THE SPELL

BY
WILLIAM DANA ORCUTT
AUTHOR OF
“THE FLOWER OF DESTINY” “ROBERT CAVELIER”
“THE PRINCESS KALLISTO” ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY
GERTRUDE DEMAIN HAMMOND, R. I.

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
MCMIX

Copyright, 1909, by Harper & Brothers.
All rights reserved.
Published January, 1909.

TO
MY FRIEND
GUIDO BIAGI OF FLORENCE
MODERN HUMANIST
NEITHER MASTER OF FATE NOR VICTIM OF FATE
BUT CO-PARTNER WITH NATURE IN SOLVING
HIS OWN PERSONAL PROBLEM, THIS BOOK IS
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

ILLUSTRATIONS

BOOK I

MASTER OF FATE

THE SPELL

I

“Now, Jack, here is a chance to put your knowledge of the classics to some practical use.”

Helen Armstrong paused for a moment before a Latin inscription cut in the upper stones of the boundary wall, and leaned gratefully upon her companion’s arm after the steep ascent. “What does it mean?”

Her husband smiled. “That is an easy test. The ancient legend conveys the cheering intelligence that ‘from this spot Florence and Fiesole, mother and daughter, are equi-distant.’”

The girl released her hold upon the man’s arm and, pushing back a few stray locks which the wind had loosened, turned to regard the panorama behind her. It was a charmingly picturesque and characteristic Italian roadway which they had chosen for their day’s excursion. On either side stood plastered stone walls, which bore curious marks and circles, made—who shall say when or by whom?—remaining there as an atavistic suggestion of Etruscan symbolism. The whiteness of the walls was relieved by tall cypresses and ilexes which rose high above them, while below the branches, and reclining upon the stone top, a profusion of wild roses shed their petals and their fragrance for the benefit of the passers-by. In the distance, through the trees, showed the shimmering green of olive-groves and vineyards—covering the hillsides, yet yielding occasionally to a gay-blossoming garden; and, as if to complete by contrast, the streaked peaks of Carrara gave a faint suggestion of their marble richness. In front, Fiesole rose sheer and picturesque, while villas, scattered here and there, some large and stately, some small, some antiquated and others modernized, gave evidence that the ancient Via della Piazzola still expressed its own individuality as in the days when the bishops of old trod its paths in visiting their see at the top of the hill, and Boccaccio and Sacchetti, with their kindred spirits, made its echoes ring with merry revelling. But, inevitably turning again, the modern pilgrims saw far below them, and most impressive of all, the languorous City of Flowers, peacefully dreaming on either side of the silver Arno.

All this was a familiar sight to John Armstrong, whose five years’ residence in Florence, just before entering Harvard, made him feel entirely at home in its outskirts. He preferred, therefore, to fix his eyes upon the face of the girl beside him. She was tall and fair, with figure well proportioned, yet the characteristic which left the deepest impress was her peculiar sweetness of expression. Among her Vincent Club friends she was universally considered beautiful, and a girl’s verdict of another girl’s beauty is rarely exaggerated. Her deep, merry, gray eyes showed whence came the vivacity which ever made her the centre of an animated group, while the sympathy and understanding which shone from them explained her popularity.

The announcement of her engagement to Jack Armstrong was the greatest surprise of a sensational Boston season, not because of any unfitness in the match,—for the Armstrong lineage was quite as distinguished as the Cartwrights’,—but because Helen had so persistently discouraged all admiration beyond the point of friendship and comradeship, that those who should have known pronounced her immune.

But that was because her friends had read her character even less correctly than they had Armstrong’s. They would have told you that she was distinctly a girl of the twentieth century; he discovered that while tempered by its progressiveness, she had not been marred by its extremes. They would have said that her character had not yet found opportunity for expression, since her every wish had always been gratified; he would have explained that the fact that she had learned to wish wisely was in itself sufficient expression of the character which lay beneath.

He watched her in the midst of the social life to which they both belonged, entering naturally, as he did, into its conventionalities as a matter of course, and he rejoiced to find in her, beyond the enjoyment of those every-day pleasures which end where they begin, a response to the deeper thoughts which controlled his own best expression. He could see that these new subjects frightened her a little by their immensity, as he tried to explain them; he sympathized with her momentary despair when she found herself beyond her depth; but he was convinced that the understanding and the interest were both there, as in an undeveloped negative.

This same power of analysis which enabled him to discover what all could not surmise had separated Armstrong, in Helen’s mind, from other men, nearer her own age, whom she had known. She could hardly have put in words what the difference was, but she felt that it existed, and this paved the way for his ultimate