University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.

I DO not wish to interrupt you. There is certainly
room enough in this library for both, and my
entrance need not prove the signal for your departure.”

Mr. Murray closed the door as he came in, and walking
up to the bookcases, stood carefully examining the titles
of the numerous volumes. It was a cold, dismal morning,
and sobbing wintry winds and the ceaseless pattering of rain
made the outer world seem dreary in comparison with the
genial atmosphere and the ruddy glow of the cosy, luxurious
library, where choice exotics breathed their fragrance
and early hyacinths exhaled their rich perfume. In the
centre of the morocco-covered table stood a tall glass bowl,
filled with white camellias, and from its scalloped edges
drooped a fringe of scarlet fuchsias; while near the window
was a china statuette, in whose daily adornment Edna took
unwearied interest. It was a lovely Flora, whose slender
fingers held aloft small tulip-shaped vases, into which fresh
blossoms were inserted every morning. The head was so
arranged as to contain water, and thus preserve the wreath
of natural flowers which crowned the goddess. To-day
golden crocuses nestled down on the streaming hair, and
purple pansies filled the fairy hands, while the tiny, rosy
feet sank deep in the cushion of fine, green mosses, studded
with double violets.

Edna had risen to leave the room when the master of the

nouse entered, but at his request resumed her seat and continued
reading.

After searching the shelves unavailingly, he glanced over
his shoulder and asked:

“Have you seen my copy of De Guérin's Centaur
anywhere about the house? I had it a week ago.”

“I beg your pardon, sir, for causing such a fruitless
search; here is the book. I picked it up on the front steps,
where you were reading a few afternoons since, and it
opened at a passage that attracted my attention.”

She closed the volume and held it toward him, but he
waved it back.

“Keep it if it interests you. I have read it once, and
merely wished to refer to a particular passage. Can you
guess what sentence most frequently recurs to me? If so,
read it to me.”

He drew a chair close to the hearth and lighted his cigar.

Hesitatingly Edna turned the leaves.

“I am afraid, sir, that my selection would displease you.”

“I will risk it, as, notwithstanding your flattering opinion
to the contrary, I am not altogether so unreasonable as to
take offense at a compliance with my own request.”

Still she shrank from the task he imposed, and her fingers
toyed with the scarlet fuchsias; but after eyeing her for
a while, he leaned forward and pushed the glass bowl beyond
her reach.

“Edna, I am waiting.”

“Well then, Mr. Murray, I should think that these two
passages would impress you with peculiar force.”

Raising the book she read with much emphasis:

“Thou pursuest after wisdom, O Melampus! which is
the science of the will of the gods; and thou roamest from
people to people, like a mortal driven by the destinies. In the
times when I kept my night-watches before the caverns, I
have sometimes believed that I was about to surprise the
thoughts of the sleeping Cybele, and that the mother of the

gods, betrayed by her dreams, would let fall some of her
secrets. But I have never yet made out more than sounds
which faded away in the murmur of night, or words inarticulate
as the bubbling of the rivers.

“Seekest thou to know the gods, O Macareus! and from
what source men, animals, and the elements of the universal
fire have their origin? The aged ocean, the father of all
things, keeps locked within his own breast these secrets;
and the nymphs who stand around sing as they weave their
eternal dance before him, to cover any sound which might
escape from his lips, half opened by slumber. Mortals dear
to the gods for their virtue have received from their hands
lyres to give delight to man, or the seeds of new plants to
make him rich, but from their inexorable lips—nothing!”

“Mr. Murray, am I correct in my conjecture?”

“Quite correct,” he answered, smiling grimly.

Taking the book from her hand he threw it on the table,
and tossed his cigar into the grate, adding in a defiant, challenging
tone:

“The mantle of Solomon did not fall at Le Cayla on the
shoulders of Maurice de Guérin. After all, he was a
wretched hypochondriac, and a tinge of le cahier vert
doubtless crept into his eyes.”

“Do you forget, sir, that he said, `When one is a wan
derer, one feels that one fulfils the true condition of humanity'?
and that among his last words are these, `The
stream of travel is full of delight. Oh! who will set me
adrift on this Nile?'”

“Pardon me if I remind you, par parenthèse, of the preliminary
and courteous En garde! which should be pronounced
before a thrust. De Guérin felt starved in Languedoc,
and no wonder! But had he penetrated every
nook and cranny of the habitable globe, and traversed the
vast zaarahs which science accords the universe, he would
have died at last as hungry as Ugolino. I speak advisedly,

for the true Io gad-fly, ennui, has stung me from hemisphere
to hemisphere, across tempestuous oceans, scorching deserts,
and icy mountain ranges. I have faced alike the
bourrans of the steppes and the Samieli of Shamo, and the
result of my vandal life is best epitomized in those grand
but grim words of Bossuet: `On trouve au fond de tout le
vide et le néant.' Nineteen years ago, to satisfy my hunger,
I set out to hunt the daintiest food this world could furnish,
and, like other fools, have learned finally, that life is
but a huge mellow golden Ösher, that mockingly sifts its
bitter dust upon our eager lips. Ah! truly, on trouve au
fond de tout le vide et le néant!”

“Mr. Murray, if you insist upon your bitter Ösher simile,
why shut your eyes to the palpable analogy suggested?
Naturalists assert that the Solanum, or apple of Sodom,
contains in its normal state neither dust nor ashes; unless
it is punctured by an insect, (the Tenthredo,) which converts
the whole of the inside into dust, leaving nothing but
the rind entire, without any loss of color. Human life is
as fair and tempting as the fruit of `Ain Jidy,' till stung
and poisoned by the Tenthredo of sin.”

All conceivable suaviter in modo characterized his mocking
countenance and tone, as he inclined his haughty head
and asked:

“Will you favor me by lifting on the point of your dissecting-knife
this stinging sin of mine to which you refer?
The noxious brood swarm so teasingly about my ears that
they deprive me of your cool, clear, philosophic discrimination.
Which particular Tenthredo of the buzzing swarm
around my spoiled apple of life would you advise me to
select for my anathema maranatha?”

“Of your history, sir, I am entirely ignorant; and even
if I were not, I should not presume to levy a tax upon it in
discussions with you; for, however vulnerable you may
possibly be, I regard an argumentum ad hominem as the
weakest weapon in the armory of dialectics—a weapon too

often dipped in the venom of personal malevolence. I
merely gave expression to my belief that miserable, useless
lives are sinful lives; that when God framed the world,
and called the human race into it, he made most munificent
provision for all healthful hunger, whether physical, intellectual,
or moral; and that it is a morbid, diseased, distorted
nature that wears out its allotted years on earth in
bitter carping and blasphemous dissatisfaction. The Greeks
recognized this immemorial truth—wrapped it in classic
traditions, and the myth of Tantalus constituted its swaddling-clothes.
You are a scholar, Mr. Murray; look back
and analyze the derivation and significance of that fable.
Tantalus, the son of Pluto, or Wealth, was, according to
Pindar, `a wanderer from happiness,' and the name represents
a man abounding in wealth, but whose appetite was
so insatiable, even at the ambrosial feast of the gods, that
it ultimately doomed him to eternal, unsatisfied thirst and
hunger in Tartarus. The same truth crops out in the legend
of Midas, who found himself starving while his touch converted
all things to gold.”

“Doubtless you have arrived at the charitable conclusion
that, as I am endowed with all the amiable idiosyncrasies
of ancient cynics, I shall inevitably join the snarling Dives
Club in Hades, and swell the howling chorus. Probably I
shall not disappoint your kind and eminently Christian expectations;
nor will I deprive you of the gentle satisfaction
of hissing across the gulf of perdition, which will then
divide us, that summum bonum of feminine felicity, `I
told you so!'”

The reckless mockery of his manner made Edna shiver,
and a tremor crept across her beautiful lips as she answered
sadly:

“You torture my words into an interpretation of which
I never dreamed, and look upon all things through the distorting
lenses of your own moodiness. It is worse than
useless for us to attempt an amicable discussion, for your

bitterness never slumbers, your suspicions are ever on the
qui vive.'

She rose, but he quickly laid his hand on her shoulder,
and pressed her back into the chair.

“You will be so good as to sit still, and hear me out. I
have a right to all my charming, rose-colored views of this
world. I have gone to and fro on the earth, and life has
proved a Barmecide's banquet of just thirty-eight years'
duration.”

“But, sir, you lacked the patience and resolution of Shacabac,
or, like him, you would have finally grasped the splendid
realities. The world must be conquered, held in bondage
to God's law and man's reason, before we can hope to
levy tribute that will support our moral and mental natures;
and it is only when humanity finds itself in the inverted
order of serfdom to the world, that it dwarfs its
capacities, and even then dies of famine.”

The scornful gleam died out of his eyes, and mournful
compassion stole in.

“Ah! how impetuously youth springs to the battle-field
of life! Hope exorcises the gaunt spectre of defeat, and
fancy fingers unwon trophies and fadeless bays; but slow-stepping
experience, pallid blood-stained, spent with toil,
lays her icy hand on the rosy vail that floats before bright,
brave, young eyes, and lo! the hideous wreck, the bleaching
bones, the grinning, ghastly horrors that strew the
scene of combat! No burnished eagles nor streaming
banners, neither spoils of victory nor peans of triumph,
only silence and gloom and death—slow-sailing vultures—
and a voiceless desolation! O child! if you would find a
suitable type of that torn and trampled battle-field—the
human heart—when vice and virtue, love and hate, revenge
and remorse, have wrestled fiercely for the mastery—go
back to your Tacitus, and study there the dismal picture of
that lonely Teutoburgium, where Varus and his legions went
down in the red burial of battle! You talk of `conquering

the world—holding it in bondage!' What do you
know of its perils and subtle temptations—of the glistening
quicksands whose smooth lips already gape to engulf you?
The very vilest fiend in hell might afford to pause and pity
your delusion ere turning to machinations destined to
rouse you rudely from your silly dreams. Ah! you remind
me of a little innocent, happy child, playing on some shining
beach, when the sky is quiet, the winds are hushed, and
all things wrapped in rest, save
a fair fearless child, gathering polished pearly shells with
which to build fairy palaces, and suddenly, as she catches
the mournful murmur of the immemorial sea, that echoes
in the flushed and folded chambers of the stranded shells,
her face pales with awe and wonder—the childish lips part,
the childish eyes are strained to discover the mystery; and
while the whispering monotone admonishes of howling
storms and sinking argosies, she smiles and listens, sees
only the glowing carmine of the fluted cells, hears only
the magic music of the sea sibyls—and the sky blackens,
the winds leap to their track of ruin, the great deep rises
wrathful and murderous, bellowing for victims, and Cyclone
reigns! Thundering waves sweep over and bear away the
frail palaces that decked the strand, and even while the
shell symphony still charms the ear, the child's rosy feet
are washed from their sandy resting-place; she is borne on
howling billows far out to a lashed and maddened main,
strewn with human drift; and numb with horror she sinks
swiftly to a long and final rest among purple algæ! Even
so, Edna, you stop your ears with shells, and my warning
falls like snow-flakes that melt and vanish on the bosom of
a stream.”

“No, sir, I am willing to be advised. Against what
would you warn me?”

“The hollowness of life, the fatuity of your hopes, the
treachery of that human nature of which you speak so
tenderly and reverently. So surely as you put faith in the
truth and nobility of humanity, you will find it as soft-lipped
and vicious as Paolo Orsini, who folded his wife,
Isabella de Medici, most lovingly in his arms, and while he
tenderly pressed her to his heart, slipped a cord around
her neck and strangled her.”

“I know, sir, that human nature is weak, selfish, sinful—
that such treacherous monsters as Ezzolino and the Visconti
have stained the annals of our race with blood-blotches,
which the stream of time will never efface; but the law of
compensation operates here as well as in other departments,
and brings to light a “fidus Achates' and Antoninus. I
believe that human nature is a curious amalgam of meanness,
malice, and magnanimity, and that an earnest, loving
Christian charity is the only safe touchstone, and furnishes
(if you will tolerate the simile) the only elective affinity in
moral chemistry. Because ingots are not dug out of the
earth, is it not equally unwise and ungrateful to ridicule
and denounce the hopeful, patient, tireless laborers who
handle the alloy and ultimately disintegrate the precious
metal? Even if the world were bankrupt in morality and
religion—which, thank God, it is not—one grand shining
example, like Mr. Hammond, whose unswerving consistency,
noble charity, and sublime unselfishness all concede and
revere, ought to leaven the mass of sneering cynics, and
win them to a belief in their capacity for rising to pure,
holy, almost perfect lives.”

“Spare me a repetition of the rhapsodies of Madame
Guyon! I am not surprised that such a novice as you
prove yourself should, in the stereotyped style of orthodoxy,
swear by that hoary Tartuffe, that hypocritical wolf, Allan
Hammond—”

“Stop, Mr. Murray! You must not, shall not use such
language in my presence concerning one whom I love and

revere above all other human beings! How dare you
malign that noble Christian, whose lips daily lift your name
to God, praying for pardon and for peace? Oh! how ungrateful,
how unworthy you are of his affection and his
prayers!”

She had interrupted him with an imperious wave of her
hand, and stood regarding him with an expression of indignation
and detestation.

“I neither possess nor desire his affection or his prayers.”

“Sir, you know that you do not deserve, but you most
certainly have both.”

“How did you obtain your information?”

“Accidentally, when he was so surprised and grieved to
hear that you had started on your long voyage to Oceanica.”

“He availed himself of that occasion to acquaint you
with all my heinous sins, my youthful crimes and follies,
my—”

“No, sir! he told me nothing, except that you no longer
loved him as in your boyhood; that you had become estranged
from him; and then he wept, and added, `I love
him still; I shall pray for him as long as I live.'”

“Impossible! You can not deceive me! In the depths
of his heart he hates and curses me. Even a brooding
dove—pshaw! Allan Hammond is but a man, and it would
be unnatural—utterly impossible that he could still think
kindly of his old pupil. Impossible!”

Mr. Murray rose and stood before the grate with his face
averted, and his companion seized the opportunity to say in
a low, determined tone:

“Of the causes that induced your estrangement I am
absolutely ignorant. Nothing has been told me, and it is
a matter about which I have conjectured little. But, sir, I
have seen Mr. Hammond every day for four years, and I
know what I say when I tell you that he loves you as well
as if you were his own son. Moreover, he—”

“Hush! you talk of what you do not understand. Believe
in him if you will, but be careful not to chant his
praises in my presence; not to parade your credulity before
my eyes, if you do not desire that I shall disenchant you.
Just now you are duped — so was I at your age. Your
judgment slumbers, experience is in its swaddling-clothes;
but I shall bide my time, and the day will come ere long
when these hymns of hero-worship shall be hushed, and
you stand clearer-eyed, darker-hearted, before the mouldering
altar of your god of clay.”

“From such an awakening may God preserve me! Even
if our religion were not divine, I should clasp to my heart
the system and the faith that make Mr. Hammond's life
serene and sublime. Oh! that I may be `duped' into that
perfection of character which makes his example beckon me
ever onward and upward. If you have no gratitude, no
reverence left, at least remember the veneration with which
I regard him, and do not in my hearing couple his name
with sneers and insults.”

“`Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone!'” muttered
the master of the house, with one of those graceful, mocking
bows that always disconcerted the orphan.

She was nervously twisting Mr. Leigh's ring around her
finger, and as it was too large, it slipped off, rung on the
hearth, and rolled to Mr. Murray's feet.

Picking it up he examined the emerald, and repeating
the inscription, asked:

“Do you understand these words?”

“I only know that they have been translated, `Peace be
with thee, or upon thee.'”

“How came Gordon Leigh's ring on your hand? Has
Tartuffe's Hebrew scheme succeeded so soon and so thoroughly?”

“I do not understand you, Mr. Murray.”

“Madame ma mère proves an admirable ally in this clerical
match-maker's deft hands, and Gordon's pathway is

widened and weeded. Happy Gordon! blessed with such
able coädjutors!”

The cold, sarcastic glitter of his eyes wounded and humiliated
the girl, and her tone was haughty and defiant—

“You deal in innuendoes which I can not condescend to
notice. Mr. Leigh is my friend, and gave me this ring as
a birthday present. As your mother advised me to accept
it, and indeed placed it on my finger, her sanction should
certainly exempt me from your censure.”

“Censure! Pardon me! It is no part of my business;
but I happen to know something of gem symbols, and must
be allowed to suggest that this selection is scarcely comme
il faut for a betrothal ring.”

Edna's face crimsoned, and the blood tingled to her fingers'
ends.

“As it was never intended as such, your carping criticism
loses its point.”

He stood with the jewel between his thumb and forefinger,
eyeing her fixedly, and on his handsome features
shone a smile, treacherous and chilling as arctic snow-blink.

“Pliny's injunction to lapidaries to spare the smooth
surface of emeralds seems to have been forgotten when
this ring was fashioned. It was particularly unkind, nay,
cruel to put it on the hand of a woman, who of course must
and will follow the example of all her sex, and go out fishing
most diligently in the matrimonial sea; for if you have
chanced to look into gem history, you will remember what
befell the fish on the coast of Cyprus, where the emerald
eyes of the marble lion glared down so mercilessly through
the nets, that the fishermen could catch nothing until they
removed the jewels that constituted the eyes of the lion.
Do you recollect the account?”

“No, sir, I never read it.”

“Indeed! How deplorably your education has been neglected!
I thought your adored Dominie Sampson down

yonder at the parsonage was teaching you a prodigious'
amount?”

“Give me my ring, Mr. Murray, and I will leave you.”

“Shall I not enlighten you on the subject of emeralds?”

“Thank you, sir, I believe not, as what I have already
heard does not tempt me to prosecute the subject.”

“You think me insufferably presumptuous?”

“That is a word which I should scarcely be justified in
applying to you.”

“You regard me as meddlesome and tyrannical?”

She shook her head.

“I generally prefer to receive answers to my questions.
Pray, what do you consider me?”

She hesitated a moment, and said sadly and gently:

“Mr. Murray, is it generous in you to question me thus
in your own house?”

“I do not claim to be generous, and the world would indignantly
defend me from such an imputation! Generous?
On the contrary, I declare explicitly that, unlike some
`whited sepulchres' of my acquaintance, I do not intend to
stand labeled with patent virtues! Neither do I parade
mezuzoth on my doors. I humbly beg you to recollect that
I am not a carefully-printed perambulating advertisement
of Christianity.”

Raising her face, Edna looked steadfastly at him, and
pain, compassion, shuddering dread filled her soft, sad
eyes.

“Well, you are reading me. What is the verdict?”

A long, heavily-drawn sigh was the only response.

“Will you be good enough to reply to my questions?”

“No, Mr. Murray. In lieu of perpetual strife and biting
words, let there be silence between us. We can not be
friends, and it would be painful to wage war here under
your roof; consequently, I hope to disarm your hostility by
assuring you that in future I shall not attempt to argue
with you, shall not pick up the verbal gauntlets you seem

disposed to throw down to me. Surely, sir, if not generous,
you are at least sufficiently courteous to abstain from attacks
which you have been notified will not be resisted?”

“You wish me to understand that hereafter I, the owner
and ruler of this establishment, shall on no account presume
to address any remarks to Aaron Hunt's grandchild?”

“My words were very clear, Mr. Murray, and I meant
what I said, and said what I meant. But one thing I wish
to add: while I remain here, if at any time I can aid or
serve you, Aaron Hunt's grandchild will most gladly do so.
I do not flatter myself that you will ever require or accept
my assistance in any thing, nevertheless I would cheerfully
render it should occasion arise.”

He bowed, and returned the emerald, and Edna turned to
leave the library.

“Before you go, examine this bauble.”

He took from his vest pocket a velvet case containing a
large ring, which he laid in the palm of her hand.

It was composed of an oval jacinth, with a splendid scarlet
fire leaping out as the light shone on it, and the diamonds
that clustered around it were very costly and brilliant.
There was no inscription, but upon the surface of the
jacinth was engraved a female head crowned with oak
leaves, among which serpents writhed and hissed, and just
beneath the face grinned a dog's head. The small but exquisitely
carved human face was savage, sullen, sinister,
and fiery rays seemed to dart from the relentless eyes.

“Is it a Medusa?”

“No.”

“It is certainly very beautiful, but I do not recognize the
face. Interpret for me.”

“It is Hecate, Brimo, Empusa—all phases of the same
malignant power; and it remains a mere matter of taste
which of the titles you select. I call it Hecate.”

“I have never seen you wear it.”

“You never will.”

“It is exceedingly beautiful.”

Edna held it toward the grate, flashed the flame now on
this side, now on that, and handed it back to the owner.

“Edna, I bought this ring in Naples, intending to ask
your acceptance of it, in token of my appreciation of your
care of that little gold key, provided I found you trust
worthy. After your pronunciamiento uttered a few minutes
since, I presume I may save myself the trouble of offering
it to you. Beside, Gordon might object to having his
emerald overshadowed by my matchless jacinth. Of course
your tender conscience will veto the thought of your wearing
it?”

“I thank you, Mr. Murray; the ring is, by far, the most
elegant I have ever seen, but I certainly can not accept it.”

“Bithus contra Bacchium!” exclaimed Mr. Murray, with
a short, mirthless laugh that made his companion shrink
back a few steps.

Holding the ring at arm's length above his head, he continued:

“To the `infernal flames,' your fit type, I devote you, my
costly Queen of Samothrace!”

Leaning over the grate, he dropped the jewel in the
glowing coals.

“O Mr. Murray! save it from destruction!”

She seized the tongs and sprang forward, but he put out
his arm and held her back.

“Stand aside, if you please. Cleopatra quaffed liquid
pearl in honor of Antony, Nero shivered his precious crystal
goblets, and Suger pounded up sapphires to color the
windows of old St. Denis! Chacun à son gout! If I choose
to indulge myself in a diamond cremation in honor of my
tutelary goddess Brimo, who has the right to expostulate?
True, such costly amusements have been rare since the days
of the `Cyranides' and the `Seven Seals' of Hermes Trismegistus.
See what a tawny, angry glare leaps from my
royal jacinth! Old Hecate holds high carnival down there
in her congenial flames.”

He stood with one arm extended to bar Edna's approacin,
the other rested on the mantel; and a laughing, reckless
demon looked out of his eyes, which were fastened on the
fire.

Before the orphan could recover from her sorrowful
amazement the library door opened, and Henry looked in.

“Mr. Leigh is in the parlor, and asked for Miss Edna.”

Perplexed, irresolute, and annoyed, Edna stood still,
watching the red coals; and after a brief silence, Mr. Murray
smiled, and turned to look at her.

“Pray, do not let me detain you, and rest assured that I
understand your decree. You have intrenched yourself in
impenetrable silence, and hung out your banner, inscribed
`noli me tangere.' Withdraw your pickets; I shall attempt
neither siege nor escalade. Good morning. Leave my De
Guérin on the table; it will be at your disposal after to-day.”

He stooped to light a cigar, and she walked away to her
own room.

As the door closed behind her, he laughed and reïterated
the favorite proverb that often crossed his lips, “Bithus
contra Bacchium!”