IN April, 1873, Henry Vane was sitting on the perron of a small summer house in Brittany, poking the pebbles in the driveway with his cane. He had been there for half an hour, and there was nothing in his appearance and attitude to indicate that he would not be there for half an hour more. There was one red pebble, in particular, which he had an especial desire to prod out from among the others, which were gray. But it was round and slippery, and slid about the ferruled end of his cane. After poking it some time, he desisted and held the cane in his hands in front of his knees, which, as the next step of the porch was not much lower, were as high as his chin. “C’en est fait de moi,” he muttered.
Henry Vane, though a New Yorker, had been brought up in France, and in the French language his thoughts came most readily. He had just seen, for the last time, an old friend of his—a girl, whom he had known in infancy, in childhood, in maidenhood; and whom it seemed incredible, impossible, intolerable, that he should know no more. It was upon the piazza of her uncle’s house that he was sitting; and she was to leave the next day for Switzerland.
He was of age that day, and was “his own man now.” “And hers,” he thought, bitterly. She did not love him, however; and, at his request, had just told him so.
“Décidément, c’en est fait de moi,” he muttered again, and gave the pebble a vicious dig, which sent it flying into an acacia bush that stood in a green tub by the side of the driveway.
He was twenty-one that day, and had come into his fortune. His fortune was not much—four thousand a year, left him by his grandmother and invested in government bonds. Still, twenty thousand francs made him distinctly a rentier; and twenty thousand francs seemed a good deal, shared with the girl he loved. But it seemed very little for him alone; genteel poverty in fact. He certainly could neither yacht nor race. Travelling—except en étudiant—was equally out of the question.
Vane was a flippant young fellow, with a French education; fond of the world, of which, as he then thought, he knew much. Yet the Figaro and the Bois de Boulogne and the Palais-Royal, or even the Français, did not seem to satisfy him, that day. And all for a little “Mees Anglaise!” How his friends would laugh at him! He was very young—they would say; very young for a grande passion. And then they would laugh again. But Vane felt sure that he should never get over it.
What the deuce did fellows do in his position? He felt a wild desire for adventure and excitement; but excitement and adventure were expensive; unless there happened to be a war, and you went officially. But he had not many illusions of romance in war. He knew men who had been at Woerth and Gravelotte. Then there was travel. But this, also, was expensive. Old Prunier, the Professor, had made an expedition through Soudan the year before, and it had cost him eight hundred thousand francs. Moreover, you had to be up on rocks and beetles and things, to make your trip of any use to the world. And Vane had not yet given up all idea of being of use in the world. Besides, even Prunier’s expedition had not ended in much, except a row with the Portuguese missionaries on the subject of the slave trade. These Christian slavers had met Prunier’s remonstrances with the plausible argument that it was better for the negroes to be slaves in a Christian country, and save their souls, than free on earth and damned when they died. Prunier had consequently reported a crying need for a better article of missionary in Central Africa. But Vane could not go as a missionary. He felt that his confidence in Providence, at that moment, was not hardy enough to bear transplanting into the native South African mind, through the medium of a Turanian dialect.
He might seek the land of his nativity, and make his four thousand a year, eight thousand. His father’s business, for the moment, lay in Bellefontaine. He did not in the least know where Bellefontaine was, but the name had a civilized sound. And she was going to Switzerland.
Vane must have clenched his hands at this point; for he felt a decided pricking in his left forefinger. And he observed several thorns on the stem of the rose she had given him. For she had given him a rose. That much favor had been shown him. He got into his mother’s little phaeton and drove home—with his rose. So far, his investments in life had not been successful. The account with fortune might read somewhat like this—Debtor, an English girl: to ten years’ love and an indefinite amount of devotion and sentiment. Creditor, by the English girl: one rose (with thorns). That is, if he had put the Dr. and Cr. sides right. He never could remember which was which. At all events, the returns on his investment were not large. And he, with his uncertainty about debtor and creditor, to think of competing with the practical Yankee of Bellefontaine! No; he would leave his four thousand a year where it was—a somewhat insignificant part of the national debt. Meantime, what would become of him? What should he do? He felt an idle outsider’s curiosity to know what the deuce he would do.
Of one thing he felt certain, his orbit in life would be highly eccentric. He had no raison d’être; and it is difficult to predict the direction taken by a body without raison d’être. The curve of such a comet has no equation. He could no longer view life with gravity; and it is quite impossible to calculate the orbit of a body without gravity. He might bring up anywhere from Orion to the Great Bear. Only one thing was certain—he could not, for the present, bring up in Switzerland; and yet, oddly enough, that seemed to be the only part of any possible terrestrial orbit that had an attraction. But attraction decreases as the square of the distance. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that he was now two miles from her, and loved her with his whole heart; if he were twelve thousand miles away, he would love her only one divided by the square of six thousand—only one thirty-six-millionth part as much. In other words, he would have thirty-five million nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine thirty-six millionths of his heart left—left to bestow upon the dusky beauties of the Pacific. Damn the dusky beauties of the Pacific. He would see his sister Mary. After all, she was dearer to him than the dusky beauties of the Pacific could possibly be.
When the boy arrived home, he drove to the stable, and alighting, threw the reins to a groom. He was perfectly sure that his life was broken; but a groom is a necessary adjunct of any life at all. He rolled a cigarette and strolled toward the house, still holding the rose, by the stem, between the first and second fingers of his left hand. Momentarily his thoughts had wandered from the English girl; he was still entirely busied in constructing a proper dénouement for himself. The romance of his life, he felt, was gone; but he desired that his career should be consistent with his tragic part in life. She had left him enough self-esteem for that.
So he entered the house.