“Nevertheless you look rather Hamletish in your pallor,” returned Wentworth. “Though to be sure the pale prince was a special good hand at the rapier, in which, as in other respects, you resemble him. ‘The scholar, soldier, courtier’s eye, tongue, sword—the expectancy and rose of the fair State’ of Massachusetts—that’s you, Harrington.”
“Seems to me, Richard, the quotation bung and the head of the soft-soap barrel are both out together this morning,” bantered Harrington.
“‘I paint you in character,’” returned the mercurial Wentworth, with another Shaksperean reminiscence. “Being a member of the Boston Mutual Admiration Society, and this being Anniversary week, soft-soap is perfectly in order. Therefore, I affirm that you are of the Hamlet order plus Crichton, plus Raleigh, Sidney, Hatton, Blount, Southampton”—
“Shakspeare and Verulam,” jeered Harrington.
“Together with Shakspeare and Verulam. And now that I have made a clean breast of it, and as you are dressed, suppose we depart. Young Mephistopheles, alias Witherlee, has gone already, I notice. Our mercantile friends are off, too, and a proper rowing they’ll get for being late at the store this morning. Oh, Bagasse, Bagasse! you’ve much to answer for—corrupting the mercantile youth of this realm by traitorously erecting a fencing-school! Apropos of fencing, it’s more than a week since we’ve had a bout with our dear fairy prince. By Jupiter! what a pleasure it is to see Muriel at the foils! I’m so glad you persuaded her to learn”—
“Oh, you’re wrong there,” interrupted Harrington. “It was she persuaded me to teach her. Muriel has a passion for liberal culture, and fencing is part of her programme.”
“Isn’t she glorious!” cried Wentworth with enthusiasm. “A woman?—a young goddess rather! By Jove! the best swimmer of all the girls last summer at Gloucester. The best skater last winter on Jamaica pond. Climbed the mountains in October with the best of us. Runs like Atalanta. Dances like Terpsichore. Sings like a seraph. Talks in a voice like Israfel’s. Studies almost as hard as you do, Harrington. And now she fences like an angel. I declare she’s a perfect young Crichtona. And yet how womanly withal! Not a touch of the masculine about her. Gay, free, strong, sweet—oh, fairy prince, there’s none like you, none.”
Harrington listened to this ardent celebration of the charms of her Wentworth called the fairy prince, in perfect silence and with a secret astonishment in his pale, controlled countenance. He believed Wentworth loved Muriel, but for the life of him he could not reconcile this lavish panegyric with that belief. For love is reticent, and we let expressive silence muse the sweetheart’s praise. How then could Wentworth thus blazon his beloved? Harrington was puzzled.
“There’s a curious element of surprise in Muriel, too,” resumed Wentworth, with a musing air. “She is so gentle, so reposeful and graceful, that when she flashes out in these courageous physical accomplishments I always feel a little astonished. Don’t you, Harrington?”
“Oh, no,” returned Harrington. “She has a rich, versatile, inclusive nature. You know that this union of feminine gentleness and manly spirit is not so uncommon. There was the Countess Emily Plater, for example, the heroine of the Polish Revolution; yet with all her bravery, she was peculiarly tender and gentle. There, again, was the Maid of Saragossa, who fought for her country over the body of her lover; but Byron, who saw her often at Madrid, says she was remarkable for her soft, feminine beauty. Muriel is a woman of the same style, I suppose. Come, Richard, let’s go.”