Patton leaned forward on his stick,
shaken with a sort of inward explosion; his plaintive wife laughed
under her breath till she must needs sigh, because laughter tired
her old bones.
shaken with a sort of inward explosion; his plaintive wife laughed
under her breath till she must needs sigh, because laughter tired
her old bones.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v26 - Tur to Wat
I believe it does here - and I should like to know
more about it. I want to make up my mind what to think. Of
course, my father has got his land and his own opinions. And
Lord Maxwell has too. But I am not bound to think like either
of them,- I should like you to understand that. It seems to me
right about all such things that people should inquire, and find
out for themselves. ”
Still silence. Mrs. Jellison's mouth twitched, and she threw a
sly provocative glance at old Patton, as though she would have
liked to poke him in the ribs. But she was not going to help
him out; and at last the one male in the company found himself
obliged to clear his throat for reply.
“We're old folks, most on us, miss, 'cept Mrs. Hurd. We
don't hear talk o' things now like as we did when we
younger. If you ast Mr. Harden, he'll tell you, I dessay. ”
were
>
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MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
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15651
Patton allowed himself an inward chuckle. Even Mrs. Jelli-
son, he thought, must admit that he knew a thing or two as to
the best way of dealing with the gentry.
But Marcella fixed him with her bright frank eyes.
“I had rather ask in the village,” she said. “If
"If you don't
know how it is now, Mr. Patton, tell me how it used to be when
you were young. Was the preserving very strict about here?
Were there often fights with the keepers, long ago ? - in my
grandfather's days ? And do you think men poached because
they were hungry, or because they wanted sport ? ”
Patton looked at her fixedly a moment, undecided: then her
strong nervous youth seemed to exercise a kind of compulsion on
him; perhaps too the pretty courtesy of her manner. He cleared
his throat again, and tried to forget Mrs. Jellison, who would be
sure to let him hear of it again, whatever he said.
“Well, I can't answer for 'em, miss, I'm sure; but if you
ast me, I b’lieve ther's a bit o' boath in it. Yer see it's not in
human natur, when a man's young and 's got his blood up, as
he shouldn't want ter have his sport with the wild creeturs. Per-
haps he see 'em when he's going to the wood with a wood cart,
or he cooms across 'em in the turnips, — wounded birds, you
understan', miss, perhaps the day after the gentry 'as been
,
bangin' at 'em all day. An' he don't see, not for the life of him,
why he shouldn't have 'em. Ther's been lots an' lots for the rich
folks, an' he don't see why ee shouldn't have a few arter they've
enjoyed theirselves. And mebbe he's eleven shillin' a week,-
an' two-threy little chillen,- you understan', miss ? ”
“Of course I understand! ” said Marcella eagerly, her dark
cheek Aushing. “Of course I do! But there's a good deal of
game given away in these parts, isn't there? I know Lord Max-
well does, and they say Lord Winterbourne gives all his laborers
rabbits, almost as many as they want. "
Her questions wound old Patton up as though he had been
a disused clock. He began to feel a whirr among his creaking
wheels, a shaking of all his rusty mind.
"Perhaps they do, miss,” he said; and his wife saw that he
was beginning to tremble. "I dessay they do—I don't say
nothink agen it though theer's none of it cooms my way. But
that isn't all the rights on it nayther; no, that it ain't. The
laborin' man ee's glad enough to get a hare or a rabbit for his
eatin'; but there's more in it nor that, miss. Ee's allus in the
»
## p. 15652 (#606) ##########################################
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MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
fields, that's where it is; ee can't help seein' the hares and the
rabbits a-comin' in and out o' the woods, if it were iver so. Ee
knows ivery run of ivery one on 'em; if a hare's started furthest
corner o'ť field, he can tell yer whar she'll git in by, because
he's allus there, you see, miss, an' it's the only thing he's got to
take his mind off like. And then he sets a snare or two, -- an'
he gits very sharp at settin' on 'em,- an' he'll go out nights
for the sport of it. Ther isn't many things ee's got to liven
him up; an' he takes his chances o’goin' to jail; it's wuth it,
ee thinks. »
The old man's hands on his stick shook more and more visi-
bly. Bygones of his youth had come back to him.
“Oh, I know! I know ! ” cried Marcella, with an accent half
of indignation, half of despair. It's the whole wretched system.
It spoils those who've got, and those who haven't got. And
there'll be no mending it till the people get the land back again,
and till the rights on it are common to all. ”
"My! she do speak up, don't she ? ” said Mrs. Jellison, grin-
ning again at her companions. Then stooping forward with one
of her wild movements, she caught Marcella's arm: “I'd like to
hear yer tell that to Lord Maxwell, miss. I likes a roompus, I
do. ”
Marcella flushed and laughed.
“I wouldn't mind saying that or anything else to Lord Max-
well,” she said proudly. "I'm not ashamed of anything I think. ”
“No, I'll bet you ain't," said Mrs. Jellison, withdrawing her
hand. “Now then, Patton, you say what you thinks. You ain't
got no vote now you're in the parish houses — I minds that.
The quality don't trouble you at 'lection times.
man, Muster Wharton, as is goin' round so free, promisin' yer the
sun out o' the sky, iv yer'll only vote for him, so th' men say
ee don't coom an’ set down along o' you an' me, an' cocker of us
up as he do Joe Simmons or Jim Hurd here. But that don't
matter. Yur thinkin's yur own, any way. "
But she nudged him in vain. Patton had suddenly run down, ,
and there was no more to be got out of him.
Not only had nerves and speech failed him as they were wont,
but in his cloudy soul there had risen, even while Marcella was
speaking, the inevitable suspicion which dogs the relations of the
poor towards the richer class. This young lady, with her strange
talk, was the new squire's daughter. And the village had already
>
This yoong
»
## p. 15653 (#607) ##########################################
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
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(
a
made up its mind that Richard Boyce was a poor sort, and
hard sort” too, in his landlord capacity. He wasn't going to be
any improvement on his brother -- not a haporth! What was the
good of this young woman talking as she did, when there were
three summonses as he, Patton, heard tell — just taken out by
the sanitary inspector against Mr. Boyce for bad cottages ? And
not a farthing given away in the village neither, except perhaps
the bits of food that the young lady herself brought down to
the village now and then,- for which no one, in truth, felt any
cause to be particularly grateful. Besides, what did she mean
by asking questions about the poaching? Old Patton knew as
well as anybody else in the village, that during Robert Boyce's
last days, and after the death of his sportsman son, the Mellor
estate had become the haunt of poachers from far and near; and
that the trouble had long since spread into the neighboring prop-
erties, so that the Winterbourne and Maxwell keepers regarded
it their most arduous business to keep watch on the men of
Mellor. Of course the young woman knew it all; and she
and her father wanted to know more. That was why she talked.
Patton hardened himself against the creeping ways of the qual-
ity.
“I don't think naught,” he said roughly, in answer to Mrs.
Jellison. “Thinkin' won't come atwixt me and the parish coffin
when I'm took. I've no call to think, I tell yer. ”
Marcella's chest heaved with indignant feeling.
“Oh, but Mr. Patton! ” she cried, leaning forward to him,
“won't it comfort you a bit, even if you can't live to see it, to
think there's a better time coming ? There must be. People
can't go on like this always, - hating each other and trampling on
each other. They're beginning to see it now, they are! When I
was living in London, the persons I was with talked and thought
of it all day. Some day, whenever the people choose, - for
they've got the power now they've got the vote,- there'll be
land for everybody; and in every village there'll be a council to
manage things, and the laborer will count for just as much as
the squire and the parson, and he'll be better educated and bet-
ter fed, and care for many things he doesn't care for now. But
all the same, if he wants sport and shooting, it will be there for
him to get. For everybody will have a chance and a turn, and
there'll be no bitterness between classes, and no hopeless pining
and misery as there is now! ”
»
((
## p. 15654 (#608) ##########################################
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MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
The girl broke off, catching her breath. It excited her to say
these things to these people, to these poor tottering old things
who had lived out their lives to the end under the pressure of
an iron system, and had no lien on the future, whatever paradise
it might bring. Again, the situation had something foreseen
and dramatic in it. She saw herself, as the preacher, sitting on
her stool beside the poor grate; she realized as a spectator the
figures of the women and the old man played on by the firelight,
the white, bare, damp-stained walls of the cottage, and in the
background the fragile though still comely form of Minta Hurd,
who was standing with her back to the dresser and her head
bent forward, listening to the talk, while her fingers twisted the
straw she plaited eternally from morning till night for a wage of
about is. 3d. a week.
Her mind was all aflame with excitement and defiance,
defiance of her father, Lord Maxwell, Aldous Raeburn. Let him
come, her friend, and see for himself what she thought it right
to do and say in this miserable village. Her soul challenged
him, longed to provoke him! Well, she was soon to meet him,
and in a new and more significant relation and environment.
The fact made her perception of the whole situation the more
rich and vibrant.
Patton, while these broken thoughts and sensations were cours-
ing through Marcella's head, was slowly revolving what she had
been saying, and the others were waiting for him.
At last he rolled his tongue round his dry lips, and delivered
himself by a final effort.
« Them as likes, miss, may believe as how things are going to
happen that way, but yer won't ketch me! Them as 'ave got
'ull keep,” — he let his stick sharply down on the floor,—“an' them
as 'aven't got 'ull 'ave to go without and lump it, as long as
you're alive, miss: you mark my words! ”
“O Lor', you wor allus one for makin' a poor mouth, Pat-
ton! ” said Mrs. Jellison. She had been sitting with her arms
folded across her chest, part absent, part amused, part mali-
cious. « The young lady speaks beautiful, just like a book, she
do. An' she's likely to know a deal better nor poor persons like
you and me. All I kin say is, - if there's goin' to be dividin' up
of other folks' property when I'm gone, I hope George Westall
won't get nothink of it! He's bad enough as 'tis. Isabella 'ud
have a fine time if ee took to drivin' of his carriage.
>
»
## p. 15655 (#609) ##########################################
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
15655
»
>
»
The others laughed out, Marcella at their head; and Mrs. Jel-
lison subsided, the corners of her mouth still twitching, and her
eyes shining as though a host of entertaining notions were troop-
ing through her, which however she preferred to amuse herself
with rather than the public. Marcella looked at Patton thought-
fully.
“You've been all your life in this village, haven't you, Mr.
Patton ? ” she asked him.
« Born top o' Witchett's Hill, miss. An' my wife here, she
wor born just a house or two further along, an' we two been
married sixty-one year come next March. ”
He had resumed his usual almshouse tone, civil and a little
plaintive. His wife behind him smiled gently at being spoken
of. She had a long fair face, and white hair surmounted by a
battered black bonnet; a mouth set rather on one side, and a
more observant and refined air than most of her neighbors. She
sighed while she talked, and spoke in a delicate quaver.
“D'ye know, miss,” said Mrs. Jellison, pointing to Mrs. Pat-
ton, as she kep' school when she was young ? ”
“Did you, Mrs. Patton ? " asked Marcella in her tone of sym-
pathetic interest. « The school wasn't very big then, I suppose ? ”
“About forty, miss,” said Mrs. Patton with a sigh. «There
was eighteen the rector paid for, and eighteen Mr. Boyce paid
for, and the rest paid for themselves. ”
Her voice dropped gently, and she sighed again like one
weighted with an eternal fatigue.
"And what did you teach them ?
“Well, I taught them the plaitin', miss, and as much readin'
and writin' as I knew myself. It wasn't as high as it is now,
you see, miss,” and a delicate flush dawned on the old cheek,
as Mrs. Patton threw a glance round her companions as though
appealing to them not to tell stories of her.
But Mrs. Jellison was implacable. "It wor she taught me,”
she said, nodding at Marcella and pointing sideways to Mrs.
Patton. “She had a queer way wi' the hard words, I can tell
When she couldn't tell 'em herself she'd never own
up to it. "Say Jerusalem, my dear, and pass on. That's what
she'd say, she would, sure's you're alive! I've heard her do it
times. An' when Isabella an’ me used to read the Bible, nights,
I'd allus rayther do 't than be beholden to me own darter. It
gets yer through, anyway. ”
»
(
yer, miss.
(
## p. 15656 (#610) ##########################################
15656
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
(c
>
-
(
»
"Well, it wor a good word,” said Mrs. Patton, blushing and
mildly defending herself. “It didn't do none of yer any harm. ”
“Oh, an' before her, miss, I went to a school to another woman,
as lived up Shepherd's Row. You remember her, Betsy Brunt ? »
Mrs. Brunt's worn eyes began already to gleam and sparkle.
«Yis, I recolleck very well, Mrs. Jellison. She wor Mercy
Moss; an' a goodish deal of trouble you'd use to get me into wi'
Mercy Moss, all along o' your tricks. ”
Mrs. Jellison, still with folded arms, began to rock herself
gently up and down as though to stimulate memory.
«My word, but Muster Maurice — he wor the clergyman here
then, miss — wor set on Mercy Moss. He and his wife they flat-
tered and cockered her up. Ther wor nobody like her for keepin'
school, not in their eyes — till one midsummer - she — well, she
- I don't want to say nothink onpleasant — but she transgressed,”
said Mrs. Jellison, nodding mysteriously,- triumphant however in
the unimpeachable delicacy of her language, and looking round
the circle for approval.
What do you say? " asked Marcella innocently. “What did
Mercy Moss do ? »
Mrs. Jellison's eyes danced with malice and mischief, but
her mouth shut like a vise.
Patton leaned forward on his stick,
shaken with a sort of inward explosion; his plaintive wife laughed
under her breath till she must needs sigh, because laughter tired
her old bones. Mrs. Brunt gurgled gently. And finally Mrs. Jel-
lison was carried away.
"Oh, my goodness me, don't you make me tell tales o' Mercy
Moss! ” she said at last, dashing the water out of her eyes with
an excited tremulous hand. She's been dead and gone these
forty year, - married and buried mos' respeckable,- it 'ud be a
burning shame to bring up tales agen her now. Them as tittle-
tattles about dead folks needn't look to lie quiet theirselves in
their graves.
I've said it times, and I'll say it again. What are
you lookin' at me for, Betsy Brunt ? »
And Mrs. Jellison drew up suddenly with a fierce glance at
Mrs. Brunt.
«Why, Mrs. Jellison, I niver meant no offense,” said Mrs.
Brunt hastily.
“I won't stand no insinooating,” said Mrs. Jellison with
”
energy. “If you've got soomthink agen me, you may out wi' 't
anniver mind the young lady. ”
((
)
>
## p. 15657 (#611) ##########################################
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
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(c
>
But Mrs. Brunt, much furried, retreated amid a shower of
excuses, pursued by her enemy, who was soon worrying the
whole little company as a dog worries a flock of sheep; snap-
ping here and teasing there, chattering at the top of her voice
in broad dialect as she got more and more excited, and quite as
ready to break her wit on Marcella as on anybody else. As for
the others, most of them had known little else for weeks than
alternations of toil and sickness; they were as much amused and
excited to-night by Mrs. Jellison's audacities as a Londoner is by
his favorite low comedian at his favorite music-hall. They ved
chorus to her, laughed, baited her; even old Patton was drawn
against his will into a caustic sociability.
Marcella meanwhile sat on her stool, her chin upon her hand,
and her full glowing eyes turned upon the little spectacle, absorb-
ing it all with a covetous curiosity.
The light-heartedness, the power of enjoyment, left in these
old folk, struck her dumb. Mrs. Brunt had an income of two-
and-sixpence a week, plus two loaves from the parish, and one
of the parish or charity houses,-a hovel, that is to say, of
»
one room, scarcely fit for human habitation at all. She had lost
five children, was allowed two shillings a week by two laborer
sons, and earned sixpence a week — about — by continuous work
at "the plait. ” Her husband had been run over by a farm cart
and killed; up to the time of his death his earnings averaged
about twenty-eight pounds a year. Much the same with the
Pattons. They had lost eight children out of ten, and were
now mainly supported by the wages of a daughter in service.
Mrs. Patton had of late years suffered agonies and humiliations
indescribable, from a terrible illness which the parish doctor was
quite incompetent to treat; being all through a singularly sensi-
tive woman, with a natural instinct for the decorous and the beau-
tiful.
Amazing! Starvation wages; hardships of sickness and pain;
horrors of birth and horrors of death; wholesale losses of kindred
and friends; the meanest surroundings; the most sordid cares,-
of this mingled cup of village fate every person in the room had
drunk, and drunk deep. Yet here in this autumn twilight they
laughed and chattered and joked, — weird, wrinkled children, en-
joying an hour's rough play in a clearing of the storm! Depend-
ent from birth to death on squire, parson, parish, crushed often
and ill-treated according to their own ideas, but bearing so little
## p. 15658 (#612) ##########################################
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MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
ill-will; amusing themselves with their own tragedies even, if
they could but sit by a fire and drink a neighbor's cup of tea.
Her heart swelled and burned within her. Yes, the old
people were past hoping for; mere wreck and driftwood on the
shore, the springtide of death would soon have swept them all
into unremembered graves. But the young men and women, the
children, were they too to grow up, and grow old like these, –
the same smiling, stunted, ignobly submissive creatures ? One
woman at least would do her best with her one poor life to rouse
some of them to discontent and revolt!
DAVID AND ELISE
From "The History of David Grieve. ) Copyright 1891, by Macmillan & Co.
D
Avid stared at Elise. He had grown very pale. She too was
white to the lips. The violence and passion of her speech
had exhausted her; her hands trembled in her lap. A
wave of emotion swept through him. Her words were inso-
lently bitter: why then this impression of something wounded
and young and struggling, - at war with itself and the world, -
proclaiming loneliness and sehnsucht, while it fung anger and
reproach?
He dropped on one knee, hardly knowing what he did. Most
of the students about had left their work for a while; no one was
in sight but a gardien whose back was turned to them, and a
young man in the remote distance. He picked up a brush she
had let fall, pressed it into her reluctant hand, and laid his fore-
head against the hand for an instant.
“You misunderstand me,” he said, with a broken, breathless
utterance. "You are quite wrong — quite mistaken.
There are
not such thoughts in me as you think. The world matters noth-
ing to me either. I am alone too; I have always been alone.
You meant everything that was heavenly and kind - you must
have meant it. I am a stupid idiot! But I could be your friend
- if you would permit it. ”
He spoke with an extraordinary timidity and slowness. He
forgot all his scruples, all pride — everything. As he knelt there,
so close to her delicate slimness, to the curls on her white neck,
to the quivering lips and great defiant eyes, she seemed to him
once more a being of another clay from himself - beyond any
## p. 15659 (#613) ##########################################
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
15659
criticism his audacity could form. He dared hardly touch her;
and in his heart there swelled the first irrevocable wave of young
passion.
She raised her hand impetuously and began to paint again.
But suddenly a tear dropped on to her knee. She brushed it
away, and her wild smile broke.
« Bah! ” she said: “what a scene, what a pair of children!
What was it all about? I vow I haven't an idea. You are an
excellent farceur, Monsieur David! One can see well that you
have read George Sand. ”
He sat down on a little three-legged stool she had brought
with her, and held her box open on his knee. In a minute or
two they were talking as though nothing had happened.
She was
giving him a fresh lecture on Velasquez, and he had resumed his
rôle of pupil and listener. But their eyes avoided each other;
and once, when in taking a tube from the box he held, her
fingers brushed against his hand, she flushed involuntarily, and
moved her chair a foot further away.
“Who is that ? ” she asked, suddenly looking round the corner
of her canvas. "Mon Dieu ! M. Regnault! How does he come
here? They told me he was at Granada. ”
She sat transfixed, a joyous excitement illuminating every
feature. And there, a few yards from them, examining the
Rembrandt (Supper at Emmaus' with a minute and absorbed at-
tention, was the young man he had noticed in the distance a few
minutes before. As Elise spoke, the new-comer apparently heard
his name, and turned. He put up his eyeglass, smiled, and took
off his hat.
“Mademoiselle Delaunay! I find you where I left you, at
the feet of the master! Always at work! You are indefatigable.
Taranne tells me great things of you. Ah,' he says, if the
men would work like the women! ' I assure you, he makes us
smart for it. May I look? Good - very good! a great improve-
ment on last year; stronger, more knowledge in it. That hand
wants study — but you will soon put it right. Ah, Velasquez!
That a man should be great, one can bear that,- but so great!
It is an offense to the rest of us mortals. But one cannot realize
him out of Madrid. I often. sigh for the months I spent copying
in the Museo. There is a repose of soul in copying a great mas-
ter don't you find it? One rests from one's own efforts awhile;
the spirit of the master descends into yours, gently, profoundly. ”
## p. 15660 (#614) ##########################################
15660
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
» *
He stood beside her, smiling kindly, his hat and gloves in
his hands, perfectly dressed, an air of the great world about his
look and bearing which differentiated him wholly from all other
persons whom David had yet seen in Paris. In physique too he
was totally unlike the ordinary Parisian type. He was a young
athlete, - vigorous, robust, broad-shouldered, tanned by sun and
wind. Only his blue eye---so subtle, melancholy, passionate -
revealed the artist and the thinker.
Elise was evidently transported by his notice of her. She
talked to him eagerly of his pictures in the Salon; especially of
a certain 'Salome,' which, as David presently gathered, was the
sensation of the year. She raved about the qualities of it,- the
words “color," "poignancy,” force,” recurring in the quick
phrases.
“No one talks of your success now,
monsieur. It is another
word. C'est la gloire elle-même qui vous parle à l'oreille !
As she let fall the most characteristic of all French nouns, a
slight tremor passed across the young man's face. But the look
which succeeded it was one of melancholy; the blue eyes took a
steely hardness.
Perhaps a lying spirit, mademoiselle. And what matter, so
long as everything one does disappoints oneself? What a tyrant
is art! insatiable, adorable! You know it. We serve our king
on our knees, and he deals us the most miserly gifts. ”
“It is the service itself repays,” she said eagerly, her chest
heaving
« True! most true! But what a struggle always! No rest
no content. And there is no other way.
One must seek, grope,
toil — then produce rapidly -- in a flash — throw what you have
done behind you — and so on to the next problem, and the next.
There is no end to it; there never can be. But you hardly came
here this morning, I imagine, mademoiselle, to hear me prate!
I wish you good-day and good-by. I came over for a look at the
Salon; but to-morrow I go back to Spain. I can't breathe now
for long away from my sun and my South! Adieu, mademoi-
selle. I am told your prospects, when the voting comes on, are
excellent. May the gods inspire the jury. ”
He bowed, smiled, and passed on, carrying his lion-head and
kingly presence down the gallery, which had now filled up again;
»
*«It is Glory herself who whispers to you now!
## p. 15661 (#615) ##########################################
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
15661
ing for.
(
and where, so David noticed, person after person turned as he
came near, with the same flash of recognition and pleasure he
had seen upon Elise's face.
A wild jealousy of the young conqueror invaded the English lad.
" Who is he? ” he asked.
Elise, woman-like, divined him in a moment. She gave him
a sidelong glance, and went back to her painting.
« That,” she said quietly, “is Henri Regnault. Ah, you know
nothing of our painters. I can't make you understand. For
me he is a young god; there is a halo round his head. He has
grasped his fame — the fame we poor creatures are all thirst-
It began last year with the Prim — General Prim on
horseback-oh, magnificent! a passion! an energy! This year
!
it is the Salome. ) About — Gautier- all the world — have lost
their heads over it. If you go to see it at the Salon, you will
have to wait your turn. Crowds go every day for nothing else.
Of course there are murmurs. They say the study of Fortuny
has done him harm. Nonsense! People discuss him because he
is becoming a master; no one discusses the nonentities. They
have no enemies. Then he is a sculptor, musician, athlete, — well
born besides, — all the world is his friend. But with it all so
simple — bon camarade even for poor scrawlers like me. Je
l'adore ! »
“So it seems,” said David.
The girl smiled over her painting. But after a bit she looked
up with a seriousness — nay, a bitterness — in her siren's face,
which astonished him.
“It is not amusing to take you in,- you are too ignorant.
What do you suppose Henri Regnault matters to me? His world
is as far above mine as Velasquez's art is above my art. But
how can a foreigner understand our shades and grades ? Noth-
ing but success, but la gloire, could ever lift me into his world.
Then indeed I should be everybody's equal, and it would mat-
ter to nobody that I had been a Bohemian and a déclassée. ”
She gave a little sigh of excitement, and threw her head back
to look at her picture. David watched her.
“I thought,” he said ironically, “that a few minutes ago you
were all for Bohemia. I did not suspect these social ambitions. ”
"All women have them — all artists deny them,” she said reck-
lessly. “There, explain me as you like, Monsieur David. But
(
»
## p. 15662 (#616) ##########################################
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MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
“ Be
»
don't read my riddle too soon, or I shall bore you. — Allow me to
ask you a question. ”
She laid down her brushes and looked at him with the utmost
gravity. His heart beat; he bent forward.
"Are you ever hungry, Monsieur David ?
more about it. I want to make up my mind what to think. Of
course, my father has got his land and his own opinions. And
Lord Maxwell has too. But I am not bound to think like either
of them,- I should like you to understand that. It seems to me
right about all such things that people should inquire, and find
out for themselves. ”
Still silence. Mrs. Jellison's mouth twitched, and she threw a
sly provocative glance at old Patton, as though she would have
liked to poke him in the ribs. But she was not going to help
him out; and at last the one male in the company found himself
obliged to clear his throat for reply.
“We're old folks, most on us, miss, 'cept Mrs. Hurd. We
don't hear talk o' things now like as we did when we
younger. If you ast Mr. Harden, he'll tell you, I dessay. ”
were
>
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MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
WARD
15651
Patton allowed himself an inward chuckle. Even Mrs. Jelli-
son, he thought, must admit that he knew a thing or two as to
the best way of dealing with the gentry.
But Marcella fixed him with her bright frank eyes.
“I had rather ask in the village,” she said. “If
"If you don't
know how it is now, Mr. Patton, tell me how it used to be when
you were young. Was the preserving very strict about here?
Were there often fights with the keepers, long ago ? - in my
grandfather's days ? And do you think men poached because
they were hungry, or because they wanted sport ? ”
Patton looked at her fixedly a moment, undecided: then her
strong nervous youth seemed to exercise a kind of compulsion on
him; perhaps too the pretty courtesy of her manner. He cleared
his throat again, and tried to forget Mrs. Jellison, who would be
sure to let him hear of it again, whatever he said.
“Well, I can't answer for 'em, miss, I'm sure; but if you
ast me, I b’lieve ther's a bit o' boath in it. Yer see it's not in
human natur, when a man's young and 's got his blood up, as
he shouldn't want ter have his sport with the wild creeturs. Per-
haps he see 'em when he's going to the wood with a wood cart,
or he cooms across 'em in the turnips, — wounded birds, you
understan', miss, perhaps the day after the gentry 'as been
,
bangin' at 'em all day. An' he don't see, not for the life of him,
why he shouldn't have 'em. Ther's been lots an' lots for the rich
folks, an' he don't see why ee shouldn't have a few arter they've
enjoyed theirselves. And mebbe he's eleven shillin' a week,-
an' two-threy little chillen,- you understan', miss ? ”
“Of course I understand! ” said Marcella eagerly, her dark
cheek Aushing. “Of course I do! But there's a good deal of
game given away in these parts, isn't there? I know Lord Max-
well does, and they say Lord Winterbourne gives all his laborers
rabbits, almost as many as they want. "
Her questions wound old Patton up as though he had been
a disused clock. He began to feel a whirr among his creaking
wheels, a shaking of all his rusty mind.
"Perhaps they do, miss,” he said; and his wife saw that he
was beginning to tremble. "I dessay they do—I don't say
nothink agen it though theer's none of it cooms my way. But
that isn't all the rights on it nayther; no, that it ain't. The
laborin' man ee's glad enough to get a hare or a rabbit for his
eatin'; but there's more in it nor that, miss. Ee's allus in the
»
## p. 15652 (#606) ##########################################
15652
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
fields, that's where it is; ee can't help seein' the hares and the
rabbits a-comin' in and out o' the woods, if it were iver so. Ee
knows ivery run of ivery one on 'em; if a hare's started furthest
corner o'ť field, he can tell yer whar she'll git in by, because
he's allus there, you see, miss, an' it's the only thing he's got to
take his mind off like. And then he sets a snare or two, -- an'
he gits very sharp at settin' on 'em,- an' he'll go out nights
for the sport of it. Ther isn't many things ee's got to liven
him up; an' he takes his chances o’goin' to jail; it's wuth it,
ee thinks. »
The old man's hands on his stick shook more and more visi-
bly. Bygones of his youth had come back to him.
“Oh, I know! I know ! ” cried Marcella, with an accent half
of indignation, half of despair. It's the whole wretched system.
It spoils those who've got, and those who haven't got. And
there'll be no mending it till the people get the land back again,
and till the rights on it are common to all. ”
"My! she do speak up, don't she ? ” said Mrs. Jellison, grin-
ning again at her companions. Then stooping forward with one
of her wild movements, she caught Marcella's arm: “I'd like to
hear yer tell that to Lord Maxwell, miss. I likes a roompus, I
do. ”
Marcella flushed and laughed.
“I wouldn't mind saying that or anything else to Lord Max-
well,” she said proudly. "I'm not ashamed of anything I think. ”
“No, I'll bet you ain't," said Mrs. Jellison, withdrawing her
hand. “Now then, Patton, you say what you thinks. You ain't
got no vote now you're in the parish houses — I minds that.
The quality don't trouble you at 'lection times.
man, Muster Wharton, as is goin' round so free, promisin' yer the
sun out o' the sky, iv yer'll only vote for him, so th' men say
ee don't coom an’ set down along o' you an' me, an' cocker of us
up as he do Joe Simmons or Jim Hurd here. But that don't
matter. Yur thinkin's yur own, any way. "
But she nudged him in vain. Patton had suddenly run down, ,
and there was no more to be got out of him.
Not only had nerves and speech failed him as they were wont,
but in his cloudy soul there had risen, even while Marcella was
speaking, the inevitable suspicion which dogs the relations of the
poor towards the richer class. This young lady, with her strange
talk, was the new squire's daughter. And the village had already
>
This yoong
»
## p. 15653 (#607) ##########################################
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
15653
(
a
made up its mind that Richard Boyce was a poor sort, and
hard sort” too, in his landlord capacity. He wasn't going to be
any improvement on his brother -- not a haporth! What was the
good of this young woman talking as she did, when there were
three summonses as he, Patton, heard tell — just taken out by
the sanitary inspector against Mr. Boyce for bad cottages ? And
not a farthing given away in the village neither, except perhaps
the bits of food that the young lady herself brought down to
the village now and then,- for which no one, in truth, felt any
cause to be particularly grateful. Besides, what did she mean
by asking questions about the poaching? Old Patton knew as
well as anybody else in the village, that during Robert Boyce's
last days, and after the death of his sportsman son, the Mellor
estate had become the haunt of poachers from far and near; and
that the trouble had long since spread into the neighboring prop-
erties, so that the Winterbourne and Maxwell keepers regarded
it their most arduous business to keep watch on the men of
Mellor. Of course the young woman knew it all; and she
and her father wanted to know more. That was why she talked.
Patton hardened himself against the creeping ways of the qual-
ity.
“I don't think naught,” he said roughly, in answer to Mrs.
Jellison. “Thinkin' won't come atwixt me and the parish coffin
when I'm took. I've no call to think, I tell yer. ”
Marcella's chest heaved with indignant feeling.
“Oh, but Mr. Patton! ” she cried, leaning forward to him,
“won't it comfort you a bit, even if you can't live to see it, to
think there's a better time coming ? There must be. People
can't go on like this always, - hating each other and trampling on
each other. They're beginning to see it now, they are! When I
was living in London, the persons I was with talked and thought
of it all day. Some day, whenever the people choose, - for
they've got the power now they've got the vote,- there'll be
land for everybody; and in every village there'll be a council to
manage things, and the laborer will count for just as much as
the squire and the parson, and he'll be better educated and bet-
ter fed, and care for many things he doesn't care for now. But
all the same, if he wants sport and shooting, it will be there for
him to get. For everybody will have a chance and a turn, and
there'll be no bitterness between classes, and no hopeless pining
and misery as there is now! ”
»
((
## p. 15654 (#608) ##########################################
15654
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
The girl broke off, catching her breath. It excited her to say
these things to these people, to these poor tottering old things
who had lived out their lives to the end under the pressure of
an iron system, and had no lien on the future, whatever paradise
it might bring. Again, the situation had something foreseen
and dramatic in it. She saw herself, as the preacher, sitting on
her stool beside the poor grate; she realized as a spectator the
figures of the women and the old man played on by the firelight,
the white, bare, damp-stained walls of the cottage, and in the
background the fragile though still comely form of Minta Hurd,
who was standing with her back to the dresser and her head
bent forward, listening to the talk, while her fingers twisted the
straw she plaited eternally from morning till night for a wage of
about is. 3d. a week.
Her mind was all aflame with excitement and defiance,
defiance of her father, Lord Maxwell, Aldous Raeburn. Let him
come, her friend, and see for himself what she thought it right
to do and say in this miserable village. Her soul challenged
him, longed to provoke him! Well, she was soon to meet him,
and in a new and more significant relation and environment.
The fact made her perception of the whole situation the more
rich and vibrant.
Patton, while these broken thoughts and sensations were cours-
ing through Marcella's head, was slowly revolving what she had
been saying, and the others were waiting for him.
At last he rolled his tongue round his dry lips, and delivered
himself by a final effort.
« Them as likes, miss, may believe as how things are going to
happen that way, but yer won't ketch me! Them as 'ave got
'ull keep,” — he let his stick sharply down on the floor,—“an' them
as 'aven't got 'ull 'ave to go without and lump it, as long as
you're alive, miss: you mark my words! ”
“O Lor', you wor allus one for makin' a poor mouth, Pat-
ton! ” said Mrs. Jellison. She had been sitting with her arms
folded across her chest, part absent, part amused, part mali-
cious. « The young lady speaks beautiful, just like a book, she
do. An' she's likely to know a deal better nor poor persons like
you and me. All I kin say is, - if there's goin' to be dividin' up
of other folks' property when I'm gone, I hope George Westall
won't get nothink of it! He's bad enough as 'tis. Isabella 'ud
have a fine time if ee took to drivin' of his carriage.
>
»
## p. 15655 (#609) ##########################################
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
15655
»
>
»
The others laughed out, Marcella at their head; and Mrs. Jel-
lison subsided, the corners of her mouth still twitching, and her
eyes shining as though a host of entertaining notions were troop-
ing through her, which however she preferred to amuse herself
with rather than the public. Marcella looked at Patton thought-
fully.
“You've been all your life in this village, haven't you, Mr.
Patton ? ” she asked him.
« Born top o' Witchett's Hill, miss. An' my wife here, she
wor born just a house or two further along, an' we two been
married sixty-one year come next March. ”
He had resumed his usual almshouse tone, civil and a little
plaintive. His wife behind him smiled gently at being spoken
of. She had a long fair face, and white hair surmounted by a
battered black bonnet; a mouth set rather on one side, and a
more observant and refined air than most of her neighbors. She
sighed while she talked, and spoke in a delicate quaver.
“D'ye know, miss,” said Mrs. Jellison, pointing to Mrs. Pat-
ton, as she kep' school when she was young ? ”
“Did you, Mrs. Patton ? " asked Marcella in her tone of sym-
pathetic interest. « The school wasn't very big then, I suppose ? ”
“About forty, miss,” said Mrs. Patton with a sigh. «There
was eighteen the rector paid for, and eighteen Mr. Boyce paid
for, and the rest paid for themselves. ”
Her voice dropped gently, and she sighed again like one
weighted with an eternal fatigue.
"And what did you teach them ?
“Well, I taught them the plaitin', miss, and as much readin'
and writin' as I knew myself. It wasn't as high as it is now,
you see, miss,” and a delicate flush dawned on the old cheek,
as Mrs. Patton threw a glance round her companions as though
appealing to them not to tell stories of her.
But Mrs. Jellison was implacable. "It wor she taught me,”
she said, nodding at Marcella and pointing sideways to Mrs.
Patton. “She had a queer way wi' the hard words, I can tell
When she couldn't tell 'em herself she'd never own
up to it. "Say Jerusalem, my dear, and pass on. That's what
she'd say, she would, sure's you're alive! I've heard her do it
times. An' when Isabella an’ me used to read the Bible, nights,
I'd allus rayther do 't than be beholden to me own darter. It
gets yer through, anyway. ”
»
(
yer, miss.
(
## p. 15656 (#610) ##########################################
15656
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
(c
>
-
(
»
"Well, it wor a good word,” said Mrs. Patton, blushing and
mildly defending herself. “It didn't do none of yer any harm. ”
“Oh, an' before her, miss, I went to a school to another woman,
as lived up Shepherd's Row. You remember her, Betsy Brunt ? »
Mrs. Brunt's worn eyes began already to gleam and sparkle.
«Yis, I recolleck very well, Mrs. Jellison. She wor Mercy
Moss; an' a goodish deal of trouble you'd use to get me into wi'
Mercy Moss, all along o' your tricks. ”
Mrs. Jellison, still with folded arms, began to rock herself
gently up and down as though to stimulate memory.
«My word, but Muster Maurice — he wor the clergyman here
then, miss — wor set on Mercy Moss. He and his wife they flat-
tered and cockered her up. Ther wor nobody like her for keepin'
school, not in their eyes — till one midsummer - she — well, she
- I don't want to say nothink onpleasant — but she transgressed,”
said Mrs. Jellison, nodding mysteriously,- triumphant however in
the unimpeachable delicacy of her language, and looking round
the circle for approval.
What do you say? " asked Marcella innocently. “What did
Mercy Moss do ? »
Mrs. Jellison's eyes danced with malice and mischief, but
her mouth shut like a vise.
Patton leaned forward on his stick,
shaken with a sort of inward explosion; his plaintive wife laughed
under her breath till she must needs sigh, because laughter tired
her old bones. Mrs. Brunt gurgled gently. And finally Mrs. Jel-
lison was carried away.
"Oh, my goodness me, don't you make me tell tales o' Mercy
Moss! ” she said at last, dashing the water out of her eyes with
an excited tremulous hand. She's been dead and gone these
forty year, - married and buried mos' respeckable,- it 'ud be a
burning shame to bring up tales agen her now. Them as tittle-
tattles about dead folks needn't look to lie quiet theirselves in
their graves.
I've said it times, and I'll say it again. What are
you lookin' at me for, Betsy Brunt ? »
And Mrs. Jellison drew up suddenly with a fierce glance at
Mrs. Brunt.
«Why, Mrs. Jellison, I niver meant no offense,” said Mrs.
Brunt hastily.
“I won't stand no insinooating,” said Mrs. Jellison with
”
energy. “If you've got soomthink agen me, you may out wi' 't
anniver mind the young lady. ”
((
)
>
## p. 15657 (#611) ##########################################
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
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(c
>
But Mrs. Brunt, much furried, retreated amid a shower of
excuses, pursued by her enemy, who was soon worrying the
whole little company as a dog worries a flock of sheep; snap-
ping here and teasing there, chattering at the top of her voice
in broad dialect as she got more and more excited, and quite as
ready to break her wit on Marcella as on anybody else. As for
the others, most of them had known little else for weeks than
alternations of toil and sickness; they were as much amused and
excited to-night by Mrs. Jellison's audacities as a Londoner is by
his favorite low comedian at his favorite music-hall. They ved
chorus to her, laughed, baited her; even old Patton was drawn
against his will into a caustic sociability.
Marcella meanwhile sat on her stool, her chin upon her hand,
and her full glowing eyes turned upon the little spectacle, absorb-
ing it all with a covetous curiosity.
The light-heartedness, the power of enjoyment, left in these
old folk, struck her dumb. Mrs. Brunt had an income of two-
and-sixpence a week, plus two loaves from the parish, and one
of the parish or charity houses,-a hovel, that is to say, of
»
one room, scarcely fit for human habitation at all. She had lost
five children, was allowed two shillings a week by two laborer
sons, and earned sixpence a week — about — by continuous work
at "the plait. ” Her husband had been run over by a farm cart
and killed; up to the time of his death his earnings averaged
about twenty-eight pounds a year. Much the same with the
Pattons. They had lost eight children out of ten, and were
now mainly supported by the wages of a daughter in service.
Mrs. Patton had of late years suffered agonies and humiliations
indescribable, from a terrible illness which the parish doctor was
quite incompetent to treat; being all through a singularly sensi-
tive woman, with a natural instinct for the decorous and the beau-
tiful.
Amazing! Starvation wages; hardships of sickness and pain;
horrors of birth and horrors of death; wholesale losses of kindred
and friends; the meanest surroundings; the most sordid cares,-
of this mingled cup of village fate every person in the room had
drunk, and drunk deep. Yet here in this autumn twilight they
laughed and chattered and joked, — weird, wrinkled children, en-
joying an hour's rough play in a clearing of the storm! Depend-
ent from birth to death on squire, parson, parish, crushed often
and ill-treated according to their own ideas, but bearing so little
## p. 15658 (#612) ##########################################
15658
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
ill-will; amusing themselves with their own tragedies even, if
they could but sit by a fire and drink a neighbor's cup of tea.
Her heart swelled and burned within her. Yes, the old
people were past hoping for; mere wreck and driftwood on the
shore, the springtide of death would soon have swept them all
into unremembered graves. But the young men and women, the
children, were they too to grow up, and grow old like these, –
the same smiling, stunted, ignobly submissive creatures ? One
woman at least would do her best with her one poor life to rouse
some of them to discontent and revolt!
DAVID AND ELISE
From "The History of David Grieve. ) Copyright 1891, by Macmillan & Co.
D
Avid stared at Elise. He had grown very pale. She too was
white to the lips. The violence and passion of her speech
had exhausted her; her hands trembled in her lap. A
wave of emotion swept through him. Her words were inso-
lently bitter: why then this impression of something wounded
and young and struggling, - at war with itself and the world, -
proclaiming loneliness and sehnsucht, while it fung anger and
reproach?
He dropped on one knee, hardly knowing what he did. Most
of the students about had left their work for a while; no one was
in sight but a gardien whose back was turned to them, and a
young man in the remote distance. He picked up a brush she
had let fall, pressed it into her reluctant hand, and laid his fore-
head against the hand for an instant.
“You misunderstand me,” he said, with a broken, breathless
utterance. "You are quite wrong — quite mistaken.
There are
not such thoughts in me as you think. The world matters noth-
ing to me either. I am alone too; I have always been alone.
You meant everything that was heavenly and kind - you must
have meant it. I am a stupid idiot! But I could be your friend
- if you would permit it. ”
He spoke with an extraordinary timidity and slowness. He
forgot all his scruples, all pride — everything. As he knelt there,
so close to her delicate slimness, to the curls on her white neck,
to the quivering lips and great defiant eyes, she seemed to him
once more a being of another clay from himself - beyond any
## p. 15659 (#613) ##########################################
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
15659
criticism his audacity could form. He dared hardly touch her;
and in his heart there swelled the first irrevocable wave of young
passion.
She raised her hand impetuously and began to paint again.
But suddenly a tear dropped on to her knee. She brushed it
away, and her wild smile broke.
« Bah! ” she said: “what a scene, what a pair of children!
What was it all about? I vow I haven't an idea. You are an
excellent farceur, Monsieur David! One can see well that you
have read George Sand. ”
He sat down on a little three-legged stool she had brought
with her, and held her box open on his knee. In a minute or
two they were talking as though nothing had happened.
She was
giving him a fresh lecture on Velasquez, and he had resumed his
rôle of pupil and listener. But their eyes avoided each other;
and once, when in taking a tube from the box he held, her
fingers brushed against his hand, she flushed involuntarily, and
moved her chair a foot further away.
“Who is that ? ” she asked, suddenly looking round the corner
of her canvas. "Mon Dieu ! M. Regnault! How does he come
here? They told me he was at Granada. ”
She sat transfixed, a joyous excitement illuminating every
feature. And there, a few yards from them, examining the
Rembrandt (Supper at Emmaus' with a minute and absorbed at-
tention, was the young man he had noticed in the distance a few
minutes before. As Elise spoke, the new-comer apparently heard
his name, and turned. He put up his eyeglass, smiled, and took
off his hat.
“Mademoiselle Delaunay! I find you where I left you, at
the feet of the master! Always at work! You are indefatigable.
Taranne tells me great things of you. Ah,' he says, if the
men would work like the women! ' I assure you, he makes us
smart for it. May I look? Good - very good! a great improve-
ment on last year; stronger, more knowledge in it. That hand
wants study — but you will soon put it right. Ah, Velasquez!
That a man should be great, one can bear that,- but so great!
It is an offense to the rest of us mortals. But one cannot realize
him out of Madrid. I often. sigh for the months I spent copying
in the Museo. There is a repose of soul in copying a great mas-
ter don't you find it? One rests from one's own efforts awhile;
the spirit of the master descends into yours, gently, profoundly. ”
## p. 15660 (#614) ##########################################
15660
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
» *
He stood beside her, smiling kindly, his hat and gloves in
his hands, perfectly dressed, an air of the great world about his
look and bearing which differentiated him wholly from all other
persons whom David had yet seen in Paris. In physique too he
was totally unlike the ordinary Parisian type. He was a young
athlete, - vigorous, robust, broad-shouldered, tanned by sun and
wind. Only his blue eye---so subtle, melancholy, passionate -
revealed the artist and the thinker.
Elise was evidently transported by his notice of her. She
talked to him eagerly of his pictures in the Salon; especially of
a certain 'Salome,' which, as David presently gathered, was the
sensation of the year. She raved about the qualities of it,- the
words “color," "poignancy,” force,” recurring in the quick
phrases.
“No one talks of your success now,
monsieur. It is another
word. C'est la gloire elle-même qui vous parle à l'oreille !
As she let fall the most characteristic of all French nouns, a
slight tremor passed across the young man's face. But the look
which succeeded it was one of melancholy; the blue eyes took a
steely hardness.
Perhaps a lying spirit, mademoiselle. And what matter, so
long as everything one does disappoints oneself? What a tyrant
is art! insatiable, adorable! You know it. We serve our king
on our knees, and he deals us the most miserly gifts. ”
“It is the service itself repays,” she said eagerly, her chest
heaving
« True! most true! But what a struggle always! No rest
no content. And there is no other way.
One must seek, grope,
toil — then produce rapidly -- in a flash — throw what you have
done behind you — and so on to the next problem, and the next.
There is no end to it; there never can be. But you hardly came
here this morning, I imagine, mademoiselle, to hear me prate!
I wish you good-day and good-by. I came over for a look at the
Salon; but to-morrow I go back to Spain. I can't breathe now
for long away from my sun and my South! Adieu, mademoi-
selle. I am told your prospects, when the voting comes on, are
excellent. May the gods inspire the jury. ”
He bowed, smiled, and passed on, carrying his lion-head and
kingly presence down the gallery, which had now filled up again;
»
*«It is Glory herself who whispers to you now!
## p. 15661 (#615) ##########################################
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
15661
ing for.
(
and where, so David noticed, person after person turned as he
came near, with the same flash of recognition and pleasure he
had seen upon Elise's face.
A wild jealousy of the young conqueror invaded the English lad.
" Who is he? ” he asked.
Elise, woman-like, divined him in a moment. She gave him
a sidelong glance, and went back to her painting.
« That,” she said quietly, “is Henri Regnault. Ah, you know
nothing of our painters. I can't make you understand. For
me he is a young god; there is a halo round his head. He has
grasped his fame — the fame we poor creatures are all thirst-
It began last year with the Prim — General Prim on
horseback-oh, magnificent! a passion! an energy! This year
!
it is the Salome. ) About — Gautier- all the world — have lost
their heads over it. If you go to see it at the Salon, you will
have to wait your turn. Crowds go every day for nothing else.
Of course there are murmurs. They say the study of Fortuny
has done him harm. Nonsense! People discuss him because he
is becoming a master; no one discusses the nonentities. They
have no enemies. Then he is a sculptor, musician, athlete, — well
born besides, — all the world is his friend. But with it all so
simple — bon camarade even for poor scrawlers like me. Je
l'adore ! »
“So it seems,” said David.
The girl smiled over her painting. But after a bit she looked
up with a seriousness — nay, a bitterness — in her siren's face,
which astonished him.
“It is not amusing to take you in,- you are too ignorant.
What do you suppose Henri Regnault matters to me? His world
is as far above mine as Velasquez's art is above my art. But
how can a foreigner understand our shades and grades ? Noth-
ing but success, but la gloire, could ever lift me into his world.
Then indeed I should be everybody's equal, and it would mat-
ter to nobody that I had been a Bohemian and a déclassée. ”
She gave a little sigh of excitement, and threw her head back
to look at her picture. David watched her.
“I thought,” he said ironically, “that a few minutes ago you
were all for Bohemia. I did not suspect these social ambitions. ”
"All women have them — all artists deny them,” she said reck-
lessly. “There, explain me as you like, Monsieur David. But
(
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15662
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
“ Be
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don't read my riddle too soon, or I shall bore you. — Allow me to
ask you a question. ”
She laid down her brushes and looked at him with the utmost
gravity. His heart beat; he bent forward.
"Are you ever hungry, Monsieur David ?
