“And I have written the name of the said residuary legatee in a sealed envelope, which I hereby incorporate as part of this will and append thereto; and I direct that said envelope be not opened, but remain in the custody of my executors, or of the proper court, until my said nephew marry, or reach the age of thirty-five, or until eleven years have elapsed from the date of my death, whichever shall first happen; and thereupon my said executors may open the same and deliver a copy thereof to my said nephew; and proceed to pay over and deliver all my estate, real and personal, to my residuary legatee therein mentioned.
“And I will explain, for the benefit of the gaping and the curious, that this I do that my nephew may profit by my experience of early marriages. For no man should by law be allowed to choose what woman shall be his wife until he be arrived at the age when he may be hoped to have sufficient discretion not to choose any woman at all.” Then followed the appointment of executors; and that was all.
May laid aside the scandalous old will and began to think.
How he had laughed at the last clause, he and May Austin, as they wandered by the lily-pond that evening! And when she had persuaded him not at once to give it all up and marry penniless, he had tried to make the best of it. If she would not marry him then, what were eleven years? Eleven years—bah! August 14, 1886—why, he would only be thirty-three and she twenty-seven! But she had refused to make it an engagement, refused even to write to him; and the poor young Bachelor of Arts had gone off to his steamer most unhappily. And that farewell kiss under the lindens! And the letters he had written back—from Liverpool—beseeching May Austin to reconsider her determination! Austin May took another cigar from the box, and smiled pensively.
Scene Second
THE CODICIL
I.
AN IROQUOIS IN TROUVILLE.
From Liverpool Austin May went to London; from London to Paris; from Paris by the special mail to Constantinople; thence to Athens and Alexandria; and thence to Bombay and Calcutta and Hong Kong; and the impetus of his flight had almost carried him over the Pacific and back to America again, but that he held back on the shore of Japan. He travelled in that country, then in Thibet or in Turkestan. Three years were spent by him in the acquisition of strange drugs, curious pipes, and embroideries, wild songs, and odd languages. He lived in Damascus, Samarcand, Morocco, possibly in Timbuctoo. History records not nor does May Austin, how often he wrote to her. But the summer of 1879 saw him alight at the Gare de Lyon, in Paris. The heat and solitude of that city were equally oppressive, and he fled to the nearest coast. That evening he was seated, robed in soft cloth and starched linen, on the wide veranda of the great Hôtel des Rochers Noirs, at Trouville.
No one who pines for outdoor life, primitive conditions, and barbarism—and May was one of the wildest of these—but must admit that the trammels, conventions, and commodities which so annoy him are, after all, the result of infinite experiments of the human race, conducted through all time; and as such, presumably, each one was deemed successful when made, and adopted accordingly. No question but that men had flannel shirts before starched linen, women flowing robes and sandals before corsets and high-heeled shoes; and the prehistoric “masher” knocked down his lady-love with a club before he learned to court her with a monocle and a bunch of unseasonable roses. But all these changes were, at the time, deemed improvements; and one who has lived three years in Thibet or Crim-Tartary, and arrives suddenly at Trouville, is in a fair position to judge impartially. And it is not to be denied that May was conscious of a certain Capuan comfort, of an unmanly, hot-house luxury, as he sat before the little table with his carafe of ice, brandy, and seltzer, felt the cool stiffness of his linen shirt, smoked his pressed regalia, and watched the ladies with their crisp and colored dresses and their neat and silken ankles as they mounted in their landaus for their evening drive. A full string-orchestra was stationed among the electric lights near by, which dispensed, with much verve, the light-hearted rhythms of the latest opera bouffe; and beyond the planes and lindens shone the moonlit sea, as if it also were highly civilized, and part of the decoration of the place. May knocked the ashes from his cigar as who should say, “I, too, am a Parisian of the nineteenth century;” quaffed a few sparkles from the iced carafe and bottle, and pretended to be interested in the latest Faits-Paris of Figaro. He was beginning to realize the delights of youth and riches and free travel; he had been nothing but a school-boy in America, and a sort of wild man since.
And as he so sat, there came to a table next him two people, and sat down. One was a middle-aged man, with an iron-gray imperial, a tight white waistcoat, and the rosette of the legion of honor at his button-hole. The other was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was dressed in the most delicate and languorous cloud of violet and gray, strengthened here and there by black lace; no ribbon, jewel, or flower was on her lustrous black hair, or about the soft and creamy neck; and she was evidently much absorbed in what her companion was saying, for May could see that she clinched her fan in her hand that was beneath the table until the delicate ivory broke. They talked very rapidly, in French; but May, whose acquaintance with unknown oriental dialects was so manifold and various, knew hardly French enough “to last him over night.” And it is of especial importance that one’s French should last over night.
Whatever they were saying, they were reiterating it with continually increasing force. The man in the tight frock-coat began hissing it between his pointed teeth, and the pretty woman crushed the last fragment of the fan to ivory slivers on the floor. At last, the gentleman rose, and with a pardieu which even May’s untrained ear could recognize, upset a champagne glass, and strode hastily away; the lady eyed him until he disappeared, and then drooped her long lashes, and hid her eyes in her pretty hand. Her bosom rose and fell convulsively, and May’s chivalric heart beat sympathetically in the same time. Suddenly her deep eyes opened, and opened full on Austin May’s.