Part 11 (1/2)

”You might tell me a great many things, if you only would. You have seen people like yourself--people who are bright and gay and fond of amus.e.m.e.nt. We are not fond of amus.e.m.e.nt.”

”Yes,” said Felix, ”I confess that rather strikes me. You don't seem to me to get all the pleasure out of life that you might. You don't seem to me to enjoy..... Do you mind my saying this?” he asked, pausing.

”Please go on,” said the girl, earnestly.

”You seem to me very well placed for enjoying. You have money and liberty and what is called in Europe a 'position.' But you take a painful view of life, as one may say.”

”One ought to think it bright and charming and delightful, eh?” asked Gertrude.

”I should say so--if one can. It is true it all depends upon that,”

Felix added.

”You know there is a great deal of misery in the world,” said his model.

”I have seen a little of it,” the young man rejoined. ”But it was all over there--beyond the sea. I don't see any here. This is a paradise.”

Gertrude said nothing; she sat looking at the dahlias and the currant-bushes in the garden, while Felix went on with his work. ”To 'enjoy,'” she began at last, ”to take life--not painfully, must one do something wrong?”

Felix gave his long, light laugh again. ”Seriously, I think not. And for this reason, among others: you strike me as very capable of enjoying, if the chance were given you, and yet at the same time as incapable of wrong-doing.”

”I am sure,” said Gertrude, ”that you are very wrong in telling a person that she is incapable of that. We are never nearer to evil than when we believe that.”

”You are handsomer than ever,” observed Felix, irrelevantly.

Gertrude had got used to hearing him say this. There was not so much excitement in it as at first. ”What ought one to do?” she continued. ”To give parties, to go to the theatre, to read novels, to keep late hours?”

”I don't think it 's what one does or one does n't do that promotes enjoyment,” her companion answered. ”It is the general way of looking at life.”

”They look at it as a discipline--that 's what they do here. I have often been told that.”

”Well, that 's very good. But there is another way,” added Felix, smiling: ”to look at it as an opportunity.”

”An opportunity--yes,” said Gertrude. ”One would get more pleasure that way.”

”I don't attempt to say anything better for it than that it has been my own way--and that is not saying much!” Felix had laid down his palette and brushes; he was leaning back, with his arms folded, to judge the effect of his work. ”And you know,” he said, ”I am a very petty personage.”

”You have a great deal of talent,” said Gertrude.

”No--no,” the young man rejoined, in a tone of cheerful impartiality, ”I have not a great deal of talent. It is nothing at all remarkable.

I a.s.sure you I should know if it were. I shall always be obscure. The world will never hear of me.” Gertrude looked at him with a strange feeling. She was thinking of the great world which he knew and which she did not, and how full of brilliant talents it must be, since it could afford to make light of his abilities. ”You need n't in general attach much importance to anything I tell you,” he pursued; ”but you may believe me when I say this,--that I am little better than a good-natured feather-head.”

”A feather-head?” she repeated.

”I am a species of Bohemian.”

”A Bohemian?” Gertrude had never heard this term before, save as a geographical denomination; and she quite failed to understand the figurative meaning which her companion appeared to attach to it. But it gave her pleasure.

Felix had pushed back his chair and risen to his feet; he slowly came toward her, smiling. ”I am a sort of adventurer,” he said, looking down at her.

She got up, meeting his smile. ”An adventurer?” she repeated. ”I should like to hear your adventures.”