She held out her hand to me impulsively; there were tears in her eyes, but she smiled them away with a wilful defiance. Our hands just touched; then she withdrew hers. 'You see I have not had your picture for nothing; I have looked at it,' she said.

I was deeply touched. 'You have seen through it into the heart that conceived it.'

'Let us talk of other things,' she exclaimed abruptly in a lighter tone. 'Come, let us walk, else madame my mother will think again that I am lost.'

We resumed our promenade accordingly, but for awhile in silence.

'You look at my ruby. Do you find it handsome?' She had been turning and twisting the ring upon her finger, and my eyes had more than once been drawn to it. Almost as soon as she had spoken she slipped the ring off and laid it in my hand.

'It is a real antique,' I said, concealing the surprise this sudden act inspired in me. 'It is an heirloom in your family, perhaps?'

'It is a magic ring; there is a spell connected with it,' said the Countess, laughing.

'Let me not be the breaker of the spell,' I rejoined, holding it towards her. But instead of taking it from me, she extended her long taper finger, and I put the ring on it.

'There, you have put it on, and now it will never come off,' she said with a strange smile. 'It is the ring of my destiny.'

'Yours should be a rich destiny, then.'

'Yes, I shall be rich; I shall make a figure in the world,' she replied still smiling. 'Nevertheless the spell is a curse; for so long as I wear the ring I must be miserable, and if I lose it I shall be wicked.'

'Is there no third alternative?'

'There was, but now the moment is passed. That is your fault, monsieur.'

'My fault?'

'If, when I gave you the ring just now, and it was in your power, you had flung it far, far away into the sea, then the curse would have left me, and I should have been free always.'

'If that be all I'll soon set you at liberty. Give me the ring.'

She shook her head. 'It is now too late. Such a chance can come only once. Have I not told you destiny mocks always? Behold my mother who beckons us.'

We approached Madame, who took her daughter's hand affectionately in hers. 'My very dear, we dine to-day at half-past four; we must make our toilette early. But, my God! how your hand is cold, my child. You have been chilled by that fog this morning.'

The Countess Almara laughed. 'It was not I; it was that poor young man with the black hair and the blue eyes who was swimming so far out; that he should have been chilled I could believe it. In effect it was droll,' she continued, turning to me. 'Figure yourself this little man—he was very little—little like that,' and she held her palm about four feet from the ground. 'Well, he swims out a fine distance, even as far as I go in the canoe. When the fog comes I hear a splash; I look round; I perceive this unfortunate infant. I think he shall be drowned, and I go towards him to preserve him. Then I see that this infant it is a man; and this man he seems to fear me more than to be drowned, for he swims away when I approach. So I return towards the shore, but slowly, so that he may see me and follow me; and, in fine, when we are nearly arrived the fog dissolves itself, and behold us.'

'Do you by hazard know this gentleman?' inquired the Countess Semaroff of me. 'He has the air of an Englishman.'

'No; he is an American,' I answered with a touch of prevarication.

'Ah, these Americans, how I hate them!' murmured the Countess Almara.

Madame rose with a shrug of her shoulders. 'We shall have the pleasure of seeing Monsieur Campbell at the dance this evening?'

'Without doubt—that is—no. I am to depart by the diligence even at the present hour.'

'Depart to-day? Impossible! After having met Monsieur to lose him so soon!'

'Madame, I am desolated, but—affairs.'

'You will not go to-day,' said the Countess Almara, in a voice so low it could have been audible only to myself.

'Perhaps, indeed, I could manage to postpone for a few days——' I resumed, still addressing myself to Madame.

'Good. We remain here but a few days longer ourselves; and when we go you shall accompany us. That will be charming. Is it agreed?'

'Madame, a thousand acknowledgments.'

'Till this evening, then.'

I bowed low. The Countess Almara laid her hand in mine, our eyes met, her lips seemed to form the word 'Merci,' but she did not utter it aloud; then she turned brusquely and followed her mother, and they were soon out of sight.

VII.

I drew a long breath, stroked my beard thoughtfully, looked at my watch, and set out at a brisk pace for my lodgings. Before I had gone far I heard my name called, and turning, saw Mr. Jefferson Montgomery, who signalled to me with one gloved hand while with the other he lifted his hat in adieu to an elderly gentleman with a tremendous sweep of moustachios. My friend now hastened towards me, his white teeth flashing, his blue eyes beaming, and with a general air of prosperity and benevolence.

'I am so glad to see you, dear Campbell. But they told me you were going to leave us. Surely you're not?'

'What an idea! I shall be here at least a week.'

Jeff took my arm with perfect cordiality and good faith. I did not want him, but there was nothing for it but to let the poor little man come. Arrived at my house, I sent him upstairs while I stopped to have a word with my landlady.

'Madame Enault, I shall be able to remain another week.'

Madame Enault was delighted, but would Monsieur pardon her?

'Freely and completely. What then?'

Only that, since Monsieur's notice to leave another monsieur had engaged the rooms, and Madame Enault had agreed with him for a month.

'Then let him know that you misunderstood me and that he must go elsewhere.'

To a marvel; only, alas! this gentleman had deposited the hire of the rooms in advance.

'You will return his deposit to him.'

Perfectly, but that, having had a heavy bill to meet, Madame Enault had been constrained to pay the money away.

'Ah! and Madame requires me to supply her with the cash in question?'

Monsieur had exactly divined the necessity that unfortunately existed.

Providence had treated me too well for me to be severe with so thrifty and unimpeachable a landlady; accordingly a financial transaction took place, the porter was remanded, and I went upstairs.

'And so you have been introduced,' said Jeff. He was reclining Adonis-like upon the lounge, exquisitely dressed.

'To whom do you refer?'

'Now don't be English and reticent. Whom should I mean but my countess? I do so want to hear your opinion of her.'

I could not help laughing a little, for to be seriously angry with the bard of Beacon Street was not easy.

'Unless you wish to write yourself down irrevocably an ass, my dear boy, you will not again apply the possessive pronoun to the Countess Almara. It sounds much as if a horse-fly should speak of his proprietorship of a four-in-hand.'

'My dear Campbell, you are really impolite.'

'I know it, and I hold you responsible for forcing me to address you with such brutality. I'm not accustomed to it.'

'How you do go on!' sighed Jeff, wiping his eyebrows with his cambric handkerchief. 'One never knows when you're in earnest. But really don't you think we shall make a first-rate match?'

'Gracious Powers! Do you know that there are probably not two men living for whom the Countess Almara would not be more than a match?'

'Exactly. In fact, there is only one who could mate with her on equal terms, and—well, I happen to be he.' Jeff uttered this with perfect modesty and conviction.

'My young friend, your chances with that young lady are not hopeless; they are ridiculous. She actually cannot maintain gravity at the thought of you. Must I reveal that she speaks of the "pauvre enfant," that she is convinced you are only four feet high, and that she declares she frightened you terribly in the fog this morning? Eloquent looks and sympathy of souls indeed!' and I laughed rudely.

'I don't believe a word you say,' replied Jeff, laughing also. 'But there is one thing that I do begin to believe.'

'What is that?'

'That I've got a rival, eh? ha, ha, ha!'

'You have an entirely too lively imagination,' was my cold reply.

'Ah, Campbell, you are very deep—very. If I were less sure of my countess than I am I declare I should feel uneasy.'

'Merely for curiosity's sake, where do you find encouragement?'

'You were in earnest, then, when you said this morning that you knew less than I about women? Your difficulty is, probably, that you regard woman as a species of man, when in fact no woman who amounts to anything has a particle of masculinity about her. They may pretend to it sometimes, just to bamboozle fellows who are inexperienced; but they drop it in the presence of a man who sees through them.'

'Through their backs. I understand.'

'Exactly. Well, then, my countess, when I have my eye upon her, is her simple womanly self, because she knows my insight is unerring; but with you I'll wager she talks literature, and art, and morals, and things of that kind, eh?'

'I will not deny it, Jeff.'

'Of course she did, and why? Because she knew she could make you believe she really cared for such things; and, womanlike, she couldn't resist humbugging you.'

'And her laughing at you, her contemptuous allusions to your stature and so forth were also impositions upon my naïve ignorance of the sex?'

'Indeed, my dear Campbell, they were.'

'It is me, then, and not you that she considers ridiculous?'

'At all events you can see that it's not me,' said Jeff leniently. 'Why, just consider the points in me which she professed to consider laughable. My height! Now the last thing a woman bothers herself about in a man is his height. When there is a question of physical attractions, she looks first at his shoulders, then at his eyes, then at his feet and hands, then at his chin. If these please her his height may take care of itself; and if you won't mind my saying it, the less it has to take care of the better. Look at Napoleon Bonaparte, Martin Luther, Frederick the Great, Benjamin Franklin, Plato, General Grant. Why, pretty nearly everybody who has stood a head and shoulders above his generation has been under five feet eight.'

'Bravo, Jeff! You are both eloquent and sagacious. Beacon Street should be proud of you.'

'Knowledge of this kind is a matter of temperament and intuition. Experience can but confirm what the soul has already divined; and if the previous divination do not exist, age and experience are just so much to the bad, if you won't mind my saying so. And so she ridiculed the fog incident?'

'She alluded to it with an apparent spice of humour,' I said diffidently.

'Dear girl,' murmured the poet tenderly. 'That seeming ridicule was almost as direct an avowal of affection as a modest woman could have made. That mutual voiceless self-revelation of ours, which my dear Campbell professes to discredit, has evidently stirred my Countess to her depths. It has aroused the potent germs of the master passion of her life. She trembles to confess herself to herself; how, then, could she do otherwise than veil herself from a stranger? and what better veil than a simulated mirth and mockery? But really now you don't need me to tell you this; it's the A, B, C of the feminine nature.'

'Jeff, you puzzle me; you are either more or less than human. At all events you are an incarnate solution of the old problem how to make the best of it. Well, what are your proximate intentions?'

'To dance the "Boston" with her this evening.'

'You will be at the ball, then?'

'Indeed, yes. Shall not you?'

'I shall; for since you are definitely resolved upon playing the donkey, I want to be in a position to hear your opening bray.'

'At ten o'clock, then; but it will be a variation upon A Midsummer Night's Dream,' answered the poet with imperturbable geniality; and so we parted.

VIII.

The ball—or rather the soirée dansante—was announced for nine o'clock, and at thirty minutes after that hour I passed through the doorway.

An oblong hall, the floor space framed in on three sides by an embankment of benches, with the orchestra on the fourth. This orchestra comprised a piano, two violins, and a trombone, all in evening dress. The assembly to whom this unexceptionable quartette discoursed was by no means so rigorously attired. There were coats and trousers of all hues, and skirts and waists of all fashions and degrees of lowness. The scene was a motley one, but all incongruities were harmonised by the universal element of uncompromising enjoyment, pervading black and grey, high and low alike, and animating the heels and heads of the spectators upon the benches as well as the actual performers upon the floor. The orchestra sawed and thrummed with hearty good-will, and the lamps on their brackets and the windows in their frames jarred and rattled to the rhythmic fall of feet. In the pauses of the dance and clatter the roar of the surf came in through the open door upon the wings of the cool salt breeze.

The most polished people in the world dance, if not ideally, at least really. There is no languishing, no shilly-shallying, but downright roundabout, vigorous hard work. A Frenchman who has danced over night must needs feel the effects of it on getting up in the morning; and as for his partner, who has danced for herself and for him on two separate counts, it is a wonder she ever gets up at all. Their scheme of a waltz is simple and telling, being based upon the primitive principle of planetary motion—revolution round their own axis and revolution round their orbit. This double motion is kept up with mechanical regularity until nature—or more frequently the orchestra—gives way. The orbit of one couple being the orbit of all, the general effect of a lively waltz is of a voluntary human whirlpool composed of self-centred tête-à-tête eddies. By centrifugal law the centre of the whirlpool remains empty.

A moment's inspection of this whirlpool satisfied me that it did not contain the Countess Almara. As I was proceeding to a scrutiny of the benches the frou-frou of a crisp skirt along the aisle caused me to turn and find my face within eighteen inches of the clear firm cheek of the beautiful pagan. She and her mother passed without appearing to see me; and they were followed by a military-looking personage of some fifty years of age, bald-headed, broad-shouldered, and bulky, whom I fancied I had noticed once or twice before. After seeing the ladies into their seats he returned past me up the aisle and went out.

Presently I came down, exchanged greetings with my friends, and sat in a vacant seat near the Countess Almara. Her manner was distraught and preoccupied; her smile only came from her lips, and though she looked me in the face occasionally with a certain intentness, she seemed scarcely to see me or to comprehend my words.

Her personal appearance was more diabolically handsome than ever. As usual, her colours were black and red, but, being in silk, they were exceptionally effective. There was a glimpse of warm white neck and smooth rounded arms; her hair, coiled on the top of her head, revealed the graceful bend of the nape. Her bracelet and necklace matched the earrings of the morning, and beneath the delicate film of her glove was discernible the form of the great ruby.

'Might I have the honour of this dance?'

'Not yet, not yet. In this moment I feel myself unable. Let us rather talk. I am not myself; you see it. Listen to the sea. My God! how it roars! I wish I were out on it in my canoe with the great waves.'

I laughed to disguise the concern which her manifest agitation caused me.

'In that case, mademoiselle, you would be without the advantage of my society; and I doubt whether my little friend Montgomery even would venture to swim after you on such a night as this.'

'Oh, he is your friend, then, this Monsieur Mont—Mont-go-merie? And I have spoken of him to you slightingly. I did not know, and I am foolish; I speak without forethought. You will forget it? Yes.'

'If anyone should apologise it is I, for not having warned you beforehand of our tender relations. But be reassured; Monsieur Montgomery is a poet, and intends making you the heroine of an epic. If you are gracious to him this evening he will forgive you anything.'

'It is not of him that I shall demand pardon,' said the Countess with the slightest imaginable intonation of scorn. 'But he is your friend, and you shall see how I will be polite.' She breathed and moved nervously, her thoughts being evidently absorbed in some subject foreign enough to anything I could guess. Her eyes were restless, and she fanned her flushed cheeks in vain.

'What day is this?' she demanded suddenly.

'The fifteenth of August.'

'I shall remember it always—always.'

The hand that held the fan drooped, and, seemingly by accident, touched my own. The momentary glance that swept my face showed an inward trouble and appeal, and, if I read it aright, a something deeper and more passionate beyond. With the unexpectedness that was one of her characteristics she rose to her feet.

'Come, I feel better at present: let us dance; come.'

In her preoccupation she had not perceived that the music had ceased some minutes, and the dancers all left the floor.

'What hast thou, then, dear one?' inquired the Countess Semaroff, looking up indolently through her eye-glasses.

Almara perceived her blunder, and I could mark a pulsation of anger pass through her body while she muttered behind her teeth, 'That I am imbecile!'

'Don't you find it very warm here? Suppose we take a turn to the door,' I suggested. She thanked me with a look, exchanged a glance and a word with her mother, and taking my arm, we began to move down the aisle.

Presentiments, though commonly deceptive, do nevertheless exist. Just at this time I had a presentiment that some crisis was impending. If I could secure a few minutes' privacy with the young Countess, I was resolved to tell her a secret which already burned within me, though I myself had not known it until this very evening. But I felt conviction, I felt confidence, and I felt that there was no time like the present.

Events the most insignificant upset purposes the most momentous. There were two doors to the hall, and in order to reach the one at which we were aiming it was necessary to cross the floor. As we stepped on the floor at one side a couple of gentlemen appeared on the other; we met in the very centre of the hall, but it was not until I felt the Countess press my arm that I thought to notice who either of the gentlemen was. To my ineffable annoyance I then recognised the infatuated Jeff leaning on the arm of the bulky gentleman with the moustachios, who was positively in the act of introducing him to my partner.

The Countess seemed as much taken by surprise as myself. She returned Jeff's elaborate obeisance with a grand curtsey, and then stood erect and silent, her hand still resting within my arm. The music struck up another waltz.

'May I have the honour of this dance?' inquired Jeff with his sweetest emphasis.

I waited to hear the Countess say she was engaged and to pass on with her; but after an instant's pause she slowly relinquished my arm, and uttering the conventional words, 'Je veux bien,' she resigned herself to the triumphant Bostonian.

Then, when it was too late, I realised that our engagement had been for the previous dance, and not for this one, if indeed there had been any definite engagement at all, and that, as I had heard Jeff's request in silence, the Countess had been forced to suppose that I desired we should part. It was one of those absurd misapprehensions which occur in ball-rooms as well as in other places, but which I had never found so vexatious as in the present instance.

Meantime Jeff and she had eddied away from me; another couple, revolving up from behind, came into collision with me. I felt myself in a false position, and beat a retreat to the Countess Semaroff, beside whom I seated myself with the gloomy grin of a baffled man.

But the Countess made herself particularly gracious and entertaining, and I was perforce obliged to give her a good deal of attention, though my real interest was monopolised by the proceedings of Jeff and his partner. Jeff was undoubtedly the best dancer in the room, and the 'Boston' step which he danced was not only more graceful and easy than the ordinary whirligig, but, by the device of 'reversing,' enabled him to perform his evolutions undisturbed in that vacant centre of the merry-go-round which has been already described. This proficiency of his contributed to the sum of my misfortunes for that evening. I am not myself a good dancer, and I therefore shrank from affording the Countess Almara an opportunity of comparing Jeff's performance with my own. I resolved not to dance at all, and to trust to luck for an opportunity of getting a few minutes' private conversation with her.

But the stars in their courses fought against me on this night of August 15. Madame introduced me to the military gentleman, who turned out to be her husband, and he and I presently fell into an animated political discussion. When Jeff and his partner returned they took seats on the further side of the Countess, and it was almost impossible for me to appropriate so much as a glance from those eyes which now held so large a portion of my world's light. I could mark her forced attention to the poet's vapourings; I could divine her secret disgust, and I understood that she endured this petty martyrdom from a mistaken idea of making me reparation for her slight upon him. But I was practically incapacitated for either explanation or consolation. The intangible trammels of society and etiquette are as strong as the thread that bound Fenrir, and I finally made up my mind that I might as well go home.

'Before you go, dear Monsieur Campbell,' said the Countess Semaroff with a glance at the Count, 'we will venture to entreat of you a great favour.'

'I despair of expressing to you the extent of the obligation which your condescension would impose upon us,' added the Count with his bland, impassive politeness.

'Am I really, then, so fortunate as to be able to contribute in any way to the pleasure of the Count and Countess? What happiness!'

'Behold how it becomes ravishing!' exclaimed the Countess. 'Almara, my very dear, Monsieur Campbell will perhaps consent.'

The young Countess had been sitting with her hands folded listlessly in her lap, absorbed apparently in her own thoughts, which were who knows how far removed from the confiding chit-chat which poor Jeff was babbling at her ear. She now raised her head and turned her eyes upon me. The deep sentiment contained in that look would have drawn from me, had she required it, the sacrifice even of that happiness which was to be the substance of my life. She said not a word.

'Thou must ask Monsieur; do thou ask him, Almara,' continued the Countess, smiling, 'since it concerns thee.'

'Is it that you would paint a portrait of me?' said Almara simply.

'Merely a sketch, dear monsieur,' put in the mother persuasively. 'The opportunity may not again occur for us. It is not often one has the fortune to meet Monsieur Campbell.'

'And there can be but one Monsieur Campbell in the world,' added the Count with a bow.

'Something at all events—a likeness merely—a work of three days,' subjoined Madame earnestly.

I had had time to suppress the first impulse of delight, and to command my face to an expression of polite affability. In this so-called favour I recognised the agency of the Countess Almara. To the father and mother it meant securing a likeness of their daughter from the hand of the first portrait-painter of the day; but to that painter and to that daughter it meant hours spent in comparatively undisturbed enjoyment of one another's society—hours of silent sympathies, of low-spoken words that sounded little but meant much; hours that would count for years in the progress of a mutual understanding where each sought to reveal all and withhold nothing.

'It will give me great pleasure to sketch Mademoiselle,' said I. 'Four or five sittings will suffice. To-morrow, after the bath, we will speak further on the subject. At present I must retire. Madame the Countess, monsieur, mademoiselle, au revoir.'

'Good-night, Campbell,' spoke up Jeff as I moved away. 'Thank you ever so much; but you must expect to find me a severe critic. Au revoir.'

IX.

But our drama was not to reach its conclusion without a modicum of the tragic element, and this modicum was to be introduced by no less heroic a character than the little poet of Beacon Hill.

It is yet early to point the moral of my tale; but I may remark that we are not seldom helped along the path of life, and even have our true direction pointed out to us, by ineffective obstacles. The person or circumstance obstructing us first arouses us to appreciate the advantages of a course which we might else never have thought of, or, having thought of, might have lacked energy to pursue.

In this sense it may be said that I owed my introduction to the Countess Almara, and still more the colour which that acquaintance immediately assumed, to the unintentional influence of my Boston friend. His vague rhapsodies first drew my attention to a woman whom I had till then admired without appreciating her. His transcendental love-making had shown me how truly she was lovable, and his infatuated pursuit of her had stimulated me to a decision whose gravity might else have given me pause. Left to myself, I should doubtless have fallen in love, but I should have been a great deal longer about it. At the age of five-and-thirty the passions are more enduring than in youth, but do not ordinarily kindle so readily. Jeff was the match that set me afire, and he the goad that drove me at a pace which surprised myself. But I do not care to dwell upon this phase of my romance. To have been the rival of one you contemn is unpleasant, and the superior nature cannot avoid remorse in looking back upon such a contest.

However, the sittings began and fulfilled all our anticipations—Almara's and mine. The further I penetrated into her mind and heart the richer did these appear. Our speech and bearing still observed a chivalrous sort of ceremony towards one another; we did not as yet permit ourselves to be frankly lovers. But our reserve was only an instinctive device for gaining a deeper realisation of our happiness. Strong natures often illustrate this paradox: they are repelled for a time by the intensity of their attraction to each other.

Moreover, we were never left entirely to ourselves; the customs of Continental etiquette are immovable, and so was the Countess Semaroff from my atelier or from the little antechamber opening out of it. But the restraint was purely formal, and even added to the zest of our enjoyment by giving it the air of being something to intrigue for. It may not be creditable to human nature, but it is a fact that the most precious gifts of love are the smuggled ones.

But why did I not declare the state of affairs at once to the Count and Countess, and thus settle a question of such vital moment to me? In the first place, I could plead the lover's excuse—the desire to keep the secret of his heart for a time veiled, even from her he loved. But, besides this, I felt uncertain how the avowal would be received, not by Almara herself—I was sure of her—but by her parents. A marriage between even an eminent artist and a woman of noble birth is not an everyday occurrence; and I felt the prudence of sounding the views of the Count and Countess on this subject before putting my fate to the touch. In case of refusal, indeed, I should not hesitate to take Almara in spite of them, feeling as I did that our love would be compensation for all losses; and it may be that I contemplated the possibility of a hostile turn of the die with something like a pleasurable thrill. A man likes to prove his power in the teeth of obstacles; and, as I looked at Almara's proud and passionate beauty, I thought how grand would be the response to the summons of her heart. It would be almost a pity to forego that spectacle.

Another source of my hesitation had to do with the mystery which still continued to invest my beautiful sitter—that mystery which seemed concentrated in her ruby. What it might be I knew not; Almara quietly but resolutely foiled all my attempts to lead the conversation up to the subject. Of course I was not able, situated as we were, to make any serious attack upon her reserve; but it was evident that her secret would probably remain a secret until all concealments were finally at an end between us. All that troubled me in the matter was a fear lest it should turn out to be a hindrance to our union; but, as time went on, this apprehension faded from my mind. Almara was gradually losing those traces of depression and anxiety which she had betrayed in our first interviews. The sunnier side of her character came out; she chatted with gaiety and abandon; the shadow of pain and revolt was passing away. She still turned and twisted the heavy ring upon her finger, but now rather caressingly than impatiently. And once, I remember, as she and I and the rest, including Jeff, were sitting after sundown round a table outside the casino, laughing, gossiping, admiring the afterglow along the western horizon, and sipping iced coffee out of tall glasses, on this evening of the last day but one of the sittings I saw her lift her hand to her lips with one of those unexpected movements of hers and bestow a quick kiss upon the ruby. No one seemed to notice this strange gesture, which indeed was so managed as to have escaped any eye less keen than a lover's. What was the meaning of it? Almara's glance met mine; for a moment she seemed disconcerted, but the next moment laughed and said saucily—

'Monsieur Campbell, do you know a cure for burnt fingers?'

The next day at noon the last sitting was over. I sat alone in the atelier, adding the finishing touches to the portrait. At four o'clock the whole party, not forgetting Jeff, were to be present for the 'private view.'

No one, not even Almara, had thus far been permitted to see the picture; and as for my Boston friend, I had not suffered him even to be present at any of the sittings. Besides that the little man had a disturbing effect upon me I wished these hours to be as far as possible sacred to my sitter and myself—oases of serene communion uninvaded by Bostonian ineptitudes. On the other hand, I must plead guilty to having used Jeff (or allowed Almara to use him) outside the studio in a manner perhaps inconsistent with the strict loyalty of friendship.

No definite words had passed between her and me on the subject, but, by a tacit agreement, the unsuspecting poet was made to do duty as a blind. Almara, in short, made show of a particular and sentimental interest in him, thus closing people's eyes to the state of feeling between ourselves. She acted her part so well, and the delighted Jeff so purred and beamed under her condescension, that I sometimes felt remorse. He deserved it, no doubt; it would teach him a lesson; and yet I disliked seeing even Jeff make such a fool of himself. The fact that he would have scouted my representations, had I sought to enlighten him, did not remove my responsibility. Almara did not seem to share my scruples; women never look at these things as men do. She fascinated Jeff without mercy; they canoed, dived, and danced together. A stronger brain than his might have failed to detect any insincerity in her manner. Perhaps, indeed, she was not for the time being any less sincere with him than she was with me. The histrionic side of a woman's nature is generally strong, and is sometimes developed to such a pitch that what they enact seems as real to them as what they are in sober earnest about.

About half an hour before the time appointed for receiving my visitors there was a knock at my door, and Jeff came in. He was as neat, complacent, and pretty as a miniature on ivory. I had just put the last touch to the canvas, and was standing back in thoughtful contemplation of the work.

'Well, how do you like it?' I asked him after the first words.

'Campbell, I am almost satisfied; and that, from me, is the highest eulogy that can be bestowed upon you.'

'You never told me that you were the final umpire in art criticism.'

'Oh, I only pretend to be the final umpire on the subject of Almara.'

'Come, Jeff, let this farce have an end,' said I, laying my hand kindly on his shoulder. 'From this hour you must give up your pretensions in that quarter. To use the homely phrase, the Countess Almara is meat for—Well, let us say for your elders.'

'Oh, my dear fellow, not at all; we suit each other perfectly. But I knew we should; you remember my telling you so? I should think you would have noticed it this week past yourself.'

'What I have noticed, my poor Jeff, has caused me more than one twinge of conscience. You must try and forgive me. The fact is, the Countess Almara and I——'

The poet interrupted me with an arch laugh.

'Twinge of conscience, did you say? Twinge of jealousy you mean. My dear old Campbell, if I have anything to forgive, I forgive it with all my heart. But my object in coming here so early was to ask you to forgive me.'

'Ah, I fancy I understand you, and I admit having thought you rather reprehensible on that score. Considering that your father made that provisional arrangement regarding your income in case you thwarted his wishes——'

'Yes, but that was only in case I——'

'In case you married anyone but the lady he had selected for you. Exactly. And you decided that you preferred the Countess to the income.'

'Really you are mistaken, Campbell. I have no idea of risking my income. I know the value of money.'

'All I was going to say was that you have not been acting quite ingenuously towards the Count and Countess Semaroff, not to speak of their daughter. They look upon you as a young gentleman able to dispose of ten thousand pounds a year. Now, if you had proposed to them for her hand without letting them know——'

'Propose to them for it? But, my dear Campbell, that was all settled from the beginning.'

'Do you mean to say they have admitted you as a suitor?'

'Why, what else could I mean?'

'And you omitted to tell them that in case you married her, you would have but three hundred pounds income?'

'Indeed, I told them nothing of the sort. Why should I?'

'Because an honest man in your place would have told them!' I replied coldly. 'You are sailing under false colours. You are giving yourself out to be a millionaire when you have only the salary of a clerk.'

'But isn't a clerk with ten thousand a year a pretty decent millionaire?'

'But you will have ten thousand a year only as long as you are unmarried.'

'That is so far the case that, after I'm married, I shall have twenty thousand a year—my wife's income added to my own.'

'Well, Montgomery, I don't care to beat about the bush with you. If you can reconcile your conduct with your own code of honesty it's no concern of mine. But as regards the Countess Almara—I am going to marry her myself.'

'You? Oh, you are joking.'

'I have loved her from the first; she loves me——'

'Oh! I say! ha, ha, ha! Has she told you so?'

'We have not openly declared ourselves in so many words—you are welcome to whatever consolation that may afford you—but there are other means of coming to an understanding than by words.'

'Well, that is true, at any rate: it is for that I came to ask your pardon, Campbell. But really was it not in great measure your own fault?'

'Upon my word, Montgomery, I fail to catch your drift.'

'Well—the long and short of it is she's been flirting with you.'

'With me? You surprise me.'

'You see she didn't want you to suspect our engagement. You remember that first conversation you had with her, when she made those allusions to my height, and said she hated Americans, and so on?'

I made a sign of assent.

'When she said those absurd things, though only in fun, she did not know that I was her intended; and when, a few hours later, we found each other out, she naturally felt annoyed at having spoken of me to a stranger in such terms. You understand?'

'Pray go on,' I said, taking up my palette and brushes and standing before the canvas, so that my face was turned from the speaker.

'So she begged her mother and me not to let you suspect; and the more thoroughly to lull your suspicions (and also because the girl is a born flirt, as all feminine women are) she—just—you know what—made love to you in a mild way, I suppose.'

Jeff paused. 'The man is mad—raving mad!' I muttered, still making pretence of retouching my background. Jeff flowed on.

'Of course a man like you, a man of the world, a great artist, and getting on in the forties—of course I knew you'd only be amused, and would take nothing seriously; and you know you scoffed at the notion of matrimony when I asked you about it. But still she can be so attractive when she chooses that latterly I began to fear you might be the least bit fetched, after all. I told Allie I'd never forgive her if it turned out so.'

'Told—who?'

'Allie—Almara, you know. We always called each other "Allie" and "Jeffie" in our letters.'

'Letters? You corresponded, then?'

'Regularly—for the last five years.'

'I see; and—and so it's been a settled thing—but—is this your first meeting?'

'Yes, and that is what made it so amusing. It had been arranged, you know, that I was to meet them in Paris on the 20th——'

'Meet whom? You must excuse me, but you have such an unsystematic way of imparting your information. I'm a bit confused.'

'To meet the Semaroffs. The Count is the Russian commissioner with whom we are in treaty about the cigarette-holders. We were to be formally betrothed in Paris, Allie and I——'

'Would you mind calling her the Countess Almara in speaking of her to me? I—I have unpleasant associations with the other name. Go on.'

'The point is that, happening to stop here on my way, I was a good deal taken with the "beautiful pagan," without of course knowing who she was; and I might have made myself very unhappy about her if it hadn't been for you.'

'Eh?'

'Yes, a fact. The first I knew of my pagan maid being one and the same with Allie—Countess, I mean—was your mentioning her name to me that first day at breakfast. Don't you remember my remarking how strangely things came out? It was accident our both happening to be here, but it was you who made us known to each other. Wasn't it curious?'

'Very curious, very amusing, the whole thing—ha, ha! And so that story about the three hundred a year was—part of your poem, I suppose?'

'Not at all. But the Countess Almara being my papa's selection, I risked nothing in marrying her. I tried to explain it to you at the time, but you pitched into me so, and insisted upon my leaving her and marrying somebody else, that at last, just for the fun of the thing, I allowed you to believe that I was really as great a fool as you took me for.'

Hereupon ensued a pause of some minutes. Jeff, I believe, lit a cigarette. What I did I have no recollection; but I must have remained standing before the easel. At length I felt that Jeff was standing behind me.

'It couldn't be better, really,' he said. 'They'll like it so much at home.'

'Beg pardon?'

'It's to go to Boston, you know, to give papa and mamma an idea of how their daughter-in-law looks. Ah! you've put in the ring, too. I'm glad of that. Handsome ruby, isn't it?'

'An antique. Such rings are not made nowadays.'

'Except by Tiffany; he manufactures them after the antique models. I got this at his store in New York six months ago, and paid fifteen hundred dollars for it. By the way, my dear Campbell, how much will this sketch be?'

'Hum, let me see. How long have I been over it?'

'Just six days.'

'Well, then, I'll let it go for six thousand pounds. I don't care to make money out of friends.'

The smoke of Jeff's cigarette got into his windpipe; and while he was coughing the door opened, and the two countesses, followed by the Count, came in.

After the portrait had been criticised and the compliments exchanged I drew near to Almara, who was standing apart from the others, near the easel.

'Countess, permit my congratulations.'

There was a slight involuntary quivering of the eyebrows and of the corner of her mouth, and she kept her eyes upon the portrait as she said in a low tone—

'You know it, then?'

'Your future husband has just told me.'

She shifted her position a little, and began to blush slowly.

'I have included a portrait of the ruby, you observe,' I went on. 'Are you satisfied with it?'

'Very well—excellent,' she said mechanically.

'I was not sure whether you might prefer to have it omitted. That evening on the beach—you remember,—you seemed to wish it out of the way. I will conjure it away even now, if you say the word,' and I took up the palette and brushes.

There was a pause: she understood me; the colour gradually left her face, which she still kept averted. At length, with a perceptible effort, she said—

'It had better remain.'

'I think so too,' I said, laying down the palette. The company was now prepared to depart.

'Before you go, Countess, I wish—merely out of curiosity—that you would tell me one thing.'

'Well, monsieur?'

'Are you an angel or a devil?'

Then at last she raised her face, pale as marble, and her black eyes met mine in a quiet, strange look. She shrugged her shoulders slightly.

'I know not—well, I am a woman. Adieu. You will not forget me.' And there, at all events, she spoke no more than truth.

The modest price which I had put upon my portrait appeared to overtax the resources of Beacon Street, and the work remained upon my hands. That night Madame Enault's chimney caught fire—an occurrence unprecedented in the middle of August. I explained that I had burnt up some rubbish, which had proved to be remarkably inflammable, and made the fullest apologies; but the good lady's nerves did not recover their tone until after the exhibition of tincture of argentum—a sound dose. This, so far as I can recollect, was the last noticeable episode of my summer holiday.