Clara Reeve - "The Old English Baron"

Louisa May Alcott - "Jo's Boys"

Rene Bazin - "The Ink Stain, v1"

Anatole France - "The Red Lily, v2"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: A Laodicean

T >> Thomas Hardy >> A Laodicean




'I know the place, and I agree with you,' said Paula.

'You agree with me on all subjects but one,' he presently
observed, in a voice not intended to reach the others.

Paula looked at him, but was silent.

Onward and upward they went, the same pattern and colour of
tree repeating themselves endlessly, till in a couple of hours
they reached the castle hill which was to be the end of their
journey, and beheld stretched beneath them the valley of the
Murg. They alighted and entered the fortress.

'What did you mean by that look of kindness you bestowed upon
me just now, when I said you agreed with me on all subjects
but one?' asked De Stancy half humorously, as he held open a
little door for her, the others having gone ahead.

'I meant, I suppose, that I was much obliged to you for not
requiring agreement on that one subject,' she said, passing
on.

'Not more than that?' said De Stancy, as he followed her.
'But whenever I involuntarily express towards you sentiments
that there can be no mistaking, you seem truly compassionate.'

'If I seem so, I feel so.'

'If you mean no more than mere compassion, I wish you would
show nothing at all, for your mistaken kindness is only
preparing more misery for me than I should have if let alone
to suffer without mercy.'

'I implore you to be quiet, Captain De Stancy! Leave me, and
look out of the window at the view here, or at the pictures,
or at the armour, or whatever it is we are come to see.'

'Very well. But pray don't extract amusement from my harmless
remarks. Such as they are I mean them.'

She stopped him by changing the subject, for they had entered
an octagonal chamber on the first floor, presumably full of
pictures and curiosities; but the shutters were closed, and
only stray beams of light gleamed in to suggest what was
there.

'Can't somebody open the windows?' said Paula.

'The attendant is about to do it,' said her uncle; and as he
spoke the shutters to the east were flung back, and one of the
loveliest views in the forest disclosed itself outside.

Some of them stepped out upon the balcony. The river lay
along the bottom of the valley, irradiated with a silver
shine. Little rafts of pinewood floated on its surface like
tiny splinters, the men who steered them not appearing larger
than ants.

Paula stood on the balcony, looking for a few minutes upon the
sight, and then came into the shadowy room, where De Stancy
had remained. While the rest were still outside she resumed:
'You must not suppose that I shrink from the subject you so
persistently bring before me. I respect deep affection--you
know I do; but for me to say that I have any such for you, of
the particular sort you only will be satisfied with, would be
absurd. I don't feel it, and therefore there can be nothing
between us. One would think it would be better to feel kindly
towards you than to feel nothing at all. But if you object to
that I'll try to feel nothing.'

'I don't really object to your sympathy,' said De Stancy,
rather struck by her seriousness. 'But it is very saddening
to think you can feel nothing more.'

'It must be so, since I CAN feel no more,' she decisively
replied, adding, as she stopped her seriousness: 'You must
pray for strength to get over it.'

'One thing I shall never pray for; to see you give yourself to
another man. But I suppose I shall witness that some day.'

'You may,' she gravely returned.

'You have no doubt chosen him already,' cried the captain
bitterly.

'No, Captain De Stancy,' she said shortly, a faint involuntary
blush coming into her face as she guessed his allusion.

This, and a few glances round at the pictures and curiosities,
completed their survey of the castle. De Stancy knew better
than to trouble her further that day with special remarks.
During the return journey he rode ahead with Mr. Power and she
saw no more of him.

She would have been astonished had she heard the conversation
of the two gentlemen as they wound gently downwards through
the trees.

'As far as I am concerned,' Captain De Stancy's companion was
saying, 'nothing would give me more unfeigned delight than
that you should persevere and win her. But you must
understand that I have no authority over her--nothing more
than the natural influence that arises from my being her
father's brother.'

'And for exercising that much, whatever it may be, in my
favour I thank you heartily,' said De Stancy. 'But I am
coming to the conclusion that it is useless to press her
further. She is right! I am not the man for her. I am too
old, and too poor; and I must put up as well as I can with her
loss--drown her image in old Falernian till I embark in
Charon's boat for good!--Really, if I had the industry I could
write some good Horatian verses on my inauspicious situation!.
. . Ah, well;--in this way I affect levity over my troubles;
but in plain truth my life will not be the brightest without
her.'

'Don't be down-hearted! you are too--too gentlemanly, De
Stancy, in this matter--you are too soon put off--you should
have a touch of the canvasser about you in approaching her;
and not stick at things. You have my hearty invitation to
travel with us all the way till we cross to England, and there
will be heaps of opportunities as we wander on. I'll keep a
slow pace to give you time.'

'You are very good, my friend! Well, I will try again. I am
full of doubt and indecision, mind, but at present I feel that
I will try again. There is, I suppose, a slight possibility
of something or other turning up in my favour, if it is true
that the unexpected always happens--for I foresee no chance
whatever. . . . Which way do we go when we leave here to-
morrow?'

'To Carlsruhe, she says, if the rest of us have no objection.'

'Carlsruhe, then, let it be, with all my heart; or anywhere.'

To Carlsruhe they went next day, after a night of soft rain
which brought up a warm steam from the Schwarzwald valleys,
and caused the young tufts and grasses to swell visibly in a
few hours. After the Baden slopes the flat thoroughfares of
'Charles's Rest' seemed somewhat uninteresting, though a busy
fair which was proceeding in the streets created a quaint and
unexpected liveliness. On reaching the old-fashioned inn in
the Lange-Strasse that they had fixed on, the women of the
party betook themselves to their rooms and showed little
inclination to see more of the world that day than could be
gleaned from the hotel windows.



III.

While the malignant tongues had been playing havoc with
Somerset's fame in the ears of Paula and her companion, the
young man himself was proceeding partly by rail, partly on
foot, below and amid the olive-clad hills, vineyards, carob
groves, and lemon gardens of the Mediterranean shores.
Arrived at San Remo he wrote to Nice to inquire for letters,
and such as had come were duly forwarded; but not one of them
was from Paula. This broke down his resolution to hold off,
and he hastened directly to Genoa, regretting that he had not
taken this step when he first heard that she was there.

Something in the very aspect of the marble halls of that city,
which at any other time he would have liked to linger over,
whispered to him that the bird had flown; and inquiry
confirmed the fancy. Nevertheless, the architectural beauties
of the palace-bordered street, looking as if mountains of
marble must have been levelled to supply the materials for
constructing it, detained him there two days: or rather a
feat of resolution, by which he set himself to withstand the
drag-chain of Paula's influence, was operative for that space
of time.

At the end of it he moved onward. There was no difficulty in
discovering their track northwards; and feeling that he might
as well return to England by the Rhine route as by any other,
he followed in the course they had chosen, getting scent of
them in Strassburg, missing them at Baden by a day, and
finally overtaking them at Carlsruhe, which town he reached on
the morning after the Power and De Stancy party had taken up
their quarters at the ancient inn above mentioned. When
Somerset was about to get out of the train at this place,
little dreaming what a meaning the word Carlsruhe would have
for him in subsequent years, he was disagreeably surprised to
see no other than Dare stepping out of the adjoining carriage.
A new brown leather valise in one of his hands, a new umbrella
in the other, and a new suit of fashionable clothes on his
back, seemed to denote considerable improvement in the young
man's fortunes. Somerset was so struck by the circumstance of
his being on this spot that he almost missed his opportunity
for alighting.

Dare meanwhile had moved on without seeing his former
employer, and Somerset resolved to take the chance that
offered, and let him go. There was something so mysterious in
their common presence simultaneously at one place, five
hundred miles from where they had last met, that he exhausted
conjecture on whether Dare's errand this way could have
anything to do with his own, or whether their juxtaposition a
second time was the result of pure accident. Greatly as he
would have liked to get this answered by a direct question to
Dare himself, he did not counteract his first instinct, and
remained unseen.

They went out in different directions, when Somerset for the
first time remembered that, in learning at Baden that the
party had flitted towards Carlsruhe, he had taken no care to
ascertain the name of the hotel they were bound for.
Carlsruhe was not a large place and the point was immaterial,
but the omission would necessitate a little inquiry. To follow
Dare on the chance of his having fixed upon the same quarters
was a course which did not commend itself. He resolved to get
some lunch before proceeding with his business--or fatuity--of
discovering the elusive lady, and drove off to a neighbouring
tavern, which did not happen to be, as he hoped it might, the
one chosen by those who had preceded him.

Meanwhile Dare, previously master of their plans, went
straight to the house which sheltered them, and on entering
under the archway from the Lange-Strasse was saved the trouble
of inquiring for Captain De Stancy by seeing him drinking
bitters at a little table in the court. Had Somerset chosen
this inn for his quarters instead of the one in the Market-
Place which he actually did choose, the three must inevitably
have met here at this moment, with some possibly striking
dramatic results; though what they would have been remains for
ever hidden in the darkness of the unfulfilled.

De Stancy jumped up from his chair, and went forward to the
new-comer. 'You are not long behind us, then,' he said, with
laconic disquietude. 'I thought you were going straight
home?'

'I was,' said Dare, 'but I have been blessed with what I may
call a small competency since I saw you last. Of the two
hundred francs you gave me I risked fifty at the tables, and I
have multiplied them, how many times do you think? More than
four hundred times.'

De Stancy immediately looked grave. 'I wish you had lost
them,' he said, with as much feeling as could be shown in a
place where strangers were hovering near.

'Nonsense, captain! I have proceeded purely on a calculation
of chances; and my calculations proved as true as I expected,
notwithstanding a little in-and-out luck at first. Witness
this as the result.' He smacked his bag with his umbrella,
and the chink of money resounded from within. 'Just feel the
weight of it!'

'It is not necessary. I take your word.'

'Shall I lend you five pounds?'

'God forbid! As if that would repay me for what you have cost
me! But come, let's get out of this place to where we can
talk more freely.' He put his hand through the young man's
arm, and led him round the corner of the hotel towards the
Schloss-Platz.

'These runs of luck will be your ruin, as I have told you
before,' continued Captain De Stancy. 'You will be for
repeating and repeating your experiments, and will end by
blowing your brains out, as wiser heads than yours have done.
I am glad you have come away, at any rate. Why did you travel
this way?'

'Simply because I could afford it, of course.--But come,
captain, something has ruffled you to-day. I thought you did
not look in the best temper the moment I saw you. Every sip
you took of your pick-up as you sat there showed me something
was wrong. Tell your worry!'

'Pooh--I can tell you in two words,' said the captain
satirically. 'Your arrangement for my wealth and happiness--
for I suppose you still claim it to be yours--has fallen
through. The lady has announced to-day that she means to send
for Somerset instantly. She is coming to a personal
explanation with him. So woe to me--and in another sense, woe
to you, as I have reason to fear.'

'Send for him!' said Dare, with the stillness of complete
abstraction. 'Then he'll come.'

'Well,' said De Stancy, looking him in the face. 'And does it
make you feel you had better be off? How about that telegram?
Did he ask you to send it, or did he not?'

'One minute, or I shall be up such a tree as nobody ever saw
the like of.'

'Then what did you come here for?' burst out De Stancy. ''Tis
my belief you are no more than a--But I won't call you names;
I'll tell you quite plainly that if there is anything wrong in
that message to her--which I believe there is--no, I can't
believe, though I fear it--you have the chance of appearing in
drab clothes at the expense of the Government before the year
is out, and I of being eternally disgraced!'

'No, captain, you won't be disgraced. I am bad to beat, I can
tell you. And come the worst luck, I don't say a word.'

'But those letters pricked in your skin would say a good deal,
it strikes me.'

'What! would they strip me?--but it is not coming to that.
Look here, now, I'll tell you the truth for once; though you
don't believe me capable of it. I DID concoct that telegram--
and sent it; just as a practical joke; and many a worse one
has been only laughed at by honest men and officers. I could
show you a bigger joke still--a joke of jokes--on the same
individual.'

Dare as he spoke put his hand into his breast-pocket, as if
the said joke lay there; but after a moment he withdrew his
hand empty, as he continued:

'Having invented it I have done enough; I was going to explain
it to you, that you might carry it out. But you are so
serious, that I will leave it alone. My second joke shall die
with me.'

'So much the better,' said De Stancy. 'I don't like your
jokes, even though they are not directed against myself. They
express a kind of humour which does not suit me.'

'You may have reason to alter your mind,' said Dare
carelessly. 'Your success with your lady may depend on it.
The truth is, captain, we aristocrats must not take too high a
tone. Our days as an independent division of society, which
holds aloof from other sections, are past. This has been my
argument (in spite of my strong Norman feelings) ever since I
broached the subject of your marrying this girl, who
represents both intellect and wealth--all, in fact, except the
historical prestige that you represent. And we mustn't flinch
at things. The case is even more pressing than ordinary
cases--owing to the odd fact that the representative of the
new blood who has come in our way actually lives in your own
old house, and owns your own old lands. The ordinary reason
for such alliances is quintupled in our case. Do then just
think and be reasonable, before you talk tall about not liking
my jokes, and all that. Beggars mustn't be choosers.'

'There's really much reason in your argument,' said De Stancy,
with a bitter laugh: 'and my own heart argues much the same
way. But, leaving me to take care of my aristocratic self, I
advise your aristocratic self to slip off at once to England
like any hang-gallows dog; and if Somerset is here, and you
have been doing wrong in his name, and it all comes out, I'll
try to save you, as far as an honest man can. If you have
done no wrong, of course there is no fear; though I should be
obliged by your going homeward as quickly as possible, as
being better both for you and for me. . . . Hullo--
Damnation!'

They had reached one side of the Schloss-Platz, nobody
apparently being near them save a sentinel who was on duty
before the Palace; but turning as he spoke, De Stancy beheld a
group consisting of his sister, Paula, and Mr. Power,
strolling across the square towards them.

It was impossible to escape their observation, and putting a
bold front upon it, De Stancy advanced with Dare at his side,
till in a few moments the two parties met, Paula and Charlotte
recognizing Dare at once as the young man who assisted at the
castle.

'I have met my young photographer,' said De Stancy cheerily.
'What a small world it is, as everybody truly observes! I am
wishing he could take some views for us as we go on; but you
have no apparatus with you, I suppose, Mr. Dare?'

'I have not, sir, I am sorry to say,' replied Dare
respectfully.

'You could get some, I suppose?' asked Paula of the
interesting young photographer.

Dare declared that it would be not impossible: whereupon De
Stancy said that it was only a passing thought of his; and in
a few minutes the two parties again separated, going their
several ways.

'That was awkward,' said De Stancy, trembling with excitement.
'I would advise you to keep further off in future.'

Dare said thoughtfully that he would be careful, adding, 'She
is a prize for any man, indeed, leaving alone the substantial
possessions behind her! Now was I too enthusiastic? Was I a
fool for urging you on?'

'Wait till success justifies the undertaking. In case of
failure it will have been anything but wise. It is no light
matter to have a carefully preserved repose broken in upon for
nothing--a repose that could never be restored!'

They walked down the Carl-Friedrichs-Strasse to the Margrave's
Pyramid, and back to the hotel, where Dare also decided to
take up his stay. De Stancy left him with the book-keeper at
the desk, and went upstairs to see if the ladies had returned.



IV.

He found them in their sitting-room with their bonnets on, as
if they had just come in. Mr. Power was also present, reading
a newspaper, but Mrs. Goodman had gone out to a neighbouring
shop, in the windows of which she had seen something which
attracted her fancy.

When De Stancy entered, Paula's thoughts seemed to revert to
Dare, for almost at once she asked him in what direction the
youth was travelling. With some hesitation De Stancy replied
that he believed Mr. Dare was returning to England after a
spring trip for the improvement of his mind.

'A very praiseworthy thing to do,' said Paula. 'What places
has he visited?'

'Those which afford opportunities for the study of the old
masters, I believe,' said De Stancy blandly. 'He has also
been to Turin, Genoa, Marseilles, and so on.' The captain
spoke the more readily to her questioning in that he divined
her words to be dictated, not by any suspicions of his
relations with Dare, but by her knowledge of Dare as the
draughtsman employed by Somerset.

'Has he been to Nice?' she next demanded. 'Did he go there in
company with my architect?'

'I think not.'

'Has he seen anything of him? My architect Somerset once
employed him. They know each other.'

'I think he saw Somerset for a short time.'

Paula was silent. 'Do you know where this young man Dare is
at the present moment?' she asked quickly.

De Stancy said that Dare was staying at the same hotel with
themselves, and that he believed he was downstairs.

'I think I can do no better than send for him,' said she. 'He
may be able to throw some light upon the matter of that
telegram.'

She rang and despatched the waiter for the young man in
question, De Stancy almost visibly trembling for the result.
But he opened the town directory which was lying on a table,
and affected to be engrossed in the names.

Before Dare was shown in she said to her uncle, 'Perhaps you
will speak to him for me?'

Mr. Power, looking up from the paper he was reading, assented
to her proposition. Dare appeared in the doorway, and the
waiter retired. Dare seemed a trifle startled out of his
usual coolness, the message having evidently been unexpected,
and he came forward somewhat uneasily.

'Mr. Dare, we are anxious to know something of Miss Power's
architect; and Captain De Stancy tells us you have seen him
lately,' said Mr. Power sonorously over the edge of his
newspaper.

Not knowing whether danger menaced or no, or, if it menaced,
from what quarter it was to be expected, Dare felt that
honesty was as good as anything else for him, and replied
boldly that he had seen Mr. Somerset, De Stancy continuing to
cream and mantle almost visibly, in anxiety at the situation
of the speaker.

'And where did you see him?' continued Mr. Power.

'In the Casino at Monte Carlo.'

'How long did you see him?'

'Only for half an hour. I left him there.'

Paula's interest got the better of her reserve, and she cut in
upon her uncle: 'Did he seem in any unusual state, or in
trouble?'

'He was rather excited,' said Dare.

'And can you remember when that was?'

Dare considered, looked at his pocket-book, and said that it
was on the evening of April the twenty-second.

The answer had a significance for Paula, De Stancy, and
Charlotte, to which Abner Power was a stranger. The
telegraphic request for money, which had been kept a secret
from him by his niece, because of his already unfriendly tone
towards Somerset, arrived on the morning of the twenty-third--
a date which neighboured with painfully suggestive nicety upon
that now given by Dare.

She seemed to be silenced, and asked no more questions. Dare
having furbished himself up to a gentlemanly appearance with
some of his recent winnings, was invited to stay on awhile by
Paula's uncle, who, as became a travelled man, was not
fastidious as to company. Being a youth of the world, Dare
made himself agreeable to that gentleman, and afterwards tried
to do the same with Miss De Stancy. At this the captain, to
whom the situation for some time had been amazingly
uncomfortable, pleaded some excuse for going out, and left the
room.

Dare continued his endeavours to say a few polite nothings to
Charlotte De Stancy, in the course of which he drew from his
pocket his new silk handkerchief. By some chance a card came
out with the handkerchief, and fluttered downwards. His
momentary instinct was to make a grasp at the card and conceal
it: but it had already tumbled to the floor, where it lay
face upward beside Charlotte De Stancy's chair.

It was neither a visiting nor a playing card, but one bearing
a photographic portrait of a peculiar nature. It was what
Dare had characterized as his best joke in speaking on the
subject to Captain De Stancy: he had in the morning put it
ready in his pocket to give to the captain, and had in fact
held it in waiting between his finger and thumb while talking
to him in the Platz, meaning that he should make use of it
against his rival whenever convenient. But his sharp
conversation with that soldier had dulled his zest for this
final joke at Somerset's expense, had at least shown him that
De Stancy would not adopt the joke by accepting the photograph
and using it himself, and determined him to lay it aside till
a more convenient time. So fully had he made up his mind on
this course, that when the photograph slipped out he did not
at first perceive the appositeness of the circumstance, in
putting into his own hands the role he had intended for De
Stancy; though it was asserted afterwards that the whole scene
was deliberately planned. However, once having seen the
accident, he resolved to take the current as it served.

The card having fallen beside her, Miss De Stancy glanced over
it, which indeed she could not help doing. The smile that had
previously hung upon her lips was arrested as if by frost and
she involuntarily uttered a little distressed cry of 'O!' like
one in bodily pain.

Paula, who had been talking to her uncle during this
interlude, started round, and wondering what had happened,
inquiringly crossed the room to poor Charlotte's side, asking
her what was the matter. Charlotte had regained self-
possession, though not enough to enable her to reply, and
Paula asked her a second time what had made her exclaim like
that. Miss De Stancy still seemed confused, whereupon Paula
noticed that her eyes were continually drawn as if by
fascination towards the photograph on the floor, which,
contrary to his first impulse, Dare, as has been said, now
seemed in no hurry to regain. Surmising at last that the
card, whatever it was, had something to do with the
exclamation, Paula picked it up.

It was a portrait of Somerset; but by a device known in
photography the operator, though contriving to produce what
seemed to be a perfect likeness, had given it the distorted
features and wild attitude of a man advanced in intoxication.
No woman, unless specially cognizant of such possibilities,
could have looked upon it and doubted that the photograph was
a genuine illustration of a customary phase in the young man's
private life.