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 Check for Updates
Make sure you have the latest information!

TidBITS Publishing Inc.

Take Control of v1.0

Making Music
GarageBand
with

ers
Cov
11
Jeff Tolbert

M a c '
OS X
ION
VERS

$15 Help Catalog Feedback Blog Order Print Copy

 Table of Contents
Read Me First
Updates and More .....................................................................4
Basics .....................................................................................5
What’s New in This Edition .........................................................6

Introduction
Making Music with GarageBand Quick Start
Configure GarageBand
Upgrade to the Latest Version ...................................................12
Launch GarageBand .................................................................13
Set Preferences .......................................................................13

Make Your First Tune

Get Acquainted with the Interface..............................................16
Add Loops ..............................................................................18
Add Melody Instruments...........................................................29
Learn Editing and Mixing Basics .................................................31

Make a Great Song

Plan the Song .........................................................................35
Consider What Makes a Song Work ............................................37
Work with Regions and Loops ....................................................40
Mix Your Song .........................................................................64

Transform a Magic GarageBand Song

Create Your First Magic GarageBand Song...................................79
Customize Your Magic GarageBand Song ....................................81
Rearrange the Song .................................................................84
Change the Instrumentation .....................................................89
Add the Finishing Touches ........................................................96

2
Learn More Loop Techniques
Create a Drum Fill ...................................................................98
Add Chord Changes to Loops...................................................102
Add Effects to Loops ..............................................................104
Put It All Together..................................................................110
Force a Loop to Keep Its Original Tempo ...................................123
Use Loops from Other Sources ................................................125
Import MIDI Files ..................................................................128

Create Special Projects

Score a Video .......................................................................129
Fashion a Ringtone ................................................................135

Share Your Project

Export Your Song...................................................................140
Export Your Movie .................................................................142
Send a Ringtone to Your Phone ...............................................143

Learn More
Web Sites .............................................................................145
Books ..................................................................................145
Videos..................................................................................146

Appendix A: Improving Performance

Glossary
About This Book
Ebook Extras.........................................................................155
About the Author ...................................................................155
About the Publisher................................................................157

Copyright and Fine Print

Featured Titles

3
 Read Me First
Welcome to Take Control of Making Music with GarageBand ’11,
version 1.0, published in March 2011 by TidBITS Publishing Inc.
This book was written by Jeff Tolbert and edited by Caroline Rose.

GarageBand is an exceptional way for musicians and nonmusicians

alike to unleash their musical creativity. This ebook shows you
how to use loops, assemble them into a composition, mix the song,
and use basic audio effects in GarageBand ’11 (also known as
GarageBand 6) on a Mac. Even if you have no musical ability or
instruments, you can create an impressive song quickly and easily.

Copyright © 2011, Jeff Tolbert. All rights reserved.

If you have an ebook version of this title, please note that if you
want to share it with a friend, we ask that you do so as you would
a physical book: “lend” it for a quick look, but ask your friend to
buy a new copy to read it more carefully or to keep it for reference.

Discounted classroom and Mac user group copies are also available.

Updates and More

You can access extras related to this book on the Web (use the link
in Ebook Extras, near the end of the book; it’s available only to
purchasers). On the ebook’s Take Control Extras page, you can:
• Download any available new version of the ebook for free, or buy a
subsequent edition at a discount.
• Download various formats, including PDF and—usually—EPUB and
Mobipocket. (Learn about reading this ebook on handheld devices
at http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/device-advice.)
• Read postings to the ebook’s blog. These may include new
information and tips, as well as links to author interviews. At the
top of the blog, you can also see any update plans for the ebook.
• Get a discount when you order a print copy of the ebook.

4
Basics
In reading this book, you may get stuck if you don’t understand Take
Control syntax for things like working with menus or finding items in
the Finder. Please note the following:
• Menus: I describe choosing a command from a menu in the menu
bar in an abbreviated way. For example, the abbreviated description
for the menu command that deletes a track from a song in
GarageBand is “Track > Delete Track.”
• Path syntax: I occasionally use a path to show the location of a file
or folder in your file system; for example, the default GarageBand
installation puts the GarageBand demo songs in the /Library/
Application Support/GarageBand folder. A slash at the beginning of
a path tells you to start from the root level of the disk. Some paths
begin with ~ (tilde), which is a shortcut for the current user’s home
folder. For example, if a person with the user name joe wants to
install fonts that only he can access, he would install them in the
folder ~/Library/Fonts, which is just another way of writing /Users/
joe/Library/Fonts.

• GarageBand’s preferences: I sometimes refer to preferences in

GarageBand that you may want to adjust. To display GarageBand’s
preferences (not to be confused with the systemwide settings found
in the System Preferences application), choose GarageBand >
Preferences (Command-,). Within the Preferences window, click a
button at the top to display a pane with that category of preferences
(for example, the Audio/MIDI button). Instead of giving detailed
directions each time, I sometimes use an abbreviated notation such
as “go to the Audio/MIDI preference pane.”

Listen as you learn! I occasionally give an audio example by

linking to a song in the iTunes Store. You can click the link to connect
to the iTunes Store and then double-click the song in the album list to
play a 30-second preview of it.

5
 Note: You’ll see under GarageBand > About GarageBand that
the program’s full name is GarageBand ’11 and that its latest
version number (as of this writing) is 6.0.2. I refer to the full
name or the version number only when necessary for clarity;
for the sake of brevity, I call it simply GarageBand the rest of
the time.

What’s New in This Edition

This book is a new edition of Take Control of Making Music with
GarageBand, which I first wrote for GarageBand version 1.0 and have
updated for each major version so far. For this edition, I updated the
book to cover new features in GarageBand ’11, also known as version 6.
Here’s what’s new in this edition:
• The default Apple loops are great, but they can get old. In Learn
More Loop Techniques, I’ve added new ideas for expanding your
stock loop palette, including adding effects, combining drum loops,
and extending notes with the new Flex Time feature.
• In the same chapter, I’ve added a new tutorial demonstrating many
of the advanced loop techniques I discuss. See Put It All Together.
• I’ve added details about each of the Apple Jam Packs and a short list
of third-party loop dealers, in case you want to expand your loop
library. See Use Loops from Other Sources.
• A new section describes how to create Movie projects to add music
to your movies. See Score a Video.
• In previous versions of this book, I touched briefly on creating
ringtones for your iPhone; in this edition, I expand on that topic in
Fashion a Ringtone.
• I’ve added links to the GarageBand project files for each of the
major tutorials in the book. That way, if you get stuck, you can see
exactly what I did in each project.
• I’ve enhanced the chapter Share Your Project with details on
exporting Movie projects and ringtones, including ringtones for
non-Apple phones.

6
• I’ve added small updates and tips throughout the book to reflect
wisdom I’ve gleaned and tricks I’ve learned since writing the
previous edition, and I’ve updated many screenshots to reflect
changes in the GarageBand ’11 interface.

7
 Introduction
GarageBand makes it easy for someone who isn’t a professional
musician to create music that sounds professional. It’s inexpensive,
and because it was developed by Apple, it’s pretty to look at. The
program does provide online Help, but this book goes beyond what
you find in the Help and walks you step by step through a number
of common (and not so common) procedures. Even if you have some
familiarity with other music editing software, the tips and tricks in
this book will help streamline how you work in GarageBand.
This book shows you how to create a song in GarageBand using the
loops that ship with the product as well as using Magic GarageBand.
You’ll learn tricks for customizing the built-in loops and Magic
GarageBand tunes, and ways to use mixing techniques and audio
effects so that your songs will sound unique. Whether you’re new to
GarageBand or have already played around with it, plenty of audio-
related goodies await you within. I won’t, however, cover recording
a guitar or vocals or setting up a MIDI keyboard; I cover those topics
in my second book, Take Control of Recording with GarageBand ’11.
I’m also passing along some of the musical knowledge I’ve amassed
over the years writing film scores and recording with bands, to help
you create an interesting and effective composition. This information
is oriented toward nonmusicians, so don’t worry if all you know about
music is that a grand piano is bigger than a ukulele; I’ve presented the
concepts in plain English. You don’t need to know what a diminished
seventh chord is or how to sight-read an orchestral score to make a
song that will impress your friends. If any of the terminology stumps
you, you can look it up in the Glossary; if a term appears in blue in the
text of the ebook, you can click it to move to its definition.
This book follows a step-by-step approach. I walk you through the
creation of five songs: four using loops—three fairly simple and one
more complex—and one using Magic GarageBand. I point out exactly
which loops, effects, and settings to use where. This specific, sequential
approach keeps the book from being a dull and dry reference manual.
I suggest that you follow the instructions as closely as you can.

8
At least skim: I recommend that you at least skim all five song
tutorials, since I mention different techniques in each of them. Even
if you don’t plan on ever using Magic GarageBand, for example,
note that I cover some more advanced GarageBand features in
that chapter.

After you’ve worked through a song, it’s yours to play with. Fly, be free,
create! GarageBand is a tool to unleash your inner genius. I hope this
book helps you to do just that.

Note: This book covers the Mac version of GarageBand ’11, not
the iPad version. The two versions share many features, so lots
of the tips in this book apply to the iPad version, but I don’t
discuss any iPad-specific features.

9
 Making Music with
GarageBand Quick Start
This book shows you how to create exciting songs using the music
loops that come with GarageBand. I take a sequential approach and
build on what I’ve shown in earlier chapters. If you’re a less linear
person and like to jump around, you may have to backtrack
occasionally if you come across something unfamiliar.

Set up:
• Update GarageBand if necessary and set preferences so that it will
run at its best; see Configure GarageBand.
Make your first tune:
• New to GarageBand? Make your first song in no time! Learn what a
loop is and how to work with it; see Add Loops.
• Tweak your tune, make the loops work together, and give the song
an ending; see Learn Editing and Mixing Basics.
Make a great song:
• It’s time to start making great music. Decide on your goal and find
loops that help meet that goal; see Plan the Song.
• Learn what it takes to make your composition interesting and
exciting; see Consider What Makes a Song Work.
• Crop some loops and expand others, change instruments, and move
notes around, using both score view and graphic view; see Work
with Regions and Loops.
• Explore the basics of audio editing and effects—fades, equalization,
panning and more; see Mix Your Song.
Customize a Magic GarageBand song:
• Create a Magic GarageBand song, extend the arrangement, change
keys and tempos, and cross-fade between instruments; see
Transform a Magic GarageBand Song.

10
Experiment with advanced loop techniques:
• Create a drum fill, add chord changes and effects to loops, import
MIDI files and loops from other sources, and more; see Learn More
Loop Techniques.
Do more with your music:
• Learn how to use GarageBand to add soundtracks to your movies in
Score a Video.
• Create ringtones for your phone with the advice in Fashion a
Ringtone.
Export your finished piece:
• Send your song to iTunes, your movie to QuickTime, or your
ringtone to your phone; see Share Your Project.
Improve performance:
• Learn how to get the most out of your CPU and minimize your
chance of seeing the dreaded “System Overload” message; see
Appendix A: Improving Performance.

11
 Configure GarageBand
I wrote this book as a series of tutorials for you to follow.
GarageBand’s default configuration gets in the way of smooth
workflow in a few places in these tutorials, so make sure you have
the latest version of the program and adjust your preferences now,
to streamline your work later in the book and minimize confusing
dialogs and system slowdowns.

Upgrade to the Latest Version

If you haven’t done so already, the first thing I recommend is to
upgrade to GarageBand ’11 (version 6.0.2 is the latest release at the
time of this writing) by installing GarageBand—available as part of
iLife ’11 or as a separate application from the App Store—and any
updates to it. I assume that everyone reading this book is using
GarageBand ’11, although I point out some of the differences from
GarageBand ’09 so that readers who haven’t upgraded yet won’t be
left totally in the dust.
To see which version you have, launch GarageBand and choose
GarageBand > About GarageBand. Up pops a window with a beautiful
picture of an electric guitar, some copyright information, and the
version number. To find out if a newer version is available, choose
Software Update from the Apple  menu.

Do this before upgrading! Always back up your drive before

upgrading any piece of software; see Joe Kissel’s excellent book
Take Control of Easy Mac Backups for advice on the best options.
Even after backing up, you might want to do the following (if you
have about 4 GB of hard disk space available) to keep your copy
of GarageBand ’09 intact before you update the application:
1. Rename your old GarageBand application file GarageBand ’09.
2. Rename the GarageBand folder in ~/Library/Application Support.
I suggest giving it a name that’s similar and clear, such as
GarageBand ’09 or Old GarageBand files.

12
Jam Packs installed? If you have any Jam Packs installed, you
must either reinstall them after you upgrade or manually move all
the Jam Pack loops and instruments into the new GarageBand folder.

Launch GarageBand
If this is your first time starting GarageBand, its startup dialog appears
and gives you numerous choices. There’s a column of categories on the
left and, depending on which category you choose, an array of options
on the right. There are three buttons at the bottom of the dialog: Quit,
which does the obvious; Open an Existing File, which is also self-
explanatory; and Choose. (You also see this dialog when you close the
current project with File > Close or start a new one with File > New.)
You certainly don’t want to quit; you just got here! Since we’re going
to be working with loops, select New Project on the left and Loops
on the right, and then click Choose. The New Project from Template
dialog appears—essentially a Save As dialog with a few extra options:
song tempo, time signature, and key. Enter a song title in the Save As
field. Click the Create button, and a new GarageBand window opens.

Pick a unique title: GarageBand provides the default title “My

Song” (with an incremented number following it for each subsequent
default), but I recommend choosing your own title. It’s much easier
to find a specific project when it’s not called “My Song 37.”

Set Preferences
Open the Audio/MIDI pane of GarageBand’s Preferences and set your
audio input and output sources. If you don’t have an external audio
interface, you have two choices for output—System Setting and Built-
In Output—and your choices for input will be System Setting, Built-In
Microphone, and Built-In Input. In this case, your best bet is probably
to choose Built-In Output and Built-In Input. If you do have an audio
interface, that will show up in the list as well, and I recommend using
it for both input and output (on my computer, for example, both input
and output are set to Tascam US-122).

13
If you choose to leave the input source set to the GarageBand default
(System Setting), make sure that you know how your System
Preferences are set and that they’re appropriate for GarageBand. For
example, if you’re plugging a guitar into your computer’s audio input
jack, make sure Built-in Input is selected in System Preferences
(Sound pane).

Changing the Default Names

In GarageBand’s My Info preference pane, you can change
the default names for the playlist, artist, composer, and album.
The playlist name is the name of the playlist iTunes will create
for your GarageBand songs. By default, the artist name is
your user account name (found in System Preferences, in the
Accounts pane). You may want to use your given name, or you
could get crazy and call yourself Ludwig van Peppermill; it’s
entirely up to you!

In the Loops preference pane, deselect Filter for More Relevant Results
(Figure 1). This preference hides all the loops that are in a different
musical key from the one your song is in. This can be puzzling,
especially when you’re looking for a loop you know you saw yesterday.
You would also have trouble finding some of the loops you’ll be using
later in this book if you left this checkbox selected. The setting is often
irrelevant anyway, since GarageBand automatically converts loops to
the key you’re in.

Figure 1: Deselect the Filter for More Relevant Results checkbox.

You’re done configuring preferences, so close this window to continue.

14
Make Room for GarageBand
It will also help if you quit as many other applications as you
can. Running Adobe Acrobat Reader or Apple’s Preview to read
this ebook is OK, but you probably shouldn’t have a CD playing
or Photoshop working on a complicated Gaussian blur in the
background. (For other suggestions on improving GarageBand’s
performance, see Appendix A: Improving Performance.)

15
 Make Your First Tune
Now that you’ve followed the recommendations in the previous
chapter for optimizing your GarageBand experience, you can get
acquainted with the basics of the program and start creating your
first song. If you’ve already mucked around in GarageBand a bit on
your own, it might be tempting to skip to the more involved song
later in this book, but I’d recommend against that. The ditty you’ll
work on in this chapter may be simple, but it will cover a lot of
territory. You may also find it enlightening to watch how someone
else works.

Get Acquainted with the Interface

The GarageBand interface, as beautiful as it is, can be daunting to the
uninitiated. Figure 2, just ahead, highlights elements of the interface,
which you’ll learn more about as you progress through this book. The
numbers in the following list of brief descriptions refer to the circled
numbers in the figure:
1. The track header section is where GarageBand puts a header for
each track you create. As you’ll see later, the header contains the
instrument’s name and icon, as well as Mute and Solo buttons,
a pan control (to set the track’s left-to-right position in the stereo
field), a volume slider and level meter, and an automation curve
button (to make changes in volume and other parameters over
time).
2. The timeline is where most of the action takes place. It serves as
a visual representation of your song and is the canvas you’ll be
working on as you add loops and so on.
3. The loop browser is where you preview and select loops.
4. The zoom slider lets you zoom in on the timeline to show more
detail and smaller divisions of time.
5. You’ll frequently use the Add Track and Track Editor buttons when
working with tracks.

16
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
advice."
The dealer's face fell as he stood in the background, for he
knew the colonel, and he understood English. But as she spoke, Mrs.
Harmon was thinking more of Wimpole than of the miniature; and
he, when he answered, was wondering how he could succeed in
being alone with her for one half-hour--one of those little half-hours
on which he lived for weeks and months after they were past.
Mrs. Harmon's manner was very quiet, and there was not often
very much change in her expressions. Her laugh was low, regretful,
and now and then a little bitter. Sometimes, when one might have
expected a quick answer, she said nothing at all, and then her
features had a calm immobility that was almost mysterious. Only
now and then, when her son was speaking, she was evidently
nervous, and at the sound of his voice her eyes turned quickly and
nervously towards his face, while the shadows about the corners of
her mouth deepened a little, and her lips set themselves. When he
said anything more witless than usual, she was extraordinarily skilful
and quick to turn his saying to sense by a clear explanation. At other
times she generally spoke rather slowly and even indolently, as
though nothing mattered very much. Yet she was a very sensible
woman, and not by any means unpractical in daily life. Her tragedy,
if it were one, had been slow and long drawn out.
First, a love which had been real, silent, and so altogether
unsuspected, even by its object, that Richard Wimpole had never
guessed it even to this day. Then a marriage thrust upon her by
circumstances, and which she had accepted at last in the highest
nobility of honest purpose. After that, much suffering, most
scrupulously covered up from the world, and one moment of
unforgotten horror. There was a crooked scar on her forehead,
hidden by the thick hair which she drew down over it. When she was
angry it turned red, though there was no other change in her face.
Then a little while, and her husband's mind had gone. Even then she
had tried to take care of him, until it had been hopeless, and he had
become dangerous. The mercy of death seemed far from him, and
he still lived, for he was very strong. And all along there had been
the slowly increasing certainty of another misfortune. Her son, her
only child, had been like other children at first, then dull and
backward, and in the end, as compared with grown men, deficient.
His mind had not developed much beyond a boy's; but he was
unusually strong, he had learned to apply his strength, and had
always excelled in athletic sports. One might have been deceived at
first by the sharp glance of his eyes, but they were not bright with
intelligence. The young man's perfect physical health alone made
them clear and keen as a young animal's; but what they saw
produced little reaction of understanding or thought.
Nor was that all that Helen Harmon had borne. There was one
other thing, hardest of any to bear. By an accident she had learned
at last that Richard Wimpole had loved her, and she had guessed
that he loved her still. He had fancied her indifferent to him; and
Harmon had been his friend in young days. Harmon had been called
fast, even then, but not vicious, and he had been rich. Wimpole had
stood aside and had let him win, being diffident, and really believing
that it might be better for Helen in the end. He thought that she
could make anything she chose of Harmon, who was furiously in
love with her.
 So the two had made the great mistake, each meaning to do
the very best that could be done. But when Harmon had gone mad
at last, and was in an asylum without prospect of recovery, and
Helen found herself the administrator of his property for her son, it
had been necessary to go through all his disordered papers, and she
had found a letter of Wimpole's to her husband, written long ago.
Had it been a woman's letter, she would have burned it unread. But
it was a duty to read every paper which might bear upon business
matters, from the beginning, and she naturally supposed that
Harmon must have had some reason for keeping this one. So she
read it.
It had been written in the early days of her husband's courtship.
He, too, had been generous, then, with impulses of honour in which
there had been, perhaps, something of vanity, though they had
impelled him to do right. There had been some conversation
between the friends, and Harmon had found out that Wimpole loved
Helen. Not being yet so far in love as he was later, he had offered to
go away and let the young colonel have a chance, since the latter
had loved her first. Then Wimpole had written this letter which she
found twenty years later.
It was simple, grateful, and honourably conceived. It said what
he had believed to be the truth, that Helen did not care for him, that
Harmon was quite as good as he in all ways, and much richer, and it
finally and definitely refused the offer of 'a chance.' There was
nothing tragic about it, nor any high-flown word in its short, clear
phrases. But it had decided three lives, and the finding of it after
such a long time hurt Helen more than anything had ever hurt her
before.
 In a flash she saw the meaning of Wimpole's life, and she knew
that he loved her still, and had always loved her, though in all their
many meetings, throughout those twenty years, he had never said
one word of it to her. In one sudden comprehension, she saw all his
magnificent generosity of silence. For he had partly known how
Harmon had treated her. Every one knew something of it, and he
must have known more than any one except the lawyer and the
doctor whom she had been obliged to consult.
And yet, in that quick vision, she remembered, too, that she had
never complained to him, nor ever said a word against Harmon.
What Wimpole knew, beyond some matters of business in which he
had helped her, he had learned from others or had guessed. But he
had guessed much. Little actions of his, under this broad light of
truth, showed her now that he had often understood what was
happening when she had thought him wholly in ignorance.
But he, on his side, found no letter, nor any unexpected
revelation of her secret; and still, to him, she seemed only to have
changed indifference for friendship, deep, sincere, lasting and calm.
She kept the old letter two days, and then, when she was alone,
she read it again, and her eyes filled, and she saw her hands
bringing the discoloured page towards her lips. Then she started and
looked at it, and she felt the scar on her forehead burning hot under
her hair, and the temptation was great, though her anger at herself
was greater. Harmon was alive, and she was a married woman,
though he was a madman. She would not kiss the letter, but she laid
it gently upon the smouldering embers, and then turned away, that
she might not see it curling and glowing and blackening to ashes on
the coals. That night a note from the director of the asylum told her
that her husband was in excellent bodily health, without
improvement in his mental condition. It was dated on the first of the
month.
After that she avoided the colonel for some time, but when she
met him her face was again like marble, and only the soft, slow
smile and the steady, gentle voice showed that she was glad to see
him. Two years had passed since then, and he had not even guessed
that she knew.
He often sought her, when she was within reach of him, but
their meeting to-day, in the fashionable antiquary's shop, at the
cross-roads of Europe, was altogether accidental, unless it were
brought about by the direct intervention of destiny. But who believes
in destiny nowadays? Most people smile at the word 'fate,' as though
it had no meaning at all. Yet call 'fate' the 'chemistry of the universe'
and the sceptic's face assumes an expression of abject credulity,
because the term has a modern ring and smacks of science. What is
the difference between the two? We know a little chemistry: we can
get something like the perfume of spring violets out of nauseous
petroleum, and a flavour of strawberries out of stinking coal-tar; but
we do not know much of the myriad natural laws by which our
bodies are directed hither and thither, mere atoms in the everlasting
whirlpool of all living beings. What can it matter whether we call
those rules chemistry or fate? We shall submit to them in the end,
with our bodies, though our souls rebel against them ever so
eternally. The things that matter are quite different, and the less
they have to do with our bodies, the better it is for ourselves.
Colonel Wimpole looked at the miniature and saw that it was a
modern copy of a well-known French one, ingeniously set in an old
case, to fit which it had perhaps been measured and painted. He
looked at the dealer quickly, and the man expressed his despair by
turning up his eyes a very little, while he bent his head forward and
spread out his palms, abandoning the contest, for he recognized the
colonel's right to advise a friend.
"What do you think of it?" asked Mrs. Harmon.
"That depends entirely on what you mean to do with it, and
how much you would give for it," answered the colonel, who would
not have let her buy an imitation under any circumstances, but was
far too kind-hearted to ruin the shopkeeper in her estimation.
"I rather liked it," was the answer. "It was for myself. There is
something about the expression that pleases me. The lady looks so
blindly happy and delighted with herself. It is a cheerful little thing to
look at."
The colonel smiled.
"Will you let me give it to you?" he asked, putting it into her
hand. "In that way I shall have some pleasure out of it, too."
Mrs. Harmon held it for a moment, and looked at him
thoughtfully, asking herself whether there was any reason why she
should not accept the little present. He was not rich, but she had
understood from his first answer that the thing was not worth much,
after all, and she knew that he would not pay an absurd price for it.
Her fingers closed quietly upon it.
"Thank you," she said. "I wanted it."
"I will come back this afternoon and pay for it," said the colonel
to the dealer, as the three went out of the shop together a few
moments later.
 During the little scene, young Harmon had looked on sharply
and curiously, but had not spoken.
"How are those things made, mother?" he asked, when they
were in the street.
"What things?" asked Mrs. Harmon, gently.
"Those things--what do you call them? Like what Colonel
Wimpole just gave you. How are they made?"
"Oh, miniatures? They are painted on ivory with very fine
brushes."
"How funny! Why do they cost so much money, then?"
His questions were like those of a little child, but his mother's
expression did not change as she answered him, always with the
same unvarying gentleness.
"People have to be very clever to paint them," she said. "That is
why the very good ones are worth so much. It is like a good tailor,
my dear, who is paid well because he makes good coats, whereas
the man who only knows how to make workmen's jackets earns very
little."
"That's not fair," said young Harmon. "It isn't the man's fault if
he is stupid, is it?"
"No, dear, it isn't his fault, it's his misfortune."
It took the young man so long to understand this that he said
nothing more, trying to think over his mother's words, and getting
them by heart, for they pleased him. They walked along in the hot
sun and then crossed the street opposite the Schweizerhof to reach
the shade of the foolish-looking trees that have been stuck about
like Nuremberg toys, between the lake and the highway. The colonel
had not spoken since they had left the shop.
 "How well you are looking," he said suddenly, when young
Harmon had relapsed into silence. "You are as fresh as a rose."
"A rose of yesterday," said Helen Harmon, a little sadly.
Quite naturally, Colonel Wimpole sighed as he walked along at
her elbow; for though he did not know that she had ever loved him,
he remembered the letter he had written to the man she had
afterwards married, and he was too much a man himself not to
believe that all might have been different if he had not written it.
"Where are you stopping?" he asked, when they had gone a few
steps in silence.
Mrs. Harmon named a quiet hotel on the other side of the river.
"Close to us," observed the colonel, just as they reached the
new bridge.
They were half-way across when an exclamation from young
Harmon interrupted their conversation, which was, indeed, but a
curiously stiff exchange of dry information about themselves and
their movements, past, planned, and probable. For people who are
fond of each other and meet rarely are first of all anxious to know
when they may meet again. But the boy's cry of surprise made them
look round.
"Jukes!" he exclaimed loudly. "Jukes!" he repeated, more softly
but very emphatically, as though solely for his own benefit.
'Jukes' was his only expression when pleased and surprised. No
one knew whether he had ever heard the word, or had invented it,
and no one could ever discover what it meant nor from what it was
derived. It seemed to be what Germans call a 'nature-sound,' by
which he gave vent to his feelings. His mother hated it, but had
never been able to induce him to substitute anything else in its
place. She followed the direction of his eager glance, for she knew
by his tone that he wanted what he saw.
She expected to see a pretty boat, or a big dog, or a gorgeous
posted bill. Archie had a passion for the latter, and he often bought
them and took them home with him to decorate his own particular
room. He loved best the ones printed in violent and obtrusive
colours. The gem of his collection was a purple woman on a red
ground with a wreath of yellow flowers.
But Mrs. Harmon saw neither advertisement nor dog, nor boat.
She saw Sylvia Strahan. She knew the girl very well, and knew Miss
Wimpole, of course. The two were walking along on the other side
of the bridge, talking together. Against the blaze of the afternoon
sun, reflected from the still lake, they could hardly have recognized
the colonel and the Harmons, even if they had looked that way.
"It's Sylvia, mother," said Archie, glaring at the girl. "But isn't
she grown! And isn't she lovely? Oh, Ju-u-ukes!"
His heavy lips thickened outwards as he repeated the
mysterious ejaculation, and there was more colour than usual in his
dark face. He was but little older than Sylvia, and the two had played
together as small children, but he had never shown any special
preference for her as a playmate. What struck him, now, was
evidently her beauty. There was a look in his eyes, and a sort of
bristling of the meeting eyebrows that reminded Helen of his father,
and her white lids quivered for an instant at the recollection, while
she felt a little chill run through her.
The colonel also saw.
"Shall we cross over and speak to them?" he asked in a low
voice. "Or shall we just go on?"
 "Let us go on," answered Helen. "I will go and see them later.
Besides, we have passed them now. Let us go on and get into the
shade; it is dreadfully hot here."
"Won't you stop and speak to them, mother?" asked Archie
Harmon, in a tone of deep disappointment. "Why, we have not seen
them for ever so long!"
"We shall see them by and by," answered his mother. "It's too
hot to go back now."
The young man turned his head and lagged a little, looking after
the girl's graceful figure, till he stumbled awkwardly against a
curbstone. But he did not protest any more. In his dull way, he
worshipped his mother as a superior being, and hitherto he had
always obeyed her with a half-childish confidence. His arrested
intelligence still saw her as he had seen her ten years earlier, as a
sort of high and protecting wisdom incarnate for his benefit, able to
answer all questions and to provide him with unlimited pocket-
money wherewith to buy bright-coloured posters and other gaudy
things that attracted him. Up to a certain point, he could be trusted
to himself, for he was almost as far from being an idiot as he was
from being a normally thinking man. He was about as intelligent and
about as well informed as a rather unusually dull schoolboy of twelve
years or thereabouts. He did not lose his way in the streets, nor drop
his money out of his pockets, and he could speak a little French and
German which he had learned from a foreign nurse, enough to buy a
ticket or order a meal. But he had scarcely outgrown toys, and his
chief delight was to listen to the stories his mother told him. She
was not very inventive, and she told the same old ones year after
year. They always seemed to be new to him. He could remember
faces and names fairly well, and had an average recollection of
events in his own life; but it was impossible to teach him anything
from books, his handwriting was the heavy, unformed scrawl of a
child, and his spelling was one long disaster.
So far, at least, Helen had found only his intellectual deficiency
to deal with, and it was at once a perpetual shame to her and a
cause of perpetual sorrow and sympathy. But he was affectionate
and docile enough, not cruel as some such beings are, and certainly
not vicious, so far as she could see. Dull boys are rarely mischievous,
though they are sometimes cruel, for mischief implies an imagination
which dulness does not possess.
Archie Harmon had one instinct, or quality, which redeemed him
from total insignificance and raised him above the level of an
amiable and harmless animal. He had a natural horror of taking life,
and felt the strongest possible impulse to save it at any risk to
himself. His mother was never quite sure whether he made any
distinction between the value of existence to a man, and its worth to
an animal, or even to an insect. He seemed not to connect it with its
possessor, but to look upon it as something to be preserved for its
own sake, under all circumstances, wherever it manifested itself. At
ordinary times he was sufficiently cautious for his own safety, and
would hesitate to risk a fall or scratch in climbing, where most boys
would have been quite unaware of such possibilities. But at the sight
of any living thing in danger, a reckless instinct to save it took
possession of him, and his sluggish nature was roused to sudden
and direct activity, without any intermediate process of thought. He
had again and again given proof of courage that might have shamed
most men. He had saved a child from drowning in the North River,
diving after it from a ferryboat running at full speed, and he had
twice stopped bolting horses--once, a pair with a heavy brougham in
the streets of New York, and once, in the park, a dog-cart driven by
a lady. On the first of these two occasions he had been a good deal
cut and bruised, and had narrowly escaped with his life. His mother
was too brave not to be proud of his deeds, but with each one her
fears for his own daily safety increased.
He was never violent, but he occasionally showed a strength
that surprised her, though he never seemed to care about exhibiting
it. Once, she had fallen and hurt her foot, and he had carried her up
many stairs like a child. After that, she had felt now and then as
men must feel who tame wild beasts and control them.
He worshipped her, and she saw that he looked with a sort of
pity on other women, young or old, as not worthy to be compared
with her in any way. She had begun to hope that she might be
spared the humiliation of ever seeing him in love, despised or pitied,
as the case might be, by some commonplace, pretty girl with white
teeth and pink cheeks. She feared that, and she feared lest he
should some day taste drink, and follow his father's ways to the
same ruin. But as yet he had been like a child.
It was no wonder that she shuddered when, as he looked at
Sylvia Strahan, she saw something in his face which had never been
there before and heard that queer word of his uttered in such a
tone. She wondered whether Colonel Wimpole had heard and seen,
too, and for some time the three walked on in silence.
"Will you come in?" asked Mrs. Harmon, as they reached the
door of her hotel.
 The colonel followed her to her little sitting-room, and Archie
disappeared; for the conversation of those whom he still, in his own
thoughts, regarded as 'grown-up people' wearied him beyond
bearing.
"My dear friend," said Colonel Wimpole, when they were alone,
"I am so very glad to see you!"
He held one of her hands in his while he spoke the conventional
words, his eyes were a little misty, and there was a certain tone in
his voice which no one but Helen Harmon had ever heard.
"I am glad, too," she said simply, and she drew away her hand
from his with a sort of deprecation which he only half understood,
for he only knew that half of the truth which was in himself.
They sat down as they had sat many a time in their lives, at a
little distance from each other, and just so that each had to turn the
head a little to face the other. It was easier to talk in that position
because there was a secret between them, besides many things
which were not secrets, but of which they did not wish to speak.
"It is terribly long since we last met," said the colonel. "Do you
remember? I went to see you in New York the day before we started
for Japan. You had just come back from the country, and your house
was in confusion."
"Oh yes, I remember," replied Mrs. Harmon. "Yes, it is terribly
long; but nothing is changed."
"Nothing?" The colonel meant to ask her about Harmon, and
she understood.
"Nothing," she answered gravely. "There was no improvement
when the doctor wrote, on the first of last month. I shall have
another report in a day or two. But they are all exactly alike. He will
just live on, as he is now, to the end of his life."
"To the end of his life," repeated the colonel, in a low voice, and
the two turned their heads and looked at each other.
"He is in perfect health," said Mrs. Harmon, looking away again.
She drew out a long hat-pin and lifted her hat from her head
with both hands, for it was a hot afternoon, and she had come into
the sitting-room as she was. The colonel noticed how neatly and
carefully she did the thing. It seemed almost unnecessary to do it so
slowly.
"It is so hot," she said, as she laid the hat on the table.
She was pale now, perhaps with the heat of which she
complained, and he saw how tired her face was.
"Is this state of things really to go on?" he asked suddenly.
She moved a little, but did not look at him.
"I am not discontented," she said. "I am not--not altogether
unhappy."
"Why should you not be released from it all?" asked the colonel.
It was the first time he had ever suggested such a possibility,
and she looked away from him.
"It is not as if it had all been different before he lost his mind,"
he went on, seeing that she did not answer at once. "It is not as if
you had not had fifty good reasons for a divorce before he finally
went mad. What is the use of denying that?"
"Please do not talk about a divorce," said Mrs. Harmon, steadily.
"Please forgive me, if I do, my dear friend," returned the
colonel, almost hotly; for he was suddenly convinced that he was
right, and when he was right it was hard to stop him. "You have
spent half your life in sacrificing all of yourself. Surely you have a
right to the other half. There is not even the excuse that you might
still do him some good by remaining his wife in name. His mind is
gone, and he could not recognize you if he saw you."
"What should I gain by such a step, then?" asked Helen, turning
upon him rather suddenly. "Do you think I would marry again?"
There was an effort in her voice. "I hate to talk in this way, for I
detest the idea of divorce, and the principle of it, and all its
consequences. I believe it is going to be the ruin of half the world, in
the end. It is a disgrace, in whatever way you look at it!"
"A large part of the world does not seem to think so," observed
the colonel, rather surprised by her outbreak, though in any case
excepting her own he might have agreed with her.
"It would be better if the whole world thought so," she observed
with energy. "Do you know what divorce means in the end? It means
the abolition of marriage laws altogether; it means reducing
marriage to a mere experiment which may last a few days, a few
weeks, or a few months, according to the people who try it. There
are men and women, already, who have been divorced and married
again half a dozen times. Before the next generation is old that will
be the rule and not the exception."
"Dear me!" exclaimed Colonel Wimpole. "I hope not!"
"I know you agree with me," said Mrs. Harmon, with conviction.
"You only argue on the other side because--" She stopped short.
"Why?" He did not look at her as he asked the question.
"Because you are my best friend," she answered, after a
moment's hesitation, "and because you have got it into your head
that I should be happier. I cannot imagine why. It would make no
difference at all in my life--now."
The last word fell from her lips with a regretful tone and
lingered a little on the air like the sad singing of a bell's last note,
not broken by a following stroke. But the colonel was not satisfied.
"It may make all the difference, even now," he said. "Suppose
that Harmon were to recover."
Helen did not start, for the thought had been long familiar to
her, but she pressed her lips together a little and let her head rest
against the back of her chair, half closing her eyes.
"It is possible," continued the colonel. "You know as well as I do
that doctors are not always right, and there is nothing about which
so little is really certain as insanity."
"I do not think it is possible."
"But it is, nevertheless. Imagine what it would be, if you began
to hear that he was better and better, and finally well, and, at last,
that there was no reason for keeping him in confinement."
Mrs. Harmon's eyes were quite closed now, as she leaned back.
It was horrible to her to wish that her husband might remain mad till
he died, yet she thought of what her own life must be if he should
recover. She was silent, fighting it out in her heart. It was not easy.
It was hard even to see what she should wish, for every human
being has a prime right of self-preservation, against which no
argument avails, save that of a divinely good and noble cause to be
defended. Yet the moral wickedness of praying that Harmon might
be a madman all the rest of his life frightened her. Throughout
twenty years and more she had faced suffering and shame without
flinching and without allowing herself one thought of retaliation or
hatred. She had been hardened to the struggle and was not a
woman to yield, if it should begin again, but she shrank from it, now,
as the best and bravest may shrink at the thought of torture, though
they would not groan in slow fire.
"Just think what it might be," resumed Colonel Wimpole. "Why
not look the facts in the face while there is time? If he were let out,
he would come back to you, and you would receive him, for I know
what you are. You would think it right to take him back because you
promised long ago to love, honour, and obey him. To love, to honour,
and to obey--Henry Harmon!"
The colonel's steady grey eyes flashed for an instant, and his
gentle voice was suddenly thick and harsh as he pronounced the last
words. They meant terribly much to the woman who heard them,
and in her distress she leaned forward in her seat and put up her
hands to her temples, as though she had pain, gently pushing back
the heavy hair she wore so low on her forehead. Wimpole had never
seen her so much moved, and the gesture itself was unfamiliar to
him. He did not remember to have ever seen her touch her hair with
her hands, as some women do. He watched her now, as he
continued to speak.
"You did all three," he said. "You honoured him, you loved him,
and you obeyed him for a good many years. But he neither loved,
nor honoured, nor cherished you. I believe that is the man's part of
the contract, is it not? And marriage is always called a contract, is it
not? Now, in any contract, both parties must do what they have
promised, so that if one party fails, the other is not bound. Is not
that true? And, Heaven knows, Harmon failed badly enough!"
 "Don't! Please don't take it that way! No, no, no! Marriage is not
a contract; it is a bond, a vow--something respected by man
because it is sacred before God. If Henry failed a thousand times
more, I should be just as much bound to keep my promise."
Her head sank still more forward, and her hands pushed her
hair straight back from the temples.
"You will never persuade me of that," answered the colonel.
"You will never make me believe--" He stopped short, for as he
watched her, he saw what he had never seen before, a deep and
crooked scar high on her forehead. "What is that?" he asked
suddenly, leaning towards her, his eyes fixed on the ugly mark.
She started, stared at him, dropping her hands, realized what
he had seen, and then instantly turned away. He could see that her
fingers trembled as she tried to draw her hair down again. It was
not like her to be vain, and he guessed at once that she had some
reason other than vanity for hiding the old wound.
"What is that scar?" he asked again, determined to have an
answer. "I never saw it before."
"It is a--I was hurt long ago--" She hesitated, for she did not
know how to lie.
"Not so very long ago," said the colonel. "I know something
about scars, and that one is not many years old. It does not look as
though you had got it in a fall either. Besides, if you had, you would
not mind telling me, would you?"
"Please don't ask me about it! I cannot tell you about it."
The colonel's face was hardening quickly. The lines came out in
it stern and straight, as when, at evening, a sudden frost falls upon
a still water, and the first ice-needles shoot out, clear and stiff. Then
came the certainty, and Wimpole looked as he had looked long ago
in battle.
"Harmon did that," he said at last, and the wrathful thought that
followed was not the less fierce because it was unspoken.
Helen's hands shook now, for no one had ever known how she
had been wounded. But she said nothing, though she knew that her
silence meant her assent. Wimpole rose suddenly, straight as a rifle,
and walked to the window, turning his back upon her. He could say
things there, under his breath, which she could not understand, and
he said them, earnestly.
"He did not know what he was doing," Helen said, rather
unsteadily.
The colonel turned on his heels at the window, facing her, and
his lips still moved slowly, though no words came. Helen looked at
him and knew that she was glad of his silent anger. Not realizing
what she was thinking of, she wondered what sort of death Harmon
might have died if Richard Wimpole had seen him strike her to the
ground with a cut-glass decanter. For a moment the cloak of mercy
and forgiveness was rent from head to heel. The colonel would have
killed the man with those rather delicate looking hands of his, talking
to him all the time in a low voice. That was what she thought, and
perhaps she was not very far wrong. Even now, it was well for
Harmon that he was safe in his asylum on the other side of an
ocean.
It was some time before Wimpole could speak. Then he came
and stood before Helen.
"You will stay a few days? You do not mean to go away at
once?" he said, with a question.
 "Yes."
"Then I think I shall go away now, and come and see you again
later."
He took her hand rather mechanically and left the room. But
she understood and was grateful.

CHAPTER III

When Archie Harmon disappeared and left the colonel and his
mother together, she supposed that he had gone to his room to
sleep, for he slept a great deal, or to amuse himself after his
fashion, and she did not ask him where he was going. She knew
what his favourite amusement was, though he did his best to keep it
a secret from her.
There was a certain mysterious box, which he had always
owned, and took everywhere with him, and of which he always had
the key in his pocket. It took up a good deal of space, but he could
never be persuaded to leave it behind when they went abroad.
To-day he went to his room, as usual, locked the door, took off
his coat, and got the box out of a corner. Then he sat down on the
floor and opened it. He took out some child's building-blocks, some
tin soldiers, much the worse for wear, for he was ashamed to buy
new ones, and a small and gaudily painted tin cart, in which an
impossible lady and gentleman of papier-mâché, dressed in blue,
grey, and yellow, sat leaning back with folded arms and staring,
painted eyes. There were a few other toys besides, all packed away
with considerable neatness, for Archie was not slovenly.
He sat cross-legged on the floor, a strong grown man of nearly
twenty years, and began to play with his blocks. His eyes fixed
themselves on his occupation, as he built up a little gateway with an
arch and set red-legged French soldiers on each side of it for
sentinels. He had played the same game a thousand times already,
but the satisfaction had not diminished. One day in a hotel he had
forgotten to lock the door, and his mother had opened it by mistake,
thinking it was that of her own room. Before he could look round she
had shut it again, but she had seen, and it had been like a knife-
thrust. She kept his secret, but she lost heart from that day. He was
still a child, and was always to be one.
Yet there was perhaps something more of intelligence in the
childish play than she had guessed. He was lacking in mind, but not
an idiot; he sometimes said and did things which were certainly far
beyond the age of toys. Possibly the attraction lay in a sort of
companionship which he felt in the society of the blocks, and the tin
soldiers, and the little papier-mâché lady and gentleman. He felt that
they understood what he meant and would answer him if they could
speak, and would expect no more of him than he could give. Grown
people always seemed to expect a great deal more, and looked at
him strangely when he called Berlin the capital of Austria and asked
why Brutus and Cassius murdered Alexander the Great. The toy lady
and gentleman were quite satisfied if their necks were not broken in
the cunningly devised earthquake which always brought the block
house down into a heap when he had looked at it long enough and
was already planning another.
 Besides, he did all his best thinking among his toys, and had
invented ways of working out results at which he could not possibly
have arrived by a purely mental process. He could add and subtract,
for instance, with the bits of wood, and, by a laborious method, he
could even do simple multiplication, quite beyond him with paper
and pencil. Above all, he could name the tin soldiers after people he
had met, and make them do anything he pleased, by a sort of
rudimentary theatrical instinct that was not altogether childish.
To-day he built a house as usual, and, as usual, after some
reflexion as to the best means of ruining it by taking out a single
block, he pulled it down with a crash. But he did not at once begin
another. On the contrary, he sat looking at the ruins for a long time
in a rather disconsolate way, and then all at once began to pack all
the toys into the box again.
"I don't suppose it matters," he said aloud. "But of course Sylvia
would think me a baby if she saw me playing with blocks."
And he made haste to pack them all away, locking the box and
putting the key into his pocket. Then he went and looked through
the half-closed blinds into the sunny street, and he could see the
new bridge not far away.
"I don't care what mother thinks!" he exclaimed. "I'm going to
find her again."
He opened his door softly, and a moment later he was in the
street, walking rapidly towards the bridge. At a distance he looked
well. It was only when quite near to him that one was aware of an
undefinable ungainliness in his face and figure--something blank and
meaningless about him, that suggested a heavy wooden doll dressed
in good clothes. In military countries one often receives that
impression. A fine-looking infantry soldier, erect, broad shouldered,
bright eyed, spotless, and scrupulously neat, comes marching along
and excites one's admiration for a moment. Then, when close to
him, one misses something which ought to go with such manly
bearing. The fellow is only a country lout, perhaps, hardly able to
read or write, and possessed of an intelligence not much beyond the
highest development of instinct. Drill, exercise, and the fear of black
bread and water under arrest, have produced a fine piece of military
machinery, but they could not create a mind, nor even the
appearance of intelligence, in the wooden face. In a year or two the
man will lay aside his smart uniform and go back to the class
whence he came. One may give iron the shape and general look of
steel, but not the temper and the springing quality.
Archie Harmon looked straight ahead of him as he crossed the
bridge and followed the long street that runs beside the water, past
the big hotels and the gaudy awnings of the provincially smart
shops. At first he only looked along the pavement, searching among
the many people who passed. Then as he remembered how Colonel
Wimpole had seen him through a shop window, he stopped before
each of the big plate glass ones and peered curiously into the
shadows within.
At last, in a milliner's, he saw Sylvia and Miss Wimpole, and his
heavy face grew red, and his eyes glared oddly as he stood
motionless outside, under the awning, looking in. His lips went out a
little, as he pronounced his own especial word very softly.
"Jukes!"
He stood first on one foot and then on the other, like a boy at a
pastry cook's, hesitating, while devouring with his eyes. He could see
that Sylvia was buying a hat. She turned a little each way as she
tried it on before a big mirror, putting up her hands and moving her
arms in a way that showed all the lines of her perfect figure.
Archie went in. He had been brought up by his mother, and
chiefly by women, and he had none of that shyness about entering a
women's establishment, like a milliner's, which most boys and many
men feel so strongly. He walked in boldly and spoke as soon as he
was within hearing.
"Miss Sylvia! I say! Miss Sylvia--don't you know me?"
The question was a little premature, for Sylvia had barely
caught sight of him when he asked it. When she had recognized
him, she did not look particularly pleased.
"It's poor Archie Harmon, my dear," said Miss Wimpole, in a low
voice, but quite audibly.
"Oh, I have not forgotten you!" said Sylvia, trying to speak
pleasantly as she gave her hand. "But where in the world did you
come from? And what are you doing in a milliner's shop?"
"I happened to see you through the window, so I just came in
to say how do you do. There's no harm in my coming in, is there?
You look all right. You're perfectly lovely."
His eyes were so bright that Sylvia felt oddly uncomfortable.
"Oh no," she answered, with an indifference she did not feel.
"It's all right--I mean--I wish you would go away now, and come and
see us at the hotel, if you like, by and by."
"Can't I stay and talk to you? Why can't I stay and talk to her,
Miss Wimpole?" he asked, appealing to the latter. "I want to stay and
talk to her. We are awfully old friends, you know; aren't we, Sylvia?
You don't mind my calling you Sylvia, instead of Miss Sylvia, do
you?"
"Oh no! I don't mind that!" Sylvia laughed a little. "But do
please go away now!"
"Well--if I must--" he broke off, evidently reluctant to do as she
wished. "I say," he began again with a sudden thought, "you like
that hat you're trying on, don't you?"
Instantly Sylvia, who was a woman, though a very young one,
turned to the glass again, settled the hat on her head and looked at
herself critically.
"The ribbons stick up too much, don't they?" she asked,
speaking to Miss Wimpole, and quite forgetting Archie Harmon's
presence. "Yes, of course they do! The ribbons stick up too much,"
she repeated to the milliner in French.
A brilliant idea had struck Archie Harmon. He was already at the
desk, where a young woman in black received the payments of
passing customers with a grieved manner.
"She says the ribbons stick up too much," he said to the person
at the desk. "You get them to stick up just right, will you? The way
she wants them. How much did you say the hat was? Eighty francs?
There it is. Just say that it's paid for, when she asks for the bill."
The young woman in black raked in the note and the bits of
gold he gave her, catching them under her hard, thin thumb on the
edge of the desk, and counting them as she slipped them into her
little drawer. She looked rather curiously at Archie, and there was
still some surprise in her sour face when he was already on the
pavement outside. He stopped under the awning again, and peered
through the window for a last look at the grey figure before the
mirror, but he fled precipitately when Sylvia turned as though she
were going to look at him. He was thoroughly delighted with himself.
It was just what Colonel Wimpole had done about the miniature, he
thought; and then, a hat was so much more useful than a piece of
painted ivory.
In a quarter of an hour he was in his own room again, sitting
quite quietly on a chair by the window, and thinking how happy he
was, and how pleased Sylvia must be by that time.
But Sylvia's behaviour when she found out what he had done
would have damped his innocent joy, if he had been looking through
the windows of the shop, instead of sitting in his own room. Her
father, the admiral, had a hot temper, and she had inherited some of
it.
"Impertinent young idiot!" she exclaimed, when she realized
that he had actually paid for the hat, and the angry blood rushed to
her face. "What in the world--" She could not find words.
"He is half-witted, poor boy," interrupted Miss Wimpole. "Take
the hat, and I will manage to give his mother the money."
"Betty Foy and her idiot boy over again!" said Sylvia, with all the
brutal cruelty of extreme youth. "'That all who view the idiot in his
glory'--" As the rest of the quotation was not applicable, she stopped
and stamped her little foot in speechless indignation.
"The young gentleman doubtless thought to give Mademoiselle
pleasure," suggested the milliner, suavely. "He is doubtless a
relation--"
"He is not a relation at all!" exclaimed Sylvia in English, to Miss
Wimpole. "My relations are not idiots, thank Heaven! And it's the
only one of all those hats that I could wear! Oh, Aunt Rachel, what
shall I do? I can't possibly take the thing, you know! And I must
have a hat. I've come all the way from Japan with this old one, and
it isn't fit to be seen."
"There is no reason why you should not take this one," said
Miss Wimpole, philosophically. "I promise you that Mrs. Harmon shall
have the money by to-night, since she is here. Your Uncle Richard
will go and see her at once, of course, and he can manage it. They
are on terms of intimacy," she added rather primly, for Helen
Harmon was the only person in the world of whom she had ever
been jealous.
"You always use such dreadfully correct language, Aunt Rachel,"
answered the young girl. "Why don't you say that they are old
friends? 'Terms of intimacy' sounds so severe, somehow."
"You seem impatient, my dear," observed Miss Wimpole, as
though stating a fact about nature.
"I am," answered Sylvia. "I know I am. You would be impatient
if an escaped lunatic rushed into a shop and paid for your gloves, or
your shoes, or your hat, and then rushed off again, goodness knows
where. Wouldn't you? Don't you think I am right?"
"You had better tell them to send the hat to the hotel,"
suggested Aunt Rachel, not paying the least attention to Sylvia's
appeal for justification.
"If I must take it, I may as well wear it at once, and look like a
human being," said Sylvia. "That is, if you will really promise to send
Mrs. Harmon the eighty francs at once."
"I promise," answered Miss Wimpole, solemnly, and as she had
never broken her word in her life, Sylvia felt that the difficulty was at
an end.
 The milliner smiled sweetly, and bowed them out.
"All the same," said Sylvia, as she walked up the street with the
pretty hat on her head, "it is an outrageous piece of impertinence.
Idiots ought not to be allowed to go about alone."
"I should think you would pity the poor fellow," said Miss
Wimpole, with a sort of severe kindliness, that was genuine but
irritating.
"Oh yes! I will pity him by and by, when I'm not angry,"
answered the young girl. "Of course--it's all right, Aunt Rachel, and
I'm not depraved nor heartless, really. Only, it was very irritating."
"You had better not say anything about it to your Uncle Richard,
my dear. He is so fond of Archie's mother that he will feel very badly
about it. I will break it to him gently."
"Would he?" asked Sylvia, in surprise. "About herself, I should
understand--but about that boy! I can't see why he should mind."
"He 'minds,' as you call it, everything that has to do with Mrs.
Harmon."
Sylvia glanced at her companion, but said nothing, and they
walked on in silence for some time. It was still hot, for the sun had
not sunk behind the mountains; but the street was full of people,
who walked about indifferent to the temperature, because
Switzerland is supposed to be a cold country, and they therefore
thought that it was their own fault if they felt warm. This is the
principle upon which nine people out of ten see the world when they
go abroad. And there was a fine crop of European and American
varieties of the tourist taking the air on that afternoon, men,
women, and children. The men who had huge field-glasses slung
over their shoulders by straps predominated, and one, by whom
Sylvia was particularly struck, was arrayed in blue serge
knickerbockers, patent-leather walking-boots, and a very shiny high
hat. But there were also occasional specimens of what she called the
human being--men in the ordinary garments of civilization, and not
provided with opera-glasses. There were, moreover, young and
middle-aged women in short skirts, boots with soles half an inch
thick, complexions in which the hue of the boiled lobster vied with
the deeper tone of the stewed cherry, bearing alpenstocks that rang
and clattered on the pavement; women who, in the state of life to
which Heaven had called them, would have gone to Margate or
Staten Island for a Sunday outing, but who had rebelled against
providence, and forced the men of their families to bring them
abroad. And the men generally walked a little behind them and had
no alpenstocks, but carried shawls and paper bundles, badges of
servitude, and hoped that they might not meet acquaintances in
Lucerne, because their women looked like angry cooks and had no
particular luggage. Now and then a smart old gentleman with an
eyeglass, in immaculate grey or white, threaded his way along the
pavement, with an air of excessive boredom; or a young couple
passed by, in the recognizable newness of honeymoon clothes, the
young wife talking perpetually, and evidently laughing at the ill-
dressed women, while the equally young husband answered in
monosyllables, and was visibly nervous lest his bride's remarks
should be overheard and give offence.
Then there were children, obtrusively English children, taken
abroad to be shown the miserable inferiority of the non-British
world, and to learn that every one who had not yellow hair and blue
eyes was a 'nasty foreigner,'--unless, of course, the individual
happened to be English, in which case nothing was said about hair
and complexion. And also there were the vulgar little children of the
not long rich, repulsively disagreeable to the world in general, but
pathetic in the eyes of thinking men and women. They are the
sprouting shoots of the gold-tree, beings predestined never to enjoy,
because they will be always able to buy what strong men fight for,
and will never learn to enjoy what is really to be had only for money;
and the measure of value will not be in their hands and heads, but
in bank-books, out of which their manners have been bought with
mingled affection and vanity. Surely, if anything is more intolerable
than a vulgar woman, it is a vulgar child. The poor little thing is
produced by all nations and races, from the Anglo-Saxon to the Slav.
Its father was happy in the struggle that ended in success. When it
grows old, its own children will perhaps be happy in the sort of
refined existence which wealth can bring in the third generation. But
the child of the man grown suddenly rich is a living misfortune
between two happinesses: neither a worker nor an enjoyer; having
neither the satisfaction of the one, nor the pleasures of the other;
hated by its inferiors in fortune, and a source of amusement to its
ethic and æsthetic betters.
Sylvia had never thought much about the people she passed in
a crowd. Thought is generally the result of suffering of some kind,
bodily or intellectual, and she had but little acquaintance with either.
She had travelled much, and had been very happy until the present
time, having been shown the world on bright days and by pleasant
paths. But to-day she was not happy, and she began to wonder how
many of the men and women in the street had what she had heard
called a 'secret care.' Her eyes had been red when she had at last
yielded to Miss Wimpole's entreaties to open the door, but the
redness was gone already, and when she had tried on the hat before
the glass she had seen with a little vanity, mingled with a little
disappointment, that she looked very much as usual, after all.
Indeed, there had been more than one moment when she had
forgotten her troubles because the ribbons on the new hat stuck up
too much. Yet she was really unhappy, and sad at heart. Perhaps
some of the people she passed, even the women with red faces,
dusty skirts, and clattering alpenstocks, were unhappy too.
She was not a foolish girl, nor absurdly romantic, nor full of silly
sentimentalities, any more than she was in love with Colonel
Wimpole in the true sense of the word. For she knew nothing of its
real meaning, and, apart from that meaning, what she felt for him
filled all the conditions proposed by her imagination. If one could
classify the ways by which young people pass from childhood to
young maturity, one might say that they are brought up by the head,
by the imagination, or by the heart, and one might infer that their
subsequent lives are chiefly determined by that one of the three
which has been the leading-string. Sylvia's imagination had generally
had the upper hand, and it had been largely fed and cultivated by
her guardian, though quite unintentionally on his part. His love of
artistic things led him to talk of them, and his chivalric nature found
sources of enthusiasm in lofty ideals, while his own life, directed and
moved as it was by a secret, unchanging and self-sacrificing
devotion to one good woman, might have served as a model for any
man. Modest, and not much inclined to think of himself, he did not
realize that although the highest is quite beyond any one's reach,
the search after it is always upward, and may lead a good man very
far.
Sylvia saw the result, and loved it for its own sake with an
attachment so strong that it made her blind to the more natural sort
of humanity which the colonel seemed to have outgrown, and which,
after all, is the world as we inherit it, to love it, or hate it, or be
indifferent to it, but to live with it, whether we will or not. He fulfilled
her ideal, because it was an ideal which he himself had created in
her mind, and to which he himself nearly approached. Logically
speaking, she was in a vicious circle, and she liked what he had
taught her to like, but liked it more than he knew she did.
Sylvia glanced at Miss Wimpole sideways. She knew her simple
story, and wondered whether she herself was to live the same sort
of life. The idea rather frightened her, to tell the truth, for she knew
the aridity of the elderly maiden lady's existence, and dreaded
anything like it. But it was very simple and logical and actual. Miss
Wimpole had loved a man who had been killed. Of course she had
never married, nor ever thought of loving any one else. It was
perfectly simple. And Sylvia loved, and was not loved, as she told
herself, and she also must look forward to a perpetually grey life.
Then, suddenly, she felt how young she was, and she knew that
the colonel was almost an old man, and her heart rebelled. But this
seemed disloyal, and she blushed at the word 'unfaithful,' which
spoke itself in her sensitive conscience with the cruel power to hurt
which such words have against perfect innocence. Besides, it was as
if she were quarrelling with what she liked, because she could not
have it, and she felt as though she were thinking childishly, which is
a shame in youth's eyes.
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