Doctor Claudius, A True Story Part 4

"A friend of mine brought a friend of his to see me this afternoon, and the man himself is coming to-morrow."

"What is his name?" asked the lady-companion.

"I am sure I don't know, but Mr. Barker says he is very eccentric. He is very rich, and yet he lives in a garret in Heidelberg and wishes he were poor."

"Are you quite sure he is in his right mind, dear Countess?"

Margaret looked kindly at Miss Skeat. Poor lady! she had been rich once, and had not lived in a garret. Money to her meant freedom and independence. Not that she was unhappy with Margaret, who was always thoughtful and considerate, and valued her companion as a friend; but she would rather have lived with Margaret feeling it was a matter of choice and not of necessity, for she came of good Scottish blood, and was very proud.

"Oh yes!" answered the younger lady; "he is very learned and philosophical, and I am sure you will like him. If he is at all civilised we will have him to dinner."

"By all means," said Miss Skeat with alacrity. She liked intelligent society, and the Countess had of late indulged in a rather prolonged fit of solitude. Miss Skeat took the last novel--one of Tourgueneff's--from the table and, armed with a paper-cutter, began to read to her ladyship.

It was late when Mr. Barker found Claudius scribbling equations on a sheet of the hotel letter-paper. The Doctor looked up pleasantly at his friend. He could almost fancy he had missed his society a little; but the sensation was too novel a one to be believed genuine.

"Did you find your friends?" he inquired.

"Yes, by some good luck. It is apt to be the other people one finds, as a rule."

"Cynicism is not appropriate to your character, Mr. Barker."

"No. I hate cynical men. It is generally affectation, and it is always nonsense. But I think the wrong people have a way of turning up at the wrong moment." After a pause, during which Mr. Barker lighted a cigar and extended his thin legs and trim little feet on a chair in front of him, he continued:

"Professor, have you a very strong and rooted dislike to the society of women?"

a.s.sailed by this point-blank question, the Doctor put his bit of paper inside his book, and drumming on the table with his pencil, considered a moment. Mr. Barker puffed at his cigar with great regularity.

"No," said Claudius at last, "certainly not. To woman man owes his life, and to woman he ought to owe his happiness. Without woman civilisation would be impossible, and society would fall to pieces."

"Oh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Barker.

"I worship woman in the abstract and in the concrete. I reverence her mission, and I honour the gifts of Heaven which fit her to fulfil it."

"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Barker.

"I think there is nothing made in creation that can be compared with woman, not even man. I am enthusiastic, of course, you will say, but I believe that homage and devotion to woman is the first duty of man, after homage and devotion to the Supreme Being whom all different races unite in describing as G.o.d."

"That will do, thank you," said Mr. Barker, "I am quite satisfied of your adoration, and I will not ask her name."

"She has no name, and she has all names," continued Claudius seriously.

"She is an ideal."

"Yes, my feeble intelligence grasps that she cannot be anything else.

But I did not want a confession of faith. I only asked if you disliked ladies' society, because I was going to propose to introduce you to some friends of mine here."

"Oh!" said Claudius, and he leaned back in his chair and stared at the lamp. Barker was silent.

The Doctor was puzzled. He thought it would be very rude of him to refuse Mr. Barker's offer. On the other hand, in spite of his protestations of devotion to the s.e.x, he knew that the exalted opinion he held of woman in general had gained upon him of late years, since he had a.s.sociated less with them. It was with him a beautiful theory, the outcome of a knightly nature thrown back on itself, but as yet not fixed or clearly defined by any intimate knowledge of woman's character, still less by any profound personal experience of love. Courtesy was uppermost as he answered.

"Really," he said at last, "if you are very desirous of presenting me to your friends, of course I--"

"Oh, only if it is agreeable to you, of course. If it it is in any way the reverse--" protested the polite Mr. Barker.

"Not that--not exactly disagreeable. Only it is some time since I have enjoyed the advantage of an hour's conversation with ladies; and besides, since it comes to that, I am here as a pedestrian, and I do not present a very civilised appearance."

"Don't let that disturb you. Since you consent," went on Mr. Barker, briskly taking everything for granted, "I may tell you that the lady in question has expressed a wish to have you presented, and that I could not do less than promise to bring you if possible. As for your personal appearance, it is not of the least consequence. Perhaps, if you don't mind a great deal, you might have your hair cut. Don't be offended, Professor, but nothing produces an appearance of being dressed so infallibly as a neatly-trimmed head."

"Oh, certainly, if you think it best, I will have my hair cut. It will soon grow again."

Mr. Barker smiled under the lambrikin of his moustache. "Yes," thought he, "but it sha'n't."

"Then," he said aloud, "we will go about eleven."

Claudius sat wondering who the lady could be who wanted to have him presented. But he was afraid to ask; Barker would immediately suppose he imagined it to be the dark lady. However, his thoughts took it as a certainty that it must be she, and went on building castles in the air and conversations in the clouds. Barker watched him and probably guessed what he was thinking of; but he did not want to spoil the surprise he had arranged, and fearing lest Claudius might ask some awkward question, he went to bed, leaving the Doctor to his cogitations.

In the morning he lay in wait for his friend, who had gone off for an early walk in the woods. He expected that a renewal of the attack would be necessary before the sacrifice of the yellow locks could be accomplished, and he stood on the steps of the hotel, clad in the most exquisite of grays, tapering down to the most brilliant of boots. He had a white rose in his b.u.t.tonhole, and his great black dog was lying at his feet, having for a wonder found his master, for the beast was given to roaming, or to the plebeian society of Barker's servant. The American's careful attire contrasted rather oddly with his sallow face, and with the bony hand that rested against the column. He was a young man, but he looked any age that morning. Before long his eye twinkled and he changed his position expectantly, for he saw the tall figure of Claudius striding up the street, a head and shoulders above the strolling crowd; and, wonderful to relate, the hair was gone, the long beard was carefully clipped and trimmed, and the Doctor wore a new gray hat!

"If he will black his boots and put a rose in his coat, he will do. What a tearing swell he will be when he is dressed," thought Mr. Barker, as he looked at his friend.

"You see I have followed your advice," said Claudius, holding out his hand.

"Always do that, and you will yet taste greatness," said the other cheerfully. "You look like a crown prince like that. Perfectly immense."

"I suppose I am rather big," said Claudius apologetically, not catching the American idiom. Mr. Barker, however, did not explain himself, for he was thinking of other things.

"We will go very soon. Excuse the liberty, Professor, but you might have your boots blacked. There is a little cad down the backstairs who does it."

"Of course," answered Claudius, and disappeared within. A small man who was coming out paused and turned to look after him, putting up his eyegla.s.s. Then he took off his hat to Mr. Barker.

"Pardon, Monsieur," he began, "if I take the liberty of making an inquiry, but could you inform me of the name of that gentleman, whose appearance fills me with astonishment, and whose vast dimensions obscure the landscape of Baden?"

Mr. Barker looked at the small man for a moment very gravely.

"Yes," said he pensively, "his royal highness _is_ a large man certainly." And while his interlocutor was recovering enough to formulate another question, Mr. Barker moved gently away to a flowerstand.

When Claudius returned his friend was waiting for him, and himself pinned a large and expensive rose in the Doctor's b.u.t.tonhole. Mr. Barker surveyed his work--the clipped head, the new hat, the shiny boots and the rose--with a satisfied air, such as Mr. Barnum may have worn when he landed Jumbo on the New York pier. Then he called a cab, and they drove away.

CHAPTER IV.

The summer breath of the roses blew sweetly in through the long windows of the Countess's morning-room from the little garden outside as Barker and Claudius entered. There was an air of inhabited luxury which was evidently congenial to the American, for he rubbed his hands softly together and touched one or two objects caressingly while waiting for the lady of the house. Claudius glanced at the table and took up a book, with that singular student habit that is never lost. It was a volume of English verse, and in a moment he was reading, just as he stood, with his hat caught between the fingers that held the book, oblivious of countesses and visits and formalities. There was a rustle and a step on the garden walk, and both men turned towards the open gla.s.s door.

Claudius almost dropped the vellum-covered poet, and was very perceptibly startled as he recognised the lady of his Heidelberg adventure--the woman who had got, as by magic, a hold over his thoughts, so that he dreamed of her and wondered about her, sleeping and waking.

Dark-eyed Countess Margaret, all clad in pure white, the smallest of lace fichus just dropped over her heavy hair, moved smoothly up the steps and into the room.

"Good morning, Mr. Barker, I am so glad you have come," said she, graciously extending her hand in the cordial Transatlantic fashion.