Charlotte M. Yonge - "My Young Alcides"

Elias Johnson - "Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians"

Harold Bell Wright - "That Printer of Udell's"

Unknown - "The First 100,000 Prime Numbers"

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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




Paula observed it, thoroughly took it in; but the effect upon
her was by no means clear. Charlotte's eyes at once forsook
the portrait to dwell on Paula's face. It paled a little, and
this was followed by a hot blush--perceptibly a blush of
shame. That was all. She flung the picture down on the
table, and moved away.

It was now Mr. Power's turn. Anticipating Dare, who was
advancing with a deprecatory look to seize the photograph, he
also grasped it. When he saw whom it represented he seemed
both amused and startled, and after scanning it a while handed
it to the young man with a queer smile.

'I am very sorry,' began Dare in a low voice to Mr. Power. 'I
fear I was to blame for thoughtlessness in not destroying it.
But I thought it was rather funny that a man should permit
such a thing to be done, and that the humour would redeem the
offence.'

'In you, for purchasing it,' said Paula with haughty quickness
from the other side of the room. 'Though probably his
friends, if he has any, would say not in him.'

There was silence in the room after this, and Dare, finding
himself rather in the way, took his leave as unostentatiously
as a cat that has upset the family china, though he continued
to say among his apologies that he was not aware Mr. Somerset
was a personal friend of the ladies.

Of all the thoughts which filled the minds of Paula and
Charlotte De Stancy, the thought that the photograph might
have been a fabrication was probably the last. To them that
picture of Somerset had all the cogency of direct vision.
Paula's experience, much less Charlotte's, had never lain in
the fields of heliographic science, and they would as soon
have thought that the sun could again stand still upon Gibeon,
as that it could be made to falsify men's characters in
delineating their features. What Abner Power thought he
himself best knew. He might have seen such pictures before;
or he might never have heard of them.

While pretending to resume his reading he closely observed
Paula, as did also Charlotte De Stancy; but thanks to the
self-management which was Miss Power's as much by nature as by
art, she dissembled whatever emotion was in her.

'It is a pity a professional man should make himself so
ludicrous,' she said with such careless intonation that it was
almost impossible, even for Charlotte, who knew her so well,
to believe her indifference feigned.

'Yes,' said Mr. Power, since Charlotte did not speak: 'it is
what I scarcely should have expected.'

'O, I am not surprised!' said Paula quickly. 'You don't know
all.' The inference was, indeed, inevitable that if her uncle
were made aware of the telegram he would see nothing unlikely
in the picture. 'Well, you are very silent!' continued Paula
petulantly, when she found that nobody went on talking. 'What
made you cry out "O," Charlotte, when Mr. Dare dropped that
horrid photograph?'

'I don't know; I suppose it frightened me,' stammered the
girl.

'It was a stupid fuss to make before such a person. One would
think you were in love with Mr. Somerset.'

'What did you say, Paula?' inquired her uncle, looking up from
the newspaper which he had again resumed.

'Nothing, Uncle Abner.' She walked to the window, and, as if
to tide over what was plainly passing in their minds about
her, she began to make remarks on objects in the street.
'What a quaint being--look, Charlotte!' It was an old woman
sitting by a stall on the opposite side of the way, which
seemed suddenly to hit Paula's sense of the humorous, though
beyond the fact that the dame was old and poor, and wore a
white handkerchief over her head, there was really nothing
noteworthy about her.

Paula seemed to be more hurt by what the silence of her
companions implied--a suspicion that the discovery of
Somerset's depravity was wounding her heart--than by the wound
itself. The ostensible ease with which she drew them into a
bye conversation had perhaps the defect of proving too much:
though her tacit contention that no love was in question was
not incredible on the supposition that affronted pride alone
caused her embarrassment. The chief symptom of her heart
being really tender towards Somerset consisted in her apparent
blindness to Charlotte's secret, so obviously suggested by her
momentary agitation.



V.

And where was the subject of their condemnatory opinions all
this while? Having secured a room at his inn, he came forth
to complete the discovery of his dear mistress's halting-place
without delay. After one or two inquiries he ascertained
where such a party of English were staying; and arriving at
the hotel, knew at once that he had tracked them to earth by
seeing the heavier portion of the Power luggage confronting
him in the hall. He sent up intelligence of his presence, and
awaited her reply with a beating heart.

In the meanwhile Dare, descending from his pernicious
interview with Paula and the rest, had descried Captain De
Stancy in the public drawing-room, and entered to him
forthwith. It was while they were here together that Somerset
passed the door and sent up his name to Paula.

The incident at the railway station was now reversed, Somerset
being the observed of Dare, as Dare had then been the observed
of Somerset. Immediately on sight of him Dare showed real
alarm. He had imagined that Somerset would eventually impinge
on Paula's route, but he had scarcely expected it yet; and the
architect's sudden appearance led Dare to ask himself the
ominous question whether Somerset had discovered his
telegraphic trick, and was in the mood for prompt measures.

'There is no more for me to do here,' said the boy hastily to
De Stancy. 'Miss Power does not wish to ask me any more
questions. I may as well proceed on my way, as you advised.'

De Stancy, who had also gazed with dismay at Somerset's
passing figure, though with dismay of another sort, was
recalled from his vexation by Dare's remarks, and turning upon
him he said sharply, 'Well may you be in such a hurry all of a
sudden!'

'True, I am superfluous now.'

'You have been doing a foolish thing, and you must suffer its
inconveniences.--Will, I am sorry for one thing; I am sorry I
ever owned you; for you are not a lad to my heart. You have
disappointed me--disappointed me almost beyond endurance.'

'I have acted according to my illumination. What can you
expect of a man born to dishonour?'

'That's mere speciousness. Before you knew anything of me,
and while you thought you were the child of poverty on both
sides, you were well enough; but ever since you thought you
were more than that, you have led a life which is intolerable.
What has become of your plan of alliance between the De
Stancys and the Powers now? The man is gone upstairs who can
overthrow it all.'

'If the man had not gone upstairs, you wouldn't have
complained of my nature or my plans,' said Dare drily. 'If I
mistake not, he will come down again with the flea in his ear.
However, I have done; my play is played out. All the rest
remains with you. But, captain, grant me this! If when I am
gone this difficulty should vanish, and things should go well
with you, and your suit should prosper, will you think of him,
bad as he is, who first put you on the track of such
happiness, and let him know it was not done in vain?'

'I will,' said De Stancy. 'Promise me that you will be a
better boy?'

'Very well--as soon as ever I can afford it. Now I am up and
away, when I have explained to them that I shall not require
my room.'

Dare fetched his bag, touched his hat with his umbrella to the
captain and went out of the hotel archway. De Stancy sat down
in the stuffy drawing-room, and wondered what other ironies
time had in store for him.

A waiter in the interim had announced Somerset to the group
upstairs. Paula started as much as Charlotte at hearing the
name, and Abner Power stared at them both.

'If Mr. Somerset wishes to see me ON BUSINESS, show him in,'
said Paula.

In a few seconds the door was thrown open for Somerset. On
receipt of the pointed message he guessed that a change had
come. Time, absence, ambition, her uncle's influence, and a
new wooer, seemed to account sufficiently well for that
change, and he accepted his fate. But a stoical instinct to
show her that he could regard vicissitudes with the equanimity
that became a man; a desire to ease her mind of any fear she
might entertain that his connection with her past would render
him troublesome in future, induced him to accept her
permission, and see the act to the end.

'How do you do, Mr. Somerset?' said Abner Power, with sardonic
geniality: he had been far enough about the world not to be
greatly concerned at Somerset's apparent failing, particularly
when it helped to reduce him from the rank of lover to his
niece to that of professional adviser.

Miss De Stancy faltered a welcome as weak as that of the Maid
of Neidpath, and Paula said coldly, 'We are rather surprised
to see you. Perhaps there is something urgent at the castle
which makes it necessary for you to call?'

'There is something a little urgent,' said Somerset slowly, as
he approached her; 'and you have judged rightly that it is the
cause of my call.' He sat down near her chair as he spoke,
put down his hat, and drew a note-book from his pocket with a
despairing sang froid that was far more perfect than had been
Paula's demeanour just before.

'Perhaps you would like to talk over the business with Mr.
Somerset alone?' murmured Charlotte to Miss Power, hardly
knowing what she said.

'O no,' said Paula, 'I think not. Is it necessary?' she said,
turning to him.

'Not in the least,' replied he, bestowing a penetrating glance
upon his questioner's face, which seemed however to produce no
effect; and turning towards Charlotte, he added, 'You will
have the goodness, I am sure, Miss De Stancy, to excuse the
jargon of professional details.'

He spread some tracings on the table, and pointed out certain
modified features to Paula, commenting as he went on, and
exchanging occasionally a few words on the subject with Mr.
Abner Power by the distant window.

In this architectural dialogue over his sketches, Somerset's
head and Paula's became unavoidably very close. The
temptation was too much for the young man. Under cover of the
rustle of the tracings, he murmured, 'Paula, I could not get
here before!' in a low voice inaudible to the other two.

She did not reply, only busying herself the more with the
notes and sketches; and he said again, 'I stayed a couple of
days at Genoa, and some days at San Remo, and Mentone.'

'But it is not the least concern of mine where you stayed, is
it?' she said, with a cold yet disquieted look.

'Do you speak seriously?' Somerset brokenly whispered.

Paula concluded her examination of the drawings and turned
from him with sorrowful disregard. He tried no further, but,
when she had signified her pleasure on the points submitted,
packed up his papers, and rose with the bearing of a man
altogether superior to such a class of misfortune as this.
Before going he turned to speak a few words of a general kind
to Mr. Power and Charlotte.

'You will stay and dine with us?' said the former, rather with
the air of being unhappily able to do no less than ask the
question. 'My charges here won't go down to the table-d'hote,
I fear, but De Stancy and myself will be there.'

Somerset excused himself, and in a few minutes withdrew. At
the door he looked round for an instant, and his eyes met
Paula's. There was the same miles-off expression in hers that
they had worn when he entered; but there was also a look of
distressful inquiry, as if she were earnestly expecting him to
say something more. This of course Somerset did not
comprehend. Possibly she was clinging to a hope of some
excuse for the message he was supposed to have sent, or for
the other and more degrading matter. Anyhow, Somerset only
bowed and went away.

A moment after he had gone, Paula, impelled by something or
other, crossed the room to the window. In a short time she
saw his form in the broad street below, which he traversed
obliquely to an opposite corner, his head somewhat bent, and
his eyes on the ground. Before vanishing into the
Ritterstrasse he turned his head and glanced at the hotel
windows, as if he knew that she was watching him. Then he
disappeared; and the only real sign of emotion betrayed by
Paula during the whole episode escaped her at this moment. It
was a slight trembling of the lip and a sigh so slowly
breathed that scarce anybody could hear--scarcely even
Charlotte, who was reclining on a couch her face on her hand
and her eyes downcast.

Not more than two minutes had elapsed when Mrs. Goodman came
in with a manner of haste.

'You have returned,' said Mr. Power. 'Have you made your
purchases?'

Without answering, she asked, 'Whom, of all people on earth,
do you think I have met? Mr. Somerset! Has he been here?--he
passed me almost without speaking!'

'Yes, he has been here,' said Paula. 'He is on the way from
Genoa home, and called on business.'

'You will have him here to dinner, of course?'

'I asked him,' said Mr. Power, 'but he declined.'

'O, that's unfortunate! Surely we could get him to come. You
would like to have him here, would you not, Paula?'

'No, indeed. I don't want him here,' said she.

'You don't?'

'No!' she said sharply.

'You used to like him well enough, anyhow,' bluntly rejoined
Mrs. Goodman.

Paula sedately: 'It is a mistake to suppose that I ever
particularly liked the gentleman mentioned.'

'Then you are wrong, Mrs. Goodman, it seems,' said Mr. Power.

Mrs. Goodman, who had been growing quietly indignant,
notwithstanding a vigorous use of her fan, at this said.
'Fie, fie, Paula! you did like him. You said to me only a
week or two ago that you should not at all object to marry
him.'

'It is a mistake,' repeated Paula calmly. 'I meant the other
one of the two we were talking about.'

'What, Captain De Stancy?'

'Yes.'

Knowing this to be a fiction, Mrs. Goodman made no remark, and
hearing a slight noise behind, turned her head. Seeing her
aunt's action, Paula also looked round. The door had been
left ajar, and De Stancy was standing in the room. The last
words of Mrs. Goodman, and Paula's reply, must have been quite
audible to him.

They looked at each other much as if they had unexpectedly met
at the altar; but after a momentary start Paula did not flinch
from the position into which hurt pride had betrayed her. De
Stancy bowed gracefully, and she merely walked to the furthest
window, whither he followed her.

'I am eternally grateful to you for avowing that I have won
favour in your sight at last,' he whispered.

She acknowledged the remark with a somewhat reserved bearing.
'Really I don't deserve your gratitude,' she said. 'I did not
know you were there.'

'I know you did not--that's why the avowal is so sweet to me.
Can I take you at your word?'

'Yes, I suppose.'

'Then your preference is the greatest honour that has ever
fallen to my lot. It is enough: you accept me?'

'As a lover on probation--no more.'

The conversation being carried on in low tones, Paula's uncle
and aunt took it as a hint that their presence could be
spared, and severally left the room--the former gladly, the
latter with some vexation. Charlotte De Stancy followed.

'And to what am I indebted for this happy change?' inquired De
Stancy, as soon as they were alone.

'You shouldn't look a gift-horse in the mouth,' she replied
brusquely, and with tears in her eyes for one gone.

'You mistake my motive. I am like a reprieved criminal, and
can scarcely believe the news.'

'You shouldn't say that to me, or I shall begin to think I
have been too kind,' she answered, some of the archness of her
manner returning. 'Now, I know what you mean to say in
answer; but I don't want to hear more at present; and whatever
you do, don't fall into the mistake of supposing I have
accepted you in any other sense than the way I say. If you
don't like such a limitation you can go away. I dare say I
shall get over it.'

'Go away! Could I go away?--But you are beginning to tease,
and will soon punish me severely; so I will make my escape
while all is well. It would be presumptuous to expect more in
one day.'

'It would indeed,' said Paula, with her eyes on a bunch of
flowers.



VI.

On leaving the hotel, Somerset's first impulse was to get out
of sight of its windows, and his glance upward had perhaps not
the tender significance that Paula imagined, the last look
impelled by any such whiff of emotion having been the
lingering one he bestowed upon her in passing out of the room.
Unluckily for the prospects of this attachment, Paula's
conduct towards him now, as a result of misrepresentation, had
enough in common with her previous silence at Nice to make it
not unreasonable as a further development of that silence.
Moreover, her social position as a woman of wealth, always
felt by Somerset as a perceptible bar to that full and free
eagerness with which he would fain have approached her,
rendered it impossible for him to return to the charge,
ascertain the reason of her coldness, and dispel it by an
explanation, without being suspected of mercenary objects.
Continually does it happen that a genial willingness to bottle
up affronts is set down to interested motives by those who do
not know what generous conduct means. Had she occupied the
financial position of Miss De Stancy he would readily have
persisted further and, not improbably, have cleared up the
cloud.

Having no further interest in Carlsruhe, Somerset decided to
leave by an evening train. The intervening hour he spent in
wandering into the thick of the fair, where steam roundabouts,
the proprietors of wax-work shows, and fancy-stall keepers
maintained a deafening din. The animated environment was
better than silence, for it fostered in him an artificial
indifference to the events that had just happened--an
indifference which, though he too well knew it was only
destined to be temporary, afforded a passive period wherein to
store up strength that should enable him to withstand the wear
and tear of regrets which would surely set in soon. It was
the case with Somerset as with others of his temperament, that
he did not feel a blow of this sort immediately; and what
often seemed like stoicism after misfortune was only the
neutral numbness of transition from palpitating hope to
assured wretchedness.

He walked round and round the fair till all the exhibitors
knew him by sight, and when the sun got low he turned into the
Erbprinzen-Strasse, now raked from end to end by ensaffroned
rays of level light. Seeking his hotel he dined there, and
left by the evening train for Heidelberg.



Heidelberg with its romantic surroundings was not precisely
the place calculated to heal Somerset's wounded heart. He had
known the town of yore, and his recollections of that period,
when, unfettered in fancy, he had transferred to his sketch-
book the fine Renaissance details of the Otto-Heinrichs-Bau
came back with unpleasant force. He knew of some carved cask-
heads and other curious wood-work in the castle cellars,
copies of which, being unobtainable by photographs, he had
intended to make if all went well between Paula and himself.
The zest for this was now well-nigh over. But on awaking in
the morning and looking up the valley towards the castle, and
at the dark green height of the Konigsstuhl alongside, he felt
that to become vanquished by a passion, driven to suffer,
fast, and pray in the dull pains and vapours of despised love,
was a contingency not to be welcomed too readily. Thereupon
he set himself to learn the sad science of renunciation, which
everybody has to learn in his degree--either rebelling
throughout the lesson, or, like Somerset, taking to it kindly
by force of judgment. A more obstinate pupil might have
altogether escaped the lesson in the present case by
discovering its illegality.

Resolving to persevere in the heretofore satisfactory paths of
art while life and faculties were left, though every instinct
must proclaim that there would be no longer any collateral
attraction in that pursuit, he went along under the trees of
the Anlage and reached the castle vaults, in whose cool shades
he spent the afternoon, working out his intentions with fair
result. When he had strolled back to his hotel in the evening
the time was approaching for the table-d'hote. Having seated
himself rather early, he spent the few minutes of waiting in
looking over his pocket-book, and putting a few finishing
touches to the afternoon performance whilst the objects were
fresh in his memory. Thus occupied he was but dimly conscious
of the customary rustle of dresses and pulling up of chairs by
the crowd of other diners as they gathered around him.
Serving began, and he put away his book and prepared for the
meal. He had hardly done this when he became conscious that
the person on his left hand was not the typical cosmopolite
with boundless hotel knowledge and irrelevant experiences that
he was accustomed to find next him, but a face he recognized
as that of a young man whom he had met and talked to at Stancy
Castle garden-party, whose name he had now forgotten. This
young fellow was conversing with somebody on his left hand--no
other personage than Paula herself. Next to Paula he beheld
De Stancy, and De Stancy's sister beyond him. It was one of
those gratuitous encounters which only happen to discarded
lovers who have shown commendable stoicism under
disappointment, as if on purpose to reopen and aggravate their
wounds.

It seemed as if the intervening traveller had met the other
party by accident there and then. In a minute he turned and
recognized Somerset, and by degrees the young men's cursory
remarks to each other developed into a pretty regular
conversation, interrupted only when he turned to speak to
Paula on his left hand.

'Your architectural adviser travels in your party: how very
convenient,' said the young tourist to her. 'Far pleasanter
than having a medical attendant in one's train!'

Somerset, who had no distractions on the other side of him,
could hear every word of this. He glanced at Paula. She had
not known of his presence in the room till now. Their eyes
met for a second, and she bowed sedately. Somerset returned
her bow, and her eyes were quickly withdrawn with scarcely
visible confusion.

'Mr. Somerset is not travelling with us,' she said. 'We have
met by accident. Mr. Somerset came to me on business a little
while ago.'

'I must congratulate you on having put the castle into good
hands,' continued the enthusiastic young man.

'I believe Mr. Somerset is quite competent,' said Paula
stiffly.

To include Somerset in the conversation the young man turned
to him and added: 'You carry on your work at the castle con
amore, no doubt?'

'There is work I should like better,' said Somerset.

'Indeed?'

The frigidity of his manner seemed to set her at ease by
dispersing all fear of a scene; and alternate dialogues of
this sort with the gentleman in their midst were more or less
continued by both Paula and Somerset till they rose from
table.

In the bustle of moving out the two latter for one moment
stood side by side.

'Miss Power,' said Somerset, in a low voice that was obscured
by the rustle, 'you have nothing more to say to me?'

'I think there is nothing more?' said Paula, lifting her eyes
with longing reticence.

'Then I take leave of you; and tender my best wishes that you
may have a pleasant time before you! . . . . I set out for
England to-night.'

'With a special photographer, no doubt?'

It was the first time that she had addressed Somerset with a
meaning distinctly bitter; and her remark, which had reference
to the forged photograph, fell of course without its intended
effect.

'No, Miss Power,' said Somerset gravely. 'But with a deeper
sense of woman's thoughtless trifling than time will ever
eradicate.'

'Is not that a mistake?' she asked in a voice that distinctly
trembled.

'A mistake? How?'

'I mean, do you not forget many things?' (throwing on him a
troubled glance). 'A woman may feel herself justified in her
conduct, although it admits of no explanation.'

'I don't contest the point for a moment. . . . Goodbye.'

'Good-bye.'

They parted amid the flowering shrubs and caged birds in the
hall, and he saw her no more. De Stancy came up, and spoke a
few commonplace words, his sister having gone out, either
without perceiving Somerset, or with intention to avoid him.

That night, as he had said, he was on his way to England.



VII.

The De Stancys and Powers remained in Heidelberg for some
days. All remarked that after Somerset's departure Paula was
frequently irritable, though at other times as serene as ever.
Yet even when in a blithe and saucy mood there was at bottom a
tinge of melancholy. Something did not lie easy in her
undemonstrative heart, and all her friends excused the
inequalities of a humour whose source, though not positively
known, could be fairly well guessed.