Through a Glass, Darkly [pp. 225-230]

A2PP- LATOVS' JO URNAL.
magic accomplishment, when large assemblages filled suppose that you sacrifice everyLhing to your profesthe rooms, of charming her guests equally by dis- sion?"
tributing her presence among all in a series of de- "Not everything," denied Hubert, with a cerlightful impressions, each being the product of mere tain hardness, looking dowvn. "In medicine, of
moments. When few persons were there, her grace course, it is folly for a man to be lukewarm; he had
and a certain native leadership became even more almost better break stones for his living."
apparent. It must be recorded that, when Hubert "It is a grand profession," Lucia said, a kind of
first returned from Germany (while his yellow beard change coming over her face that once seemed, in
and over-long locks yet remained untrimmed), Lucia Hubert's eyes, like a soft light touching it (bu now
dazzled him as a combination of all possible femi- he drew no such poetic analogy). "I suppose papa
nine attractions. would have made me a doctor," she went on, "if I
But Hubert's was a mind that perpetually went, had been a man. Do you think that I would have
so to speak, with its nose against the ground, scent- made a successful doctor?"
ing facts backward to their causes. While Lucia (if "The first point is," said Hubert, with a faint
she thought at all on the subject) was ranking him as smile, "whether you would have made a successful
one of her most leal servitors, Hubert had been man."
quietly, night after night, starving the altar-flame "Well?"
across whose perfumed smoke he once saw his divin- He seemed to reflect for a moment.
ity. He knew Goethe far better than Tennyson, "You have mental strength; I should say that
but he had studied psychology in a German univer- you have courage; and then your ambition-"
sity, and was four-and-twenty years old, and so told "Why do you mention ambition?" she broke in,
himself, no doubt, in more or less different words, flushing.
that "they are dangerous guides, the feelings." Lu- "You must own to ambition," said Hubert, whose
cia, he decided, was a soul into which all things en- candor was nearly always childlike, and sometimes a
tered, as it were, beneath the triumphal arch of her little rude.
own vanity. She played the patronizing hostess to She flushed deeper.
everything-even moral rules. All her charming pol- "You always see my worldly side. You think I
ish had a metallic explanation beneath it. She was am perpetually moving about a drawing-room, trying
a transcendently subtile piece of machinery. You to make guests comfortable. But perhaps I shouldn't
thought of how wonderfully she imitated real Na- complain; it is a deed of charity to entertain people
ture, just as you might in a similar way have reflected -if one can do it well."
concerning a wax rose. "But for me," thought Hu- "Are you charitable? I did not know it."
bert, "there has latterly grown up an inseparable "You say that queerly-uncivilly, I mean.'
sense of a glass case between myself and a work of "Excuse me," said Hubert, with great gravity.
such delicately accurate art." "Some fashionable women, like youself, find much
What emotional effect these opinions exerted time for charities. I was thinking of those. Byupon Hubert is, of course, another question. If we the-by," he added, "there has recently come under
do not fall in love by means of our judgment or my notice a very tempting case for the almsgiver. A
our conscience, equally true is it that we fail to fall young, struggling doctor, such as I am, finds all sorts
out of love through the help of such respectable of patients, you know: the patient to whom I refer
agencies. Whether or not Hubert had been in love is a lady of not over five-and-twenty-a widow, with
with Lucia before drawing these desolate deductions one child. I am sure she has been accustomed to
concerning her character, certain it is that, after a life of luxury; everything about her speaks of such
having drawn them, his periodic appearances at her a past. Her name, she tells me, is Marlowe. Have
"evenings" still continued. you ever known any one of this name?"
He had now passed his final medical examination; It struck Hubert thai Miss Champhlin wore a
was, to a certain extent, associated with Dr. Champlin slightly bored manner as she shook her head negaas an assistant physician; and had already become tively to his question.
enviably regarded as that gentleman's professional "This lady," he went on, "is living now in most
heir. Lucia was generally conceded to rank among wretched quarters and suffering from a miserable sort
the wealthy matches of the day, and perhaps Hu- of intermittent fever. She has one friend, who has
bert had never presumed, even while holding the followed her through all her misfortunes, but whose
most rosy views concerning her womanly worth, to income is in itself so slender that she is enabled to
connect her with any matrimonial possibilities as re- aid Mrs. Marlowe but little. I call upon the poor
garded his own future. Now, surely, he was far invalid nearly every day, and yet, strangely enough,
from such speculations. Every fresh interview which I have never met this faithful friend."
they held together seemed to harden his opinions Lucia Champlin was looking full at Hubert as
from theory into fact. he finished speaking. It suddenly seemed to him as
"You are a stranger," she said to him one if his position in the present interview had become
evening, when he had staid away for nearly a fort- altogether objective, and that he filled, just then, no
night. It fleas a stormy evening, and Hubert had other office in creation than to furnish a cause for
chosen to avail himself of it for finding her alone. his hearer's placid, half-amused surprise.
"But papa tells me that you are very diligent. I "How very pretty!" Miss Champlin said. "You
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