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for her to answer. Taking bold advantage of her silence, the master turns to Elspeth, and bids her run down to the cellar for a bottle of Johannisburg. "Or, indeed, it were best that I see to its transport myself," he remarks, as the servingmaiden, with open mouth and eyes, stares imploringly at her mistress for orders. 'Mamselle Ange, I fear that you must intrust me with the cellar-keys. One would tremble for the fate of our Johannisburg if 'twere left to the tender mercies of Hans or Elspeth."

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And, ere Ange can recover her faculties sufficiently to contest the point, he is gone, Elspeth following-peony-red at having public attention centered on her, and with the kites' wings of her Sontagschleife seeming to stiffen and blacken as she walks.

"You are better off for visitors than I expected," observes Miss Vivash, condescending, for the first time since she entered Schloss Egmont, to address herself directly to Jeanne. "Mr. Wolfgang is a neighbor, you say?"

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"Mr. Wolfgang is Jeanne's master," cries Mamselle Ange. A painstaking creature and most moderate in his terms, whatever one may think of his manners. Considering that the child only began with him eight weeks ago, her progress is remarkable—indeed, for my part, I think they go too far. Girls shone in society, yes, and settled respectably in life, without Latin or Euclid, or Shakespeare readings, when I was young. But, you see, when little Jeanne takes one of her fancies, she can learn as quick as she likes. I have been grounding her, myself, in the Polite Branches since she was three years old; and still, until Mr. Wolfgang appeared-"

"Ah! little Jeanne took one of her fancies to Mr. Wolfgang, doubtless?" interrupts Vivian, with her slow smile, in her tone of suppressed banter.

"Mr. Wolfgang has made her work, at all events; I don't know in what the fascination lies," says our good Ange simply, "but there is certainly something about the man that forces you into obeying him. To begin at the beginning: I know no more of Mr. Wolfgang than I know of Adam, and had no idea of getting Jeanne a master (though Count Paul has always been most generous as regards her education), when, one fine evening, he appeared—”

"Mamselle Ange!" interrupts the girl, crimsoning with shame. "The history concerns ourselves only. You engaged Mr. Wolfgang as a teacher; he has fulfilled his engagement punctually. That is enough."

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"You know no more of the fascinating Wolfgang than you know of Adam, although Count Paul had been most generous as regards Jeanne's education, when he appeared."

"Yes, our first parent appeared," echoes Sir Christopher, in his thin, solemn voice. "The situation is worthy of Milton."

"It was toward evening, I know," says Ange, unconscious that she ministers, in her garrulity, to her guests' diversion and to Jeanne's torture. "I had been trying to settle up the haymakers' wages with Hans (the lad is as honest a German as breathed, but, take it which way one will, I can never come nearer him than a mark and some pfennigs in an addition sum) when Elspeth brought in a card: 'Wolfgang. English teacher, from Freiburg.' And before I could say yes or no as to whether I would see the man, he had followed her in. A poor student of good birth'; all your reduced people tell the same story; 'would teach English, mathematics, classics,' Heaven knows what besides, on the lowest terms, and sought my patronage—my patronage!—as a stepping-stone to the noble families of the neighborhood—"

"And you bestowed upon me the best of all patronage," cries Wolfgang, who, unseen by Ange, has at this moment reëntered the room. “You gave me Fräulein Jeanne for a pupil. Now for our Johannisburg." He is tenderly supporting a cobwebbed, wicker-swathed bottle on his arm. "We will see if the jade Rumor speaks true as to the contents of the Schloss Egmont wine-bins."

CHAPTER VI.

AT TWICKENHAM.

WITH a sense of relief so intense as to border on pain, Jeanne Dempster escapes, at length, into the cool, green quiet of the gardens.

Sky, earth, and air seem to greet her with a friendlier welcome than their wont. She can hear the mill-stream rushing downward from the Blauen Mountains, the tinkle of the distant cattle-bells; can hear the wild doves cooing themselves to rest among the forests. Away to the right, above a stretch of purple vineyard, she can discern the point of road where the other night, as on many a night before, she watched the master's figure disappearing in the starlight. The dim-kissed flower-borders smell sweet; already a rim of young moon shines, silver white, upon the lustrous heaven. Jeanne's new lesson-book, Heine's "Love-Songs," is in her hand. She opens it at hazard—say, rather, under the master's guidance, for a strip of paper marks a certain page:

"Maiden with the lips so rosy,

With the eyes so softly bright,
Sweetest maiden, I keep thinking,

Thinking of you day and night."

It seems to the girl that Wolfgang's voice reads aloud, first in German, then in extemporized doggerel English, as is his custom. She forgets her country-made dress, her coral beads, forgets the burning sense of shame in her own existence that, helped by Vivian's eyes, has tortured her during the mortal hour and a half of dinner. Another strip of paper guides her a page or two further on:

"The flowers, they prattle and whisper,
With pity my lips they scan.
Oh, be not unkind to our sister,

Thou pale-faced, woe-worn man!" Jeanne Dempster reads the lines under her breath with a sense of pleasure such as no verse of poetry has ever yielded her before. Not heeding which path she takes, she makes her way loiteringly to the western terrace, pauses beneath the shadow of a thickly trellised arch of roses, and finds—a pair of arms outheld, ready to receive her.

"Mr. Wolfgang-sir!" she exclaims, starting back hurriedly from the threatened embrace.

The master takes possession of her hands. He bends down, and, with the air of one who well knows the language he is reading, peruses her face.

"Have you been busy during my absence as I desired, little Jeanne? Have you 'prepared plenty of Latin and Euclid for my return?”

"I have been busy among polishing-brushes, cobwebs, and beeswax," answers Jeanne demurely. "I have been working every moment of my time for Count Paul, not for you."

"For Count Paul, not for me! Well" (with a movement of impatience), “what else should I expect? As well accustom myself, beforehand, to the inevitable! You feel rewarded already, I hope. Paul von Egmont's English guests come up to your expectations? You are charmed with London millinery, London wit, London beauty?"

Jeanne is mute; and Wolfgang, after a few moments' silent study of her face, repeats his question.

"To value millinery or wit aright one would need higher education than mine, sir." And now, with a sudden effort, the girl breaks free; she turns her head away from her companion. "Beauty speaks for itself. One needs no teaching to appreciate it."

"And Miss Vivash is exquisitely handsome, ausgezeichnet schön," remarks Wolfgang, lapsing, as he always does when a subject moves him strongly, into German. "And gracious,

condescending as she is handsome. The smile of a goddess, a throat of marble, a foreheadFräulein Jeanne" (coming back, with a visible effort, from poetry to prose), "we are losing the light, such remnant of light as there is. Let us set to work at once."

"I have no work ready," she answers him shortly. "I have had other things to attend to than Latin and Euclid, and the loss of one evening can not matter to any one."

"You think so?" returns Wolfgang, taking "When you her "lesson-book" from her hand. are a few years older you will know how much the loss of one evening, of one minute, can matter under certain circumstances. As you have neglected more important studies, we can, at least, go through some German reading. Heine, as we have him here, will serve as an exercise."

He returns her the volume, opened at a fresh page-the "Ballad of Lurlei."

"I know not what trouble haunts me,'" repeats Wolfgang, looking over his pupil's shoulder. "Ah! here we have something that will do for us. Here we have a gem in simplest setting -a cameo in printing-ink. Turn your face to me-so, and give every word its due accent. When you have read the poem through, aloud, we can parse it."

And with this the lesson begins: Heine's passionate verse read falteringly in the pulsestirring gloaming, by a girl of seventeen, her heart already feverish with the first throbs of jealousy, and under the tutorship of the man she loves!

"I know not what thoughts oppress me,
And make me eerie and low,

A legend troubles and haunts me—
A legend of long ago!"

"I know not what thoughts oppress me," repeats Wolfgang, when Jeanne has stumbled through her parsing. "Grammar is not your strong point, mein Fräulein. Your nominatives and accusatives are shaky, your views as to subject and object reprehensible. But you know how to read poetry. Learn as much of Heine as you choose by heart for your next lesson, and-"

There comes the sound of a drawling voice, the crunch of steps is heard upon the gravel, and Lady Pamela and Vivian, arm-in-arm, approach slowly along the terrace.

Lady Pamela is habited in her favorite colors, red picked out with white, like a Queen Anne's mansion. Beauty's dress is of opal silk, tightfitting as wax, shining, undulating, with every movement of her supple limbs. Miss Vivash wears an emerald bracelet-that has a historyon her left wrist; an emerald star-that has also

a history-in her classically sleek, ebon hair. The abundant outlines of her shoulders and throat stand out clear against the milky sky. The tender twilight refines the over-large lips, supplies a passing softness to the pale, cold eyes. It is one of the Hyde Park goddess's handsomest moments.

"How quite too delightful this is, Pamela! Such freshness, such purity, after our four months of London fever." She sees Wolfgang and his companion at a glance, and resolves, with the slakeless thirst for conquest that is in her, to pose on the instant, for the master's benefit. 'Where can our good little Jeanne have vanished? Not a bad sort of child, truly, putting looks aside, and considering her plebeian surroundings."

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"Plebeian surroundings-when she has the Herr Wolfgang for a master!" suggests Lady Pamela, with malice. (Is the feeling between Beauty and her chaperon one of hatred or of love? Are they friends or foes? I, who write, can not answer that question. That they stand toward each other in the relative amity of clever whist-partners; know when to lead through strong suits, or up to weak ones; when to throw away a card, finesse, call for trumps, or, if need be, revoke, is incontestable.) "I thought you considered him—”

"I consider that Mr. Wolfgang belongs to the aristocracy of intellect," remarks Beauty, with effusion. She has a little useful stock of such platitudes ever at command. "He has that look of strength one does so adore in a man about the forehead, and a manner that only wants the polish of high society to be charming."

At this point Wolfgang steps briskly forward out of the shadow. There is a kind of suppressed impatience in the movement, thinks Jeanne with a beating heart; yet that his vanity is pleasantly stimulated who shall doubt? Can flattery from lips carved on such a model as Vivian's fail of tasting sweet, whether the dose be administered intentionally or by hazard?

"Mr. Wolfgang! How you made me jump!" cries the chaperon. "I am so ridiculously nervous, such a martyr to timidity!" Lady Pamela Lawless rides as straight to hounds as any man in the shires, and during the present season went to a fancy-ball in the character of a hussar, spurs, boots, and all." Ah, you here, Miss Dempster? Suppose you lionize me a little about the premises? Miss Vivash is-Miss Vivash is fatigued after her journey, and will wait for us awhile on the terrace-I have no doubt, under Mr. Wolfgang's care."

Saying which, Lady Pamela puts her hand under Jeanne's arm; then, with good-humored force, leads the girl away into a side-path, leav

ing Beauty in the possession of the field, and of Wolfgang.

"And pray what were you doing, Fräulein Innocence," she remarks, the moment they are out of ear-shot-"you and your good-looking Herr Tutor-alone in the dark?"

"I was taking my lesson, madame," stammers Jeanne guiltily. "Only, as we did not expect my master till to-morrow, I had prepared no mathematics or Latin grammar, and so—” 'And so?"

"

"Mr. Wolfgang turned it into a reading-lesson. I had just finished Heine's 'Ballad of Lurlei' as you passed along."

"Mathematics-Latin-Heine! It strikes me forcibly, child, in spite of your modest airs, that you are a prodigy."

"It strikes me that you like to laugh at me, madame!-you and Miss Vivash, with your London ideas, London education-"

"Education!" interrupts Lady Pamela briskly. "Listen to my autobiography, little Jeanne, told in a dozen words, and be wise. I come of poor but not over-respectable parents, my dear, both of whom left this wicked world before I had well entered it, and, being an exceedingly hideous child, and portionless, was early trained by the relatives who had to support me in the way wherein I should go. 'Providence has been pleased to weight you heavily, Pamela,' Lord Vauxhall used to say, looking plaintively at my ugly face (Lord Vauxhall is my maternal grandpapa; he broke his first wife's heart, has shut up the second in an asylum, and takes off his hat with the best grace of any man in Europe). 'But we have the evidence of history to show that Providence may occasionally be outwitted. Miss Rebecca Sharp had green eyes and thin arms, yet she got on, all things considered, better than her fair but virtuous friend Amelia. For Miss Sharp, as you will do well to bear in mind, educated herself on principle.'

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With the spirit of generous emulation thus awakened," continues Lady Pamela, “I also educated myself on principle. My grandpapa in those days held a little back-stair appointment pertaining to royalty, and used to enliven his fireside with the newest court scandals and whispers of the clubs. This enlarged and strengthened my youthful mind. One of my uncles, until ruin and an Ostend lodging overtook him, affected jockeydom, and would give me a mount whenever any abnormally vicious three-year-old had to be broken to the habit. This set up my figure. For my beau-idéal in literature I had the wickedest of the weeklies, and Zola's novels; for my beauidéal in art, the exquisite face enameling of my three maiden aunts, the Ladies Vauxhall. I learned to whistle rather prettily at the piano;

could tell a high-flavored story with almost as much point as my grandpapa himself; and at nineteen years of age-"

"The story surely does not end here?" Jeanne asks, as her companion stops short.

"At nineteen years of age," goes on Lady Pamela, in a tragic voice, “I married poor Mr. Lawless, a Yorkshire squire, half a century older than myself, and a martyr to gout and jealousy. There came an interlude of dull country-houses, flannel bandages, and Othello-like scenes; and then, at two-and-twenty, I found myself launched in London life, free. From that date on, even my grandpapa has been proud of my progress. I am quick, like all gamins who have been towntossed in their infancy, and can smatter about most things well enough for my station. Whatever subject is up-the latest imperial policy, the latest murder, pictures, bonnets, beauties, yes, or even the last volume of Advanced Thought, at the libraries-I have only to listen to the ideas of some cleverer person than myself for ten minutes, and then retail them, with a certain air of originality, as my own, at the next dinner-party I go to. I have no intellect, really."

There is something touching in the way this admission is volunteered. Jeanne feels her heart beginning to thaw toward Lady Pamela.

"To literature I am honestly indifferent. Art I detest. Pictures cause a strain on the muscles of the neck which books, at least, do not. A good dinner, a Paris milliner, high-stepping horses, well-looking partners-these are thy gods, O Israel! These are the gods of Lady Pamela Lawless, and people must either take Lady Pamela Lawless as she is or leave her alone. In the majority of cases, they seem tolerably well disposed to take her as she is."

Lady Pamela's whimsical talk, whatever weightier qualities it may lack, possesses the fascination of suggestiveness. As she pours forth the flood of quick nonsense which she calls her "autobiography," a whole new world opens itself in posse before Jeanne's thoughts. Here, amid the wild solitude of the pine-forest, without young companionship, in a climate that for six months in the year holds her prisoner within the four walls of Schloss Egmont, the child's existence (until the last eight weeks) has perforce been colorless, passive. A passage of Beethoven rendered by the village Philharmonic, the smell of April's first violets, four little lines of Heinrich Heine's from sources like these have sprung the keenest pleasures of her lot. The sense of action, of personal participation in the great human comedy, is unknown to her; and, I must confess, the epitomized description of a highly-strung town life fires her imagination not unpleasantly. A Paris milliner, high-stepping horses, well-looking part

ners!-in what does she, Jeanne Dempster, differ from her fellows, that such delights, had she but the chance of experiencing them, should charm her not?

"You have my portrait, drawn by my own hand, framed and glazed," says Lady Pamela lightly. "In return, explain to me the reasons for your own existence. But in three words, Jeanne! People who live among fields are always beset by the frightful vice of prolixity. Who is Mamselle Ange? Who are you? What are your relations toward Paul von Egmont? And do you and the good-looking master talk of other things than Latin and mathematics in the twilight?"

For a second Jeanne's presence of mind fairly forsakes her; then, “You must allow me more than three words for my answer," she stammers out. "Who is Mamselle Ange? The question by itself would require a folio."

Then please leave it alone!" cries Lady Pamela with a yawn. "Leave Mamselle Ange among the clouds; she looks toppling off the edge of one already, does she not? Who are you? Do you live here? Do you mean to marry Mr. the man with the Italian face and shabby clothes, who at this moment is falling violently in love with Vivian Vivash?"

-

Jeanne's heart gives a great leap, then stands still. Far away, above the stiff-cropped juniperhedges that bound the terrace, she can discern two figures pacing up and down, with many a pause and oft in the quiet starlight. On the instant, with the swift pessimism of seventeen, she accepts as fact the cruel probability of Wolfgang's becoming Miss Vivash's lover.

"Mamselle Ange has been Mamselle Ange, and nothing else, as long as I can remember. My mother died here, in the Black Forest. Schloss Egmont has been my home always, and-"

“And you will eventually marry the Herr Professor, of course," cries Lady Pamela, with a yawn more prodigious than the last. "He will be none the worse husband, my dear, for having had his heart broken by Vivian in the mean time. China and men's hearts are all the stronger for mending, and, if one is positively destined to come to grief, 'tis a consideration that one should do so in good company. Think of all the big-wigs, the dukes, poets, artists, bishops, who swell our Beauty's list of victims!"

"Dukes, poets, artists, bishops, and Sir Christopher Marlowe," suggests Jeanne, at hazard. Lady Pamela Lawless turns her head aside sharply.

"Kit Marlowe is a very good friend of both of us, nothing more. When Miss Vivash first rose to the surface in London, and I, thanks to

Lord Vauxhall, was promoted to be her chaperon -Beauty and the Beast our dearest friends were good enough to call us-we needed, I can tell you, as many a strong hand as might be found to keep us afloat. Kit Marlowe's was one of the strongest. In these latter days you must know, child, to have a profile has become a profession. The passport system is abolished in decent society, and warm manners and a cold heart will carry a pretty woman anywhere, provided the pretty woman chance to be the owner of a Job-like mate. The existence of a husband makes the sternest Cornelia feel that her girls are, in a certain sense, safe. 'These beauties "Who remains Miss Vivash still?" are the pest of the age,' Cornelia will tell you "Ay. In that resides the moral of my story sorrowfully. Still, I look upon them as a ne--who remains Miss Vivash still. Up to a cercessary evil, a kind of moral lightning-conduct- tain point Samuel's conduct was simply perfect. or. (Does not one see the creatures' names at all the court balls?) As long as Mr. Blank accompanies his wife-no further, of course, than the lower landing on the staircase-it is not for me to be censorious.' Vivian had no husband, Job-like or otherwise, and when first Lord Vauxhall pushed us into celebrity, mammas with families of daughters did look shy at us. It is a truth, flattering or not, about which there can be no manner of doubt-mammas with families of daughters did look shy at us."

and down for three quarters of an hour, in sight of half the fine ladies and gentlemen of London, and chalked out his line of conduct for him. Poor Chodd had not seen domestic bliss ensue, in his father's case, from the possession of an aristocratic wife. It was said Ermengarde addressed Mr. Chodd senior eight times, exclusive of the marriage-ceremony, during the eleven months in which he had the honor of being an earl's daughter's husband. So Samuel elected. for beauty-a throat, a wrist on which to exhibit the Chodd diamonds; and under Kit Marlowe's guidance found it-in Miss Vivash."

In spite of Sir Christopher Marlowe's friendship?" says Jeanne Dempster, as her companion pauses.

“Ah, that is a knotty point-Sir Christopher Marlowe's friendship. Some people declare that we have floated Sir Christopher, others that Sir Christopher has floated us. Why, this very last month-" (Lady Pamela stops short; she glances at the two distant figures on the terrace) "but for a miracle of mischance, Vivian would have made the best marriage of the season, thanks to Sir Christopher's good offices. You have heard of Chodd and Chodd? The thing is past and gone, and a count in hand is worth a Chodd in the bush; still, we may as well talk idly as be silent. My dear, the Chodds are the great Birmingham scissors - people. The Chodds are worth half a million of money. The Chodds are ambitious, weak as water where lords and honorables are concerned, and deliciously apoplectic. Chodd père took for his second wife my little cousin Lady Ermengarde Vauxhall, aged eighteen, and died—was ever such exemplary conduct heard of?—within a twelvemonth. Well, his son, Mr. Samuel Chodd (admire the solid richness of those good English consonants), met Vivian one fine afternoon among the rhododendrons at the Botanical and fell in love with her. I don't suppose he fell in love really-fancy a scissors-man in love!—but Sir Christopher, knowing and known of all men, walked Samuel up

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He was as wax in the molder's hands, as the lamb led to the slaughter. Wherever we went in public, that was good for him, we allowed Samuel to go likewise. We gave him our photographs, we permitted him to supply us with bouquets and opera-boxes, and even allowed him to write as many checks as he chose for our tradespeople. Aided by Lord Vauxhall, we got his name into the fashionable prints as having dined at such a banquet or danced-Samuel's dancing! at such a ball. The creature rewarded us with the usual black ingratitude of plebeian human nature. A little dinner at the Orleans had been organized by Lord Vauxhall to which Mr. Chodd could not be invited. (I had another engagement myself. It generally happens that I have other engagements on the occasion of grandpapa's Twickenham dinners.) Samuel took umbrage; gave himself airs of virtue, and us a sermon. The party was not a fitting one for his intended wife. He would allow her as much liberty as any honest-minded girl could desire, but he would not-no,' supplementing his opinions by the horriblest expletives, ‘he would not allow her to go to a Twickenham dinner, got up by any disreputable old lord of them all, without himself.' Vivian heard him out with an air of quiet contrition, admired his moral sentiments, promised amendment for the future, and sent him away pacified, a moss-rosebud pinned by her own repentant fingers in his button-hole. And she went to the dinner at the Orleans! That dinner cost her dear. Samuel learned the whole truth next morning, wrote us a letter in the worst imaginable taste, but, alas! only too much in earnest, and started the same afternoon in his yacht for Lapland. Whenever he was more out of temper than usual, it had been a foolish jest of ours to say, 'Try Lapland.' On the morrow of the Twickenham dinner-party he followed our advice-with a vengeance."

Lady Pamela and Jeanne have by this time

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