"But forests are not at command," said Lothair.
"So you make a solitude and call it peace," said the lady, with a slight smile. "For my part, my perfect life would be a large and beautiful village. I admire Nature, but I require the presence of humanity. Life in great cities is too exhausting; but in my village there should be air, streams, and beautiful trees, a picturesque scene, but enough of my fellow-creatures to insure constant duty."
"But the fulfilment of duty and society, founded on what you call the principle of exclusion, are not incompatible," said Lothair.
"No, but difficult. What should be natural becomes an art; and in every art it is only the few who can be first rate."
"I have an ambition to be a first-rate artist in that respect," said Lothair, thoughtfully.
"That does you much honor," she replied, "for you necessarily embark in a most painful enterprise. The toiling mult.i.tude have their sorrows, which, I believe, will some day be softened, and obstacles hard to overcome; but I have always thought that the feeling of satiety, almost inseparable from large possessions, is a surer cause of misery than ungratified desires."
"It seems to me that there is a great deal to do," said Lothair.
"I think so," said the lady.
"Theodora," said the colonel, who was a little in advance with the professor, and turning round his head, "this reminds me of Mirabel,"
and he pointed to the undulating banks covered with rare shrubs, and touching the waters of the lake.
"And where is Mirabel?" said Lothair.
"It was a green island in the Adriatic," said the lady, "which belonged to Colonel Campian; we lost it in the troubles. Colonel Campian was very fond of it. I try to persuade him that our home was of volcanic origin, and has only vanished and subsided into its native bed."
"And were not you fond of it?"
"I never think of the past," said the lady.
"Oxford is not the first place where I had the pleasure of meeting you,"
Lothair ventured at length to observe.
"Yes, we have met before, in Hyde Park Gardens. Our hostess is a clever woman, and has been very kind to some friends of mine."
"And have you seen her lately?"
"She comes to see us sometimes. We do not live in London, but in the vicinity. We only go to London for the opera, of which we are devotees.
We do not at all enter general society; Colonel Campian only likes people who interest or amuse him, and he is fortunate in having rather a numerous acquaintance of that kind."
"Rare fortune!" said Lothair.
"Colonel Campian lived a great deal at Paris before we marred," said the lady, "and in a circle of considerable culture and excitement. He is social, but not conventional."
"And you--are you conventional?"
"Well, I live only for climate and the affections," said the lady "I am fond of society that pleases me, that is, accomplished and natural and ingenious; otherwise I prefer being alone. As for atmosphere, as I look upon it as the main source of felicity, you may be surprised that I should reside in your country. I should myself like to go to America, but that would not suit Colonel Campian; and, if we are to live in Europe, we must live in England. It is not pleasant to reside in a country where, if you happen to shelter or succor a friend, you may be subject to a domiciliary visit."
The professor stopped to deliver a lecture or address on the villa of Hadrian. Nothing could be more minute or picturesque than his description of that celebrated pleasaunce. It was varied by portraits of the emperor and some of his companions, and, after a rapid glance at the fortunes of the imperial patriciate, wound up with some conclusions favorable to communism. It was really very clever, and would have made the fortune of a literary society.
"I wonder if they had gravel-walks in the villa of Hadrian?" said the colonel. "What I admire most in your country, my lord, are your gravel-walks, though that lady would not agree with me that matter."
"You are against gravel-walks," said Lothair.
"Well, I cannot bring myself to believe that they had gravel-walks in the garden of Eden," said the lady.
They had a repast at Woodstock, too late for luncheon, too early for dinner, but which it was agreed should serve as the latter meal.
"That suits me exactly," said the lady; "I am a great foe to dinners, and indeed to all meals. I think when the good time comes we shall give up eating in public, except perhaps fruit on a green bank with music."
It was a rich twilight as they drove home, the lady leaning back in the carriage silent. Lothair sat opposite to her, and gazed upon a countenance on which the moon began to glisten, and which seemed unconscious of all human observation.
He had read of such countenances in Grecian dreams; in Corinthian temples, in fanes of Ephesus, in the radiant shadow of divine groves.
CHAPTER 26
When they had arrived at the hotel, Colonel Campian proposed that they should come in and have some coffee; but Theodora did not enforce this suggestion; and Lothair, feeling that she might be wearied, gracefully though unwillingly waived the proposal. Remembering that on the noon of the morrow they were to depart, with a happy inspiration, as he said farewell, he asked permission to accompany them to the station.
Lothair walked away with the professor, who seemed in a conservative vein, and graciously disposed to make several concessions to the customs of an ancient country. Though opposed to the land laws, he would operate gradually, and gave Lothair more than one receipt how to save the aristocracy. Lothair would have preferred talking about the lady they had just quitted, but, as he soon found the professor could really give him no information about her, he let the subject drop.
But not out of his own mind. He was glad to be alone and brood over the last two days. They were among the most interesting of his life. He had encountered a character different from any he had yet met, had listened to new views, and his intelligence had been stimulated by remarks made casually, in easy conversation, and yet to him pregnant with novel and sometimes serious meaning. The voice, too, lingered in his ear, so hushed and deep, and yet so clear and sweet. He leaned over his mantel-piece in teeming reverie.
"And she is profoundly religious," he said to himself; "she can conceive no kind of society without religion. She has arrived at the same conclusion as myself. What a privilege it would be to speak to her on such subjects!"
After a restless night the morrow came. About eleven o"clock Lothair ventured to call on his new friends. The lady was alone; she was standing by the window, reading an Italian newspaper, which she folded up and placed aside when Lothair was announced.
"We propose to walk to the station," said Theodora; "the servants have gone on. Colonel Campian has a particular aversion to moving with any luggage. He restricts me to this," she said, pointing to her satchel, in which she had placed the foreign newspaper, "and for that he will not be responsible."
"It was most kind of you to permit me to accompany you this morning,"
said Lothair; "I should have been grieved to have parted abruptly last night."
"I could not refuse such a request," said the lady; "but do you know, I never like to say farewell, even for four-and-twenty hours? One should vanish like a spirit."
"Then I have erred," said Lothair, "against your rules and principles."
"Say my fancies," said the lady, "my humors, my whims. Besides, this is not a farewell. You will come and see us. Colonel Campian tells me you have promised to give us that pleasure."
"It will be the greatest pleasure to me," said Lothair; "I can conceive nothing greater." And then hesitating a little, and a little blushing, he added, "When do you think I might come?"
"Whenever you like," said the lady; "you will always find me at home. My life is this: I ride every day very early, and far into the country, so I return tamed some two or three hours after noon, and devote myself to my friends. We are at home every evening, except opera nights; and let me tell you, because it is not the custom generally among your compatriots, we are always at home on Sundays."
Colonel Campian entered the room; the moment of departure was at hand.
Lothair felt the consolation of being their companion to the station. He had once hoped it might be possible to be their companion in the train; but he was not encouraged.
"Railways have elevated and softened the lot of man," said Theodora, "and Colonel Campian views them with almost a religious sentiment. But I cannot read in a railroad, and the human voice is distressing to me amid the whirl and the whistling, and the wild panting of the loosened megatheria who drag us. And then those terrible grottos--it is quite a descent of Proserpine; so I have no resources but my thoughts."
"And surely that is sufficient," murmured Lothair.
"Not when the past is expelled," said the lady.