“I fear,” said I, half timidly, “you have been ill-treated by the ladies?”
A deep groan was the only response.
“Come, come, bear up,” said I; “you are young, and a fine-looking man still” (he was sixty, if he was an hour, and had a face like the figure-head of a war-steamer).
“I will tell you a story, Mr. Tramp,” said he, solemnly,—“a story to which, probably, no historian, from Polybius to Hoffman, has ever recorded a parallel. I am not aware, sir, that any man has sounded the oceanic depths of that perfidious gulf,—a woman’s heart; but I, sir, I have at least added some facts to the narrow stock of our knowledge regarding it. Listen to this:”—
I replenished my tumbler of brandy and water, looked at my watch, and, finding I still had two hours to spare, lent a not unwilling ear to my companion’s story.
“For the purpose of my tale,” said Mr. Yellowley, “it is unnecessary that I should mention any incident of my life more remote than a couple of years back. About that time it was, that, using all the influence of very powerful friends, I succeeded in obtaining the consul-generalship at Stralsund. My arrangements for departure were made with considerable despatch; but on the very week of my leaving England, an old friend of mine was appointed to a situation of considerable trust in the East, whither he was ordered to repair, I may say, at a moment’s notice. Never was there such a contretemps. He longed for the North of Europe,—I, with equal ardor, wished for a tropical climate; and here were we both going in the very direction antagonist to our wishes! My friend’s appointment was a much more lucrative one than mine; but so anxious was he for a residence more congenial to his taste, that he would have exchanged without a moment’s hesitation.
“By a mere accident, I mentioned this circumstance to the friend who had procured my promotion. Well, with the greatest alacrity, he volunteered his services to effect the exchange; and with such energy did he fulfil his pledge, that on the following evening I received an express, informing me of my altered destination, but directing me to proceed to Southampton on the next day, and sail by the Oriental steamer. This was speedy work, sir; but as my preparations for a journey had long been made, I had very little to do, but exchange some bear-skins with my friend for cotton shirts and jackets, and we both were accommodated. Never were two men in higher spirits,—he, with his young wife, delighted at escaping what he called banishment; I equally happy in my anticipation of the glorious East.
“Among the many papers forwarded to me from the Foreign Office was a special order for free transit the whole way to Calcutta. This document set forth the urgent necessity there existed to pay me every possible attention en route; in fact, it was a sort of Downing-Street firman, ordering all whom it might concern to take care of Simon Yellowley, nor permit him to suffer any let, impediment, or inconvenience on the road. But a strange thing, Mr. Tramp,—a very strange thing,—was in this paper. In the exchange of my friend’s appointment for my own, the clerk had merely inserted my name in lieu of his in all the papers; and then, sir, what should I discover but that this free transit extended to ‘Mr. Yellowley and lady,’ while, doubtless, my poor friend was obliged to travel en garçon? This extraordinary blunder I only discovered when leaving London in the train.
“We were a party of three, sir.” Here he groaned deeply. “Three,—just as it might be this very day. I occupied the place that you did this morning, while opposite to me were a lady and a gentleman. The gentleman was an old round-faced little man, chatty and merry after his fashion. The lady—the lady, sir—if I had never seen her but that day, I should now call her an angel. Yes, Mr. Tramp, I flatter myself that few men understand female beauty better. I admire the cold regularity and impassive loveliness of the North, I glory in the voluptuous magnificence of Italian beauty; I can relish the sparkling coquetry of France, the plaintive quietness and sleepy tenderness of Germany; nor do I undervalue the brown pellucid skin and flashing eye of the Malabar; but she, sir, she was something higher than all these; and it so chanced that I had ample time to observe her, for when I entered the carriage she was asleep—asleep,” said he, with a bitter mockery Macready might have envied. “Why do I say asleep? No, sir!—she was in that factitious trance, that wiliest device of Satan’s own creation, a woman’s sleep,—the thing invented, sir, merely to throw the shadow of dark lashes on a marble cheek, and leave beauty to sink into man’s heart without molestation. Sleep, sir!—the whole mischief the world does in its waking moments is nothing to the doings of such slumber! If she did not sleep, how could that braid of dark-brown hair fall loosely down upon her blue-veined hand; if she did not sleep, how could the color tinge with such evanescent loveliness the cheek it scarcely colored; if she did not sleep, how could her lips smile with the sweetness of some passing thought, thus half recorded? No, sir; she had been obliged to have sat bolt upright, with her gloves on and her veil down. She neither could have shown the delicious roundness of her throat nor the statue-like perfection of her instep. But sleep,—sleep is responsible for nothing. Oh, why did not Macbeth murder it, as he said he had!
“If I were a legislator, sir, I’d prohibit any woman under forty-three from sleeping in a public conveyance. It is downright dangerous,—I would n’t say it ain’t immoral. The immovable aspect of placid beauty, Mr. Tramp, etherealizes a woman. The shrewd housewife becomes a houri; and a milliner—ay, sir, a milliner—might be a Maid of Judah under such circumstances!”