Doctor Claudius, A True Story

by F. Marion Crawford

"Poor chap!" he ejaculated, "I saw him die. And that night," continued Mr. Barker, with a mournful impressiveness, "I determined that the woman who had caused so much unhappiness should be made to know what unhappiness is. I made up my mind that she should suffer what my friend had suffered. I knew her very well,—in fact she was a distant connection; so I went to her at a ball at the Van Sueindells'. I had engaged her to dance the German[2], and had sent her some very handsome roses. I had laid my plan already, and after a little chaff and a few turns I challenged her to a set flirtation. 'Let us swear,' I said, 'to be honest, and let us make a bet of a dozen pairs of gloves. If one of us really falls in love, he or she must acknowledge it and pay the gloves.' It was agreed, for she was in great spirits that night, and laughed at the idea that she could ever fall in love with me—poor me! who have so little that is attractive. At first she thought it was only a joke, but as I began to visit her regularly and to go through all the formalities of love-making, she became interested. We were soon the talk of the town, and everybody said we were going to be married. Still the engagement did not come out, and people waited, open-mouthed, wondering what next. At last I thought I was safe, and so, the first chance I had at a party in Newport, I made a dead set at a new beauty just arrived from the South—I forget where. The other—the one with whom I was betting—was there, and I watched her. She lost her temper completely, and turned all sorts of colours. Then I knew I had won, and so I went back to her and talked to her for the rest of the evening, explaining that the other young lady was a sister of a very dear friend of mine.

[2] American for the cotillon.

"The next day I called on my beauty, and throwing myself at her feet, I declared myself vanquished. The result was just as I expected. She burst into tears and put her arms round my neck, and said it was she who lost, for she really loved me though she had been too proud to acknowledge it. Then I calmly rose and laughed. 'I do not care for you in the least,' I said; 'I only said so to make you speak. I have won the gloves.' She broke down completely, and went abroad a few days afterwards. And so I avenged my friend."

There was a pause when Barker had finished his tale. He sipped his tea, and Margaret rose slowly and went to the window.

"Don't you think that is a very good story, Countess?" he asked. "Don't you think I was quite right?" Still no answer. Margaret rang the bell, and old Vladimir appeared.

"Mr. Barker's carriage," said she; then, recollecting herself, she repeated the order in Russian, and swept out of the room without deigning to look at the astonished young man, standing on the hearthrug with his tea-cup in his hand. How it is that Vladimir succeeds in interpreting his mistress's orders to the domestics of the various countries in which she travels is a mystery not fathomed, for in her presence he understands only the Slav tongue. But however that may be, a minute had not elapsed before Mr. Barker was informed by another servant that his carriage was at the door. He turned pale as he descended the steps.

You have carried it too far, Mr. Barker. That is not the kind of story that a lady of Countess Margaret's temper will listen to; for when you did the thing you have told her—if indeed you ever did it, which is doubtful—you did a very base and unmanly thing. It may not be very nice to act as that young lady did to your friend; but then, just think how very much worse it would have been if she had married him from a sense of duty, and made him feel it afterwards. Worse? Ay, worse than a hundred deaths. You are an ass, Barker, with your complicated calculations, as the Duke has often told you; and now it is a thousand to one that you have ruined yourself with the Countess. She will never take your view that it was a justifiable piece of revenge; she will only see in it a cruel and dastardly deception, practised on a woman whose only fault was that, not loving, she discovered her mistake in time. A man should rejoice when a woman draws back from an engagement, reflecting what his life might have been had she not done so.

But Barker's face was sickly with disappointment as he drove away, and he could hardly collect himself enough to determine what was best to be done. However, after a time he came to the conclusion that a letter must be written of humble apology, accompanied by a few very expensive flowers, and followed after a week's interval by a visit. She could not mean to break off all acquaintance with him for so slight a cause. She would relent and see him again, and then he would put over on the other tack. He had made a mistake—very naturally, too—because she was always so reluctant to give her own individual views about anything. A mistake could be repaired, he thought, without any serious difficulty.

And so the next morning Margaret received some flowers and a note, a very gentlemanly note, expressive of profound regret that anything he could have said, and so forth, and so forth. And Margaret, whose strong temper sometimes made her act hastily, even when acting rightly, said to herself that she had maltreated the poor little beast, and would see him if he called again. That was how she expressed it, showing that to some extent Barker had succeeded in producing a feeling of pity in her mind—though it was a very different sort of pity from what he would have wished. Meanwhile Margaret returned to New York, where she saw her brother-in-law occasionally, and comforted him with the assurance that when his hundred napoleons were at an end, she would take care of him. And Nicholas, who was a gentleman, like his dead brother, proud and fierce, lived economically in a small hotel, and wrote magazine articles describing the state of his unhappy country.

Then Barker called and was admitted, Miss Skeat being present, and his face expressed a whole volume of apology, while he talked briskly of current topics; and so he gradually regained the footing he had lost. At all events he thought so, not knowing that though Margaret might forgive she could never forget; and that she was now forewarned and forearmed in perpetuity against any advance Barker might ever make.