The American Claimant eBook

The result was a very genuine outbreak of sorrow and sympathy from all the hearers.  The elder lady cried, thinking how proud that great-hearted young hero’s mother would be, if she were living, and how unappeasable her grief; and the two old servants cried with her, and spoke out their applauses and their pitying lamentations with the eloquent sincerity and simplicity native to their race.  Gwendolen was touched, and the romantic side of her nature was strongly wrought upon.  She said that such a nature as that young man’s was rarely and truly noble, and nearly perfect; and that with nobility of birth added it was entirely perfect.  For such a man she could endure all things, suffer all things, even to the sacrificing of her life.  She wished she could have seen him; the slightest, the most momentary, contact with such a spirit would have ennobled her own character and made ignoble thoughts and ignoble acts thereafter impossible to her forever.

“Have they found the body, Rossmore?” asked the wife.

“Yes, that is, they’ve found several.  It must be one of them, but none of them are recognizable.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I am going down there and identify one of them and send it home to the stricken father.”

“But papa, did you ever see the young man?”

“No, Gwendolen-why?”

“How will you identify it?”

“I—­well, you know it says none of them are recognizable.  I’ll send his father one of them—­there’s probably no choice.”

Gwendolen knew it was not worth while to argue the matter further, since her father’s mind was made up and there was a chance for him to appear upon that sad scene down yonder in an authentic and official way.  So she said no more—­till he asked for a basket.

“A basket, papa?  What for?”

“It might be ashes.”

CHAPTER IX.

The earl and Washington started on the sorrowful errand, talking as they walked.

“And as usual!”

“What, Colonel?”

“Seven of them in that hotel.  Actresses.  And all burnt out, of course.”

“Any of them burnt up?”

“Oh, no they escaped; they always do; but there’s never a one of them that knows enough to fetch out her jewelry with her.”

“That’s strange.”

“Strange—­it’s the most unaccountable thing in the world.  Experience teaches them nothing; they can’t seem to learn anything except out of a book.  In some uses there’s manifestly a fatality about it.  For instance, take What’s-her-name, that plays those sensational thunder and lightning parts.  She’s got a perfectly immense reputation—­draws like a dog-fight—­and it all came from getting burnt out in hotels.”

“Why, how could that give her a reputation as an actress?”

“It didn’t—­it only made her name familiar.  People want to see her play because her name is familiar, but they don’t know what made it familiar, because they don’t remember.  First, she was at the bottom of the ladder, and absolutely obscure wages thirteen dollars a week and find her own pads.”