I had almost forgotten them, but I must keep up the character for Sidney's sake. But this is the last act, my dear. To- morrow I'll turn over the part of explorer to the real actor … to the star."
"Out Of Thun."
1.—BESSIE'S BEHAVIOUR.
On one point Miss Bessie Durand agreed with Alexander von Humboldt—in fact, she even went further than that celebrated man, for while he asserted that Thun was one of the three most beautiful spots on earth, Bessie held that this Swiss town was absolutely the most perfectly lovely place she had ever visited. Her reason for this conclusion differed from that of Humboldt. The latter, being a mere man, had been influenced by the situation of the town, the rapid, foaming river, the placid green lake, the high mountains all around, the snow-peaks to the east, the ancient castle overlooking everything, and the quaint streets with the pavements up at the first floors.
Bessie had an eye for these things, of course, but while waterfalls and profound ravines were all very well in their way, her hotel had to be filled with the right sort of company before any spot on earth was entirely satisfactory to Bessie. She did not care to be out of humanity's reach, nor to take her small journeys alone; she liked to hear the sweet music of speech, and if she started at the sound of her own, Bessie would have been on the jump all day, for she was a brilliant and effusive talker.
So it happened that, in touring through Switzerland, Bessie and her mother (somehow people always placed Bessie's name before that of her mother, who was a quiet little unobtrusive woman) stopped at Thun, intending to stay for a day, as most people do, but when Bessie found the big hotel simply swarming with nice young men, she told her mother that the local guide-book asserted that Humboldt had once said Thun was one of the three most lovely places on earth, and, therefore, they ought to stay there and enjoy its beauties, which they at once proceeded to do. It must not be imagined from this that Bessie was particularly fond of young men. Such was far from being the case. She merely liked to have them propose to her, which was certainly a laudable ambition, but she invariably refused them, which went to show that she was not, as her enemies stated, always in love with somebody. The fact was that Miss Bessie Durand's motives were entirely misunderstood by an unappreciative world. Was she to be blamed because young men wanted her to marry them? Certainly not. It was not her fault that she was pretty and sweet, and that young men, as a rule, liked to talk with her rather than with any one else in the neighbourhood. Many of her detractors would very likely have given much to have had Bessie's various charms of face, figure, and manner. This is a jealous world, and people delight in saying spiteful little things about those more favoured by Providence than themselves. It must, however, be admitted that Bessie had a certain cooing, confidential way with people that may have misled some of the young men who ultimately proposed to her into imagining that they were special favourites with the young lady. She took a kindly interest in their affairs, and very shortly after making her acquaintance, most young men found themselves pouring into her sympathetic ear all their hopes and aspirations. Bessie's ear was very shell-like and beautiful as well as sympathetic, so that one can hardly say the young men were to blame any more than Bessie was. Nearly everybody in this world wants to talk of himself or herself, as the case may be, and so it is no wonder that a person like Bessie, who is willing to listen while other people talk of themselves, is popular. Among the many billions who inhabit this planet, there are too many talkers and too few listeners; and although Bessie was undoubtedly a brilliant talker on occasion, there is no doubt that her many victories resulted more from her appreciative qualities as a talented listener than from the entertaining charms of her conversation. Those women who have had so much to say about Bessie's behaviour might well take a leaf from her book in this respect. They would find, if they had even passably good looks, that proposals would be more frequent. Of course there is no use in denying that Bessie's eyes had much to do with bringing young men to the point. Her eyes were large and dark, and they had an entrancing habit of softening just at the right moment, when there came into them a sweet, trustful, yearning look that was simply impossible to resist. They gazed thus at a young man when he was telling in low whispers how he hoped to make the world wiser and better by his presence in it, or when he narrated some incident of great danger in which he took part, where (unconsciously, perhaps, on the teller's part) his own heroism was shown forth to the best possible advantage. Then Bessie's eyes would grow large and humid and tender, and a subdued light would come into them as she hung breathlessly on his words. Did not Desdemona capture Othello merely by listening to a recital of his own daring deeds, which were, doubtless, very greatly exaggerated?
The young men at the big hotel in Thun were clad mostly in knickerbockers, and many of them had alpenstocks of their own. It soon became their delight to sit on the terrace in front of the hotel during the pleasant summer evenings and relate to Bessie their hairbreath escapes, the continuous murmur of the River Aare forming a soothing chorus to their dramatic narrations. At least a dozen young men hovered round the girl, willing and eager to confide in her; but while Bessie was smiling and kind to them all, it was soon evident that some special one was her favourite, and then the rest hung hopelessly back. Things would go wonderfully well for this lucky young fellow for a day or two, and he usually became so offensively conceited in his bearing towards the rest, that the wonder is he escaped without personal vengeance being wreaked upon him; then all at once he would pack up his belongings and gloomily depart for Berne or Interlaken, depending on whether his ultimate destination was west or east. The young men remaining invariably tried not to look jubilant at the sudden departure, while the ladies staying at the hotel began to say hard things of Bessie, going even so far as to assert that she was a heartless flirt. How little do we know the motives of our fellow- creatures! How prone we are to misjudge the actions of others! Bessie was no flirt, but a high-minded, conscientious girl, with an ambition— an ambition which she did not babble about to the world, and therefore the world failed to appreciate her, as it nearly always fails to appreciate those who do not take it into their confidence.
It came to be currently reported in the hotel that Bessie had refused no less than seven of the young men who had been staying there, and as these young men had, one after another, packed up and departed, either by the last train at night or the earliest in the morning, the proprietor began to wonder what the matter was, especially as each of the departing guests had but a short time before expressed renewed delight with the hotel and its surroundings. Several of them had stated to the proprietor that they had abandoned their intention of proceeding further with their Swiss tour, so satisfied were they with Thun and all its belongings. Thus did the flattering opinion of Alexander von Humboldt seem about to become general, to the great delight of the hotel proprietor, when, without warning, these young men had gloomily deserted Thun, while its beauty undoubtedly remained unchanged. Naturally the good man who owned the hotel was bewildered, and began to think that, after all, the English were an uncertain, mind-changing race.
Among the guests there was one young fellow who was quite as much perplexed as the proprietor. Archie Severance was one of the last to fall under the spell of Bessie—if, indeed, it is correct to speak of Archie falling at all. He was a very deliberate young man, not given to doing anything precipitately, but there is no doubt that the charming personality of Bessie fascinated him, although he seemed to content himself with admiring her from a distance. Bessie somehow did not appear to care about being admired from a distance, and once, when Archie was promenading to and fro on the terrace above the river, she smiled sweetly at him from her book, and he sat down beside her. Jimmy Wellman had gone that morning, and the rest had not yet found it out. Jimmy had