What Dreams May Come | Page 6

stretched out upon a
couch, covered with a rug of ostrich feathers brought from the Straits of
Magellan. Over the onyx mantel was a portrait of his grandmother, a
handsome old lady with high-piled, snow-white hair, and eyes whose

brilliancy age had not dimmed. The lines about the mouth were hard,
but the face was full of intelligence, and the man at her feet had never
seen anything of the hardness of her nature. She had blindly idolized
him.
"I wish she were here now," thought Dartmouth regretfully, as he
contemplated the picture through the rings of smoke; "I could talk over
things with her, and she could hit off people with that tongue of hers.
Gods! how it could cut! Poor old lady! I wonder if I shall ever find her
equal." After which, he fell asleep and forgot his sorrows until his valet
awakened him and told him it was time to dress for dinner.

II.
I hope I have not conveyed to the reader the idea that our hero is
frivolous. On the contrary, he was considered a very brilliant young
man, and he could command the respect of his elders when he chose.
But, partly owing to his wealth and independent condition, partly to the
fact that the world had done its best to spoil him, he had led a very
aimless existence. He was by no means satisfied with his life, however;
he was far too clever for that; and he had spent a good deal of time, first
and last, reviling Fate for not having endowed him with some talent
upon which he could concentrate his energies, and with which attain
distinction and find balm for his ennui. His grandmother had cherished
the conviction that he was an undeveloped genius; but in regard to what
particular field his genius was to enrich, she had never clearly
expressed herself, and his own consciousness had not been more
explicit. He had long ago made up his mind, indeed, that his
grandmother's convictions had been the fond delusions of a doting
parent, and that the sooner he unburdened himself of that particular
legacy the better. The unburdening, however, had been accomplished
with a good deal of bitterness, for he was very ambitious and very
proud, and to be obliged to digest the fact that he was but a type of the
great majority was distinctly galling. True, politics were left. His father,
one of the most distinguished of England's statesmen, and a member of
the present cabinet, would have been delighted to assist his career; but
Harold disliked politics. With the exception of his passing interest in

the Russian socialists--an interest springing from his adventurous
nature--he had never troubled himself about any party, faction, or
policy, home or foreign. He would like to write a great poem, but he
had never felt a second's inspiration, and had never wasted time in the
endeavor to force it. Failing that, he would like to write a novel; but,
fluently and even brilliantly as he sometimes talked, his pen was not
ready, and he was conscious of a conspicuous lack of imagination. To
be sure, one does not need much in these days of realistic fervor; it is
considered rather a coarse and old-fashioned article; but that one needs
some sort of a plot is indisputable, and Dartmouth's brain had
consistently refused to evolve one. Doubtless he could cultivate the
mere habit of writing, and achieve reputation as an essayist. His critical
faculty was pronounced, and he had carefully developed it; and it was
possible that when the world had completely palled upon him, he
would shut himself up at Crumford Hall and give the public the benefit
of his accumulated opinions, abstract and biographical. But he was not
ready for that yet; he needed several years more of experience,
observation, and assiduous cultivation of the habit of analysis; and in
the meantime he was in a condition of cold disgust with himself and
with Fate. It may also have been gathered that Mr. Dartmouth was a
young man of decidedly reckless proclivities. It is quite true that he
never troubled himself about any question of morals or social ethics; he
simply calculated the mathematical amount of happiness possible to the
individual. That was all there was in life. Had he lived a generation or
two earlier, he would have pursued his way along the paths of the
prohibited without introspective analysis; but being the intellectual
young man of the latter decades of the 19th century, it amused him to
season his defiance of certain conventional codes with the salt of
philosophy.
Miss Penrhyn reached the Legation a few moments after Dartmouth's
arrival, and he watched her as she entered the ballroom. She wore a
simple white gown, embroidered about the