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VIII.
INTRODUCTION

The drive from the wharf is too long: I often think that the older part of the town ought to be submerged, or removed to one of the adjacent islands. We met the family at breakfast, and I said, "Ladies, you see before you a wild man of the woods, brought hither to be subdued and civilized by your gentle ministrations. By the way, Mabel, there was a corner in oil yesterday. I made fourteen thousand, and Simpkins went under; so you can have that new gown now." They paid no attention whatever to these pleasantries. Clarice was not there, or the sparkling fount of humor would have flowed less freely.

Hartman has very good manners when he chooses, and in my house he would naturally choose; so he got on well enough. The children took to him at once, and he seemed to take to them. After breakfast I led him out for a walk, to show him the points of interest. Several very creditable cottages have been put up since he was here last: in fact, this is quite a growing place, for the country. As we went back he suddenly said, "Bob, who is this Clarice that your sister mentioned at the table? Fancy name, isn't it?"

"O no," I said as indifferently as I could. He ought not to go springing her on me in that way: it makes a man nervous. "She's an orphan; a sort of cousin of Mrs. T. Got no brothers or sisters, and all that sort of thing; so we look after her a good deal. Sometimes she's with us, sometimes she's not. Was south all winter: got back while I was up there with you."

Now what the deuce did I say that for? It'll brush up his rusty mental machinery, and help him to recall what she wants forgotten. Just so; of course.

"Yes, I remember. She thought of joining you with Miss Jane. I wish you had let them come."

"Well, you see, you don't know what these girls are used to; I do. There were no fit quarters for them at Hodge's. I had gone and written my wife a lot of rot, pretending his place was much better than it is."

"With your usual unassuming virtue and cheerful candor; yes. We have no secrets from one another: the limpid stream of confidence flows unchecked and unpolluted. Just so. But see here, you old hypocrite, if there is another young woman in the family, you ought to have told me about her last night, when you were preparing my mind, you know, and pretending to explain the whole domestic situation. – Great heavens, who's that?"

We had turned a corner, and come plump on the house; and there on the piazza, two rods away, sat a rare and radiant maiden, playing cat's cradle with my eldest son and heir. I can't tell you how she was dressed; but she was a phantom of delight when thus she broke upon our sight; a lovely apparition, sent to be Jim Hartman's blandishment. At least so it seemed, for he stood there and stared like a noble savage. As when the lightning descends on the giant oak in its primeval solitude – but I must stop this; she is too near, though she pretends not to see us yet. So I whispered in low and warning tones:

"Brace up, Jim. She's not the one you met here twelve years ago, who jilted you at Naples: this one wasn't out of her Fourth Reader then. Don't get them mixed, or be deceived by a chance resemblance." I thought it was better to lay his embarrassment on that old affair, you see. But that was all nonsense: he never saw anybody like Clarice before – how should he?

"Confound you, Bob," he muttered between his teeth, "so you've been practising your openhearted innocence on me. Get on with it now, and finish it up."

He pulled himself together, and I went through the introduction with due decorum; then I got away as soon as I could. You see, I was unmanned by the spectacle of so much young emotion, and somewhat exhausted by my own recent exertions. I found a cool corner in the library; and presently Jane had to come in. "What is the matter with you, Robert? Why do you sit there grinning like an idiot?" Perhaps a smile of benevolence had overspread my striking countenance; and that's the way she distorts it. I could not tell her what pleased me, so I said I had been reading a comic paper. "You write your own comic papers, I suspect; and bad enough they are. If you go on at this rate, you will end by editing the Texas Siftings. Do try to be decent, brother, while you have a guest in the house." I suppose she thinks that is a crushing rebuke, now. I said I would try, and told her she had better join Clarice and Hartman, who would probably be tired of each other by this time. Here again I have played into the Princess' hands. She doesn't want Jim to see too much of her at first, but to get used to the blinding glare by degrees, and take his physic in small doses, until he can bear it in larger. At least I hope so: if I've made a mistake and spoiled the procession, I'll learn it soon enough. But Jane wouldn't go unless it was right: that's the good of being a woman. You don't catch me interrupting them, or going near the Princess when she has any of her procedures on foot, unless I am called.

IX.
AT NEWPORT

I could not tell you all that occurred that week; but it went exactly as Clarice intended and had foretold. She was gracious and equable and gentle, a model young lady of the social-domestic type; but Hartman did not see much of her. I on my part was kept steadily occupied, what with boats, and horses, and parasols, and fans, and wools, and wide hats, and more things than you could think of. It was, "Robert, come out on the cliffs," or "Robert, get my garden gloves, please; they are in the sitting-room, or somewhere else;" or "Robert, take me to town; I must telegraph to Constance;" or "Bob dear, would you mind running over to Miss Bliffson's, and telling her that I can't go to the Society this afternoon; and on your way back, stop at the milliner's and see if my hat is done." I usually attended to these commissions promptly; when you have women about, your generous heart will rejoice to protect and indulge their helplessness. They are the clinging vine, you are the sturdy oak; and then, as I said, Clarice is an orphan. Hartman at first showed an inclination to relieve me of the lighter part of these useful avocations, such as taking her about over the rocks and in the bay; but she very quietly, and without the least discourtesy, made him understand that no foreigners need apply for that situation. Other men were coming after her every day, but she avoided them or sent them to the right about: she can do that in a way to make you feel that you have received a favor. She kept reminding me that it was my business to wait on her: if these things were paid for in cash, I should want high wages, for the duties are far from light. But I can stand it: within the bosom of Robert T. glows a spark of warm and pure philanthropy. When I see my fellow-creatures in need, and this good right arm refuses to extend its friendly aid, may my hand cleave to the roof of my mouth – O well, you know what I mean. I used to retire to my meagre and philosophic cot-bedstead with aching limbs and an approving conscience: I never was worked so hard before. Some of these errands were perfectly needless, I knew. She can't want to get me out of the way for an hour or two, for I am never in the way; nor simply to show what she can do, for that is an old story, familiar to all concerned. Doubtless she has some high moral end in view; perhaps to teach Hartman what are the true relations of man and woman, and how the nobler animal can be trained to be a helpmeet and boy-of-all-work to the weaker. Whether this will suit his views I doubt; but she knows what she is about. It is mine not to question why, mine not to make reply, mine simply to go on doing what my hand finds to do – of which there is quite enough at present. Meanwhile, everybody else is having a nice easy time, while I am laboring like six dray-horses for the general good. Hartman sits about with Jane, and they seem to be getting on finely. Mabel also appears to enjoy his society. Sometimes she looks at me and at Clarice, and then at Jim, in a way which might indicate a notion that things are too much mixed, and that the Princess ought to be giving her attention to Hartman's case. I think so too, but it is not for me to suggest it. I feel like asking Mrs. T. what all these complications mean, and why she does not straighten them out: she is Clarice's relative and hostess, and head of the house when I am away. But it will straighten itself pretty soon now, and a new tangle will begin for the predestined victim. Wild man of the woods, your hour will soon strike, and the grim executioner in the black mask will prepare to take your head off. You will see a hand not clearly visible to the outside world – a very beautiful hand it is too, as I ought to know – that will beckon you to your doom: you will hear a voice whose silvery music will drown all fears, all scruples, all world-sick longings for your woman-hating moods, all memories of your lost Lenore of long ago, and tell you that resistance and delay are vain. What the details of the process may be, and whether joy or woe will tip the scales for one who takes things as seriously as you do, I cannot tell; but it is coming, and it is coming presently. You may not like it: you are not used to it as I am; but you cannot help yourself. Farewell to the old life, the old delusions, the old fancied knowledge: you will find yourself a small boy in primary school, beginning the world anew. You think you are locked up in steel, defended by your indifference, your disgust, your unbelief in Life. These glittering generalities will fall into dust before the wand of a magician who has some eminently particular business with you. You have sounded the depths, and found them shallow; you have tested values, and they are less than nothing, and vanity; you have emptied the pincushion, and only bran is there. My skeptical friend, a sharp needle is there yet, and it will prick your finger: there are depths that you know nothing about, and heights too, it may be: there are thrills of life that will go through all your veins, and show you that you are not as near dead as you supposed. You were but a boy when that girl gave you your quietus, as you imagined; you are a man now, with more in you than you fancy, and another girl may bring you to life. Still in your ashes live their ancient fires, and I'm mistaken if they don't start a superior blaze before long. Well, well, I hope it will make a man of you.

X.
ON THE CLIFFS

I was betrayed into the above apostrophe by the violence of my sympathies; but the lucid and graphic sentences which precede this moralizing ably sum up the situation during the first week of Hartman's visit. A good deal of wisdom was in circulation: I said some things myself which deserve to be remembered, and the others occasionally dropt a remark which showed how the ball was moving. You will want the chief of these outpourings in order of time, as landmarks in this history.

Clarice took me apart the first day and began to cross-examine me: that is, she told me to go outside and wait for her, and by the time she came it was dusk. Why is it that the garish day seems to freeze our finer emotions, and reduce us to the monotonous level of a dull cold practicality? It is under the calm light of moon and stars that soul speaks to soul, and we gain those subtler experiences, those deeper views of our own nature and that of our nearest and dearest, which so far transcend the plodding sciences of the laboratory, the useless learning of the pedant, and the empty wisdom of the children of this world.

"Come, Robert, wake up; don't sit mooning there like a calf. Make your report."

"Report?" said I, thus rudely startled from a train of thought which might have borne rich fruit for coming generations. "What about?"

"What about? You forget yourself. Whose employ are you in?"

"Well, on Water Street I am supposed to be carrying on business for myself, and at home I am the envied husband and father of a happy and admiring family. Clarice, I was meditating on subjects of much moment; and the duties of hospitality claim my valuable time. Did you wish to speak to me particularly?"

"None of your nonsense, now. What did you talk about last night on the boat?"

"All sorts of things. My conversation is always improving. I explained to Jim that his reëntrance on society could not be made under fairer auspices; that models of deportment and of all the virtues would be about him on every hand; that a pure atmosphere of love and peace pervaded this modest mansion; that joy was unconfined; that we could lay our weary heads on each other's bosoms in the repose of perfect trust, knowing that not a thought entered any one of them which the angels above might not look into with satisfaction, and – "

"You talk too much about bosoms, Robert: it is not in good taste. What did you say about me?"

"Divil a word, bedad. Wasn't that right? Didn't you tell me to keep dark, and not mention you?"

"Not unnecessarily. But didn't he ask?"

"He'd forgotten all about you. Now, Princess, don't be offended; there was next to nothing to forget, you know. It's not as if he had ever seen you, or really heard anything about you. O, I'll talk you up to him whenever you say so; to-night, if you like. But I thought his forgetting was what you wanted. Didn't I manage it well? Do own that now, please. Let those cerulean orbs shed one ray of gentle light upon the path of a weary wayfarer – yes, that's better. Have I merited your approval, Serene Highness?"

"You've done very well – for you. But was it necessary to tell so many lies, Bob?"

"Now that is not in good taste, if I am a judge – to put such ugly names upon the graceful fancies with which I decorate the plain, rude facts of everyday life. What are we without Imagination, that glorious gift which causes the desert to rejoice and blossom like your little flower-bed in the back yard at home? You know, Clarice, that my mind is a deep clear well of Truth, and my lips merely the bucket that draws it up. Where will you get candor and veracity, those priceless pearls, if not from me?"

"Robert, you have fallen into this way of practising your little tricks and deceptions on everybody. O, I know you mean no harm; it is merely for your own amusement. But Mabel and Jane don't quite understand it."

"Couldn't you explain it to them, Clarice? Some people have no sense of humor. I can't well go around saying, This is a joke; please take it in the spirit in which it is offered."

"O, it does no great harm: they are very seldom deceived, and perhaps they will learn to make allowances for you by and by. But you may be tempted to try your games on me: if I ever catch you at that – Remember, I am not to be trifled with."

"Perish the thought, and perish the caitiff base who would harbor it. Princess, you are sharper than I. Do you think I would be fool enough to try any tricks on you, when I should be found out at once?"

"People generally find you out at once, but that doesn't seem to stop you. How can I tell whether I can trust you? I don't believe you know yourself when you are serious – if you ever are."

"There is one subject on which I am serious – deeply so, and always. Clarice, when I die, if you will see that the autopsy is properly performed, you will find your initials, as the poet says, neatly engraven on my blighted heart."

"Robert, sometimes I fear you have incipient softening of the brain."

"And if I have, is not that a reason why I should be watched and guarded tenderly – why loving arms should enfold my tottering frame, and sweet smiles cheer my declining path, and a strong firm brain like yours support my failing intellect? Clarice, be gentle with me. I am an orphan like yourself; soon, if you read the future aright, to be laid beneath the cold clods of the valley. When I am sleeping under the daisies in the lonely churchyard, you will say to yourself, He was my friend, my more than brother: he loved me with a loyal and self-oblivious devotion. And then, in those sad hours of vain remembrance, every unkind word that you have spoken, all the coldness and cruelty which have pierced my patient breast, will return to torture yours. Be warned in time, Clarice, and make it easy for me while you have the chance."

"Robert, if you have a talent, it is for shirking a subject you are afraid of. When you go off like this, I know you are hiding something from me. What is it this time?"

I saw things were getting serious. She was bound to get it out of me, and I might as well give in. "Princess, I will confess, and throw myself on your mercy. Strike, but hear me. It won't pay you to be cross now, for you've got to be with me till you conclude to take Hartman up; we can't be quarrelling all the time, you know. He asked me about you this morning; Jane had spoken of you at breakfast. I put him off with general remarks about your being down south last winter, and the like of that; then suddenly my brain slipped – it is softening, you see – and I said you had come back when I was in the woods with him. That started him, and he recalled your notion of going up there."

"You are sure you didn't mention it yourself? What did he say?"

"Merely that he wished I had let you and Jane come. He likes Jane. Upon my honor now, he had no suspicion of anything."

"You goose, how often have I told you there was nothing to suspect? But men are so coarse. Well, is that all? What else are you trying to conceal?"

"On my soul, Princess, that's all. I explained it all right, and he was commencing to berate me for not preparing him to meet you as well as the others, when we suddenly came on you, and you struck him deaf and dumb and blind. He swore at me under his breath just before I introduced him." Here my feelings overcame me again.

"Well, there's no harm done. But you really must be more careful, Bob. Try and make your poor mind work better while it lasts; don't forget my instructions again, and when you have made a blunder, tell me at once. You are so light, so devoted to your frivolous amusements; you seem to be drifting into second childhood, thirty years too soon. If you had an object, now, a serious purpose in life: if you really cared for anything – even for me!"

She cuts me when she talks like that. "Clarice, my regard for you is so undemonstrative that you fail to appreciate its depth. If I were to make a fuss over it, now, and use a lot of endearing epithets and big professions, perhaps you would believe me. Some time you will know whether I care for you or not; whether I've got anything in me, and am capable of acting like a man. You wait and see. But I wish I knew what you are going to do with poor Jim."

"Some time you will know: you wait and see. You can go and comfort him now. Good night, poor Bob."

XI.
EXPLANATIONS

I went and comforted him. "Well, old man," I said with a cheerful air, "how do you get on?"

"Robert," said he, "do you suppose I would have come here if I had known what an atrocious humbug you are? Do you imagine for a moment that my relatives, if I had any, would have subjected my innocence to such insidious guardianship? Have you brought me here to destroy my faith, and pollute my morals, and poison my young life with the spectacle of your turpitude?"

"You're improving already, Jim. When I saw you last you hadn't any faith, nor much morals; your youth was away back in the past, and your strength was dried up like railroad doughnuts; you were ready to fall with the first leaves of autumn. Well, since you are here, you can stay till you see how you like us. What do you think of Clarice?"

"She has given me no basis on which to think of her, beyond her looks; they rather take one's breath away. You beast, what do you mean by springing a face like that on me without warning, after all your humbugging talk last night, pretending to post me on every one I was to meet? And I say, do you always stand guard over her when anybody comes near?"

"Well, you see, you were so overcome by the first sight of her this morning, that it seemed no more than fair to let you recover your breath, as you say, and get used to her by degrees. But, James, this is unseemly levity on your part. What have we to do with girls? Let us leave them to the baser spirits who have use for them. The world's a bubble, and the life of man of no account at all. We have tried it, and it is empty; hark, it sounds. Vain pomp and glory of it all, we hate ye. Ye tinsel gauds, ye base embroideries, ye female fripperies, have but our scorn. What are flashing eyes, and tossing ringlets, and rosy lips, and jewelled fingers, to minds like ours? Let us go off to the Nitrian desert, Jim, away from this eternal simper, this harrowing routine."

"You must have been reading up lately, my boy. I left all that in the woods, Bob, and came down here in good faith for a change of air, prepared to learn anything you might have to teach me. If you've got any more traps and masked batteries, let them loose on me; practice on me to your heart's content. You've undertaken to convert me, and I'm here to give you a chance: a fine old apostle you are. But I don't quite understand Miss Elliston's position here, Bob."

"Her position here, or anywhere else, is that she does about as she pleases, and makes everybody else do it too, as you will see before your hair is gray, my learned friend. As I may have told you, we are her nearest relatives: she is an orphan."

"Parents been dead long?"

"About seventeen years. What's that got to do with it?"

"O, not much; don't be so suspicious. Do you think I'm trying to play some trick on you, after your model? How should I, a helpless stranger in a strange land, betrayed by the friend in whom I trusted? I'm an orphan myself too. So that Miss Elliston is in a measure dependent on your kindness?"

"O, don't fancy that she's a poor relation, or anything of that sort. She's got more cash than she wants, and loads of friends: had twenty invitations for the summer. If you don't behave to suit her, she's liable to go off any day to Bar Harbor, or Saratoga, or the Yosemite, or Kamtchatka."

"Very good of her, to stay here with you, then."

"Well, Mabel is deeply attached to her; so is Jane, and the children of course. Her parents and mine were close friends in the country – where I came from, you know. She and I were brought up together; that is, she was – I was mostly brought up before her appearance on this mundane sphere. We used to play in the haymow, and fall from the apple trees together, and all that. O, Clarice is quite a sister to me – a pretty good sister too, all things considered."

"And you are quite a brother to her, as I see. Strange, that it never occurred to mention her, when you were describing the various members of your family. Does her mind match her personal attractions?"

"She's got as good a head as you have, old man, or any other male specimen I've struck. I myself meet her on almost equal terms. O, hang that; I don't either. This is no subject for profane jesting. Talk about the inferiority of women! If the moralists and stump-speakers had one like her at home, they'd change their tune. But there are no more like her."

"You speak warmly, Bob. To Clarice every virtue under heaven. Beautiful, brilliant, accomplished, amiable; you are a happy man to have such an annex to your household – even if she wasn't worth naming at the start."

"Amiable – who said she was amiable? Leave that to commonplace women and plain everyday fellows like me. You can't expect that of her sort, Jim. She can be very nice when she pleases. I suppose she has a heart; it has never waked up yet. When it does, it will be a big one. We don't expect the plebeian virtues of her."

"She has a conscience, I hope? If not, it might be better to go away, and stay away. You ought not to keep dangerous compounds about the house, Bob."

"She won't explode – though others may. A conscience? I think so. She couldn't do a mean thing. She keeps a promise: she has more sense of justice than most women. But you can't apply ordinary rules to her. She is of the blood royal: the Princess, we call her. Can't you see, Jim? You are man enough to take her measure, so far as any one can."

"I see her outside; it is worth coming here to see, if I were an artist or an æsthete. She has deigned to show me no more as yet."

"It is all of a piece: the rest matches that, as you will see in time. There is but one Clarice."

"Bob, you are different from last night. I believe you are telling the truth now."

"She sobers you. When you have been with her, when you think of her, it is as if you were in church – only a good deal more so."

"Very convenient and edifying, to have such a private chapel in one's house. Bob, in this mood I can trust you. Tell me one thing: why did you never mention her to me?"

"She doesn't wish me to talk of her to strangers."

"And now the prohibition is removed?"

"You are not a stranger now. She knows you, and you have seen her."

"Well, you are loyal. Does she appreciate such fidelity?"

"We are very good friends. From childhood we have been more together than most brothers and sisters. More or less, I have always been to her as I am now. She is used to me. I do not ask too much of her. Don't fancy that I am in her confidence, or any one: she has a royal reserve. See here, Jim; I am making you one of the family."

"I understand. I must ask you one thing: why did you bring me here, to expose me to all this?"

"You needed a change, Jim, as you half owned just now; almost any change would be for the better. I wanted you to see the world again: there is in it nothing fairer or richer than Clarice."

"You go on as if she were a saint; and yet you say she's not."

"You can answer that yourself, Jim. She's far from it: you and I are not saint-worshippers. But she has it in her to be a saint, if her attention and her latent force were turned that way. She can be anything, or do anything. She hasn't found her life yet. She bides her time, and I wait with her. Her wings will sprout some day. I like her well enough as she is."

"Evidently. Do you know, old man, that you are talking very freely?"

"Am I the first? or do you suppose I would say all this to any chance comer? You opened your soul to me in May, as far as you knew it: you are welcome to see into mine now."

"There is a difference. I cared for nothing, and believed in nothing; so my soul was worth little. Yours is that of a prosperous and happy man."

"Externals are not the measure of the soul, Jim, nor yet creeds. I know a gentleman when I see him, and so do you. Your soul will get its food yet, and assume its full stature; you've been trying to starve it partly, that's all."

"Do you talk this way to your Princess, Bob?"

"No. She is younger than we: why should I bore her? You and I are on equal terms: she and I are not."

"This humility is very chivalric, but I don't quite understand it in you, Bob."

"You can't: you've been so long unused to women, and you never knew one like her. If you had, it would have been too early; what does a boy of twenty know of himself, or of the girls he thinks he is in love with, or of the true relations that should exist between him and them? Call it quixotic if you like; I don't mind. Any gentleman, that is, any spiritual man, has it in him to be a Quixote. When you come to know Clarice, you will understand."

"Do you call yourself and me spiritual men, Bob?"

"Yes; why not? Spirituality does not depend on the opinions one chances to hold, but on the view he takes of his own part in Life, and on the inherent nature of his soul. We are not worshippers of mammon, or fashion, or any of the idols of the tribe. I live in the world, and you out of it; but that makes little difference. You were in danger of becoming a dogmatist, but you are too much of a man for that. We both live to learn, and we can spend ourselves on an adequate object when we find it."

"Bob, if you don't talk to her like this, she doesn't know you as I do."

"No human being knows another exactly as a third does. We strike fire at different points – when we do at all, which is seldom – and show different sides of ourselves to such few as can see at all. She does not care especially for me: why should she? But she has great penetration – more than you have, far more than I. She sees my follies and faults as you don't; she is a sort of a confessor. At present she is a Sunday-school teacher, and I am her class."

"What do you talk of, all the time?"

"It's not all the time, by any means. That is as she pleases; just now it may be a good deal. By and by it may be your turn: then you'll know some things you don't now. There is nothing I say to her which the world might not overhear, if the world could understand it; and nothing that I can repeat. Jim, I am done: we are up very late."

"Two things I must say yet, or ask, old man. You would stand by this girl against the world; and yet you have charged yourself with me. It may be idle to formulate remote and improbable contingencies, but it is in our line. Would you take her part against me, and be my enemy – you who are my only friend?"

"I would stand by her against the world, assuredly. I would stand by you against all the world but her, I think. You two might quarrel, but neither of you would be wrong: I know you both, and you don't know each other. So I take the risk; it is none. When that time comes, neither of you will find me wanting."

"I believe it. The other thing is this – forgive me if I go too far. Do you know what even intelligent and charitable people would say of all this? That it was very queer, very mixed, very dubious."

"They are not our judges, nor we theirs. What would they say of your theories, and your way of life? To be sure, these concern yourself alone. So is this inwardly my affair; it binds, it holds no other. Must a man live in the woods, to form his own ethical code? Here too one may keep clean hands and a pure heart, and do his own thinking. Life is very queer, very mixed, very dubious; I take it as it comes. O, I see truth here and there in your notions of it, though it has done well by me. If I find in it something unique and precious, shall I thrust that aside, because the statutes have not provided for such a case? But one thing I can reject, so that for me it is not: the baser element. Gross selfishness and vulgar passions are no more in my scheme than in yours: if their suggestions were to rise, it would be easy to disown them. The human beasts who let their lower nature rule, the animals who care for themselves and call it caring for another, are not of our society. O yes, in common things one must get and keep his own – the body must have its food; but one's private temple is kept for worship, and owns a different law. It is not always, nor often, that one can build his shrine on earth, and enter it every day: when a man has that exceptional privilege, he must and may keep his standards high enough to fit. You understand?"