He was dreadfully romantic, this young Englishman, but in a subdued, quiet way that seldom showed itself in words, and was specially repelled by the gushing style too much followed just then by some of his fair countrywomen.
The door was opened and shut, and, except through his notice of the number over it, 25, his relation with the beautiful stranger was cut off.
He thought of it day after day, got a directory, and found out that in the house No. 25 there lived three families of the names of Zimmermann, Krummacher, and Löwenberg. The occupations of the heads of the families were given thus: “money-lender,” “banking-clerk,” and “lace-merchant,” respectively; no clue whatsoever, of course; and, unless in a regular and received manner, Mr. Holcombe could not think of entering the house. Still, the face he had seen veiled under the prosaic tent of a wet umbrella kept between him and his thoughts, and would not be driven away. Then, too, what business was it of his to go and throw himself in the way of a girl who most likely was a Jewess? Yet, reason as he might, the mysterious face would visit him, and it seemed to him as the face of an angel. Very often he passed the house, and once or twice even made a pretence of sketching it; but he never saw the figure again. Once a young face looked out over the flowers in the window of the ground-floor room, a merry face full of health and mischief—not his dream. The blinds were always drawn on the first floor, even when the windows were open, and he began to fancy she must be hidden behind those discreet shrouders of privacy. A friend of his met him at his hotel one day when he came home from the Juden-Strasse, and surprised him by telling [pg 416] him he was going home in a fortnight to get married.
“I've been half over the world, my dear fellow,” he said, “and enjoyed myself immensely. And I've got such a pile of things going home to my fiancée, for our house. She will be delighted, she is so fond of queer, foreign things, not like what other people have, you know. I'll show you some, but most are gone in packing cases through agents from the different parts of the world I've been in.”
And the two young men went upstairs to examine the bridal gifts.
“Look here,” said Ellice to his quieter friend, “it was a pasha's wife sent me these,” dragging out a handful of Eastern jewelry, golden fillets, and embroidered jackets and slippers. “A cousin of mine is the wife of the consul at Smyrna, and she got them for me, for of course I was not allowed to go near the Eastern lady! And look here, these are carved shells, and mother-of-pearl crucifixes from Jerusalem, and boxes made from Olivet trees and cedars of Lebanon; you should value those.”
“I hope your future wife will,” gravely said young Holcombe; “the wood of the olives of Gethsemani is almost a relic in itself.”
“Oh! Miss Kenneth will appreciate them just as much as you do, Holcombe, she is very reverential. See, here is some alabaster, Naples coral, and Byzantine manuscripts, and marble ornaments from the Parthenon. Ah! here is the filigree silver of Genoa; that is one of my last purchases, except these pictures on china from Geneva; see the frames, too, they are Swiss.”
Then he turned out a huge tiger-skin, and said: “All my Indian things except this were sent from Bombay, and a year ago I sent home all kinds of jolly things from North America—furs and skins, antlers, and other curiosities. By the bye, I have some old point from Venice, but some people had been there before me and cleaned the shop out pretty nearly, so I shall have to get some more. Belgium is a good place, isn't it?”
Holcombe looked thoughtful; his truant mind was at No. 25 again, and he did not answer. His friend went on: