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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.

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Books: A Laodicean

T >> Thomas Hardy >> A Laodicean




De Stancy had long since discovered that his chance lay
chiefly in her recently acquired and fanciful predilection
d'artiste for hoary mediaeval families with ancestors in
alabaster and primogenitive renown. Seeing this he dwelt on
those topics which brought out that aspect of himself more
clearly, talking feudalism and chivalry with a zest that he
had never hitherto shown. Yet it was not altogether
factitious. For, discovering how much this quondam Puritan
was interested in the attributes of long-chronicled houses, a
reflected interest in himself arose in his own soul, and he
began to wonder why he had not prized these things before.
Till now disgusted by the failure of his family to hold its
own in the turmoil between ancient and modern, he had grown to
undervalue its past prestige; and it was with corrective
ardour that he adopted while he ministered to her views.

Henceforward the wooing of De Stancy took the form of an
intermittent address, the incidents of their travel furnishing
pegs whereon to hang his subject; sometimes hindering it, but
seldom failing to produce in her a greater tolerance of his
presence. His next opportunity was the day after Somerset's
departure from Heidelberg. They stood on the great terrace of
the Schloss-Garten, looking across the intervening ravine to
the north-east front of the castle which rose before them in
all its customary warm tints and battered magnificence.

'This is a spot, if any, which should bring matters to a
crisis between you and me,' he asserted good-humouredly. 'But
you have been so silent to-day that I lose the spirit to take
advantage of my privilege.'

She inquired what privilege he spoke of, as if quite another
subject had been in her mind than De Stancy.

'The privilege of winning your heart if I can, which you gave
me at Carlsruhe.'

'O,' she said. 'Well, I've been thinking of that. But I do
not feel myself absolutely bound by the statement I made in
that room; and I shall expect, if I withdraw it, not to be
called to account by you.'

De Stancy looked rather blank.

'If you recede from your promise you will doubtless have good
reason. But I must solemnly beg you, after raising my hopes,
to keep as near as you can to your word, so as not to throw me
into utter despair.'

Paula dropped her glance into the Thier-Garten below them,
where gay promenaders were clambering up between the bushes
and flowers. At length she said, with evident embarrassment,
but with much distinctness: 'I deserve much more blame for
what I have done than you can express to me. I will confess
to you the whole truth. All that I told you in the hotel at
Carlsruhe was said in a moment of pique at what had happened
just before you came in. It was supposed I was much involved
with another man, and circumstances made the supposition
particularly objectionable. To escape it I jumped at the
alternative of yourself.'

'That's bad for me!' he murmured.

'If after this avowal you bind me to my words I shall say no
more: I do not wish to recede from them without your full
permission.'

'What a caprice! But I release you unconditionally,' he said.
'And I beg your pardon if I seemed to show too much assurance.
Please put it down to my gratified excitement. I entirely
acquiesce in your wish. I will go away to whatever place you
please, and not come near you but by your own permission, and
till you are quite satisfied that my presence and what it may
lead to is not undesirable. I entirely give way before you,
and will endeavour to make my future devotedness, if ever we
meet again, a new ground for expecting your favour.'

Paula seemed struck by the generous and cheerful fairness of
his remarks, and said gently, 'Perhaps your departure is not
absolutely necessary for my happiness; and I do not wish from
what you call caprice--'

'I retract that word.'

'Well, whatever it is, I don't wish you to do anything which
should cause you real pain, or trouble, or humiliation.'

'That's very good of you.'

'But I reserve to myself the right to accept or refuse your
addresses--just as if those rash words of mine had never been
spoken.'

'I must bear it all as best I can, I suppose,' said De Stancy,
with melancholy humorousness.

'And I shall treat you as your behaviour shall seem to
deserve,' she said playfully.

'Then I may stay?'

'Yes; I am willing to give you that pleasure, if it is one, in
return for the attentions you have shown, and the trouble you
have taken to make my journey pleasant.'

She walked on and discovered Mrs. Goodman near, and presently
the whole party met together. De Stancy did not find himself
again at her side till later in the afternoon, when they had
left the immediate precincts of the castle and decided on a
drive to the Konigsstuhl.

The carriage, containing only Mrs. Goodman, was driven a short
way up the winding incline, Paula, her uncle, and Miss De
Stancy walking behind under the shadow of the trees. Then
Mrs. Goodman called to them and asked when they were going to
join her.

'We are going to walk up,' said Mr. Power.

Paula seemed seized with a spirit of boisterousness quite
unlike her usual behaviour. 'My aunt may drive up, and you
may walk up; but I shall run up,' she said. 'See, here's a
way.' She tripped towards a path through the bushes which,
instead of winding like the regular track, made straight for
the summit.

Paula had not the remotest conception of the actual distance
to the top, imagining it to be but a couple of hundred yards
at the outside, whereas it was really nearer a mile, the
ascent being uniformly steep all the way. When her uncle and
De Stancy had seen her vanish they stood still, the former
evidently reluctant to forsake the easy ascent for a difficult
one, though he said, 'We can't let her go alone that way, I
suppose.'

'No, of course not,' said De Stancy.

They then followed in the direction taken by Paula, Charlotte
entering the carriage. When Power and De Stancy had ascended
about fifty yards the former looked back, and dropped off from
the pursuit, to return to the easy route, giving his companion
a parting hint concerning Paula. Whereupon De Stancy went on
alone. He soon saw Paula above him in the path, which
ascended skyward straight as Jacob's Ladder, but was so
overhung by the brushwood as to be quite shut out from the
sun. When he reached her side she was moving easily upward,
apparently enjoying the seclusion which the place afforded.

'Is not my uncle with you?' she said, on turning and seeing
him.

'He went back,' said De Stancy.

She replied that it was of no consequence; that she should
meet him at the top, she supposed.

Paula looked up amid the green light which filtered through
the leafage as far as her eyes could stretch. But the top did
not appear, and she allowed De Stancy to get in front. 'It
did not seem such a long way as this, to look at,' she
presently said.

He explained that the trees had deceived her as to the real
height, by reason of her seeing the slope foreshortened when
she looked up from the castle. 'Allow me to help you,' he
added.

'No, thank you,' said Paula lightly; 'we must be near the
top.'

They went on again; but no Konigsstuhl. When next De Stancy
turned he found that she was sitting down; immediately going
back he offered his arm. She took it in silence, declaring
that it was no wonder her uncle did not come that wearisome
way, if he had ever been there before.

De Stancy did not explain that Mr. Power had said to him at
parting, 'There's a chance for you, if you want one,' but at
once went on with the subject begun on the terrace. 'If my
behaviour is good, you will reaffirm the statement made at
Carlsruhe?'

'It is not fair to begin that now!' expostulated Paula; 'I can
only think of getting to the top.'

Her colour deepening by the exertion, he suggested that she
should sit down again on one of the mossy boulders by the
wayside. Nothing loth she did, De Stancy standing by, and
with his cane scratching the moss from the stone.

'This is rather awkward,' said Paula, in her usual circumspect
way. 'My relatives and your sister will be sure to suspect me
of having arranged this scramble with you.'

'But I know better,' sighed De Stancy. 'I wish to Heaven you
had arranged it!'

She was not at the top, but she took advantage of the halt to
answer his previous question. 'There are many points on which
I must be satisfied before I can reaffirm anything. Do you
not see that you are mistaken in clinging to this idea?--that
you are laying up mortification and disappointment for
yourself?'

'A negative reply from you would be disappointment, early or
late.'

'And you prefer having it late to accepting it now? If I were
a man, I should like to abandon a false scent as soon as
possible.'

'I suppose all that has but one meaning: that I am to go.'

'O no,' she magnanimously assured him, bounding up from her
seat; 'I adhere to my statement that you may stay; though it
is true something may possibly happen to make me alter my
mind.'

He again offered his arm, and from sheer necessity she leant
upon it as before.

'Grant me but a moment's patience,' he began.

'Captain De Stancy! Is this fair? I am physically obliged to
hold your arm, so that I MUST listen to what you say!'

'No, it is not fair; 'pon my soul it is not!' said De Stancy.
'I won't say another word.'

He did not; and they clambered on through the boughs, nothing
disturbing the solitude but the rustle of their own footsteps
and the singing of birds overhead. They occasionally got a
peep at the sky; and whenever a twig hung out in a position to
strike Paula's face the gallant captain bent it aside with his
stick. But she did not thank him. Perhaps he was just as
well satisfied as if she had done so.

Paula, panting, broke the silence: 'Will you go on, and
discover if the top is near?'

He went on. This time the top was near. When he returned she
was sitting where he had left her among the leaves. 'It is
quite near now,' he told her tenderly, and she took his arm
again without a word. Soon the path changed its nature from a
steep and rugged watercourse to a level green promenade.

'Thank you, Captain De Stancy,' she said, letting go his arm
as if relieved.

Before them rose the tower, and at the base they beheld two of
their friends, Mr. Power being seen above, looking over the
parapet through his glass.

'You will go to the top now?' said De Stancy.

'No, I take no interest in it. My interest has turned to
fatigue. I only want to go home.'

He took her on to where the carriage stood at the foot of the
tower, and leaving her with his sister ascended the turret to
the top. The landscape had quite changed from its afternoon
appearance, and had become rather marvellous than beautiful.
The air was charged with a lurid exhalation that blurred the
extensive view. He could see the distant Rhine at its
junction with the Neckar, shining like a thread of blood
through the mist which was gradually wrapping up the declining
sun. The scene had in it something that was more than
melancholy, and not much less than tragic; but for De Stancy
such evening effects possessed little meaning. He was engaged
in an enterprise that taxed all his resources, and had no
sentiments to spare for air, earth, or skies.

'Remarkable scene,' said Power, mildly, at his elbow.

'Yes; I dare say it is,' said De Stancy. 'Time has been when
I should have held forth upon such a prospect, and wondered if
its livid colours shadowed out my own life, et caetera, et
caetera. But, begad, I have almost forgotten there's such a
thing as Nature, and I care for nothing but a comfortable
life, and a certain woman who does not care for me! . . . Now
shall we go down?'



VIII.

It was quite true that De Stancy at the present period of his
existence wished only to escape from the hurly-burly of active
life, and to win the affection of Paula Power. There were,
however, occasions when a recollection of his old renunciatory
vows would obtrude itself upon him, and tinge his present with
wayward bitterness. So much was this the case that a day or
two after they had arrived at Mainz he could not refrain from
making remarks almost prejudicial to his cause, saying to her,
'I am unfortunate in my situation. There are, unhappily,
worldly reasons why I should pretend to love you, even if I do
not: they are so strong that, though really loving you,
perhaps they enter into my thoughts of you.'

'I don't want to know what such reasons are,' said Paula, with
promptness, for it required but little astuteness to discover
that he alluded to the alienated Wessex home and estates.
'You lack tone,' she gently added: 'that's why the situation
of affairs seems distasteful to you.'

'Yes, I suppose I am ill. And yet I am well enough.'

These remarks passed under a tree in the public gardens during
an odd minute of waiting for Charlotte and Mrs. Goodman; and
he said no more to her in private that day. Few as her words
had been he liked them better than any he had lately received.
The conversation was not resumed till they were gliding
'between the banks that bear the vine,' on board one of the
Rhine steamboats, which, like the hotels in this early summer
time, were comparatively free from other English travellers;
so that everywhere Paula and her party were received with open
arms and cheerful countenances, as among the first swallows of
the season.

The saloon of the steamboat was quite empty, the few
passengers being outside; and this paucity of voyagers
afforded De Stancy a roomy opportunity.

Paula saw him approach her, and there appearing in his face
signs that he would begin again on the eternal subject, she
seemed to be struck with a sense of the ludicrous.

De Stancy reddened. 'Something seems to amuse you,' he said.

'It is over,' she replied, becoming serious.

'Was it about me, and this unhappy fever in me?'

'If I speak the truth I must say it was.'

'You thought, "Here's that absurd man again, going to begin
his daily supplication."'

'Not "absurd,"' she said, with emphasis; 'because I don't
think it is absurd.'

She continued looking through the windows at the Lurlei
Heights under which they were now passing, and he remained
with his eyes on her.

'May I stay here with you?' he said at last. 'I have not had
a word with you alone for four-and-twenty hours.'

'You must be cheerful, then.'

'You have said such as that before. I wish you would say
"loving" instead of "cheerful."'

'Yes, I know, I know,' she responded, with impatient
perplexity. 'But why must you think of me--me only? Is there
no other woman in the world who has the power to make you
happy? I am sure there must be.'

'Perhaps there is; but I have never seen her.'

'Then look for her; and believe me when I say that you will
certainly find her.'

He shook his head.

'Captain De Stancy, I have long felt for you,' she continued,
with a frank glance into his face. 'You have deprived
yourself too long of other women's company. Why not go away
for a little time? and when you have found somebody else
likely to make you happy, you can meet me again. I will see
you at your father's house, and we will enjoy all the pleasure
of easy friendship.'

'Very correct; and very cold, O best of women!'

'You are too full of exclamations and transports, I think!'

They stood in silence, Paula apparently much interested in the
manoeuvring of a raft which was passing by. 'Dear Miss
Power,' he resumed, 'before I go and join your uncle above,
let me just ask, Do I stand any chance at all yet? Is it
possible you can never be more pliant than you have been?'

'You put me out of all patience!'

'But why did you raise my hopes? You should at least pity me
after doing that.'

'Yes; it's that again! I unfortunately raised your hopes
because I was a fool--was not myself that moment. Now
question me no more. As it is I think you presume too much
upon my becoming yours as the consequence of my having
dismissed another.'

'Not on becoming mine, but on listening to me.'

'Your argument would be reasonable enough had I led you to
believe I would listen to you--and ultimately accept you; but
that I have not done. I see now that a woman who gives a man
an answer one shade less peremptory than a harsh negative may
be carried beyond her intentions, and out of her own power
before she knows it.'

'Chide me if you will; I don't care!'

She looked steadfastly at him with a little mischief in her
eyes. 'You DO care,' she said.

'Then why don't you listen to me? I would not persevere for a
moment longer if it were against the wishes of your family.
Your uncle says it would give him pleasure to see you accept
me.'

'Does he say why?' she asked thoughtfully.

'Yes; he takes, of course, a practical view of the matter; he
thinks it commends itself so to reason and common sense that
the owner of Stancy Castle should become a member of the De
Stancy family.'

'Yes, that's the horrid plague of it,' she said, with a
nonchalance which seemed to contradict her words. 'It is so
dreadfully reasonable that we should marry. I wish it
wasn't!'

'Well, you are younger than I, and perhaps that's a natural
wish. But to me it seems a felicitous combination not often
met with. I confess that your interest in our family before
you knew me lent a stability to my hopes that otherwise they
would not have had.'

'My interest in the De Stancys has not been a personal
interest except in the case of your sister,' she returned.
'It has been an historical interest only; and is not at all
increased by your existence.'

'And perhaps it is not diminished?'

'No, I am not aware that it is diminished,' she murmured, as
she observed the gliding shore.

'Well, you will allow me to say this, since I say it without
reference to your personality or to mine--that the Power and
De Stancy families are the complements to each other; and
that, abstractedly, they call earnestly to one another: "How
neat and fit a thing for us to join hands!"'

Paula, who was not prudish when a direct appeal was made to
her common sense, answered with ready candour: 'Yes, from the
point of view of domestic politics, that undoubtedly is the
case. But I hope I am not so calculating as to risk happiness
in order to round off a social idea.'

'I hope not; or that I am either. Still the social idea
exists, and my increased years make its excellence more
obvious to me than to you.'

The ice once broken on this aspect of the question, the
subject seemed further to engross her, and she spoke on as if
daringly inclined to venture where she had never anticipated
going, deriving pleasure from the very strangeness of her
temerity: 'You mean that in the fitness of things I ought to
become a De Stancy to strengthen my social position?'

'And that I ought to strengthen mine by alliance with the
heiress of a name so dear to engineering science as Power.'

'Well, we are talking with unexpected frankness.'

'But you are not seriously displeased with me for saying what,
after all, one can't help feeling and thinking?'

'No. Only be so good as to leave off going further for the
present. Indeed, of the two, I would rather have the other
sort of address. I mean,' she hastily added, 'that what you
urge as the result of a real affection, however unsuitable, I
have some remote satisfaction in listening to--not the least
from any reciprocal love on my side, but from a woman's
gratification at being the object of anybody's devotion; for
that feeling towards her is always regarded as a merit in a
woman's eye, and taken as a kindness by her, even when it is
at the expense of her convenience.'

She had said, voluntarily or involuntarily, better things than
he expected, and perhaps too much in her own opinion, for she
hardly gave him an opportunity of replying.

They passed St. Goar and Boppard, and when steering round the
sharp bend of the river just beyond the latter place De Stancy
met her again, exclaiming, 'You left me very suddenly.'

'You must make allowances, please,' she said; 'I have always
stood in need of them.'

'Then you shall always have them.'

'I don't doubt it,' she said quickly; but Paula was not to be
caught again, and kept close to the side of her aunt while
they glided past Brauback and Oberlahnstein. Approaching
Coblenz her aunt said, 'Paula, let me suggest that you be not
so much alone with Captain De Stancy.'

'And why?' said Paula quietly.

'You'll have plenty of offers if you want them, without taking
trouble,' said the direct Mrs. Goodman. 'Your existence is
hardly known to the world yet, and Captain De Stancy is too
near middle-age for a girl like you.' Paula did not reply to
either of these remarks, being seemingly so interested in
Ehrenbreitstein's heights as not to hear them.



IX.

It was midnight at Coblenz, and the travellers had retired to
rest in their respective apartments, overlooking the river.
Finding that there was a moon shining, Paula leant out of her
window. The tall rock of Ehrenbreitstein on the opposite
shore was flooded with light, and a belated steamer was
drawing up to the landing-stage, where it presently deposited
its passengers.

'We should have come by the last boat, so as to have been
touched into romance by the rays of this moon, like those
happy people,' said a voice.

She looked towards the spot whence the voice proceeded, which
was a window quite near at hand. De Stancy was smoking
outside it, and she became aware that the words were addressed
to her.

'You left me very abruptly,' he continued.

Paula's instinct of caution impelled her to speak.

'The windows are all open,' she murmured. 'Please be
careful.'

'There are no English in this hotel except ourselves. I thank
you for what you said to-day.'

'Please be careful,' she repeated.

'My dear Miss P----'

'Don't mention names, and don't continue the subject!'

'Life and death perhaps depend upon my renewing it soon!'

She shut the window decisively, possibly wondering if De
Stancy had drunk a glass or two of Steinberg more than was
good for him, and saw no more of moonlit Ehrenbreitstein that
night, and heard no more of De Stancy. But it was some time
before he closed his window, and previous to doing so saw a
dark form at an adjoining one on the other side.

It was Mr. Power, also taking the air. 'Well, what luck to-
day?' said Power.

'A decided advance,' said De Stancy.

None of the speakers knew that a little person in the room
above heard all this out-of-window talk. Charlotte, though
not looking out, had left her casement open; and what reached
her ears set her wondering as to the result.

It is not necessary to detail in full De Stancy's
imperceptible advances with Paula during that northward
journey--so slowly performed that it seemed as if she must
perceive there was a special reason for delaying her return to
England. At Cologne one day he conveniently overtook her when
she was ascending the hotel staircase. Seeing him, she went
to the window of the entresol landing, which commanded a view
of the Rhine, meaning that he should pass by to his room.

'I have been very uneasy,' began the captain, drawing up to
her side; 'and I am obliged to trouble you sooner than I meant
to do.'

Paula turned her eyes upon him with some curiosity as to what
was coming of this respectful demeanour. 'Indeed!' she said,

He then informed her that he had been overhauling himself
since they last talked, and had some reason to blame himself
for bluntness and general want of euphemism; which, although
he had meant nothing by it, must have been very disagreeable
to her. But he had always aimed at sincerity, particularly as
he had to deal with a lady who despised hypocrisy and was
above flattery. However, he feared he might have carried his
disregard for conventionality too far. But from that time he
would promise that she should find an alteration by which he
hoped he might return the friendship at least of a young lady
he honoured more than any other in the world.

This retrograde movement was evidently unexpected by the
honoured young lady herself. After being so long accustomed
to rebuke him for his persistence there was novelty in finding
him do the work for her. The guess might even have been
hazarded that there was also disappointment.

Still looking across the river at the bridge of boats which
stretched to the opposite suburb of Deutz: 'You need not
blame yourself,' she said, with the mildest conceivable
manner, 'I can make allowances. All I wish is that you should
remain under no misapprehension.'

'I comprehend,' he said thoughtfully. 'But since, by a
perverse fate, I have been thrown into your company, you could
hardly expect me to feel and act otherwise.'

'Perhaps not.'

'Since I have so much reason to be dissatisfied with myself,'
he added, 'I cannot refrain from criticizing elsewhere to a
slight extent, and thinking I have to do with an ungenerous
person.'

'Why ungenerous?'

'In this way; that since you cannot love me, you see no reason
at all for trying to do so in the fact that I so deeply love
you; hence I say that you are rather to be distinguished by
your wisdom than by your humanity.'