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1-1
Operations Management, 11e (Heizer/Render)
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Chapter 1 Operations and Productivity
Section 1 What is Operations Management?
1) Some of the operations-related activities of Hard Rock Café include designing meals and analyzing
them for ingredient cost and labor requirements.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 1
Key Term: Operations management
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
2) Because Hard Rock Cafés are themed restaurants, operations managers focus their layout design
efforts on attractiveness while paying little attention to efficiency.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
3) All organizations, including service firms such as banks and hospitals, have a production function.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2
Key Term: Production
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
4) Operations management is the set of activities that creates value in the form of goods and services by
transforming inputs into outputs.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 1
Key Term: Operations management
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
5) An example of a "hidden" production function is the transfer of funds between accounts at a bank.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2
1-2
Key Term: Production
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
1-3
6) At Hard Rock Café, tasks that reflect operations or operations management include:
A) designing efficient layouts.
B) providing meals.
C) receiving ingredients.
D) preparing effective employee schedules.
E) all of the above.
Answer: E
Diff: 1
Key Term: Operations management
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
7) An operations task performed at Hard Rock Café is:
A) borrowing funds to build a new restaurant.
B) advertising changes in the restaurant menu.
C) calculating restaurant profit and loss.
D) preparing employee schedules.
E) all of the above.
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Key Term: Operations management
AACSB: Reflective thinking skills
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
8) Operations management is applicable:
A) mostly to the service sector.
B) to services exclusively.
C) mostly to the manufacturing sector.
D) to all firms, whether manufacturing or service.
E) to the manufacturing sector exclusively.
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Key Term: Operations management
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
9) ________ is the set of activities that creates value in the form of goods and services by transforming
inputs into outputs.
Answer: Operations management
Diff: 1
Key Term: Operations management
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
1-4
10) Identify three or more operations-related tasks carried out by Hard Rock Café.
Answer: Providing custom meals; designing, testing, and costing meals; acquiring, receiving , and
storing supplies; recruiting and training employees; preparing employee schedules; designing efficient
restaurant layouts.
Diff: 1
Key Term: Operations management
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
11) Define operations management. Will your definition accommodate both manufacturing and service
operations?
Answer: Operations management can be defined as the management of all activities directly related to
the creation of goods and/or services through the transformation of inputs into outputs. Yes.
Diff: 1
Key Term: Operations management
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
Section 2 Organizing to Produce Goods and Services
1) Which of the following are the primary functions of all organizations?
A) production/operations, marketing, and human resources
B) marketing, human resources, and finance/accounting
C) sales, quality control, and production/operations
D) marketing, production/operations, and finance/accounting
E) research and development, finance/accounting, and purchasing
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Key Term: Operations management
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
2) Which of the following pioneers was NOT making a professional impact during the Scientific
Management Era?
A) Frank Gilbreth
B) W. Edwards Deming
C) Henry L. Gantt
D) Lillian Gilbreth
E) Frederick W. Taylor
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
1-5
3) Which of the following would NOT be an operations function in a commercial bank?
A) auditing
B) teller scheduling
C) maintenance
D) collection
E) check clearing
Answer: A
Diff: 2
Key Term: Operations management
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
4) The marketing function's main concern is with:
A) producing goods or providing services.
B) procuring materials, supplies, and equipment.
C) building and maintaining a positive image.
D) generating the demand for the organization's products or services.
E) securing monetary resources.
Answer: D
Diff: 2
5) Which of the following tasks within an airline company are related to operations?
A) crew scheduling
B) international monetary exchange
C) sales
D) advertising
E) accounts payable
Answer: A
Diff: 2
Key Term: Operations management
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
6) Marketing, production/operations, and ________ are the three functions that all organizations must
perform to create goods and services.
Answer: finance/accounting
Diff: 1
Section 3 The Supply Chain
1) Competition in the 21st century is no longer between companies; it is between supply chains.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2
Key Term: Supply chain
1-6
2) An accounting firm that provides tax services for a company would be considered to be part of that
company's supply chain.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2
Key Term: Production
AACSB: Reflective thinking skills
Learning Outcome: Compare and contrast different sourcing strategies including outsourcing and
insourcing
3) What is a global network of organizations and activities that supply a firm with goods and services?
A) supply tree
B) provider network
C) supply chain
D) vendor network
E) vendor tree
Answer: C
Diff: 1
Key Term: Supply chain
Learning Outcome: Compare and contrast different sourcing strategies including outsourcing and
insourcing
4) Which of the following fosters specialization and worldwide supply chains?
A) more expensive transportation
B) instant communication
C) economies of scope
D) managers with a broad knowledge of many things
E) high trade tariffs
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Key Term: Supply chain
Learning Outcome: Compare and contrast different sourcing strategies including outsourcing and
insourcing
5) A(n) ________ is a global network of organizations and activities that supply a firm with goods and
services.
Answer: supply chain
Diff: 1
Key Term: Supply chain
Learning Outcome: Compare and contrast different sourcing strategies including outsourcing and
insourcing
6) Competition in the 21st century is no longer between companies; it is between ________.
Answer: supply chains
Diff: 2
Key Term: Supply chain
Learning Outcome: Compare and contrast different sourcing strategies including outsourcing and
insourcing
1-7
7) Identify up to four phenomena that foster specialization and worldwide supply chains.
Answer: (1) a more technologically oriented society, (2) specialized expert knowledge, (3) instant
communication, and (4) cheaper transportation
Diff: 2
Key Term: Supply chain
Learning Outcome: Compare and contrast different sourcing strategies including outsourcing and
insourcing
Section 4 Why Study OM?
1) One reason to study operations management is to learn how people organize themselves for
productive enterprise.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 1
Key Term: Operations management
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
2) Reasons to study operations management include:
A) studying how people organize themselves for productive enterprise.
B) knowing how goods and services are consumed.
C) understanding what human resource managers do.
D) learning about a costly part of the enterprise.
E) A and D
Answer: E
Diff: 2
Key Term: Operations management
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
3) Reasons to study operations management include learning about:
A) how people organize themselves for productive enterprise.
B) how goods and services are produced.
C) what operations managers do.
D) a costly part of the enterprise.
E) all of the above.
Answer: E
Diff: 1
Key Term: Operations management
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
1-8
4) Brandon Production is a small firm focused on the assembly and sale of custom computers. The firm is
facing stiff competition from low-priced alternatives, and is looking at various solutions to remain
competitive and profitable. Current financials for the firm are shown in the table below. In the first
option, marketing will increase sales by 50%. The next option is Vendor (Supplier) changes, which would
result in a decrease of 10% in the cost of inputs. Finally there is an OM option, which would reduce
production costs by 25%. Which of the options would you recommend to the firm if it can only pursue
one option? In addition, comment on the feasibility of each option.
Business Function Current Value
Cost of Inputs $50,000
Production Costs $25,000
Revenue $80,000
Answer: Marketing would increase sales to $120,000 ($80,000 ∗ 1.5) but increase cost of inputs and
production costs to $112,500 (($50,000 + $25,000) ∗ 1.5). This would net an additional $2500 of profit
($120,000 - $112,500 - current profit of $5000). Vendor (Supplier) Changes would decrease cost of inputs
to $45,000 ($50,000 ∗ .9), resulting in $5,000 of additional profit (savings) ($50,000 - $45,000). Finally, the
OM option would save $6250 ($25,000 - $25,000 ∗ .75), resulting in an additional $6250 of profit. Thus the
OM option is the most profitable. Comments on feasibility should center on the near impossibility of
increasing revenue by 50%, while noting the other two options are difficult but not impossible.
Diff: 2
AACSB: Analytic skills
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
Section 5 What Operations Managers Do
1) The operations manager performs the management activities of planning, organizing, staffing, leading,
and controlling of the OM function.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2
Key Term: Operations management
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
2) "Considers inventory ordering and holding decisions" is within the strategic operations management
decision area of managing quality.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1
Key Term: 10 strategic OM decisions
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
1-9
3) In order to have a career in operations management, one must have a degree in statistics or
quantitative methods.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1
Key Term: Operations management
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
4) What are the five elements in the management process?
A) plan, direct, update, lead, and supervise
B) accounting, finance, marketing, operations, and management
C) organize, plan, control, staff, and manage
D) plan, organize, staff, lead, and control
E) plan, lead, organize, manage, and control
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
5) Which of the following is NOT an element of the management process?
A) controlling
B) leading
C) planning
D) pricing
E) staffing
Answer: D
Diff: 2
6) An operations manager is NOT likely to be involved in:
A) the design of goods and services to satisfy customers' wants and needs.
B) the quality of goods and services to satisfy customers' wants and needs.
C) the identification of customers' wants and needs.
D) work scheduling to meet the due dates promised to customers.
E) maintenance schedules.
Answer: C
Diff: 1
Key Term: 10 strategic OM decisions
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
1-10
7) All of the following decisions fall within the scope of operations management EXCEPT for:
A) creating the company income statement.
B) design of goods and services.
C) location strategy.
D) managing quality.
E) human resources and job design.
Answer: A
Diff: 1
Key Term: 10 strategic OM decisions
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
8) The 10 strategic operations management decisions include:
A) layout strategy.
B) maintenance.
C) process and capacity design.
D) managing quality.
E) all of the above.
Answer: E
Diff: 1
Key Term: 10 strategic OM decisions
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
9) Which of the following is NOT one of the 10 strategic operations management decisions?
A) layout strategy
B) maintenance
C) process and capacity design
D) mass customization
E) supply chain management
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Key Term: 10 strategic OM decisions
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
1-11
10) Which of the following is one of the 10 strategic operations management decisions?
A) depreciation policy for tax returns
B) advertising
C) process and capacity design
D) pricing
E) debt/equity ratio
Answer: C
Diff: 1
Key Term: 10 strategic OM decisions
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
11) Which of the following are among the 10 strategic operations management decisions?
I. design of goods and services
II. managing quality
III. layout strategy
IV. marketing
V. pricing of goods and services
A) I, II, V
B) I, II, IV
C) II, III, V
D) I, II, III
E) All of the above
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Key Term: 10 strategic OM decisions
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
12) Which of the following influences layout design?
A) inventory requirements
B) capacity needs
C) personnel levels
D) technology
E) All of the above influence layout decisions.
Answer: E
Diff: 2
1-12
13) Which of the following is NOT a strategic operations management decision?
A) maintenance
B) price
C) layout design
D) quality
E) inventory
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Key Term: 10 strategic OM decisions
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
14) Identify two operations-related tasks carried out by Hard Rock Café. Match each to its related area of
the 10 strategic operations management decisions.
Answer: Providing custom meals: design of goods and services; designing, testing, and costing meals:
design of goods and services; acquiring, receiving, and storing supplies: supply chain management;
recruiting and training employees: human resources and job design; preparing employee schedules:
scheduling; designing efficient restaurant layouts: layout strategy.
Diff: 2
Key Term: 10 strategic OM decisions
AACSB: Reflective thinking skills
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
15) Identify the 10 strategic OM decisions.
Answer: Design of goods and services, managing quality, process strategy, location strategies, layout
strategies, human resources, supply chain management, inventory management, scheduling, and
maintenance.
Diff: 3
Key Term: 10 strategic OM decisions
Objective: LO1
Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the
organization
Section 6 The Heritage of Operations Management
1) Henry Ford is known as the Father of Scientific Management.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1
2) Shewhart's contributions to operations management came during the Scientific Management Era.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 2
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
“I—ah—hum—have heard of Mr. Kyrle,” observed Major Joscelyn,
in a tone which intimated that he had heard no good of Mr. Kyrle.
Then he fixed a pair of prominent eyes upon the young man and
inquired if he had been long in Venice.
“Only a few days,” Lennox answered, carelessly.
“Ah—a few days! And you are leaving soon?”
“That depends altogether upon circumstances,” replied Kyrle, who
in fact intended to leave in a day or two, but had no desire to gratify
Major Joscelyn by telling him so; for already he felt an animus of
dislike against these people, not only because of their attitude
toward himself (for that, being the result of misconception, only
amused him), but from their appearance and manner. “They are self-
seeking and insincere,” was his judgment, as his glance passed
rapidly from face to face; and then, turning to the lovely, candid
countenance of Aimée, he thought, “She is like a dove among
hawks.”
Major Joscelyn giving no other reply to his last remark than a
disapproving “Hem!” Miss Joscelyn took up the conversation, and
remarked that Mr. Kyrle probably found Venice attractive.
“Very attractive—especially within the last half hour,” he replied,
with deliberate malice.
The Joscelyns looked at each other, while Mr. Meredith glanced at
his wife, and the latter said, quickly:
“Of course, it has become more attractive within the last half hour.
What is pleasanter than meeting old friends unexpectedly? Mr. Kyrle
is on his way to America from Egypt,” she added in general
explanation, “and it is the merest chance that we should have met
him.”
No one remarked that it was a fortunate chance. On the contrary,
silence appeared to indicate an altogether different opinion. After a
moment, Major Joscelyn observed that they had probably seen
enough of the Palace of the Doges for one morning, and that it was
time to think of returning to the hotel.
There was a general movement, and it is likely that Lennox would
have taken a final farewell of the party there and then, had not
Aimée turned to him with a smile sweet enough to atone for any
degree of incivility on the part of the others, saying, “And have you,
too, had enough of the Ducal Palace?”
“For the present,” he answered; and availing himself of what
seemed a tacit permission, he walked by her side as the party
passed from the great hall, along corridors and down staircases to
the court below.
Those few minutes completed the impression which she had
already made upon him; and an impression in which her beauty
played a small part in comparison with the gracious simplicity of her
manner and the charm of her voice and glance. There was much in
this voice and glance to remind him of the girl who had carried
Fanny Berrien’s message to him, who had so timidly offered him her
sympathy and compassion, and who had sat by his side under the
orange boughs. Yet, save in the dark sweetness of the eyes and the
gentle cadence of the tones, there was surely little in common
between that frightened child and this stately young lady.
If he had only known it, however, there was the great thing in
common that she was offering him now, the same sympathy that
she had offered then. She was too young, and of too limited
experience, to have learned the power of change which lies in time,
and it seemed to her that he must inevitably be deeply moved by
such an unexpected meeting with the woman he had once loved;
and her gentle kindness was the involuntary form in which she
expressed this feeling. But naturally no one could be aware of this—
not even Kyrle himself. He thought that she simply meant to atone
for the incivility of her friends; the latter cast alarmed glances upon
one another; and Fanny Meredith was no nearer the truth than any
one else, in saying to herself: “Aimée is certainly the best creature in
the world! She is throwing herself into the breach to prevent Tom
from being jealous.”
When they reached the Piazza there was a slight pause of the
party, and Kyrle felt that he was expected to take leave. “Since I
have been so fortunate this morning, I hope to be fortunate again,”
he said to Aimée in clearly audible tones. “I shall trust to have the
pleasure of meeting you again.”
“Oh, no doubt,” answered she, readily. “People who know each
other can not possibly fail to meet in Venice. But will you not come
to see us? We are at the Grand Hotel.—Fanny, surely you mean to
ask Mr. Kyrle to come to see you?”
“Mr. Kyrle knows that I shall be delighted to see him,” replied Mrs.
Meredith, “but really we are at home so seldom that it hardly seems
worth while to ask him to come. As you have just observed, people
must meet when they are in Venice; and their best chance to meet
is away from home, rather than at home. Nevertheless, I hope you
will take the chance of finding us in,” said she, to Kyrle.
“I shall prefer to take the chance of finding you elsewhere, since
you are more likely to be abroad,” replied he.
“And elsewhere is so much pleasanter than at home,” interposed
Miss Joscelyn. “The Belle Arti, now—have you been to the Belle Arti,
Mr. Kyrle?”
Mr. Kyrle replied that he had not. “I have not been sight-seeing
since my arrival,” he said, “but only lounging.”
“Oh, but you must certainly see the Belle Arti,” said the young lady
with animation. “You can have no idea of the Venetian school of art
until you have studied it there.”
“I have no doubt Mr. Kyrle is aware of that, Lydia,” said Fanny
Meredith, dryly; “but since we have exhaustively done the Belle Arti
—at least I hope we are done with it—he is not likely to meet us
there, and it was of meeting us that he was speaking.”
“It was certainly of meeting you that I was thinking,” said Lennox.
“Hum—ah!” said the major, addressing his party, “shall we move
on?”
Kyrle watched them with a smile as they moved away across the
sunshiny square. He was saying to himself that it would go hard with
him if he did not see again the beautiful eyes he had been looking
into, and hear the sweet voice which had just bidden him such a
kindly adieu.
III.
It was no later than the evening of the same day before he met
the party again. He was idly sauntering around the arcades of the
Piazza, brilliant with lights and filled with the sound of many
tongues, when he heard a voice say, “Oh, there is Mr. Kyrle!” and
turning, he encountered Fanny Meredith’s bright glance. She was
sitting at one of the tables near the door of a café, with Aimée, Mr.
Meredith, and young Joscelyn, taking coffee and ices, and as Lennox
paused she went on, gayly:
“Come and join us. You look lonely, and we are stupid. We know
each other so well that each knows exactly what the other will say;
so, like Punch’s married lovers during the honeymoon, we are ready
to welcome a friend, or even an enemy, so he prove entertaining.”
“But how if one should not prove entertaining?” asked Kyrle, who
needed no second bidding to take a vacant chair by her side.
“Then you must have made very poor use of your opportunities,”
said she, “and changed very much besides—must he not, Aimée?”
This was audacious, Kyrle thought; but glancing at Aimée, he was
reassured by her smile.
“When I knew Mr. Kyrle, I was not very well able to judge of his
powers of entertainment,” she said, “though I have no doubt they
were great.”
“On the contrary, they have always been of a very limited order,”
said Kyrle. “I am immensely flattered, however, by Mrs. Meredith’s
kind recollection, and only regret my inability to justify it.”
“You have at least improved in modesty,” said Mrs. Meredith.
“A man who has been in the desert six months should be modest
when he returns to civilization,” he answered. “Perhaps it is because
I have been in the desert,” he added, looking around, “that it seems
to me one hardly needs better entertainment than this scene.”
“It is very bright and interesting for a while,” said Mr. Meredith;
“but fancy coming here every evening of your life, as these
Venetians do! One would think that it would grow monotonous in
time.”
“To a stranger it would certainly grow monotonous in a short
time,” said Kyrle; “but those who have all their interests, social or
otherwise, here, and who have a strong attachment to this which
has been the frame of their life from its beginning, and the frame of
the life of Venice through all her history, are not likely to grow weary
of it.”
“I think,” said Aimée, “that even a stranger might require some
time to grow weary of it—such a picture in such a frame!”
“That would depend entirely upon the stranger,” said Lennox,
regarding her with a smile.
And indeed she was herself a picture worth regarding as she sat in
the light of the brilliant lamps; her fair, delicate face shadowed by a
large hat covered with curling plumes, and her liquid eyes full of
pleasure as she looked over the gay life of the Piazza, or turned to
the solemn front of the great cathedral lifting its domes and
minarets against a sky of hyacinth blue.
“It is a very pretty scene,” said Percy Joscelyn, superciliously, “but
I think it quite possible to grow tired of it. There is so much
sameness. Now, the boulevards—”
“Percy is a very good American; his idea of heaven is a Paris
boulevard,” said Fanny Meredith. “I am fond of the boulevards
myself, but, for a change, I call this delightful.”
Lennox agreed with her. He did not ask himself why it was so
delightful, but he felt a sense of thorough and complete satisfaction,
as he sat, joining in the light, idle conversation, commenting on the
motley throng which ebbed and flowed around them, and drinking a
cup of black coffee as if it were nectar.
Presently Mr. Meredith suggested a return to their hotel, but this
was at once negatived by his lively wife. “The moon is well up by
this time,” she said. “Let us go out in a gondola. It will be charming
to float about for an hour or so.”
“Good Heaven!” said the husband, “have you not been floating
about enough during the course of the day? It seems to me that we
hardly exist out of a gondola, unless we are in a church or a picture
gallery.”
“Well, then, you need not come,” said she, laughing; “but I know
Aimée would like to go—would you not, Aimée?”
“I am always ready for a gondola,” was the smiling reply.
“Percy will go. He is always ready for a gondola too,” pursued
Fanny. Then she turned to Kyrle. “Will you join us?” she asked.
“I shall be delighted,” he replied, trying not to make the
commonplace words too eager.
“Then we are a nice partie carrée, and we will go at once,” said
she, rising and taking a shawl from the back of her chair.
No one inquired how far Mr. Meredith approved of the
arrangement. He was left smoking a cigar in front of the café, while
the partie carrée proceeded to the Riva in search of a gondola.
As was to be expected, Percy took possession of Aimée, while
Lennox found himself walking by the side of his old love. Neither of
them spoke for a minute or two; then Fanny turned and glanced at
him with a mischievous smile.
“Time has its recompenses as well as its revenges occasionally,”
she said. “Are you meditating on that?”
He looked at her and was forced to return her smile. “You are as
full of diablerie as ever,” he said, “but if you have no sense of
compassion, have you not any compunction?”
“Compassion!—compunction! What fine, large words! But why
should I have either?” she asked. “You do not need compassion, I
am sure; and as for compunction—you could not expect me to be
sorry now?”
“Certainly not,” he answered, with alacrity. “Regret for what has
resulted so well would be entirely out of place—for you, that is. For
me, however—”
“Are you trying to insinuate that you have any regret?” said she,
with a laugh. “Ah, that pretense is shallow! I have had such long
experience that I can tell, the moment that I look into a man’s eyes,
whether he feels the smallest bit of sentiment; and you—as far as I
am concerned—you have not enough to put on the point of a pin!
Do you think it strange of me to talk in this way?”—He did think so,
and his face no doubt betrayed as much. “But I have a reason. I
want you to understand that I am not under any foolish delusion
about you, as some women would be. I am anxious that you should
trust me, and let me be your friend.”
“Pray believe that I trust you entirely,” said Lennox—who did not
trust her at all.
“But a friend—I am much honored; yet I do not know that I have
special need of a friend at present.”
“You will never have greater need,” said she, emphatically, “for
you have fallen in love with Aimée, and, unless I am your friend, the
Joscelyns will not suffer you even to speak to her.”
“I can well believe that,” said he, involuntarily. Then he paused
and laughed. “But have I fallen in love with the young lady whose
name is so suggestive of that emotion?” he asked.
“You are the person to answer the question,” replied Fanny; “but I
should say there was no doubt of it. I have been watching you for
the last hour, and the entire scheme has matured beautifully in my
mind.”
He looked at her again—curious, interested, uncertain what to
make of her. The pretty, piquant face he had once known so well,
was full of animation and amusement as she turned it toward him,
meeting his puzzled glance.
“You are ungrateful,” she said; “you do not trust me; and yet I am
anxious to do you a great service.”
“Granting that I need a service,” said he, “forgive me if I ask—why
should you wish to do it?”
“Now, that is more than ungrateful,” said she. “It is giving me
credit for no fine feeling at all. Though I jest, do you think I do not
remember how badly I treated you once? It is all over now—and no
doubt you are grateful enough that it is so. But still the fact remains.
I did treat you badly, and I should like to be able to feel that I had
made some amend for it. So much for you. Now for Aimée”—her
voice changed slightly. “Well, I owe a great deal to Aimée, and I
would do a great deal for her. When it was a question of serving me,
she did not think of herself at all; and, though I may be frivolous
and shallow, I do not forget this.”
“She certainly did not think of herself at all,” Kyrle agreed—looking
at the graceful figure moving in front of them, and remembering the
sea wall of St. Augustine.
“I always said I would repay her if I could,” Fanny went on, “and I
do not think I can repay her better than by rescuing her from the
hands that have possession of her now, and saving her from
marrying Percy Joscelyn.”
The last shot struck home. Kyrle was himself astonished at the
sense of consternation with which he started. “Is that thought of?”
he asked.
“They think of it,” Fanny replied. “They are ready to move heaven
and earth to accomplish it; but”—the tone of gleeful malice which he
had heard before came into her voice—“I think we may defeat them,
you and I, if you will say the word.”
“What word is it that you wish me to say?” he asked.
She looked up into his face again with bright eyes. “What word
can it be,” she replied, “except the simple assertion that you wish to
marry Aimée?”
Fortunately for Kyrle, he had no opportunity to answer at the
moment. They had by this time reached the Riva, and Joscelyn,
turning, said, “Here is a gondola.”
A few minutes later they were afloat on the broad expanse of
moonlight-flooded water, with Venice—marvelous, mystical, beautiful
—lying around them. The cabin had been removed from the
gondola, and the ladies took the two cushioned seats, while the
young men threw themselves down at their feet. And so they glided
out into the silver night.
Surely it was an hour worth living for! The brilliant lights from the
quays streamed over the water and were reflected in the still depths
below, like an enchanted city; but this illumination paled before the
splendor of the moonlight that reigned supreme, making all things
visible, yet veiling every defect of time, for other defects in Venice
there are none. Under this magic light the “glorious city of the sea”
has all her ancient glory still; one sees no longer the decay which
has fallen over her palaces, but only the loveliness which made her
the wonder of the world. Past islands, palaces, and domed churches
they glided with that smooth, noiseless movement which is half the
charm of a gondola, and were soon on the broad lagoon, where the
booming of the Adriatic surf upon the Lido came to their ears like
distant thunder—the only sound which broke the silence around
them.
The others talked, but Aimée said little. She leaned back on the
broad, easy seat, and the white radiance falling over her seemed to
intensify all that was spiritual in her beauty, until she looked rather
like a fair dream of a woman than a creature of flesh and blood.
Lennox pulled his hat low over his eyes in order that he might watch
her unobserved. His blood was still bounding from that suggestion of
Fanny Meredith’s before they entered the boat. It had taken away
his breath, yet he felt as if in some intangible way it had drawn him
nearer to this exquisite creature. It seemed to make that a possibility
of which he had not ventured to dream; and as he watched the
lovely face he was ready to utter with emphasis the word desired.
Here on the shining water, with the moon beloved of lovers in all
ages looking down, he felt his youth reawakening with a sense of
power and resolve. He did not think of difficulties or doubts; he only
yielded himself to the strange, sweet enchantment which had so
unexpectedly overwhelmed him.
Presently Fanny looked at him curiously, “Why have you grown so
silent?” she asked. “You and Aimée are not the most lively
companions one might choose.”
“Lively!” repeated Lennox. “If you wanted liveliness, you should
have remained on the Piazza. This is not the place for it.”
“It seems to me that all places are the better for it,” said she; “but
perhaps that is because I am a Philistine. However, since you don’t
think this a place for liveliness, suppose you sing something. It is
certainly a place for music, and we have left all the musicians
behind.”
They had indeed left those gondolas full of singers, which haunt
the Grand Canal and hover around the hotels of Venice, far behind,
and were floating in the silence of the lustrous night near San
Lazare. Lennox hesitated and looked at Aimée, who turned her
glance on him.
“Do you sing?” she asked.
“Sing?” repeated Fanny. “He used to sing divinely! I suppose he
has not forgotten that in the desert.”
“Oh, no,” said Lennox, with a laugh. “I have floated on the Nile
and sung to myself many a night.”
“Sing to us now, then, will you not?” said Aimée.
There was no insistence in her tone, only a courteous request; but
he complied immediately, as he would no doubt have complied had
she asked him to take a plunge into the sea. Nor did he require
more than an instant to decide what he would sing. As he watched
her uplifted face with the moonbeams falling on it, he had been
thinking of a song of Heine’s, and the music—Schumann’s music—
was in his throat, as it were; so he began at once:
“The lotus flower feareth
The splendor of the sun;
Bowing her head and dreaming,
She waits till the day is done.
“The moon he is her lover;
He wakes her with silvery light;
To him unveils she, smiling,
Her flower-face pure and white.
“She gazeth on high in silence,
Doth bloom and gleam and glow,
Exhaling and weeping and trembling
For love and love’s deep woe.”
He sang “divinely,” as Fanny had said, for Nature had given him a
voice of the finest order—a pure, melodious tenor—and, though it
had never received much training, there was something in it to-night
which took the place of training and made it unnecessary—a thrill of
emotion, a depth of expression, which art can never teach. When
the full, soft notes sank over the last cadence, Fanny cried out with
admiration, and even Mr. Joscelyn condescended to say, “Bravo!”
But Aimée did not speak at once, and it was only when Lennox
looked into her “flower-face pure and white,” that she said, “You
have a great gift, Mr. Kyrle, and a great power to bestow pleasure.”
The words were kind, but what was there in the voice that
seemed to Kyrle’s ear like a touch of frost? The exaltation of his
mood sank under it, and he suddenly seemed in his own eyes to
wear very much the aspect of a fool. What had he been doing?
Singing out his heart to unsympathetic ears, led away by the magic
of the night and the fairness of a face which, after all, was the face
of a stranger, or, worse yet, of one who knew him only as the lover
of Fanny Meredith. What had possessed him to take leave of his
senses in this manner? Was this what was likely to happen to a man
when he came out of the desert and found himself in unaccustomed
contact with civilization again? Did the first lovely face on which he
looked lead his senses astray?
But even as he scornfully asked the question he knew that it was
not so; that the spell of this face had its root deep in the past, in
that golden evening when he sat under the orange trees and tried in
vain to shake the grateful loyalty of a child. He knew now that he
had never forgotten that child, and the deep impression which her
absolute unselfishness had made on him, an impression deeper
because it had been contrasted with such utter selfishness on the
part of another. He had seemed to come very near to that little
maiden of the past in the hour when her nature and her heart had
been, as it were, laid bare before him; and so it was to no stranger
that he had so quickly surrendered his own heart, which had long
been swept and garnished and empty of any occupant.
Meanwhile Mrs. Meredith was clamoring for another song. “You
are surely not going to stop with one!” she cried. “We want another,
and yet another—don’t we, Aimée?”
“Just as many as Mr. Kyrle will give us,” responded Aimée, smiling.
It was easier to sing than to talk; so Kyrle again lifted his voice,
this time in a Spanish serenade as full of the spirit of passionate
romance as a Spanish night. But something had gone from the
singer’s voice, and, charming as was the song, no one was moved
and thrilled as by the first.
IV.
Fanny Meredith was right in saying that the Joscelyns watched
Aimée and every man who approached her like dragons. And from
their point of view, this was natural enough. Had not Aimée’s fortune
lifted them out of poverty and the embarrassments resulting
therefrom, to a condition of affluence where all things became easy
and agreeable? And could they be expected to surrender the
advantages of this fortune without a struggle? It was true that they
had enjoyed these advantages for five or six years, in which time
Major Joscelyn, through whose hands the income passed, had made
not a few excellent investments on his own account; and that Aimée,
as soon as she attained her majority, had settled an independence
on her mother. Yet these things did not make them one whit more
inclined to surrender any part of the heritage which they had grown
to consider their own. Since it was, however, undeniable that Aimée,
although the most gentle and yielding of human beings, had certain
rights in her own property which the law would secure to her, and
which a husband, should she marry, might be brutal enough to claim
in her behalf, it became necessary that she should marry some one
who could be trusted to consider the Joscelyn interest of primary
importance; and this could only be one of the Joscelyns themselves.
It was therefore early decreed in the family councils that Percy
Joscelyn should in time marry the young heiress. There had been
considerable consternation when he returned with her from St.
Augustine and reported a mysterious lover already on the horizon;
especially since inquiries drew no information concerning this person
from Aimée. “He was a gentleman whom I knew,” she said, and not
even her mother could obtain from her anything more.
Then Major Joscelyn solemnly announced that any such thing as a
probable or possible love affair must be promptly nipped in the bud,
and that the quickest and most complete way to accomplish this was
to take the girl abroad. Her education, which up to this time had
been of the most desultory order, furnished a good plea, and the
entire Joscelyn family conveyed themselves at once to foreign fields.
They had never returned to America. Nothing would have been
easier than to place Aimée in a French or German school, where she
would not have required the attention of her entire family; but that
would not have given an excuse for a residence in Paris, which they
all found very agreeable. So a handsome establishment was
mounted, and after its expenses were paid, besides the investments
on the major’s account already mentioned, there was not a great
deal to spare for Aimée’s education. Expensive masters, therefore,
she never had; but very good though not fashionable teachers can
be obtained in Paris for low prices, and it was not in Aimée’s nature
to make any demands for herself. She took eager advantage of the
scant opportunities allowed her, and accomplished an education for
which she had little to thank her guardians.
There was some uneasiness in the family mind when the time of
her majority approached; but it passed quietly, and, whether
through indifference, or ignorance of the full extent of her power,
she made no attempt to take the control of her income from Major
Joscelyn’s hands. So things had gone on as usual, and the family
were hoping that before very long Percy might come into possession
of the much-coveted fortune, when who should appear on the scene
but Fanny Meredith! At once the Joscelyns felt that the time had
come when they would have to fight for Aimée. They no longer had
legal control of her movements; and although she still yielded
submission to the wishes of her mother (which meant the wishes of
Major Joscelyn), they instinctively felt that it would not do to try this
submissiveness too far. So, when Mrs. Meredith proposed that Aimée
should join her husband and herself in a tour through Italy, the
Joscelyns held a council of war, and decided that, while it was
impossible to allow her to go, it was equally unadvisable to strain
obedience too far. The brilliant mind of Major Joscelyn again found
the remedy. “We will all go,” he said. “It is not—ahem!—what one
would desire, to wander about Italian cities for several months; but
Aimée can not be trusted with this flighty woman, who would not
only introduce all manner of—hum—dangerous acquaintances to her,
but who would delight to undermine our influence. Neither will it do
to positively refuse to let her go; so we must sacrifice ourselves and
accompany her.”
The sacrifice, therefore, to Fanny Meredith’s great disgust, was
made. The family picked themselves up, and in solid phalanx
accompanied their heiress to Italy, keeping vigilant watch and ward
over her and over every possible dangerous acquaintance whom she
made. But they were little prepared for the unkind stroke of Fate
which brought Lennox Kyrle across their path. That his appearance
in Venice was an accident they did not believe for an instant. They
strongly suspected that Fanny Meredith had, together with him,
planned this appearance to take place when Aimée should have
been removed from her family environment. They congratulated
themselves that so much, at least, had been frustrated by their
foreseeing vigilance, but they had not the least doubt that Kyrle had
come with the determination to secure her hand and fortune, if that
desirable end could be attained by unholy arts and incredible
audacity. What was to be done to frustrate and check this audacity?
Such was the question the family met in solemn conclave to consider
on the day after the undesirable intruder had appeared.
“He is not to be shaken off easily,” said Percy Joscelyn, “for Mrs.
Meredith encourages him in every way. Last night she not only
invited him to join us as we sat outside Florian’s, but she proposed
going out in a gondola, took him along, and made him sing. He sings
uncommonly well—confound him!—and almost made love to Aimée
before my eyes.”
“The fellow’s impudence seems to be equal to anything!” said the
major. “And how did Aimée receive his—ah—advances?”
“You can never tell much about Aimée,” his son answered. “She is
quiet, and she’s deep. She didn’t seem responsive, but that signifies
nothing. Under ordinary circumstances I might think that he had
made no impression on her; but these are not ordinary
circumstances, and the trouble is that we don’t know what the
extent of their first acquaintance was. Although Mrs. Berrien denied
it, I shall always believe that there had been some love-making
going on between them in St. Augustine.”
“And yet Aimée was certainly not very attractive at that time,”
observed Miss Joscelyn.
“There’s no accounting for tastes,” said her brother, curtly, “and
facts are facts. I saw him give her a locket—something which, you
know, she always declined to explain.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Joscelyn, with a sigh, “she was very obstinate and
as close as wax. But I have always had an idea that he was not a
lover, because, in the first place, she said so—and Aimée always told
the truth—and, in the second place, because she never seemed to
have any fancy for lovers, like other girls.—You know, Lydia, how
often you have remarked that Aimée was so old-fashioned in this
respect.”
“Yes,” assented Lydia, “but, as Percy says, Aimée is deep, and I
don’t really feel that I know very much about her. As for the matter
of the locket, though,” added the speaker with a sudden gleam of
intuition, “that was as likely as not one of Fanny Meredith’s tricks.
She was an outrageous flirt!”
“If I thought so!” exclaimed Percy Joscelyn, with a start. His eyes
flashed as he spoke. Many a score had he to pay Fanny Meredith,
who in truth took a malicious pleasure in frustrating his attempts to
establish a claim upon Aimée; and if it were possible to bring
anything out of the past against her, how delighted he would be to
use it remorselessly! “But there is not the least proof of such a
thing,” he said, almost resentfully, to his sister.
“No; it was only an idea that occurred to me,” she replied; “but I
know what Fanny Berrien was, and I believe that, if you could induce
Aimée to speak, you would find that it was so.”
“Then, in that case,” said the major, “you don’t believe the man
was Aimée’s lover at all?”
“It does not matter what she believes,” Percy somewhat rudely
interposed. “Opinions, without any ground of proof, amount to
nothing. I know what I saw, and I know that the fellow has eyes
only for Aimée now; and that Mrs. Meredith, as I have already said,
encourages him by every means in her power.”
“Then,” said the major, sharply, “one thing is certain: Aimée can
not be allowed to go out with the Merediths.”
“How will you prevent it?” Percy asked. “The last thing advisable is
to force her to declare her independence of us, and any ill-judged
attempt at control would do this. Nothing would please Mrs.
Meredith better than to prompt her to such a course. No;
watchfulness is our only resource—watchfulness, and perhaps
stratagem. If it were possible to leave Venice now—”
“That would be the best thing,” said the major, “only—ah—what is
to prevent this objectionable person from following us?”
“If that were all,” said Percy, “I should leave at once, and trust to
luck or the shortness of his purse to prevent his following. But the
real objection is that we could not be certain that Aimée would
consent to go; and we could neither force her to do so nor leave her
with the Merediths. So, departure is not to be thought of. We must
fight the thing out by watchfulness and stratagem, as I have said.”
“Watchfulness—yes,” said his father, “that is plain, and of course
necessary; but what stratagem do you propose?”
“I propose, for one thing, that some person shall always take
charge of Mr. Kyrle, and prevent him from devoting himself to
Aimée.”
“But how is any one to take charge of Mr. Kyrle—without his
consent?” asked Mrs. Joscelyn, feebly.
“A man’s consent is always taken for granted where a lady is
concerned,” young Joscelyn answered. “Lydia, here, might be equal
to the delicate task, I think. All that is required is that she shall
quietly take possession of Mr. Kyrle on all occasions, and make it
impossible for him to attach himself to Aimée.—It is a task after your
own heart,” he went on, addressing his sister with more than the
suspicion of a brotherly sneer in his tone “I have seen you on many
occasions monopolize men very much against their will. Do you think
you can manage the same thing with Kyrle?”
A flush rose to her cheek and was visible through the powder that
covered it. “You are as insulting as usual,” she said.
“On the contrary, I am most flattering,” he returned, suavely—for
he felt that Lydia’s assistance was essential at this juncture of affairs.
“Only a woman of rare powers can do these things. A stupid woman
or a clumsy woman can never succeed in them. It requires a peculiar
tact to take possession of a man and keep him fastened to your side
whether he likes or not.”
“I understand perfectly all that you mean to imply,” she said,
coldly; “and if I do this thing it is not out of regard for you or your
plans, but because I have an object of my own in it.”
“Whatever your object,” her brother replied, “only do the thing,
and I shall be satisfied, and never doubt your powers again.”
V.
But while the family council was thus laying plans for keeping
Aimée and her old acquaintance apart, Fortune, which sometimes
takes up weapons and fights for those who have neither heart nor
power to fight for themselves, had most unexpectedly brought them
together.
It was quite early in the morning, soon after he had taken that
light collation which on the Continent is called the first breakfast,
that Kyrle, sauntering on the Piazza and asking himself whether he
should fulfill his engagement of calling on Mrs. Meredith, or whether
he should, more sensibly, leave Venice, these old entanglements,
and new perils, behind him, suddenly perceived a lady, accompanied
by her maid, just entering the great portal of the cathedral. He had
not sat behind that figure the day before and studied it in vain. He
recognized at once the elegant outlines, the graceful carriage, and
without a moment’s hesitation he followed her into the church, as he
had long ago followed her into the Florida orange grove.
Who does not know by sight or by fame that wonderful interior in
whose darkness lies hid the spoils of the Orient, and whose ancient
pavement in its undulations seems to imitate the waves of the sea
that cradles it? Kyrle knew it well; but just now he was not thinking
of gorgeous mosaics, or marvelous carving, of columns of verd-
antique, jasper, or porphyry; his eyes were searching the gloom of
the vast edifice for the figure which had entered a few minutes
before, and some time elapsed before he discovered what he
sought, in a chapel where a priest was saying mass and a small
congregation were assembled.
As he drew near the chapel, struck by the infinitely picturesque
scene—the rich, jewel-incrusted altar, the priest in his golden
vestments, the contrasts of rank and costume in the forms kneeling
on the pavement—he suddenly saw Aimée, her maid on one side, on
the other a Venetian girl with a black lace shawl thrown over such
red-gold hair as Titian painted, while a shaft of sunlight from some
high, remote window brought out the delicate fairness of her face
from the shadowy obscurity around. Satisfied with having found the
object of his search, Kyrle paused, and, leaning against a pillar,
waited until the service was over and those who had assisted thereat
were dispersing. Then he stepped from the shadow of the pillar and
presented himself to Aimée. She looked a little surprised, but
greeted him quietly, and together they walked toward the entrance.
“I was about to remark that I am fortunate to meet you,” Kyrle
said presently, “but one should pay a sacred edifice the compliment
of being strictly truthful while within its walls, shouldn’t one? And the
truth in this case is that I saw you come in and followed you. I am
thinking of leaving Venice to-day.”
If he had intended to surprise her by the announcement, he must
have been disappointed by the calmness with which she replied:
“You are leaving Venice to-day? Is not that sooner than you
anticipated?”
“I had made no plans,” he answered. “When I paused here, I did
not intend to linger more than a few days. And now, though I am
strongly tempted to remain, I—Well, I think I had better go.”
Almost every one has had occasion to learn more than once in life
the extreme difficulty of keeping all trace of strong feeling out of the
voice. Kyrle was conscious of being somewhat exasperated with
himself and Fate, as he uttered the last words, and naturally the
inflection of his tone betrayed the feeling. Aimée glanced at him
quickly—involuntarily, it appeared—and in the light of that glance
there suddenly flashed upon him an understanding of what
interpretation she might give to his words. Her eyes seemed to say,
“Ah, is that it!” But before he could collect his thoughts sufficiently to
know how to explain himself, she had looked away again and was
saying in her clear, low voice: “If you think it best, of course you are
right to go. And one should not attempt to change your resolution.”
“No one is likely to attempt to change it,” he replied, with a slight
laugh. “But I think you misunderstand me a little,” he added, after a
pause, with a sudden impulse of candor. “We were once thrown
together very singularly; I am sure you do not forget this any more
than I do. Therefore, since we are not strangers, will you let me
speak to you frankly?”
“Surely, if you wish to do so,” she answered; but he saw that she
looked a little startled.
“Do not be afraid,” he said, quietly. “I have no intention of saying
anything that you need hesitate to hear. But may I ask you to sit
down for a moment?”
They were now in the atrium, or inner porch of the church. Aimée
hesitated for an instant, then, turning to her maid, said in French:
“Go to the Merceria and make the purchases of which you spoke. I
will wait for you here.”
“Oui, mademoiselle,” replied the girl, without the change of a
feature, and forthwith departed.
Kyrle could hardly believe his good fortune, but as Aimée sat down
on one of the stone benches fixed against the wall, he said,
gratefully:
“You are very kind—as kind as I remember you of old. And I have
no more forgotten how kind you were then, than I have ceased to
thank Heaven for the message you so bravely brought me.”
She looked up at him and he saw in her face that she was
astonished.
“But—” she began, and then paused.
“But you thought that I meant something else a minute ago,” he
said. “You thought I meant that I found it best to go because I felt
the old attraction reviving. Is it not so?”
She dropped her eyes. “Was it not natural that I should think so?”
she asked.
“Perhaps it was natural,” he answered, “but you were mistaken.
My only sentiment with regard to that past folly is one of sincerest
thankfulness for my escape. The last time we sat like this together—
have you forgotten the evening in the orange grove?—I told you that
my fancy for Fanny Berrien was dead, killed by her duplicity to me
and her selfishness toward you. I may have been a little
melodramatic, but I meant exactly what I said. From that day to this
her memory has not cost me a pang. As for Mrs. Meredith, she is a
very pretty and amusing person, who acted altogether according to
her kind, and to whom for her conduct toward myself I bear no
malice whatever. On the contrary, my sentiment toward her is one of
lively gratitude—although I have never forgiven her for her conduct
toward you.”
Aimée had lifted her eyes now, and was looking at him again very
steadily. It was as if she were deciding in her own mind the question
of his sincerity. Then she said, with her old simplicity and directness:
“But why do you wish to tell this to me?”
“Because,” he answered, “whether I go or whether I stay, I do not
wish you to regard me as the victim of a hopeless passion for the
wife of Mr. Meredith.”
“I should scarcely have thought that,” she answered; “but it was
surely natural to fancy that you might remember—with pain—”
“Oh, no; it is no matter for pain,” he said, as she hesitated—“only
for a light-comedy smile and sigh. Fancies of that sort come and go
like dreams. One must know many of them before one learns what
love really is.”
She turned her dark, meditative eyes away from him. On one side
was the interior of the marvelous old church, gleaming with marbles
and precious stones; on the other the sunshiny Piazza, with its
graceful arcades and flocks of sheeny pigeons. She looked toward
the last as she said:
“I do not think I like such an idea.”
“You?” he said, quickly. “No; how could you like it? It is not meant
to apply to natures like yours.”
“Is it not?” she asked, with a smile. “But how can you tell that,
when you know nothing of my nature?”
“Do you think I know nothing of your nature?” he asked, smiling
also. “If I had time, and you did not consider me too presumptuous,
I might prove the contrary, for you forget all that you showed me
once—all the courage, the unselfishness, the humility. But I do not
forget. And has no one ever told you that you carry your soul on
your lips and your heart in your eyes?”
“No,” she replied, “I do not remember that any one ever told me
so before—at least not exactly. But perhaps Fanny means the same
thing when she tells me that my face is ‘ridiculously transparent.’”
“It is only a different way of stating the same thing,” said Kyrle,
and then they both laughed.
“But seriously,” said he, after a moment, conscious of a very
pleasant sense of camaraderie with this beautiful companion, “have
you no idea how you revealed yourself to me at that last meeting of
ours under the orange trees? How I can see you this moment, as
you were then—such a delicate, childlike creature, but with a
strength of resolution against which I arrayed all my strength in
vain! And then, when you opened your heart and told me the sad
story of your life, and how it was gratitude which made you so
resolute—do you think I could ever forget anything so touching?
Many a time, in the years which have passed since then, I have
thought of that scene, and said to myself, ‘God bless that child
wherever she may be, for she has a heart as tender as it is brave!’”
Something in his voice told her that he was speaking genuinely,
without the least insincerity or thought of effect, and she could not
but give him a grateful glance from the same dark eyes which had
impressed him with their wonderful power of expression on the
occasion of which he spoke. “You are very kind,” she said, trying to
speak lightly, “to have remembered an obstinate child so long!”
“You were certainly very obstinate,” he said; “but how brave you
were! To think of your having had the courage to go alone to the sea
wall that night, and to think of the selfishness and cowardice that
sent you! Pardon me for asking the question, but has no opportunity
ever occurred for you to set yourself right in that matter?”
She shook her head. “How could it?” she asked. “Fanny has never
had the courage to tell her husband the truth. But nothing
disagreeable has arisen from it—to me, I mean,” she added, a little
hurriedly. “You know you were afraid of that.”
“Yes,” he said. “I am very glad that you have never been annoyed;
still, it is a shame that such a belief should be in the mind of any one
with regard to you.”
He spoke out, quickly and hotly, the indignation that on this
subject was always within him and ready to find expression; but he
was sorry the next moment for the words when he saw a swift blush
rise into her face, as with the sudden realization of what the belief
was to which he alluded. Angry with himself, he went on hastily:
“This being so—I mean, the burden of Mrs. Meredith’s conduct
being still borne by you—I feel that I am bound to abstain on my
part from anything which might cause you the least annoyance; and
so I have determined to go away. There shall not be the least
misapprehension about you, arising from any act of mine.”
So much was truth; but, like many other people, Kyrle did not find
it advisable to tell all the truth. He could not say, “Also, I am going,
because if I stay I shall fall in love with you, and that will never do,
for I am a poor man, and you are a rich woman.” But this was in his
mind, even while the temptation was growing greater every instant
to forget both of these stubborn facts. Aimée was silent for a
moment, and then—for the old courage, as well as the old simplicity,
was still strong in her—she looked at him with her brave, direct
glance, and said:
“If this is your reason for leaving Venice, I hope that you will not
think of going. Your presence does not cause me the least
annoyance; and I should be more sorry than I can tell you if mine
were such an annoyance to you that we could not even remain in
the same city. For, do you think I forget that if you are in a false
position, it was my obstinacy that placed, or at least kept you there?
How earnestly you appealed to me, and I could not yield! And are
you now to be the sufferer by being driven away from this heavenly
place? No, Mr. Kyrle, there is no justice in that. I will not allow it!”
He could have smiled at the energy with which she spoke, partly
because he read in it the old generous spirit, taking no heed or
thought of herself, and partly because, in urging him to remain, she
proved that she so little suspected the chief reason why departure
seemed to him necessary. What he would have answered it is hard
to say, for at that moment the maid, bearing some packages, made
her appearance, and Aimée, rousing to the consciousness that there
was something very unconventional in this prolonged conversation,
rose rather hastily, bade him good-morning, and walked away.
“Going to leave Venice?” said Fanny Meredith. “What an absurd
idea! What do you mean by it?”
The time was two hours later than when, standing in the shadow
of the cathedral porch, Kyrle had watched Aimée cross the sunshine-
flooded Piazza; and the place was the privacy of Mrs. Meredith’s
sitting-room in the Grand Hotel. The two people who occupied it
were alone together for the first time since they had parted as
lovers; but it is safe to say that this thought was not in the mind of
either of them. Kyrle, leaning back in a deep chair, was gazing
absently out of the window at the beautiful proportions of Santa
Maria della Salute just across the Grand Canal, while Mrs. Meredith,
with her pretty brows knitted, was gazing at him.
“I mean,” he said slowly, in reply to her last words, “that I think it
is the only wise course open to me.”
She threw herself back with an impatient gesture. “You are as
incomprehensible as ever!” she exclaimed. “Now, what on earth do
you mean by the only wise course open to you?”
“Briefly, then,” said Kyrle, “you were shrewd enough to observe
last night that I am in danger of falling in love with Miss Vincent—”
“Oh, no,” said Fanny, shaking her head, “I observed that the thing
was already accomplished.”
“There you are mistaken,” said he; “it is not already accomplished.
Or if it were,” he added, lamely, “there is the more reason for my
going away, since I only expose myself to useless pain by
remaining.”
“But why useless pain?” asked she. “Have you so faint a heart that
you are afraid of Percy Joscelyn as a rival?”
“Not at all,” answered he, calmly. “But it is quite impossible for me
to become his rival. Have you not told me that Miss Vincent is a
great heiress?”
“Yes; she has a large fortune in her own right, and without any
restrictions—happy girl!”
“I hope it may prove for her happiness,” said Kyrle, rather
gloomily, “but it is an effectual bar to any hope on my part. A
newspaper correspondent would hardly be a fit parti for such an
heiress.”
“And whose fault is it that you are a newspaper correspondent?”
asked Mrs. Meredith, with a malice born of past recollections. “But,
in my opinion, that is all nonsense,” she went on, briskly. “Birth and
social position are the things to be considered, rather than a mere
accident of money.”
“The accident of money is what the world considers,” said he,
“and I must consider it also. For myself, I have perhaps thought of it
too little. If so, I am punished by finding it now an insuperable
barrier between myself and the woman I might love.”
Fanny opened her lips to speak, but apparently thought better of it
before any words escaped. She closed them again and sat silent for
a moment, evidently reflecting. Then she looked at Kyrle with an
expression of resigned regret.
“I remember how ob—that is, determined you are,” she said; “so I
suppose there is nothing to be gained by arguing the matter. But
since your mind is so fully made up, why should you run away? I
thought that was the resource of weakness and indecision.”
“No doubt it is,” said he, falling into the artful trap, “and I felt very
weak last night, I assure you. But, after all, there is no reason why I
should go at once—” looking out at the enchanting sea and sky, and
remembering Aimée’s last words. “A day or two can not matter, and
it is nobody’s affair but my own if I choose to pay for present
pleasure by future pain.”
“Oh, dear, no—not anybody’s affair at all,” said Fanny. “And then,
you can so easily take another trip to Egypt and forget all about it. I
really wish you would stay,” she added, persuasively. “We might
have such a pleasant time wandering about Venice! And a man need
not abjure the society of a woman because he thinks her too rich to
marry.”
“No, certainly not,” said Lennox, though he knew in his heart that
this was sophistry. “Well, at least I will not go to-day. I will stay as
long as I first intended—that is, two or three days longer.”
“How nice of you!” said Fanny, with a gleam of triumph in her
eyes. “And you will also stay to breakfast?”
“You are very kind, but not to-day. If you are going anywhere this
afternoon, however, and will allow me to join you—”
“We are going out to the Lido. Meet us there, and we can all
return together. And one word—don’t mind the incivility of the
Joscelyns. They are uncivil because they are afraid of you.”
“I am very well aware of that,” said he, with a smile. Then his
heart sank, and his voice also, as he added, “But if they only knew
it, they have no cause for fear.”
“They are wiser than to believe that. And so am I,” thought Fanny;
but she took very good care not to utter her thought aloud.
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  • 2. We believe these products will be a great fit for you. Click the link to download now, or visit testbankbell.com to discover even more! Test Bank for Operations Management, First Canadian Edition Jay Heizer, Barry Render, Paul Griffin http://testbankbell.com/product/test-bank-for-operations-management- first-canadian-edition-jay-heizer-barry-render-paul-griffin/ Solutions Manuals for Operations Management, First Canadian Edition Jay Heizer, Barry Render, Paul Griffin http://testbankbell.com/product/solutions-manuals-for-operations- management-first-canadian-edition-jay-heizer-barry-render-paul- griffin/ Solution Manual for Operations Management, 2nd Canadian Edition, Jay Heizer, Barry Render Paul Griffin http://testbankbell.com/product/solution-manual-for-operations- management-2nd-canadian-edition-jay-heizer-barry-render-paul-griffin/ Law Business and Society 11th Edition McAdams Solutions Manual http://testbankbell.com/product/law-business-and-society-11th-edition- mcadams-solutions-manual/
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  • 5. 1-1 Operations Management, 11e (Heizer/Render) Full chapter download at: https://testbankbell.com/product/test-bank-for-operations- management-11-e-11th-edition-jay-heizer-barry-render/ Chapter 1 Operations and Productivity Section 1 What is Operations Management? 1) Some of the operations-related activities of Hard Rock Café include designing meals and analyzing them for ingredient cost and labor requirements. Answer: TRUE Diff: 1 Key Term: Operations management Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 2) Because Hard Rock Cafés are themed restaurants, operations managers focus their layout design efforts on attractiveness while paying little attention to efficiency. Answer: FALSE Diff: 1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 3) All organizations, including service firms such as banks and hospitals, have a production function. Answer: TRUE Diff: 2 Key Term: Production Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 4) Operations management is the set of activities that creates value in the form of goods and services by transforming inputs into outputs. Answer: TRUE Diff: 1 Key Term: Operations management Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 5) An example of a "hidden" production function is the transfer of funds between accounts at a bank. Answer: TRUE Diff: 2
  • 6. 1-2 Key Term: Production Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization
  • 7. 1-3 6) At Hard Rock Café, tasks that reflect operations or operations management include: A) designing efficient layouts. B) providing meals. C) receiving ingredients. D) preparing effective employee schedules. E) all of the above. Answer: E Diff: 1 Key Term: Operations management Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 7) An operations task performed at Hard Rock Café is: A) borrowing funds to build a new restaurant. B) advertising changes in the restaurant menu. C) calculating restaurant profit and loss. D) preparing employee schedules. E) all of the above. Answer: D Diff: 2 Key Term: Operations management AACSB: Reflective thinking skills Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 8) Operations management is applicable: A) mostly to the service sector. B) to services exclusively. C) mostly to the manufacturing sector. D) to all firms, whether manufacturing or service. E) to the manufacturing sector exclusively. Answer: D Diff: 2 Key Term: Operations management Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 9) ________ is the set of activities that creates value in the form of goods and services by transforming inputs into outputs. Answer: Operations management Diff: 1 Key Term: Operations management Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization
  • 8. 1-4 10) Identify three or more operations-related tasks carried out by Hard Rock Café. Answer: Providing custom meals; designing, testing, and costing meals; acquiring, receiving , and storing supplies; recruiting and training employees; preparing employee schedules; designing efficient restaurant layouts. Diff: 1 Key Term: Operations management Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 11) Define operations management. Will your definition accommodate both manufacturing and service operations? Answer: Operations management can be defined as the management of all activities directly related to the creation of goods and/or services through the transformation of inputs into outputs. Yes. Diff: 1 Key Term: Operations management Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization Section 2 Organizing to Produce Goods and Services 1) Which of the following are the primary functions of all organizations? A) production/operations, marketing, and human resources B) marketing, human resources, and finance/accounting C) sales, quality control, and production/operations D) marketing, production/operations, and finance/accounting E) research and development, finance/accounting, and purchasing Answer: D Diff: 2 Key Term: Operations management Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 2) Which of the following pioneers was NOT making a professional impact during the Scientific Management Era? A) Frank Gilbreth B) W. Edwards Deming C) Henry L. Gantt D) Lillian Gilbreth E) Frederick W. Taylor Answer: B Diff: 2 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization
  • 9. 1-5 3) Which of the following would NOT be an operations function in a commercial bank? A) auditing B) teller scheduling C) maintenance D) collection E) check clearing Answer: A Diff: 2 Key Term: Operations management Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 4) The marketing function's main concern is with: A) producing goods or providing services. B) procuring materials, supplies, and equipment. C) building and maintaining a positive image. D) generating the demand for the organization's products or services. E) securing monetary resources. Answer: D Diff: 2 5) Which of the following tasks within an airline company are related to operations? A) crew scheduling B) international monetary exchange C) sales D) advertising E) accounts payable Answer: A Diff: 2 Key Term: Operations management Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 6) Marketing, production/operations, and ________ are the three functions that all organizations must perform to create goods and services. Answer: finance/accounting Diff: 1 Section 3 The Supply Chain 1) Competition in the 21st century is no longer between companies; it is between supply chains. Answer: TRUE Diff: 2 Key Term: Supply chain
  • 10. 1-6 2) An accounting firm that provides tax services for a company would be considered to be part of that company's supply chain. Answer: TRUE Diff: 2 Key Term: Production AACSB: Reflective thinking skills Learning Outcome: Compare and contrast different sourcing strategies including outsourcing and insourcing 3) What is a global network of organizations and activities that supply a firm with goods and services? A) supply tree B) provider network C) supply chain D) vendor network E) vendor tree Answer: C Diff: 1 Key Term: Supply chain Learning Outcome: Compare and contrast different sourcing strategies including outsourcing and insourcing 4) Which of the following fosters specialization and worldwide supply chains? A) more expensive transportation B) instant communication C) economies of scope D) managers with a broad knowledge of many things E) high trade tariffs Answer: B Diff: 2 Key Term: Supply chain Learning Outcome: Compare and contrast different sourcing strategies including outsourcing and insourcing 5) A(n) ________ is a global network of organizations and activities that supply a firm with goods and services. Answer: supply chain Diff: 1 Key Term: Supply chain Learning Outcome: Compare and contrast different sourcing strategies including outsourcing and insourcing 6) Competition in the 21st century is no longer between companies; it is between ________. Answer: supply chains Diff: 2 Key Term: Supply chain Learning Outcome: Compare and contrast different sourcing strategies including outsourcing and insourcing
  • 11. 1-7 7) Identify up to four phenomena that foster specialization and worldwide supply chains. Answer: (1) a more technologically oriented society, (2) specialized expert knowledge, (3) instant communication, and (4) cheaper transportation Diff: 2 Key Term: Supply chain Learning Outcome: Compare and contrast different sourcing strategies including outsourcing and insourcing Section 4 Why Study OM? 1) One reason to study operations management is to learn how people organize themselves for productive enterprise. Answer: TRUE Diff: 1 Key Term: Operations management Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 2) Reasons to study operations management include: A) studying how people organize themselves for productive enterprise. B) knowing how goods and services are consumed. C) understanding what human resource managers do. D) learning about a costly part of the enterprise. E) A and D Answer: E Diff: 2 Key Term: Operations management Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 3) Reasons to study operations management include learning about: A) how people organize themselves for productive enterprise. B) how goods and services are produced. C) what operations managers do. D) a costly part of the enterprise. E) all of the above. Answer: E Diff: 1 Key Term: Operations management Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization
  • 12. 1-8 4) Brandon Production is a small firm focused on the assembly and sale of custom computers. The firm is facing stiff competition from low-priced alternatives, and is looking at various solutions to remain competitive and profitable. Current financials for the firm are shown in the table below. In the first option, marketing will increase sales by 50%. The next option is Vendor (Supplier) changes, which would result in a decrease of 10% in the cost of inputs. Finally there is an OM option, which would reduce production costs by 25%. Which of the options would you recommend to the firm if it can only pursue one option? In addition, comment on the feasibility of each option. Business Function Current Value Cost of Inputs $50,000 Production Costs $25,000 Revenue $80,000 Answer: Marketing would increase sales to $120,000 ($80,000 ∗ 1.5) but increase cost of inputs and production costs to $112,500 (($50,000 + $25,000) ∗ 1.5). This would net an additional $2500 of profit ($120,000 - $112,500 - current profit of $5000). Vendor (Supplier) Changes would decrease cost of inputs to $45,000 ($50,000 ∗ .9), resulting in $5,000 of additional profit (savings) ($50,000 - $45,000). Finally, the OM option would save $6250 ($25,000 - $25,000 ∗ .75), resulting in an additional $6250 of profit. Thus the OM option is the most profitable. Comments on feasibility should center on the near impossibility of increasing revenue by 50%, while noting the other two options are difficult but not impossible. Diff: 2 AACSB: Analytic skills Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization Section 5 What Operations Managers Do 1) The operations manager performs the management activities of planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling of the OM function. Answer: TRUE Diff: 2 Key Term: Operations management Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 2) "Considers inventory ordering and holding decisions" is within the strategic operations management decision area of managing quality. Answer: FALSE Diff: 1 Key Term: 10 strategic OM decisions Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization
  • 13. 1-9 3) In order to have a career in operations management, one must have a degree in statistics or quantitative methods. Answer: FALSE Diff: 1 Key Term: Operations management Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 4) What are the five elements in the management process? A) plan, direct, update, lead, and supervise B) accounting, finance, marketing, operations, and management C) organize, plan, control, staff, and manage D) plan, organize, staff, lead, and control E) plan, lead, organize, manage, and control Answer: D Diff: 2 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 5) Which of the following is NOT an element of the management process? A) controlling B) leading C) planning D) pricing E) staffing Answer: D Diff: 2 6) An operations manager is NOT likely to be involved in: A) the design of goods and services to satisfy customers' wants and needs. B) the quality of goods and services to satisfy customers' wants and needs. C) the identification of customers' wants and needs. D) work scheduling to meet the due dates promised to customers. E) maintenance schedules. Answer: C Diff: 1 Key Term: 10 strategic OM decisions Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization
  • 14. 1-10 7) All of the following decisions fall within the scope of operations management EXCEPT for: A) creating the company income statement. B) design of goods and services. C) location strategy. D) managing quality. E) human resources and job design. Answer: A Diff: 1 Key Term: 10 strategic OM decisions Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 8) The 10 strategic operations management decisions include: A) layout strategy. B) maintenance. C) process and capacity design. D) managing quality. E) all of the above. Answer: E Diff: 1 Key Term: 10 strategic OM decisions Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 9) Which of the following is NOT one of the 10 strategic operations management decisions? A) layout strategy B) maintenance C) process and capacity design D) mass customization E) supply chain management Answer: D Diff: 2 Key Term: 10 strategic OM decisions Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization
  • 15. 1-11 10) Which of the following is one of the 10 strategic operations management decisions? A) depreciation policy for tax returns B) advertising C) process and capacity design D) pricing E) debt/equity ratio Answer: C Diff: 1 Key Term: 10 strategic OM decisions Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 11) Which of the following are among the 10 strategic operations management decisions? I. design of goods and services II. managing quality III. layout strategy IV. marketing V. pricing of goods and services A) I, II, V B) I, II, IV C) II, III, V D) I, II, III E) All of the above Answer: D Diff: 2 Key Term: 10 strategic OM decisions Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 12) Which of the following influences layout design? A) inventory requirements B) capacity needs C) personnel levels D) technology E) All of the above influence layout decisions. Answer: E Diff: 2
  • 16. 1-12 13) Which of the following is NOT a strategic operations management decision? A) maintenance B) price C) layout design D) quality E) inventory Answer: B Diff: 2 Key Term: 10 strategic OM decisions Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 14) Identify two operations-related tasks carried out by Hard Rock Café. Match each to its related area of the 10 strategic operations management decisions. Answer: Providing custom meals: design of goods and services; designing, testing, and costing meals: design of goods and services; acquiring, receiving, and storing supplies: supply chain management; recruiting and training employees: human resources and job design; preparing employee schedules: scheduling; designing efficient restaurant layouts: layout strategy. Diff: 2 Key Term: 10 strategic OM decisions AACSB: Reflective thinking skills Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization 15) Identify the 10 strategic OM decisions. Answer: Design of goods and services, managing quality, process strategy, location strategies, layout strategies, human resources, supply chain management, inventory management, scheduling, and maintenance. Diff: 3 Key Term: 10 strategic OM decisions Objective: LO1 Learning Outcome: Discuss operations and operations management as a competitive advantage for the organization Section 6 The Heritage of Operations Management 1) Henry Ford is known as the Father of Scientific Management. Answer: FALSE Diff: 1 2) Shewhart's contributions to operations management came during the Scientific Management Era. Answer: FALSE Diff: 2
  • 17. Exploring the Variety of Random Documents with Different Content
  • 18. “I—ah—hum—have heard of Mr. Kyrle,” observed Major Joscelyn, in a tone which intimated that he had heard no good of Mr. Kyrle. Then he fixed a pair of prominent eyes upon the young man and inquired if he had been long in Venice. “Only a few days,” Lennox answered, carelessly. “Ah—a few days! And you are leaving soon?” “That depends altogether upon circumstances,” replied Kyrle, who in fact intended to leave in a day or two, but had no desire to gratify Major Joscelyn by telling him so; for already he felt an animus of dislike against these people, not only because of their attitude toward himself (for that, being the result of misconception, only amused him), but from their appearance and manner. “They are self- seeking and insincere,” was his judgment, as his glance passed rapidly from face to face; and then, turning to the lovely, candid countenance of Aimée, he thought, “She is like a dove among hawks.” Major Joscelyn giving no other reply to his last remark than a disapproving “Hem!” Miss Joscelyn took up the conversation, and remarked that Mr. Kyrle probably found Venice attractive. “Very attractive—especially within the last half hour,” he replied, with deliberate malice. The Joscelyns looked at each other, while Mr. Meredith glanced at his wife, and the latter said, quickly: “Of course, it has become more attractive within the last half hour. What is pleasanter than meeting old friends unexpectedly? Mr. Kyrle is on his way to America from Egypt,” she added in general explanation, “and it is the merest chance that we should have met him.” No one remarked that it was a fortunate chance. On the contrary, silence appeared to indicate an altogether different opinion. After a moment, Major Joscelyn observed that they had probably seen
  • 19. enough of the Palace of the Doges for one morning, and that it was time to think of returning to the hotel. There was a general movement, and it is likely that Lennox would have taken a final farewell of the party there and then, had not Aimée turned to him with a smile sweet enough to atone for any degree of incivility on the part of the others, saying, “And have you, too, had enough of the Ducal Palace?” “For the present,” he answered; and availing himself of what seemed a tacit permission, he walked by her side as the party passed from the great hall, along corridors and down staircases to the court below. Those few minutes completed the impression which she had already made upon him; and an impression in which her beauty played a small part in comparison with the gracious simplicity of her manner and the charm of her voice and glance. There was much in this voice and glance to remind him of the girl who had carried Fanny Berrien’s message to him, who had so timidly offered him her sympathy and compassion, and who had sat by his side under the orange boughs. Yet, save in the dark sweetness of the eyes and the gentle cadence of the tones, there was surely little in common between that frightened child and this stately young lady. If he had only known it, however, there was the great thing in common that she was offering him now, the same sympathy that she had offered then. She was too young, and of too limited experience, to have learned the power of change which lies in time, and it seemed to her that he must inevitably be deeply moved by such an unexpected meeting with the woman he had once loved; and her gentle kindness was the involuntary form in which she expressed this feeling. But naturally no one could be aware of this— not even Kyrle himself. He thought that she simply meant to atone for the incivility of her friends; the latter cast alarmed glances upon one another; and Fanny Meredith was no nearer the truth than any one else, in saying to herself: “Aimée is certainly the best creature in
  • 20. the world! She is throwing herself into the breach to prevent Tom from being jealous.” When they reached the Piazza there was a slight pause of the party, and Kyrle felt that he was expected to take leave. “Since I have been so fortunate this morning, I hope to be fortunate again,” he said to Aimée in clearly audible tones. “I shall trust to have the pleasure of meeting you again.” “Oh, no doubt,” answered she, readily. “People who know each other can not possibly fail to meet in Venice. But will you not come to see us? We are at the Grand Hotel.—Fanny, surely you mean to ask Mr. Kyrle to come to see you?” “Mr. Kyrle knows that I shall be delighted to see him,” replied Mrs. Meredith, “but really we are at home so seldom that it hardly seems worth while to ask him to come. As you have just observed, people must meet when they are in Venice; and their best chance to meet is away from home, rather than at home. Nevertheless, I hope you will take the chance of finding us in,” said she, to Kyrle. “I shall prefer to take the chance of finding you elsewhere, since you are more likely to be abroad,” replied he. “And elsewhere is so much pleasanter than at home,” interposed Miss Joscelyn. “The Belle Arti, now—have you been to the Belle Arti, Mr. Kyrle?” Mr. Kyrle replied that he had not. “I have not been sight-seeing since my arrival,” he said, “but only lounging.” “Oh, but you must certainly see the Belle Arti,” said the young lady with animation. “You can have no idea of the Venetian school of art until you have studied it there.” “I have no doubt Mr. Kyrle is aware of that, Lydia,” said Fanny Meredith, dryly; “but since we have exhaustively done the Belle Arti —at least I hope we are done with it—he is not likely to meet us there, and it was of meeting us that he was speaking.” “It was certainly of meeting you that I was thinking,” said Lennox.
  • 21. “Hum—ah!” said the major, addressing his party, “shall we move on?” Kyrle watched them with a smile as they moved away across the sunshiny square. He was saying to himself that it would go hard with him if he did not see again the beautiful eyes he had been looking into, and hear the sweet voice which had just bidden him such a kindly adieu.
  • 22. III. It was no later than the evening of the same day before he met the party again. He was idly sauntering around the arcades of the Piazza, brilliant with lights and filled with the sound of many tongues, when he heard a voice say, “Oh, there is Mr. Kyrle!” and turning, he encountered Fanny Meredith’s bright glance. She was sitting at one of the tables near the door of a café, with Aimée, Mr. Meredith, and young Joscelyn, taking coffee and ices, and as Lennox paused she went on, gayly: “Come and join us. You look lonely, and we are stupid. We know each other so well that each knows exactly what the other will say; so, like Punch’s married lovers during the honeymoon, we are ready to welcome a friend, or even an enemy, so he prove entertaining.” “But how if one should not prove entertaining?” asked Kyrle, who needed no second bidding to take a vacant chair by her side. “Then you must have made very poor use of your opportunities,” said she, “and changed very much besides—must he not, Aimée?” This was audacious, Kyrle thought; but glancing at Aimée, he was reassured by her smile. “When I knew Mr. Kyrle, I was not very well able to judge of his powers of entertainment,” she said, “though I have no doubt they were great.” “On the contrary, they have always been of a very limited order,” said Kyrle. “I am immensely flattered, however, by Mrs. Meredith’s kind recollection, and only regret my inability to justify it.” “You have at least improved in modesty,” said Mrs. Meredith. “A man who has been in the desert six months should be modest when he returns to civilization,” he answered. “Perhaps it is because
  • 23. I have been in the desert,” he added, looking around, “that it seems to me one hardly needs better entertainment than this scene.” “It is very bright and interesting for a while,” said Mr. Meredith; “but fancy coming here every evening of your life, as these Venetians do! One would think that it would grow monotonous in time.” “To a stranger it would certainly grow monotonous in a short time,” said Kyrle; “but those who have all their interests, social or otherwise, here, and who have a strong attachment to this which has been the frame of their life from its beginning, and the frame of the life of Venice through all her history, are not likely to grow weary of it.” “I think,” said Aimée, “that even a stranger might require some time to grow weary of it—such a picture in such a frame!” “That would depend entirely upon the stranger,” said Lennox, regarding her with a smile. And indeed she was herself a picture worth regarding as she sat in the light of the brilliant lamps; her fair, delicate face shadowed by a large hat covered with curling plumes, and her liquid eyes full of pleasure as she looked over the gay life of the Piazza, or turned to the solemn front of the great cathedral lifting its domes and minarets against a sky of hyacinth blue. “It is a very pretty scene,” said Percy Joscelyn, superciliously, “but I think it quite possible to grow tired of it. There is so much sameness. Now, the boulevards—” “Percy is a very good American; his idea of heaven is a Paris boulevard,” said Fanny Meredith. “I am fond of the boulevards myself, but, for a change, I call this delightful.” Lennox agreed with her. He did not ask himself why it was so delightful, but he felt a sense of thorough and complete satisfaction, as he sat, joining in the light, idle conversation, commenting on the
  • 24. motley throng which ebbed and flowed around them, and drinking a cup of black coffee as if it were nectar. Presently Mr. Meredith suggested a return to their hotel, but this was at once negatived by his lively wife. “The moon is well up by this time,” she said. “Let us go out in a gondola. It will be charming to float about for an hour or so.” “Good Heaven!” said the husband, “have you not been floating about enough during the course of the day? It seems to me that we hardly exist out of a gondola, unless we are in a church or a picture gallery.” “Well, then, you need not come,” said she, laughing; “but I know Aimée would like to go—would you not, Aimée?” “I am always ready for a gondola,” was the smiling reply. “Percy will go. He is always ready for a gondola too,” pursued Fanny. Then she turned to Kyrle. “Will you join us?” she asked. “I shall be delighted,” he replied, trying not to make the commonplace words too eager. “Then we are a nice partie carrée, and we will go at once,” said she, rising and taking a shawl from the back of her chair. No one inquired how far Mr. Meredith approved of the arrangement. He was left smoking a cigar in front of the café, while the partie carrée proceeded to the Riva in search of a gondola. As was to be expected, Percy took possession of Aimée, while Lennox found himself walking by the side of his old love. Neither of them spoke for a minute or two; then Fanny turned and glanced at him with a mischievous smile. “Time has its recompenses as well as its revenges occasionally,” she said. “Are you meditating on that?” He looked at her and was forced to return her smile. “You are as full of diablerie as ever,” he said, “but if you have no sense of compassion, have you not any compunction?”
  • 25. “Compassion!—compunction! What fine, large words! But why should I have either?” she asked. “You do not need compassion, I am sure; and as for compunction—you could not expect me to be sorry now?” “Certainly not,” he answered, with alacrity. “Regret for what has resulted so well would be entirely out of place—for you, that is. For me, however—” “Are you trying to insinuate that you have any regret?” said she, with a laugh. “Ah, that pretense is shallow! I have had such long experience that I can tell, the moment that I look into a man’s eyes, whether he feels the smallest bit of sentiment; and you—as far as I am concerned—you have not enough to put on the point of a pin! Do you think it strange of me to talk in this way?”—He did think so, and his face no doubt betrayed as much. “But I have a reason. I want you to understand that I am not under any foolish delusion about you, as some women would be. I am anxious that you should trust me, and let me be your friend.” “Pray believe that I trust you entirely,” said Lennox—who did not trust her at all. “But a friend—I am much honored; yet I do not know that I have special need of a friend at present.” “You will never have greater need,” said she, emphatically, “for you have fallen in love with Aimée, and, unless I am your friend, the Joscelyns will not suffer you even to speak to her.” “I can well believe that,” said he, involuntarily. Then he paused and laughed. “But have I fallen in love with the young lady whose name is so suggestive of that emotion?” he asked. “You are the person to answer the question,” replied Fanny; “but I should say there was no doubt of it. I have been watching you for the last hour, and the entire scheme has matured beautifully in my mind.”
  • 26. He looked at her again—curious, interested, uncertain what to make of her. The pretty, piquant face he had once known so well, was full of animation and amusement as she turned it toward him, meeting his puzzled glance. “You are ungrateful,” she said; “you do not trust me; and yet I am anxious to do you a great service.” “Granting that I need a service,” said he, “forgive me if I ask—why should you wish to do it?” “Now, that is more than ungrateful,” said she. “It is giving me credit for no fine feeling at all. Though I jest, do you think I do not remember how badly I treated you once? It is all over now—and no doubt you are grateful enough that it is so. But still the fact remains. I did treat you badly, and I should like to be able to feel that I had made some amend for it. So much for you. Now for Aimée”—her voice changed slightly. “Well, I owe a great deal to Aimée, and I would do a great deal for her. When it was a question of serving me, she did not think of herself at all; and, though I may be frivolous and shallow, I do not forget this.” “She certainly did not think of herself at all,” Kyrle agreed—looking at the graceful figure moving in front of them, and remembering the sea wall of St. Augustine. “I always said I would repay her if I could,” Fanny went on, “and I do not think I can repay her better than by rescuing her from the hands that have possession of her now, and saving her from marrying Percy Joscelyn.” The last shot struck home. Kyrle was himself astonished at the sense of consternation with which he started. “Is that thought of?” he asked. “They think of it,” Fanny replied. “They are ready to move heaven and earth to accomplish it; but”—the tone of gleeful malice which he had heard before came into her voice—“I think we may defeat them, you and I, if you will say the word.”
  • 27. “What word is it that you wish me to say?” he asked. She looked up into his face again with bright eyes. “What word can it be,” she replied, “except the simple assertion that you wish to marry Aimée?” Fortunately for Kyrle, he had no opportunity to answer at the moment. They had by this time reached the Riva, and Joscelyn, turning, said, “Here is a gondola.” A few minutes later they were afloat on the broad expanse of moonlight-flooded water, with Venice—marvelous, mystical, beautiful —lying around them. The cabin had been removed from the gondola, and the ladies took the two cushioned seats, while the young men threw themselves down at their feet. And so they glided out into the silver night. Surely it was an hour worth living for! The brilliant lights from the quays streamed over the water and were reflected in the still depths below, like an enchanted city; but this illumination paled before the splendor of the moonlight that reigned supreme, making all things visible, yet veiling every defect of time, for other defects in Venice there are none. Under this magic light the “glorious city of the sea” has all her ancient glory still; one sees no longer the decay which has fallen over her palaces, but only the loveliness which made her the wonder of the world. Past islands, palaces, and domed churches they glided with that smooth, noiseless movement which is half the charm of a gondola, and were soon on the broad lagoon, where the booming of the Adriatic surf upon the Lido came to their ears like distant thunder—the only sound which broke the silence around them. The others talked, but Aimée said little. She leaned back on the broad, easy seat, and the white radiance falling over her seemed to intensify all that was spiritual in her beauty, until she looked rather like a fair dream of a woman than a creature of flesh and blood. Lennox pulled his hat low over his eyes in order that he might watch her unobserved. His blood was still bounding from that suggestion of
  • 28. Fanny Meredith’s before they entered the boat. It had taken away his breath, yet he felt as if in some intangible way it had drawn him nearer to this exquisite creature. It seemed to make that a possibility of which he had not ventured to dream; and as he watched the lovely face he was ready to utter with emphasis the word desired. Here on the shining water, with the moon beloved of lovers in all ages looking down, he felt his youth reawakening with a sense of power and resolve. He did not think of difficulties or doubts; he only yielded himself to the strange, sweet enchantment which had so unexpectedly overwhelmed him. Presently Fanny looked at him curiously, “Why have you grown so silent?” she asked. “You and Aimée are not the most lively companions one might choose.” “Lively!” repeated Lennox. “If you wanted liveliness, you should have remained on the Piazza. This is not the place for it.” “It seems to me that all places are the better for it,” said she; “but perhaps that is because I am a Philistine. However, since you don’t think this a place for liveliness, suppose you sing something. It is certainly a place for music, and we have left all the musicians behind.” They had indeed left those gondolas full of singers, which haunt the Grand Canal and hover around the hotels of Venice, far behind, and were floating in the silence of the lustrous night near San Lazare. Lennox hesitated and looked at Aimée, who turned her glance on him. “Do you sing?” she asked. “Sing?” repeated Fanny. “He used to sing divinely! I suppose he has not forgotten that in the desert.” “Oh, no,” said Lennox, with a laugh. “I have floated on the Nile and sung to myself many a night.” “Sing to us now, then, will you not?” said Aimée.
  • 29. There was no insistence in her tone, only a courteous request; but he complied immediately, as he would no doubt have complied had she asked him to take a plunge into the sea. Nor did he require more than an instant to decide what he would sing. As he watched her uplifted face with the moonbeams falling on it, he had been thinking of a song of Heine’s, and the music—Schumann’s music— was in his throat, as it were; so he began at once: “The lotus flower feareth The splendor of the sun; Bowing her head and dreaming, She waits till the day is done. “The moon he is her lover; He wakes her with silvery light; To him unveils she, smiling, Her flower-face pure and white. “She gazeth on high in silence, Doth bloom and gleam and glow, Exhaling and weeping and trembling For love and love’s deep woe.” He sang “divinely,” as Fanny had said, for Nature had given him a voice of the finest order—a pure, melodious tenor—and, though it had never received much training, there was something in it to-night which took the place of training and made it unnecessary—a thrill of emotion, a depth of expression, which art can never teach. When the full, soft notes sank over the last cadence, Fanny cried out with admiration, and even Mr. Joscelyn condescended to say, “Bravo!” But Aimée did not speak at once, and it was only when Lennox looked into her “flower-face pure and white,” that she said, “You have a great gift, Mr. Kyrle, and a great power to bestow pleasure.” The words were kind, but what was there in the voice that seemed to Kyrle’s ear like a touch of frost? The exaltation of his
  • 30. mood sank under it, and he suddenly seemed in his own eyes to wear very much the aspect of a fool. What had he been doing? Singing out his heart to unsympathetic ears, led away by the magic of the night and the fairness of a face which, after all, was the face of a stranger, or, worse yet, of one who knew him only as the lover of Fanny Meredith. What had possessed him to take leave of his senses in this manner? Was this what was likely to happen to a man when he came out of the desert and found himself in unaccustomed contact with civilization again? Did the first lovely face on which he looked lead his senses astray? But even as he scornfully asked the question he knew that it was not so; that the spell of this face had its root deep in the past, in that golden evening when he sat under the orange trees and tried in vain to shake the grateful loyalty of a child. He knew now that he had never forgotten that child, and the deep impression which her absolute unselfishness had made on him, an impression deeper because it had been contrasted with such utter selfishness on the part of another. He had seemed to come very near to that little maiden of the past in the hour when her nature and her heart had been, as it were, laid bare before him; and so it was to no stranger that he had so quickly surrendered his own heart, which had long been swept and garnished and empty of any occupant. Meanwhile Mrs. Meredith was clamoring for another song. “You are surely not going to stop with one!” she cried. “We want another, and yet another—don’t we, Aimée?” “Just as many as Mr. Kyrle will give us,” responded Aimée, smiling. It was easier to sing than to talk; so Kyrle again lifted his voice, this time in a Spanish serenade as full of the spirit of passionate romance as a Spanish night. But something had gone from the singer’s voice, and, charming as was the song, no one was moved and thrilled as by the first.
  • 31. IV. Fanny Meredith was right in saying that the Joscelyns watched Aimée and every man who approached her like dragons. And from their point of view, this was natural enough. Had not Aimée’s fortune lifted them out of poverty and the embarrassments resulting therefrom, to a condition of affluence where all things became easy and agreeable? And could they be expected to surrender the advantages of this fortune without a struggle? It was true that they had enjoyed these advantages for five or six years, in which time Major Joscelyn, through whose hands the income passed, had made not a few excellent investments on his own account; and that Aimée, as soon as she attained her majority, had settled an independence on her mother. Yet these things did not make them one whit more inclined to surrender any part of the heritage which they had grown to consider their own. Since it was, however, undeniable that Aimée, although the most gentle and yielding of human beings, had certain rights in her own property which the law would secure to her, and which a husband, should she marry, might be brutal enough to claim in her behalf, it became necessary that she should marry some one who could be trusted to consider the Joscelyn interest of primary importance; and this could only be one of the Joscelyns themselves. It was therefore early decreed in the family councils that Percy Joscelyn should in time marry the young heiress. There had been considerable consternation when he returned with her from St. Augustine and reported a mysterious lover already on the horizon; especially since inquiries drew no information concerning this person from Aimée. “He was a gentleman whom I knew,” she said, and not even her mother could obtain from her anything more. Then Major Joscelyn solemnly announced that any such thing as a probable or possible love affair must be promptly nipped in the bud, and that the quickest and most complete way to accomplish this was to take the girl abroad. Her education, which up to this time had
  • 32. been of the most desultory order, furnished a good plea, and the entire Joscelyn family conveyed themselves at once to foreign fields. They had never returned to America. Nothing would have been easier than to place Aimée in a French or German school, where she would not have required the attention of her entire family; but that would not have given an excuse for a residence in Paris, which they all found very agreeable. So a handsome establishment was mounted, and after its expenses were paid, besides the investments on the major’s account already mentioned, there was not a great deal to spare for Aimée’s education. Expensive masters, therefore, she never had; but very good though not fashionable teachers can be obtained in Paris for low prices, and it was not in Aimée’s nature to make any demands for herself. She took eager advantage of the scant opportunities allowed her, and accomplished an education for which she had little to thank her guardians. There was some uneasiness in the family mind when the time of her majority approached; but it passed quietly, and, whether through indifference, or ignorance of the full extent of her power, she made no attempt to take the control of her income from Major Joscelyn’s hands. So things had gone on as usual, and the family were hoping that before very long Percy might come into possession of the much-coveted fortune, when who should appear on the scene but Fanny Meredith! At once the Joscelyns felt that the time had come when they would have to fight for Aimée. They no longer had legal control of her movements; and although she still yielded submission to the wishes of her mother (which meant the wishes of Major Joscelyn), they instinctively felt that it would not do to try this submissiveness too far. So, when Mrs. Meredith proposed that Aimée should join her husband and herself in a tour through Italy, the Joscelyns held a council of war, and decided that, while it was impossible to allow her to go, it was equally unadvisable to strain obedience too far. The brilliant mind of Major Joscelyn again found the remedy. “We will all go,” he said. “It is not—ahem!—what one would desire, to wander about Italian cities for several months; but Aimée can not be trusted with this flighty woman, who would not
  • 33. only introduce all manner of—hum—dangerous acquaintances to her, but who would delight to undermine our influence. Neither will it do to positively refuse to let her go; so we must sacrifice ourselves and accompany her.” The sacrifice, therefore, to Fanny Meredith’s great disgust, was made. The family picked themselves up, and in solid phalanx accompanied their heiress to Italy, keeping vigilant watch and ward over her and over every possible dangerous acquaintance whom she made. But they were little prepared for the unkind stroke of Fate which brought Lennox Kyrle across their path. That his appearance in Venice was an accident they did not believe for an instant. They strongly suspected that Fanny Meredith had, together with him, planned this appearance to take place when Aimée should have been removed from her family environment. They congratulated themselves that so much, at least, had been frustrated by their foreseeing vigilance, but they had not the least doubt that Kyrle had come with the determination to secure her hand and fortune, if that desirable end could be attained by unholy arts and incredible audacity. What was to be done to frustrate and check this audacity? Such was the question the family met in solemn conclave to consider on the day after the undesirable intruder had appeared. “He is not to be shaken off easily,” said Percy Joscelyn, “for Mrs. Meredith encourages him in every way. Last night she not only invited him to join us as we sat outside Florian’s, but she proposed going out in a gondola, took him along, and made him sing. He sings uncommonly well—confound him!—and almost made love to Aimée before my eyes.” “The fellow’s impudence seems to be equal to anything!” said the major. “And how did Aimée receive his—ah—advances?” “You can never tell much about Aimée,” his son answered. “She is quiet, and she’s deep. She didn’t seem responsive, but that signifies nothing. Under ordinary circumstances I might think that he had made no impression on her; but these are not ordinary circumstances, and the trouble is that we don’t know what the
  • 34. extent of their first acquaintance was. Although Mrs. Berrien denied it, I shall always believe that there had been some love-making going on between them in St. Augustine.” “And yet Aimée was certainly not very attractive at that time,” observed Miss Joscelyn. “There’s no accounting for tastes,” said her brother, curtly, “and facts are facts. I saw him give her a locket—something which, you know, she always declined to explain.” “Yes,” said Mrs. Joscelyn, with a sigh, “she was very obstinate and as close as wax. But I have always had an idea that he was not a lover, because, in the first place, she said so—and Aimée always told the truth—and, in the second place, because she never seemed to have any fancy for lovers, like other girls.—You know, Lydia, how often you have remarked that Aimée was so old-fashioned in this respect.” “Yes,” assented Lydia, “but, as Percy says, Aimée is deep, and I don’t really feel that I know very much about her. As for the matter of the locket, though,” added the speaker with a sudden gleam of intuition, “that was as likely as not one of Fanny Meredith’s tricks. She was an outrageous flirt!” “If I thought so!” exclaimed Percy Joscelyn, with a start. His eyes flashed as he spoke. Many a score had he to pay Fanny Meredith, who in truth took a malicious pleasure in frustrating his attempts to establish a claim upon Aimée; and if it were possible to bring anything out of the past against her, how delighted he would be to use it remorselessly! “But there is not the least proof of such a thing,” he said, almost resentfully, to his sister. “No; it was only an idea that occurred to me,” she replied; “but I know what Fanny Berrien was, and I believe that, if you could induce Aimée to speak, you would find that it was so.” “Then, in that case,” said the major, “you don’t believe the man was Aimée’s lover at all?”
  • 35. “It does not matter what she believes,” Percy somewhat rudely interposed. “Opinions, without any ground of proof, amount to nothing. I know what I saw, and I know that the fellow has eyes only for Aimée now; and that Mrs. Meredith, as I have already said, encourages him by every means in her power.” “Then,” said the major, sharply, “one thing is certain: Aimée can not be allowed to go out with the Merediths.” “How will you prevent it?” Percy asked. “The last thing advisable is to force her to declare her independence of us, and any ill-judged attempt at control would do this. Nothing would please Mrs. Meredith better than to prompt her to such a course. No; watchfulness is our only resource—watchfulness, and perhaps stratagem. If it were possible to leave Venice now—” “That would be the best thing,” said the major, “only—ah—what is to prevent this objectionable person from following us?” “If that were all,” said Percy, “I should leave at once, and trust to luck or the shortness of his purse to prevent his following. But the real objection is that we could not be certain that Aimée would consent to go; and we could neither force her to do so nor leave her with the Merediths. So, departure is not to be thought of. We must fight the thing out by watchfulness and stratagem, as I have said.” “Watchfulness—yes,” said his father, “that is plain, and of course necessary; but what stratagem do you propose?” “I propose, for one thing, that some person shall always take charge of Mr. Kyrle, and prevent him from devoting himself to Aimée.” “But how is any one to take charge of Mr. Kyrle—without his consent?” asked Mrs. Joscelyn, feebly. “A man’s consent is always taken for granted where a lady is concerned,” young Joscelyn answered. “Lydia, here, might be equal to the delicate task, I think. All that is required is that she shall quietly take possession of Mr. Kyrle on all occasions, and make it
  • 36. impossible for him to attach himself to Aimée.—It is a task after your own heart,” he went on, addressing his sister with more than the suspicion of a brotherly sneer in his tone “I have seen you on many occasions monopolize men very much against their will. Do you think you can manage the same thing with Kyrle?” A flush rose to her cheek and was visible through the powder that covered it. “You are as insulting as usual,” she said. “On the contrary, I am most flattering,” he returned, suavely—for he felt that Lydia’s assistance was essential at this juncture of affairs. “Only a woman of rare powers can do these things. A stupid woman or a clumsy woman can never succeed in them. It requires a peculiar tact to take possession of a man and keep him fastened to your side whether he likes or not.” “I understand perfectly all that you mean to imply,” she said, coldly; “and if I do this thing it is not out of regard for you or your plans, but because I have an object of my own in it.” “Whatever your object,” her brother replied, “only do the thing, and I shall be satisfied, and never doubt your powers again.”
  • 37. V. But while the family council was thus laying plans for keeping Aimée and her old acquaintance apart, Fortune, which sometimes takes up weapons and fights for those who have neither heart nor power to fight for themselves, had most unexpectedly brought them together. It was quite early in the morning, soon after he had taken that light collation which on the Continent is called the first breakfast, that Kyrle, sauntering on the Piazza and asking himself whether he should fulfill his engagement of calling on Mrs. Meredith, or whether he should, more sensibly, leave Venice, these old entanglements, and new perils, behind him, suddenly perceived a lady, accompanied by her maid, just entering the great portal of the cathedral. He had not sat behind that figure the day before and studied it in vain. He recognized at once the elegant outlines, the graceful carriage, and without a moment’s hesitation he followed her into the church, as he had long ago followed her into the Florida orange grove. Who does not know by sight or by fame that wonderful interior in whose darkness lies hid the spoils of the Orient, and whose ancient pavement in its undulations seems to imitate the waves of the sea that cradles it? Kyrle knew it well; but just now he was not thinking of gorgeous mosaics, or marvelous carving, of columns of verd- antique, jasper, or porphyry; his eyes were searching the gloom of the vast edifice for the figure which had entered a few minutes before, and some time elapsed before he discovered what he sought, in a chapel where a priest was saying mass and a small congregation were assembled. As he drew near the chapel, struck by the infinitely picturesque scene—the rich, jewel-incrusted altar, the priest in his golden vestments, the contrasts of rank and costume in the forms kneeling on the pavement—he suddenly saw Aimée, her maid on one side, on
  • 38. the other a Venetian girl with a black lace shawl thrown over such red-gold hair as Titian painted, while a shaft of sunlight from some high, remote window brought out the delicate fairness of her face from the shadowy obscurity around. Satisfied with having found the object of his search, Kyrle paused, and, leaning against a pillar, waited until the service was over and those who had assisted thereat were dispersing. Then he stepped from the shadow of the pillar and presented himself to Aimée. She looked a little surprised, but greeted him quietly, and together they walked toward the entrance. “I was about to remark that I am fortunate to meet you,” Kyrle said presently, “but one should pay a sacred edifice the compliment of being strictly truthful while within its walls, shouldn’t one? And the truth in this case is that I saw you come in and followed you. I am thinking of leaving Venice to-day.” If he had intended to surprise her by the announcement, he must have been disappointed by the calmness with which she replied: “You are leaving Venice to-day? Is not that sooner than you anticipated?” “I had made no plans,” he answered. “When I paused here, I did not intend to linger more than a few days. And now, though I am strongly tempted to remain, I—Well, I think I had better go.” Almost every one has had occasion to learn more than once in life the extreme difficulty of keeping all trace of strong feeling out of the voice. Kyrle was conscious of being somewhat exasperated with himself and Fate, as he uttered the last words, and naturally the inflection of his tone betrayed the feeling. Aimée glanced at him quickly—involuntarily, it appeared—and in the light of that glance there suddenly flashed upon him an understanding of what interpretation she might give to his words. Her eyes seemed to say, “Ah, is that it!” But before he could collect his thoughts sufficiently to know how to explain himself, she had looked away again and was saying in her clear, low voice: “If you think it best, of course you are right to go. And one should not attempt to change your resolution.”
  • 39. “No one is likely to attempt to change it,” he replied, with a slight laugh. “But I think you misunderstand me a little,” he added, after a pause, with a sudden impulse of candor. “We were once thrown together very singularly; I am sure you do not forget this any more than I do. Therefore, since we are not strangers, will you let me speak to you frankly?” “Surely, if you wish to do so,” she answered; but he saw that she looked a little startled. “Do not be afraid,” he said, quietly. “I have no intention of saying anything that you need hesitate to hear. But may I ask you to sit down for a moment?” They were now in the atrium, or inner porch of the church. Aimée hesitated for an instant, then, turning to her maid, said in French: “Go to the Merceria and make the purchases of which you spoke. I will wait for you here.” “Oui, mademoiselle,” replied the girl, without the change of a feature, and forthwith departed. Kyrle could hardly believe his good fortune, but as Aimée sat down on one of the stone benches fixed against the wall, he said, gratefully: “You are very kind—as kind as I remember you of old. And I have no more forgotten how kind you were then, than I have ceased to thank Heaven for the message you so bravely brought me.” She looked up at him and he saw in her face that she was astonished. “But—” she began, and then paused. “But you thought that I meant something else a minute ago,” he said. “You thought I meant that I found it best to go because I felt the old attraction reviving. Is it not so?” She dropped her eyes. “Was it not natural that I should think so?” she asked.
  • 40. “Perhaps it was natural,” he answered, “but you were mistaken. My only sentiment with regard to that past folly is one of sincerest thankfulness for my escape. The last time we sat like this together— have you forgotten the evening in the orange grove?—I told you that my fancy for Fanny Berrien was dead, killed by her duplicity to me and her selfishness toward you. I may have been a little melodramatic, but I meant exactly what I said. From that day to this her memory has not cost me a pang. As for Mrs. Meredith, she is a very pretty and amusing person, who acted altogether according to her kind, and to whom for her conduct toward myself I bear no malice whatever. On the contrary, my sentiment toward her is one of lively gratitude—although I have never forgiven her for her conduct toward you.” Aimée had lifted her eyes now, and was looking at him again very steadily. It was as if she were deciding in her own mind the question of his sincerity. Then she said, with her old simplicity and directness: “But why do you wish to tell this to me?” “Because,” he answered, “whether I go or whether I stay, I do not wish you to regard me as the victim of a hopeless passion for the wife of Mr. Meredith.” “I should scarcely have thought that,” she answered; “but it was surely natural to fancy that you might remember—with pain—” “Oh, no; it is no matter for pain,” he said, as she hesitated—“only for a light-comedy smile and sigh. Fancies of that sort come and go like dreams. One must know many of them before one learns what love really is.” She turned her dark, meditative eyes away from him. On one side was the interior of the marvelous old church, gleaming with marbles and precious stones; on the other the sunshiny Piazza, with its graceful arcades and flocks of sheeny pigeons. She looked toward the last as she said: “I do not think I like such an idea.”
  • 41. “You?” he said, quickly. “No; how could you like it? It is not meant to apply to natures like yours.” “Is it not?” she asked, with a smile. “But how can you tell that, when you know nothing of my nature?” “Do you think I know nothing of your nature?” he asked, smiling also. “If I had time, and you did not consider me too presumptuous, I might prove the contrary, for you forget all that you showed me once—all the courage, the unselfishness, the humility. But I do not forget. And has no one ever told you that you carry your soul on your lips and your heart in your eyes?” “No,” she replied, “I do not remember that any one ever told me so before—at least not exactly. But perhaps Fanny means the same thing when she tells me that my face is ‘ridiculously transparent.’” “It is only a different way of stating the same thing,” said Kyrle, and then they both laughed. “But seriously,” said he, after a moment, conscious of a very pleasant sense of camaraderie with this beautiful companion, “have you no idea how you revealed yourself to me at that last meeting of ours under the orange trees? How I can see you this moment, as you were then—such a delicate, childlike creature, but with a strength of resolution against which I arrayed all my strength in vain! And then, when you opened your heart and told me the sad story of your life, and how it was gratitude which made you so resolute—do you think I could ever forget anything so touching? Many a time, in the years which have passed since then, I have thought of that scene, and said to myself, ‘God bless that child wherever she may be, for she has a heart as tender as it is brave!’” Something in his voice told her that he was speaking genuinely, without the least insincerity or thought of effect, and she could not but give him a grateful glance from the same dark eyes which had impressed him with their wonderful power of expression on the occasion of which he spoke. “You are very kind,” she said, trying to speak lightly, “to have remembered an obstinate child so long!”
  • 42. “You were certainly very obstinate,” he said; “but how brave you were! To think of your having had the courage to go alone to the sea wall that night, and to think of the selfishness and cowardice that sent you! Pardon me for asking the question, but has no opportunity ever occurred for you to set yourself right in that matter?” She shook her head. “How could it?” she asked. “Fanny has never had the courage to tell her husband the truth. But nothing disagreeable has arisen from it—to me, I mean,” she added, a little hurriedly. “You know you were afraid of that.” “Yes,” he said. “I am very glad that you have never been annoyed; still, it is a shame that such a belief should be in the mind of any one with regard to you.” He spoke out, quickly and hotly, the indignation that on this subject was always within him and ready to find expression; but he was sorry the next moment for the words when he saw a swift blush rise into her face, as with the sudden realization of what the belief was to which he alluded. Angry with himself, he went on hastily: “This being so—I mean, the burden of Mrs. Meredith’s conduct being still borne by you—I feel that I am bound to abstain on my part from anything which might cause you the least annoyance; and so I have determined to go away. There shall not be the least misapprehension about you, arising from any act of mine.” So much was truth; but, like many other people, Kyrle did not find it advisable to tell all the truth. He could not say, “Also, I am going, because if I stay I shall fall in love with you, and that will never do, for I am a poor man, and you are a rich woman.” But this was in his mind, even while the temptation was growing greater every instant to forget both of these stubborn facts. Aimée was silent for a moment, and then—for the old courage, as well as the old simplicity, was still strong in her—she looked at him with her brave, direct glance, and said: “If this is your reason for leaving Venice, I hope that you will not think of going. Your presence does not cause me the least
  • 43. annoyance; and I should be more sorry than I can tell you if mine were such an annoyance to you that we could not even remain in the same city. For, do you think I forget that if you are in a false position, it was my obstinacy that placed, or at least kept you there? How earnestly you appealed to me, and I could not yield! And are you now to be the sufferer by being driven away from this heavenly place? No, Mr. Kyrle, there is no justice in that. I will not allow it!” He could have smiled at the energy with which she spoke, partly because he read in it the old generous spirit, taking no heed or thought of herself, and partly because, in urging him to remain, she proved that she so little suspected the chief reason why departure seemed to him necessary. What he would have answered it is hard to say, for at that moment the maid, bearing some packages, made her appearance, and Aimée, rousing to the consciousness that there was something very unconventional in this prolonged conversation, rose rather hastily, bade him good-morning, and walked away. “Going to leave Venice?” said Fanny Meredith. “What an absurd idea! What do you mean by it?” The time was two hours later than when, standing in the shadow of the cathedral porch, Kyrle had watched Aimée cross the sunshine- flooded Piazza; and the place was the privacy of Mrs. Meredith’s sitting-room in the Grand Hotel. The two people who occupied it were alone together for the first time since they had parted as lovers; but it is safe to say that this thought was not in the mind of either of them. Kyrle, leaning back in a deep chair, was gazing absently out of the window at the beautiful proportions of Santa Maria della Salute just across the Grand Canal, while Mrs. Meredith, with her pretty brows knitted, was gazing at him. “I mean,” he said slowly, in reply to her last words, “that I think it is the only wise course open to me.” She threw herself back with an impatient gesture. “You are as incomprehensible as ever!” she exclaimed. “Now, what on earth do
  • 44. you mean by the only wise course open to you?” “Briefly, then,” said Kyrle, “you were shrewd enough to observe last night that I am in danger of falling in love with Miss Vincent—” “Oh, no,” said Fanny, shaking her head, “I observed that the thing was already accomplished.” “There you are mistaken,” said he; “it is not already accomplished. Or if it were,” he added, lamely, “there is the more reason for my going away, since I only expose myself to useless pain by remaining.” “But why useless pain?” asked she. “Have you so faint a heart that you are afraid of Percy Joscelyn as a rival?” “Not at all,” answered he, calmly. “But it is quite impossible for me to become his rival. Have you not told me that Miss Vincent is a great heiress?” “Yes; she has a large fortune in her own right, and without any restrictions—happy girl!” “I hope it may prove for her happiness,” said Kyrle, rather gloomily, “but it is an effectual bar to any hope on my part. A newspaper correspondent would hardly be a fit parti for such an heiress.” “And whose fault is it that you are a newspaper correspondent?” asked Mrs. Meredith, with a malice born of past recollections. “But, in my opinion, that is all nonsense,” she went on, briskly. “Birth and social position are the things to be considered, rather than a mere accident of money.” “The accident of money is what the world considers,” said he, “and I must consider it also. For myself, I have perhaps thought of it too little. If so, I am punished by finding it now an insuperable barrier between myself and the woman I might love.” Fanny opened her lips to speak, but apparently thought better of it before any words escaped. She closed them again and sat silent for
  • 45. a moment, evidently reflecting. Then she looked at Kyrle with an expression of resigned regret. “I remember how ob—that is, determined you are,” she said; “so I suppose there is nothing to be gained by arguing the matter. But since your mind is so fully made up, why should you run away? I thought that was the resource of weakness and indecision.” “No doubt it is,” said he, falling into the artful trap, “and I felt very weak last night, I assure you. But, after all, there is no reason why I should go at once—” looking out at the enchanting sea and sky, and remembering Aimée’s last words. “A day or two can not matter, and it is nobody’s affair but my own if I choose to pay for present pleasure by future pain.” “Oh, dear, no—not anybody’s affair at all,” said Fanny. “And then, you can so easily take another trip to Egypt and forget all about it. I really wish you would stay,” she added, persuasively. “We might have such a pleasant time wandering about Venice! And a man need not abjure the society of a woman because he thinks her too rich to marry.” “No, certainly not,” said Lennox, though he knew in his heart that this was sophistry. “Well, at least I will not go to-day. I will stay as long as I first intended—that is, two or three days longer.” “How nice of you!” said Fanny, with a gleam of triumph in her eyes. “And you will also stay to breakfast?” “You are very kind, but not to-day. If you are going anywhere this afternoon, however, and will allow me to join you—” “We are going out to the Lido. Meet us there, and we can all return together. And one word—don’t mind the incivility of the Joscelyns. They are uncivil because they are afraid of you.” “I am very well aware of that,” said he, with a smile. Then his heart sank, and his voice also, as he added, “But if they only knew it, they have no cause for fear.”
  • 46. “They are wiser than to believe that. And so am I,” thought Fanny; but she took very good care not to utter her thought aloud.
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