As I left the steamer at Southampton, and went up to London for a few days, I parted with Steavens before the voyage was completed. It was nearly a week later that I met Fearloe again, in Paris. We went together to dine at a neat little two-franc place in the Rue St. Honoré, which we had formerly haunted, and during dinner he suddenly asked, with a roguish look, "Who do you think I saw yesterday?—Steavens!" And Fearloe here bent his head, bathing his beard in laughter. "Do you know, he has been in Paris three days and hasn't gone near the Exposition?"
"Well, that shows a healthy independence," said I. "Is he studying the Louvre?"
"No," was the answer; "he has discovered something far more important than the Louvre or the Exposition—something which seems to reward him for the whole trip."
"What can that be?" I queried, rather blankly.
"He has discovered," said Fearloe, "that Paris is the place to buy shirts in!"
This, it appeared, was the topic which had engrossed Steavens's mind when Fearloe met him. The erratic man, after reaching Bremen, had abruptly decided to come over to the French capital, which he might have done much more easily and cheaply from Southampton; and the result of this expensive détour had been a kind of shirt-intoxication. "You've no idea," added Fearloe, "how neatly he has gotten himself up. He really is making progress. And the magnificence of the fellow! Why, he says he shall merely take a single run through the Exposition, and leave all the rest of Paris till after he has been to Pfeiffers."
"Fearloe," I said, with a measure of solemnity, "don't scoff at a man like that. I never before have met an American with quite so much originality in his treatment of Europe. He must be a genius."
Nevertheless, we continued to laugh at him, with that superiority of being less naïf and independent than he which so oddly seems to us a desirable thing nowadays. And if any one at that time had hinted that Steven Steavens, with his want of reserve and complete indifference to what is known as culture, possessed qualities of character more to be admired than our own, we should not have taken the trouble even to smile at the critic.
I did not happen to meet Steavens while in Paris; but in August I finally acted on Fearloe's chance hint aboard ship, and went to Pfeiffers myself, where I found not only our enthusiast in shirts, but also Scharlach and Miss Raslaff, together with that young lady's uncle, a shrivelled little old man, who had the air of being put away to keep in his thick white hair and whiskers, like a dried beetle in cotton-wool. To the rest of us indeed, the old gentleman was of no more account than a beetle, and appeared to have as little influence on the lives around him as an insect might. But, as a matter of fact, though he was so nearly dead, and scarcely stirred a limb, he clutched three lives in his faded fingers, and held them fast there—his niece's life, Scharlach's life, and Steavens's life. For I was not long in discovering that my rheumatic pilgrim had fallen in love with Fräulein Raslaff almost at first sight. He himself took good care that I should not remain blind to the fact. He drew me aside, and poured his tale into my ear, though with somewhat more reserve than he had shown on the steamer in discussing his plans of travel.
"How long has this been going on?" I inquired, as we walked together up and down the hotel terrace overlooking the wild and picturesque valley.