It was a romantic evening, and although Lord Reggie prided himself on being altogether impervious to the influences of Nature, he was not unaware that a warm and fantastic twilight may incline the average woman favourably to a suit that she might not be disposed to heed in the early morning, or during the garish sunshine of a summer afternoon. He presumed that Lady Locke was an average woman, simply because he considered all women exceedingly and distinctively average; and therefore, when he saw a soft expression steal into her dark face as she glanced at the faded turquoise of the sky, he decided to propose at once, and as prettily as possible. But Tommy was fussing about, wavy with childish excitement, and at first he could not speak.
"Tommy," said Lady Locke at last, "give me a kiss and run away to your supper. But, before you go, listen to me. Did you attend to Mr. Amarinth's lecture?"
"Yes, yes, yes, mother! Of course, of course, of course!" cried Tommy, dancing violently on the lawn, and trying to excite Bung to a tempest.
"Well, remember that it was meant to be comic. It was only a nonsense lecture, like Edward Lear's nonsense books. Do you see? It was a turning of everything topsy-turvy. So what we have to do is just the opposite of everything Mr. Amarinth advised. You understand, my boy?"
"All right, mumsy," said Tommy. "But I forget what he said."
Lady Locke looked pleased, kissed his flushed little face, and packed him off.
"I hope the school children will do the same," she said to Lord Reggie when he was gone. "What a blessing a short memory can be!"
"Didn't you like the lecture, then?" Reggie asked. "I thought it splendid, so full of imagination, so exquisitely choice in language and in feeling."
"And so self-conscious."
"Yes, as all art must be."
"Art! art! You could make me hate that word!"
Reggie looked for once honestly shocked.
"You could hate art?" he said.
"Yes, if I could believe that it was the antagonist of Nature, instead of the faithful friend. No, I did not like the lecture, if one can like or dislike a mere absurdity. Tell me, Lord Reggie, are you self-consciously absurd?"
He drew his chair a little nearer to hers.
"I don't know," he said; "I hope I am beautiful. If I am beautiful, that is all I wish for. To be beautiful is to be complete. To be clever is easy enough. To be beautiful is so difficult, that even Byron had a club foot with all his genius. Cleverness can be acquired. Hundreds of stupid people nowadays acquire the faculty of cleverness. That is why society is so boring. You find people practising mental scales and five-finger exercises at every party you go to. The true artist will never practise. How soft this twilight is, though not so delicate and subtle as that in Millet's 'Angelus.' Lady Locke, I have something to tell you, and I will tell it to you now, while the stars come out, and the shadows steal from their homes in the trees. EsmÉ said to-day that marriage was a brilliant absurdity. Will you be brilliantly absurd? Will you marry me?"
He leaned forward, and took her hand rather negligently in his small and soft one. His face was calm, and he spoke in a clear and even voice. Lady Locke left her hand in his. She was quite calm too.
"I cannot marry you," she said. "Do you wish me to tell you why? Probably you do not; but I think I will tell you all the same. I am not brilliant, and therefore I have no wish to be absurd. If I married you I should be merely absurd without being brilliant at all. You do not love me. I think you love nothing. I like you; I am interested by you. Perhaps if you had a different nature I might even love you. But I can never love an echo, and you are an echo."
"An echo is often more beautiful than the voice it repeats," he said.
"But if the voice is quite ugly the echo cannot be beautiful," she answered. "I do not wish to be too frank, but as you have asked me to marry you I will say this. Your character seems to me to be an echo of Mr. Amarinth's. I believe that he merely poses; but do those who imitate him merely pose? Do you merely pose? What Mr. Amarinth really is it is quite impossible to tell. Perhaps there is nothing real about him at all. Perhaps, as he has said, his real man is only a Mrs. Harris. He may be abnormal au fond; but you are not! What is your real self? Is it what I see, what I know?"
"Expression is my life," Lord Reggie said in a rather offended voice, drawing away his hand. A red spot appeared in each of his cheeks. He began to realise that he was refused because he was not admired. It seemed almost incredible.
"Then the expression that I see is you?" she asked.
"I suppose so," he replied, with a tinge of exceedingly boyish sulkiness.
"Then, till you have got rid of it never ask a woman to marry you. Men like you do not understand women. They do not try to; probably they could not if they did. Men like you are so twisted and distorted in mind that they cannot recognise their own distortion. It seems to me that Mr. Amarinth has created a cult. Let me call it the cult of the green carnation. I suppose it may be called modern. To me it seems very silly and rather wicked. If you would take that hideous green flower out of your coat, not because I asked you to, but because you hated it honestly, I might answer your question differently. If you could forget what you call art, if you could see life at all with a straight, untrammelled vision, if you could be like a man, instead of like nothing at all in heaven or earth except that dyed flower, I might perhaps care for you in the right way. But your mind is artificially coloured: it comes from the dyer's. It is a green carnation; and I want a natural blossom to wear in my heart."
She got up.
"You are not angry with me?" she asked.
Lord Reggie's face was scarlet.
"You talk very much like ordinary people," he said, a little rude in his hurt self-love.
"I am ordinary," she said. "I am so glad of it. I think that after this week I shall try to be even more ordinary than I already am."
Then she went slowly into the cottage.
That evening Lord Reggie told Mrs. Windsor that he found he must leave for town on the following morning.
She was horrified, and was still more appalled when EsmÉ Amarinth expressed an intention of accompanying him.
"It's worse than the Professor's fit last year," she said dolefully. "But perhaps it will be better if we all go back to town to-morrow. You will not care to be rustic without any men, will you, Madame Valtesi?" she added.
"No," replied that lady. "It would be too much like having a bath in Tidman's salt, instead of in the ocean. It would be tame. We three women in this cottage together should be like the GraiÆ, only we should not have even one eye and one tooth between us. Perhaps we have been rustic as long as is good for us. I shall go to the French plays to-morrow night. I like them—they always do me so much harm."
"And I will take Tommy to the seaside," said Lady Locke.
"My dear lady," said EsmÉ. "How terribly normal!"
"And how exceedingly healthy!" she replied.
He looked at her with a deep pity.
Next morning as she bade good-bye to Lord Reggie, she said to him in a low voice—
"Some day, perhaps, you will throw away the green carnation."
"Oh! it will be out of fashion soon," he answered, as he got delicately into the carriage.
"So you have been refused, Reggie," said EsmÉ, as they drove towards the station. "How original you are! I should never have suspected you of that. But you were always wonderful—wonderful and very complete. When did you decide to be refused? Only last night. You managed it exquisitely. I think that I am glad. I do not want you to alter, and the refining influence of a really good woman is as corrosive as an acid. Ah, Reggie, you will not be singing in the woods near Esher when the tiresome cuckoo imitates Haydn's toy symphony next spring! You will still be living your marvellous scarlet life, still teaching the London tradesmen the exact value of your supreme aristocracy. If you had become a capitalist you might have grown whiskers and become respectable. Why do whiskers and respectability grow together? Here we are at the railway station. Railway stations always remind me of Mr. Terriss, the actor. They are so noisy. The Surrey week is over. Soon we shall see once more the tender grey of the Piccadilly pavement, and the subtle music of old Bond Street will fall furtively upon our ears. Put your feet up on the opposite cushion, dear boy; while I lean out of the railway carriage window and smile the people away. When people try to get into my compartment I always smile at them, and they always go away. They think that I am mad. And are they mistaken? How can one tell? There is only one sanity in all the world, and that is to be artistically insane. Reggie, give me a gold-tipped cigarette, and I will be brilliant. I will be brilliant for you alone, remembering my Whistler as commonplace people remember their obligations, or as Madame Valtesi remembers to forget her birthday. Ah! we are off! Look out of this window, dear boy, and you will see two elderly gentlemen missing the train. They are doing it rather nicely. I think they must have been practising in private. There is an art even in missing a train, Reggie. But one of them is not quite perfect in it yet. He has begun to swear a little too soon!"
THE END.
NOVELS BY MAARTEN MAARTENS.
THE GREATER GLORY. A Story of High Life. By Maarten Maartens, author of "God's Fool," "Joost Avelingh," etc. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
"Until the Appletons discovered the merits of Maarten Maartens, the foremost of Dutch novelists, it is doubtful if many American readers knew that there were Dutch novelists. His 'God's Fool' and 'Joost Avelingh' made for him an American reputation.... He is a master of epigram, an artist in description, a prophet in insight."—Boston Advertiser.
"It would take several columns to give any adequate idea of the superb way in which the Dutch novelist has developed his theme and wrought out one of the most impressive stories of the period.... It belongs to the small class of novels which one can not afford to neglect."—San Francisco Chronicle.
"Maarten Maartens stands head and shoulders above the average novelist of the day in intellectual subtlety and imaginative power."—Boston Beacon.
GOD'S FOOL. By Maarten Maartens. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
"Throughout there is an epigrammatic force which would make palatable a less interesting story of human lives or one less deftly told."—London Saturday Review.
"A remarkable work."—New York Times.
"Maarten Maartens has secured a firm footing in the eddies of current literature.... Pathos deepens into tragedy in the thrilling story of 'God's Fool.'"—Philadelphia Ledger.
"The story is wonderfully brilliant.... The interest never lags; the style is realistic and intense; and there is a constantly underlying current of subtle humor.... It is, in short, a book which no student of modern literature should fail to read."—Boston Times.
JOOST AVELINGH. By Maarten Maartens. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
"So unmistakably good as to induce the hope that an acquaintance with the Dutch literature of fiction may soon become more general among us."—London Morning Post.
"A novel of a very high type. At once strongly realistic and powerfully idealistic."—London Literary World.
"Full of local color and rich in quaint phraseology and suggestion."—London Telegraph.
"Maarten Maartens is a capital story-teller."—Pall Mall Gazette.
"Our English writers of fiction will have to look to their laurels."—Birmingham Daily Post.
HANDY VOLUMES OF FICTION.
PEOPLE AT PISGAH. By Edwin W. Sanborn.
"A most amusing extravaganza."—The Critic.
MR. FORTNER'S MARITAL CLAIMS, and Other Stories. By Richard Malcolm Johnston.
"When the last story is finished we feel, in imitation of Oliver Twist, like asking for more."—Public Opinion.
GRAMERCY PARK. A Story of New York. By John Seymour Wood,
author of "An Old Beau," etc.
"A realistic story of New York life, vividly drawn, full of brilliant sketches."—Boston Advertiser.
A TALE OF TWENTY-FIVE HOURS. By Brander Matthews and George H. Jessop.
"The reader finds himself in the midst of tragedy; but it is tragedy ending in comedy. The story is exceptionally well told."—Boston Traveller.
A LITTLE NORSK; or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen. By Hamlin Garland,
author of "Main Traveled Roads," etc.
"There is nothing in story-telling literature to excel the naturalness, pathos, humor, and homelike interest with which the little heroine's development is traced."—Brooklyn Eagle.
TOURMALIN'S TIME CHEQUES. By F. Anstey, author of "Vice VersÂ,"
"The Giant's Robe," etc.
"Each cheque is good for several laughs."—New York Herald.
FROM SHADOW TO SUNLIGHT. By the Marquis of Lorne.
"In these days of princely criticism—that is to say, criticism of princes—it is refreshing to meet a really good bit of aristocratic literary work, albeit the author is only a prince-in-law."—Chicago Tribune.
ADOPTING AN ABANDONED FARM. By Kate Sanborn.
"A sunny, pungent, humorous sketch."—Chicago Times.
ON THE LAKE OF LUCERNE, and Other Stories. By Beatrice Whitby.
"The stories are pleasantly told in light and delicate vein, and are sure to be acceptable to the friends Miss Whitby has already made on this side of the Atlantic."—Philadelphia Bulletin.
Each, 16mo, boards, with specially designed cover, 50 cents.
HANDY VOLUMES OF FICTION.
Each, 12mo, flexible cloth, with special design, 75 cents.
THE TRANSLATION OF A SAVAGE. By Gilbert Parker.
"To tell such a story convincingly a man must have what I call the rarest of literary gifts—the power to condense. Of the good feeling and healthy wisdom of this little tale others no doubt have spoken and will speak. But I have chosen this technical quality for praise, because in this I think Mr. Parker has made the furthest advance on his previous work. Indeed, in workmanship he seems to be improving faster than any of the younger novelists."—A.T. Quiller-Couch, in the London Spectator.
THE FAÏENCE VIOLIN. By Champfleury. Translated by W.H. Bishop.
"The style is happy throughout, the humorous parts being well calculated to bring smiles, while we can hardly restrain our tears when the poor enthusiast goes to excesses that have a touch of pathos."—Albany Times-Union.
TRUE RICHES. By FranÇois CoppÉe.
"Delicate as an apple blossom, with its limp cover of pale green and its stalk of golden-rod, is this little volume containing two stories by FranÇois CoppÉe. The tales are charmingly told, and their setting is an artistic delight."—Philadelphia Bulletin.
"The author scarcely had a thought of sermonizing his readers, but each of these little stories presents a moral not easily overlooked, and whose influence lingers with those who read them."—Baltimore American.
A TRUTHFUL WOMAN IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. By Kate Sanborn, author of
"Adopting an Abandoned Farm," etc.
"The veracious writer considers the pros of the 'glorious climate' of California, and then she gives the cons. Decidedly the ayes have it.... The book is sprightly and amiably entertaining. The descriptions have the true Sanborn touch of vitality and humor."—Philadelphia Ledger.
A BORDER LEANDER. By Howard Seely, author of "A Nymph of the West," etc.
"We confess to a great liking for the tale Mr. Seely tells.... There are pecks of trouble ere the devoted lovers secure the tying of their love-knot, and Mr. Seely describes them all with a Texan flavor that is refreshing."—New York Times.
"A swift, gay, dramatic little tale, which at once takes captive the reader's sympathy and holds it without difficulty to the end."—Charleston News and Courier.
MANY INVENTIONS. By Rudyard Kipling. Containing fourteen stories, several of which are now published for the first time, and two poems. 12mo, 427 pages. Cloth, $1.50.
"The reader turns from its pages with the conviction that the author has no superior to-day in animated narrative and virility of style. He remains master of a power in which none of his contemporaries approach him—the ability to select out of countless details the few vital ones which create the finished picture. He knows how, with a phrase or a word, to make you see his characters as he sees them, to make you feel the full meaning of a dramatic situation."—New York Tribune.
"'Many Inventions' will confirm Mr. Kipling's reputation.... We would cite with pleasure sentences from almost every page, and extract incidents from almost every story. But to what end? Here is the completest book that Mr. Kipling has yet given us in workmanship, the weightiest and most humane in breadth of view."—Pall Mall Gazette.
"Mr. Kipling's powers as a story-teller are evidently not diminishing. We advise everybody to buy 'Many Inventions,' and to profit by some of the best entertainment that modern fiction has to offer."—New York Sun.
"'Many Inventions' will be welcomed wherever the English language is spoken.... Every one of the stories bears the imprint of a master who conjures up incident as if by magic, and who portrays character, scenery, and feeling with an ease which is only exceeded by the boldness of force."—Boston Globe.
"The book will get and hold the closest attention of the reader."—American Bookseller.
"Mr. Rudyard Kipling's place in the world of letters is unique. He sits quite aloof and alone, the incomparable and inimitable master of the exquisitely fine art of short-story writing. Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson has perhaps written several tales which match the run of Mr. Kipling's work, but the best of Mr. Kipling's tales are matchless, and his latest collection, 'Many Inventions,' contains several such."—Philadelphia Press.
"Of late essays in fiction the work of Kipling can be compared to only three—Blackmore's 'Lorna Doone,' Stevenson's marvelous sketch of Villon in the 'New Arabian Nights,' and Thomas Hardy's 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles.'... It is probably owing to this extreme care that 'Many Inventions' is undoubtedly Mr. Kipling's best book."—Chicago Post.
"Mr. Kipling's style is too well known to American readers to require introduction, but it can scarcely be amiss to say there is not a story in this collection that does not more than repay a perusal of them all."—Baltimore American.
"As a writer of short stories Rudyard Kipling is a genius. He has had imitators, but they have not been successful in dimming the luster of his achievements by contrast.... 'Many Inventions' is the title. And they are inventions—entirely original in incident, ingenious in plot, and startling by their boldness and force."—Rochester Herald.
A JOURNEY IN OTHER WORLDS. A Romance of the Future. By John Jacob Astor. With 9 full-page Illustrations by Dan Beard. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
"An interesting and cleverly devised book.... No lack of imagination.... Shows a skillful and wide acquaintance with scientific facts."—New York Herald.
"The author speculates cleverly and daringly on the scientific advance of the earth, and he revels in the physical luxuriance of Jupiter; but he also lets his imagination travel through spiritual realms, and evidently delights in mystic speculation quite as much as in scientific investigation. If he is a follower of Jules Verne, he has not forgotten also to study the philosophers."—New York Tribune.
"A beautiful example of typographical art and the bookmaker's skill.... To appreciate the story one must read it."—New York Commercial Advertiser.
"The date of the events narrated in this book is supposed to be 2000 A.D. The inhabitants of North America have increased mightily in numbers and power and knowledge. It is an age of marvelous scientific attainments. Flying machines have long been in common use, and finally a new power is discovered called 'apergy,' the reverse of gravitation, by which people are able to fly off into space in any direction, and at what speed they please."—New York Sun.
"The scientific romance by John Jacob Astor is more than likely to secure a distinct popular success, and achieve widespread vogue both as an amusing and interesting story, and a thoughtful endeavor to prophesy some of the triumphs which science is destined to win by the year 2000. The book has been written with a purpose, and that a higher one than the mere spinning of a highly imaginative yarn. Mr. Astor has been engaged upon the book for over two years, and has brought to bear upon it a great deal of hard work in the way of scientific research, of which he has been very fond ever since he entered Harvard. It is admirably illustrated by Dan Beard."—Mail and Express.
"Mr. Astor has himself almost all the qualities imaginable for making the science of astronomy popular. He knows the learned maps of the astrologers. He knows the work of Copernicus. He has made calculations and observations. He is enthusiastic, and the spectacular does not frighten him."—New York Times.
"The work will remind the reader very much of Jules Verne in its general plan of using scientific facts and speculation as a skeleton on which to hang the romantic adventures of the central figures, who have all the daring ingenuity and luck of Mr. Verne's heroes. Mr. Astor uses history to point out what in his opinion science may be expected to accomplish. It is a romance with a purpose."—Chicago Inter-Ocean.
"The romance contains many new and striking developments of the possibilities of science hereafter to be explored, but the volume is intensely interesting, both as a product of imagination and an illustration of the ingenious and original application of science."—Rochester Herald.
STANDARD FRENCH FICTION.
PICCIOLA. By X.B. Saintine. With 130 Illustrations by J.F. Gueldry. 8vo. Cloth, gilt, $1.50.
"Saintine's 'Picciola,' the pathetic tale of the prisoner who raised a flower between the cracks of the flagging of his dungeon, has passed definitely into the list of classic books.... It has never been more beautifully housed than in this edition, with its fine typography, binding, and sympathetic illustrations."—Philadelphia Telegraph.
"'Picciola' is an exquisite thing, and deserves such a setting as is here given it."—Hartford Courant.
"The binding is both unique and tasteful, and the book commends itself strongly as one that should meet with general favor in the season of gift-making."—Boston Saturday Evening Gazette.
AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS; or, A Peep at the World from a Garret. Being the Journal of a Happy Man. By Emile Souvestre. With numerous Illustrations. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, $1.50.
"A suitable holiday gift for a friend who appreciates refined literature."—Boston Times.
"It possesses a charming simplicity of style that makes it extremely fascinating, while the moral lesson it conveys commends itself to every heart. The work has now become a French classic. It is beautifully gotten up and illustrated, and is a delight to the eye as well as to the mind and heart."—Chicago Herald.
"The influence of the book is wholly good. The volume is a particularly handsome one."—Philadelphia Telegraph.
"It is a classic. It has found an appropriate reliquary. Faithfully translated, charmingly illustrated by Jean Claude with full-page pictures, vignettes in the text, and head and tail pieces, printed in graceful type on handsome paper, and bound with an art worthy of Matthews, in half-cloth, ornamented on the cover, it is an exemplary book, fit to be 'a treasure for aye.'"—New York Times.
THE STORY OF COLETTE. A new large-paper edition. With 36 Illustrations.
8vo. Cloth, $1.50.
"There is not a line in this little idyl that is not as sweet and fresh as a June morning."—Boston Commercial Bulletin.
"One of the gems of the season.... It is the story of the life of young womanhood in France, dramatically told, with the light and shade and coloring of the genuine artist, and is utterly free from that which mars too many French novels. In its literary finish it is well-nigh perfect, indicating the hand of the master."—Boston Traveller.
"The binding is exquisite."—Rochester Union and Advertiser.
Few literary dÉbutantes have met with the success obtained by Sara Jeannette Duncan's first book, "A Social Departure." Her succeeding books showed the same powers of quick observation and graphic description, the same ability to identify and portray types. Meantime, the author has greatly enlarged her range of experience and knowledge of the world. A true cosmopolite, London, Paris, and Calcutta have become familiar to her, as well as New York and Montreal. The title of her new book is no misnomer, and the author's vigorous treatment of her theme has given us a book distinguished not only by acute study of character, command of local color, and dramatic force, but also by contemporaneous interest.
THE SIMPLE ADVENTURES OF A MEMSAHIB. With 37 Illustrations by F.H. Townsend.
12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
"It is impossible for Sara Jeannette Duncan to be otherwise than interesting. Whether it be a voyage around the world, or an American girl's experiences in London society, or the adventures pertaining to the establishment of a youthful couple in India, there is always an atmosphere, a quality, a charm, peculiarly her own."—Brooklyn Standard-Union.
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE: How Orthodocia and I Went Round The World by Ourselves. With 111 Illustrations by F.H. Townsend. 12mo. Paper, 75 cents; cloth, $1.75.
"Widely read and praised on both sides of the Atlantic and Pacific, with scores of illustrations which fit the text exactly and show the mind of artist and writer in unison."—New York Evening Post.
"It is to be doubted whether another book can be found so thoroughly amusing from beginning to end."—Boston Daily Advertiser.
AN AMERICAN GIRL IN LONDON. With 80 Illustrations by F.H. Townsend. 12mo.
Paper, 75 cents; cloth, $1.50.
"One of the most naÏve and entertaining books of the season."—New York Observer.
"So sprightly a book as this, on life in London as observed by an American, has never before been written."—Philadelphia Bulletin.
"Overrunning with cleverness and good will."—New York Commercial Advertiser.
New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.
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