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Full Chapter Brain Inspired Cognitive Architectures For Artificial Intelligence Bicaai 2020 Proceedings of The 11Th Annual Meeting of The Bica Society Alexei V Samsonovich PDF
Full Chapter Brain Inspired Cognitive Architectures For Artificial Intelligence Bicaai 2020 Proceedings of The 11Th Annual Meeting of The Bica Society Alexei V Samsonovich PDF
Full Chapter Brain Inspired Cognitive Architectures For Artificial Intelligence Bicaai 2020 Proceedings of The 11Th Annual Meeting of The Bica Society Alexei V Samsonovich PDF
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Alexei V. Samsonovich
Ricardo R. Gudwin
Alexandre da Silva Simões Editors
Brain-Inspired
Cognitive
Architectures
for Artificial
Intelligence: BICA*AI
2020
Proceedings of the 11th Annual
Meeting of the BICA Society
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing
Volume 1310
Series Editor
Janusz Kacprzyk, Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences,
Warsaw, Poland
Advisory Editors
Nikhil R. Pal, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India
Rafael Bello Perez, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Computing,
Universidad Central de Las Villas, Santa Clara, Cuba
Emilio S. Corchado, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
Hani Hagras, School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering,
University of Essex, Colchester, UK
László T. Kóczy, Department of Automation, Széchenyi István University,
Gyor, Hungary
Vladik Kreinovich, Department of Computer Science, University of Texas
at El Paso, El Paso, TX, USA
Chin-Teng Lin, Department of Electrical Engineering, National Chiao
Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
Jie Lu, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology,
University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Patricia Melin, Graduate Program of Computer Science, Tijuana Institute
of Technology, Tijuana, Mexico
Nadia Nedjah, Department of Electronics Engineering, University of Rio de Janeiro,
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Ngoc Thanh Nguyen , Faculty of Computer Science and Management,
Wrocław University of Technology, Wrocław, Poland
Jun Wang, Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering,
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong
The series “Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing” contains publications
on theory, applications, and design methods of Intelligent Systems and Intelligent
Computing. Virtually all disciplines such as engineering, natural sciences, computer
and information science, ICT, economics, business, e-commerce, environment,
healthcare, life science are covered. The list of topics spans all the areas of modern
intelligent systems and computing such as: computational intelligence, soft comput-
ing including neural networks, fuzzy systems, evolutionary computing and the fusion
of these paradigms, social intelligence, ambient intelligence, computational neuro-
science, artificial life, virtual worlds and society, cognitive science and systems,
Perception and Vision, DNA and immune based systems, self-organizing and
adaptive systems, e-Learning and teaching, human-centered and human-centric
computing, recommender systems, intelligent control, robotics and mechatronics
including human-machine teaming, knowledge-based paradigms, learning para-
digms, machine ethics, intelligent data analysis, knowledge management, intelligent
agents, intelligent decision making and support, intelligent network security, trust
management, interactive entertainment, Web intelligence and multimedia.
The publications within “Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing” are
primarily proceedings of important conferences, symposia and congresses. They
cover significant recent developments in the field, both of a foundational and
applicable character. An important characteristic feature of the series is the short
publication time and world-wide distribution. This permits a rapid and broad
dissemination of research results.
Indexed by SCOPUS, DBLP, EI Compendex, INSPEC, WTI Frankfurt eG,
zbMATH, Japanese Science and Technology Agency (JST), SCImago.
All books published in the series are submitted for consideration in Web of
Science.
Brain-Inspired Cognitive
Architectures for Artificial
Intelligence: BICA*AI 2020
Proceedings of the 11th Annual Meeting
of the BICA Society
123
Editors
Alexei V. Samsonovich Ricardo R. Gudwin
Cybernetics Department University of Campinas
National Research Nuclear University Campinas, Brazil
Moscow, Russia
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Preface
v
vi Preface
Challenge, put forward by the founders of BICA Society in 2010. BICA Society
(Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures Society) is a scientific non-profit 501
(c)(3) organization based in the USA, whose mission is to promote and facilitate the
many scientific efforts around the world in solving the BICA Challenge, i.e., cre-
ating a real-life computational equivalent of the human mind. BICA Society brings
together researchers from disjointed fields and communities who devote their efforts
to solving the challenge, despite that they may “speak different languages.” This is
achieved by promoting and facilitating the transdisciplinary study of cognitive
architectures, and in the long-term perspective, creating one unifying widespread
framework for the human-level cognitive architectures and their implementations.
Over 11 years of its existence, BICA Society organized or co-organized 11
international conferences (the BICA conferences), 2 schools, and 2 symposia.
These events were hosted in various countries around the world, including the
USA, Italy, France, Ukraine, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Brazil. In organizing
these events, BICA Society collaborated with several universities around the world.
BICA Society created and is maintaining an online database on cognitive archi-
tectures (http://bicasociety.org/mapped/), which includes one of the world’s largest
databases of freely accessible video records of scientific presentations about cog-
nitive architectures and related topics:
– https://vimeo.com/bicasociety
– https://youtube.com/channel/UC7Smq21YMKs0UjuVkFPpJJg
BICA Society initiated several mainstream periodic publication venues,
including Elsevier journals “Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures” and
“Cognitive Systems Research (CSR)–Special Issue Series on BICA*AI”. Plus,
BICA Society regularly publishes its proceedings in other editions dedicated to
BICA*AI, including Procedia Computer Science and, of course, the Springer Book
Series. The following topics at the front edge of science and technology, as before,
are in the focus of this and future BICA*AI conferences, books, and journals:
– Artificial social–emotional intelligence;
– Active humanlike learning and cognitive growth;
– Narrative intelligence and context understanding;
– Artificial creativity and creation of art by AI;
– Goal reasoning and true autonomy in artifacts;
– Embodied intelligence and cognitive robotics;
– Synthetic characters, HCI, and VR/MR paradigms for AI;
– Language capabilities and social competence;
– Robust and scalable machine learning mechanisms;
– Socially acceptable intelligent virtual agents;
– The role of emotions in artificial intelligence and their BICA models;
– Tests and metrics for BICA in the context of the BICA Challenge;
– Interaction between natural and artificial cognitive systems;
– Theory-of-Mind, episodic, and autobiographical memory in vivo and in vitro;
– Introspection, metacognitive reasoning, and self-awareness in BICA;
Preface vii
Program Committee
ix
x Organization
xiii
xiv Contents
1 Introduction
One of the most important functions implemented in modern virtual reality (VR),
augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) and cross reality (XR) systems and largely
determines their capabilities, is the recognition and classification of graphic images [1].
For example, the basis of AR, MR and XR technologies is the recognition of objects in
each frame of the video stream and the addition of new graphic information to them. In
addition, a number of AR, MR and XR technologies use the so-called graphic markers,
which are necessary to determine the spatial characteristics of objects of real reality
(RR) [2]. This function must be repeatedly performed in real time [3], which imposes
strict requirements on the speed of algorithms used for this purpose, for example,
various modifications of the well-known Viola-Jones algorithm [4, 5].
One of the main trends in the modern development of AR, MR, and XR systems is
the approach to RR, primarily due to the development of artificial intelligence tech-
nology, which allows simultaneous processing of video and audio patterns [6]. This
allows you to implement a natural user interface for a person, to carry out acoustic
navigation [7–9], to provide the necessary information interaction between characters,
for example, in training systems [10, 11], to increase the efficiency of solving pro-
duction tasks [12, 13].
The aim of the research is to unify algorithmic and technical means used for the
recognition of graphic and acoustic patterns based on the Viola-Jones approach for VR,
AR, MR and XR systems.
Currently being developed VR, AR, MR and XR systems, as a rule, involve the use of
independent channels for processing video and audio information. It should be noted
that the applied algorithmic and methodological means of graphic patterns recognition
are forced to operate with significant data streams, which is associated with the use of
modern high-speed high-resolution video cameras. In this regard, the flow of acoustic
data even when using multichannel systems [7] has a significantly smaller volume.
For this reason, it is relevant to use algorithmic and methodological tools developed
for the recognition of graphic patterns for the recognition of acoustic patterns in VR,
AR, MR and XR systems. The feasibility of this approach in practice is due to a fairly
well-developed technology for converting acoustic information into a graphic repre-
sentation in the form of a 2D-image of dynamic sonograms. This technology is widely
used, for example, for the protection of documents against forgery based on the so-
called speech signature [14, 15]. The specificity of a 2D-image of a dynamic sonogram
is the presence of areas with different graphic structures, for example, linear and dotted,
as well as low image contrast with a high noise level.
Of all the existing variety of approaches and algorithms for recognizing graphic
objects in the image, which are also suitable for working with images of dynamic
sonograms, the most suitable is the approach proposed by Viola-Jones for recognizing
facial images [16]. Recognition of a graphic object in accordance with this approach is
carried out on the basis of the similarity measures analysis of a large set of
Acoustic Pattern Recognition Technology 3
characteristic features typical of the analyzed image. At the same time, the features
themselves, known as Haar features [16–18], characterize the properties of limited
areas of the recognized object.
The disadvantages of this approach include a fairly large amount of calculations to
determine the measures of features similarity and areas of the analyzed image, as well
as a decrease in the reliability of the result obtained with a decrease in the contrast of
the analyzed image.
F, Hz 4 1 2 3
PY
5
7
PX
Y
0 X
0
P*Y
9
8
10
P*X
Y
0 T, s 0 X
The original image (IMG[i, j], i = 1, …, IMAX, j = 1, …, JMAX, where IMAX and
JMAX are the image size in pixels, respectively) of dynamic sonogram 1 contains areas
2 with a linear structure corresponding to vowel sounds of human speech (harmonic
signals), and area 3 corresponding to consonants (hissing) sounds. The X-axis of the
sonogram corresponds to time, and the Y-axis corresponds to the frequency F.
At the first step, in accordance with the proposed approach, by means of a floating
window 4 with a size of N N pixels, a fragment of the image 5 is selected, for
example, containing characteristic stripes 6 and 7.
For a given fragment of the image, its coordinate projections PY ðYÞ and PX ðXÞ are
determined:
YX
0 þN
XX
0 þN
0 X 0 X 0 X 0 X
0 X 0 X 0 X 0
The basic acoustic features of SL(A, D, W) and NP(Q, G) types formed in this way
were the basis for the creation of working features SL*(A, D, W, M) and NP*(Q, G, M),
differing in the scaling factor M (1 M MMAX, for sonograms with a resolution
of less than 1024 1024 pixels, it is sufficient to use the value MMAX = 10).
In Fig. 4 shows an example of the created operating characteristics SL(A, D, W).
0 X 0 X 0 X
Working acoustic signs allow you to get a graphic image of acoustic signals, speech
and sounds based on recognition of the structure of the sonogram. To determine the
similarity measure of coordinate projections at the first step, it is proposed to use the
value D:
X
N X N
D ¼ 1=ð1 þ PF ðYÞ P ðYÞ þ PF ðXÞ P ðXÞ Þ; ð3Þ
Y X
Y¼1 X¼1
where PF ðYÞ and PF ðXÞ are, respectively, coordinate projections for working acoustic
features.
6 A. M. Alyushin and S. V. Dvoryankin
SL* SL*
NP* NP* NP* SL* NP* SL* NP*
(-3,5, (8,6,
(3,0,9) (2,0, (5,0,9) (-4,7, (4,0,3) (-3,6, (4,0,3)
4,5 ) 1,5 )
3) 2,5 ) 4,5 )
NP* NP* NP*
SL* (1,0, SL*
NP* NP* (3,0,3) (3,0,3)
(-3,5, 3) (7,6,
(4,0,9) (4,0,9)
3,5 ) 1,5 ) SL* SL*
NP* (-4,7, NP* (-3,6,
(1,0, NP*
SL* 1,5 ) (3,0,3) 3,5 ) (3,0,3)
3) SL*
NP* (-3,5, NP*
(6,6,
(5,0,9) 5,5 ) (4,0,9)
SL* 2,5 ) NP* SL*
(-3,4, SL* (2,0,3) (6,6,
SL*
2,3) (-4,7, 1,5 )
SL* SL* (-3,6,
NP* SL* NP* 5,5 ) 5,5 ) SL*
(-3,5, (5,6, NP*
(5,0,9) (-3,4, (5,0,9) (5,6,
5,5 ) 5,5 ) (3,0,3)
4,3) 3,5 )
The conducted experimental laboratory testing of the approach confirmed the possi-
bility of its implementation in practice using the classical Viola-Jones algorithms. The
decrease in the performance of the tasks being solved for the recognition of graphic
objects with the simultaneous processing of acoustic patterns did not exceed 10%. The
implementation of a two-stage process for determining the measures of similarity of
features and areas of an image made it possible to increase the performance by 15–30%
for images with dimensions of 800 800 pixels–1600 1600 pixels, respectively.
6 Conclusion
The approach proposed in the study makes it possible to use already available software
and methodological tools for solving problems of recognizing and classifying acoustic
patterns, initially focused on recognizing and classifying graphic images. The most
prominent representative of such tools are algorithmic and software tools that imple-
ment the principles of processing graphic data in accordance with Viola-Jones tech-
nology. The implementation of a two-stage procedure for determining the similarity
measure of features and image regions allows increasing the speed of the computational
process.
Acknowledgement. The research was carried out by grant of the Russian Scientific Foundation
(project №19-71-30008) in Plekhanov Russian University of Economics.
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Correlation of a Face Vibroimage Informative
Parameters with Characteristics of a Person’s
Functional State When Using VR and AR
Technical Means
Victor M. Alyushin(&)
1 Introduction
The widespread introduction of VR, AR, MR and XR technologies into everyday life
has undeniable advantages, but at the same time causes a number of serious problems.
Especially actively these technologies are currently being introduced in education,
medicine, in vocational training and retraining, in VR simulators, in the field of
recreation and entertainment [1, 2]. Indicative, in this regard, is the use of VR, AR, MR
and XR technologies as a tool for relieving stress, including for medical purposes [3].
The increased interest in VR, AR, MR and XR technologies in recent years is due,
among other things, to the desire to go on an exciting virtual journey during the
coronavirus epidemic.
However, frequent and prolonged presence in these realities can cause headaches,
vision problems, disturbances in the mental state of a person. Excessive fascination
with these realities by children is especially harmful. The negative impact of VR, AR,
MR and XR technologies depends to a large extent on factors such as the quality of the
synthesized video information, the accuracy and performance of the positioning sys-
tems. It is well known, for example, that disturbances between the visual perception of
the environment and its perception by the senses lead to headaches, dizziness, and
disorientation. As a result − to an increase in blood pressure, deterioration of health, in
some cases − to nausea and vomiting.
In connection with the above, it is relevant to constantly monitor the current FS and
PES of the VR, AR, MR and XR means user. It should be noted that FS determines the
ability of a person to perform certain actions, duties, for example, production. PES
shows what physical and mental costs are incurred by a person, taking into account the
resources available to him. For this reason, FS and PES depend on each other in a
rather complex way. Maintaining the state of health, as well as high performance,
necessitate constant monitoring of the VR, AR, MR and XR means user’s current PES.
The main requirements for the tools used for monitoring the current PES of a
person are safety and ease of use. The safety of use, first of all, assumes the absence of
harmful effects on humans, which determines the predominant use of the so-called
passive biometric technologies. The requirement for ease of use leads to the need to use
small-sized, including built-in biometric devices. Modern optical biometric technolo-
gies should be singled out as the most promising for use in conjunction with VR, AR,
MR and XR technical means. The latter, first of all, should include the technology for
analyzing the vibraimage of a person’s face [4, 5].
The aim of the work is to study the correlation of the face vibraimage informative
parameters, reflecting the PES, with the characteristics of the human FS when using
VR, AR, MR and XR technical means.
gauche and decidedly of a social class that Miss Hungerford was not in the
habit of mingling with away from college. For even in a very democratic
college there are social grades, and although it is the thing to meet in a most
friendly way at all class functions, still, a narrow line of distinction may be
perceived on social occasions.
Altogether Miss Hungerford felt rather aggrieved and hoped she would
not be bothered again. But she was. Miss Betty Harmon, of Sioux City, Ia.,
had had a fearful struggle with her timidity and retiring nature, when she
called on Miss Hungerford, and having gained a victory over herself, she had
no intention of resigning the benefits. So she would smile first when they
met in the corridors, and was not above showing how much she appreciated
a few words from Miss Hungerford in praise of her tennis serve, and that
young woman was even uncomfortably conscious that her youthful admirer
had more than once followed her to the library, where, under pretence of
reading, she had stolen furtive glances at her. Later there were notes, and
roses, and requests to go boating.
Miss Hungerford strongly objected to such proceedings, not only because
she did not wish to be rendered ridiculous by an insignificant freshman from
Iowa, but also because she was a very sensible girl, and entirely disapproved
of the “eclectic affinity” business, and she had no intention of allowing the
young girl’s admiration for herself to develop into that abnormal sort of
attraction that exists between girls in so many schools and colleges.
The temptation to exalt some upper-class girl into an ideal and lavish
upon her an affection which in society would naturally fall to the lot of some
very unideal boy, or man, is one of the greatest ordeals a college girl goes
through, and one who successfully resists all inducements to become a
“divinity student,” or who gets out of the entanglement without damage to
herself, is as successfully “proven” as was Lieutenant Ouless after his little
affair with Private Ortheris. Even the least romantic girl is apt to find
unexpected possibilities in her nature in the way of romantic devotion, so
that it was not surprising that Miss Betty Harmon, unimaginative and
unsentimental as she was, should have admired so extravagantly as
handsome and interesting a girl as Eva Hungerford. The crude Western girl
found something extremely attractive in the senior—grace, a social ease and
distinction, and that indefinable magnetism which a wealthy, consciously
beautiful girl possesses.
Three years after leaving college Miss Hungerford married, much to her
friends’ surprise, and a year after that she and her husband went abroad. Of
course they went to Paris, where Mrs. Stanhope, who had spent much time
there after leaving college, had a great many friends, and innumerable
dinners were given to them and they enjoyed themselves very much, until it
got so cold that Mrs. Stanhope said she must go to Cannes. Of course it
immediately struck Stanhope, who adored his wife, that it was entirely too
cold to stay in Paris, and so they went south, though their friends made a
great fuss over their departure.
They stayed away much longer than they had intended, having been
enticed into going to Malta by some American acquaintances, and when they
got back to Paris hundreds of interesting things seemed to have happened in
their absence, and a great many people and events were being talked about
of which they knew nothing. But the wife of the American minister, who
was an old friend, went to see Mrs. Stanhope immediately to invite her to an
informal dinner the next evening, and stayed the entire afternoon, telling her
of everything that had happened and who all the new people were—the New
American Beauty for instance. She could not believe that her friend had not
heard of nor seen the New Beauty.
“Why, haven’t you ever seen her pictures—and the notices of her?”
Mrs. Stanhope was slightly aggrieved. She knew absolutely nothing about
her.
“And I am completely astonished that they aren’t talking of her at
Cannes.”
Mrs. Stanhope reminded her friend that she had been immured at Malta
since leaving the Riviera.
“Oh, well, of course her fame has reached there by this time. Why, all
Paris is talking about her—and you know yourself”—observed that astute
lady, impressively—“how much it takes to make Paris stop and look at you.”
Mrs. Stanhope said “Yes,” and wanted to know who The Beauty’s people
were, and where she had come from.
“Oh, I don’t know,” declared her friend. “No one seems to inquire. She is
so beautiful and sufficient in herself that one does not care much for the rest.
They are immensely rich—recently, I believe—though you would never
know it from her manner. She is charming and thoroughly well-bred. Her
father, I hear, is a typical American business man—not much en évidence,
you know. He leaves that to his daughter, and she does it very well. He is a
Senator—or something—from the West, and made such a name for himself
at Washington that they thought he was too bright to stay there, so they sent
him over here to help settle that international treaty affair—you know
perhaps—I don’t, I only pretend to.”
“How did she do it?” demanded Mrs. Stanhope, in that simply
comprehensive way women have when talking about another woman.
“Oh, she just started right in. Courtelais raved over her, and her father
paid him twenty thousand dollars to have her painted. The Colony took her
up, and the rest just followed naturally. The portrait is really charming,
though she was dressed—well, I don’t think any French girl would have sat
in that costume.”
“Is she really so beautiful?”
“Well—not regularly beautiful, perhaps—but charming and fascinating,
and awfully clever, they say—so clever that very few people suspect her of
it, and—oh! well, you can judge for yourself to-morrow evening. By the
way, everyone says she is engaged already—Comte de la Tour. You used to
know him, I think.” She rose to go. “He is very much in love with her, that is
evident.” She thought it best to let Mrs. Stanhope have that piece of news
from herself. She did not wish her friend to be taken at a disadvantage,
especially in her own house.
Mrs. Stanhope felt the least bit startled. She had known the Comte de la
Tour very well indeed in Paris, several years before, and he had been very
much in love with her, and had appeared quite genuinely broken-hearted
when she refused him. She had not seen him—he had not been in Paris when
she was there during the earlier part of the season—but with the comforting
faith of people who have never been in love, she had always believed that he
would get over his devotion to her, though she felt a rather curious sensation
on hearing that her expectations had been so fully realized, and she felt a
pardonable curiosity to see the girl who had made him forget her.
She dressed very carefully for the American Minister’s the next evening,
and looked a little more than her usual handsome self, when her carriage
turned rapidly into the Avenue Hoche. She was somewhat late, and although
the Minister and his wife were old friends, she felt worried with herself, for
she had made it a rule to be punctual at all social functions, and when she
entered the rooms she could see that the guests wore that rather expectant air
which signifies that dinner is already slightly behind time. She hurried
forward and denounced herself in polite fashion, but her hostess assured her
that several others had not yet arrived, and, much relieved, she turned to
speak to a bright newspaper man, an old acquaintance, who had arrived in
Paris during her absence.
“I am so glad to find you again,” he murmured in his drawl; “they tell me
you have been to Malta. How fortunate for you! I suppose now you have
been happy in an idyllic, out-of-the-world way, and have not heard a word
about Brice’s accident, nor the newspaper duel, nor the New Beauty——”
“But I am not happy, and shall not be until I see your Beauty,” protested
Mrs. Stanhope. “I’ve heard about her until I have an all-devouring curiosity
to behold her. I haven’t even seen the portrait, or a photograph!”
He fell away from her in mock surprise and despair, and was about to
reply, when the portières were drawn aside and Mrs. Stanhope saw coming
into the room a very beautiful young girl, with a rather childish, mobile face,
and magnificent eyes. She seemed to know everyone, and bowed and smiled
right and left in an easy, bright sort of way. Mrs. Stanhope would have
known this was The Beauty, even if her entrance had not been accompanied
by that significant hush and rather ridiculous closing up of the men in her
wake. There was a special charm about the soft contour of her face, and the
heavy white satin of her gown, though rather old for such a young girl, set
off her beauty admirably.
“Looks just like one of Goodrich’s girls, doesn’t she?” murmured the man
at Mrs. Stanhope’s elbow. But that lady was not paying any attention to his
remarks. She was looking in a puzzled fashion at the girl’s face, and
wondering what there was about it so familiar.
“Isn’t she deliciously beautiful?” he insisted, “and clever! I found it out
quite by accident. She’s very careful about letting people know how well
informed she is. She’s been to a college somewhere,” he ran on. Mrs.
Stanhope was not listening. She was still looking, in a rather abstracted way,
at the young girl who was holding a little court on the other side of the room.
Her hostess rustled up.
“I am going to send my husband to bring The Beauty to you,” she said,
laughingly, and swept across the room. In a moment Mrs. Stanhope saw the
girl take the Minister’s arm, and, followed on the other side by the Comte de
la Tour, start toward her. For some inexplicable reason she felt annoyed, and
half wished to avoid the introduction. The newspaper man was interested.
Mrs. Stanhope had never posed as a professional beauty, and she was too
noble a woman to have her head turned by flattery, but that did not alter the
fact that she had been considered the handsomest woman in the American
colony at Paris, and, of course, she knew it. He thought it would be
interesting to see how the acknowledged beauty received the younger one.
When the two women were within a few feet of each other, and before the
American Minister could say “Mrs. Stanhope,” they each gave a little cry of
recognition, and it was the younger one who first regained her composure
and extended her hand. She stood there, flushed and smiling, the lights
falling on her dark hair and gleaming shoulders, making of her, as the
newspaper man had said, one of “Goodrich’s girls.” The childish look had
gone out of her eyes, and a little gleam of conscious triumph was in them.
There was just a shade of coldness, almost of condescension, in her manner.
While the Comte was looking from one to the other, in a rather mystified
way, and the American Minister was saying, “Why, I didn’t know—I
thought—” Mrs. Stanhope’s mind was running quickly back to her first
meeting with the girl before her, and she could only remember, in a confused
sort of way, what this girl had once been like. And so they stood for a
moment—it seemed an interminably long time to the men—looking a little
constrainedly at each other and smiling vaguely. But the older woman
quickly recovered herself. She had no notion of being outdone
When the carriage which was to take him to the station for the midnight
train into Boston had driven from the door, the two girls looked at each other
steadily for an instant.
“Come to my study for a few moments,” said the younger one,
imperiously. Miss Arnold acquiesced silently, and together they moved
down the long corridor to Miss Oldham’s rooms.
“I want to explain,” she began, breathlessly, leaning against the closed
door and watching with strained, wide-opened eyes Miss Arnold’s face,
upon which the light from the lamp fell strong and full.
“I want to explain,” she repeated, defiantly this time. “You had no right to
come between myself and my father! I wish with all my heart you had never
seen him, but since you have seen him I must explain. I am not entirely the
hypocrite and the coward you take me for.” She stopped suddenly and gave a
low cry. “Ah! what shall I say to make you understand? It began so long ago
—I did not mean to deceive him. It was because I loved him and he thought
me so clever. He thought because I was quick and bright, and because I was
having a college education, that I was—different. In his ignorance how
could he guess the great difference between a superficial aptitude and real
talents? How could I tell him—how could I,” with a despairing gesture, “that
I was just like thousands of other girls, and that there are hundreds right here
in this college who are my superiors in every way? It would have broken his
heart.” Her breath came in short gasps and the pallor of her face had changed
to a dull red.
Miss Arnold leaned forward on the table.
“You have grossly deceived him,” she said, in cold, even tones.
“Deceived him?—yes—a thousand times and in a thousand ways. But I
did it to make him happy. Am I really to blame? He expected so much of me
—he had such hopes and such dreams of some great career for me. I am a
coward. I could not tell him that I was a weak, ordinary girl, that I could
never realize his aspirations, that the mere knowledge that he depended and
relied upon me weighed upon me and paralyzed every effort. When I loved
him so could I tell him this? Could I tell him that his sacrifices were in vain,
that the girl of whom he had boasted to every man in the mining camp was a
complete failure?”
She went over to the table and leaned her head upon her shaking hand.
“If my mother—if I had had a brother or sister, it might have been
different, but I was alone and I was all he had. And so I struggled on, half
hoping that I might become something after all. But I confessed to myself
what I could not to him, that I would never become a scholar, that my
intellect was wholly superficial, that the verses I wrote were the veriest trash,
that I was only doing what ninety-nine out of every hundred girls did, and
that ninety-eight wrote better rhymes than I. There is a whole drawerful of
my ‘poetry’ ”—she flung open a desk disdainfully—“until I could stand it no
longer, and one day when he asked me to write something about the
mountains, in desperation I copied those verses of Matthew Arnold’s. I knew
he would never see them. After that it was easy to do so again.” She stopped
and pressed her hands to her eyes.
“I am the most miserable girl that lives,” she said.
Miss Arnold looked at her coldly.
“And the book?” she said at length.
Miss Oldham lifted her head wearily.
“It was all a falsehood. He kept asking me if I were not writing a book.
He thought one had only to write a book to become famous. It seemed so
easy not to oppose the idea, and little by little I fell into the habit of talking
about ‘the book’ as if it were really being written. I did not try to explain to
myself what I was doing. I simply drifted with the current of his desires and
hopes. It may seem strange to you that a man like my father should have had
such ambitions, and stranger still that he should have ever dreamed I could
realize them. But one has strange fancies alone with one’s self out on the
mountains, and the isolation and self-concentration of the life give an