“Are you Colonel?” asked Stocmar, in a whisper.
“Of course I am, and very modest not to be Major-General. But here we are, inside the harbor already.”
Were we free to take a ramble up the Rhine country, and over the Alps to Como, we might, perhaps, follow the steps of the two travellers we have here presented to our reader. They were ultimately bound for Italy, but in no wise tied by time or route. In fact, Mr. Stocmar's object was to seek out some novelties for the coming season. “Nihil humanum a me alienum puto” was his maxim. All was acceptable that was attractive. He catered for the most costly of all publics, and who will insist on listening to the sweetest voices and looking at the prettiest legs in Europe. He was on the lookout for both. What Ludlow Paten's object was the reader may perhaps guess without difficulty, but there was another “transaction” in his plan not so easily determined. He had heard much of Clara Hawke,—to give her her true name,—of her personal attractions and abilities, and he wished Stocmar to see and pronounce upon her. Although he possessed no pretension to dispose of her whatever, he held certain letters of her supposed mother in his keeping which gave him a degree of power which he believed irresistible. Now, there is a sort of limited liability slavery at this moment recognized in Europe, by which theatrical managers obtain a lease of human ability, for a certain period, under nonage, and of which Paten desired to derive profit by letting Clara out as dancer, singer, comedian, or “figurante,” according to her gifts; and this, too, was a purpose of the present journey.
The painter or the sculptor, in search of his model, has no higher requirements than those of form and symmetry; he deals solely with externals, while the impresario most carry his investigations far beyond the category of personal attractions, and soar into the lofty atmosphere of intellectual gifts and graces, bearing along with him, at the same time, a full knowledge of that public for whom he is proceeding; that fickle, changeful, fanciful public, who sometimes, out of pure satiety with what is best, begin to long for what is second-rate. What consummate skill must be his who thus feels the pulse of fashion, recognizing in its beat the indications of this or that tendency, whether “society” soars to the classic “Norma,” or descends to the tawdry vulgarisms of the “Traviata”! No man ever accepted more implicitly than Mr. Stocmar the adage of “Whatever is, is best.” The judgment of the day with him was absolute. The “world” a toujours raison, was his creed. When that world pronounced for music, he cried, “Long live Verdi!” when it decided for the ballet, his toast was, “Legs against the field!” Now, at this precise moment, this same world had taken a turn for mere good looks,—if it be not heresy to say “mere” to such a thing as beauty,—and had actually grown a little wearied of roulades and pirouettes; and so Stocmar had come abroad, to see what the great slave market of Europe could offer him.
Let us suppose them, therefore, pleasantly meandering along through the Rhineland, while we turn once more to those whom we have left beyond the Alps.
CHAPTER XXVII. THE FRAGMENT OF A LETTER
The following brief epistle from Mrs. Morris to her father will save the reader the tedious task of following the Heathcote family through an uneventful interval, and at the same time bring him to that place and period in which we wish to see him. It is dated Hôtel d'Italie, Florence:—
“Dear Papa,—You are not to feel any shock or alarm at the black margin and wax of this epistle, though its object be to inform you that I am a widow, Captain Penthony Morris having died some eight months back in Upper India; but the news has only reached me now. In a word, I have thought it high time to put an end to this mythical personage, whose cruel treatment of me I had grown tired of recalling, and, I conclude, others of listening to. Now, although it may be very hard on you to go into mourning for the death of one who never lived, yet I must bespeak your grief, in so far as stationery is concerned, and that you write to me on the most woe-begone of cream-laid, and with the most sorrow-struck of seals.
“There was, besides, another and most cogent reason for my being a widow just now. The Heathcotes are here, on their way to Rome, and, like all English people, eager to go everywhere, do everything, and know everybody; the consequence is eternal junketing and daily dinner-parties. I need not tell you that in such a caravanserai as this is, some one would surely turn up who should recognize me; so there was nothing for it but to kill Captain M. and go into crape and seclusion. As my bereavement is only a sham, I perform the affliction without difficulty. Our mourning, too, becomes us, and, everything considered, the incident has spared us much sight-seeing and many odious acquaintances.