II.

The scales continued while I was dressing, and many desultory
reminiscences of the player, and vague reflections upon the
unlikelihood of her adventures, went flitting through my mind to their
rhythm. Here she was, scarcely turned thirty, beautiful, brilliant,
rich in her own right, as free in all respects to follow her own will
as any man could be, with Camille happily at her side, a well grown,
rosy, merry miss of twelve,--here was Nina, thus, to-day; and yet, a
mere little ten years ago, I remembered her ... ah, in a very
different plight indeed. True, she has got no more than her deserts;
she has paid for her success, every pennyweight of it, in hard work
and self-denial. But one is so expectant, here below, to see Fortune
capricious, that, when for once in a way she bestows her favours where
they are merited, one can't help feeling rather dazed. One is so
inured to seeing honest Effort turn empty-handed from her door.

Ten little years ago--but no. I must begin further back. I must tell
you something about Nina's father.


III.

He was an Englishman who lived for the greater part of his life in
Paris. I would say he was a painter, if he had not been equally a
sculptor, a musician, an architect, a writer of verse, and a
university coach. A doer of so many things is inevitably suspect; you
will imagine that he must have bungled them all. On the contrary,
whatever he did, he did with a considerable degree of accomplishment.