that Ralph isn't interested in his wife--he's a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman's drawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? The emotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In America the real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement in wrecking railways than homes." Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. "Isn't that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we'd give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what's the result--how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy's with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male--the money and the motors and the clothes--and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT'S what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you're going to say--it's less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping out of some man's way!" Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: "And is Undine one of the exceptions?" Her companion took the shot with a smile. "No--she's a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It's Ralph who's the victim and the exception." "Ah, poor Ralph!" Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. "I hear him now. I suppose," she added in an undertone, "we can't give him your explanation for his wife's having forgotten to come?" Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered. "Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles--have you been celebrating too?" Ralph turned to his sister. "It's outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren't look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays." He returned Mrs. Fairford's kiss. "Don't tell me the party's over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?" As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell. "Sit down, Ralph--you look tired. I'll give you some tea." He dropped into an arm-chair. "I did have rather a rush to get here--but hadn't I better join the revellers? Where are they?" He walked to the end of the room and threw open the dining-room doors. "Hallo--where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!" He went up to it. "Why, it's never even been cut!" Mrs. Fairford called after him: "Come and have your tea first." "No, no--tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with my grandfather? I must make my peace with Undine--" His sister put her arm through his, and drew him back to the fire. "Undine didn't come." "Didn't come? Who brought the boy, then?" "He didn't come either. That's why the cake's not cut." Ralph frowned. "What's the mystery? Is he ill, or what's happened?" "Nothing's happened--Paul's all right. Apparently Undine forgot. She never went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late to come." She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew out his cigarette case. "Poor little Paul--poor chap!" He moved toward the fire. "Yes, please--some tea." He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if some strong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but before the tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was on his feet again. "But this won't do. I must rush home and see the poor chap before dinner. And my mother--and my grandfather? I want to say a word to them--I must make Paul's excuses!" "Grandfather's taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for a postponed committee meeting--she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn't coming." "Ah, I see." He sat down again. "Yes, make the strong, please. I've had a beastly fagging sort of day." He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother under lowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralph presently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into his former attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staring apathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and started up. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels at the door. "There's Undine! I wonder what could have kept her." He jumped up and walked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight of him she gave a little murmur of pleasure. "What luck to find you! No, not luck--I came because I knew you'd be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!" Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford and then turned back to Ralph. "Yes, I knew I'd catch you here. I knew it was the boy's birthday, and I've brought him a present: a vulgar expensive Van Degen offering. I've not enough imagination left to find the right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When I look for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: 'I want this or that'--I simply say: 'Give me something that costs so much.'" She drew a parcel from her muff. "Where's the victim of my vulgarity? Let me crush him under the weight of my gold." Mrs. Fairford sighed out "Clare--Clare!" and Ralph smiled at his cousin. "I'm sorry; but you'll have to depute me to present it. The birthday's over; you're too late." She looked surprised. "Why, I've just left Mamie Driscoll, and she told me Undine was still at Popple's studio a few minutes ago: Popple's giving a tea to show the picture." "Popple's giving a tea?" Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. "Ah, in that case--! In Popple's society who wouldn't forget the flight of time?" He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. Van Degen's words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. "Will you trust me with your present for the boy?" Clare gave him the parcel. "I'm sorry not to give it myself. I said what I did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking--but it's really a battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our revered great-grandmother." "What--the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. "That's dear of you!" She threw him one of her strange glances. "Why not say: 'That's like you?' But you don't remember what I'm like." She turned away to glance at the clock. "It's late, and I must be off. I'm going to a big dinner at the Chauncey Ellings'--but you must be going there too, Ralph? You'd better let me drive you home." In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawn over their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-topped objects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through the crowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare's presence at his side gave him a vague sense of ease. For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, not this relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small daily deceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, marked by one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment that formed the point beyond which there was no returning. It was the moment, a month or two before his boy's birth, when, glancing over a batch of belated Paris bills, he had come on one from the jeweller he had once found in private conference with Undine. The bill was not large, but two of its items stood out sharply. "Resetting pearl and diamond pendant. Resetting sapphire and diamond ring." The pearl and diamond pendant was his mother's wedding present; the ring was the one he had given Undine on their engagement. That they were both family relics, kept unchanged through several generations, scarcely mattered to him at the time: he felt only the stab of his wife's deception. She had assured him in Paris that she had not had her jewels reset. He had noticed, soon after their return to New York, that she had left off her engagement-ring; but the others were soon discarded also, and in answer to his question she had told him that, in her ailing state, rings "worried" her. Now he saw she had deceived him, and, forgetting everything else, he went to her, bill in hand. Her tears and distress filled him with immediate contrition. Was this a time to torment her about trifles? His anger seemed to cause her actual physical fear, and at the sight he abased himself in entreaties for forgiveness. When the scene ended she had pardoned him, and the reset ring was on her finger... Soon afterward, the birth of the boy seemed to wipe out these humiliating memories; yet Marvell found in time that they were not effaced, but only momentarily crowded out of sight. In reality, the incident had a meaning out of proportion to its apparent seriousness, for it put in his hand a clue to a new side of his wife's character. He no longer minded her having lied about the jeweller; what pained him was that she had been unconscious of the wound she inflicted in destroying the identity of the jewels. He saw that, even after their explanation, she still supposed he was angry only because she had deceived him; and the discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feeling on which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in their relation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare Van Degen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him more alive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. After all, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. She was light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose; but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have lied to him or traded on his tenderness. Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voiced mood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did not sound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things: of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of the costume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurring rumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysterious personality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street was beginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after his marriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with a firm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first time with the drama of "business," and whenever he could turn his attention from his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierce interplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard things of Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd of money-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, the humorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests; and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the fact that no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired the information which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "I should like to see him," Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of the one of the few picturesque types we've got." "Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesque types in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room." Clare considered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing them together." "Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?" "Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must have been some years ago. Yes--it was one night at the theatre, just after you announced your engagement." He fancied her voice trembled slightly, as though she thought he might notice her way of dating her memories. "You came into our box," she went on, "and I asked you the name of the red-faced man who was sitting in the stall next to Undine. You didn't know, but some one told us it was Moffatt." Marvell was more struck by her tone than by what she was saying. "If Undine knows him it's odd she's never mentioned it," he answered indifferently. The motor stopped at his door and Clare, as she held out her hand, turned a first full look on him. "Why do you never come to see me? I miss you more than ever," she said. He pressed her hand without answering, but after the motor had rolled away he stood for a while on the pavement, looking after it. When he entered the house the hall

central

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

you WILL be,--you'll HAVE to, if I do the picture--which will make a lovely memento")--Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: "Pure bluff, you know--Jim couldn't pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll's high and dry since the Ararat investigation." She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue. "You mean they've lost their money? Won't they give their fancy ball, then?" Van Degen shrugged. "Nobody knows how it's coming out That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball--says he's going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street-railways." Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen's announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt's name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the "Ararat Trust Investigation," but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt--the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!--could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he "saw things big"; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be "loafing and fooling," as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course--I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress." The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge. "It doesn't look like a last year's face, anyhow--that's what makes them all wild," Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple's tea. But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dress-maker to take it back. "Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. "I don't know--I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot." "Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold." Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where are you off to?" "West End Avenue, of course--if I can find a cab to take me there." It was not the least of Undine's grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg's first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg's financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, more-over, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy's birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house. But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother's plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation--the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: "Do let me give you a lift home, dear--Oh, I'd forgotten! I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far--" It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on "lifts," openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!) but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being "out of things." Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. "Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mind the open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner." The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin. "Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on a strap in the elevated." The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter's sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his "bad" real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way--she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be "talked about" with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for "nice women." She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good. Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor. "What's the matter? Isn't everything all right?" His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary "niceness" seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material "bothers"--as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he "didn't care to part"); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he'd give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: "Oh, hang waiting for the bill--won't a couple of thou make it all right?" in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life. The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down--with a nod for his "Everything jolly again now?"--to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy--and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his "nagging" that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs. "Mercy! It's the boy's birthday--I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I'd forgotten!" XV In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. "No sign of her. She's simply forgotten." Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock. "Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late." Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come." She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled. "Put them out, please," she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen. "It's all so unlucky--my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boy here at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's always breaking her engagements." "She has so many that it's inevitable some should get broken." "All if she'd only choose! Now that Ralph has had into business, and is kept in his office so late, it's cruel of her to drag him out every night. He told us the other day they hadn't dined at home for a month. Undine doesn't seem to notice how hard he works." Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. "No--why should she?" "Why SHOULD she? Really, Charles--!" "Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?" "She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it's her extravagance that's forced him into it." Mrs. Fairford looked at Bowen reproachfully. "You talk as if you were on her side!" "Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartially from the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view of the whole problem of American marriages." Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh. "If that's what you want you must make haste! Most of them don't last long enough to be classified." "I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is so frequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it." "What do you call the weak point?" He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife." Mrs. Fairford was up with a spring. "If that's where paradox lands you!" Bowen mildly stood his ground. "Well--doesn't he prove it? How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph for instance--you say his wife's extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that's not what's wrong. It's normal for a man to work hard for a woman--what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it." "To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!" "Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again--I don't mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in THEM." Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her. "YOU don't? The American man doesn't--the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing--?" "Yes; and the most indifferent: there's the point. The 'slaving's' no argument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they've ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn't know what else to do with it." "Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?" "Not necessarily--but it's a want of imagination to fancy it's all he owes her. Look about you and you'll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middle of the picture. I'm not implying that Ralph isn't interested in his wife--he's a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman's drawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? The emotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In America the real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement in wrecking railways than homes." Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. "Isn't that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we'd give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what's the result--how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy's with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male--the money and the motors and the clothes--and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT'S what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you're going to say--it's less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping out of some man's way!" Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: "And is Undine one of the exceptions?" Her companion took the shot with a smile. "No--she's a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It's Ralph who's the victim and the exception." "Ah, poor Ralph!" Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. "I hear him now. I suppose," she added in an undertone, "we can't give him your explanation for his wife's having forgotten to come?" Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered. "Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles--have you been celebrating too?" Ralph turned to his sister. "It's outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren't look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays." He returned Mrs. Fairford's kiss. "Don't tell me the party's over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?" As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell. "Sit down, Ralph--you look tired. I'll give you some tea." He dropped into an arm-chair. "I did have rather a rush to get here--but hadn't I better join the revellers? Where are they?" He walked to the end of the room and threw open the dining-room doors. "Hallo--where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!" He went up to it. "Why, it's never even been cut!" Mrs. Fairford called after him: "Come and have your tea first." "No, no--tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with my grandfather? I must make my peace with Undine--" His sister put her arm through his, and drew him back to the fire. "Undine didn't come." "Didn't come? Who brought the boy, then?" "He didn't come either. That's why the cake's not cut." Ralph frowned. "What's the mystery? Is he ill, or what's happened?" "Nothing's happened--Paul's all right. Apparently Undine forgot. She never went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late to come." She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew out his cigarette case. "Poor little Paul--poor chap!" He moved toward the fire. "Yes, please--some tea." He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if some strong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but before the tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was on his feet again. "But this won't do. I must rush home and see the poor chap before dinner. And my mother--and my grandfather? I want to say a word to them--I must make Paul's excuses!" "Grandfather's taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for a postponed committee meeting--she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn't coming." "Ah, I see." He sat down again. "Yes, make the strong, please. I've had a beastly fagging sort of day." He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother under lowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralph presently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into his former attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staring apathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and started up. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels at the door. "There's Undine! I wonder what could have kept her." He jumped up and walked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight of him she gave a little murmur of pleasure. "What luck to find you! No, not luck--I came because I knew you'd be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!" Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford and then turned back to Ralph. "Yes, I knew I'd catch you here. I knew it was the boy's birthday, and I've brought him a present: a vulgar expensive Van Degen offering. I've not enough imagination left to find the right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When I look for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: 'I want this or that'--I simply say: 'Give me something that costs so much.'" She drew a parcel from her muff. "Where's the victim of my vulgarity? Let me crush him under the weight of my gold." Mrs. Fairford sighed out "Clare--Clare!" and Ralph smiled at his cousin. "I'm sorry; but you'll have to depute me to present it. The birthday's over; you're too late." She looked surprised. "Why, I've just left Mamie Driscoll, and she told me Undine was still at Popple's studio a few minutes ago: Popple's giving a tea to show the picture." "Popple's giving a tea?" Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. "Ah, in that case--! In Popple's society who wouldn't forget the flight of time?" He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. Van Degen's words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. "Will you trust me with your present for the boy?" Clare gave him the parcel. "I'm sorry not to give it myself. I said what I did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking--but it's really a battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our revered great-grandmother." "What--the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. "That's dear of you!" She threw him one of her strange glances. "Why not say: 'That's like you?' But you don't remember what I'm like." She turned away to glance at the clock. "It's late, and I must be off. I'm going to a big dinner at the Chauncey Ellings'--but you must be going there too, Ralph? You'd better let me drive you home." In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawn over their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-topped objects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through the crowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare's presence at his side gave him a vague sense of ease. For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, not this relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small daily deceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, marked by one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment that formed the point beyond which there was no returning. It was the moment, a month or two before his boy's birth, when, glancing over a batch of belated Paris bills, he had come on one from the jeweller he had once found in private conference with Undine. The bill was not large, but two of its items stood out sharply. "Resetting pearl and diamond pendant. Resetting sapphire and diamond ring." The pearl and diamond pendant was his mother's wedding present; the ring was the one he had given Undine on their engagement. That they were both family relics, kept unchanged through several generations, scarcely mattered to him at the time: he felt only the stab of his wife's deception. She had assured him in Paris that she had not had her jewels reset. He had noticed, soon after their return to New York, that she had left off her engagement-ring; but the others were soon discarded also, and in answer to his question she had told him that, in her ailing state, rings "worried" her. Now he saw she had deceived him, and, forgetting everything else, he went to her, bill in hand. Her tears and distress filled him with immediate contrition. Was this a time to torment her about trifles? His anger seemed to cause her actual physical fear, and at the sight he abased himself in entreaties for forgiveness. When the scene ended she had pardoned him, and the reset ring was on her finger... Soon afterward, the birth of the boy seemed to wipe out these humiliating memories; yet Marvell found in time that they were not effaced, but only momentarily crowded out of sight. In reality, the incident had a meaning out of proportion to its apparent seriousness, for it put in his hand a clue to a new side of his wife's character. He no longer minded her having lied about the jeweller; what pained him was that she had been unconscious of the wound she inflicted in destroying the identity of the jewels. He saw that, even after their explanation, she still supposed he was angry only because she had deceived him; and the discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feeling on which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in their relation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare Van Degen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him more alive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. After all, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. She was light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose; but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have lied to him or traded on his tenderness. Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voiced mood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did not sound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things: of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of the costume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurring rumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysterious personality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street was beginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after his marriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with a firm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first time with the drama of "business," and whenever he could turn his attention from his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierce interplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard things of Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd of money-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, the humorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests; and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the fact that no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired the information which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "I should like to see him," Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of the one of the few picturesque types we've got." "Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesque types in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room." Clare considered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing them together." "Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?" "Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must have been some years ago. Yes--it was one night at the theatre, just after you announced your engagement." He fancied her voice trembled slightly, as though she thought he might notice her way of dating her memories. "You came into our box," she went on, "and I asked you the name of the red-faced man who was sitting in the stall next to Undine. You didn't know, but some one told us it was Moffatt." Marvell was more struck by her tone than by what she was saying. "If Undine knows him it's odd she's never mentioned it," he answered indifferently. The motor stopped at his door and Clare, as she held out her hand, turned a first full look on him. "Why do you never come to see me? I miss you more than ever," she said. He pressed her hand without answering, but after the motor had rolled away he stood for a while on the pavement, looking after it. When he entered the house the hall

preferred

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you WILL be,--you'll HAVE to, if I do the picture--which will make a lovely memento")--Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: "Pure bluff, you know--Jim couldn't pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll's high and dry since the Ararat investigation." She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue. "You mean they've lost their money? Won't they give their fancy ball, then?" Van Degen shrugged. "Nobody knows how it's coming out That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball--says he's going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street-railways." Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen's announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt's name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the "Ararat Trust Investigation," but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt--the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!--could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he "saw things big"; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be "loafing and fooling," as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course--I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress." The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge. "It doesn't look like a last year's face, anyhow--that's what makes them all wild," Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple's tea. But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dress-maker to take it back. "Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. "I don't know--I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot." "Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold." Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where are you off to?" "West End Avenue, of course--if I can find a cab to take me there." It was not the least of Undine's grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg's first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg's financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, more-over, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy's birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house. But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother's plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation--the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: "Do let me give you a lift home, dear--Oh, I'd forgotten! I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far--" It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on "lifts," openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!) but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being "out of things." Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. "Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mind the open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner." The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin. "Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on a strap in the elevated." The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter's sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his "bad" real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way--she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be "talked about" with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for "nice women." She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good. Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor. "What's the matter? Isn't everything all right?" His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary "niceness" seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material "bothers"--as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he "didn't care to part"); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he'd give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: "Oh, hang waiting for the bill--won't a couple of thou make it all right?" in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life. The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down--with a nod for his "Everything jolly again now?"--to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy--and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his "nagging" that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs. "Mercy! It's the boy's birthday--I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I'd forgotten!" XV In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. "No sign of her. She's simply forgotten." Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock. "Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late." Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come." She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled. "Put them out, please," she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen. "It's all so unlucky--my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boy here at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's always breaking her engagements." "She has so many that it's inevitable some should get broken." "All if she'd only choose! Now that Ralph has had into business, and is kept in his office so late, it's cruel of her to drag him out every night. He told us the other day they hadn't dined at home for a month. Undine doesn't seem to notice how hard he works." Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. "No--why should she?" "Why SHOULD she? Really, Charles--!" "Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?" "She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it's her extravagance that's forced him into it." Mrs. Fairford looked at Bowen reproachfully. "You talk as if you were on her side!" "Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartially from the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view of the whole problem of American marriages." Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh. "If that's what you want you must make haste! Most of them don't last long enough to be classified." "I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is so frequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it." "What do you call the weak point?" He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife." Mrs. Fairford was up with a spring. "If that's where paradox lands you!" Bowen mildly stood his ground. "Well--doesn't he prove it? How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph for instance--you say his wife's extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that's not what's wrong. It's normal for a man to work hard for a woman--what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it." "To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!" "Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again--I don't mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in THEM." Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her. "YOU don't? The American man doesn't--the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing--?" "Yes; and the most indifferent: there's the point. The 'slaving's' no argument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they've ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn't know what else to do with it." "Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?" "Not necessarily--but it's a want of imagination to fancy it's all he owes her. Look about you and you'll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middle of the picture. I'm not implying that Ralph isn't interested in his wife--he's a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman's drawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? The emotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In America the real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement in wrecking railways than homes." Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. "Isn't that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we'd give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what's the result--how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy's with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male--the money and the motors and the clothes--and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT'S what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you're going to say--it's less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping out of some man's way!" Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: "And is Undine one of the exceptions?" Her companion took the shot with a smile. "No--she's a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It's Ralph who's the victim and the exception." "Ah, poor Ralph!" Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. "I hear him now. I suppose," she added in an undertone, "we can't give him your explanation for his wife's having forgotten to come?" Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered. "Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles--have you been celebrating too?" Ralph turned to his sister. "It's outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren't look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays." He returned Mrs. Fairford's kiss. "Don't tell me the party's over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?" As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell. "Sit down, Ralph--you look tired. I'll give you some tea." He dropped into an arm-chair. "I did have rather a rush to get here--but hadn't I better join the revellers? Where are they?" He walked to the end of the room and threw open the dining-room doors. "Hallo--where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!" He went up to it. "Why, it's never even been cut!" Mrs. Fairford called after him: "Come and have your tea first." "No, no--tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with my grandfather? I must make my peace with Undine--" His sister put her arm through his, and drew him back to the fire. "Undine didn't come." "Didn't come? Who brought the boy, then?" "He didn't come either. That's why the cake's not cut." Ralph frowned. "What's the mystery? Is he ill, or what's happened?" "Nothing's happened--Paul's all right. Apparently Undine forgot. She never went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late to come." She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew out his cigarette case. "Poor little Paul--poor chap!" He moved toward the fire. "Yes, please--some tea." He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if some strong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but before the tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was on his feet again. "But this won't do. I must rush home and see the poor chap before dinner. And my mother--and my grandfather? I want to say a word to them--I must make Paul's excuses!" "Grandfather's taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for a postponed committee meeting--she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn't coming." "Ah, I see." He sat down again. "Yes, make the strong, please. I've had a beastly fagging sort of day." He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother under lowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralph presently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into his former attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staring apathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and started up. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels at the door. "There's Undine! I wonder what could have kept her." He jumped up and walked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight of him she gave a little murmur of pleasure. "What luck to find you! No, not luck--I came because I knew you'd be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!" Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford and then turned back to Ralph. "Yes, I knew I'd catch you here. I knew it was the boy's birthday, and I've brought him a present: a vulgar expensive Van Degen offering. I've not enough imagination left to find the right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When I look for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: 'I want this or that'--I simply say: 'Give me something that costs so much.'" She drew a parcel from her muff. "Where's the victim of my vulgarity? Let me crush him under the weight of my gold." Mrs. Fairford sighed out "Clare--Clare!" and Ralph smiled at his cousin. "I'm sorry; but you'll have to depute me to present it. The birthday's over; you're too late." She looked surprised. "Why, I've just left Mamie Driscoll, and she told me Undine was still at Popple's studio a few minutes ago: Popple's giving a tea to show the picture." "Popple's giving a tea?" Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. "Ah, in that case--! In Popple's society who wouldn't forget the flight of time?" He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. Van Degen's words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. "Will you trust me with your present for the boy?" Clare gave him the parcel. "I'm sorry not to give it myself. I said what I did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking--but it's really a battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our revered great-grandmother." "What--the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. "That's dear of you!" She threw him one of her strange glances. "Why not say: 'That's like you?' But you don't remember what I'm like." She turned away to glance at the clock. "It's late, and I must be off. I'm going to a big dinner at the Chauncey Ellings'--but you must be going there too, Ralph? You'd better let me drive you home." In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawn over their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-topped objects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through the crowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare's presence at his side gave him a vague sense of ease. For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, not this relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small daily deceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, marked by one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment that formed the point beyond which there was no returning. It was the moment, a month or two before his boy's birth, when, glancing over a batch of belated Paris bills, he had come on one from the jeweller he had once found in private conference with Undine. The bill was not large, but two of its items stood out sharply. "Resetting pearl and diamond pendant. Resetting sapphire and diamond ring." The pearl and diamond pendant was his mother's wedding present; the ring was the one he had given Undine on their engagement. That they were both family relics, kept unchanged through several generations, scarcely mattered to him at the time: he felt only the stab of his wife's deception. She had assured him in Paris that she had not had her jewels reset. He had noticed, soon after their return to New York, that she had left off her engagement-ring; but the others were soon discarded also, and in answer to his question she had told him that, in her ailing state, rings "worried" her. Now he saw she had deceived him, and, forgetting everything else, he went to her, bill in hand. Her tears and distress filled him with immediate contrition. Was this a time to torment her about trifles? His anger seemed to cause her actual physical fear, and at the sight he abased himself in entreaties for forgiveness. When the scene ended she had pardoned him, and the reset ring was on her finger... Soon afterward, the birth of the boy seemed to wipe out these humiliating memories; yet Marvell found in time that they were not effaced, but only momentarily crowded out of sight. In reality, the incident had a meaning out of proportion to its apparent seriousness, for it put in his hand a clue to a new side of his wife's character. He no longer minded her having lied about the jeweller; what pained him was that she had been unconscious of the wound she inflicted in destroying the identity of the jewels. He saw that, even after their explanation, she still supposed he was angry only because she had deceived him; and the discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feeling on which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in their relation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare Van Degen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him more alive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. After all, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. She was light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose; but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have lied to him or traded on his tenderness. Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voiced mood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did not sound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things: of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of the costume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurring rumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysterious personality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street was beginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after his marriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with a firm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first time with the drama of "business," and whenever he could turn his attention from his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierce interplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard things of Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd of money-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, the humorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests; and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the fact that no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired the information which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "I should like to see him," Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of the one of the few picturesque types we've got." "Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesque types in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room." Clare considered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing them together." "Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?" "Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must have been some years ago. Yes--it was one night at the theatre, just after you announced your engagement." He fancied her voice trembled slightly, as though she thought he might notice her way of dating her memories. "You came into our box," she went on, "and I asked you the name of the red-faced man who was sitting in the stall next to Undine. You didn't know, but some one told us it was Moffatt." Marvell was more struck by her tone than by what she was saying. "If Undine knows him it's odd she's never mentioned it," he answered indifferently. The motor stopped at his door and Clare, as she held out her hand, turned a first full look on him. "Why do you never come to see me? I miss you more than ever," she said. He pressed her hand without answering, but after the motor had rolled away he stood for a while on the pavement, looking after it. When he entered the house the hall

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you WILL be,--you'll HAVE to, if I do the picture--which will make a lovely memento")--Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: "Pure bluff, you know--Jim couldn't pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll's high and dry since the Ararat investigation." She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue. "You mean they've lost their money? Won't they give their fancy ball, then?" Van Degen shrugged. "Nobody knows how it's coming out That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball--says he's going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street-railways." Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen's announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt's name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the "Ararat Trust Investigation," but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt--the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!--could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he "saw things big"; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be "loafing and fooling," as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course--I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress." The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge. "It doesn't look like a last year's face, anyhow--that's what makes them all wild," Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple's tea. But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dress-maker to take it back. "Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. "I don't know--I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot." "Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold." Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where are you off to?" "West End Avenue, of course--if I can find a cab to take me there." It was not the least of Undine's grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg's first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg's financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, more-over, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy's birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house. But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother's plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation--the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: "Do let me give you a lift home, dear--Oh, I'd forgotten! I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far--" It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on "lifts," openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!) but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being "out of things." Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. "Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mind the open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner." The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin. "Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on a strap in the elevated." The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter's sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his "bad" real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way--she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be "talked about" with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for "nice women." She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good. Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor. "What's the matter? Isn't everything all right?" His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary "niceness" seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material "bothers"--as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he "didn't care to part"); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he'd give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: "Oh, hang waiting for the bill--won't a couple of thou make it all right?" in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life. The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down--with a nod for his "Everything jolly again now?"--to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy--and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his "nagging" that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs. "Mercy! It's the boy's birthday--I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I'd forgotten!" XV In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. "No sign of her. She's simply forgotten." Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock. "Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late." Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come." She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled. "Put them out, please," she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen. "It's all so unlucky--my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boy here at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's always breaking her engagements." "She has so many that it's inevitable some should get broken." "All if she'd only choose! Now that Ralph has had into business, and is kept in his office so late, it's cruel of her to drag him out every night. He told us the other day they hadn't dined at home for a month. Undine doesn't seem to notice how hard he works." Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. "No--why should she?" "Why SHOULD she? Really, Charles--!" "Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?" "She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it's her extravagance that's forced him into it." Mrs. Fairford looked at Bowen reproachfully. "You talk as if you were on her side!" "Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartially from the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view of the whole problem of American marriages." Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh. "If that's what you want you must make haste! Most of them don't last long enough to be classified." "I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is so frequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it." "What do you call the weak point?" He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife." Mrs. Fairford was up with a spring. "If that's where paradox lands you!" Bowen mildly stood his ground. "Well--doesn't he prove it? How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph for instance--you say his wife's extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that's not what's wrong. It's normal for a man to work hard for a woman--what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it." "To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!" "Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again--I don't mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in THEM." Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her. "YOU don't? The American man doesn't--the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing--?" "Yes; and the most indifferent: there's the point. The 'slaving's' no argument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they've ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn't know what else to do with it." "Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?" "Not necessarily--but it's a want of imagination to fancy it's all he owes her. Look about you and you'll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middle of the picture. I'm not implying that Ralph isn't interested in his wife--he's a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman's drawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? The emotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In America the real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement in wrecking railways than homes." Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. "Isn't that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we'd give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what's the result--how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy's with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male--the money and the motors and the clothes--and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT'S what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you're going to say--it's less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping out of some man's way!" Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: "And is Undine one of the exceptions?" Her companion took the shot with a smile. "No--she's a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It's Ralph who's the victim and the exception." "Ah, poor Ralph!" Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. "I hear him now. I suppose," she added in an undertone, "we can't give him your explanation for his wife's having forgotten to come?" Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered. "Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles--have you been celebrating too?" Ralph turned to his sister. "It's outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren't look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays." He returned Mrs. Fairford's kiss. "Don't tell me the party's over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?" As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell. "Sit down, Ralph--you look tired. I'll give you some tea." He dropped into an arm-chair. "I did have rather a rush to get here--but hadn't I better join the revellers? Where are they?" He walked to the end of the room and threw open the dining-room doors. "Hallo--where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!" He went up to it. "Why, it's never even been cut!" Mrs. Fairford called after him: "Come and have your tea first." "No, no--tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with my grandfather? I must make my peace with Undine--" His sister put her arm through his, and drew him back to the fire. "Undine didn't come." "Didn't come? Who brought the boy, then?" "He didn't come either. That's why the cake's not cut." Ralph frowned. "What's the mystery? Is he ill, or what's happened?" "Nothing's happened--Paul's all right. Apparently Undine forgot. She never went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late to come." She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew out his cigarette case. "Poor little Paul--poor chap!" He moved toward the fire. "Yes, please--some tea." He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if some strong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but before the tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was on his feet again. "But this won't do. I must rush home and see the poor chap before dinner. And my mother--and my grandfather? I want to say a word to them--I must make Paul's excuses!" "Grandfather's taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for a postponed committee meeting--she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn't coming." "Ah, I see." He sat down again. "Yes, make the strong, please. I've had a beastly fagging sort of day." He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother under lowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralph presently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into his former attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staring apathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and started up. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels at the door. "There's Undine! I wonder what could have kept her." He jumped up and walked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight of him she gave a little murmur of pleasure. "What luck to find you! No, not luck--I came because I knew you'd be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!" Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford and then turned back to Ralph. "Yes, I knew I'd catch you here. I knew it was the boy's birthday, and I've brought him a present: a vulgar expensive Van Degen offering. I've not enough imagination left to find the right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When I look for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: 'I want this or that'--I simply say: 'Give me something that costs so much.'" She drew a parcel from her muff. "Where's the victim of my vulgarity? Let me crush him under the weight of my gold." Mrs. Fairford sighed out "Clare--Clare!" and Ralph smiled at his cousin. "I'm sorry; but you'll have to depute me to present it. The birthday's over; you're too late." She looked surprised. "Why, I've just left Mamie Driscoll, and she told me Undine was still at Popple's studio a few minutes ago: Popple's giving a tea to show the picture." "Popple's giving a tea?" Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. "Ah, in that case--! In Popple's society who wouldn't forget the flight of time?" He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. Van Degen's words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. "Will you trust me with your present for the boy?" Clare gave him the parcel. "I'm sorry not to give it myself. I said what I did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking--but it's really a battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our revered great-grandmother." "What--the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. "That's dear of you!" She threw him one of her strange glances. "Why not say: 'That's like you?' But you don't remember what I'm like." She turned away to glance at the clock. "It's late, and I must be off. I'm going to a big dinner at the Chauncey Ellings'--but you must be going there too, Ralph? You'd better let me drive you home." In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawn over their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-topped objects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through the crowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare's presence at his side gave him a vague sense of ease. For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, not this relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small daily deceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, marked by one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment that formed the point beyond which there was no returning. It was the moment, a month or two before his boy's birth, when, glancing over a batch of belated Paris bills, he had come on one from the jeweller he had once found in private conference with Undine. The bill was not large, but two of its items stood out sharply. "Resetting pearl and diamond pendant. Resetting sapphire and diamond ring." The pearl and diamond pendant was his mother's wedding present; the ring was the one he had given Undine on their engagement. That they were both family relics, kept unchanged through several generations, scarcely mattered to him at the time: he felt only the stab of his wife's deception. She had assured him in Paris that she had not had her jewels reset. He had noticed, soon after their return to New York, that she had left off her engagement-ring; but the others were soon discarded also, and in answer to his question she had told him that, in her ailing state, rings "worried" her. Now he saw she had deceived him, and, forgetting everything else, he went to her, bill in hand. Her tears and distress filled him with immediate contrition. Was this a time to torment her about trifles? His anger seemed to cause her actual physical fear, and at the sight he abased himself in entreaties for forgiveness. When the scene ended she had pardoned him, and the reset ring was on her finger... Soon afterward, the birth of the boy seemed to wipe out these humiliating memories; yet Marvell found in time that they were not effaced, but only momentarily crowded out of sight. In reality, the incident had a meaning out of proportion to its apparent seriousness, for it put in his hand a clue to a new side of his wife's character. He no longer minded her having lied about the jeweller; what pained him was that she had been unconscious of the wound she inflicted in destroying the identity of the jewels. He saw that, even after their explanation, she still supposed he was angry only because she had deceived him; and the discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feeling on which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in their relation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare Van Degen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him more alive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. After all, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. She was light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose; but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have lied to him or traded on his tenderness. Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voiced mood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did not sound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things: of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of the costume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurring rumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysterious personality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street was beginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after his marriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with a firm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first time with the drama of "business," and whenever he could turn his attention from his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierce interplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard things of Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd of money-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, the humorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests; and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the fact that no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired the information which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "I should like to see him," Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of the one of the few picturesque types we've got." "Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesque types in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room." Clare considered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing them together." "Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?" "Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must have been some years ago. Yes--it was one night at the theatre, just after you announced your engagement." He fancied her voice trembled slightly, as though she thought he might notice her way of dating her memories. "You came into our box," she went on, "and I asked you the name of the red-faced man who was sitting in the stall next to Undine. You didn't know, but some one told us it was Moffatt." Marvell was more struck by her tone than by what she was saying. "If Undine knows him it's odd she's never mentioned it," he answered indifferently. The motor stopped at his door and Clare, as she held out her hand, turned a first full look on him. "Why do you never come to see me? I miss you more than ever," she said. He pressed her hand without answering, but after the motor had rolled away he stood for a while on the pavement, looking after it. When he entered the house the hall

mistake

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

you WILL be,--you'll HAVE to, if I do the picture--which will make a lovely memento")--Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: "Pure bluff, you know--Jim couldn't pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll's high and dry since the Ararat investigation." She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue. "You mean they've lost their money? Won't they give their fancy ball, then?" Van Degen shrugged. "Nobody knows how it's coming out That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball--says he's going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street-railways." Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen's announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt's name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the "Ararat Trust Investigation," but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt--the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!--could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he "saw things big"; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be "loafing and fooling," as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course--I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress." The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge. "It doesn't look like a last year's face, anyhow--that's what makes them all wild," Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple's tea. But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dress-maker to take it back. "Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. "I don't know--I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot." "Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold." Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where are you off to?" "West End Avenue, of course--if I can find a cab to take me there." It was not the least of Undine's grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg's first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg's financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, more-over, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy's birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house. But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother's plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation--the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: "Do let me give you a lift home, dear--Oh, I'd forgotten! I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far--" It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on "lifts," openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!) but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being "out of things." Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. "Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mind the open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner." The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin. "Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on a strap in the elevated." The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter's sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his "bad" real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way--she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be "talked about" with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for "nice women." She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good. Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor. "What's the matter? Isn't everything all right?" His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary "niceness" seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material "bothers"--as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he "didn't care to part"); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he'd give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: "Oh, hang waiting for the bill--won't a couple of thou make it all right?" in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life. The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down--with a nod for his "Everything jolly again now?"--to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy--and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his "nagging" that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs. "Mercy! It's the boy's birthday--I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I'd forgotten!" XV In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. "No sign of her. She's simply forgotten." Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock. "Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late." Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come." She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled. "Put them out, please," she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen. "It's all so unlucky--my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boy here at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's always breaking her engagements." "She has so many that it's inevitable some should get broken." "All if she'd only choose! Now that Ralph has had into business, and is kept in his office so late, it's cruel of her to drag him out every night. He told us the other day they hadn't dined at home for a month. Undine doesn't seem to notice how hard he works." Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. "No--why should she?" "Why SHOULD she? Really, Charles--!" "Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?" "She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it's her extravagance that's forced him into it." Mrs. Fairford looked at Bowen reproachfully. "You talk as if you were on her side!" "Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartially from the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view of the whole problem of American marriages." Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh. "If that's what you want you must make haste! Most of them don't last long enough to be classified." "I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is so frequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it." "What do you call the weak point?" He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife." Mrs. Fairford was up with a spring. "If that's where paradox lands you!" Bowen mildly stood his ground. "Well--doesn't he prove it? How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph for instance--you say his wife's extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that's not what's wrong. It's normal for a man to work hard for a woman--what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it." "To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!" "Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again--I don't mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in THEM." Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her. "YOU don't? The American man doesn't--the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing--?" "Yes; and the most indifferent: there's the point. The 'slaving's' no argument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they've ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn't know what else to do with it." "Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?" "Not necessarily--but it's a want of imagination to fancy it's all he owes her. Look about you and you'll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middle of the picture. I'm not implying that Ralph isn't interested in his wife--he's a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman's drawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? The emotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In America the real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement in wrecking railways than homes." Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. "Isn't that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we'd give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what's the result--how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy's with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male--the money and the motors and the clothes--and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT'S what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you're going to say--it's less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping out of some man's way!" Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: "And is Undine one of the exceptions?" Her companion took the shot with a smile. "No--she's a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It's Ralph who's the victim and the exception." "Ah, poor Ralph!" Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. "I hear him now. I suppose," she added in an undertone, "we can't give him your explanation for his wife's having forgotten to come?" Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered. "Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles--have you been celebrating too?" Ralph turned to his sister. "It's outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren't look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays." He returned Mrs. Fairford's kiss. "Don't tell me the party's over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?" As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell. "Sit down, Ralph--you look tired. I'll give you some tea." He dropped into an arm-chair. "I did have rather a rush to get here--but hadn't I better join the revellers? Where are they?" He walked to the end of the room and threw open the dining-room doors. "Hallo--where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!" He went up to it. "Why, it's never even been cut!" Mrs. Fairford called after him: "Come and have your tea first." "No, no--tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with my grandfather? I must make my peace with Undine--" His sister put her arm through his, and drew him back to the fire. "Undine didn't come." "Didn't come? Who brought the boy, then?" "He didn't come either. That's why the cake's not cut." Ralph frowned. "What's the mystery? Is he ill, or what's happened?" "Nothing's happened--Paul's all right. Apparently Undine forgot. She never went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late to come." She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew out his cigarette case. "Poor little Paul--poor chap!" He moved toward the fire. "Yes, please--some tea." He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if some strong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but before the tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was on his feet again. "But this won't do. I must rush home and see the poor chap before dinner. And my mother--and my grandfather? I want to say a word to them--I must make Paul's excuses!" "Grandfather's taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for a postponed committee meeting--she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn't coming." "Ah, I see." He sat down again. "Yes, make the strong, please. I've had a beastly fagging sort of day." He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother under lowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralph presently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into his former attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staring apathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and started up. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels at the door. "There's Undine! I wonder what could have kept her." He jumped up and walked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight of him she gave a little murmur of pleasure. "What luck to find you! No, not luck--I came because I knew you'd be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!" Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford and then turned back to Ralph. "Yes, I knew I'd catch you here. I knew it was the boy's birthday, and I've brought him a present: a vulgar expensive Van Degen offering. I've not enough imagination left to find the right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When I look for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: 'I want this or that'--I simply say: 'Give me something that costs so much.'" She drew a parcel from her muff. "Where's the victim of my vulgarity? Let me crush him under the weight of my gold." Mrs. Fairford sighed out "Clare--Clare!" and Ralph smiled at his cousin. "I'm sorry; but you'll have to depute me to present it. The birthday's over; you're too late." She looked surprised. "Why, I've just left Mamie Driscoll, and she told me Undine was still at Popple's studio a few minutes ago: Popple's giving a tea to show the picture." "Popple's giving a tea?" Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. "Ah, in that case--! In Popple's society who wouldn't forget the flight of time?" He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. Van Degen's words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. "Will you trust me with your present for the boy?" Clare gave him the parcel. "I'm sorry not to give it myself. I said what I did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking--but it's really a battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our revered great-grandmother." "What--the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. "That's dear of you!" She threw him one of her strange glances. "Why not say: 'That's like you?' But you don't remember what I'm like." She turned away to glance at the clock. "It's late, and I must be off. I'm going to a big dinner at the Chauncey Ellings'--but you must be going there too, Ralph? You'd better let me drive you home." In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawn over their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-topped objects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through the crowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare's presence at his side gave him a vague sense of ease. For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, not this relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small daily deceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, marked by one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment that formed the point beyond which there was no returning. It was the moment, a month or two before his boy's birth, when, glancing over a batch of belated Paris bills, he had come on one from the jeweller he had once found in private conference with Undine. The bill was not large, but two of its items stood out sharply. "Resetting pearl and diamond pendant. Resetting sapphire and diamond ring." The pearl and diamond pendant was his mother's wedding present; the ring was the one he had given Undine on their engagement. That they were both family relics, kept unchanged through several generations, scarcely mattered to him at the time: he felt only the stab of his wife's deception. She had assured him in Paris that she had not had her jewels reset. He had noticed, soon after their return to New York, that she had left off her engagement-ring; but the others were soon discarded also, and in answer to his question she had told him that, in her ailing state, rings "worried" her. Now he saw she had deceived him, and, forgetting everything else, he went to her, bill in hand. Her tears and distress filled him with immediate contrition. Was this a time to torment her about trifles? His anger seemed to cause her actual physical fear, and at the sight he abased himself in entreaties for forgiveness. When the scene ended she had pardoned him, and the reset ring was on her finger... Soon afterward, the birth of the boy seemed to wipe out these humiliating memories; yet Marvell found in time that they were not effaced, but only momentarily crowded out of sight. In reality, the incident had a meaning out of proportion to its apparent seriousness, for it put in his hand a clue to a new side of his wife's character. He no longer minded her having lied about the jeweller; what pained him was that she had been unconscious of the wound she inflicted in destroying the identity of the jewels. He saw that, even after their explanation, she still supposed he was angry only because she had deceived him; and the discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feeling on which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in their relation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare Van Degen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him more alive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. After all, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. She was light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose; but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have lied to him or traded on his tenderness. Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voiced mood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did not sound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things: of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of the costume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurring rumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysterious personality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street was beginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after his marriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with a firm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first time with the drama of "business," and whenever he could turn his attention from his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierce interplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard things of Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd of money-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, the humorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests; and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the fact that no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired the information which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "I should like to see him," Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of the one of the few picturesque types we've got." "Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesque types in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room." Clare considered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing them together." "Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?" "Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must have been some years ago. Yes--it was one night at the theatre, just after you announced your engagement." He fancied her voice trembled slightly, as though she thought he might notice her way of dating her memories. "You came into our box," she went on, "and I asked you the name of the red-faced man who was sitting in the stall next to Undine. You didn't know, but some one told us it was Moffatt." Marvell was more struck by her tone than by what she was saying. "If Undine knows him it's odd she's never mentioned it," he answered indifferently. The motor stopped at his door and Clare, as she held out her hand, turned a first full look on him. "Why do you never come to see me? I miss you more than ever," she said. He pressed her hand without answering, but after the motor had rolled away he stood for a while on the pavement, looking after it. When he entered the house the hall

perpetually

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

you WILL be,--you'll HAVE to, if I do the picture--which will make a lovely memento")--Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: "Pure bluff, you know--Jim couldn't pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll's high and dry since the Ararat investigation." She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue. "You mean they've lost their money? Won't they give their fancy ball, then?" Van Degen shrugged. "Nobody knows how it's coming out That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball--says he's going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street-railways." Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen's announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt's name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the "Ararat Trust Investigation," but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt--the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!--could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he "saw things big"; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be "loafing and fooling," as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course--I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress." The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge. "It doesn't look like a last year's face, anyhow--that's what makes them all wild," Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple's tea. But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dress-maker to take it back. "Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. "I don't know--I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot." "Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold." Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where are you off to?" "West End Avenue, of course--if I can find a cab to take me there." It was not the least of Undine's grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg's first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg's financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, more-over, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy's birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house. But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother's plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation--the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: "Do let me give you a lift home, dear--Oh, I'd forgotten! I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far--" It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on "lifts," openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!) but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being "out of things." Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. "Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mind the open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner." The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin. "Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on a strap in the elevated." The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter's sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his "bad" real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way--she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be "talked about" with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for "nice women." She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good. Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor. "What's the matter? Isn't everything all right?" His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary "niceness" seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material "bothers"--as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he "didn't care to part"); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he'd give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: "Oh, hang waiting for the bill--won't a couple of thou make it all right?" in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life. The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down--with a nod for his "Everything jolly again now?"--to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy--and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his "nagging" that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs. "Mercy! It's the boy's birthday--I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I'd forgotten!" XV In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. "No sign of her. She's simply forgotten." Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock. "Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late." Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come." She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled. "Put them out, please," she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen. "It's all so unlucky--my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boy here at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's always breaking her engagements." "She has so many that it's inevitable some should get broken." "All if she'd only choose! Now that Ralph has had into business, and is kept in his office so late, it's cruel of her to drag him out every night. He told us the other day they hadn't dined at home for a month. Undine doesn't seem to notice how hard he works." Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. "No--why should she?" "Why SHOULD she? Really, Charles--!" "Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?" "She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it's her extravagance that's forced him into it." Mrs. Fairford looked at Bowen reproachfully. "You talk as if you were on her side!" "Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartially from the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view of the whole problem of American marriages." Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh. "If that's what you want you must make haste! Most of them don't last long enough to be classified." "I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is so frequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it." "What do you call the weak point?" He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife." Mrs. Fairford was up with a spring. "If that's where paradox lands you!" Bowen mildly stood his ground. "Well--doesn't he prove it? How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph for instance--you say his wife's extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that's not what's wrong. It's normal for a man to work hard for a woman--what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it." "To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!" "Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again--I don't mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in THEM." Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her. "YOU don't? The American man doesn't--the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing--?" "Yes; and the most indifferent: there's the point. The 'slaving's' no argument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they've ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn't know what else to do with it." "Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?" "Not necessarily--but it's a want of imagination to fancy it's all he owes her. Look about you and you'll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middle of the picture. I'm not implying that Ralph isn't interested in his wife--he's a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman's drawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? The emotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In America the real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement in wrecking railways than homes." Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. "Isn't that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we'd give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what's the result--how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy's with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male--the money and the motors and the clothes--and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT'S what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you're going to say--it's less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping out of some man's way!" Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: "And is Undine one of the exceptions?" Her companion took the shot with a smile. "No--she's a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It's Ralph who's the victim and the exception." "Ah, poor Ralph!" Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. "I hear him now. I suppose," she added in an undertone, "we can't give him your explanation for his wife's having forgotten to come?" Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered. "Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles--have you been celebrating too?" Ralph turned to his sister. "It's outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren't look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays." He returned Mrs. Fairford's kiss. "Don't tell me the party's over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?" As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell. "Sit down, Ralph--you look tired. I'll give you some tea." He dropped into an arm-chair. "I did have rather a rush to get here--but hadn't I better join the revellers? Where are they?" He walked to the end of the room and threw open the dining-room doors. "Hallo--where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!" He went up to it. "Why, it's never even been cut!" Mrs. Fairford called after him: "Come and have your tea first." "No, no--tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with my grandfather? I must make my peace with Undine--" His sister put her arm through his, and drew him back to the fire. "Undine didn't come." "Didn't come? Who brought the boy, then?" "He didn't come either. That's why the cake's not cut." Ralph frowned. "What's the mystery? Is he ill, or what's happened?" "Nothing's happened--Paul's all right. Apparently Undine forgot. She never went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late to come." She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew out his cigarette case. "Poor little Paul--poor chap!" He moved toward the fire. "Yes, please--some tea." He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if some strong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but before the tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was on his feet again. "But this won't do. I must rush home and see the poor chap before dinner. And my mother--and my grandfather? I want to say a word to them--I must make Paul's excuses!" "Grandfather's taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for a postponed committee meeting--she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn't coming." "Ah, I see." He sat down again. "Yes, make the strong, please. I've had a beastly fagging sort of day." He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother under lowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralph presently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into his former attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staring apathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and started up. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels at the door. "There's Undine! I wonder what could have kept her." He jumped up and walked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight of him she gave a little murmur of pleasure. "What luck to find you! No, not luck--I came because I knew you'd be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!" Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford and then turned back to Ralph. "Yes, I knew I'd catch you here. I knew it was the boy's birthday, and I've brought him a present: a vulgar expensive Van Degen offering. I've not enough imagination left to find the right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When I look for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: 'I want this or that'--I simply say: 'Give me something that costs so much.'" She drew a parcel from her muff. "Where's the victim of my vulgarity? Let me crush him under the weight of my gold." Mrs. Fairford sighed out "Clare--Clare!" and Ralph smiled at his cousin. "I'm sorry; but you'll have to depute me to present it. The birthday's over; you're too late." She looked surprised. "Why, I've just left Mamie Driscoll, and she told me Undine was still at Popple's studio a few minutes ago: Popple's giving a tea to show the picture." "Popple's giving a tea?" Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. "Ah, in that case--! In Popple's society who wouldn't forget the flight of time?" He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. Van Degen's words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. "Will you trust me with your present for the boy?" Clare gave him the parcel. "I'm sorry not to give it myself. I said what I did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking--but it's really a battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our revered great-grandmother." "What--the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. "That's dear of you!" She threw him one of her strange glances. "Why not say: 'That's like you?' But you don't remember what I'm like." She turned away to glance at the clock. "It's late, and I must be off. I'm going to a big dinner at the Chauncey Ellings'--but you must be going there too, Ralph? You'd better let me drive you home." In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawn over their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-topped objects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through the crowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare's presence at his side gave him a vague sense of ease. For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, not this relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small daily deceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, marked by one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment that formed the point beyond which there was no returning. It was the moment, a month or two before his boy's birth, when, glancing over a batch of belated Paris bills, he had come on one from the jeweller he had once found in private conference with Undine. The bill was not large, but two of its items stood out sharply. "Resetting pearl and diamond pendant. Resetting sapphire and diamond ring." The pearl and diamond pendant was his mother's wedding present; the ring was the one he had given Undine on their engagement. That they were both family relics, kept unchanged through several generations, scarcely mattered to him at the time: he felt only the stab of his wife's deception. She had assured him in Paris that she had not had her jewels reset. He had noticed, soon after their return to New York, that she had left off her engagement-ring; but the others were soon discarded also, and in answer to his question she had told him that, in her ailing state, rings "worried" her. Now he saw she had deceived him, and, forgetting everything else, he went to her, bill in hand. Her tears and distress filled him with immediate contrition. Was this a time to torment her about trifles? His anger seemed to cause her actual physical fear, and at the sight he abased himself in entreaties for forgiveness. When the scene ended she had pardoned him, and the reset ring was on her finger... Soon afterward, the birth of the boy seemed to wipe out these humiliating memories; yet Marvell found in time that they were not effaced, but only momentarily crowded out of sight. In reality, the incident had a meaning out of proportion to its apparent seriousness, for it put in his hand a clue to a new side of his wife's character. He no longer minded her having lied about the jeweller; what pained him was that she had been unconscious of the wound she inflicted in destroying the identity of the jewels. He saw that, even after their explanation, she still supposed he was angry only because she had deceived him; and the discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feeling on which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in their relation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare Van Degen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him more alive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. After all, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. She was light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose; but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have lied to him or traded on his tenderness. Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voiced mood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did not sound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things: of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of the costume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurring rumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysterious personality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street was beginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after his marriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with a firm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first time with the drama of "business," and whenever he could turn his attention from his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierce interplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard things of Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd of money-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, the humorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests; and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the fact that no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired the information which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "I should like to see him," Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of the one of the few picturesque types we've got." "Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesque types in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room." Clare considered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing them together." "Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?" "Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must have been some years ago. Yes--it was one night at the theatre, just after you announced your engagement." He fancied her voice trembled slightly, as though she thought he might notice her way of dating her memories. "You came into our box," she went on, "and I asked you the name of the red-faced man who was sitting in the stall next to Undine. You didn't know, but some one told us it was Moffatt." Marvell was more struck by her tone than by what she was saying. "If Undine knows him it's odd she's never mentioned it," he answered indifferently. The motor stopped at his door and Clare, as she held out her hand, turned a first full look on him. "Why do you never come to see me? I miss you more than ever," she said. He pressed her hand without answering, but after the motor had rolled away he stood for a while on the pavement, looking after it. When he entered the house the hall

maybe

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

you WILL be,--you'll HAVE to, if I do the picture--which will make a lovely memento")--Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: "Pure bluff, you know--Jim couldn't pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll's high and dry since the Ararat investigation." She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue. "You mean they've lost their money? Won't they give their fancy ball, then?" Van Degen shrugged. "Nobody knows how it's coming out That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball--says he's going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street-railways." Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen's announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt's name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the "Ararat Trust Investigation," but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt--the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!--could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he "saw things big"; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be "loafing and fooling," as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course--I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress." The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge. "It doesn't look like a last year's face, anyhow--that's what makes them all wild," Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple's tea. But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dress-maker to take it back. "Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. "I don't know--I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot." "Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold." Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where are you off to?" "West End Avenue, of course--if I can find a cab to take me there." It was not the least of Undine's grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg's first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg's financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, more-over, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy's birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house. But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother's plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation--the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: "Do let me give you a lift home, dear--Oh, I'd forgotten! I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far--" It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on "lifts," openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!) but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being "out of things." Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. "Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mind the open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner." The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin. "Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on a strap in the elevated." The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter's sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his "bad" real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way--she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be "talked about" with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for "nice women." She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good. Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor. "What's the matter? Isn't everything all right?" His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary "niceness" seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material "bothers"--as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he "didn't care to part"); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he'd give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: "Oh, hang waiting for the bill--won't a couple of thou make it all right?" in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life. The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down--with a nod for his "Everything jolly again now?"--to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy--and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his "nagging" that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs. "Mercy! It's the boy's birthday--I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I'd forgotten!" XV In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. "No sign of her. She's simply forgotten." Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock. "Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late." Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come." She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled. "Put them out, please," she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen. "It's all so unlucky--my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boy here at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's always breaking her engagements." "She has so many that it's inevitable some should get broken." "All if she'd only choose! Now that Ralph has had into business, and is kept in his office so late, it's cruel of her to drag him out every night. He told us the other day they hadn't dined at home for a month. Undine doesn't seem to notice how hard he works." Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. "No--why should she?" "Why SHOULD she? Really, Charles--!" "Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?" "She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it's her extravagance that's forced him into it." Mrs. Fairford looked at Bowen reproachfully. "You talk as if you were on her side!" "Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartially from the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view of the whole problem of American marriages." Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh. "If that's what you want you must make haste! Most of them don't last long enough to be classified." "I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is so frequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it." "What do you call the weak point?" He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife." Mrs. Fairford was up with a spring. "If that's where paradox lands you!" Bowen mildly stood his ground. "Well--doesn't he prove it? How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph for instance--you say his wife's extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that's not what's wrong. It's normal for a man to work hard for a woman--what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it." "To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!" "Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again--I don't mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in THEM." Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her. "YOU don't? The American man doesn't--the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing--?" "Yes; and the most indifferent: there's the point. The 'slaving's' no argument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they've ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn't know what else to do with it." "Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?" "Not necessarily--but it's a want of imagination to fancy it's all he owes her. Look about you and you'll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middle of the picture. I'm not implying that Ralph isn't interested in his wife--he's a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman's drawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? The emotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In America the real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement in wrecking railways than homes." Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. "Isn't that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we'd give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what's the result--how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy's with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male--the money and the motors and the clothes--and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT'S what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you're going to say--it's less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping out of some man's way!" Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: "And is Undine one of the exceptions?" Her companion took the shot with a smile. "No--she's a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It's Ralph who's the victim and the exception." "Ah, poor Ralph!" Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. "I hear him now. I suppose," she added in an undertone, "we can't give him your explanation for his wife's having forgotten to come?" Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered. "Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles--have you been celebrating too?" Ralph turned to his sister. "It's outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren't look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays." He returned Mrs. Fairford's kiss. "Don't tell me the party's over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?" As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell. "Sit down, Ralph--you look tired. I'll give you some tea." He dropped into an arm-chair. "I did have rather a rush to get here--but hadn't I better join the revellers? Where are they?" He walked to the end of the room and threw open the dining-room doors. "Hallo--where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!" He went up to it. "Why, it's never even been cut!" Mrs. Fairford called after him: "Come and have your tea first." "No, no--tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with my grandfather? I must make my peace with Undine--" His sister put her arm through his, and drew him back to the fire. "Undine didn't come." "Didn't come? Who brought the boy, then?" "He didn't come either. That's why the cake's not cut." Ralph frowned. "What's the mystery? Is he ill, or what's happened?" "Nothing's happened--Paul's all right. Apparently Undine forgot. She never went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late to come." She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew out his cigarette case. "Poor little Paul--poor chap!" He moved toward the fire. "Yes, please--some tea." He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if some strong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but before the tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was on his feet again. "But this won't do. I must rush home and see the poor chap before dinner. And my mother--and my grandfather? I want to say a word to them--I must make Paul's excuses!" "Grandfather's taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for a postponed committee meeting--she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn't coming." "Ah, I see." He sat down again. "Yes, make the strong, please. I've had a beastly fagging sort of day." He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother under lowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralph presently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into his former attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staring apathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and started up. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels at the door. "There's Undine! I wonder what could have kept her." He jumped up and walked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight of him she gave a little murmur of pleasure. "What luck to find you! No, not luck--I came because I knew you'd be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!" Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford and then turned back to Ralph. "Yes, I knew I'd catch you here. I knew it was the boy's birthday, and I've brought him a present: a vulgar expensive Van Degen offering. I've not enough imagination left to find the right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When I look for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: 'I want this or that'--I simply say: 'Give me something that costs so much.'" She drew a parcel from her muff. "Where's the victim of my vulgarity? Let me crush him under the weight of my gold." Mrs. Fairford sighed out "Clare--Clare!" and Ralph smiled at his cousin. "I'm sorry; but you'll have to depute me to present it. The birthday's over; you're too late." She looked surprised. "Why, I've just left Mamie Driscoll, and she told me Undine was still at Popple's studio a few minutes ago: Popple's giving a tea to show the picture." "Popple's giving a tea?" Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. "Ah, in that case--! In Popple's society who wouldn't forget the flight of time?" He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. Van Degen's words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. "Will you trust me with your present for the boy?" Clare gave him the parcel. "I'm sorry not to give it myself. I said what I did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking--but it's really a battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our revered great-grandmother." "What--the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. "That's dear of you!" She threw him one of her strange glances. "Why not say: 'That's like you?' But you don't remember what I'm like." She turned away to glance at the clock. "It's late, and I must be off. I'm going to a big dinner at the Chauncey Ellings'--but you must be going there too, Ralph? You'd better let me drive you home." In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawn over their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-topped objects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through the crowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare's presence at his side gave him a vague sense of ease. For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, not this relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small daily deceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, marked by one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment that formed the point beyond which there was no returning. It was the moment, a month or two before his boy's birth, when, glancing over a batch of belated Paris bills, he had come on one from the jeweller he had once found in private conference with Undine. The bill was not large, but two of its items stood out sharply. "Resetting pearl and diamond pendant. Resetting sapphire and diamond ring." The pearl and diamond pendant was his mother's wedding present; the ring was the one he had given Undine on their engagement. That they were both family relics, kept unchanged through several generations, scarcely mattered to him at the time: he felt only the stab of his wife's deception. She had assured him in Paris that she had not had her jewels reset. He had noticed, soon after their return to New York, that she had left off her engagement-ring; but the others were soon discarded also, and in answer to his question she had told him that, in her ailing state, rings "worried" her. Now he saw she had deceived him, and, forgetting everything else, he went to her, bill in hand. Her tears and distress filled him with immediate contrition. Was this a time to torment her about trifles? His anger seemed to cause her actual physical fear, and at the sight he abased himself in entreaties for forgiveness. When the scene ended she had pardoned him, and the reset ring was on her finger... Soon afterward, the birth of the boy seemed to wipe out these humiliating memories; yet Marvell found in time that they were not effaced, but only momentarily crowded out of sight. In reality, the incident had a meaning out of proportion to its apparent seriousness, for it put in his hand a clue to a new side of his wife's character. He no longer minded her having lied about the jeweller; what pained him was that she had been unconscious of the wound she inflicted in destroying the identity of the jewels. He saw that, even after their explanation, she still supposed he was angry only because she had deceived him; and the discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feeling on which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in their relation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare Van Degen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him more alive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. After all, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. She was light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose; but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have lied to him or traded on his tenderness. Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voiced mood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did not sound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things: of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of the costume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurring rumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysterious personality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street was beginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after his marriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with a firm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first time with the drama of "business," and whenever he could turn his attention from his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierce interplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard things of Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd of money-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, the humorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests; and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the fact that no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired the information which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "I should like to see him," Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of the one of the few picturesque types we've got." "Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesque types in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room." Clare considered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing them together." "Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?" "Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must have been some years ago. Yes--it was one night at the theatre, just after you announced your engagement." He fancied her voice trembled slightly, as though she thought he might notice her way of dating her memories. "You came into our box," she went on, "and I asked you the name of the red-faced man who was sitting in the stall next to Undine. You didn't know, but some one told us it was Moffatt." Marvell was more struck by her tone than by what she was saying. "If Undine knows him it's odd she's never mentioned it," he answered indifferently. The motor stopped at his door and Clare, as she held out her hand, turned a first full look on him. "Why do you never come to see me? I miss you more than ever," she said. He pressed her hand without answering, but after the motor had rolled away he stood for a while on the pavement, looking after it. When he entered the house the hall

arose

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

you WILL be,--you'll HAVE to, if I do the picture--which will make a lovely memento")--Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: "Pure bluff, you know--Jim couldn't pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll's high and dry since the Ararat investigation." She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue. "You mean they've lost their money? Won't they give their fancy ball, then?" Van Degen shrugged. "Nobody knows how it's coming out That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball--says he's going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street-railways." Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen's announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt's name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the "Ararat Trust Investigation," but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt--the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!--could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he "saw things big"; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be "loafing and fooling," as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. "Oh, it's a LIKENESS, of course--I can see that; but there's one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year's dress." The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge. "It doesn't look like a last year's face, anyhow--that's what makes them all wild," Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple's tea. But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dress-maker to take it back. "Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What's up?" Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio. "I don't know--I'm tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot." "Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold." Van Degen glanced at his watch. "Where are you off to?" "West End Avenue, of course--if I can find a cab to take me there." It was not the least of Undine's grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg's first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg's financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, more-over, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy's birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house. But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother's plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical situation--the need of having to give a west side address to her tradesmen, and the deeper irritation of hearing her friends say: "Do let me give you a lift home, dear--Oh, I'd forgotten! I'm afraid I haven't the time to go so far--" It was bad enough to have no motor of her own, to be avowedly dependent on "lifts," openly and unconcealably in quest of them, and perpetually plotting to provoke their offer (she did so hate to be seen in a cab!) but to miss them, as often as not, because of the remoteness of her destination, emphasized the hateful sense of being "out of things." Van Degen looked out at the long snow-piled streets, down which the lamps were beginning to put their dreary yellow splashes. "Of course you won't get a cab on a night like this. If you don't mind the open car, you'd better jump in with me. I'll run you out to the High Bridge and give you a breath of air before dinner." The offer was tempting, for Undine's triumph in the studio had left her tired and nervous--she was beginning to learn that success may be as fatiguing as failure. Moreover, she was going to a big dinner that evening, and the fresh air would give her the eyes and complexion she needed; but in the back of her mind there lingered the vague sense of a forgotten engagement. As she tried to recall it she felt Van Degen raising the fur collar about her chin. "Got anything you can put over your head? Will that lace thing do? Come along, then." He pushed her through the swinging doors, and added with a laugh, as they reached the street: "You're not afraid of being seen with me, are you? It's all right at this hour--Ralph's still swinging on a strap in the elevated." The winter twilight was deliriously cold, and as they swept through Central Park, and gathered impetus for their northward flight along the darkening Boulevard, Undine felt the rush of physical joy that drowns scruples and silences memory. Her scruples, indeed, were not serious; but Ralph disliked her being too much with Van Degen, and it was her way to get what she wanted with as little "fuss" as possible. Moreover, she knew it was a mistake to make herself too accessible to a man of Peter's sort: her impatience to enjoy was curbed by an instinct for holding off and biding her time that resembled the patient skill with which her father had conducted the sale of his "bad" real estate in the Pure Water Move days. But now and then youth had its way--she could not always resist the present pleasure. And it was amusing, too, to be "talked about" with Peter Van Degen, who was noted for not caring for "nice women." She enjoyed the thought of triumphing over meretricious charms: it ennobled her in her own eyes to influence such a man for good. Nevertheless, as the motor flew on through the icy twilight, her present cares flew with it. She could not shake off the thought of the useless fancy dress which symbolized the other crowding expenses she had not dared confess to Ralph. Van Degen heard her sigh, and bent down, lowering the speed of the motor. "What's the matter? Isn't everything all right?" His tone made her suddenly feel that she could confide in him, and though she began by murmuring that it was nothing she did so with the conscious purpose of being persuaded to confess. And his extraordinary "niceness" seemed to justify her and to prove that she had been right in trusting her instinct rather than in following the counsels of prudence. Heretofore, in their talks, she had never gone beyond the vaguest hint of material "bothers"--as to which dissimulation seemed vain while one lived in West End Avenue! But now that the avowal of a definite worry had been wrung from her she felt the injustice of the view generally taken of poor Peter. For he had been neither too enterprising nor too cautious (though people said of him that he "didn't care to part"); he had just laughed away, in bluff brotherly fashion, the gnawing thought of the fancy dress, had assured her he'd give a ball himself rather than miss seeing her wear it, and had added: "Oh, hang waiting for the bill--won't a couple of thou make it all right?" in a tone that showed what a small matter money was to any one who took the larger view of life. The whole incident passed off so quickly and easily that within a few minutes she had settled down--with a nod for his "Everything jolly again now?"--to untroubled enjoyment of the hour. Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy--and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his "nagging" that he should thrust himself in at such a moment! She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs. "Mercy! It's the boy's birthday--I was to take him to his grandmother's. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I'd forgotten!" XV In the Dagonet drawing-room the lamps had long been lit, and Mrs. Fairford, after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. "No sign of her. She's simply forgotten." Bowen looked at his watch, and turned to compare it with the high-waisted Empire clock. "Six o'clock. Why not telephone again? There must be some mistake. Perhaps she knew Ralph would be late." Laura laughed. "I haven't noticed that she follows Ralph's movements so closely. When I telephoned just now the servant said she'd been out since two. The nurse waited till half-past four, not liking to come without orders; and now it's too late for Paul to come." She wandered away toward the farther end of the room, where, through half-open doors, a shining surface of mahogany reflected a flower-wreathed cake in which two candles dwindled. "Put them out, please," she said to some one in the background; then she shut the doors and turned back to Bowen. "It's all so unlucky--my grandfather giving up his drive, and mother backing out of her hospital meeting, and having all the committee down on her. And Henley: I'd even coaxed Henley away from his bridge! He escaped again just before you came. Undine promised she'd have the boy here at four. It's not as if it had never happened before. She's always breaking her engagements." "She has so many that it's inevitable some should get broken." "All if she'd only choose! Now that Ralph has had into business, and is kept in his office so late, it's cruel of her to drag him out every night. He told us the other day they hadn't dined at home for a month. Undine doesn't seem to notice how hard he works." Bowen gazed meditatively at the crumbling fire. "No--why should she?" "Why SHOULD she? Really, Charles--!" "Why should she, when she knows nothing about it?" "She may know nothing about his business; but she must know it's her extravagance that's forced him into it." Mrs. Fairford looked at Bowen reproachfully. "You talk as if you were on her side!" "Are there sides already? If so, I want to look down on them impartially from the heights of pure speculation. I want to get a general view of the whole problem of American marriages." Mrs. Fairford dropped into her arm-chair with a sigh. "If that's what you want you must make haste! Most of them don't last long enough to be classified." "I grant you it takes an active mind. But the weak point is so frequently the same that after a time one knows where to look for it." "What do you call the weak point?" He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife." Mrs. Fairford was up with a spring. "If that's where paradox lands you!" Bowen mildly stood his ground. "Well--doesn't he prove it? How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph for instance--you say his wife's extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that's not what's wrong. It's normal for a man to work hard for a woman--what's abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it." "To tell Undine? She'd be bored to death if he did!" "Just so; she'd even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again--I don't mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in THEM." Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her. "YOU don't? The American man doesn't--the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing--?" "Yes; and the most indifferent: there's the point. The 'slaving's' no argument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they've ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn't know what else to do with it." "Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?" "Not necessarily--but it's a want of imagination to fancy it's all he owes her. Look about you and you'll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middle of the picture. I'm not implying that Ralph isn't interested in his wife--he's a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman's drawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? The emotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In America the real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement in wrecking railways than homes." Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. "Isn't that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we'd give them up as readily as we do? The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what's the result--how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy's with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempt to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male--the money and the motors and the clothes--and pretend to themselves and each other that THAT'S what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you're going to say--it's less and less of a pretense with them, I grant you; they're more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there's one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she's paid for keeping out of some man's way!" Mrs. Fairford presented an amazed silence to the rush of this tirade; but when she rallied it was to murmur: "And is Undine one of the exceptions?" Her companion took the shot with a smile. "No--she's a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It's Ralph who's the victim and the exception." "Ah, poor Ralph!" Mrs. Fairford raised her head quickly. "I hear him now. I suppose," she added in an undertone, "we can't give him your explanation for his wife's having forgotten to come?" Bowen echoed her sigh, and then seemed to toss it from him with his cigarette-end; but he stood in silence while the door opened and Ralph Marvell entered. "Well, Laura! Hallo, Charles--have you been celebrating too?" Ralph turned to his sister. "It's outrageous of me to be so late, and I daren't look my son in the face! But I stayed down town to make provision for his future birthdays." He returned Mrs. Fairford's kiss. "Don't tell me the party's over, and the guest of honour gone to bed?" As he stood before them, laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned away to ring the bell. "Sit down, Ralph--you look tired. I'll give you some tea." He dropped into an arm-chair. "I did have rather a rush to get here--but hadn't I better join the revellers? Where are they?" He walked to the end of the room and threw open the dining-room doors. "Hallo--where have they all gone to? What a jolly cake!" He went up to it. "Why, it's never even been cut!" Mrs. Fairford called after him: "Come and have your tea first." "No, no--tea afterward, thanks. Are they all upstairs with my grandfather? I must make my peace with Undine--" His sister put her arm through his, and drew him back to the fire. "Undine didn't come." "Didn't come? Who brought the boy, then?" "He didn't come either. That's why the cake's not cut." Ralph frowned. "What's the mystery? Is he ill, or what's happened?" "Nothing's happened--Paul's all right. Apparently Undine forgot. She never went home for him, and the nurse waited till it was too late to come." She saw his eyes darken; but he merely gave a slight laugh and drew out his cigarette case. "Poor little Paul--poor chap!" He moved toward the fire. "Yes, please--some tea." He dropped back into his chair with a look of weariness, as if some strong stimulant had suddenly ceased to take effect on him; but before the tea-table was brought back he had glanced at his watch and was on his feet again. "But this won't do. I must rush home and see the poor chap before dinner. And my mother--and my grandfather? I want to say a word to them--I must make Paul's excuses!" "Grandfather's taking his nap. And mother had to rush out for a postponed committee meeting--she left as soon as we heard Paul wasn't coming." "Ah, I see." He sat down again. "Yes, make the strong, please. I've had a beastly fagging sort of day." He leaned back with half-closed eyes, his untouched cup in his hand. Bowen took leave, and Laura sat silent, watching her brother under lowered lids while she feigned to be busy with the kettle. Ralph presently emptied his cup and put it aside; then, sinking into his former attitude, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay staring apathetically into the fire. But suddenly he came to life and started up. A motor-horn had sounded outside, and there was a noise of wheels at the door. "There's Undine! I wonder what could have kept her." He jumped up and walked to the door; but it was Clare Van Degen who came in. At sight of him she gave a little murmur of pleasure. "What luck to find you! No, not luck--I came because I knew you'd be here. He never comes near me, Laura: I have to hunt him down to get a glimpse of him!" Slender and shadowy in her long furs, she bent to kiss Mrs. Fairford and then turned back to Ralph. "Yes, I knew I'd catch you here. I knew it was the boy's birthday, and I've brought him a present: a vulgar expensive Van Degen offering. I've not enough imagination left to find the right thing, the thing it takes feeling and not money to buy. When I look for a present nowadays I never say to the shopman: 'I want this or that'--I simply say: 'Give me something that costs so much.'" She drew a parcel from her muff. "Where's the victim of my vulgarity? Let me crush him under the weight of my gold." Mrs. Fairford sighed out "Clare--Clare!" and Ralph smiled at his cousin. "I'm sorry; but you'll have to depute me to present it. The birthday's over; you're too late." She looked surprised. "Why, I've just left Mamie Driscoll, and she told me Undine was still at Popple's studio a few minutes ago: Popple's giving a tea to show the picture." "Popple's giving a tea?" Ralph struck an attitude of mock consternation. "Ah, in that case--! In Popple's society who wouldn't forget the flight of time?" He had recovered his usual easy tone, and Laura sat that Mrs. Van Degen's words had dispelled his preoccupation. He turned to his cousin. "Will you trust me with your present for the boy?" Clare gave him the parcel. "I'm sorry not to give it myself. I said what I did because I knew what you and Laura were thinking--but it's really a battered old Dagonet bowl that came down to me from our revered great-grandmother." "What--the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. "That's dear of you!" She threw him one of her strange glances. "Why not say: 'That's like you?' But you don't remember what I'm like." She turned away to glance at the clock. "It's late, and I must be off. I'm going to a big dinner at the Chauncey Ellings'--but you must be going there too, Ralph? You'd better let me drive you home." In the motor Ralph leaned back in silence, while the rug was drawn over their knees, and Clare restlessly fingered the row of gold-topped objects in the rack at her elbow. It was restful to be swept through the crowded streets in this smooth fashion, and Clare's presence at his side gave him a vague sense of ease. For a long time now feminine nearness had come to mean to him, not this relief from tension, but the ever-renewed dread of small daily deceptions, evasions, subterfuges. The change had come gradually, marked by one disillusionment after another; but there had been one moment that formed the point beyond which there was no returning. It was the moment, a month or two before his boy's birth, when, glancing over a batch of belated Paris bills, he had come on one from the jeweller he had once found in private conference with Undine. The bill was not large, but two of its items stood out sharply. "Resetting pearl and diamond pendant. Resetting sapphire and diamond ring." The pearl and diamond pendant was his mother's wedding present; the ring was the one he had given Undine on their engagement. That they were both family relics, kept unchanged through several generations, scarcely mattered to him at the time: he felt only the stab of his wife's deception. She had assured him in Paris that she had not had her jewels reset. He had noticed, soon after their return to New York, that she had left off her engagement-ring; but the others were soon discarded also, and in answer to his question she had told him that, in her ailing state, rings "worried" her. Now he saw she had deceived him, and, forgetting everything else, he went to her, bill in hand. Her tears and distress filled him with immediate contrition. Was this a time to torment her about trifles? His anger seemed to cause her actual physical fear, and at the sight he abased himself in entreaties for forgiveness. When the scene ended she had pardoned him, and the reset ring was on her finger... Soon afterward, the birth of the boy seemed to wipe out these humiliating memories; yet Marvell found in time that they were not effaced, but only momentarily crowded out of sight. In reality, the incident had a meaning out of proportion to its apparent seriousness, for it put in his hand a clue to a new side of his wife's character. He no longer minded her having lied about the jeweller; what pained him was that she had been unconscious of the wound she inflicted in destroying the identity of the jewels. He saw that, even after their explanation, she still supposed he was angry only because she had deceived him; and the discovery that she was completely unconscious of states of feeling on which so much of his inner life depended marked a new stage in their relation. He was not thinking of all this as he sat beside Clare Van Degen; but it was part of the chronic disquietude which made him more alive to his cousin's sympathy, her shy unspoken understanding. After all, he and she were of the same blood and had the same traditions. She was light and frivolous, without strength of will or depth of purpose; but she had the frankness of her foibles, and she would never have lied to him or traded on his tenderness. Clare's nervousness gradually subsided, and she lapsed into a low-voiced mood which seemed like an answer to his secret thought. But she did not sound the personal note, and they chatted quietly of commonplace things: of the dinner-dance at which they were presently to meet, of the costume she had chosen for the Driscoll fancy-ball, the recurring rumours of old Driscoll's financial embarrassment, and the mysterious personality of Elmer Moffatt, on whose movements Wall Street was beginning to fix a fascinated eye. When Ralph, the year after his marriage, had renounced his profession to go into partnership with a firm of real-estate agents, he had come in contact for the first time with the drama of "business," and whenever he could turn his attention from his own tasks he found a certain interest in watching the fierce interplay of its forces. In the down-town world he had heard things of Moffatt that seemed to single him out from the common herd of money-makers: anecdotes of his coolness, his lazy good-temper, the humorous detachment he preserved in the heat of conflicting interests; and his figure was enlarged by the mystery that hung about it--the fact that no one seemed to know whence he came, or how he had acquired the information which, for the moment, was making him so formidable. "I should like to see him," Ralph said; "he must be a good specimen of the one of the few picturesque types we've got." "Yes--it might be amusing to fish him out; but the most picturesque types in Wall Street are generally the tamest in a drawing-room." Clare considered. "But doesn't Undine know him? I seem to remember seeing them together." "Undine and Moffatt? Then you KNOW him--you've' met him?" "Not actually met him--but he's been pointed out to me. It must have been some years ago. Yes--it was one night at the theatre, just after you announced your engagement." He fancied her voice trembled slightly, as though she thought he might notice her way of dating her memories. "You came into our box," she went on, "and I asked you the name of the red-faced man who was sitting in the stall next to Undine. You didn't know, but some one told us it was Moffatt." Marvell was more struck by her tone than by what she was saying. "If Undine knows him it's odd she's never mentioned it," he answered indifferently. The motor stopped at his door and Clare, as she held out her hand, turned a first full look on him. "Why do you never come to see me? I miss you more than ever," she said. He pressed her hand without answering, but after the motor had rolled away he stood for a while on the pavement, looking after it. When he entered the house the hall

darkly

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

you already so corrupt that, being old in heart, you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she trades?' "'Why, this is Friday,' she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman's violence. "Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon. When Sarrasine appeared, running after her, he was welcomed by a roar of infernal laughter. He saw La Zambinella swooning on a sofa. She was very pale, as if exhausted by the extraordinary effort she had made. Although Sarrasine knew but little Italian, he understood his mistress when she said to Vitagliani in a low voice: "'But he will kill me!' "This strange scene abashed the sculptor. His reason returned. He stood still for a moment; then he recovered his speech, sat down beside his mistress, and assured her of his profound respect. He found strength to hold his passion in check while talking to her in the most exalted strain; and, to describe his love, he displayed all the treasures of eloquence--that sorcerer, that friendly interpreter, whom women rarely refuse to believe. When the first rays of dawn surprised the boon companions, some woman suggested that they go to Frascati. One and all welcomed with loud applause the idea of passing the day at Villa Ludovisi. Vitagliani went down to hire carriages. Sarrasine had the good fortune to drive La Zambinella in a phaeton. When they had left Rome behind, the merriment of the party, repressed for a moment by the battle they had all been fighting against drowsiness, suddenly awoke. All, men and women alike, seemed accustomed to that strange life, that constant round of pleasures, that artistic energy, which makes of life one never ending _fete_, where laughter reigns, unchecked by fear of the future. The sculptor's companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits. "'Are you ill?' Sarrasine asked her. 'Would you prefer to go home?' "'I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,' she replied. 'I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.' "'You are so delicate!' rejoined Sarrasine, gazing in rapture at the charming creature's dainty features. "'Dissipation ruins my voice.' "'Now that we are alone,' cried the artist, 'and that you no longer have reason to fear the effervescence of my passion, tell me that you love me.' "'Why?' said she; 'for what good purpose? You think me pretty. But you are a Frenchman, and your fancy will pass away. Ah! you would not love me as I should like to be loved.' "'How?' "'Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more, perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character. I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing more.' "'And not love you!' cried Sarrasine; 'but you are my life, my happiness, dear angel!' "'If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.' "'Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be damned for having kissed you but once----' "And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that passionate caress. "'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.' "'Suppose I were not a woman?' queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice. "'A merry jest!' cried Sarrasine. 'Think you that you can deceive an artist's eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined, devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek compliments!' "She smiled sadly, and murmured: "'Fatal beauty!' "She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that Sarrasine shuddered. "'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried, weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.' "The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice, La Zambinella's attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all the treasures of passion. Each word was a spur. At that moment, they arrived at Frascati. When the artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that she trembled from head to foot. "'What is the matter? You would kill me,' he cried, seeing that she turned pale, 'if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am, even innocently, the cause.' "'A snake!' she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the edge of a ditch. 'I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.' "Sarrasine crushed the snake's head with a blow of his foot. "'How could you dare to do it?' said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead reptile with visible terror. "'Aha!' said the artist, with a smile, 'would you venture to say now that you are not a woman?' "They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words, 'Those are brigands!' they all quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set his mistress down. "'Tell me,' he said, 'why it is that this extreme weakness which in another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest indication of it would be enough to destroy my love,--why is it that in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!' he continued. 'All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong, courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel's voice, that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other breast than thine.' "'I can give you no hope,' she said. 'Cease to speak thus to me, for people would make sport of you. It is impossible for me to shut the door of the theatre to you; but if you love me, or if you are wise, you will come there no more. Listen to me, monsieur,' she continued in a grave voice. "'Oh, hush!' said the excited artist. 'Obstacles inflame the love in my heart.' "La Zambinella maintained a graceful and modest attitude; but she held her peace, as if a terrible thought had suddenly revealed some catastrophe. When it was time to return to Rome she entered a berlin with four seats, bidding the sculptor, with a cruelly imperious air, to return alone in the phaeton. On the road, Sarrasine determined to carry off La Zambinella. He passed the whole day forming plans, each more extravagant than the last. At nightfall, as he was going out to inquire of somebody where his mistress lived, he met one of his fellow-artists at the door. "'My dear fellow,' he said, I am sent by our ambassador to invite you to come to the embassy this evening. He gives a magnificent concert, and when I tell you that La Zambinella will be there--' "'Zambinella!' cried Sarrasine, thrown into delirium by that name; 'I am mad with love of her.' "'You are like everybody else,' replied his comrade. "'But if you are friends of mine, you and Vien and Lauterbourg and Allegrain, you will lend me your assistance for a _coup de main_, after the entertainment, will you not?' asked Sarrasine. "'There's no cardinal to be killed? no--?' "'No, no!' said Sarrasine, 'I ask nothing of you that men of honor may not do.' "In a few moments the sculptor laid all his plans to assure the success of his enterprise. He was one of the last to arrive at the ambassador's, but he went thither in a traveling carriage drawn by four stout horses and driven by one of the most skilful _vetturini_ in Rome. The ambassador's palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment. "'It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and _abbes_ who are here,' said Sarrasine, 'that _she_ is dressed as a man, that _she_ has curly hair which _she_ wears in a bag, and that _she_ has a sword at her side?' "'She! what she?' rejoined the old nobleman whom Sarrasine addressed. "'La Zambinella.' "'La Zambinella!' echoed the Roman prince. 'Are you jesting? Whence have you come? Did a woman ever appear in a Roman theatre? And do you not know what sort of creatures play female parts within the domains of the Pope? It was I, monsieur, who endowed Zambinella with his voice. I paid all the knave's expenses, even his teacher in singing. And he has so little gratitude for the service I have done him that he has never been willing to step inside my house. And yet, if he makes his fortune, he will owe it all to me.' "Prince Chigi might have talked on forever, Sarrasine did not listen to him. A ghastly truth had found its way into his mind. He was stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his _protege's_ glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an _abbe_, who instantly disappeared. Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his beauty as much as to his voice. "'It's a woman,' said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear him. 'There's some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal Cicognara is hoodwinking the Pope and the whole city of Rome!' "The sculptor at once left the salon, assembled his friends, and lay in wait in the courtyard of the palace. When Zambinella was assured of Sarrasine's departure he seemed to recover his tranquillity in some measure. About midnight after wandering through the salons like a man looking for an enemy, the _musico_ left the party. As he passed through the palace gate he was seized by men who deftly gagged him with a handkerchief and placed him in the carriage hired by Sarrasine. Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one. Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella. "'Tell me the truth,' he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara----' "Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head. "'Ah! you are a woman!' cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a--' "He did not finish the sentence. "'No,' he continued, 'even _he_ could not be so utterly base.' "'Oh, do not kill me!' cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. 'I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.' "'Laugh!' echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. 'Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man's passion--you?' "'Oh, mercy!' cried Zambinella. "'I ought to kill you!' shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. 'But,' he continued, with cold disdain, 'if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--' "Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue. "'And that is a delusion!' he cried. "Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued: "'A woman's heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. _To love, to be loved!_ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.' "He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair. "'I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.' "Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor--two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears. "'An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!' "As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. "'From Cardinal Cicognara,' said one of the men. "'A benefaction worthy of a Christian,' retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last. "These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, "what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys'?" "Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella's statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet's _Endymion_; you yourself recognized the type in _Adonis_." "But this Zambinella, male or female--" "Must be, madame, Marianina's maternal great uncle. You can conceive now Madame de Lanty's interest in concealing the source of a fortune which comes--" "Enough!" said she, with an imperious gesture. We remained for a moment in the most profound silence. "Well?" I said at last. "Ah!" she cried, rising and pacing the floor. She came and looked me in the face, and said in an altered voice: "You have disgusted me with life and passion for a long time to come. Leaving monstrosities aside, are not all human sentiments dissolved thus, by ghastly disillusionment? Children torture mothers by their bad conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed. Mistresses are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there such a thing! I would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I can remain like the inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests of life. If the future of the Christian is an illusion too, at all events it is not destroyed until after death. Leave me to myself." "Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish." "Am I in the wrong?" "Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this story, which is well known in Italy, I can give you an excellent idea of the progress made by the civilization of the present day. There are none of those wretched creatures now." "Paris," said she, "is an exceedingly hospitable place; it welcomes one and all, fortunes stained with shame, and fortunes stained with blood. Crime and infamy have a right of asylum here; virtue alone is without altars. But pure hearts have a fatherland in heaven! No one will have known me! I am proud of it." And the marchioness was lost in thought. ADDENDUM The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Father Goriot Lanty, Comte de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Comtesse de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Marianina de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Filippo de The Member for Arcis Rochefide, Marquise de Beatrix The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve A Prince of Bohemia Sarrasine, Ernest-Jean The Member for Arcis Vien, Joseph-Marie The Member for Arcis Zambinella The Member for Arcis End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sarrasine, by Honore de Balzac *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARRASINE *** ***** This file should be named 1826.txt or 1826.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/1826/ Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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How many times the word 'went' appears in the text?

you already so corrupt that, being old in heart, you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she trades?' "'Why, this is Friday,' she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman's violence. "Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon. When Sarrasine appeared, running after her, he was welcomed by a roar of infernal laughter. He saw La Zambinella swooning on a sofa. She was very pale, as if exhausted by the extraordinary effort she had made. Although Sarrasine knew but little Italian, he understood his mistress when she said to Vitagliani in a low voice: "'But he will kill me!' "This strange scene abashed the sculptor. His reason returned. He stood still for a moment; then he recovered his speech, sat down beside his mistress, and assured her of his profound respect. He found strength to hold his passion in check while talking to her in the most exalted strain; and, to describe his love, he displayed all the treasures of eloquence--that sorcerer, that friendly interpreter, whom women rarely refuse to believe. When the first rays of dawn surprised the boon companions, some woman suggested that they go to Frascati. One and all welcomed with loud applause the idea of passing the day at Villa Ludovisi. Vitagliani went down to hire carriages. Sarrasine had the good fortune to drive La Zambinella in a phaeton. When they had left Rome behind, the merriment of the party, repressed for a moment by the battle they had all been fighting against drowsiness, suddenly awoke. All, men and women alike, seemed accustomed to that strange life, that constant round of pleasures, that artistic energy, which makes of life one never ending _fete_, where laughter reigns, unchecked by fear of the future. The sculptor's companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits. "'Are you ill?' Sarrasine asked her. 'Would you prefer to go home?' "'I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,' she replied. 'I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.' "'You are so delicate!' rejoined Sarrasine, gazing in rapture at the charming creature's dainty features. "'Dissipation ruins my voice.' "'Now that we are alone,' cried the artist, 'and that you no longer have reason to fear the effervescence of my passion, tell me that you love me.' "'Why?' said she; 'for what good purpose? You think me pretty. But you are a Frenchman, and your fancy will pass away. Ah! you would not love me as I should like to be loved.' "'How?' "'Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more, perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character. I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing more.' "'And not love you!' cried Sarrasine; 'but you are my life, my happiness, dear angel!' "'If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.' "'Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be damned for having kissed you but once----' "And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that passionate caress. "'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.' "'Suppose I were not a woman?' queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice. "'A merry jest!' cried Sarrasine. 'Think you that you can deceive an artist's eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined, devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek compliments!' "She smiled sadly, and murmured: "'Fatal beauty!' "She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that Sarrasine shuddered. "'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried, weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.' "The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice, La Zambinella's attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all the treasures of passion. Each word was a spur. At that moment, they arrived at Frascati. When the artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that she trembled from head to foot. "'What is the matter? You would kill me,' he cried, seeing that she turned pale, 'if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am, even innocently, the cause.' "'A snake!' she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the edge of a ditch. 'I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.' "Sarrasine crushed the snake's head with a blow of his foot. "'How could you dare to do it?' said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead reptile with visible terror. "'Aha!' said the artist, with a smile, 'would you venture to say now that you are not a woman?' "They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words, 'Those are brigands!' they all quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set his mistress down. "'Tell me,' he said, 'why it is that this extreme weakness which in another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest indication of it would be enough to destroy my love,--why is it that in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!' he continued. 'All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong, courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel's voice, that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other breast than thine.' "'I can give you no hope,' she said. 'Cease to speak thus to me, for people would make sport of you. It is impossible for me to shut the door of the theatre to you; but if you love me, or if you are wise, you will come there no more. Listen to me, monsieur,' she continued in a grave voice. "'Oh, hush!' said the excited artist. 'Obstacles inflame the love in my heart.' "La Zambinella maintained a graceful and modest attitude; but she held her peace, as if a terrible thought had suddenly revealed some catastrophe. When it was time to return to Rome she entered a berlin with four seats, bidding the sculptor, with a cruelly imperious air, to return alone in the phaeton. On the road, Sarrasine determined to carry off La Zambinella. He passed the whole day forming plans, each more extravagant than the last. At nightfall, as he was going out to inquire of somebody where his mistress lived, he met one of his fellow-artists at the door. "'My dear fellow,' he said, I am sent by our ambassador to invite you to come to the embassy this evening. He gives a magnificent concert, and when I tell you that La Zambinella will be there--' "'Zambinella!' cried Sarrasine, thrown into delirium by that name; 'I am mad with love of her.' "'You are like everybody else,' replied his comrade. "'But if you are friends of mine, you and Vien and Lauterbourg and Allegrain, you will lend me your assistance for a _coup de main_, after the entertainment, will you not?' asked Sarrasine. "'There's no cardinal to be killed? no--?' "'No, no!' said Sarrasine, 'I ask nothing of you that men of honor may not do.' "In a few moments the sculptor laid all his plans to assure the success of his enterprise. He was one of the last to arrive at the ambassador's, but he went thither in a traveling carriage drawn by four stout horses and driven by one of the most skilful _vetturini_ in Rome. The ambassador's palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment. "'It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and _abbes_ who are here,' said Sarrasine, 'that _she_ is dressed as a man, that _she_ has curly hair which _she_ wears in a bag, and that _she_ has a sword at her side?' "'She! what she?' rejoined the old nobleman whom Sarrasine addressed. "'La Zambinella.' "'La Zambinella!' echoed the Roman prince. 'Are you jesting? Whence have you come? Did a woman ever appear in a Roman theatre? And do you not know what sort of creatures play female parts within the domains of the Pope? It was I, monsieur, who endowed Zambinella with his voice. I paid all the knave's expenses, even his teacher in singing. And he has so little gratitude for the service I have done him that he has never been willing to step inside my house. And yet, if he makes his fortune, he will owe it all to me.' "Prince Chigi might have talked on forever, Sarrasine did not listen to him. A ghastly truth had found its way into his mind. He was stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his _protege's_ glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an _abbe_, who instantly disappeared. Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his beauty as much as to his voice. "'It's a woman,' said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear him. 'There's some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal Cicognara is hoodwinking the Pope and the whole city of Rome!' "The sculptor at once left the salon, assembled his friends, and lay in wait in the courtyard of the palace. When Zambinella was assured of Sarrasine's departure he seemed to recover his tranquillity in some measure. About midnight after wandering through the salons like a man looking for an enemy, the _musico_ left the party. As he passed through the palace gate he was seized by men who deftly gagged him with a handkerchief and placed him in the carriage hired by Sarrasine. Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one. Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella. "'Tell me the truth,' he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara----' "Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head. "'Ah! you are a woman!' cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a--' "He did not finish the sentence. "'No,' he continued, 'even _he_ could not be so utterly base.' "'Oh, do not kill me!' cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. 'I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.' "'Laugh!' echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. 'Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man's passion--you?' "'Oh, mercy!' cried Zambinella. "'I ought to kill you!' shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. 'But,' he continued, with cold disdain, 'if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--' "Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue. "'And that is a delusion!' he cried. "Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued: "'A woman's heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. _To love, to be loved!_ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.' "He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair. "'I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.' "Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor--two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears. "'An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!' "As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. "'From Cardinal Cicognara,' said one of the men. "'A benefaction worthy of a Christian,' retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last. "These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, "what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys'?" "Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella's statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet's _Endymion_; you yourself recognized the type in _Adonis_." "But this Zambinella, male or female--" "Must be, madame, Marianina's maternal great uncle. You can conceive now Madame de Lanty's interest in concealing the source of a fortune which comes--" "Enough!" said she, with an imperious gesture. We remained for a moment in the most profound silence. "Well?" I said at last. "Ah!" she cried, rising and pacing the floor. She came and looked me in the face, and said in an altered voice: "You have disgusted me with life and passion for a long time to come. Leaving monstrosities aside, are not all human sentiments dissolved thus, by ghastly disillusionment? Children torture mothers by their bad conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed. Mistresses are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there such a thing! I would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I can remain like the inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests of life. If the future of the Christian is an illusion too, at all events it is not destroyed until after death. Leave me to myself." "Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish." "Am I in the wrong?" "Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this story, which is well known in Italy, I can give you an excellent idea of the progress made by the civilization of the present day. There are none of those wretched creatures now." "Paris," said she, "is an exceedingly hospitable place; it welcomes one and all, fortunes stained with shame, and fortunes stained with blood. Crime and infamy have a right of asylum here; virtue alone is without altars. But pure hearts have a fatherland in heaven! No one will have known me! I am proud of it." And the marchioness was lost in thought. ADDENDUM The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Father Goriot Lanty, Comte de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Comtesse de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Marianina de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Filippo de The Member for Arcis Rochefide, Marquise de Beatrix The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve A Prince of Bohemia Sarrasine, Ernest-Jean The Member for Arcis Vien, Joseph-Marie The Member for Arcis Zambinella The Member for Arcis End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sarrasine, by Honore de Balzac *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARRASINE *** ***** This file should be named 1826.txt or 1826.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/1826/ Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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arises

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

you already so corrupt that, being old in heart, you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she trades?' "'Why, this is Friday,' she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman's violence. "Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon. When Sarrasine appeared, running after her, he was welcomed by a roar of infernal laughter. He saw La Zambinella swooning on a sofa. She was very pale, as if exhausted by the extraordinary effort she had made. Although Sarrasine knew but little Italian, he understood his mistress when she said to Vitagliani in a low voice: "'But he will kill me!' "This strange scene abashed the sculptor. His reason returned. He stood still for a moment; then he recovered his speech, sat down beside his mistress, and assured her of his profound respect. He found strength to hold his passion in check while talking to her in the most exalted strain; and, to describe his love, he displayed all the treasures of eloquence--that sorcerer, that friendly interpreter, whom women rarely refuse to believe. When the first rays of dawn surprised the boon companions, some woman suggested that they go to Frascati. One and all welcomed with loud applause the idea of passing the day at Villa Ludovisi. Vitagliani went down to hire carriages. Sarrasine had the good fortune to drive La Zambinella in a phaeton. When they had left Rome behind, the merriment of the party, repressed for a moment by the battle they had all been fighting against drowsiness, suddenly awoke. All, men and women alike, seemed accustomed to that strange life, that constant round of pleasures, that artistic energy, which makes of life one never ending _fete_, where laughter reigns, unchecked by fear of the future. The sculptor's companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits. "'Are you ill?' Sarrasine asked her. 'Would you prefer to go home?' "'I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,' she replied. 'I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.' "'You are so delicate!' rejoined Sarrasine, gazing in rapture at the charming creature's dainty features. "'Dissipation ruins my voice.' "'Now that we are alone,' cried the artist, 'and that you no longer have reason to fear the effervescence of my passion, tell me that you love me.' "'Why?' said she; 'for what good purpose? You think me pretty. But you are a Frenchman, and your fancy will pass away. Ah! you would not love me as I should like to be loved.' "'How?' "'Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more, perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character. I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing more.' "'And not love you!' cried Sarrasine; 'but you are my life, my happiness, dear angel!' "'If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.' "'Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be damned for having kissed you but once----' "And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that passionate caress. "'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.' "'Suppose I were not a woman?' queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice. "'A merry jest!' cried Sarrasine. 'Think you that you can deceive an artist's eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined, devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek compliments!' "She smiled sadly, and murmured: "'Fatal beauty!' "She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that Sarrasine shuddered. "'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried, weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.' "The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice, La Zambinella's attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all the treasures of passion. Each word was a spur. At that moment, they arrived at Frascati. When the artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that she trembled from head to foot. "'What is the matter? You would kill me,' he cried, seeing that she turned pale, 'if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am, even innocently, the cause.' "'A snake!' she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the edge of a ditch. 'I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.' "Sarrasine crushed the snake's head with a blow of his foot. "'How could you dare to do it?' said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead reptile with visible terror. "'Aha!' said the artist, with a smile, 'would you venture to say now that you are not a woman?' "They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words, 'Those are brigands!' they all quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set his mistress down. "'Tell me,' he said, 'why it is that this extreme weakness which in another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest indication of it would be enough to destroy my love,--why is it that in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!' he continued. 'All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong, courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel's voice, that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other breast than thine.' "'I can give you no hope,' she said. 'Cease to speak thus to me, for people would make sport of you. It is impossible for me to shut the door of the theatre to you; but if you love me, or if you are wise, you will come there no more. Listen to me, monsieur,' she continued in a grave voice. "'Oh, hush!' said the excited artist. 'Obstacles inflame the love in my heart.' "La Zambinella maintained a graceful and modest attitude; but she held her peace, as if a terrible thought had suddenly revealed some catastrophe. When it was time to return to Rome she entered a berlin with four seats, bidding the sculptor, with a cruelly imperious air, to return alone in the phaeton. On the road, Sarrasine determined to carry off La Zambinella. He passed the whole day forming plans, each more extravagant than the last. At nightfall, as he was going out to inquire of somebody where his mistress lived, he met one of his fellow-artists at the door. "'My dear fellow,' he said, I am sent by our ambassador to invite you to come to the embassy this evening. He gives a magnificent concert, and when I tell you that La Zambinella will be there--' "'Zambinella!' cried Sarrasine, thrown into delirium by that name; 'I am mad with love of her.' "'You are like everybody else,' replied his comrade. "'But if you are friends of mine, you and Vien and Lauterbourg and Allegrain, you will lend me your assistance for a _coup de main_, after the entertainment, will you not?' asked Sarrasine. "'There's no cardinal to be killed? no--?' "'No, no!' said Sarrasine, 'I ask nothing of you that men of honor may not do.' "In a few moments the sculptor laid all his plans to assure the success of his enterprise. He was one of the last to arrive at the ambassador's, but he went thither in a traveling carriage drawn by four stout horses and driven by one of the most skilful _vetturini_ in Rome. The ambassador's palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment. "'It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and _abbes_ who are here,' said Sarrasine, 'that _she_ is dressed as a man, that _she_ has curly hair which _she_ wears in a bag, and that _she_ has a sword at her side?' "'She! what she?' rejoined the old nobleman whom Sarrasine addressed. "'La Zambinella.' "'La Zambinella!' echoed the Roman prince. 'Are you jesting? Whence have you come? Did a woman ever appear in a Roman theatre? And do you not know what sort of creatures play female parts within the domains of the Pope? It was I, monsieur, who endowed Zambinella with his voice. I paid all the knave's expenses, even his teacher in singing. And he has so little gratitude for the service I have done him that he has never been willing to step inside my house. And yet, if he makes his fortune, he will owe it all to me.' "Prince Chigi might have talked on forever, Sarrasine did not listen to him. A ghastly truth had found its way into his mind. He was stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his _protege's_ glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an _abbe_, who instantly disappeared. Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his beauty as much as to his voice. "'It's a woman,' said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear him. 'There's some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal Cicognara is hoodwinking the Pope and the whole city of Rome!' "The sculptor at once left the salon, assembled his friends, and lay in wait in the courtyard of the palace. When Zambinella was assured of Sarrasine's departure he seemed to recover his tranquillity in some measure. About midnight after wandering through the salons like a man looking for an enemy, the _musico_ left the party. As he passed through the palace gate he was seized by men who deftly gagged him with a handkerchief and placed him in the carriage hired by Sarrasine. Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one. Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella. "'Tell me the truth,' he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara----' "Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head. "'Ah! you are a woman!' cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a--' "He did not finish the sentence. "'No,' he continued, 'even _he_ could not be so utterly base.' "'Oh, do not kill me!' cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. 'I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.' "'Laugh!' echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. 'Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man's passion--you?' "'Oh, mercy!' cried Zambinella. "'I ought to kill you!' shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. 'But,' he continued, with cold disdain, 'if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--' "Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue. "'And that is a delusion!' he cried. "Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued: "'A woman's heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. _To love, to be loved!_ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.' "He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair. "'I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.' "Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor--two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears. "'An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!' "As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. "'From Cardinal Cicognara,' said one of the men. "'A benefaction worthy of a Christian,' retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last. "These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, "what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys'?" "Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella's statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet's _Endymion_; you yourself recognized the type in _Adonis_." "But this Zambinella, male or female--" "Must be, madame, Marianina's maternal great uncle. You can conceive now Madame de Lanty's interest in concealing the source of a fortune which comes--" "Enough!" said she, with an imperious gesture. We remained for a moment in the most profound silence. "Well?" I said at last. "Ah!" she cried, rising and pacing the floor. She came and looked me in the face, and said in an altered voice: "You have disgusted me with life and passion for a long time to come. Leaving monstrosities aside, are not all human sentiments dissolved thus, by ghastly disillusionment? Children torture mothers by their bad conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed. Mistresses are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there such a thing! I would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I can remain like the inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests of life. If the future of the Christian is an illusion too, at all events it is not destroyed until after death. Leave me to myself." "Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish." "Am I in the wrong?" "Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this story, which is well known in Italy, I can give you an excellent idea of the progress made by the civilization of the present day. There are none of those wretched creatures now." "Paris," said she, "is an exceedingly hospitable place; it welcomes one and all, fortunes stained with shame, and fortunes stained with blood. Crime and infamy have a right of asylum here; virtue alone is without altars. But pure hearts have a fatherland in heaven! No one will have known me! I am proud of it." And the marchioness was lost in thought. ADDENDUM The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Father Goriot Lanty, Comte de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Comtesse de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Marianina de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Filippo de The Member for Arcis Rochefide, Marquise de Beatrix The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve A Prince of Bohemia Sarrasine, Ernest-Jean The Member for Arcis Vien, Joseph-Marie The Member for Arcis Zambinella The Member for Arcis End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sarrasine, by Honore de Balzac *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARRASINE *** ***** This file should be named 1826.txt or 1826.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/1826/ Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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fear

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

you already so corrupt that, being old in heart, you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she trades?' "'Why, this is Friday,' she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman's violence. "Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon. When Sarrasine appeared, running after her, he was welcomed by a roar of infernal laughter. He saw La Zambinella swooning on a sofa. She was very pale, as if exhausted by the extraordinary effort she had made. Although Sarrasine knew but little Italian, he understood his mistress when she said to Vitagliani in a low voice: "'But he will kill me!' "This strange scene abashed the sculptor. His reason returned. He stood still for a moment; then he recovered his speech, sat down beside his mistress, and assured her of his profound respect. He found strength to hold his passion in check while talking to her in the most exalted strain; and, to describe his love, he displayed all the treasures of eloquence--that sorcerer, that friendly interpreter, whom women rarely refuse to believe. When the first rays of dawn surprised the boon companions, some woman suggested that they go to Frascati. One and all welcomed with loud applause the idea of passing the day at Villa Ludovisi. Vitagliani went down to hire carriages. Sarrasine had the good fortune to drive La Zambinella in a phaeton. When they had left Rome behind, the merriment of the party, repressed for a moment by the battle they had all been fighting against drowsiness, suddenly awoke. All, men and women alike, seemed accustomed to that strange life, that constant round of pleasures, that artistic energy, which makes of life one never ending _fete_, where laughter reigns, unchecked by fear of the future. The sculptor's companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits. "'Are you ill?' Sarrasine asked her. 'Would you prefer to go home?' "'I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,' she replied. 'I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.' "'You are so delicate!' rejoined Sarrasine, gazing in rapture at the charming creature's dainty features. "'Dissipation ruins my voice.' "'Now that we are alone,' cried the artist, 'and that you no longer have reason to fear the effervescence of my passion, tell me that you love me.' "'Why?' said she; 'for what good purpose? You think me pretty. But you are a Frenchman, and your fancy will pass away. Ah! you would not love me as I should like to be loved.' "'How?' "'Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more, perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character. I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing more.' "'And not love you!' cried Sarrasine; 'but you are my life, my happiness, dear angel!' "'If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.' "'Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be damned for having kissed you but once----' "And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that passionate caress. "'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.' "'Suppose I were not a woman?' queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice. "'A merry jest!' cried Sarrasine. 'Think you that you can deceive an artist's eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined, devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek compliments!' "She smiled sadly, and murmured: "'Fatal beauty!' "She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that Sarrasine shuddered. "'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried, weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.' "The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice, La Zambinella's attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all the treasures of passion. Each word was a spur. At that moment, they arrived at Frascati. When the artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that she trembled from head to foot. "'What is the matter? You would kill me,' he cried, seeing that she turned pale, 'if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am, even innocently, the cause.' "'A snake!' she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the edge of a ditch. 'I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.' "Sarrasine crushed the snake's head with a blow of his foot. "'How could you dare to do it?' said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead reptile with visible terror. "'Aha!' said the artist, with a smile, 'would you venture to say now that you are not a woman?' "They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words, 'Those are brigands!' they all quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set his mistress down. "'Tell me,' he said, 'why it is that this extreme weakness which in another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest indication of it would be enough to destroy my love,--why is it that in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!' he continued. 'All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong, courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel's voice, that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other breast than thine.' "'I can give you no hope,' she said. 'Cease to speak thus to me, for people would make sport of you. It is impossible for me to shut the door of the theatre to you; but if you love me, or if you are wise, you will come there no more. Listen to me, monsieur,' she continued in a grave voice. "'Oh, hush!' said the excited artist. 'Obstacles inflame the love in my heart.' "La Zambinella maintained a graceful and modest attitude; but she held her peace, as if a terrible thought had suddenly revealed some catastrophe. When it was time to return to Rome she entered a berlin with four seats, bidding the sculptor, with a cruelly imperious air, to return alone in the phaeton. On the road, Sarrasine determined to carry off La Zambinella. He passed the whole day forming plans, each more extravagant than the last. At nightfall, as he was going out to inquire of somebody where his mistress lived, he met one of his fellow-artists at the door. "'My dear fellow,' he said, I am sent by our ambassador to invite you to come to the embassy this evening. He gives a magnificent concert, and when I tell you that La Zambinella will be there--' "'Zambinella!' cried Sarrasine, thrown into delirium by that name; 'I am mad with love of her.' "'You are like everybody else,' replied his comrade. "'But if you are friends of mine, you and Vien and Lauterbourg and Allegrain, you will lend me your assistance for a _coup de main_, after the entertainment, will you not?' asked Sarrasine. "'There's no cardinal to be killed? no--?' "'No, no!' said Sarrasine, 'I ask nothing of you that men of honor may not do.' "In a few moments the sculptor laid all his plans to assure the success of his enterprise. He was one of the last to arrive at the ambassador's, but he went thither in a traveling carriage drawn by four stout horses and driven by one of the most skilful _vetturini_ in Rome. The ambassador's palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment. "'It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and _abbes_ who are here,' said Sarrasine, 'that _she_ is dressed as a man, that _she_ has curly hair which _she_ wears in a bag, and that _she_ has a sword at her side?' "'She! what she?' rejoined the old nobleman whom Sarrasine addressed. "'La Zambinella.' "'La Zambinella!' echoed the Roman prince. 'Are you jesting? Whence have you come? Did a woman ever appear in a Roman theatre? And do you not know what sort of creatures play female parts within the domains of the Pope? It was I, monsieur, who endowed Zambinella with his voice. I paid all the knave's expenses, even his teacher in singing. And he has so little gratitude for the service I have done him that he has never been willing to step inside my house. And yet, if he makes his fortune, he will owe it all to me.' "Prince Chigi might have talked on forever, Sarrasine did not listen to him. A ghastly truth had found its way into his mind. He was stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his _protege's_ glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an _abbe_, who instantly disappeared. Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his beauty as much as to his voice. "'It's a woman,' said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear him. 'There's some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal Cicognara is hoodwinking the Pope and the whole city of Rome!' "The sculptor at once left the salon, assembled his friends, and lay in wait in the courtyard of the palace. When Zambinella was assured of Sarrasine's departure he seemed to recover his tranquillity in some measure. About midnight after wandering through the salons like a man looking for an enemy, the _musico_ left the party. As he passed through the palace gate he was seized by men who deftly gagged him with a handkerchief and placed him in the carriage hired by Sarrasine. Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one. Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella. "'Tell me the truth,' he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara----' "Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head. "'Ah! you are a woman!' cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a--' "He did not finish the sentence. "'No,' he continued, 'even _he_ could not be so utterly base.' "'Oh, do not kill me!' cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. 'I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.' "'Laugh!' echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. 'Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man's passion--you?' "'Oh, mercy!' cried Zambinella. "'I ought to kill you!' shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. 'But,' he continued, with cold disdain, 'if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--' "Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue. "'And that is a delusion!' he cried. "Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued: "'A woman's heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. _To love, to be loved!_ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.' "He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair. "'I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.' "Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor--two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears. "'An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!' "As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. "'From Cardinal Cicognara,' said one of the men. "'A benefaction worthy of a Christian,' retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last. "These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, "what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys'?" "Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella's statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet's _Endymion_; you yourself recognized the type in _Adonis_." "But this Zambinella, male or female--" "Must be, madame, Marianina's maternal great uncle. You can conceive now Madame de Lanty's interest in concealing the source of a fortune which comes--" "Enough!" said she, with an imperious gesture. We remained for a moment in the most profound silence. "Well?" I said at last. "Ah!" she cried, rising and pacing the floor. She came and looked me in the face, and said in an altered voice: "You have disgusted me with life and passion for a long time to come. Leaving monstrosities aside, are not all human sentiments dissolved thus, by ghastly disillusionment? Children torture mothers by their bad conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed. Mistresses are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there such a thing! I would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I can remain like the inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests of life. If the future of the Christian is an illusion too, at all events it is not destroyed until after death. Leave me to myself." "Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish." "Am I in the wrong?" "Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this story, which is well known in Italy, I can give you an excellent idea of the progress made by the civilization of the present day. There are none of those wretched creatures now." "Paris," said she, "is an exceedingly hospitable place; it welcomes one and all, fortunes stained with shame, and fortunes stained with blood. Crime and infamy have a right of asylum here; virtue alone is without altars. But pure hearts have a fatherland in heaven! No one will have known me! I am proud of it." And the marchioness was lost in thought. ADDENDUM The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Father Goriot Lanty, Comte de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Comtesse de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Marianina de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Filippo de The Member for Arcis Rochefide, Marquise de Beatrix The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve A Prince of Bohemia Sarrasine, Ernest-Jean The Member for Arcis Vien, Joseph-Marie The Member for Arcis Zambinella The Member for Arcis End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sarrasine, by Honore de Balzac *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARRASINE *** ***** This file should be named 1826.txt or 1826.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/1826/ Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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wear

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

you already so corrupt that, being old in heart, you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she trades?' "'Why, this is Friday,' she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman's violence. "Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon. When Sarrasine appeared, running after her, he was welcomed by a roar of infernal laughter. He saw La Zambinella swooning on a sofa. She was very pale, as if exhausted by the extraordinary effort she had made. Although Sarrasine knew but little Italian, he understood his mistress when she said to Vitagliani in a low voice: "'But he will kill me!' "This strange scene abashed the sculptor. His reason returned. He stood still for a moment; then he recovered his speech, sat down beside his mistress, and assured her of his profound respect. He found strength to hold his passion in check while talking to her in the most exalted strain; and, to describe his love, he displayed all the treasures of eloquence--that sorcerer, that friendly interpreter, whom women rarely refuse to believe. When the first rays of dawn surprised the boon companions, some woman suggested that they go to Frascati. One and all welcomed with loud applause the idea of passing the day at Villa Ludovisi. Vitagliani went down to hire carriages. Sarrasine had the good fortune to drive La Zambinella in a phaeton. When they had left Rome behind, the merriment of the party, repressed for a moment by the battle they had all been fighting against drowsiness, suddenly awoke. All, men and women alike, seemed accustomed to that strange life, that constant round of pleasures, that artistic energy, which makes of life one never ending _fete_, where laughter reigns, unchecked by fear of the future. The sculptor's companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits. "'Are you ill?' Sarrasine asked her. 'Would you prefer to go home?' "'I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,' she replied. 'I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.' "'You are so delicate!' rejoined Sarrasine, gazing in rapture at the charming creature's dainty features. "'Dissipation ruins my voice.' "'Now that we are alone,' cried the artist, 'and that you no longer have reason to fear the effervescence of my passion, tell me that you love me.' "'Why?' said she; 'for what good purpose? You think me pretty. But you are a Frenchman, and your fancy will pass away. Ah! you would not love me as I should like to be loved.' "'How?' "'Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more, perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character. I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing more.' "'And not love you!' cried Sarrasine; 'but you are my life, my happiness, dear angel!' "'If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.' "'Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be damned for having kissed you but once----' "And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that passionate caress. "'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.' "'Suppose I were not a woman?' queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice. "'A merry jest!' cried Sarrasine. 'Think you that you can deceive an artist's eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined, devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek compliments!' "She smiled sadly, and murmured: "'Fatal beauty!' "She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that Sarrasine shuddered. "'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried, weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.' "The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice, La Zambinella's attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all the treasures of passion. Each word was a spur. At that moment, they arrived at Frascati. When the artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that she trembled from head to foot. "'What is the matter? You would kill me,' he cried, seeing that she turned pale, 'if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am, even innocently, the cause.' "'A snake!' she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the edge of a ditch. 'I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.' "Sarrasine crushed the snake's head with a blow of his foot. "'How could you dare to do it?' said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead reptile with visible terror. "'Aha!' said the artist, with a smile, 'would you venture to say now that you are not a woman?' "They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words, 'Those are brigands!' they all quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set his mistress down. "'Tell me,' he said, 'why it is that this extreme weakness which in another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest indication of it would be enough to destroy my love,--why is it that in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!' he continued. 'All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong, courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel's voice, that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other breast than thine.' "'I can give you no hope,' she said. 'Cease to speak thus to me, for people would make sport of you. It is impossible for me to shut the door of the theatre to you; but if you love me, or if you are wise, you will come there no more. Listen to me, monsieur,' she continued in a grave voice. "'Oh, hush!' said the excited artist. 'Obstacles inflame the love in my heart.' "La Zambinella maintained a graceful and modest attitude; but she held her peace, as if a terrible thought had suddenly revealed some catastrophe. When it was time to return to Rome she entered a berlin with four seats, bidding the sculptor, with a cruelly imperious air, to return alone in the phaeton. On the road, Sarrasine determined to carry off La Zambinella. He passed the whole day forming plans, each more extravagant than the last. At nightfall, as he was going out to inquire of somebody where his mistress lived, he met one of his fellow-artists at the door. "'My dear fellow,' he said, I am sent by our ambassador to invite you to come to the embassy this evening. He gives a magnificent concert, and when I tell you that La Zambinella will be there--' "'Zambinella!' cried Sarrasine, thrown into delirium by that name; 'I am mad with love of her.' "'You are like everybody else,' replied his comrade. "'But if you are friends of mine, you and Vien and Lauterbourg and Allegrain, you will lend me your assistance for a _coup de main_, after the entertainment, will you not?' asked Sarrasine. "'There's no cardinal to be killed? no--?' "'No, no!' said Sarrasine, 'I ask nothing of you that men of honor may not do.' "In a few moments the sculptor laid all his plans to assure the success of his enterprise. He was one of the last to arrive at the ambassador's, but he went thither in a traveling carriage drawn by four stout horses and driven by one of the most skilful _vetturini_ in Rome. The ambassador's palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment. "'It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and _abbes_ who are here,' said Sarrasine, 'that _she_ is dressed as a man, that _she_ has curly hair which _she_ wears in a bag, and that _she_ has a sword at her side?' "'She! what she?' rejoined the old nobleman whom Sarrasine addressed. "'La Zambinella.' "'La Zambinella!' echoed the Roman prince. 'Are you jesting? Whence have you come? Did a woman ever appear in a Roman theatre? And do you not know what sort of creatures play female parts within the domains of the Pope? It was I, monsieur, who endowed Zambinella with his voice. I paid all the knave's expenses, even his teacher in singing. And he has so little gratitude for the service I have done him that he has never been willing to step inside my house. And yet, if he makes his fortune, he will owe it all to me.' "Prince Chigi might have talked on forever, Sarrasine did not listen to him. A ghastly truth had found its way into his mind. He was stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his _protege's_ glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an _abbe_, who instantly disappeared. Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his beauty as much as to his voice. "'It's a woman,' said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear him. 'There's some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal Cicognara is hoodwinking the Pope and the whole city of Rome!' "The sculptor at once left the salon, assembled his friends, and lay in wait in the courtyard of the palace. When Zambinella was assured of Sarrasine's departure he seemed to recover his tranquillity in some measure. About midnight after wandering through the salons like a man looking for an enemy, the _musico_ left the party. As he passed through the palace gate he was seized by men who deftly gagged him with a handkerchief and placed him in the carriage hired by Sarrasine. Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one. Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella. "'Tell me the truth,' he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara----' "Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head. "'Ah! you are a woman!' cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a--' "He did not finish the sentence. "'No,' he continued, 'even _he_ could not be so utterly base.' "'Oh, do not kill me!' cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. 'I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.' "'Laugh!' echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. 'Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man's passion--you?' "'Oh, mercy!' cried Zambinella. "'I ought to kill you!' shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. 'But,' he continued, with cold disdain, 'if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--' "Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue. "'And that is a delusion!' he cried. "Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued: "'A woman's heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. _To love, to be loved!_ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.' "He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair. "'I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.' "Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor--two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears. "'An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!' "As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. "'From Cardinal Cicognara,' said one of the men. "'A benefaction worthy of a Christian,' retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last. "These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, "what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys'?" "Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella's statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet's _Endymion_; you yourself recognized the type in _Adonis_." "But this Zambinella, male or female--" "Must be, madame, Marianina's maternal great uncle. You can conceive now Madame de Lanty's interest in concealing the source of a fortune which comes--" "Enough!" said she, with an imperious gesture. We remained for a moment in the most profound silence. "Well?" I said at last. "Ah!" she cried, rising and pacing the floor. She came and looked me in the face, and said in an altered voice: "You have disgusted me with life and passion for a long time to come. Leaving monstrosities aside, are not all human sentiments dissolved thus, by ghastly disillusionment? Children torture mothers by their bad conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed. Mistresses are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there such a thing! I would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I can remain like the inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests of life. If the future of the Christian is an illusion too, at all events it is not destroyed until after death. Leave me to myself." "Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish." "Am I in the wrong?" "Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this story, which is well known in Italy, I can give you an excellent idea of the progress made by the civilization of the present day. There are none of those wretched creatures now." "Paris," said she, "is an exceedingly hospitable place; it welcomes one and all, fortunes stained with shame, and fortunes stained with blood. Crime and infamy have a right of asylum here; virtue alone is without altars. But pure hearts have a fatherland in heaven! No one will have known me! I am proud of it." And the marchioness was lost in thought. ADDENDUM The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Father Goriot Lanty, Comte de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Comtesse de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Marianina de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Filippo de The Member for Arcis Rochefide, Marquise de Beatrix The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve A Prince of Bohemia Sarrasine, Ernest-Jean The Member for Arcis Vien, Joseph-Marie The Member for Arcis Zambinella The Member for Arcis End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sarrasine, by Honore de Balzac *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARRASINE *** ***** This file should be named 1826.txt or 1826.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/1826/ Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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forever

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

you already so corrupt that, being old in heart, you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she trades?' "'Why, this is Friday,' she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman's violence. "Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon. When Sarrasine appeared, running after her, he was welcomed by a roar of infernal laughter. He saw La Zambinella swooning on a sofa. She was very pale, as if exhausted by the extraordinary effort she had made. Although Sarrasine knew but little Italian, he understood his mistress when she said to Vitagliani in a low voice: "'But he will kill me!' "This strange scene abashed the sculptor. His reason returned. He stood still for a moment; then he recovered his speech, sat down beside his mistress, and assured her of his profound respect. He found strength to hold his passion in check while talking to her in the most exalted strain; and, to describe his love, he displayed all the treasures of eloquence--that sorcerer, that friendly interpreter, whom women rarely refuse to believe. When the first rays of dawn surprised the boon companions, some woman suggested that they go to Frascati. One and all welcomed with loud applause the idea of passing the day at Villa Ludovisi. Vitagliani went down to hire carriages. Sarrasine had the good fortune to drive La Zambinella in a phaeton. When they had left Rome behind, the merriment of the party, repressed for a moment by the battle they had all been fighting against drowsiness, suddenly awoke. All, men and women alike, seemed accustomed to that strange life, that constant round of pleasures, that artistic energy, which makes of life one never ending _fete_, where laughter reigns, unchecked by fear of the future. The sculptor's companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits. "'Are you ill?' Sarrasine asked her. 'Would you prefer to go home?' "'I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,' she replied. 'I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.' "'You are so delicate!' rejoined Sarrasine, gazing in rapture at the charming creature's dainty features. "'Dissipation ruins my voice.' "'Now that we are alone,' cried the artist, 'and that you no longer have reason to fear the effervescence of my passion, tell me that you love me.' "'Why?' said she; 'for what good purpose? You think me pretty. But you are a Frenchman, and your fancy will pass away. Ah! you would not love me as I should like to be loved.' "'How?' "'Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more, perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character. I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing more.' "'And not love you!' cried Sarrasine; 'but you are my life, my happiness, dear angel!' "'If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.' "'Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be damned for having kissed you but once----' "And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that passionate caress. "'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.' "'Suppose I were not a woman?' queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice. "'A merry jest!' cried Sarrasine. 'Think you that you can deceive an artist's eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined, devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek compliments!' "She smiled sadly, and murmured: "'Fatal beauty!' "She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that Sarrasine shuddered. "'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried, weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.' "The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice, La Zambinella's attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all the treasures of passion. Each word was a spur. At that moment, they arrived at Frascati. When the artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that she trembled from head to foot. "'What is the matter? You would kill me,' he cried, seeing that she turned pale, 'if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am, even innocently, the cause.' "'A snake!' she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the edge of a ditch. 'I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.' "Sarrasine crushed the snake's head with a blow of his foot. "'How could you dare to do it?' said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead reptile with visible terror. "'Aha!' said the artist, with a smile, 'would you venture to say now that you are not a woman?' "They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words, 'Those are brigands!' they all quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set his mistress down. "'Tell me,' he said, 'why it is that this extreme weakness which in another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest indication of it would be enough to destroy my love,--why is it that in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!' he continued. 'All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong, courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel's voice, that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other breast than thine.' "'I can give you no hope,' she said. 'Cease to speak thus to me, for people would make sport of you. It is impossible for me to shut the door of the theatre to you; but if you love me, or if you are wise, you will come there no more. Listen to me, monsieur,' she continued in a grave voice. "'Oh, hush!' said the excited artist. 'Obstacles inflame the love in my heart.' "La Zambinella maintained a graceful and modest attitude; but she held her peace, as if a terrible thought had suddenly revealed some catastrophe. When it was time to return to Rome she entered a berlin with four seats, bidding the sculptor, with a cruelly imperious air, to return alone in the phaeton. On the road, Sarrasine determined to carry off La Zambinella. He passed the whole day forming plans, each more extravagant than the last. At nightfall, as he was going out to inquire of somebody where his mistress lived, he met one of his fellow-artists at the door. "'My dear fellow,' he said, I am sent by our ambassador to invite you to come to the embassy this evening. He gives a magnificent concert, and when I tell you that La Zambinella will be there--' "'Zambinella!' cried Sarrasine, thrown into delirium by that name; 'I am mad with love of her.' "'You are like everybody else,' replied his comrade. "'But if you are friends of mine, you and Vien and Lauterbourg and Allegrain, you will lend me your assistance for a _coup de main_, after the entertainment, will you not?' asked Sarrasine. "'There's no cardinal to be killed? no--?' "'No, no!' said Sarrasine, 'I ask nothing of you that men of honor may not do.' "In a few moments the sculptor laid all his plans to assure the success of his enterprise. He was one of the last to arrive at the ambassador's, but he went thither in a traveling carriage drawn by four stout horses and driven by one of the most skilful _vetturini_ in Rome. The ambassador's palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment. "'It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and _abbes_ who are here,' said Sarrasine, 'that _she_ is dressed as a man, that _she_ has curly hair which _she_ wears in a bag, and that _she_ has a sword at her side?' "'She! what she?' rejoined the old nobleman whom Sarrasine addressed. "'La Zambinella.' "'La Zambinella!' echoed the Roman prince. 'Are you jesting? Whence have you come? Did a woman ever appear in a Roman theatre? And do you not know what sort of creatures play female parts within the domains of the Pope? It was I, monsieur, who endowed Zambinella with his voice. I paid all the knave's expenses, even his teacher in singing. And he has so little gratitude for the service I have done him that he has never been willing to step inside my house. And yet, if he makes his fortune, he will owe it all to me.' "Prince Chigi might have talked on forever, Sarrasine did not listen to him. A ghastly truth had found its way into his mind. He was stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his _protege's_ glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an _abbe_, who instantly disappeared. Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his beauty as much as to his voice. "'It's a woman,' said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear him. 'There's some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal Cicognara is hoodwinking the Pope and the whole city of Rome!' "The sculptor at once left the salon, assembled his friends, and lay in wait in the courtyard of the palace. When Zambinella was assured of Sarrasine's departure he seemed to recover his tranquillity in some measure. About midnight after wandering through the salons like a man looking for an enemy, the _musico_ left the party. As he passed through the palace gate he was seized by men who deftly gagged him with a handkerchief and placed him in the carriage hired by Sarrasine. Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one. Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella. "'Tell me the truth,' he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara----' "Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head. "'Ah! you are a woman!' cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a--' "He did not finish the sentence. "'No,' he continued, 'even _he_ could not be so utterly base.' "'Oh, do not kill me!' cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. 'I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.' "'Laugh!' echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. 'Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man's passion--you?' "'Oh, mercy!' cried Zambinella. "'I ought to kill you!' shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. 'But,' he continued, with cold disdain, 'if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--' "Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue. "'And that is a delusion!' he cried. "Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued: "'A woman's heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. _To love, to be loved!_ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.' "He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair. "'I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.' "Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor--two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears. "'An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!' "As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. "'From Cardinal Cicognara,' said one of the men. "'A benefaction worthy of a Christian,' retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last. "These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, "what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys'?" "Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella's statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet's _Endymion_; you yourself recognized the type in _Adonis_." "But this Zambinella, male or female--" "Must be, madame, Marianina's maternal great uncle. You can conceive now Madame de Lanty's interest in concealing the source of a fortune which comes--" "Enough!" said she, with an imperious gesture. We remained for a moment in the most profound silence. "Well?" I said at last. "Ah!" she cried, rising and pacing the floor. She came and looked me in the face, and said in an altered voice: "You have disgusted me with life and passion for a long time to come. Leaving monstrosities aside, are not all human sentiments dissolved thus, by ghastly disillusionment? Children torture mothers by their bad conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed. Mistresses are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there such a thing! I would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I can remain like the inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests of life. If the future of the Christian is an illusion too, at all events it is not destroyed until after death. Leave me to myself." "Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish." "Am I in the wrong?" "Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this story, which is well known in Italy, I can give you an excellent idea of the progress made by the civilization of the present day. There are none of those wretched creatures now." "Paris," said she, "is an exceedingly hospitable place; it welcomes one and all, fortunes stained with shame, and fortunes stained with blood. Crime and infamy have a right of asylum here; virtue alone is without altars. But pure hearts have a fatherland in heaven! No one will have known me! I am proud of it." And the marchioness was lost in thought. ADDENDUM The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Father Goriot Lanty, Comte de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Comtesse de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Marianina de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Filippo de The Member for Arcis Rochefide, Marquise de Beatrix The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve A Prince of Bohemia Sarrasine, Ernest-Jean The Member for Arcis Vien, Joseph-Marie The Member for Arcis Zambinella The Member for Arcis End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sarrasine, by Honore de Balzac *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARRASINE *** ***** This file should be named 1826.txt or 1826.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/1826/ Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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you already so corrupt that, being old in heart, you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she trades?' "'Why, this is Friday,' she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman's violence. "Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon. When Sarrasine appeared, running after her, he was welcomed by a roar of infernal laughter. He saw La Zambinella swooning on a sofa. She was very pale, as if exhausted by the extraordinary effort she had made. Although Sarrasine knew but little Italian, he understood his mistress when she said to Vitagliani in a low voice: "'But he will kill me!' "This strange scene abashed the sculptor. His reason returned. He stood still for a moment; then he recovered his speech, sat down beside his mistress, and assured her of his profound respect. He found strength to hold his passion in check while talking to her in the most exalted strain; and, to describe his love, he displayed all the treasures of eloquence--that sorcerer, that friendly interpreter, whom women rarely refuse to believe. When the first rays of dawn surprised the boon companions, some woman suggested that they go to Frascati. One and all welcomed with loud applause the idea of passing the day at Villa Ludovisi. Vitagliani went down to hire carriages. Sarrasine had the good fortune to drive La Zambinella in a phaeton. When they had left Rome behind, the merriment of the party, repressed for a moment by the battle they had all been fighting against drowsiness, suddenly awoke. All, men and women alike, seemed accustomed to that strange life, that constant round of pleasures, that artistic energy, which makes of life one never ending _fete_, where laughter reigns, unchecked by fear of the future. The sculptor's companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits. "'Are you ill?' Sarrasine asked her. 'Would you prefer to go home?' "'I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,' she replied. 'I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.' "'You are so delicate!' rejoined Sarrasine, gazing in rapture at the charming creature's dainty features. "'Dissipation ruins my voice.' "'Now that we are alone,' cried the artist, 'and that you no longer have reason to fear the effervescence of my passion, tell me that you love me.' "'Why?' said she; 'for what good purpose? You think me pretty. But you are a Frenchman, and your fancy will pass away. Ah! you would not love me as I should like to be loved.' "'How?' "'Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more, perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character. I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing more.' "'And not love you!' cried Sarrasine; 'but you are my life, my happiness, dear angel!' "'If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.' "'Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be damned for having kissed you but once----' "And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that passionate caress. "'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.' "'Suppose I were not a woman?' queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice. "'A merry jest!' cried Sarrasine. 'Think you that you can deceive an artist's eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined, devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek compliments!' "She smiled sadly, and murmured: "'Fatal beauty!' "She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that Sarrasine shuddered. "'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried, weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.' "The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice, La Zambinella's attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all the treasures of passion. Each word was a spur. At that moment, they arrived at Frascati. When the artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that she trembled from head to foot. "'What is the matter? You would kill me,' he cried, seeing that she turned pale, 'if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am, even innocently, the cause.' "'A snake!' she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the edge of a ditch. 'I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.' "Sarrasine crushed the snake's head with a blow of his foot. "'How could you dare to do it?' said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead reptile with visible terror. "'Aha!' said the artist, with a smile, 'would you venture to say now that you are not a woman?' "They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words, 'Those are brigands!' they all quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set his mistress down. "'Tell me,' he said, 'why it is that this extreme weakness which in another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest indication of it would be enough to destroy my love,--why is it that in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!' he continued. 'All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong, courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel's voice, that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other breast than thine.' "'I can give you no hope,' she said. 'Cease to speak thus to me, for people would make sport of you. It is impossible for me to shut the door of the theatre to you; but if you love me, or if you are wise, you will come there no more. Listen to me, monsieur,' she continued in a grave voice. "'Oh, hush!' said the excited artist. 'Obstacles inflame the love in my heart.' "La Zambinella maintained a graceful and modest attitude; but she held her peace, as if a terrible thought had suddenly revealed some catastrophe. When it was time to return to Rome she entered a berlin with four seats, bidding the sculptor, with a cruelly imperious air, to return alone in the phaeton. On the road, Sarrasine determined to carry off La Zambinella. He passed the whole day forming plans, each more extravagant than the last. At nightfall, as he was going out to inquire of somebody where his mistress lived, he met one of his fellow-artists at the door. "'My dear fellow,' he said, I am sent by our ambassador to invite you to come to the embassy this evening. He gives a magnificent concert, and when I tell you that La Zambinella will be there--' "'Zambinella!' cried Sarrasine, thrown into delirium by that name; 'I am mad with love of her.' "'You are like everybody else,' replied his comrade. "'But if you are friends of mine, you and Vien and Lauterbourg and Allegrain, you will lend me your assistance for a _coup de main_, after the entertainment, will you not?' asked Sarrasine. "'There's no cardinal to be killed? no--?' "'No, no!' said Sarrasine, 'I ask nothing of you that men of honor may not do.' "In a few moments the sculptor laid all his plans to assure the success of his enterprise. He was one of the last to arrive at the ambassador's, but he went thither in a traveling carriage drawn by four stout horses and driven by one of the most skilful _vetturini_ in Rome. The ambassador's palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment. "'It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and _abbes_ who are here,' said Sarrasine, 'that _she_ is dressed as a man, that _she_ has curly hair which _she_ wears in a bag, and that _she_ has a sword at her side?' "'She! what she?' rejoined the old nobleman whom Sarrasine addressed. "'La Zambinella.' "'La Zambinella!' echoed the Roman prince. 'Are you jesting? Whence have you come? Did a woman ever appear in a Roman theatre? And do you not know what sort of creatures play female parts within the domains of the Pope? It was I, monsieur, who endowed Zambinella with his voice. I paid all the knave's expenses, even his teacher in singing. And he has so little gratitude for the service I have done him that he has never been willing to step inside my house. And yet, if he makes his fortune, he will owe it all to me.' "Prince Chigi might have talked on forever, Sarrasine did not listen to him. A ghastly truth had found its way into his mind. He was stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his _protege's_ glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an _abbe_, who instantly disappeared. Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his beauty as much as to his voice. "'It's a woman,' said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear him. 'There's some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal Cicognara is hoodwinking the Pope and the whole city of Rome!' "The sculptor at once left the salon, assembled his friends, and lay in wait in the courtyard of the palace. When Zambinella was assured of Sarrasine's departure he seemed to recover his tranquillity in some measure. About midnight after wandering through the salons like a man looking for an enemy, the _musico_ left the party. As he passed through the palace gate he was seized by men who deftly gagged him with a handkerchief and placed him in the carriage hired by Sarrasine. Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one. Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella. "'Tell me the truth,' he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara----' "Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head. "'Ah! you are a woman!' cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a--' "He did not finish the sentence. "'No,' he continued, 'even _he_ could not be so utterly base.' "'Oh, do not kill me!' cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. 'I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.' "'Laugh!' echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. 'Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man's passion--you?' "'Oh, mercy!' cried Zambinella. "'I ought to kill you!' shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. 'But,' he continued, with cold disdain, 'if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--' "Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue. "'And that is a delusion!' he cried. "Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued: "'A woman's heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. _To love, to be loved!_ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.' "He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair. "'I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.' "Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor--two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears. "'An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!' "As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. "'From Cardinal Cicognara,' said one of the men. "'A benefaction worthy of a Christian,' retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last. "These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, "what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys'?" "Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella's statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet's _Endymion_; you yourself recognized the type in _Adonis_." "But this Zambinella, male or female--" "Must be, madame, Marianina's maternal great uncle. You can conceive now Madame de Lanty's interest in concealing the source of a fortune which comes--" "Enough!" said she, with an imperious gesture. We remained for a moment in the most profound silence. "Well?" I said at last. "Ah!" she cried, rising and pacing the floor. She came and looked me in the face, and said in an altered voice: "You have disgusted me with life and passion for a long time to come. Leaving monstrosities aside, are not all human sentiments dissolved thus, by ghastly disillusionment? Children torture mothers by their bad conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed. Mistresses are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there such a thing! I would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I can remain like the inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests of life. If the future of the Christian is an illusion too, at all events it is not destroyed until after death. Leave me to myself." "Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish." "Am I in the wrong?" "Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this story, which is well known in Italy, I can give you an excellent idea of the progress made by the civilization of the present day. There are none of those wretched creatures now." "Paris," said she, "is an exceedingly hospitable place; it welcomes one and all, fortunes stained with shame, and fortunes stained with blood. Crime and infamy have a right of asylum here; virtue alone is without altars. But pure hearts have a fatherland in heaven! No one will have known me! I am proud of it." And the marchioness was lost in thought. ADDENDUM The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Father Goriot Lanty, Comte de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Comtesse de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Marianina de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Filippo de The Member for Arcis Rochefide, Marquise de Beatrix The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve A Prince of Bohemia Sarrasine, Ernest-Jean The Member for Arcis Vien, Joseph-Marie The Member for Arcis Zambinella The Member for Arcis End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sarrasine, by Honore de Balzac *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARRASINE *** ***** This file should be named 1826.txt or 1826.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/1826/ Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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afraid

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

you already so corrupt that, being old in heart, you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she trades?' "'Why, this is Friday,' she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman's violence. "Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon. When Sarrasine appeared, running after her, he was welcomed by a roar of infernal laughter. He saw La Zambinella swooning on a sofa. She was very pale, as if exhausted by the extraordinary effort she had made. Although Sarrasine knew but little Italian, he understood his mistress when she said to Vitagliani in a low voice: "'But he will kill me!' "This strange scene abashed the sculptor. His reason returned. He stood still for a moment; then he recovered his speech, sat down beside his mistress, and assured her of his profound respect. He found strength to hold his passion in check while talking to her in the most exalted strain; and, to describe his love, he displayed all the treasures of eloquence--that sorcerer, that friendly interpreter, whom women rarely refuse to believe. When the first rays of dawn surprised the boon companions, some woman suggested that they go to Frascati. One and all welcomed with loud applause the idea of passing the day at Villa Ludovisi. Vitagliani went down to hire carriages. Sarrasine had the good fortune to drive La Zambinella in a phaeton. When they had left Rome behind, the merriment of the party, repressed for a moment by the battle they had all been fighting against drowsiness, suddenly awoke. All, men and women alike, seemed accustomed to that strange life, that constant round of pleasures, that artistic energy, which makes of life one never ending _fete_, where laughter reigns, unchecked by fear of the future. The sculptor's companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits. "'Are you ill?' Sarrasine asked her. 'Would you prefer to go home?' "'I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,' she replied. 'I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.' "'You are so delicate!' rejoined Sarrasine, gazing in rapture at the charming creature's dainty features. "'Dissipation ruins my voice.' "'Now that we are alone,' cried the artist, 'and that you no longer have reason to fear the effervescence of my passion, tell me that you love me.' "'Why?' said she; 'for what good purpose? You think me pretty. But you are a Frenchman, and your fancy will pass away. Ah! you would not love me as I should like to be loved.' "'How?' "'Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more, perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character. I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing more.' "'And not love you!' cried Sarrasine; 'but you are my life, my happiness, dear angel!' "'If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.' "'Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be damned for having kissed you but once----' "And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that passionate caress. "'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.' "'Suppose I were not a woman?' queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice. "'A merry jest!' cried Sarrasine. 'Think you that you can deceive an artist's eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined, devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek compliments!' "She smiled sadly, and murmured: "'Fatal beauty!' "She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that Sarrasine shuddered. "'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried, weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.' "The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice, La Zambinella's attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all the treasures of passion. Each word was a spur. At that moment, they arrived at Frascati. When the artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that she trembled from head to foot. "'What is the matter? You would kill me,' he cried, seeing that she turned pale, 'if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am, even innocently, the cause.' "'A snake!' she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the edge of a ditch. 'I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.' "Sarrasine crushed the snake's head with a blow of his foot. "'How could you dare to do it?' said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead reptile with visible terror. "'Aha!' said the artist, with a smile, 'would you venture to say now that you are not a woman?' "They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words, 'Those are brigands!' they all quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set his mistress down. "'Tell me,' he said, 'why it is that this extreme weakness which in another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest indication of it would be enough to destroy my love,--why is it that in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!' he continued. 'All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong, courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel's voice, that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other breast than thine.' "'I can give you no hope,' she said. 'Cease to speak thus to me, for people would make sport of you. It is impossible for me to shut the door of the theatre to you; but if you love me, or if you are wise, you will come there no more. Listen to me, monsieur,' she continued in a grave voice. "'Oh, hush!' said the excited artist. 'Obstacles inflame the love in my heart.' "La Zambinella maintained a graceful and modest attitude; but she held her peace, as if a terrible thought had suddenly revealed some catastrophe. When it was time to return to Rome she entered a berlin with four seats, bidding the sculptor, with a cruelly imperious air, to return alone in the phaeton. On the road, Sarrasine determined to carry off La Zambinella. He passed the whole day forming plans, each more extravagant than the last. At nightfall, as he was going out to inquire of somebody where his mistress lived, he met one of his fellow-artists at the door. "'My dear fellow,' he said, I am sent by our ambassador to invite you to come to the embassy this evening. He gives a magnificent concert, and when I tell you that La Zambinella will be there--' "'Zambinella!' cried Sarrasine, thrown into delirium by that name; 'I am mad with love of her.' "'You are like everybody else,' replied his comrade. "'But if you are friends of mine, you and Vien and Lauterbourg and Allegrain, you will lend me your assistance for a _coup de main_, after the entertainment, will you not?' asked Sarrasine. "'There's no cardinal to be killed? no--?' "'No, no!' said Sarrasine, 'I ask nothing of you that men of honor may not do.' "In a few moments the sculptor laid all his plans to assure the success of his enterprise. He was one of the last to arrive at the ambassador's, but he went thither in a traveling carriage drawn by four stout horses and driven by one of the most skilful _vetturini_ in Rome. The ambassador's palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment. "'It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and _abbes_ who are here,' said Sarrasine, 'that _she_ is dressed as a man, that _she_ has curly hair which _she_ wears in a bag, and that _she_ has a sword at her side?' "'She! what she?' rejoined the old nobleman whom Sarrasine addressed. "'La Zambinella.' "'La Zambinella!' echoed the Roman prince. 'Are you jesting? Whence have you come? Did a woman ever appear in a Roman theatre? And do you not know what sort of creatures play female parts within the domains of the Pope? It was I, monsieur, who endowed Zambinella with his voice. I paid all the knave's expenses, even his teacher in singing. And he has so little gratitude for the service I have done him that he has never been willing to step inside my house. And yet, if he makes his fortune, he will owe it all to me.' "Prince Chigi might have talked on forever, Sarrasine did not listen to him. A ghastly truth had found its way into his mind. He was stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his _protege's_ glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an _abbe_, who instantly disappeared. Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his beauty as much as to his voice. "'It's a woman,' said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear him. 'There's some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal Cicognara is hoodwinking the Pope and the whole city of Rome!' "The sculptor at once left the salon, assembled his friends, and lay in wait in the courtyard of the palace. When Zambinella was assured of Sarrasine's departure he seemed to recover his tranquillity in some measure. About midnight after wandering through the salons like a man looking for an enemy, the _musico_ left the party. As he passed through the palace gate he was seized by men who deftly gagged him with a handkerchief and placed him in the carriage hired by Sarrasine. Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one. Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella. "'Tell me the truth,' he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara----' "Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head. "'Ah! you are a woman!' cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a--' "He did not finish the sentence. "'No,' he continued, 'even _he_ could not be so utterly base.' "'Oh, do not kill me!' cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. 'I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.' "'Laugh!' echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. 'Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man's passion--you?' "'Oh, mercy!' cried Zambinella. "'I ought to kill you!' shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. 'But,' he continued, with cold disdain, 'if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--' "Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue. "'And that is a delusion!' he cried. "Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued: "'A woman's heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. _To love, to be loved!_ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.' "He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair. "'I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.' "Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor--two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears. "'An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!' "As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. "'From Cardinal Cicognara,' said one of the men. "'A benefaction worthy of a Christian,' retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last. "These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, "what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys'?" "Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella's statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet's _Endymion_; you yourself recognized the type in _Adonis_." "But this Zambinella, male or female--" "Must be, madame, Marianina's maternal great uncle. You can conceive now Madame de Lanty's interest in concealing the source of a fortune which comes--" "Enough!" said she, with an imperious gesture. We remained for a moment in the most profound silence. "Well?" I said at last. "Ah!" she cried, rising and pacing the floor. She came and looked me in the face, and said in an altered voice: "You have disgusted me with life and passion for a long time to come. Leaving monstrosities aside, are not all human sentiments dissolved thus, by ghastly disillusionment? Children torture mothers by their bad conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed. Mistresses are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there such a thing! I would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I can remain like the inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests of life. If the future of the Christian is an illusion too, at all events it is not destroyed until after death. Leave me to myself." "Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish." "Am I in the wrong?" "Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this story, which is well known in Italy, I can give you an excellent idea of the progress made by the civilization of the present day. There are none of those wretched creatures now." "Paris," said she, "is an exceedingly hospitable place; it welcomes one and all, fortunes stained with shame, and fortunes stained with blood. Crime and infamy have a right of asylum here; virtue alone is without altars. But pure hearts have a fatherland in heaven! No one will have known me! I am proud of it." And the marchioness was lost in thought. ADDENDUM The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Father Goriot Lanty, Comte de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Comtesse de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Marianina de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Filippo de The Member for Arcis Rochefide, Marquise de Beatrix The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve A Prince of Bohemia Sarrasine, Ernest-Jean The Member for Arcis Vien, Joseph-Marie The Member for Arcis Zambinella The Member for Arcis End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sarrasine, by Honore de Balzac *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARRASINE *** ***** This file should be named 1826.txt or 1826.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/1826/ Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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glance

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

you already so corrupt that, being old in heart, you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she trades?' "'Why, this is Friday,' she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman's violence. "Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon. When Sarrasine appeared, running after her, he was welcomed by a roar of infernal laughter. He saw La Zambinella swooning on a sofa. She was very pale, as if exhausted by the extraordinary effort she had made. Although Sarrasine knew but little Italian, he understood his mistress when she said to Vitagliani in a low voice: "'But he will kill me!' "This strange scene abashed the sculptor. His reason returned. He stood still for a moment; then he recovered his speech, sat down beside his mistress, and assured her of his profound respect. He found strength to hold his passion in check while talking to her in the most exalted strain; and, to describe his love, he displayed all the treasures of eloquence--that sorcerer, that friendly interpreter, whom women rarely refuse to believe. When the first rays of dawn surprised the boon companions, some woman suggested that they go to Frascati. One and all welcomed with loud applause the idea of passing the day at Villa Ludovisi. Vitagliani went down to hire carriages. Sarrasine had the good fortune to drive La Zambinella in a phaeton. When they had left Rome behind, the merriment of the party, repressed for a moment by the battle they had all been fighting against drowsiness, suddenly awoke. All, men and women alike, seemed accustomed to that strange life, that constant round of pleasures, that artistic energy, which makes of life one never ending _fete_, where laughter reigns, unchecked by fear of the future. The sculptor's companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits. "'Are you ill?' Sarrasine asked her. 'Would you prefer to go home?' "'I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,' she replied. 'I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.' "'You are so delicate!' rejoined Sarrasine, gazing in rapture at the charming creature's dainty features. "'Dissipation ruins my voice.' "'Now that we are alone,' cried the artist, 'and that you no longer have reason to fear the effervescence of my passion, tell me that you love me.' "'Why?' said she; 'for what good purpose? You think me pretty. But you are a Frenchman, and your fancy will pass away. Ah! you would not love me as I should like to be loved.' "'How?' "'Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more, perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character. I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing more.' "'And not love you!' cried Sarrasine; 'but you are my life, my happiness, dear angel!' "'If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.' "'Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be damned for having kissed you but once----' "And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that passionate caress. "'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.' "'Suppose I were not a woman?' queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice. "'A merry jest!' cried Sarrasine. 'Think you that you can deceive an artist's eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined, devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek compliments!' "She smiled sadly, and murmured: "'Fatal beauty!' "She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that Sarrasine shuddered. "'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried, weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.' "The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice, La Zambinella's attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all the treasures of passion. Each word was a spur. At that moment, they arrived at Frascati. When the artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that she trembled from head to foot. "'What is the matter? You would kill me,' he cried, seeing that she turned pale, 'if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am, even innocently, the cause.' "'A snake!' she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the edge of a ditch. 'I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.' "Sarrasine crushed the snake's head with a blow of his foot. "'How could you dare to do it?' said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead reptile with visible terror. "'Aha!' said the artist, with a smile, 'would you venture to say now that you are not a woman?' "They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words, 'Those are brigands!' they all quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set his mistress down. "'Tell me,' he said, 'why it is that this extreme weakness which in another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest indication of it would be enough to destroy my love,--why is it that in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!' he continued. 'All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong, courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel's voice, that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other breast than thine.' "'I can give you no hope,' she said. 'Cease to speak thus to me, for people would make sport of you. It is impossible for me to shut the door of the theatre to you; but if you love me, or if you are wise, you will come there no more. Listen to me, monsieur,' she continued in a grave voice. "'Oh, hush!' said the excited artist. 'Obstacles inflame the love in my heart.' "La Zambinella maintained a graceful and modest attitude; but she held her peace, as if a terrible thought had suddenly revealed some catastrophe. When it was time to return to Rome she entered a berlin with four seats, bidding the sculptor, with a cruelly imperious air, to return alone in the phaeton. On the road, Sarrasine determined to carry off La Zambinella. He passed the whole day forming plans, each more extravagant than the last. At nightfall, as he was going out to inquire of somebody where his mistress lived, he met one of his fellow-artists at the door. "'My dear fellow,' he said, I am sent by our ambassador to invite you to come to the embassy this evening. He gives a magnificent concert, and when I tell you that La Zambinella will be there--' "'Zambinella!' cried Sarrasine, thrown into delirium by that name; 'I am mad with love of her.' "'You are like everybody else,' replied his comrade. "'But if you are friends of mine, you and Vien and Lauterbourg and Allegrain, you will lend me your assistance for a _coup de main_, after the entertainment, will you not?' asked Sarrasine. "'There's no cardinal to be killed? no--?' "'No, no!' said Sarrasine, 'I ask nothing of you that men of honor may not do.' "In a few moments the sculptor laid all his plans to assure the success of his enterprise. He was one of the last to arrive at the ambassador's, but he went thither in a traveling carriage drawn by four stout horses and driven by one of the most skilful _vetturini_ in Rome. The ambassador's palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment. "'It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and _abbes_ who are here,' said Sarrasine, 'that _she_ is dressed as a man, that _she_ has curly hair which _she_ wears in a bag, and that _she_ has a sword at her side?' "'She! what she?' rejoined the old nobleman whom Sarrasine addressed. "'La Zambinella.' "'La Zambinella!' echoed the Roman prince. 'Are you jesting? Whence have you come? Did a woman ever appear in a Roman theatre? And do you not know what sort of creatures play female parts within the domains of the Pope? It was I, monsieur, who endowed Zambinella with his voice. I paid all the knave's expenses, even his teacher in singing. And he has so little gratitude for the service I have done him that he has never been willing to step inside my house. And yet, if he makes his fortune, he will owe it all to me.' "Prince Chigi might have talked on forever, Sarrasine did not listen to him. A ghastly truth had found its way into his mind. He was stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his _protege's_ glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an _abbe_, who instantly disappeared. Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his beauty as much as to his voice. "'It's a woman,' said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear him. 'There's some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal Cicognara is hoodwinking the Pope and the whole city of Rome!' "The sculptor at once left the salon, assembled his friends, and lay in wait in the courtyard of the palace. When Zambinella was assured of Sarrasine's departure he seemed to recover his tranquillity in some measure. About midnight after wandering through the salons like a man looking for an enemy, the _musico_ left the party. As he passed through the palace gate he was seized by men who deftly gagged him with a handkerchief and placed him in the carriage hired by Sarrasine. Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one. Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella. "'Tell me the truth,' he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara----' "Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head. "'Ah! you are a woman!' cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a--' "He did not finish the sentence. "'No,' he continued, 'even _he_ could not be so utterly base.' "'Oh, do not kill me!' cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. 'I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.' "'Laugh!' echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. 'Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man's passion--you?' "'Oh, mercy!' cried Zambinella. "'I ought to kill you!' shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. 'But,' he continued, with cold disdain, 'if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--' "Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue. "'And that is a delusion!' he cried. "Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued: "'A woman's heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. _To love, to be loved!_ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.' "He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair. "'I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.' "Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor--two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears. "'An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!' "As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. "'From Cardinal Cicognara,' said one of the men. "'A benefaction worthy of a Christian,' retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last. "These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, "what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys'?" "Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella's statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet's _Endymion_; you yourself recognized the type in _Adonis_." "But this Zambinella, male or female--" "Must be, madame, Marianina's maternal great uncle. You can conceive now Madame de Lanty's interest in concealing the source of a fortune which comes--" "Enough!" said she, with an imperious gesture. We remained for a moment in the most profound silence. "Well?" I said at last. "Ah!" she cried, rising and pacing the floor. She came and looked me in the face, and said in an altered voice: "You have disgusted me with life and passion for a long time to come. Leaving monstrosities aside, are not all human sentiments dissolved thus, by ghastly disillusionment? Children torture mothers by their bad conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed. Mistresses are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there such a thing! I would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I can remain like the inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests of life. If the future of the Christian is an illusion too, at all events it is not destroyed until after death. Leave me to myself." "Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish." "Am I in the wrong?" "Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this story, which is well known in Italy, I can give you an excellent idea of the progress made by the civilization of the present day. There are none of those wretched creatures now." "Paris," said she, "is an exceedingly hospitable place; it welcomes one and all, fortunes stained with shame, and fortunes stained with blood. Crime and infamy have a right of asylum here; virtue alone is without altars. But pure hearts have a fatherland in heaven! No one will have known me! I am proud of it." And the marchioness was lost in thought. ADDENDUM The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Father Goriot Lanty, Comte de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Comtesse de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Marianina de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Filippo de The Member for Arcis Rochefide, Marquise de Beatrix The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve A Prince of Bohemia Sarrasine, Ernest-Jean The Member for Arcis Vien, Joseph-Marie The Member for Arcis Zambinella The Member for Arcis End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sarrasine, by Honore de Balzac *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARRASINE *** ***** This file should be named 1826.txt or 1826.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/1826/ Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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you already so corrupt that, being old in heart, you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she trades?' "'Why, this is Friday,' she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman's violence. "Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon. When Sarrasine appeared, running after her, he was welcomed by a roar of infernal laughter. He saw La Zambinella swooning on a sofa. She was very pale, as if exhausted by the extraordinary effort she had made. Although Sarrasine knew but little Italian, he understood his mistress when she said to Vitagliani in a low voice: "'But he will kill me!' "This strange scene abashed the sculptor. His reason returned. He stood still for a moment; then he recovered his speech, sat down beside his mistress, and assured her of his profound respect. He found strength to hold his passion in check while talking to her in the most exalted strain; and, to describe his love, he displayed all the treasures of eloquence--that sorcerer, that friendly interpreter, whom women rarely refuse to believe. When the first rays of dawn surprised the boon companions, some woman suggested that they go to Frascati. One and all welcomed with loud applause the idea of passing the day at Villa Ludovisi. Vitagliani went down to hire carriages. Sarrasine had the good fortune to drive La Zambinella in a phaeton. When they had left Rome behind, the merriment of the party, repressed for a moment by the battle they had all been fighting against drowsiness, suddenly awoke. All, men and women alike, seemed accustomed to that strange life, that constant round of pleasures, that artistic energy, which makes of life one never ending _fete_, where laughter reigns, unchecked by fear of the future. The sculptor's companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits. "'Are you ill?' Sarrasine asked her. 'Would you prefer to go home?' "'I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,' she replied. 'I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.' "'You are so delicate!' rejoined Sarrasine, gazing in rapture at the charming creature's dainty features. "'Dissipation ruins my voice.' "'Now that we are alone,' cried the artist, 'and that you no longer have reason to fear the effervescence of my passion, tell me that you love me.' "'Why?' said she; 'for what good purpose? You think me pretty. But you are a Frenchman, and your fancy will pass away. Ah! you would not love me as I should like to be loved.' "'How?' "'Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more, perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character. I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing more.' "'And not love you!' cried Sarrasine; 'but you are my life, my happiness, dear angel!' "'If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.' "'Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be damned for having kissed you but once----' "And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that passionate caress. "'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.' "'Suppose I were not a woman?' queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice. "'A merry jest!' cried Sarrasine. 'Think you that you can deceive an artist's eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined, devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek compliments!' "She smiled sadly, and murmured: "'Fatal beauty!' "She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that Sarrasine shuddered. "'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried, weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.' "The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice, La Zambinella's attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all the treasures of passion. Each word was a spur. At that moment, they arrived at Frascati. When the artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that she trembled from head to foot. "'What is the matter? You would kill me,' he cried, seeing that she turned pale, 'if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am, even innocently, the cause.' "'A snake!' she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the edge of a ditch. 'I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.' "Sarrasine crushed the snake's head with a blow of his foot. "'How could you dare to do it?' said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead reptile with visible terror. "'Aha!' said the artist, with a smile, 'would you venture to say now that you are not a woman?' "They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words, 'Those are brigands!' they all quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set his mistress down. "'Tell me,' he said, 'why it is that this extreme weakness which in another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest indication of it would be enough to destroy my love,--why is it that in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!' he continued. 'All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong, courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel's voice, that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other breast than thine.' "'I can give you no hope,' she said. 'Cease to speak thus to me, for people would make sport of you. It is impossible for me to shut the door of the theatre to you; but if you love me, or if you are wise, you will come there no more. Listen to me, monsieur,' she continued in a grave voice. "'Oh, hush!' said the excited artist. 'Obstacles inflame the love in my heart.' "La Zambinella maintained a graceful and modest attitude; but she held her peace, as if a terrible thought had suddenly revealed some catastrophe. When it was time to return to Rome she entered a berlin with four seats, bidding the sculptor, with a cruelly imperious air, to return alone in the phaeton. On the road, Sarrasine determined to carry off La Zambinella. He passed the whole day forming plans, each more extravagant than the last. At nightfall, as he was going out to inquire of somebody where his mistress lived, he met one of his fellow-artists at the door. "'My dear fellow,' he said, I am sent by our ambassador to invite you to come to the embassy this evening. He gives a magnificent concert, and when I tell you that La Zambinella will be there--' "'Zambinella!' cried Sarrasine, thrown into delirium by that name; 'I am mad with love of her.' "'You are like everybody else,' replied his comrade. "'But if you are friends of mine, you and Vien and Lauterbourg and Allegrain, you will lend me your assistance for a _coup de main_, after the entertainment, will you not?' asked Sarrasine. "'There's no cardinal to be killed? no--?' "'No, no!' said Sarrasine, 'I ask nothing of you that men of honor may not do.' "In a few moments the sculptor laid all his plans to assure the success of his enterprise. He was one of the last to arrive at the ambassador's, but he went thither in a traveling carriage drawn by four stout horses and driven by one of the most skilful _vetturini_ in Rome. The ambassador's palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment. "'It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and _abbes_ who are here,' said Sarrasine, 'that _she_ is dressed as a man, that _she_ has curly hair which _she_ wears in a bag, and that _she_ has a sword at her side?' "'She! what she?' rejoined the old nobleman whom Sarrasine addressed. "'La Zambinella.' "'La Zambinella!' echoed the Roman prince. 'Are you jesting? Whence have you come? Did a woman ever appear in a Roman theatre? And do you not know what sort of creatures play female parts within the domains of the Pope? It was I, monsieur, who endowed Zambinella with his voice. I paid all the knave's expenses, even his teacher in singing. And he has so little gratitude for the service I have done him that he has never been willing to step inside my house. And yet, if he makes his fortune, he will owe it all to me.' "Prince Chigi might have talked on forever, Sarrasine did not listen to him. A ghastly truth had found its way into his mind. He was stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his _protege's_ glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an _abbe_, who instantly disappeared. Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his beauty as much as to his voice. "'It's a woman,' said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear him. 'There's some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal Cicognara is hoodwinking the Pope and the whole city of Rome!' "The sculptor at once left the salon, assembled his friends, and lay in wait in the courtyard of the palace. When Zambinella was assured of Sarrasine's departure he seemed to recover his tranquillity in some measure. About midnight after wandering through the salons like a man looking for an enemy, the _musico_ left the party. As he passed through the palace gate he was seized by men who deftly gagged him with a handkerchief and placed him in the carriage hired by Sarrasine. Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one. Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella. "'Tell me the truth,' he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara----' "Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head. "'Ah! you are a woman!' cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a--' "He did not finish the sentence. "'No,' he continued, 'even _he_ could not be so utterly base.' "'Oh, do not kill me!' cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. 'I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.' "'Laugh!' echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. 'Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man's passion--you?' "'Oh, mercy!' cried Zambinella. "'I ought to kill you!' shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. 'But,' he continued, with cold disdain, 'if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--' "Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue. "'And that is a delusion!' he cried. "Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued: "'A woman's heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. _To love, to be loved!_ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.' "He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair. "'I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.' "Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor--two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears. "'An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!' "As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. "'From Cardinal Cicognara,' said one of the men. "'A benefaction worthy of a Christian,' retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last. "These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, "what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys'?" "Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella's statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet's _Endymion_; you yourself recognized the type in _Adonis_." "But this Zambinella, male or female--" "Must be, madame, Marianina's maternal great uncle. You can conceive now Madame de Lanty's interest in concealing the source of a fortune which comes--" "Enough!" said she, with an imperious gesture. We remained for a moment in the most profound silence. "Well?" I said at last. "Ah!" she cried, rising and pacing the floor. She came and looked me in the face, and said in an altered voice: "You have disgusted me with life and passion for a long time to come. Leaving monstrosities aside, are not all human sentiments dissolved thus, by ghastly disillusionment? Children torture mothers by their bad conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed. Mistresses are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there such a thing! I would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I can remain like the inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests of life. If the future of the Christian is an illusion too, at all events it is not destroyed until after death. Leave me to myself." "Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish." "Am I in the wrong?" "Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this story, which is well known in Italy, I can give you an excellent idea of the progress made by the civilization of the present day. There are none of those wretched creatures now." "Paris," said she, "is an exceedingly hospitable place; it welcomes one and all, fortunes stained with shame, and fortunes stained with blood. Crime and infamy have a right of asylum here; virtue alone is without altars. But pure hearts have a fatherland in heaven! No one will have known me! I am proud of it." And the marchioness was lost in thought. ADDENDUM The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Father Goriot Lanty, Comte de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Comtesse de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Marianina de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Filippo de The Member for Arcis Rochefide, Marquise de Beatrix The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve A Prince of Bohemia Sarrasine, Ernest-Jean The Member for Arcis Vien, Joseph-Marie The Member for Arcis Zambinella The Member for Arcis End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sarrasine, by Honore de Balzac *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARRASINE *** ***** This file should be named 1826.txt or 1826.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/1826/ Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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hate

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

you already so corrupt that, being old in heart, you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she trades?' "'Why, this is Friday,' she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman's violence. "Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon. When Sarrasine appeared, running after her, he was welcomed by a roar of infernal laughter. He saw La Zambinella swooning on a sofa. She was very pale, as if exhausted by the extraordinary effort she had made. Although Sarrasine knew but little Italian, he understood his mistress when she said to Vitagliani in a low voice: "'But he will kill me!' "This strange scene abashed the sculptor. His reason returned. He stood still for a moment; then he recovered his speech, sat down beside his mistress, and assured her of his profound respect. He found strength to hold his passion in check while talking to her in the most exalted strain; and, to describe his love, he displayed all the treasures of eloquence--that sorcerer, that friendly interpreter, whom women rarely refuse to believe. When the first rays of dawn surprised the boon companions, some woman suggested that they go to Frascati. One and all welcomed with loud applause the idea of passing the day at Villa Ludovisi. Vitagliani went down to hire carriages. Sarrasine had the good fortune to drive La Zambinella in a phaeton. When they had left Rome behind, the merriment of the party, repressed for a moment by the battle they had all been fighting against drowsiness, suddenly awoke. All, men and women alike, seemed accustomed to that strange life, that constant round of pleasures, that artistic energy, which makes of life one never ending _fete_, where laughter reigns, unchecked by fear of the future. The sculptor's companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits. "'Are you ill?' Sarrasine asked her. 'Would you prefer to go home?' "'I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,' she replied. 'I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.' "'You are so delicate!' rejoined Sarrasine, gazing in rapture at the charming creature's dainty features. "'Dissipation ruins my voice.' "'Now that we are alone,' cried the artist, 'and that you no longer have reason to fear the effervescence of my passion, tell me that you love me.' "'Why?' said she; 'for what good purpose? You think me pretty. But you are a Frenchman, and your fancy will pass away. Ah! you would not love me as I should like to be loved.' "'How?' "'Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more, perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character. I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing more.' "'And not love you!' cried Sarrasine; 'but you are my life, my happiness, dear angel!' "'If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.' "'Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be damned for having kissed you but once----' "And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that passionate caress. "'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.' "'Suppose I were not a woman?' queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice. "'A merry jest!' cried Sarrasine. 'Think you that you can deceive an artist's eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined, devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek compliments!' "She smiled sadly, and murmured: "'Fatal beauty!' "She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that Sarrasine shuddered. "'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried, weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.' "The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice, La Zambinella's attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all the treasures of passion. Each word was a spur. At that moment, they arrived at Frascati. When the artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that she trembled from head to foot. "'What is the matter? You would kill me,' he cried, seeing that she turned pale, 'if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am, even innocently, the cause.' "'A snake!' she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the edge of a ditch. 'I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.' "Sarrasine crushed the snake's head with a blow of his foot. "'How could you dare to do it?' said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead reptile with visible terror. "'Aha!' said the artist, with a smile, 'would you venture to say now that you are not a woman?' "They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words, 'Those are brigands!' they all quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set his mistress down. "'Tell me,' he said, 'why it is that this extreme weakness which in another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest indication of it would be enough to destroy my love,--why is it that in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!' he continued. 'All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong, courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel's voice, that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other breast than thine.' "'I can give you no hope,' she said. 'Cease to speak thus to me, for people would make sport of you. It is impossible for me to shut the door of the theatre to you; but if you love me, or if you are wise, you will come there no more. Listen to me, monsieur,' she continued in a grave voice. "'Oh, hush!' said the excited artist. 'Obstacles inflame the love in my heart.' "La Zambinella maintained a graceful and modest attitude; but she held her peace, as if a terrible thought had suddenly revealed some catastrophe. When it was time to return to Rome she entered a berlin with four seats, bidding the sculptor, with a cruelly imperious air, to return alone in the phaeton. On the road, Sarrasine determined to carry off La Zambinella. He passed the whole day forming plans, each more extravagant than the last. At nightfall, as he was going out to inquire of somebody where his mistress lived, he met one of his fellow-artists at the door. "'My dear fellow,' he said, I am sent by our ambassador to invite you to come to the embassy this evening. He gives a magnificent concert, and when I tell you that La Zambinella will be there--' "'Zambinella!' cried Sarrasine, thrown into delirium by that name; 'I am mad with love of her.' "'You are like everybody else,' replied his comrade. "'But if you are friends of mine, you and Vien and Lauterbourg and Allegrain, you will lend me your assistance for a _coup de main_, after the entertainment, will you not?' asked Sarrasine. "'There's no cardinal to be killed? no--?' "'No, no!' said Sarrasine, 'I ask nothing of you that men of honor may not do.' "In a few moments the sculptor laid all his plans to assure the success of his enterprise. He was one of the last to arrive at the ambassador's, but he went thither in a traveling carriage drawn by four stout horses and driven by one of the most skilful _vetturini_ in Rome. The ambassador's palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment. "'It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and _abbes_ who are here,' said Sarrasine, 'that _she_ is dressed as a man, that _she_ has curly hair which _she_ wears in a bag, and that _she_ has a sword at her side?' "'She! what she?' rejoined the old nobleman whom Sarrasine addressed. "'La Zambinella.' "'La Zambinella!' echoed the Roman prince. 'Are you jesting? Whence have you come? Did a woman ever appear in a Roman theatre? And do you not know what sort of creatures play female parts within the domains of the Pope? It was I, monsieur, who endowed Zambinella with his voice. I paid all the knave's expenses, even his teacher in singing. And he has so little gratitude for the service I have done him that he has never been willing to step inside my house. And yet, if he makes his fortune, he will owe it all to me.' "Prince Chigi might have talked on forever, Sarrasine did not listen to him. A ghastly truth had found its way into his mind. He was stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his _protege's_ glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an _abbe_, who instantly disappeared. Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his beauty as much as to his voice. "'It's a woman,' said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear him. 'There's some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal Cicognara is hoodwinking the Pope and the whole city of Rome!' "The sculptor at once left the salon, assembled his friends, and lay in wait in the courtyard of the palace. When Zambinella was assured of Sarrasine's departure he seemed to recover his tranquillity in some measure. About midnight after wandering through the salons like a man looking for an enemy, the _musico_ left the party. As he passed through the palace gate he was seized by men who deftly gagged him with a handkerchief and placed him in the carriage hired by Sarrasine. Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one. Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella. "'Tell me the truth,' he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara----' "Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head. "'Ah! you are a woman!' cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a--' "He did not finish the sentence. "'No,' he continued, 'even _he_ could not be so utterly base.' "'Oh, do not kill me!' cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. 'I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.' "'Laugh!' echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. 'Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man's passion--you?' "'Oh, mercy!' cried Zambinella. "'I ought to kill you!' shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. 'But,' he continued, with cold disdain, 'if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--' "Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue. "'And that is a delusion!' he cried. "Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued: "'A woman's heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. _To love, to be loved!_ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.' "He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair. "'I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.' "Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor--two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears. "'An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!' "As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. "'From Cardinal Cicognara,' said one of the men. "'A benefaction worthy of a Christian,' retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last. "These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, "what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys'?" "Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella's statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet's _Endymion_; you yourself recognized the type in _Adonis_." "But this Zambinella, male or female--" "Must be, madame, Marianina's maternal great uncle. You can conceive now Madame de Lanty's interest in concealing the source of a fortune which comes--" "Enough!" said she, with an imperious gesture. We remained for a moment in the most profound silence. "Well?" I said at last. "Ah!" she cried, rising and pacing the floor. She came and looked me in the face, and said in an altered voice: "You have disgusted me with life and passion for a long time to come. Leaving monstrosities aside, are not all human sentiments dissolved thus, by ghastly disillusionment? Children torture mothers by their bad conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed. Mistresses are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there such a thing! I would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I can remain like the inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests of life. If the future of the Christian is an illusion too, at all events it is not destroyed until after death. Leave me to myself." "Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish." "Am I in the wrong?" "Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this story, which is well known in Italy, I can give you an excellent idea of the progress made by the civilization of the present day. There are none of those wretched creatures now." "Paris," said she, "is an exceedingly hospitable place; it welcomes one and all, fortunes stained with shame, and fortunes stained with blood. Crime and infamy have a right of asylum here; virtue alone is without altars. But pure hearts have a fatherland in heaven! No one will have known me! I am proud of it." And the marchioness was lost in thought. ADDENDUM The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Father Goriot Lanty, Comte de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Comtesse de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Marianina de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Filippo de The Member for Arcis Rochefide, Marquise de Beatrix The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve A Prince of Bohemia Sarrasine, Ernest-Jean The Member for Arcis Vien, Joseph-Marie The Member for Arcis Zambinella The Member for Arcis End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sarrasine, by Honore de Balzac *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARRASINE *** ***** This file should be named 1826.txt or 1826.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/1826/ Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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time

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

you already so corrupt that, being old in heart, you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she trades?' "'Why, this is Friday,' she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman's violence. "Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon. When Sarrasine appeared, running after her, he was welcomed by a roar of infernal laughter. He saw La Zambinella swooning on a sofa. She was very pale, as if exhausted by the extraordinary effort she had made. Although Sarrasine knew but little Italian, he understood his mistress when she said to Vitagliani in a low voice: "'But he will kill me!' "This strange scene abashed the sculptor. His reason returned. He stood still for a moment; then he recovered his speech, sat down beside his mistress, and assured her of his profound respect. He found strength to hold his passion in check while talking to her in the most exalted strain; and, to describe his love, he displayed all the treasures of eloquence--that sorcerer, that friendly interpreter, whom women rarely refuse to believe. When the first rays of dawn surprised the boon companions, some woman suggested that they go to Frascati. One and all welcomed with loud applause the idea of passing the day at Villa Ludovisi. Vitagliani went down to hire carriages. Sarrasine had the good fortune to drive La Zambinella in a phaeton. When they had left Rome behind, the merriment of the party, repressed for a moment by the battle they had all been fighting against drowsiness, suddenly awoke. All, men and women alike, seemed accustomed to that strange life, that constant round of pleasures, that artistic energy, which makes of life one never ending _fete_, where laughter reigns, unchecked by fear of the future. The sculptor's companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits. "'Are you ill?' Sarrasine asked her. 'Would you prefer to go home?' "'I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,' she replied. 'I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.' "'You are so delicate!' rejoined Sarrasine, gazing in rapture at the charming creature's dainty features. "'Dissipation ruins my voice.' "'Now that we are alone,' cried the artist, 'and that you no longer have reason to fear the effervescence of my passion, tell me that you love me.' "'Why?' said she; 'for what good purpose? You think me pretty. But you are a Frenchman, and your fancy will pass away. Ah! you would not love me as I should like to be loved.' "'How?' "'Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more, perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character. I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing more.' "'And not love you!' cried Sarrasine; 'but you are my life, my happiness, dear angel!' "'If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.' "'Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be damned for having kissed you but once----' "And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that passionate caress. "'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.' "'Suppose I were not a woman?' queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice. "'A merry jest!' cried Sarrasine. 'Think you that you can deceive an artist's eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined, devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek compliments!' "She smiled sadly, and murmured: "'Fatal beauty!' "She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that Sarrasine shuddered. "'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried, weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.' "The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice, La Zambinella's attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all the treasures of passion. Each word was a spur. At that moment, they arrived at Frascati. When the artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that she trembled from head to foot. "'What is the matter? You would kill me,' he cried, seeing that she turned pale, 'if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am, even innocently, the cause.' "'A snake!' she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the edge of a ditch. 'I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.' "Sarrasine crushed the snake's head with a blow of his foot. "'How could you dare to do it?' said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead reptile with visible terror. "'Aha!' said the artist, with a smile, 'would you venture to say now that you are not a woman?' "They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words, 'Those are brigands!' they all quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set his mistress down. "'Tell me,' he said, 'why it is that this extreme weakness which in another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest indication of it would be enough to destroy my love,--why is it that in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!' he continued. 'All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong, courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel's voice, that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other breast than thine.' "'I can give you no hope,' she said. 'Cease to speak thus to me, for people would make sport of you. It is impossible for me to shut the door of the theatre to you; but if you love me, or if you are wise, you will come there no more. Listen to me, monsieur,' she continued in a grave voice. "'Oh, hush!' said the excited artist. 'Obstacles inflame the love in my heart.' "La Zambinella maintained a graceful and modest attitude; but she held her peace, as if a terrible thought had suddenly revealed some catastrophe. When it was time to return to Rome she entered a berlin with four seats, bidding the sculptor, with a cruelly imperious air, to return alone in the phaeton. On the road, Sarrasine determined to carry off La Zambinella. He passed the whole day forming plans, each more extravagant than the last. At nightfall, as he was going out to inquire of somebody where his mistress lived, he met one of his fellow-artists at the door. "'My dear fellow,' he said, I am sent by our ambassador to invite you to come to the embassy this evening. He gives a magnificent concert, and when I tell you that La Zambinella will be there--' "'Zambinella!' cried Sarrasine, thrown into delirium by that name; 'I am mad with love of her.' "'You are like everybody else,' replied his comrade. "'But if you are friends of mine, you and Vien and Lauterbourg and Allegrain, you will lend me your assistance for a _coup de main_, after the entertainment, will you not?' asked Sarrasine. "'There's no cardinal to be killed? no--?' "'No, no!' said Sarrasine, 'I ask nothing of you that men of honor may not do.' "In a few moments the sculptor laid all his plans to assure the success of his enterprise. He was one of the last to arrive at the ambassador's, but he went thither in a traveling carriage drawn by four stout horses and driven by one of the most skilful _vetturini_ in Rome. The ambassador's palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment. "'It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and _abbes_ who are here,' said Sarrasine, 'that _she_ is dressed as a man, that _she_ has curly hair which _she_ wears in a bag, and that _she_ has a sword at her side?' "'She! what she?' rejoined the old nobleman whom Sarrasine addressed. "'La Zambinella.' "'La Zambinella!' echoed the Roman prince. 'Are you jesting? Whence have you come? Did a woman ever appear in a Roman theatre? And do you not know what sort of creatures play female parts within the domains of the Pope? It was I, monsieur, who endowed Zambinella with his voice. I paid all the knave's expenses, even his teacher in singing. And he has so little gratitude for the service I have done him that he has never been willing to step inside my house. And yet, if he makes his fortune, he will owe it all to me.' "Prince Chigi might have talked on forever, Sarrasine did not listen to him. A ghastly truth had found its way into his mind. He was stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his _protege's_ glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an _abbe_, who instantly disappeared. Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his beauty as much as to his voice. "'It's a woman,' said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear him. 'There's some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal Cicognara is hoodwinking the Pope and the whole city of Rome!' "The sculptor at once left the salon, assembled his friends, and lay in wait in the courtyard of the palace. When Zambinella was assured of Sarrasine's departure he seemed to recover his tranquillity in some measure. About midnight after wandering through the salons like a man looking for an enemy, the _musico_ left the party. As he passed through the palace gate he was seized by men who deftly gagged him with a handkerchief and placed him in the carriage hired by Sarrasine. Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one. Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella. "'Tell me the truth,' he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara----' "Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head. "'Ah! you are a woman!' cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a--' "He did not finish the sentence. "'No,' he continued, 'even _he_ could not be so utterly base.' "'Oh, do not kill me!' cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. 'I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.' "'Laugh!' echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. 'Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man's passion--you?' "'Oh, mercy!' cried Zambinella. "'I ought to kill you!' shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. 'But,' he continued, with cold disdain, 'if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--' "Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue. "'And that is a delusion!' he cried. "Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued: "'A woman's heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. _To love, to be loved!_ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.' "He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair. "'I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.' "Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor--two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears. "'An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!' "As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. "'From Cardinal Cicognara,' said one of the men. "'A benefaction worthy of a Christian,' retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last. "These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, "what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys'?" "Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella's statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet's _Endymion_; you yourself recognized the type in _Adonis_." "But this Zambinella, male or female--" "Must be, madame, Marianina's maternal great uncle. You can conceive now Madame de Lanty's interest in concealing the source of a fortune which comes--" "Enough!" said she, with an imperious gesture. We remained for a moment in the most profound silence. "Well?" I said at last. "Ah!" she cried, rising and pacing the floor. She came and looked me in the face, and said in an altered voice: "You have disgusted me with life and passion for a long time to come. Leaving monstrosities aside, are not all human sentiments dissolved thus, by ghastly disillusionment? Children torture mothers by their bad conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed. Mistresses are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there such a thing! I would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I can remain like the inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests of life. If the future of the Christian is an illusion too, at all events it is not destroyed until after death. Leave me to myself." "Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish." "Am I in the wrong?" "Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this story, which is well known in Italy, I can give you an excellent idea of the progress made by the civilization of the present day. There are none of those wretched creatures now." "Paris," said she, "is an exceedingly hospitable place; it welcomes one and all, fortunes stained with shame, and fortunes stained with blood. Crime and infamy have a right of asylum here; virtue alone is without altars. But pure hearts have a fatherland in heaven! No one will have known me! I am proud of it." And the marchioness was lost in thought. ADDENDUM The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Father Goriot Lanty, Comte de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Comtesse de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Marianina de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Filippo de The Member for Arcis Rochefide, Marquise de Beatrix The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve A Prince of Bohemia Sarrasine, Ernest-Jean The Member for Arcis Vien, Joseph-Marie The Member for Arcis Zambinella The Member for Arcis End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sarrasine, by Honore de Balzac *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARRASINE *** ***** This file should be named 1826.txt or 1826.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/1826/ Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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you already so corrupt that, being old in heart, you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she trades?' "'Why, this is Friday,' she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman's violence. "Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon. When Sarrasine appeared, running after her, he was welcomed by a roar of infernal laughter. He saw La Zambinella swooning on a sofa. She was very pale, as if exhausted by the extraordinary effort she had made. Although Sarrasine knew but little Italian, he understood his mistress when she said to Vitagliani in a low voice: "'But he will kill me!' "This strange scene abashed the sculptor. His reason returned. He stood still for a moment; then he recovered his speech, sat down beside his mistress, and assured her of his profound respect. He found strength to hold his passion in check while talking to her in the most exalted strain; and, to describe his love, he displayed all the treasures of eloquence--that sorcerer, that friendly interpreter, whom women rarely refuse to believe. When the first rays of dawn surprised the boon companions, some woman suggested that they go to Frascati. One and all welcomed with loud applause the idea of passing the day at Villa Ludovisi. Vitagliani went down to hire carriages. Sarrasine had the good fortune to drive La Zambinella in a phaeton. When they had left Rome behind, the merriment of the party, repressed for a moment by the battle they had all been fighting against drowsiness, suddenly awoke. All, men and women alike, seemed accustomed to that strange life, that constant round of pleasures, that artistic energy, which makes of life one never ending _fete_, where laughter reigns, unchecked by fear of the future. The sculptor's companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits. "'Are you ill?' Sarrasine asked her. 'Would you prefer to go home?' "'I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,' she replied. 'I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.' "'You are so delicate!' rejoined Sarrasine, gazing in rapture at the charming creature's dainty features. "'Dissipation ruins my voice.' "'Now that we are alone,' cried the artist, 'and that you no longer have reason to fear the effervescence of my passion, tell me that you love me.' "'Why?' said she; 'for what good purpose? You think me pretty. But you are a Frenchman, and your fancy will pass away. Ah! you would not love me as I should like to be loved.' "'How?' "'Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more, perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character. I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing more.' "'And not love you!' cried Sarrasine; 'but you are my life, my happiness, dear angel!' "'If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.' "'Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be damned for having kissed you but once----' "And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that passionate caress. "'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.' "'Suppose I were not a woman?' queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice. "'A merry jest!' cried Sarrasine. 'Think you that you can deceive an artist's eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined, devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek compliments!' "She smiled sadly, and murmured: "'Fatal beauty!' "She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that Sarrasine shuddered. "'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried, weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.' "The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice, La Zambinella's attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all the treasures of passion. Each word was a spur. At that moment, they arrived at Frascati. When the artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that she trembled from head to foot. "'What is the matter? You would kill me,' he cried, seeing that she turned pale, 'if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am, even innocently, the cause.' "'A snake!' she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the edge of a ditch. 'I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.' "Sarrasine crushed the snake's head with a blow of his foot. "'How could you dare to do it?' said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead reptile with visible terror. "'Aha!' said the artist, with a smile, 'would you venture to say now that you are not a woman?' "They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words, 'Those are brigands!' they all quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set his mistress down. "'Tell me,' he said, 'why it is that this extreme weakness which in another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest indication of it would be enough to destroy my love,--why is it that in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!' he continued. 'All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong, courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel's voice, that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other breast than thine.' "'I can give you no hope,' she said. 'Cease to speak thus to me, for people would make sport of you. It is impossible for me to shut the door of the theatre to you; but if you love me, or if you are wise, you will come there no more. Listen to me, monsieur,' she continued in a grave voice. "'Oh, hush!' said the excited artist. 'Obstacles inflame the love in my heart.' "La Zambinella maintained a graceful and modest attitude; but she held her peace, as if a terrible thought had suddenly revealed some catastrophe. When it was time to return to Rome she entered a berlin with four seats, bidding the sculptor, with a cruelly imperious air, to return alone in the phaeton. On the road, Sarrasine determined to carry off La Zambinella. He passed the whole day forming plans, each more extravagant than the last. At nightfall, as he was going out to inquire of somebody where his mistress lived, he met one of his fellow-artists at the door. "'My dear fellow,' he said, I am sent by our ambassador to invite you to come to the embassy this evening. He gives a magnificent concert, and when I tell you that La Zambinella will be there--' "'Zambinella!' cried Sarrasine, thrown into delirium by that name; 'I am mad with love of her.' "'You are like everybody else,' replied his comrade. "'But if you are friends of mine, you and Vien and Lauterbourg and Allegrain, you will lend me your assistance for a _coup de main_, after the entertainment, will you not?' asked Sarrasine. "'There's no cardinal to be killed? no--?' "'No, no!' said Sarrasine, 'I ask nothing of you that men of honor may not do.' "In a few moments the sculptor laid all his plans to assure the success of his enterprise. He was one of the last to arrive at the ambassador's, but he went thither in a traveling carriage drawn by four stout horses and driven by one of the most skilful _vetturini_ in Rome. The ambassador's palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment. "'It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and _abbes_ who are here,' said Sarrasine, 'that _she_ is dressed as a man, that _she_ has curly hair which _she_ wears in a bag, and that _she_ has a sword at her side?' "'She! what she?' rejoined the old nobleman whom Sarrasine addressed. "'La Zambinella.' "'La Zambinella!' echoed the Roman prince. 'Are you jesting? Whence have you come? Did a woman ever appear in a Roman theatre? And do you not know what sort of creatures play female parts within the domains of the Pope? It was I, monsieur, who endowed Zambinella with his voice. I paid all the knave's expenses, even his teacher in singing. And he has so little gratitude for the service I have done him that he has never been willing to step inside my house. And yet, if he makes his fortune, he will owe it all to me.' "Prince Chigi might have talked on forever, Sarrasine did not listen to him. A ghastly truth had found its way into his mind. He was stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his _protege's_ glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an _abbe_, who instantly disappeared. Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his beauty as much as to his voice. "'It's a woman,' said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear him. 'There's some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal Cicognara is hoodwinking the Pope and the whole city of Rome!' "The sculptor at once left the salon, assembled his friends, and lay in wait in the courtyard of the palace. When Zambinella was assured of Sarrasine's departure he seemed to recover his tranquillity in some measure. About midnight after wandering through the salons like a man looking for an enemy, the _musico_ left the party. As he passed through the palace gate he was seized by men who deftly gagged him with a handkerchief and placed him in the carriage hired by Sarrasine. Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one. Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella. "'Tell me the truth,' he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara----' "Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head. "'Ah! you are a woman!' cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a--' "He did not finish the sentence. "'No,' he continued, 'even _he_ could not be so utterly base.' "'Oh, do not kill me!' cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. 'I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.' "'Laugh!' echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. 'Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man's passion--you?' "'Oh, mercy!' cried Zambinella. "'I ought to kill you!' shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. 'But,' he continued, with cold disdain, 'if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--' "Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue. "'And that is a delusion!' he cried. "Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued: "'A woman's heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. _To love, to be loved!_ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.' "He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair. "'I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.' "Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor--two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears. "'An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!' "As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. "'From Cardinal Cicognara,' said one of the men. "'A benefaction worthy of a Christian,' retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last. "These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, "what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys'?" "Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella's statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet's _Endymion_; you yourself recognized the type in _Adonis_." "But this Zambinella, male or female--" "Must be, madame, Marianina's maternal great uncle. You can conceive now Madame de Lanty's interest in concealing the source of a fortune which comes--" "Enough!" said she, with an imperious gesture. We remained for a moment in the most profound silence. "Well?" I said at last. "Ah!" she cried, rising and pacing the floor. She came and looked me in the face, and said in an altered voice: "You have disgusted me with life and passion for a long time to come. Leaving monstrosities aside, are not all human sentiments dissolved thus, by ghastly disillusionment? Children torture mothers by their bad conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed. Mistresses are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there such a thing! I would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I can remain like the inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests of life. If the future of the Christian is an illusion too, at all events it is not destroyed until after death. Leave me to myself." "Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish." "Am I in the wrong?" "Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this story, which is well known in Italy, I can give you an excellent idea of the progress made by the civilization of the present day. There are none of those wretched creatures now." "Paris," said she, "is an exceedingly hospitable place; it welcomes one and all, fortunes stained with shame, and fortunes stained with blood. Crime and infamy have a right of asylum here; virtue alone is without altars. But pure hearts have a fatherland in heaven! No one will have known me! I am proud of it." And the marchioness was lost in thought. ADDENDUM The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Father Goriot Lanty, Comte de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Comtesse de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Marianina de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Filippo de The Member for Arcis Rochefide, Marquise de Beatrix The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve A Prince of Bohemia Sarrasine, Ernest-Jean The Member for Arcis Vien, Joseph-Marie The Member for Arcis Zambinella The Member for Arcis End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sarrasine, by Honore de Balzac *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARRASINE *** ***** This file should be named 1826.txt or 1826.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/1826/ Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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creature

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

you already so corrupt that, being old in heart, you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she trades?' "'Why, this is Friday,' she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman's violence. "Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon. When Sarrasine appeared, running after her, he was welcomed by a roar of infernal laughter. He saw La Zambinella swooning on a sofa. She was very pale, as if exhausted by the extraordinary effort she had made. Although Sarrasine knew but little Italian, he understood his mistress when she said to Vitagliani in a low voice: "'But he will kill me!' "This strange scene abashed the sculptor. His reason returned. He stood still for a moment; then he recovered his speech, sat down beside his mistress, and assured her of his profound respect. He found strength to hold his passion in check while talking to her in the most exalted strain; and, to describe his love, he displayed all the treasures of eloquence--that sorcerer, that friendly interpreter, whom women rarely refuse to believe. When the first rays of dawn surprised the boon companions, some woman suggested that they go to Frascati. One and all welcomed with loud applause the idea of passing the day at Villa Ludovisi. Vitagliani went down to hire carriages. Sarrasine had the good fortune to drive La Zambinella in a phaeton. When they had left Rome behind, the merriment of the party, repressed for a moment by the battle they had all been fighting against drowsiness, suddenly awoke. All, men and women alike, seemed accustomed to that strange life, that constant round of pleasures, that artistic energy, which makes of life one never ending _fete_, where laughter reigns, unchecked by fear of the future. The sculptor's companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits. "'Are you ill?' Sarrasine asked her. 'Would you prefer to go home?' "'I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,' she replied. 'I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.' "'You are so delicate!' rejoined Sarrasine, gazing in rapture at the charming creature's dainty features. "'Dissipation ruins my voice.' "'Now that we are alone,' cried the artist, 'and that you no longer have reason to fear the effervescence of my passion, tell me that you love me.' "'Why?' said she; 'for what good purpose? You think me pretty. But you are a Frenchman, and your fancy will pass away. Ah! you would not love me as I should like to be loved.' "'How?' "'Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more, perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character. I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing more.' "'And not love you!' cried Sarrasine; 'but you are my life, my happiness, dear angel!' "'If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.' "'Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be damned for having kissed you but once----' "And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that passionate caress. "'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.' "'Suppose I were not a woman?' queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice. "'A merry jest!' cried Sarrasine. 'Think you that you can deceive an artist's eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined, devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek compliments!' "She smiled sadly, and murmured: "'Fatal beauty!' "She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that Sarrasine shuddered. "'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried, weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.' "The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice, La Zambinella's attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all the treasures of passion. Each word was a spur. At that moment, they arrived at Frascati. When the artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that she trembled from head to foot. "'What is the matter? You would kill me,' he cried, seeing that she turned pale, 'if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am, even innocently, the cause.' "'A snake!' she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the edge of a ditch. 'I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.' "Sarrasine crushed the snake's head with a blow of his foot. "'How could you dare to do it?' said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead reptile with visible terror. "'Aha!' said the artist, with a smile, 'would you venture to say now that you are not a woman?' "They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words, 'Those are brigands!' they all quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set his mistress down. "'Tell me,' he said, 'why it is that this extreme weakness which in another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest indication of it would be enough to destroy my love,--why is it that in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!' he continued. 'All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong, courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel's voice, that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other breast than thine.' "'I can give you no hope,' she said. 'Cease to speak thus to me, for people would make sport of you. It is impossible for me to shut the door of the theatre to you; but if you love me, or if you are wise, you will come there no more. Listen to me, monsieur,' she continued in a grave voice. "'Oh, hush!' said the excited artist. 'Obstacles inflame the love in my heart.' "La Zambinella maintained a graceful and modest attitude; but she held her peace, as if a terrible thought had suddenly revealed some catastrophe. When it was time to return to Rome she entered a berlin with four seats, bidding the sculptor, with a cruelly imperious air, to return alone in the phaeton. On the road, Sarrasine determined to carry off La Zambinella. He passed the whole day forming plans, each more extravagant than the last. At nightfall, as he was going out to inquire of somebody where his mistress lived, he met one of his fellow-artists at the door. "'My dear fellow,' he said, I am sent by our ambassador to invite you to come to the embassy this evening. He gives a magnificent concert, and when I tell you that La Zambinella will be there--' "'Zambinella!' cried Sarrasine, thrown into delirium by that name; 'I am mad with love of her.' "'You are like everybody else,' replied his comrade. "'But if you are friends of mine, you and Vien and Lauterbourg and Allegrain, you will lend me your assistance for a _coup de main_, after the entertainment, will you not?' asked Sarrasine. "'There's no cardinal to be killed? no--?' "'No, no!' said Sarrasine, 'I ask nothing of you that men of honor may not do.' "In a few moments the sculptor laid all his plans to assure the success of his enterprise. He was one of the last to arrive at the ambassador's, but he went thither in a traveling carriage drawn by four stout horses and driven by one of the most skilful _vetturini_ in Rome. The ambassador's palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment. "'It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and _abbes_ who are here,' said Sarrasine, 'that _she_ is dressed as a man, that _she_ has curly hair which _she_ wears in a bag, and that _she_ has a sword at her side?' "'She! what she?' rejoined the old nobleman whom Sarrasine addressed. "'La Zambinella.' "'La Zambinella!' echoed the Roman prince. 'Are you jesting? Whence have you come? Did a woman ever appear in a Roman theatre? And do you not know what sort of creatures play female parts within the domains of the Pope? It was I, monsieur, who endowed Zambinella with his voice. I paid all the knave's expenses, even his teacher in singing. And he has so little gratitude for the service I have done him that he has never been willing to step inside my house. And yet, if he makes his fortune, he will owe it all to me.' "Prince Chigi might have talked on forever, Sarrasine did not listen to him. A ghastly truth had found its way into his mind. He was stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his _protege's_ glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an _abbe_, who instantly disappeared. Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his beauty as much as to his voice. "'It's a woman,' said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear him. 'There's some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal Cicognara is hoodwinking the Pope and the whole city of Rome!' "The sculptor at once left the salon, assembled his friends, and lay in wait in the courtyard of the palace. When Zambinella was assured of Sarrasine's departure he seemed to recover his tranquillity in some measure. About midnight after wandering through the salons like a man looking for an enemy, the _musico_ left the party. As he passed through the palace gate he was seized by men who deftly gagged him with a handkerchief and placed him in the carriage hired by Sarrasine. Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one. Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella. "'Tell me the truth,' he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara----' "Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head. "'Ah! you are a woman!' cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a--' "He did not finish the sentence. "'No,' he continued, 'even _he_ could not be so utterly base.' "'Oh, do not kill me!' cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. 'I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.' "'Laugh!' echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. 'Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man's passion--you?' "'Oh, mercy!' cried Zambinella. "'I ought to kill you!' shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. 'But,' he continued, with cold disdain, 'if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--' "Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue. "'And that is a delusion!' he cried. "Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued: "'A woman's heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. _To love, to be loved!_ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.' "He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair. "'I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.' "Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor--two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears. "'An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!' "As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. "'From Cardinal Cicognara,' said one of the men. "'A benefaction worthy of a Christian,' retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last. "These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, "what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys'?" "Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella's statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet's _Endymion_; you yourself recognized the type in _Adonis_." "But this Zambinella, male or female--" "Must be, madame, Marianina's maternal great uncle. You can conceive now Madame de Lanty's interest in concealing the source of a fortune which comes--" "Enough!" said she, with an imperious gesture. We remained for a moment in the most profound silence. "Well?" I said at last. "Ah!" she cried, rising and pacing the floor. She came and looked me in the face, and said in an altered voice: "You have disgusted me with life and passion for a long time to come. Leaving monstrosities aside, are not all human sentiments dissolved thus, by ghastly disillusionment? Children torture mothers by their bad conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed. Mistresses are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there such a thing! I would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I can remain like the inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests of life. If the future of the Christian is an illusion too, at all events it is not destroyed until after death. Leave me to myself." "Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish." "Am I in the wrong?" "Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this story, which is well known in Italy, I can give you an excellent idea of the progress made by the civilization of the present day. There are none of those wretched creatures now." "Paris," said she, "is an exceedingly hospitable place; it welcomes one and all, fortunes stained with shame, and fortunes stained with blood. Crime and infamy have a right of asylum here; virtue alone is without altars. But pure hearts have a fatherland in heaven! No one will have known me! I am proud of it." And the marchioness was lost in thought. ADDENDUM The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Father Goriot Lanty, Comte de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Comtesse de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Marianina de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Filippo de The Member for Arcis Rochefide, Marquise de Beatrix The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve A Prince of Bohemia Sarrasine, Ernest-Jean The Member for Arcis Vien, Joseph-Marie The Member for Arcis Zambinella The Member for Arcis End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sarrasine, by Honore de Balzac *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARRASINE *** ***** This file should be named 1826.txt or 1826.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/1826/ Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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head

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

you already so corrupt that, being old in heart, you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she trades?' "'Why, this is Friday,' she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman's violence. "Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon. When Sarrasine appeared, running after her, he was welcomed by a roar of infernal laughter. He saw La Zambinella swooning on a sofa. She was very pale, as if exhausted by the extraordinary effort she had made. Although Sarrasine knew but little Italian, he understood his mistress when she said to Vitagliani in a low voice: "'But he will kill me!' "This strange scene abashed the sculptor. His reason returned. He stood still for a moment; then he recovered his speech, sat down beside his mistress, and assured her of his profound respect. He found strength to hold his passion in check while talking to her in the most exalted strain; and, to describe his love, he displayed all the treasures of eloquence--that sorcerer, that friendly interpreter, whom women rarely refuse to believe. When the first rays of dawn surprised the boon companions, some woman suggested that they go to Frascati. One and all welcomed with loud applause the idea of passing the day at Villa Ludovisi. Vitagliani went down to hire carriages. Sarrasine had the good fortune to drive La Zambinella in a phaeton. When they had left Rome behind, the merriment of the party, repressed for a moment by the battle they had all been fighting against drowsiness, suddenly awoke. All, men and women alike, seemed accustomed to that strange life, that constant round of pleasures, that artistic energy, which makes of life one never ending _fete_, where laughter reigns, unchecked by fear of the future. The sculptor's companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits. "'Are you ill?' Sarrasine asked her. 'Would you prefer to go home?' "'I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,' she replied. 'I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.' "'You are so delicate!' rejoined Sarrasine, gazing in rapture at the charming creature's dainty features. "'Dissipation ruins my voice.' "'Now that we are alone,' cried the artist, 'and that you no longer have reason to fear the effervescence of my passion, tell me that you love me.' "'Why?' said she; 'for what good purpose? You think me pretty. But you are a Frenchman, and your fancy will pass away. Ah! you would not love me as I should like to be loved.' "'How?' "'Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more, perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character. I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing more.' "'And not love you!' cried Sarrasine; 'but you are my life, my happiness, dear angel!' "'If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.' "'Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be damned for having kissed you but once----' "And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that passionate caress. "'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.' "'Suppose I were not a woman?' queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice. "'A merry jest!' cried Sarrasine. 'Think you that you can deceive an artist's eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined, devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek compliments!' "She smiled sadly, and murmured: "'Fatal beauty!' "She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that Sarrasine shuddered. "'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried, weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.' "The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice, La Zambinella's attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all the treasures of passion. Each word was a spur. At that moment, they arrived at Frascati. When the artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that she trembled from head to foot. "'What is the matter? You would kill me,' he cried, seeing that she turned pale, 'if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am, even innocently, the cause.' "'A snake!' she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the edge of a ditch. 'I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.' "Sarrasine crushed the snake's head with a blow of his foot. "'How could you dare to do it?' said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead reptile with visible terror. "'Aha!' said the artist, with a smile, 'would you venture to say now that you are not a woman?' "They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words, 'Those are brigands!' they all quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set his mistress down. "'Tell me,' he said, 'why it is that this extreme weakness which in another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest indication of it would be enough to destroy my love,--why is it that in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!' he continued. 'All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong, courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel's voice, that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other breast than thine.' "'I can give you no hope,' she said. 'Cease to speak thus to me, for people would make sport of you. It is impossible for me to shut the door of the theatre to you; but if you love me, or if you are wise, you will come there no more. Listen to me, monsieur,' she continued in a grave voice. "'Oh, hush!' said the excited artist. 'Obstacles inflame the love in my heart.' "La Zambinella maintained a graceful and modest attitude; but she held her peace, as if a terrible thought had suddenly revealed some catastrophe. When it was time to return to Rome she entered a berlin with four seats, bidding the sculptor, with a cruelly imperious air, to return alone in the phaeton. On the road, Sarrasine determined to carry off La Zambinella. He passed the whole day forming plans, each more extravagant than the last. At nightfall, as he was going out to inquire of somebody where his mistress lived, he met one of his fellow-artists at the door. "'My dear fellow,' he said, I am sent by our ambassador to invite you to come to the embassy this evening. He gives a magnificent concert, and when I tell you that La Zambinella will be there--' "'Zambinella!' cried Sarrasine, thrown into delirium by that name; 'I am mad with love of her.' "'You are like everybody else,' replied his comrade. "'But if you are friends of mine, you and Vien and Lauterbourg and Allegrain, you will lend me your assistance for a _coup de main_, after the entertainment, will you not?' asked Sarrasine. "'There's no cardinal to be killed? no--?' "'No, no!' said Sarrasine, 'I ask nothing of you that men of honor may not do.' "In a few moments the sculptor laid all his plans to assure the success of his enterprise. He was one of the last to arrive at the ambassador's, but he went thither in a traveling carriage drawn by four stout horses and driven by one of the most skilful _vetturini_ in Rome. The ambassador's palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment. "'It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and _abbes_ who are here,' said Sarrasine, 'that _she_ is dressed as a man, that _she_ has curly hair which _she_ wears in a bag, and that _she_ has a sword at her side?' "'She! what she?' rejoined the old nobleman whom Sarrasine addressed. "'La Zambinella.' "'La Zambinella!' echoed the Roman prince. 'Are you jesting? Whence have you come? Did a woman ever appear in a Roman theatre? And do you not know what sort of creatures play female parts within the domains of the Pope? It was I, monsieur, who endowed Zambinella with his voice. I paid all the knave's expenses, even his teacher in singing. And he has so little gratitude for the service I have done him that he has never been willing to step inside my house. And yet, if he makes his fortune, he will owe it all to me.' "Prince Chigi might have talked on forever, Sarrasine did not listen to him. A ghastly truth had found its way into his mind. He was stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his _protege's_ glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an _abbe_, who instantly disappeared. Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his beauty as much as to his voice. "'It's a woman,' said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear him. 'There's some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal Cicognara is hoodwinking the Pope and the whole city of Rome!' "The sculptor at once left the salon, assembled his friends, and lay in wait in the courtyard of the palace. When Zambinella was assured of Sarrasine's departure he seemed to recover his tranquillity in some measure. About midnight after wandering through the salons like a man looking for an enemy, the _musico_ left the party. As he passed through the palace gate he was seized by men who deftly gagged him with a handkerchief and placed him in the carriage hired by Sarrasine. Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one. Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella. "'Tell me the truth,' he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara----' "Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head. "'Ah! you are a woman!' cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a--' "He did not finish the sentence. "'No,' he continued, 'even _he_ could not be so utterly base.' "'Oh, do not kill me!' cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. 'I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.' "'Laugh!' echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. 'Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man's passion--you?' "'Oh, mercy!' cried Zambinella. "'I ought to kill you!' shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. 'But,' he continued, with cold disdain, 'if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--' "Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue. "'And that is a delusion!' he cried. "Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued: "'A woman's heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. _To love, to be loved!_ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.' "He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair. "'I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.' "Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor--two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears. "'An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!' "As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. "'From Cardinal Cicognara,' said one of the men. "'A benefaction worthy of a Christian,' retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last. "These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, "what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys'?" "Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella's statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet's _Endymion_; you yourself recognized the type in _Adonis_." "But this Zambinella, male or female--" "Must be, madame, Marianina's maternal great uncle. You can conceive now Madame de Lanty's interest in concealing the source of a fortune which comes--" "Enough!" said she, with an imperious gesture. We remained for a moment in the most profound silence. "Well?" I said at last. "Ah!" she cried, rising and pacing the floor. She came and looked me in the face, and said in an altered voice: "You have disgusted me with life and passion for a long time to come. Leaving monstrosities aside, are not all human sentiments dissolved thus, by ghastly disillusionment? Children torture mothers by their bad conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed. Mistresses are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there such a thing! I would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I can remain like the inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests of life. If the future of the Christian is an illusion too, at all events it is not destroyed until after death. Leave me to myself." "Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish." "Am I in the wrong?" "Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this story, which is well known in Italy, I can give you an excellent idea of the progress made by the civilization of the present day. There are none of those wretched creatures now." "Paris," said she, "is an exceedingly hospitable place; it welcomes one and all, fortunes stained with shame, and fortunes stained with blood. Crime and infamy have a right of asylum here; virtue alone is without altars. But pure hearts have a fatherland in heaven! No one will have known me! I am proud of it." And the marchioness was lost in thought. ADDENDUM The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Father Goriot Lanty, Comte de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Comtesse de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Marianina de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Filippo de The Member for Arcis Rochefide, Marquise de Beatrix The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve A Prince of Bohemia Sarrasine, Ernest-Jean The Member for Arcis Vien, Joseph-Marie The Member for Arcis Zambinella The Member for Arcis End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sarrasine, by Honore de Balzac *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARRASINE *** ***** This file should be named 1826.txt or 1826.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/1826/ Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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felt

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

you already so corrupt that, being old in heart, you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she trades?' "'Why, this is Friday,' she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman's violence. "Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon. When Sarrasine appeared, running after her, he was welcomed by a roar of infernal laughter. He saw La Zambinella swooning on a sofa. She was very pale, as if exhausted by the extraordinary effort she had made. Although Sarrasine knew but little Italian, he understood his mistress when she said to Vitagliani in a low voice: "'But he will kill me!' "This strange scene abashed the sculptor. His reason returned. He stood still for a moment; then he recovered his speech, sat down beside his mistress, and assured her of his profound respect. He found strength to hold his passion in check while talking to her in the most exalted strain; and, to describe his love, he displayed all the treasures of eloquence--that sorcerer, that friendly interpreter, whom women rarely refuse to believe. When the first rays of dawn surprised the boon companions, some woman suggested that they go to Frascati. One and all welcomed with loud applause the idea of passing the day at Villa Ludovisi. Vitagliani went down to hire carriages. Sarrasine had the good fortune to drive La Zambinella in a phaeton. When they had left Rome behind, the merriment of the party, repressed for a moment by the battle they had all been fighting against drowsiness, suddenly awoke. All, men and women alike, seemed accustomed to that strange life, that constant round of pleasures, that artistic energy, which makes of life one never ending _fete_, where laughter reigns, unchecked by fear of the future. The sculptor's companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits. "'Are you ill?' Sarrasine asked her. 'Would you prefer to go home?' "'I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,' she replied. 'I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.' "'You are so delicate!' rejoined Sarrasine, gazing in rapture at the charming creature's dainty features. "'Dissipation ruins my voice.' "'Now that we are alone,' cried the artist, 'and that you no longer have reason to fear the effervescence of my passion, tell me that you love me.' "'Why?' said she; 'for what good purpose? You think me pretty. But you are a Frenchman, and your fancy will pass away. Ah! you would not love me as I should like to be loved.' "'How?' "'Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more, perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character. I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing more.' "'And not love you!' cried Sarrasine; 'but you are my life, my happiness, dear angel!' "'If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.' "'Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be damned for having kissed you but once----' "And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that passionate caress. "'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.' "'Suppose I were not a woman?' queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice. "'A merry jest!' cried Sarrasine. 'Think you that you can deceive an artist's eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined, devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek compliments!' "She smiled sadly, and murmured: "'Fatal beauty!' "She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that Sarrasine shuddered. "'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried, weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.' "The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice, La Zambinella's attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all the treasures of passion. Each word was a spur. At that moment, they arrived at Frascati. When the artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that she trembled from head to foot. "'What is the matter? You would kill me,' he cried, seeing that she turned pale, 'if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am, even innocently, the cause.' "'A snake!' she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the edge of a ditch. 'I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.' "Sarrasine crushed the snake's head with a blow of his foot. "'How could you dare to do it?' said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead reptile with visible terror. "'Aha!' said the artist, with a smile, 'would you venture to say now that you are not a woman?' "They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words, 'Those are brigands!' they all quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set his mistress down. "'Tell me,' he said, 'why it is that this extreme weakness which in another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest indication of it would be enough to destroy my love,--why is it that in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!' he continued. 'All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong, courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel's voice, that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other breast than thine.' "'I can give you no hope,' she said. 'Cease to speak thus to me, for people would make sport of you. It is impossible for me to shut the door of the theatre to you; but if you love me, or if you are wise, you will come there no more. Listen to me, monsieur,' she continued in a grave voice. "'Oh, hush!' said the excited artist. 'Obstacles inflame the love in my heart.' "La Zambinella maintained a graceful and modest attitude; but she held her peace, as if a terrible thought had suddenly revealed some catastrophe. When it was time to return to Rome she entered a berlin with four seats, bidding the sculptor, with a cruelly imperious air, to return alone in the phaeton. On the road, Sarrasine determined to carry off La Zambinella. He passed the whole day forming plans, each more extravagant than the last. At nightfall, as he was going out to inquire of somebody where his mistress lived, he met one of his fellow-artists at the door. "'My dear fellow,' he said, I am sent by our ambassador to invite you to come to the embassy this evening. He gives a magnificent concert, and when I tell you that La Zambinella will be there--' "'Zambinella!' cried Sarrasine, thrown into delirium by that name; 'I am mad with love of her.' "'You are like everybody else,' replied his comrade. "'But if you are friends of mine, you and Vien and Lauterbourg and Allegrain, you will lend me your assistance for a _coup de main_, after the entertainment, will you not?' asked Sarrasine. "'There's no cardinal to be killed? no--?' "'No, no!' said Sarrasine, 'I ask nothing of you that men of honor may not do.' "In a few moments the sculptor laid all his plans to assure the success of his enterprise. He was one of the last to arrive at the ambassador's, but he went thither in a traveling carriage drawn by four stout horses and driven by one of the most skilful _vetturini_ in Rome. The ambassador's palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment. "'It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and _abbes_ who are here,' said Sarrasine, 'that _she_ is dressed as a man, that _she_ has curly hair which _she_ wears in a bag, and that _she_ has a sword at her side?' "'She! what she?' rejoined the old nobleman whom Sarrasine addressed. "'La Zambinella.' "'La Zambinella!' echoed the Roman prince. 'Are you jesting? Whence have you come? Did a woman ever appear in a Roman theatre? And do you not know what sort of creatures play female parts within the domains of the Pope? It was I, monsieur, who endowed Zambinella with his voice. I paid all the knave's expenses, even his teacher in singing. And he has so little gratitude for the service I have done him that he has never been willing to step inside my house. And yet, if he makes his fortune, he will owe it all to me.' "Prince Chigi might have talked on forever, Sarrasine did not listen to him. A ghastly truth had found its way into his mind. He was stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his _protege's_ glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an _abbe_, who instantly disappeared. Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his beauty as much as to his voice. "'It's a woman,' said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear him. 'There's some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal Cicognara is hoodwinking the Pope and the whole city of Rome!' "The sculptor at once left the salon, assembled his friends, and lay in wait in the courtyard of the palace. When Zambinella was assured of Sarrasine's departure he seemed to recover his tranquillity in some measure. About midnight after wandering through the salons like a man looking for an enemy, the _musico_ left the party. As he passed through the palace gate he was seized by men who deftly gagged him with a handkerchief and placed him in the carriage hired by Sarrasine. Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one. Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella. "'Tell me the truth,' he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara----' "Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head. "'Ah! you are a woman!' cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a--' "He did not finish the sentence. "'No,' he continued, 'even _he_ could not be so utterly base.' "'Oh, do not kill me!' cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. 'I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.' "'Laugh!' echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. 'Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man's passion--you?' "'Oh, mercy!' cried Zambinella. "'I ought to kill you!' shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. 'But,' he continued, with cold disdain, 'if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--' "Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue. "'And that is a delusion!' he cried. "Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued: "'A woman's heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. _To love, to be loved!_ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.' "He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair. "'I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.' "Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor--two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears. "'An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!' "As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. "'From Cardinal Cicognara,' said one of the men. "'A benefaction worthy of a Christian,' retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last. "These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, "what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys'?" "Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella's statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet's _Endymion_; you yourself recognized the type in _Adonis_." "But this Zambinella, male or female--" "Must be, madame, Marianina's maternal great uncle. You can conceive now Madame de Lanty's interest in concealing the source of a fortune which comes--" "Enough!" said she, with an imperious gesture. We remained for a moment in the most profound silence. "Well?" I said at last. "Ah!" she cried, rising and pacing the floor. She came and looked me in the face, and said in an altered voice: "You have disgusted me with life and passion for a long time to come. Leaving monstrosities aside, are not all human sentiments dissolved thus, by ghastly disillusionment? Children torture mothers by their bad conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed. Mistresses are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there such a thing! I would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I can remain like the inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests of life. If the future of the Christian is an illusion too, at all events it is not destroyed until after death. Leave me to myself." "Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish." "Am I in the wrong?" "Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this story, which is well known in Italy, I can give you an excellent idea of the progress made by the civilization of the present day. There are none of those wretched creatures now." "Paris," said she, "is an exceedingly hospitable place; it welcomes one and all, fortunes stained with shame, and fortunes stained with blood. Crime and infamy have a right of asylum here; virtue alone is without altars. But pure hearts have a fatherland in heaven! No one will have known me! I am proud of it." And the marchioness was lost in thought. ADDENDUM The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Father Goriot Lanty, Comte de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Comtesse de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Marianina de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Filippo de The Member for Arcis Rochefide, Marquise de Beatrix The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve A Prince of Bohemia Sarrasine, Ernest-Jean The Member for Arcis Vien, Joseph-Marie The Member for Arcis Zambinella The Member for Arcis End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sarrasine, by Honore de Balzac *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARRASINE *** ***** This file should be named 1826.txt or 1826.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/1826/ Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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frascati

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

you already so corrupt that, being old in heart, you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she trades?' "'Why, this is Friday,' she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman's violence. "Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon. When Sarrasine appeared, running after her, he was welcomed by a roar of infernal laughter. He saw La Zambinella swooning on a sofa. She was very pale, as if exhausted by the extraordinary effort she had made. Although Sarrasine knew but little Italian, he understood his mistress when she said to Vitagliani in a low voice: "'But he will kill me!' "This strange scene abashed the sculptor. His reason returned. He stood still for a moment; then he recovered his speech, sat down beside his mistress, and assured her of his profound respect. He found strength to hold his passion in check while talking to her in the most exalted strain; and, to describe his love, he displayed all the treasures of eloquence--that sorcerer, that friendly interpreter, whom women rarely refuse to believe. When the first rays of dawn surprised the boon companions, some woman suggested that they go to Frascati. One and all welcomed with loud applause the idea of passing the day at Villa Ludovisi. Vitagliani went down to hire carriages. Sarrasine had the good fortune to drive La Zambinella in a phaeton. When they had left Rome behind, the merriment of the party, repressed for a moment by the battle they had all been fighting against drowsiness, suddenly awoke. All, men and women alike, seemed accustomed to that strange life, that constant round of pleasures, that artistic energy, which makes of life one never ending _fete_, where laughter reigns, unchecked by fear of the future. The sculptor's companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits. "'Are you ill?' Sarrasine asked her. 'Would you prefer to go home?' "'I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,' she replied. 'I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.' "'You are so delicate!' rejoined Sarrasine, gazing in rapture at the charming creature's dainty features. "'Dissipation ruins my voice.' "'Now that we are alone,' cried the artist, 'and that you no longer have reason to fear the effervescence of my passion, tell me that you love me.' "'Why?' said she; 'for what good purpose? You think me pretty. But you are a Frenchman, and your fancy will pass away. Ah! you would not love me as I should like to be loved.' "'How?' "'Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more, perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character. I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing more.' "'And not love you!' cried Sarrasine; 'but you are my life, my happiness, dear angel!' "'If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.' "'Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be damned for having kissed you but once----' "And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that passionate caress. "'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.' "'Suppose I were not a woman?' queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice. "'A merry jest!' cried Sarrasine. 'Think you that you can deceive an artist's eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined, devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek compliments!' "She smiled sadly, and murmured: "'Fatal beauty!' "She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that Sarrasine shuddered. "'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried, weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.' "The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice, La Zambinella's attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all the treasures of passion. Each word was a spur. At that moment, they arrived at Frascati. When the artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that she trembled from head to foot. "'What is the matter? You would kill me,' he cried, seeing that she turned pale, 'if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am, even innocently, the cause.' "'A snake!' she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the edge of a ditch. 'I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.' "Sarrasine crushed the snake's head with a blow of his foot. "'How could you dare to do it?' said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead reptile with visible terror. "'Aha!' said the artist, with a smile, 'would you venture to say now that you are not a woman?' "They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words, 'Those are brigands!' they all quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set his mistress down. "'Tell me,' he said, 'why it is that this extreme weakness which in another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest indication of it would be enough to destroy my love,--why is it that in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!' he continued. 'All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong, courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel's voice, that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other breast than thine.' "'I can give you no hope,' she said. 'Cease to speak thus to me, for people would make sport of you. It is impossible for me to shut the door of the theatre to you; but if you love me, or if you are wise, you will come there no more. Listen to me, monsieur,' she continued in a grave voice. "'Oh, hush!' said the excited artist. 'Obstacles inflame the love in my heart.' "La Zambinella maintained a graceful and modest attitude; but she held her peace, as if a terrible thought had suddenly revealed some catastrophe. When it was time to return to Rome she entered a berlin with four seats, bidding the sculptor, with a cruelly imperious air, to return alone in the phaeton. On the road, Sarrasine determined to carry off La Zambinella. He passed the whole day forming plans, each more extravagant than the last. At nightfall, as he was going out to inquire of somebody where his mistress lived, he met one of his fellow-artists at the door. "'My dear fellow,' he said, I am sent by our ambassador to invite you to come to the embassy this evening. He gives a magnificent concert, and when I tell you that La Zambinella will be there--' "'Zambinella!' cried Sarrasine, thrown into delirium by that name; 'I am mad with love of her.' "'You are like everybody else,' replied his comrade. "'But if you are friends of mine, you and Vien and Lauterbourg and Allegrain, you will lend me your assistance for a _coup de main_, after the entertainment, will you not?' asked Sarrasine. "'There's no cardinal to be killed? no--?' "'No, no!' said Sarrasine, 'I ask nothing of you that men of honor may not do.' "In a few moments the sculptor laid all his plans to assure the success of his enterprise. He was one of the last to arrive at the ambassador's, but he went thither in a traveling carriage drawn by four stout horses and driven by one of the most skilful _vetturini_ in Rome. The ambassador's palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment. "'It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and _abbes_ who are here,' said Sarrasine, 'that _she_ is dressed as a man, that _she_ has curly hair which _she_ wears in a bag, and that _she_ has a sword at her side?' "'She! what she?' rejoined the old nobleman whom Sarrasine addressed. "'La Zambinella.' "'La Zambinella!' echoed the Roman prince. 'Are you jesting? Whence have you come? Did a woman ever appear in a Roman theatre? And do you not know what sort of creatures play female parts within the domains of the Pope? It was I, monsieur, who endowed Zambinella with his voice. I paid all the knave's expenses, even his teacher in singing. And he has so little gratitude for the service I have done him that he has never been willing to step inside my house. And yet, if he makes his fortune, he will owe it all to me.' "Prince Chigi might have talked on forever, Sarrasine did not listen to him. A ghastly truth had found its way into his mind. He was stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his _protege's_ glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an _abbe_, who instantly disappeared. Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his beauty as much as to his voice. "'It's a woman,' said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear him. 'There's some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal Cicognara is hoodwinking the Pope and the whole city of Rome!' "The sculptor at once left the salon, assembled his friends, and lay in wait in the courtyard of the palace. When Zambinella was assured of Sarrasine's departure he seemed to recover his tranquillity in some measure. About midnight after wandering through the salons like a man looking for an enemy, the _musico_ left the party. As he passed through the palace gate he was seized by men who deftly gagged him with a handkerchief and placed him in the carriage hired by Sarrasine. Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one. Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella. "'Tell me the truth,' he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara----' "Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head. "'Ah! you are a woman!' cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a--' "He did not finish the sentence. "'No,' he continued, 'even _he_ could not be so utterly base.' "'Oh, do not kill me!' cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. 'I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.' "'Laugh!' echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. 'Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man's passion--you?' "'Oh, mercy!' cried Zambinella. "'I ought to kill you!' shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. 'But,' he continued, with cold disdain, 'if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--' "Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue. "'And that is a delusion!' he cried. "Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued: "'A woman's heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. _To love, to be loved!_ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.' "He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair. "'I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.' "Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor--two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears. "'An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!' "As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. "'From Cardinal Cicognara,' said one of the men. "'A benefaction worthy of a Christian,' retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last. "These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, "what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys'?" "Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella's statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet's _Endymion_; you yourself recognized the type in _Adonis_." "But this Zambinella, male or female--" "Must be, madame, Marianina's maternal great uncle. You can conceive now Madame de Lanty's interest in concealing the source of a fortune which comes--" "Enough!" said she, with an imperious gesture. We remained for a moment in the most profound silence. "Well?" I said at last. "Ah!" she cried, rising and pacing the floor. She came and looked me in the face, and said in an altered voice: "You have disgusted me with life and passion for a long time to come. Leaving monstrosities aside, are not all human sentiments dissolved thus, by ghastly disillusionment? Children torture mothers by their bad conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed. Mistresses are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there such a thing! I would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I can remain like the inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests of life. If the future of the Christian is an illusion too, at all events it is not destroyed until after death. Leave me to myself." "Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish." "Am I in the wrong?" "Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this story, which is well known in Italy, I can give you an excellent idea of the progress made by the civilization of the present day. There are none of those wretched creatures now." "Paris," said she, "is an exceedingly hospitable place; it welcomes one and all, fortunes stained with shame, and fortunes stained with blood. Crime and infamy have a right of asylum here; virtue alone is without altars. But pure hearts have a fatherland in heaven! No one will have known me! I am proud of it." And the marchioness was lost in thought. ADDENDUM The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Father Goriot Lanty, Comte de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Comtesse de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Marianina de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Filippo de The Member for Arcis Rochefide, Marquise de Beatrix The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve A Prince of Bohemia Sarrasine, Ernest-Jean The Member for Arcis Vien, Joseph-Marie The Member for Arcis Zambinella The Member for Arcis End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sarrasine, by Honore de Balzac *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARRASINE *** ***** This file should be named 1826.txt or 1826.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/1826/ Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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reptile

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you already so corrupt that, being old in heart, you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she trades?' "'Why, this is Friday,' she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman's violence. "Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon. When Sarrasine appeared, running after her, he was welcomed by a roar of infernal laughter. He saw La Zambinella swooning on a sofa. She was very pale, as if exhausted by the extraordinary effort she had made. Although Sarrasine knew but little Italian, he understood his mistress when she said to Vitagliani in a low voice: "'But he will kill me!' "This strange scene abashed the sculptor. His reason returned. He stood still for a moment; then he recovered his speech, sat down beside his mistress, and assured her of his profound respect. He found strength to hold his passion in check while talking to her in the most exalted strain; and, to describe his love, he displayed all the treasures of eloquence--that sorcerer, that friendly interpreter, whom women rarely refuse to believe. When the first rays of dawn surprised the boon companions, some woman suggested that they go to Frascati. One and all welcomed with loud applause the idea of passing the day at Villa Ludovisi. Vitagliani went down to hire carriages. Sarrasine had the good fortune to drive La Zambinella in a phaeton. When they had left Rome behind, the merriment of the party, repressed for a moment by the battle they had all been fighting against drowsiness, suddenly awoke. All, men and women alike, seemed accustomed to that strange life, that constant round of pleasures, that artistic energy, which makes of life one never ending _fete_, where laughter reigns, unchecked by fear of the future. The sculptor's companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits. "'Are you ill?' Sarrasine asked her. 'Would you prefer to go home?' "'I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,' she replied. 'I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.' "'You are so delicate!' rejoined Sarrasine, gazing in rapture at the charming creature's dainty features. "'Dissipation ruins my voice.' "'Now that we are alone,' cried the artist, 'and that you no longer have reason to fear the effervescence of my passion, tell me that you love me.' "'Why?' said she; 'for what good purpose? You think me pretty. But you are a Frenchman, and your fancy will pass away. Ah! you would not love me as I should like to be loved.' "'How?' "'Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more, perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character. I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing more.' "'And not love you!' cried Sarrasine; 'but you are my life, my happiness, dear angel!' "'If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.' "'Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be damned for having kissed you but once----' "And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that passionate caress. "'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.' "'Suppose I were not a woman?' queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice. "'A merry jest!' cried Sarrasine. 'Think you that you can deceive an artist's eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined, devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek compliments!' "She smiled sadly, and murmured: "'Fatal beauty!' "She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that Sarrasine shuddered. "'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried, weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.' "The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice, La Zambinella's attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all the treasures of passion. Each word was a spur. At that moment, they arrived at Frascati. When the artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that she trembled from head to foot. "'What is the matter? You would kill me,' he cried, seeing that she turned pale, 'if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am, even innocently, the cause.' "'A snake!' she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the edge of a ditch. 'I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.' "Sarrasine crushed the snake's head with a blow of his foot. "'How could you dare to do it?' said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead reptile with visible terror. "'Aha!' said the artist, with a smile, 'would you venture to say now that you are not a woman?' "They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words, 'Those are brigands!' they all quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set his mistress down. "'Tell me,' he said, 'why it is that this extreme weakness which in another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest indication of it would be enough to destroy my love,--why is it that in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!' he continued. 'All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong, courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel's voice, that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other breast than thine.' "'I can give you no hope,' she said. 'Cease to speak thus to me, for people would make sport of you. It is impossible for me to shut the door of the theatre to you; but if you love me, or if you are wise, you will come there no more. Listen to me, monsieur,' she continued in a grave voice. "'Oh, hush!' said the excited artist. 'Obstacles inflame the love in my heart.' "La Zambinella maintained a graceful and modest attitude; but she held her peace, as if a terrible thought had suddenly revealed some catastrophe. When it was time to return to Rome she entered a berlin with four seats, bidding the sculptor, with a cruelly imperious air, to return alone in the phaeton. On the road, Sarrasine determined to carry off La Zambinella. He passed the whole day forming plans, each more extravagant than the last. At nightfall, as he was going out to inquire of somebody where his mistress lived, he met one of his fellow-artists at the door. "'My dear fellow,' he said, I am sent by our ambassador to invite you to come to the embassy this evening. He gives a magnificent concert, and when I tell you that La Zambinella will be there--' "'Zambinella!' cried Sarrasine, thrown into delirium by that name; 'I am mad with love of her.' "'You are like everybody else,' replied his comrade. "'But if you are friends of mine, you and Vien and Lauterbourg and Allegrain, you will lend me your assistance for a _coup de main_, after the entertainment, will you not?' asked Sarrasine. "'There's no cardinal to be killed? no--?' "'No, no!' said Sarrasine, 'I ask nothing of you that men of honor may not do.' "In a few moments the sculptor laid all his plans to assure the success of his enterprise. He was one of the last to arrive at the ambassador's, but he went thither in a traveling carriage drawn by four stout horses and driven by one of the most skilful _vetturini_ in Rome. The ambassador's palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment. "'It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and _abbes_ who are here,' said Sarrasine, 'that _she_ is dressed as a man, that _she_ has curly hair which _she_ wears in a bag, and that _she_ has a sword at her side?' "'She! what she?' rejoined the old nobleman whom Sarrasine addressed. "'La Zambinella.' "'La Zambinella!' echoed the Roman prince. 'Are you jesting? Whence have you come? Did a woman ever appear in a Roman theatre? And do you not know what sort of creatures play female parts within the domains of the Pope? It was I, monsieur, who endowed Zambinella with his voice. I paid all the knave's expenses, even his teacher in singing. And he has so little gratitude for the service I have done him that he has never been willing to step inside my house. And yet, if he makes his fortune, he will owe it all to me.' "Prince Chigi might have talked on forever, Sarrasine did not listen to him. A ghastly truth had found its way into his mind. He was stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his _protege's_ glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an _abbe_, who instantly disappeared. Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his beauty as much as to his voice. "'It's a woman,' said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear him. 'There's some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal Cicognara is hoodwinking the Pope and the whole city of Rome!' "The sculptor at once left the salon, assembled his friends, and lay in wait in the courtyard of the palace. When Zambinella was assured of Sarrasine's departure he seemed to recover his tranquillity in some measure. About midnight after wandering through the salons like a man looking for an enemy, the _musico_ left the party. As he passed through the palace gate he was seized by men who deftly gagged him with a handkerchief and placed him in the carriage hired by Sarrasine. Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one. Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella. "'Tell me the truth,' he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara----' "Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head. "'Ah! you are a woman!' cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a--' "He did not finish the sentence. "'No,' he continued, 'even _he_ could not be so utterly base.' "'Oh, do not kill me!' cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. 'I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.' "'Laugh!' echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. 'Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man's passion--you?' "'Oh, mercy!' cried Zambinella. "'I ought to kill you!' shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. 'But,' he continued, with cold disdain, 'if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--' "Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue. "'And that is a delusion!' he cried. "Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued: "'A woman's heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. _To love, to be loved!_ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.' "He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair. "'I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.' "Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor--two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears. "'An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!' "As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. "'From Cardinal Cicognara,' said one of the men. "'A benefaction worthy of a Christian,' retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last. "These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, "what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys'?" "Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella's statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet's _Endymion_; you yourself recognized the type in _Adonis_." "But this Zambinella, male or female--" "Must be, madame, Marianina's maternal great uncle. You can conceive now Madame de Lanty's interest in concealing the source of a fortune which comes--" "Enough!" said she, with an imperious gesture. We remained for a moment in the most profound silence. "Well?" I said at last. "Ah!" she cried, rising and pacing the floor. She came and looked me in the face, and said in an altered voice: "You have disgusted me with life and passion for a long time to come. Leaving monstrosities aside, are not all human sentiments dissolved thus, by ghastly disillusionment? Children torture mothers by their bad conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed. Mistresses are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there such a thing! I would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I can remain like the inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests of life. If the future of the Christian is an illusion too, at all events it is not destroyed until after death. Leave me to myself." "Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish." "Am I in the wrong?" "Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this story, which is well known in Italy, I can give you an excellent idea of the progress made by the civilization of the present day. There are none of those wretched creatures now." "Paris," said she, "is an exceedingly hospitable place; it welcomes one and all, fortunes stained with shame, and fortunes stained with blood. Crime and infamy have a right of asylum here; virtue alone is without altars. But pure hearts have a fatherland in heaven! No one will have known me! I am proud of it." And the marchioness was lost in thought. ADDENDUM The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Father Goriot Lanty, Comte de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Comtesse de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Marianina de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Filippo de The Member for Arcis Rochefide, Marquise de Beatrix The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve A Prince of Bohemia Sarrasine, Ernest-Jean The Member for Arcis Vien, Joseph-Marie The Member for Arcis Zambinella The Member for Arcis End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sarrasine, by Honore de Balzac *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARRASINE *** ***** This file should be named 1826.txt or 1826.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/1826/ Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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friends

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

you already so corrupt that, being old in heart, you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she trades?' "'Why, this is Friday,' she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman's violence. "Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon. When Sarrasine appeared, running after her, he was welcomed by a roar of infernal laughter. He saw La Zambinella swooning on a sofa. She was very pale, as if exhausted by the extraordinary effort she had made. Although Sarrasine knew but little Italian, he understood his mistress when she said to Vitagliani in a low voice: "'But he will kill me!' "This strange scene abashed the sculptor. His reason returned. He stood still for a moment; then he recovered his speech, sat down beside his mistress, and assured her of his profound respect. He found strength to hold his passion in check while talking to her in the most exalted strain; and, to describe his love, he displayed all the treasures of eloquence--that sorcerer, that friendly interpreter, whom women rarely refuse to believe. When the first rays of dawn surprised the boon companions, some woman suggested that they go to Frascati. One and all welcomed with loud applause the idea of passing the day at Villa Ludovisi. Vitagliani went down to hire carriages. Sarrasine had the good fortune to drive La Zambinella in a phaeton. When they had left Rome behind, the merriment of the party, repressed for a moment by the battle they had all been fighting against drowsiness, suddenly awoke. All, men and women alike, seemed accustomed to that strange life, that constant round of pleasures, that artistic energy, which makes of life one never ending _fete_, where laughter reigns, unchecked by fear of the future. The sculptor's companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits. "'Are you ill?' Sarrasine asked her. 'Would you prefer to go home?' "'I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,' she replied. 'I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.' "'You are so delicate!' rejoined Sarrasine, gazing in rapture at the charming creature's dainty features. "'Dissipation ruins my voice.' "'Now that we are alone,' cried the artist, 'and that you no longer have reason to fear the effervescence of my passion, tell me that you love me.' "'Why?' said she; 'for what good purpose? You think me pretty. But you are a Frenchman, and your fancy will pass away. Ah! you would not love me as I should like to be loved.' "'How?' "'Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more, perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character. I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing more.' "'And not love you!' cried Sarrasine; 'but you are my life, my happiness, dear angel!' "'If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.' "'Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be damned for having kissed you but once----' "And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that passionate caress. "'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.' "'Suppose I were not a woman?' queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice. "'A merry jest!' cried Sarrasine. 'Think you that you can deceive an artist's eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined, devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek compliments!' "She smiled sadly, and murmured: "'Fatal beauty!' "She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that Sarrasine shuddered. "'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried, weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.' "The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice, La Zambinella's attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all the treasures of passion. Each word was a spur. At that moment, they arrived at Frascati. When the artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that she trembled from head to foot. "'What is the matter? You would kill me,' he cried, seeing that she turned pale, 'if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am, even innocently, the cause.' "'A snake!' she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the edge of a ditch. 'I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.' "Sarrasine crushed the snake's head with a blow of his foot. "'How could you dare to do it?' said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead reptile with visible terror. "'Aha!' said the artist, with a smile, 'would you venture to say now that you are not a woman?' "They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words, 'Those are brigands!' they all quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set his mistress down. "'Tell me,' he said, 'why it is that this extreme weakness which in another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest indication of it would be enough to destroy my love,--why is it that in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!' he continued. 'All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong, courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel's voice, that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other breast than thine.' "'I can give you no hope,' she said. 'Cease to speak thus to me, for people would make sport of you. It is impossible for me to shut the door of the theatre to you; but if you love me, or if you are wise, you will come there no more. Listen to me, monsieur,' she continued in a grave voice. "'Oh, hush!' said the excited artist. 'Obstacles inflame the love in my heart.' "La Zambinella maintained a graceful and modest attitude; but she held her peace, as if a terrible thought had suddenly revealed some catastrophe. When it was time to return to Rome she entered a berlin with four seats, bidding the sculptor, with a cruelly imperious air, to return alone in the phaeton. On the road, Sarrasine determined to carry off La Zambinella. He passed the whole day forming plans, each more extravagant than the last. At nightfall, as he was going out to inquire of somebody where his mistress lived, he met one of his fellow-artists at the door. "'My dear fellow,' he said, I am sent by our ambassador to invite you to come to the embassy this evening. He gives a magnificent concert, and when I tell you that La Zambinella will be there--' "'Zambinella!' cried Sarrasine, thrown into delirium by that name; 'I am mad with love of her.' "'You are like everybody else,' replied his comrade. "'But if you are friends of mine, you and Vien and Lauterbourg and Allegrain, you will lend me your assistance for a _coup de main_, after the entertainment, will you not?' asked Sarrasine. "'There's no cardinal to be killed? no--?' "'No, no!' said Sarrasine, 'I ask nothing of you that men of honor may not do.' "In a few moments the sculptor laid all his plans to assure the success of his enterprise. He was one of the last to arrive at the ambassador's, but he went thither in a traveling carriage drawn by four stout horses and driven by one of the most skilful _vetturini_ in Rome. The ambassador's palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment. "'It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and _abbes_ who are here,' said Sarrasine, 'that _she_ is dressed as a man, that _she_ has curly hair which _she_ wears in a bag, and that _she_ has a sword at her side?' "'She! what she?' rejoined the old nobleman whom Sarrasine addressed. "'La Zambinella.' "'La Zambinella!' echoed the Roman prince. 'Are you jesting? Whence have you come? Did a woman ever appear in a Roman theatre? And do you not know what sort of creatures play female parts within the domains of the Pope? It was I, monsieur, who endowed Zambinella with his voice. I paid all the knave's expenses, even his teacher in singing. And he has so little gratitude for the service I have done him that he has never been willing to step inside my house. And yet, if he makes his fortune, he will owe it all to me.' "Prince Chigi might have talked on forever, Sarrasine did not listen to him. A ghastly truth had found its way into his mind. He was stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his _protege's_ glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an _abbe_, who instantly disappeared. Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his beauty as much as to his voice. "'It's a woman,' said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear him. 'There's some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal Cicognara is hoodwinking the Pope and the whole city of Rome!' "The sculptor at once left the salon, assembled his friends, and lay in wait in the courtyard of the palace. When Zambinella was assured of Sarrasine's departure he seemed to recover his tranquillity in some measure. About midnight after wandering through the salons like a man looking for an enemy, the _musico_ left the party. As he passed through the palace gate he was seized by men who deftly gagged him with a handkerchief and placed him in the carriage hired by Sarrasine. Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one. Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella. "'Tell me the truth,' he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara----' "Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head. "'Ah! you are a woman!' cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a--' "He did not finish the sentence. "'No,' he continued, 'even _he_ could not be so utterly base.' "'Oh, do not kill me!' cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. 'I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.' "'Laugh!' echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. 'Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man's passion--you?' "'Oh, mercy!' cried Zambinella. "'I ought to kill you!' shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. 'But,' he continued, with cold disdain, 'if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--' "Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue. "'And that is a delusion!' he cried. "Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued: "'A woman's heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. _To love, to be loved!_ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.' "He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair. "'I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.' "Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor--two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears. "'An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!' "As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. "'From Cardinal Cicognara,' said one of the men. "'A benefaction worthy of a Christian,' retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last. "These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, "what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys'?" "Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella's statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet's _Endymion_; you yourself recognized the type in _Adonis_." "But this Zambinella, male or female--" "Must be, madame, Marianina's maternal great uncle. You can conceive now Madame de Lanty's interest in concealing the source of a fortune which comes--" "Enough!" said she, with an imperious gesture. We remained for a moment in the most profound silence. "Well?" I said at last. "Ah!" she cried, rising and pacing the floor. She came and looked me in the face, and said in an altered voice: "You have disgusted me with life and passion for a long time to come. Leaving monstrosities aside, are not all human sentiments dissolved thus, by ghastly disillusionment? Children torture mothers by their bad conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed. Mistresses are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there such a thing! I would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I can remain like the inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests of life. If the future of the Christian is an illusion too, at all events it is not destroyed until after death. Leave me to myself." "Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish." "Am I in the wrong?" "Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this story, which is well known in Italy, I can give you an excellent idea of the progress made by the civilization of the present day. There are none of those wretched creatures now." "Paris," said she, "is an exceedingly hospitable place; it welcomes one and all, fortunes stained with shame, and fortunes stained with blood. Crime and infamy have a right of asylum here; virtue alone is without altars. But pure hearts have a fatherland in heaven! No one will have known me! I am proud of it." And the marchioness was lost in thought. ADDENDUM The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Father Goriot Lanty, Comte de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Comtesse de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Marianina de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Filippo de The Member for Arcis Rochefide, Marquise de Beatrix The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve A Prince of Bohemia Sarrasine, Ernest-Jean The Member for Arcis Vien, Joseph-Marie The Member for Arcis Zambinella The Member for Arcis End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sarrasine, by Honore de Balzac *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARRASINE *** ***** This file should be named 1826.txt or 1826.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/1826/ Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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you already so corrupt that, being old in heart, you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she trades?' "'Why, this is Friday,' she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman's violence. "Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon. When Sarrasine appeared, running after her, he was welcomed by a roar of infernal laughter. He saw La Zambinella swooning on a sofa. She was very pale, as if exhausted by the extraordinary effort she had made. Although Sarrasine knew but little Italian, he understood his mistress when she said to Vitagliani in a low voice: "'But he will kill me!' "This strange scene abashed the sculptor. His reason returned. He stood still for a moment; then he recovered his speech, sat down beside his mistress, and assured her of his profound respect. He found strength to hold his passion in check while talking to her in the most exalted strain; and, to describe his love, he displayed all the treasures of eloquence--that sorcerer, that friendly interpreter, whom women rarely refuse to believe. When the first rays of dawn surprised the boon companions, some woman suggested that they go to Frascati. One and all welcomed with loud applause the idea of passing the day at Villa Ludovisi. Vitagliani went down to hire carriages. Sarrasine had the good fortune to drive La Zambinella in a phaeton. When they had left Rome behind, the merriment of the party, repressed for a moment by the battle they had all been fighting against drowsiness, suddenly awoke. All, men and women alike, seemed accustomed to that strange life, that constant round of pleasures, that artistic energy, which makes of life one never ending _fete_, where laughter reigns, unchecked by fear of the future. The sculptor's companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits. "'Are you ill?' Sarrasine asked her. 'Would you prefer to go home?' "'I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,' she replied. 'I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.' "'You are so delicate!' rejoined Sarrasine, gazing in rapture at the charming creature's dainty features. "'Dissipation ruins my voice.' "'Now that we are alone,' cried the artist, 'and that you no longer have reason to fear the effervescence of my passion, tell me that you love me.' "'Why?' said she; 'for what good purpose? You think me pretty. But you are a Frenchman, and your fancy will pass away. Ah! you would not love me as I should like to be loved.' "'How?' "'Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more, perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character. I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing more.' "'And not love you!' cried Sarrasine; 'but you are my life, my happiness, dear angel!' "'If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.' "'Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be damned for having kissed you but once----' "And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that passionate caress. "'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.' "'Suppose I were not a woman?' queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice. "'A merry jest!' cried Sarrasine. 'Think you that you can deceive an artist's eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined, devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek compliments!' "She smiled sadly, and murmured: "'Fatal beauty!' "She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that Sarrasine shuddered. "'Signor Frenchman,' she continued, 'forget forever a moment's madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried, weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.' "The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice, La Zambinella's attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all the treasures of passion. Each word was a spur. At that moment, they arrived at Frascati. When the artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that she trembled from head to foot. "'What is the matter? You would kill me,' he cried, seeing that she turned pale, 'if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am, even innocently, the cause.' "'A snake!' she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the edge of a ditch. 'I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.' "Sarrasine crushed the snake's head with a blow of his foot. "'How could you dare to do it?' said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead reptile with visible terror. "'Aha!' said the artist, with a smile, 'would you venture to say now that you are not a woman?' "They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words, 'Those are brigands!' they all quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set his mistress down. "'Tell me,' he said, 'why it is that this extreme weakness which in another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest indication of it would be enough to destroy my love,--why is it that in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!' he continued. 'All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong, courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel's voice, that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other breast than thine.' "'I can give you no hope,' she said. 'Cease to speak thus to me, for people would make sport of you. It is impossible for me to shut the door of the theatre to you; but if you love me, or if you are wise, you will come there no more. Listen to me, monsieur,' she continued in a grave voice. "'Oh, hush!' said the excited artist. 'Obstacles inflame the love in my heart.' "La Zambinella maintained a graceful and modest attitude; but she held her peace, as if a terrible thought had suddenly revealed some catastrophe. When it was time to return to Rome she entered a berlin with four seats, bidding the sculptor, with a cruelly imperious air, to return alone in the phaeton. On the road, Sarrasine determined to carry off La Zambinella. He passed the whole day forming plans, each more extravagant than the last. At nightfall, as he was going out to inquire of somebody where his mistress lived, he met one of his fellow-artists at the door. "'My dear fellow,' he said, I am sent by our ambassador to invite you to come to the embassy this evening. He gives a magnificent concert, and when I tell you that La Zambinella will be there--' "'Zambinella!' cried Sarrasine, thrown into delirium by that name; 'I am mad with love of her.' "'You are like everybody else,' replied his comrade. "'But if you are friends of mine, you and Vien and Lauterbourg and Allegrain, you will lend me your assistance for a _coup de main_, after the entertainment, will you not?' asked Sarrasine. "'There's no cardinal to be killed? no--?' "'No, no!' said Sarrasine, 'I ask nothing of you that men of honor may not do.' "In a few moments the sculptor laid all his plans to assure the success of his enterprise. He was one of the last to arrive at the ambassador's, but he went thither in a traveling carriage drawn by four stout horses and driven by one of the most skilful _vetturini_ in Rome. The ambassador's palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment. "'It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and _abbes_ who are here,' said Sarrasine, 'that _she_ is dressed as a man, that _she_ has curly hair which _she_ wears in a bag, and that _she_ has a sword at her side?' "'She! what she?' rejoined the old nobleman whom Sarrasine addressed. "'La Zambinella.' "'La Zambinella!' echoed the Roman prince. 'Are you jesting? Whence have you come? Did a woman ever appear in a Roman theatre? And do you not know what sort of creatures play female parts within the domains of the Pope? It was I, monsieur, who endowed Zambinella with his voice. I paid all the knave's expenses, even his teacher in singing. And he has so little gratitude for the service I have done him that he has never been willing to step inside my house. And yet, if he makes his fortune, he will owe it all to me.' "Prince Chigi might have talked on forever, Sarrasine did not listen to him. A ghastly truth had found its way into his mind. He was stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his _protege's_ glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an _abbe_, who instantly disappeared. Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his beauty as much as to his voice. "'It's a woman,' said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear him. 'There's some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal Cicognara is hoodwinking the Pope and the whole city of Rome!' "The sculptor at once left the salon, assembled his friends, and lay in wait in the courtyard of the palace. When Zambinella was assured of Sarrasine's departure he seemed to recover his tranquillity in some measure. About midnight after wandering through the salons like a man looking for an enemy, the _musico_ left the party. As he passed through the palace gate he was seized by men who deftly gagged him with a handkerchief and placed him in the carriage hired by Sarrasine. Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one. Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella. "'Tell me the truth,' he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara----' "Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head. "'Ah! you are a woman!' cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a--' "He did not finish the sentence. "'No,' he continued, 'even _he_ could not be so utterly base.' "'Oh, do not kill me!' cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. 'I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.' "'Laugh!' echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. 'Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man's passion--you?' "'Oh, mercy!' cried Zambinella. "'I ought to kill you!' shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. 'But,' he continued, with cold disdain, 'if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--' "Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue. "'And that is a delusion!' he cried. "Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued: "'A woman's heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. _To love, to be loved!_ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.' "He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair. "'I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.' "Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor--two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears. "'An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!' "As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. "'From Cardinal Cicognara,' said one of the men. "'A benefaction worthy of a Christian,' retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last. "These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, "what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys'?" "Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella's statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet's _Endymion_; you yourself recognized the type in _Adonis_." "But this Zambinella, male or female--" "Must be, madame, Marianina's maternal great uncle. You can conceive now Madame de Lanty's interest in concealing the source of a fortune which comes--" "Enough!" said she, with an imperious gesture. We remained for a moment in the most profound silence. "Well?" I said at last. "Ah!" she cried, rising and pacing the floor. She came and looked me in the face, and said in an altered voice: "You have disgusted me with life and passion for a long time to come. Leaving monstrosities aside, are not all human sentiments dissolved thus, by ghastly disillusionment? Children torture mothers by their bad conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed. Mistresses are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there such a thing! I would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I can remain like the inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests of life. If the future of the Christian is an illusion too, at all events it is not destroyed until after death. Leave me to myself." "Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish." "Am I in the wrong?" "Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this story, which is well known in Italy, I can give you an excellent idea of the progress made by the civilization of the present day. There are none of those wretched creatures now." "Paris," said she, "is an exceedingly hospitable place; it welcomes one and all, fortunes stained with shame, and fortunes stained with blood. Crime and infamy have a right of asylum here; virtue alone is without altars. But pure hearts have a fatherland in heaven! No one will have known me! I am proud of it." And the marchioness was lost in thought. ADDENDUM The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Father Goriot Lanty, Comte de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Comtesse de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Marianina de The Member for Arcis Lanty, Filippo de The Member for Arcis Rochefide, Marquise de Beatrix The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve A Prince of Bohemia Sarrasine, Ernest-Jean The Member for Arcis Vien, Joseph-Marie The Member for Arcis Zambinella The Member for Arcis End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sarrasine, by Honore de Balzac *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARRASINE *** ***** This file should be named 1826.txt or 1826.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/1826/ Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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