"Well--aw--but cannot he keep his good qualities to their proper sphere? He is not an addition of much value to our society."
"Take care, Mr. St. Leger! He is an American; he cannot be set down with the servants."
"Why not, if his education and habits make that his place?"
"Oh, but they do not."
"It seems to me they do, if you will pardon me. This fellow has never been in any gentleman's society, except your father's."
"He will be a gentleman himself, in all essentials, one day, Mr. St.
Leger. There is the difference. The capability is in him, and the ambition, and the independent and generous feeling. The foundations are all there."
"I'll confess the house when I see it."
"Ay, but you must in the meantime do nothing to hinder its building."
"Why must not I?" said Lawrence, laughing. "It is not my part to lay hold on a trowel and be a social mason. Still less is it yours."
"Oh, there you are wrong. I think it is everybody's part."
"Do you? But fancy, what a dreadful thing life would be in that way.
Perpetual rubbish and confusion. And pardon me--can you pardon me?--that is my idea of America."
"I do not think it is a just one," said Dolly, as Rupert now drew near again.
"Is there not perpetual building going on there, of this kind as well as of the more usual?"
"Perhaps. I was very young when I left home. But what then?"
"Nothing. I have a preference for order and quiet, and things in their places."
"At that rate, you know," said Dolly, "nothing would ever have been built anywhere. I grant you, the order and quiet are pleasant when your own house is all that you desire. But don't you want to see your neighbour's house come up?"
"No," said Lawrence, laughing. "I have a better prospect from my windows if he remains as he is."
CHAPTER XVIII.
A SQUARE PARTY.
The passage was stormy and long. Mrs. Copley and her daughter were both soon fully occupied with attending to their own sensations; and neither Rupert nor Lawrence had any more power to annoy them till they reached quiet water again. But even in the depths of sea misery, Dolly's deeper distress broke forth. "My father! my father! What shall I do to save my father!" she was crying in her heart; all the while with a sense that every hour was bringing her further from him and from the chance of saving him.
Still, Dolly was seventeen; and at seventeen one cannot be always cast down; and when rough water and troubled skies, and ship noises and smells, were all left behind, as it seemed, in the German ocean, and Dolly found herself one morning in the hotel at Rotterdam, eating a very good breakfast, her spirits sprang up in spite of herself. The retiring wave of bodily misery carried with it for the moment all other. The sun was shining again; and after breakfast they stood together at one of the windows looking out upon the new world they had come to. Their hotel faced the quay: they saw before them an extent of water glittering in the sunshine, steamers waiting for their time of sailing, small craft flying about in all directions, and activity, bustle, and business filling every nook and corner of the scene.
Dolly's heart leaped up; the stir was very inspiriting; and how lovely the sunshine was, and how pleasant the novelty! And then, to think that she had but touched the shore of novelty; that all Central Europe was behind her as she stood looking out on the quay!--Her father would surely catch them up somewhere, and then all would go well. She was silent, in the full joy of seeing.
"What's the next move?" said Lawrence. He did not care for Rotterdam quay. He had been looking at Dolly, charmed with the delicate, fresh picture she made. The line of frank pleasure on her lips, it was as frank as a child's, and the eyes were as absorbed; and yet they were grave, womanly eyes, he knew, not easy to cheat, with all their simplicity. The mingling of qualities was delicious, and not to be found elsewhere in all his sphere of experience. Even her little hands were full of character, with a certain precision of action and calm of repose which gave to all their movements a certain thorough-bred grace, which Lawrence could recognise though he could not analyse. Then the little head with its masses of wavy hair was so lovely, and the slim figure so full of that same certainty of action and grace of rest which he admired; there was nothing undecided about Dolly, and yet there was nothing done by rule. That again was a combination he did not know elsewhere. Her dress--he considered that too. It was the simplest of travelling dresses, with nothing to mark it, or draw attention, or make it unfit for its special use--in perfectly good taste. How did she know? thought Lawrence; for he knew as well as I do that she had not learned it of her mother. There was nothing marked about Mrs. Copley's appearance; nevertheless she lacked that harmony of simple good taste which was all over Dolly. Lawrence looked, until he saw that Rupert was looking too; and then he thought it was time to break up the exercise.
"What is the next move?" he said.
"We have not settled that," said Dolly. "We could think of nothing on board ship. Mother, dear, now we are here, which way shall we go?"
"I don't know anything about ways," said Mrs. Copley. "Not here in this strange country."
"Then put it another way," said Lawrence. "Where do you want to go?"
"Why, to Venice," said Mrs. Copley, looking at him.
"Of course; but you want to see something by the way?"
"I left all that to Mr. Copley," said she, half whimpering. "When do you think he will come, Mr. St. Leger? I depended on my husband."
"He will come soon," said Lawrence. "But I would not recommend staying in Rotterdam to wait for him. What do you say to our asking him to meet us in Wiesbaden? To be sure, the season is over."
"Wiesbaden?" said Mrs. Copley.
"Wiesbaden?" cried Dolly. "Oh no, Mr. St. Leger! Not there, nor in any such place!"
"The season is over, Miss Dolly."
"I don't want to go to Wiesbaden. Mother, you wanted to see something--what was it?"
"Waterloo"---- Mrs. Copley began.
"That would take us out of the way of everything--down into Belgium--and you would not see anything when you got there, Mrs.
Copley. Only some fields; there is nothing left of the battle."
"But if I saw the fields, I could imagine the battle," said Mrs. Copley.
"Could you? Let us imagine something pleasanter. You don't want to go up the Rhine?"
"I don't want to go anywhere in a boat, Mr. St. Leger. I am going to keep on land, now I've got there. But I was thinking.--Somebody told me of some wonderful painted glass, somewhere near Rotterdam, and told me not to miss seeing it. Where is it?"
"I know," said Dolly; "the place was Gonda; in the cathedral. But where is Gonda?"
"Nine miles off," said Rupert.
"Then that's where I want to go," said Mrs. Copley. "I have heard all my life of painted glass; now I should like to see what it amounts to."
"Perhaps that would take us out of our way too, mother."
"I thought we just said we had no way settled," said Mrs. Copley in an irritated tone. "What's the use of being here, if we can't see anything now we are here? Nine miles isn't much, anyhow."
"We will go there, dear," said Dolly. "We can go so far and come back to this place, if necessary."
"And there is another thing I want to see, now we are here," Mrs.
Copley went on. "I want to go to Dresden."
"Dresden!" cried St. Leger. "What's at Dresden?"