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 HELD IN BONDAGE;" 
 
 OR. 
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE.
 
 'HELD IN BONDAGE ;* 
 
 OB, 
 
 GRANVILLE DE YIGNE. 
 
 ajr. 
 
 BY OUIDA. 
 
 " A young man married is a man that's marred." SHAKSPEARK. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: TINSLEY, BROTHERS, 
 
 18, CATHERINE STKEET, STRAND. 
 1863.
 
 LONDON: HUNTED BY w. CLOWES AMD SOKB, STALVOJJU STREET, 
 
 AND CHAIUKG CKOSS.
 
 w 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 I. The Senior Pupil of the Chancery 1 
 
 II.' A Southerly Wind and a Cloudy Sky proclaim 
 
 it a Hunting Morning.' 28 
 
 III. In the Academic Shades of Granta 50 
 
 IV. A Subtle Poison drunk in the Champagne at an 
 
 Opera Supper 84 
 
 V. What was under the Cards 117 
 
 VI. A Doubled-down Page in the Colonel's Book of 
 
 Life 121 
 
 VII. The Little Queen of the Fairies 141 
 
 Vin. The Forging of the Fetters 162 
 
 IX. The Blow that a Woman Dealt 196 
 
 X. On the First Day of a Now Year 220 
 
 XI. The ' Charmed Life ' Comes Back among Us . 234 
 XII. Sabretasche, having mowed down many Flowers, 
 
 determines to spare one Violet 261 
 
 XIII. The Queen of the Fairies is found in Richmond 297 
 
 XIV. How a Wife talked of her Husband 314
 
 HELD IN BONDAGE; 
 
 OR, 
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE SENIOR PUPIL OF THE CHANCERY. 
 
 IT was pleasant down there in Berkshire, when 
 the water rushed beneath the keel ; our oars 
 feathered neatly on the ringing rowlocks ; the 
 river foamed and flew as we gripped it ; and the 
 alders and willows tossed in the sunshine, while 
 we private pupils, as our tutor called us, men, 
 as we called ourselves used to pull up the 
 Kennet, as though we were some of an University 
 Eight, and lunch at the Ferry-inn off raw chops 
 and half-and-half, making love to its big-boned, red- 
 haired Hebe, and happy as kings in those summer 
 days, in the dead years long past and gone. What 
 a royal time it was ! (who amongst us does not 
 say so ?) when our hearts owned no heavier cares 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 than a vulgus, and a theorem ; and no skeleton in 
 the closet, spoiled our trolling, and long bowling ; 
 when old Horace and Euripides, were the only 
 bores we knew ; and Galatrca at the pastry-cook's, 
 seemed fairer, than do ever titled Helens now; 
 when gallops on hired shying hacks, were doubly 
 dear, by prohibition; and filthy bird's-eye, smoked 
 in clays, sweeter to our senses then, than purest 
 Havannahs smoked to-day, on the steps of Pratt's, 
 or the U. S. ! I often think of those days when, 
 \vith a handsome tip, from the dear old governor ; 
 and a parting injunction respecting the unspeak- 
 able blessings and advantages of flannel, from my 
 mother; I was sent off to be a private pupil, under 
 the Rev. Josiah Primrose, D.D., F.R.S., F.R.G.S., 
 and all the letters of the alphabet beside, I dare 
 say, if I could but remember them. 
 
 Our modern Gamaliel was an immaculate and 
 insignificant little man ; who, on the strength of a 
 Double First, good connections, and M.B. waist- 
 coats ; offered to train up the sons of noblemen and 
 gentlemen, in the way they should go, drill Greek, 
 and instil religious principles into them, for the 
 trifling consideration of 300/. per annum. He 
 lived in a quiet little borough in the south of Berk- 
 shire, at a long, low, ivy-clad house, called the 
 Chancery; which had stupendous pretensions to
 
 I;KA\VILI,K DK VUJXK. 3 
 
 the picturesque and the mediaeval ; and, what was 
 of much more consequence to us, a capital little 
 trout stream at the bottom of its grounds. Here 
 he dwelt with a fat old housekeeper, a very good 
 cook, a quasi-juvenile niece, (who went in for the 
 kitten line, and did it very badly, too,) and four, 
 or, when times were good, six, hot-brained young 
 dogs, worse to keep in order than a team of 
 unbroke thorough-breds. No authority, however, 
 did onr Doctor, in familiar parlance, ' Old Joey,' 
 attempt to exercise. We had prayers at eight, 
 which he read in a style of intoning peculiar to 
 himself, more soporific in its effects than a scien- 
 tific lecture, or an Exeter Hall meeting, and dinner 
 at six ; a very good dinner, too ; over which the 
 fair Arabella presided : and between those hours 
 we amused ourselves as we chose, with cricket, and 
 smoking, jack and trout, boating and swimming, 
 rides on hacks, such as job-masters let out to young 
 fellows with long purses ; and desperate flirtations 
 with all the shop girls in Frestonhills. We did do 
 an amount of Greek and Logic, of course, as other- 
 wise the 300/. might have been jeopardized ; but 
 the Doctor was generally dreaming over his pos- 
 sible chance of the Bampton Lectureship, or his 
 next report for the Geological Society, and was as 
 glad to give us our conge as we were to take it. 
 
 B 2
 
 4 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 It was a mild September evening, I remember, 
 when I first went to the Chancery. I had been a 
 little down in the mouth at leaving home, just in 
 the best of the shooting season ; and at saying good- 
 by to my genial-hearted governor, and my own 
 highly-prized bay, ' Ballet-girl ' : but a brisk coach 
 drive and a good inn-dinner never yet failed to 
 raise a boy's spirits, and by the time I reached 
 Frestonhills I was ready to face a much more 
 imposing individual than ' Old Joey.' The Doctor 
 received me in his library, with a suspicious ap- 
 pearance of having just tumbled out of a nap . 
 called me his ' dear young friend ; ' on my first 
 introduction treated me to a text or two, in- 
 geniously dove-tailed with classic quotations ; took 
 me to the drawing-room for presentation to his 
 niece, who smiled graciously on me for the sake 
 of the pines, and melons, and game my mother 
 had sent as a propitiatory offering with her 
 darling ; and, finally, consigned me to the tender 
 mercies of the senior pupil. 
 
 The senior pupil was standing with his back 
 to the fire and his elbows on the mantel-piece, 
 smoking a short pipe, in the common study. He 
 was but just eighteen; but even then he had 
 more of the ' grand air ' about him than anyone 
 else I had ever seen. His figure, from its deve-
 
 DE VIGNE. 5 
 
 loped muscle, broad chest, and splendidly-moulded 
 arm, might have passed him for much older; but 
 in his face were all the spirit, the eagerness, the fire 
 of early youth ; the glow of ardour that has never 
 been chilled, the longing of the young gladiator 
 for the untried arena. His features were clear- 
 cut, proud, and firm ; the lines of the lips delicate 
 and haughty ; his eyes were long, dark, and keen 
 as a falcon's ; his brow was wide, high, and power- 
 ful ; his head grandly set upon his throat : he 
 looked altogether, as I told him some time after- 
 wards, very like a thorough-bred racer, who was 
 longing to do the distance, and who would never 
 allow punishing by curb, or whip, or snaffle. 
 Such was the senior pupil, Granville de Vigne. 
 He was alone, and took his pipe out of his lips 
 without altering his position. 
 
 * Well, sir, what's your name ? ' 
 ' Chevasney.' 
 
 * Not a bad one. A Chevasney of Longholme ? ' 
 ' Yes. John Chevasney's son.' 
 
 ' So you are coming to be fleeced by Old Joey ? 
 Deuced pity ! Are you good for anything ? ' 
 
 * Only for grilling a devil, land riding cross 
 country.' 
 
 He threw back his head, and laughed, a clear 
 ringing laugh ; and gave me his hand, cor-
 
 (i "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 clially and frankly, for all his hauteur and his 
 seniority. 
 
 * You'll do. Sit down, innocent. I am Gran- 
 ville de Vigne. You know us, of course. Your 
 father rode with our hounds last January. Very 
 game old gentleman, he seemed ; I should have 
 thought him too sensible to have sent you down 
 here ! You'd have been much better at Eton, or 
 Rugby; there's nothing like a public school for 
 taking the nonsense out of people. / liked Eton, 
 at least ; but if you know how to hold your own 
 and have your own way, you can make yourself 
 comfortable anywhere. The other fellows are out, 
 gone to a flower-show, I think ; I never go to 
 such places myself, they're too slow. There is 
 only one of the boys worth cultivating, and he's 
 a very little chap, only thirteen, but he's a jolly 
 little monkey ; we call him ' Curly ' from his dandy 
 gold locks. His father's a peer' and De Vigne 
 laughed again- ' one of the fresh creation ; may 
 Heaven preserve us from it ! This Frestonhills is 
 a detestable place ; you'll be glad enough to get 
 out of it. If it weren't for sport, I should have 
 cut it long ago, but with a hunter and a rod a man 
 can never be dull. Are you a good shot, seat, and 
 oar, young one?' 
 
 Those were De Vigne's first words to me, and
 
 GRANTILLE DE VIGNE. 7 
 
 I was honoured and delighted with his notice, 
 for I had heard how, at seven years old, he 
 had ridden unnoticed to the finish with Assheton 
 Smith's hounds ; how, three years later, he had 
 mounted a mare none of the grooms dare touch, 
 and, breaking his shoulder-bone in the attempt to 
 tame her, had shut his teeth like a little Spartan, 
 that he might not cry out during its setting ; how, 
 when he had seen his Newfoundland drowning 
 from cramp in the mere, he had plunged in after 
 his dog, and only been rescued as both were sink- 
 ing, the boy's arms round the animal's neck : 
 with many other such tales current in the county 
 of the young heir to 20,000/. a year. 
 
 I did know his family the royal-sounding * Us.' 
 They had been the lords of the manor at Vigne 
 ever since tradition could tell ; their legends were 
 among the country lore, and their names in the 
 old cradle songs of rough chivalry, and vague 
 romance, handed down among the peasantry from 
 generation to generation. Many coronets had lain 
 at their feet, but they had courteously declined 
 them ; to say the truth, they held the strawberry- 
 leaves in supreme contempt, and looked down not 
 unjustly on many of the roturiers of the peerage. 
 
 DeVigne's father, a Colonel of Dragoons, had 
 fallen fighting in India when his son was six years
 
 8 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 old ; and how this high-spirited representative of a 
 haughty House came to be living down in the dull 
 seclusion of Frestonhills was owing to a circum- 
 stance very characteristic of De Vigne. At twelve 
 his mother had sent him to Eton, a match in 
 pluck, and muscle, and talent, for boys five years 
 his senior. There he helped to fight the Lord's 
 men ; pounded bargees with a skill worthy of the 
 P. R. ; made himself captain of the boats ; enjoyed 
 mingled popularity and detestation ; and from 
 thence, when he was seventeen, got himself 
 expelled. 
 
 His Dame chanced to have a niece a niece, 
 tradition says, with the loveliest complexion and 
 the most divine auburn hair in the world, and 
 with whom, when she visited her aunt, all Oppi- 
 dans and Tugs, who saw the beatific vision, became 
 straightway enamoured. Whether De Vigne was 
 in love with her, I can't say ; he always averred 
 not, but I doubt the truth of his statement ; at any 
 rate, he made her in love with him, being already 
 rather skilled in that line of conquest, and all, I 
 dare say, went merry as a marriage-bell, till the 
 Dame found out the mischief, was scandalized and 
 horrified at it, and confiding the affair to the tutor, 
 made no end of a row in Eton. She would have 
 pulled all the authorities about De Vigne's ears if
 
 GRANTILLE DE VIGNE. 
 
 he had not performed that operation for himself. 
 The tutor, having had a tender leaning to the 
 auburn hair on his own account, was furious ; and 
 coming in contact with De Vigne and mademoiselle 
 strolling along by the river-side, took occasion to 
 tell them his mind. Now opposition, much less 
 lecturing, De Vigne in all his life never could 
 brook ; and he and his tutor coming to hot words, 
 as men are apt when they quarrel about a woman, 
 De Vigne flung him into the water and gave 
 him such a ducking for his impudence, as Eton 
 master never had before, or since. De Vigne, of 
 course, was expelled for his double crime; and 
 to please his mother, as nothing would make 
 him hear of three years of college life, he con- 
 sented to live twelve months in the semi-aca- 
 demic solitude of Frestonhills, while his name was 
 entered at the Horse Guards for a commission. 
 So at the Chancery he had domiciled himself, 
 more as a guest than a pupil, for the Doctor was 
 a trifle afraid of his keen eyes and quick wit; 
 since his pupil knew twenty times more of modern 
 literature and valuable available information than 
 himself, and fifty times more of the world and 
 its ways. But Old Joey, like all people, be their 
 tendencies ever so heavenward, had a certain 
 respect for twenty thousand a year. De Vigne
 
 10 " HELD IN BONDAGE ; " OK, 
 
 kept two hunters and a hack in Frestonhills. He 
 smoked Cavendish unde*r the Doctor's own win- 
 dow ; he read De Kock and Le Brun in the 
 drawing-room before the Doctor's very eyes (and 
 did not Miss Arabella read them too, upon the sly, 
 though she blushed if you mentioned poor * Don 
 Juan ! ') ; he absented himself when he chose, and 
 went to shoot and hunt and fish with men he 
 knew in the county ; he had his own way, in fact, 
 as he had been accustomed to have it all his life. 
 But it was not an obstinate nor a disagreeable 
 * own way ;' true, he turned restive at the least 
 attempt at coercion, but he was gentle enough to 
 a coax ; and though he could work up into very 
 fiery passion, he was, generally speaking, sweet 
 tempered enough, and had almost always, a kind 
 word, or a generous thought, or a laughing jest, 
 for us less favoured young ones. 
 
 I had a sort of boyish devoted loyalty to him 
 then, and he deserved it. Many a scrape did a 
 word or two from him get me out of with the 
 Doctor; many a time did he send me into the 
 seventh heaven by the loan of his magnificent four- 
 year-old ; more than once did fivers come from his 
 hand when I was deep in debt for a boy's fancies, 
 or had been cheated through thick and thin at the 
 billiard-table in the Ten Bells, where De Vigne
 
 GRAXVILLE DE VIGNE. 11 
 
 paid my debts, refreshed himself by kicking the 
 two sharpers out of the apartment, and threatened 
 to shoot me if I offered him the money back again. 
 A warm-hearted reverence I had for him in thqse 
 boyish days, and always have had, God bless him ! 
 But I little foresaw how often in the life to come 
 we should be together in revelry and in danger, in 
 thoughtless pleasures and dark sorrows, in the 
 whirl of fast life and the din and dash of the bat- 
 tle-field, when I first saw the senior pupil 
 smoking in the study of the old Chancery at 
 Frestonhills. 
 
 One sunny summer's afternoon, while the Doctor 
 dosed over his ' Treatise on the Wise Tooth of the 
 Fossil Hum-and-bosh Ichthyosaurus,' and Arabella 
 watered her geraniums and looked interesting in a 
 white hat with very blue ribbons, De Vigne, with 
 his fishing-rod in his hand, looked into the study, 
 and told Curly and me, who were vainly and 
 wretchedly puzzling our brains over Terence, that 
 he was going after jack, and we might go with him 
 if we chose. Curly and I, in our adoration of 
 our senior pupil, would have gone after him to 
 martyrdom, and we sent Terence to the dogs 
 (literally, for we shied him at Arabella's wheezing 
 King Charles), rushed for our rods and baskets, 
 and went down to the banks of the Kennet. De
 
 12 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 Vigne had an especial tenderness for old Tzaak's 
 gentle art ; it was the only thing over which he 
 displayed any patience, and even in this, he might 
 have caught more, if he had not twitched his line 
 so often in anger at the slow-going fish, and sworn 
 against them for not biting, roundly enough to 
 terrify them out of all such intentions, if they had 
 ever possessed any ! 
 
 How pleasant it was there beside Pope's 
 
 " Kennet swift, for silver eels renowned," 
 
 rushing through the sunny meadow lands of Berk- 
 shire ; lingering on its way, beneath the chequered 
 shadows of the oaks and elms, that rival their 
 great neighbours, the beech- woods of Bucks ; dash- 
 ing swiftly, with busy joyous song, under the 
 rough-hewn arch of some picturesque rustic 
 bridge ; flowing clear and cool in the summer sun 
 through the fragrant woodlands and moss-grown 
 orchards, the nestling villages and quiet country 
 towns, and hawthorn hedges dropping their white 
 buds into its changeful gleaming waters ! How 
 pleasant it was, fishing for jack among our Kennet 
 mendows, lying under the pale willows and the 
 dark wayfaring tree with its white starry blossoms, 
 while the cattle trooped down to drink, up to their 
 hocks in the flags and lilies and snowflakes fringing
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 13 
 
 the river's edge ; and the air came fresh and 
 fragrant over the swathes of new-mown grass and 
 the crimson buds of the little dog-roses ! Half its 
 beauty, however, was lost upon us, with our boyish 
 density to all appeals made to our less material 
 senses; except, indeed, upon De Vigne, who 
 stopped to have a glance across country as he 
 stood trolling, spinning the line with much more 
 outlay of strength and vehemence than was 
 needed, or landing every now and then a ten-pound 
 pike, with a violent anathema upon it for having 
 dared to dispute his will so long ; while little 
 Curly lazily whipped the water, stretched full 
 length on a fragrant bed of wild thyme. What a 
 pretty child he was, poor little fellow ! more 
 like one of Pompadour's pages, or a boy-hero 
 of the Trouveres, with his white skin and his violet 
 eyes, than an every-day slang-talking, lark-loving 
 English lad ! 
 
 ' By George ! what a handsome girl.' said De 
 Vigne, taking off his cap and standing at ease 
 for a minute, after landing a great jack. ' I'm 
 not fond of dark women generally, but 'pon my 
 life she is splendid. What a contour! What 
 a figure ! Do for the queen of the gipsies, 
 eh ? Why the deuce isn't she this side of the 
 river?'
 
 14 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OK, 
 
 The object of his admiration was on the oppo- 
 site bank, strolling along by herself, with a certain 
 dignity of air and stateliness of step which would not 
 have ill become a duchess, though her station in life 
 was pr.obably that of a dressmaker's apprentice, or 
 a small shopkeeper's daughter, at the very highest. 
 She was as handsome as one of those brunette 
 peasant beauties in the plains of La Camargue, 
 with a clear dark skin which had a rich carnation 
 glow on the cheeks ; large black eyes, perfect in 
 shape and colour ; and a form such as would de- 
 velop with years for she was now probably not 
 more than sixteen or seventeen into full Juno- 
 esque magnificence. 
 
 'By Jove ! she is very handsome; and she 
 knows it, too,' began De Vigne again. ' I have 
 never seen her about here before. I'll go across 
 and talk to her.' 
 
 Go he assuredly would have done, for female 
 beauty was De Vigne's weakness; but at that 
 minute a short, square, choleric-looking keeper 
 came out of the wood at our back, and went up to 
 little Curly. 
 
 ' Hallo, you there you young swell ; don't you 
 know you are trespassing ? ' 
 
 * No, I don't,' answered Curly, in his pretty soft 
 voice.
 
 GRAXVILLE DE VIGNE. 15 
 
 ' Don't you know you're on Mr. Tressillian's 
 ground ? ' sang out the keeper. 
 
 * Am I ? Well, give my love to him, and say 
 I shall be very happy to give him the pleasure of 
 my company at dinner to-night,' rejoined Curly, 
 imperturbably. 
 
 ' You imperent young dog will you march off 
 this 'ere minute ! ' roared the bellicose guardian of 
 Mr. Tressillian's rights of fishery. 
 
 * Wouldn't you like to see me ? ' laughed Curly, 
 flinging his marchbrown into the stream. 
 
 * Curse you, if you don't, I'll come and take 
 your rod away,' sang out the keeper. 
 
 * Will you really ? That'll be too obliging, you 
 look so sweet and amiable as it is,' said Curly, 
 with a provoking smile on his girlish little face. 
 
 * Yes, I will ; and take you up to the house and 
 get you a month at the mill for trespass, you 
 abominable little devil ! ' vowed his adversary, 
 laying his great fist on Curly's rod ; but the little 
 chap sprang to his feet and struck him a vigorous 
 blow with his childish hand, which fell on the 
 keeper's brawny form, much as a fly's kick might on 
 the Apollo Belvidere. The man seized him round 
 the waist, but Curly struck out right and left, and 
 kicked and struggled with such hearty good will, 
 that the keeper let him go ; but, keeping his
 
 16 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 hand on the boy's collar, he was about to drag him 
 up to the lord of the manor, whose house stood 
 some mile distant, when, at the sound of the 
 scuffle, De Vigne, intent upon watching his beauty 
 across the Kennet, swung round to Curly's rescue : 
 the boy being rather a pet of his, and De Vigne 
 never seeing a fight between might and right 
 without striking in with a blow for the weak 
 one. 
 
 * Take your hands off that young gentleman ! 
 Take your hands off, do you hear? or I will give 
 you in charge for assault.' 
 
 ' Will yer, Master Stilts,' growled the keeper, 
 purple with dire wrath. ' 111 give you in charge, 
 you mean. You're poaching ay, poaching, for 
 all yer grand airs ; and I'll be hanged if I don't 
 take you and the little uns, all of yer, up to the 
 house, and see if a committal don't take the rise 
 out of yer, my game-cocks ! ' 
 
 Wherewith the keeper, whom anger must have 
 totally blinded ere he attempted such an indignity 
 with our senior pupil, whose manorial rights 
 stretched over woods and waters twenty times the 
 extent of Boughton Tressillian's, let go his hold 
 upon Curly, and turned upon De Vigne, to collar 
 him instead. 
 
 De Vigne's eyes flashed, and the blood mounted
 
 GRANV1LLK DE VIUNK. 17 
 
 hot over his temples, as he straightened his left 
 arm, and received him by a plant in the middle of 
 his chest, with a dexterity that would have done 
 no discredit to Tom Sayers. Down went the 
 man under the tremendous punishing 1 , only to 
 pick himself up again, and charge at De Vigne 
 with all the fury which, in such attacks, defeats its 
 own ends, and makes a man strike wildly and at 
 random. De Vigne however had not had mills at 
 Eton, and rounds with bargees at Little Surley, 
 without becoming a boxer, such as would have 
 delighted a Ring at Moulsey. lie threw him- 
 self into a scientific attitude ; and, contenting 
 himself with the defensive for the first couple of 
 rounds, without being touched himself, caught the 
 keeper on the left temple, with a force which sent 
 him down like a felled ox. There the man lay, 
 like a log, on the thyme and ground-ivy and wood- 
 bine, till I fancy his conqueror had certain uncom- 
 fortable suspicions that he might have killed him. 
 So he lifted him up, gave him a good shake; and 
 finding him all right, though he was bleeding pro- 
 fusely, was frightfully vengeful, and full of most 
 unrighteous oaths, though not apparently willing to 
 encounter such another round, De Vigne pushed 
 him on before him, and took him up to Mr. Tressil- 
 lian's to keep his word, and give him in charge. 
 VOL. i. c
 
 18 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 Weive Hurst, Boughton Tressillian's manor- 
 house, was a fine, rambling, antique old place, its 
 facade looking all the greyer and the older in 
 contrast to the green lawn, with its larches, foun- 
 tains, and flower-beds which stretched in front. 
 The powdered servant who opened the door looked 
 not a little startled at our unusual style of morn- 
 ing visit; but gave way before De Vigne, and 
 showed us into the library, where Mr. Tressillian 
 sat a stately, kindly, silver-haired old man. De 
 Vigne sank into the easy-chair wheeled for him, 
 told his tale frankly and briefly, demonstrated, 
 as clearly as if he had been a lawyer, our right to 
 fish on the highway side of the river (an often- 
 disputed point for anglers), and the consequent 
 illegality of the keeper's assault. Boughton Tres- 
 sillian was open to conviction, though he was a 
 county magnate and a magistrate, admitted that 
 he had no right over that part of the Kennet, 
 agreed with De Vigne that his keeper was in 
 the wrong, promised to give the man a good 
 lecture, and apologized to his visitor for the in- 
 terference and the affront. 
 
 * If you will stay and dine with me, Mr. De 
 Vigne, and your young friends also, it will give 
 me very great pleasure;' said the cordial and cour- 
 teous old man.
 
 GRANV1LLE DE ViaNK. 19 
 
 I thank you. We should have been most 
 happy,' returned our senior pupil ; ' but as it is, 
 I am afraid we shall be late for Dr. Prim- 
 rose.' 
 
 ' For Dr. Primrose ! ' exclaimed Tressillian, 
 involuntarily. * You are not 
 
 ' I am a pupil at the Chancery,' laughed De 
 Vigne. 
 
 Our host actually started ; De Vigne certainly 
 did look very little like a pupil of any man's ; but 
 he smiled in return. 
 
 ' Indeed ! Then I hope you will often give me 
 the pleasure of your society. There is a billiard- 
 table in wet weather, and good fishing and shoot- 
 ing in the fine. It will be a great kindness, I 
 assure you, to come and enliven us at Weive 
 Hurst a little.' 
 
 ' The kindness will be to us,' returned De Vigne, 
 cordially. * Good day to you, Mr. Tressillian ; 
 accept my best thanks for your ' 
 
 A shower of roses, lilies, and laburnums, pelted 
 at him with a merry laugh, stopped his harangue. 
 The culprit was a little girl of about two years 
 old, standing just outside the low windows of the 
 library a pretty child, with golden hair waving 
 to her waist, and no end of mischief in her dark 
 blue eyes. Unlike most children, she was not at all 
 
 C 2
 
 20 " HELD IN BONDAGE } OR, 
 
 frightened at her own misdemeanours, but stood 
 her ground, till Bonghton Tressillian stretched out 
 his arm to catch her. Then, she turned round, and 
 took wing as rapidly as a bird off a bough, her 
 clear childish laughter ringing on the summer air; 
 while De Vigne gave chase to the only child in 
 his life he ever deigned to notice, justly thinking 
 children great nuisances, and led her prisoner to 
 the library, holding the blue sash by which he had 
 caught her. 
 
 * Here is my second captive, Mr. Tressillian 
 what shall we do to her ? ' 
 
 Boughton Tressillian smiled. 
 
 * Alma, how could you be so naughty ? Tell 
 this gentleman you are a spoilt child, and ask him 
 to forgive you.' 
 
 She looked up under her long black lashes half 
 shyly, half'wickedly. 
 
 * Signor, perdonatemi ! ' she said, with a mis- 
 chievous laugh, in broken Italian, though how a 
 little Berkshire girl came to talk Neapolitan 
 instead of English I could not imagine. 
 
 ' Alma, you are very naughty to-day,' said 
 Tressillian, half impatiently. ' Why do you not 
 speak English ? Ask his forgiveness properly.' 
 
 * I will pardon her without it,' laughed De 
 Vigne. * There, Alma, will you not love me now ? '
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 21 
 
 She pushed her sunny hair off her eyes and 
 looked at him a strangely earnest and wistful 
 look, too, for so young a child. ' Si! Alma vi 
 ama ! ' she answered him with joyous vivacity, 
 pressing upon him with eager generosity some 
 geraniums the head-gardener had given her, and 
 which but a moment ago she had fastened into 
 her white dress with extreme admiration and 
 triumph. 
 
 * Bravo ! ' said Curly, as five minutes afterwards 
 we passed out from the great hall door. ' You 
 are a brick, De Vigne, and no mistake. How 
 splendidly you pitched into that rascally keeper ! 
 
 De Vigne laughed. 
 
 ' It was a good bit of fun. Always stand up 
 for your rights, my boy ; if you don't, who will ? 
 I never was done yet in my life, and never intend 
 to be.' 
 
 With which wise resolution the senior pupil 
 struck a fusee and lit his pipe ; reaching home 
 just in time to dress, and hand Arabella in to 
 dinner, who paid him at all times desperate court, 
 hoping, doubtless, to make such an impression on 
 him with her long ringlets, and bravura songs, as 
 might trap him in his early youth into such 
 * serious' action as would make her mistress of 
 Vigne and its long rent-roll . That Granville
 
 22 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 saw no more of her than he could help in common 
 courtesy, and paid her not so much attention as 
 he did to her King Charles, was no check to the 
 young lady's wild imaginings. At eight-and-twenty, 
 women grown desperate don't stick to probabili- 
 ties, but fly their hawks at any or at all quarries, 
 so that * peradventure they may catch one ! ' 
 
 Weive Hurst proved a great gain to us Tres- 
 sillian was as good as his word, and we were at all 
 times cordially welcomed there, when the Doctor 
 gave us permission, to shoot and fish and ride 
 about his grounds. He grew extremely fond of 
 De Vigne, who, haughty as he could be at times, 
 and impatient as he was at any of the Doctor's 
 weak attempts at coercion, had a very winning 
 manner with old people; and played billiards, 
 heard his tales of the Regency, and broke in his 
 colts for him, till he fairly won his way into Tres- 
 sillian's heart. It was for De Vigne that the 
 butler was always bid to bring the Steinberg and 
 the 1815 port ; De Vigne, to whom he gave a mare 
 worth five hundred sovs., the most beautiful piece 
 of horse-flesh ever mounted ; De Vigne, who might 
 have knocked down every head of game in the 
 preserves if he had chosen ; De Vigne, to whom 
 little Alma Tressillian, the old man's only grand- 
 child, and the future heiress, of course, of Weive
 
 QRANVILLE DE VIONK. 23 
 
 Hurst, presented with the darling of her heart a 
 donkey, minus head or tail or panniers. 
 
 But De Vigne did not avail himself of the sport 
 at Weive Hurst so much as he might have done 
 had he no other game in hand. His affair with 
 Tressillian's keeper had prevented his going to 
 make impromptu acquaintance with the handsome 
 girl across the Kennet ; but she had not slipped 
 from his mind, and had made sufficient impres- 
 sion upon him for him to try the next day to see 
 her again in Frestonhills, and find out who she 
 was and where she lived, two questions he soon 
 settled, by some means or other, greatly to his own 
 satisfaction. The girl's name was Lucy Davis ; 
 whence she came nobody knew or perhaps in- 
 quired ; but she was one of the hands at a mil- 
 liner's in Frestonhills, prized by her employers for 
 her extreme talent and skill, though equally de- 
 tested, I believe* for her tyrannous and tempes- 
 tuous temper. The girl was handsome enough 
 for an Empress ; and had wonderful style in her 
 when she was dressed in her Sunday silks and 
 cashmeres, for dress was her passion, and all her 
 earnings were spent in imitating the toilettes she 
 assisted in getting up to adorn the rectors' and 
 lawyers' wives of Frestonhills. ' The Davis ' was 
 handsome enough to send a much older man mad
 
 24 "HELD ix BOXDAGE;" OR, 
 
 after her; and De Vigne, after meeting her once 
 or twice in the deep shady lanes of our green 
 Berkshire, accompanied her in her strolls, and 
 fell in love with her, as De Vigne had a knack of 
 doing with every handsome woman who came 
 near him. We all adored the stately, black- 
 eyed, black-browed Davis, but she never deigned 
 any notice of our boyish worship; and when 
 De Vigne came into the field, we gave up all 
 hope, and fled the scene in desperation. The 
 Doctor, of course, knew nothing of the affair, 
 though almost every one else in Frestonhills did, 
 especially the young bankers and solicitors and 
 grammar-school assistant-masters, who swore at 
 that ' cursed fellow at the Chancery ' for monopo- 
 lizing the Davis especially as the ' cursed fellow ' 
 treated them considerably de haut en bos. De 
 Vigne was really in love, for the time being ; one 
 of those hot, vehement, short-lived attachments 
 natural to his age and character ; based on eye- 
 love alone, for the girl had nothing else 
 lovable about her, and had one of the worst 
 tempers possible; which she did not always spare 
 even to him, and which, when his first glamour 
 had a little cooled, made De Vigne rather glad 
 that his departure from Frestonhills was drawing 
 near, some four months after he had seen her
 
 GRANVILLE DE V1GNE. 25 
 
 across the Kennet, and would give him an oppor- 
 tunity to break off his liaison which he otherwise 
 might have found it difficult to make. 
 
 The evening of the day which had brought the 
 letter which announced him as gazetted to the 
 th P. W. O. Hussars; little Curly and I, having 
 been sent with a message to a neighbouring rector 
 from the Doctor, were riding by turns on Miss 
 Arabella's white pony, talking over the coming 
 holidays' * vacation,' as Old Joey called them, 
 and of the long sunny future that stretched before 
 us in dim golden haze, so near and yet so far from 
 our young longing eyes when De Vigne's terrier 
 rolled out of a hedge, and jumped upon us. 
 
 ' Holloa ! ' cried Curly, ' where's your master, 
 eh boy ? There he is, by Jove ! Arthur, talking 
 to the Davis. What prime fun ! I wish I dare 
 chaff him ! ' 
 
 Curly, being on the pony's back, could see 
 over the hedge; I could not, so I swung my- 
 self upon an elm-bough, and saw at some little 
 distance De Vigne and Lucy Davis in very ear- 
 nest conversation, or rather, as it seemed to me, 
 altercation ; for De Vigne was switching the 
 long meadow grass impatiently with his cane, 
 looking pale and annoyed, while the girl Davis 
 stood before him, seemingly in one of those
 
 26 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" or?, 
 
 violent furies which reputation attributed to her, 
 by turns adjuring, abusing, and threatening 
 him. 
 
 Curly and I stayed some minutes looking at 
 them, for the scene piqued our interest, making us 
 think of Eugene Sue, and Dumas, and all the love 
 scenes we had devoured, when the Doctor sup- 
 posed us plodding at the Pans Asinorum or the 
 De Officiis : but we could make nothing out of 
 it, except that De Vigne and the Davis were 
 quarrelling; and an intuitive perception, that the 
 senior pupil would not admire our playing the spy 
 on him, made me leave my elm branch, and Curly 
 start off the pony homewards. 
 
 That night De Vigne was silent and gloomy in 
 the drawing-room; gave us but a brief 'Good 
 night,' and shut his bedroom door with a bang; 
 the next morning, however, he seemed all right 
 again, as he breakfasted for the last time in the 
 old Chancery. 
 
 * What a lucky fellow you are, De Vigne ! ' 
 sighed Curly, enviously, as he stood in the hall, 
 waiting for the fly to take him to the station. 
 
 He laughed: 
 
 * Oh, I don't know ! We shall see if we all say 
 so this time twenty years ! If I could foresee the 
 future, I wouldn't : I love the glorious uncer-
 
 ORANVILLK DE VIGNE. 27 
 
 tainty ; it is the only sauce piquante one has, and 
 I can't say I fear fate very much ! ' 
 
 And well he might not at eighteen ! Master, 
 when he came of age, of a splendid fortune, his 
 own guide, his own arbiter, able to see life in all 
 its most deliciously attractive forms, truly it 
 seemed that he, if any one, might trust to the 
 sauce piquante of uncertain fate ? Qui lira, verra. 
 
 Off he went by the express with his portman- 
 teaus, lettered, as we enviously read, * Granville de 
 Vigne, Esq., th P. W. O. Hussars;' off with 
 Punch and an Havannah to amuse him on the 
 way, to much more than Exeter Barracks, on the 
 way to Manhood ; with all its chances and its 
 changes, its wild revels and its dark regrets, its 
 sparkling champagne-cup, and its bitter aconite 
 lying at the dregs ! Off he went, and we, left 
 behind in the dull solitude of academic Freston- 
 hills, watched the smoke curling from the engine 
 as it disappeared round the bend of a cutting, 
 and wondered in vague schoolboy fashion what 
 sort of thing De Vigne would make of Life.
 
 28 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " A SOUTHERLY WIND AND A CLOUDY SKY PROCLAIM 
 IT A HUNTING MORNING." 
 
 * CONFOUND it, I can't cram, and I won't cram, 
 so there's an end of it!' sang out a Cantab one 
 fine October morning, flinging Plato's Republic to 
 the far end of the room, where it knocked down a 
 grind-cup, smashed a punch-bowl, and cracked the 
 glass, that glazed the charms, of the last pet of the 
 ballet. 
 
 The sun streamed through the oriel windows of 
 my rooms in dear old Trinity. The roaring fire 
 crackled, blazed, and chatted away to a slate- 
 coloured Skye that lay full-length before it. The 
 table was spread with coffee, audit, devils, omelets, 
 hare-pies, and all the other articles of the buttery. 
 The sunshine within, shone on pipes and pictures, 
 tobacco-boxes and little bronzes, books, cards, 
 cigar-cases, statuettes, portraits of Derby winners, 
 and likenesses of fair Anonymas all in confusion,
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 29 
 
 tumbled pell-mell together among sofas and easy- 
 chairs, rifles, cricket-bats, boxing-gloves, and skates. 
 The sunshine without, shone on the backs, where 
 outriggers and four-oars were pulling up and down 
 the cold classic muddy waters of the Cam, more 
 celebrated, but far less clear and lovely, I must 
 say, than our old dancing, rapid, joyous Kennet. 
 Everything looked essentially jolly, and jolly did 
 I and my two companions feel, smoking before a 
 huge fire, in the easiest of attitudes and couches, 
 a very trifle seedy from a prolonged Wine the 
 night previous. 
 
 One of them was a handsome young fellow of 
 twenty, a great deal too handsome for the peace 
 of the master's daughters, and of the fair patissieres 
 and fleuristes of Petty Cury and King's Parade; the 
 self- same, save some additional feet of height and 
 some fondly-cherished whiskers, as our little Curly 
 of Frestonhills. The other was a man of six-and- 
 twenty, his figure superbly developed in strength 
 and power without losing one atom in symmetry, 
 showing how his nerve and muscle would tell 
 pulling up stream, or in a fast fifty minutes 
 across country, or, if occasion turned up, in 
 that ' noble art of self-defence,' now growing 
 as popular in England, as in days of yore at 
 Elis.
 
 30 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 ' Cram ? ' he said, looking up as Curly spoke. 
 'Why should you? What's the good of it? Youth 
 is made for something warmer than academic 
 routine ; and knowledge of the world will stand a 
 man in better stead, than the quarrels of com- 
 mentators, and the dry demonstrations of mathe- 
 maticians.' 
 
 ' Of course. Not a doubt about it,' said Curly, 
 stretching himself. * I find soda-water and brandy 
 the best guano for the cultivation of my intellect, 
 I can tell you, De Vigne.' 
 
 ' Do you think it will get you a double first ? ' 
 
 * Heaven forefend ! ' cried Curly, with extreme 
 piety. ' I've no ambition for lawn sleeves, though 
 they do bring with them as neat a little income as 
 any Vessel of Grace, who lives on clover, and for- 
 swears the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, 
 can possibly desire.' 
 
 * You'll live in clover, my boy, trust you for 
 that,' said De Vigne. 'But you won't pretend 
 that you only take it because you're "called" to 
 it, and that you would infinitely prefer, if left to 
 yourself, a hovel and dry bread ! Don't cram, 
 Curly; your great saps are like the geese they 
 fatten for foie gras ; they overfeed one part of the 
 system till all the rest is weak, diseased, and 
 worthless. But the geese have the best of it, for
 
 (JRANYII.U: I>K VHJNK. 31 
 
 their livers do make something worth eating, while 
 the reading-man's brains are rarely productive of 
 anything worth writing.' 
 
 ' Ah ! ' re-echoed Curly, with an envious sigh 
 of assent. * I wonder whose knowledge is worth 
 the most ; my old Coach's, a living miracle of 
 classic research, who couldn't, to save his life, 
 tell you who was Premier, translate " Comment 
 vous portez-vous ? " or know a Creswick from a 
 Rubens, or yours; who have everything at your 
 fingers' ends that one can want to hear about, from 
 the last clause in the budget, to the best make in 
 rifles?' 
 
 De Vigne laughed. * Well, a man can't tumble 
 about in the world, if he has any brains at all, 
 without learning something; but, my dear fellow, 
 that's all " superficial," they'll tell you ; and it is 
 atrociously bad taste to study leading articles 
 instead of Greek unities ! Chacun a son gout, 
 you know. That young fellow above your head 
 is a mild, spectacled youth, Arthur says, who gives, 
 scientific teas, where you give roistering wines, 
 wins Craven scholarships where you get gated, and 
 falls in love with the fair structure of the (Edipus 
 Tyrannus, where you go mad about the unfor- 
 tunately more perishable form of that pretty little 
 girl at the cigar-shop over the way ! You think
 
 32 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 him a muff, and he, I dare say, looks on you as 
 an dme damnee, both in the French and English 
 sense of the words. You both fill up niches in 
 your own little world ; you needn't jostle one 
 another. If all horses ran for one Cup only, the 
 turf would soon come to grief. Why ain't you 
 like me ? I go on my own way, and never trouble 
 my head about other people!' 
 
 ' Why am I not like you ? ' repeated Curly, 
 with a prolonged whistle. ' Why isn't water as 
 good as rum punch, or my bed-maker as pretty 
 as little Rosalie ? Don't I wish I were you, instead 
 of a beggarly younger son, tied by the leg in 
 Granta, bothered with chapel, and all sorts of 
 horrors, and rusticated if I try to see the smallest 
 atom of life. By George ! De Vigne, what a jolly 
 time you must have had of it since you left the 
 Chancery ! ' 
 
 ' Oh, I don't know,' said De Vigne, looking 
 into the fire with a smile. ' I've gone the pace, I 
 dare say, as fast as most men, and there are few 
 things I have not tried ; but I am not blase yet, 
 thank Heaven ! When other things begin to bore 
 me, I turn back to sport that never palls; there's 
 too much excitement in it. Wine one cannot 
 drink too much of I can't, at the least without 
 getting tired of it; women well, for all the poets
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 33 
 
 write about the joys of constancy, there is no plea- 
 sure so great as change there ; but with a good 
 speat in the river, or clever dogs among the 
 turnips, or a fine fox along a cramped country, a 
 man need never be dull. The ping of a bullet, the 
 shine of a trout's back, never lose their pleasure. 
 One can't say as much for the brightest Rhenish 
 that ever cooled one's throats, nor the brightest 
 glances that ever lured one into folly; though 
 Heaven forbid that I should ever say a word 
 against either ! ' 
 
 ' You'd be a very ungrateful fellow if you did,' 
 said I, ' seeing that you generally monopolize the 
 very best of both ! ' 
 
 He laughed again. ' Well, I've seen life I 
 told you young fellows at Frestonhills, I trusted to 
 my sauce piquante ; and I must say it has used 
 me very well hitherto, and I dare say always will 
 as long as I keep away from the Jews. While a 
 man has plenty of tin, all the world offers him the 
 choicest dinner; though, when he has overdrawn 
 at Coutts's, his friends wouldn't give him dry 
 bread to keep him out, of the union ! Be able to 
 dine en prince at home, and you'll be invited out 
 every night of your life ; be hungry au troisi&me, 
 and you must not lick the crumbs from under 
 your sworn allies' tables, those jolly good fellows, 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 who have surfeited themselves at yours many a 
 time ! Oh yes, 1 enjoy life ; a man always can 
 as long as he can pay for it ! ' 
 
 With which axiom De Vigne rose from his 
 rocking-chair, laid down his pipe, and stretched 
 himself. 
 
 * It looks fine out yonder. Our club think of 
 challenging your University Eight for love, good 
 will, and a gold cup. We never do anything 
 for nothing in England ; if we play, we must play 
 for money or ornaments: / should like to do 
 the thing for the sake of the fun, but that isn't a 
 general British feeling at all. Money is to us, all 
 that glory was to the Romans, and is to the 
 French. Genius is valued by the money it makes ; 
 artists are prized by the price of their pictures. 
 If the nation is grateful, once in a hundred years, 
 it votes a pension ; and if we want to have a good- 
 humoured contest, we must wait till there are 
 subscriptions enough to buy a reward to tempt us ! 
 Come along, Arthur, let's have a pull to keep us 
 in practice ? ' 
 
 We accordingly had a pull up that time- 
 honoured stream, where Trinity has so often won 
 challenge cups, and luckless King's got bumped, 
 thanks to its quasi-Etonians' idleness. Where 
 grave philosophers have watched the setting
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGXE. 35 
 
 sun die out of the sky, as the glories of their 
 own youth have died away unvalued, till lost for 
 ever. Where ascetic reading-men have mooned 
 along its banks blind to all the loveliness of the 
 water-lily below, or the clouds above, as they took 
 their constitutional and pondered their prize essay. 
 Where thousands of young fellows have dropped 
 down under its trees, dreaming over Don Juan or 
 the Lotus-eaters ; or pulled along, straining muscle 
 and nerve against the Head -Boat ; or sauntered 
 beside it in sweet midsummer eves, with some 
 fair face upraised to theirs, long forgotten, out 
 of mind now, but which then had power to 
 make them oblivious of proctors and rustication ! 
 We pulled along with hearty good-will, aided by 
 an oar with which, could we have had it to help us 
 in the University race, we must have beaten Oxford 
 out-and-out. For the Brocas, and Little Surley, 
 could have told you tales of that long, lofty, slash- 
 ing, stroke ; and if, monsieur or madame, you are 
 a ' sentimental psychologist,' and sneer it down as 
 ' animal,' let me tell you it is the hand which is 
 strong in sport, and in righteous strife, that will be 
 warmer in help, and firmer in friendship, and more 
 generous in deed, than the puny weakling's who 
 cannot hold his own. 
 
 * By George ! ' said De Vigne, resting at last 
 
 D 2
 
 36 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 upon his oar, 'is there anything that gives one 
 a greater zest in life than bodily exertion ? ' 
 
 A sentiment, however, in which indolent 
 Curly declined to coincide. ' Give me,' said he, 
 ' a lot of cushions, a hookah, and a novel ; and 
 your " bodily exertion " may go to the deuce 
 for me!' 
 
 De Vigne laughed ; he was not over merciful 
 on the present-day assumption in beardless boys 
 of effeminacy, nil admirari-ism and blase in- 
 difference. He was far too frank himself for 
 affectation, and too spirited for ennui; at the 
 present, at least, his sauce piquante had not lost 
 its flavour. 
 
 He had seen life ; he had hunted with the 
 Pytchley, stalked royals in the Highlands, flirted 
 with maids of honour, supped in the Breda Quartier, 
 had dinners fit for princes at the Star and Garter, 
 and pleasant hours in cabinets particuliers at Ve- 
 fours and the Maison Doree. He and his yacht, 
 when he had got leave, had gone everywhere that 
 a yacht could go ; the Ionian Isles knew no figure- 
 head better than his Aphrodite's of the R. V. Y. S. 
 it had carried him up to salmon fishing in Nor- 
 way, and across the Atlantic to hunt buffaloes and 
 cariboos; to Granada, to look into soft Spanish 
 faces by the dim moonlight in the Alhambra ; and
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGXK. 37 
 
 to Venice, to fling bouquets upwards to the 
 balconies, and whisper to Venetian masks which 
 showed him the glance of long almond eyes, in 
 the riotous Carnival time. He had a brief cam- 
 paign in Scinde, where he was wounded in the 
 hip, and tenderly nursed by a charming Civil 
 Service widow ; where his daring drew down upon 
 him the admiring rebuke of his commanding 
 officer, but won him his troop, which promotion 
 brought him back to England and enabled him 
 to exchange into the th Lancers, techni- 
 cally the Dashers, the nom de guerre of that 
 daring and brilliant corps. And now, De Vigne, 
 who had never lost sight of me since the Freston- 
 hills days, but, on the contrary, had often asked 
 me to go and shoot over Vigne, when he assem- 
 bled a crowd of guests in that magnificent man- 
 sion ; having a couple of months' leave, had run 
 down to Newmarket, for the October Meeting; 
 and had come at my entreaty to spend a week 
 in Granta, where, I need not tell you, we feted 
 him, and did him the honours of the place in 
 style. 
 
 Crash ! crash ! went the relentless chapel-bell 
 the next morning, waking us out of dreamless 
 slumber that had endured not much more than an 
 hour, owing to a late night of it with a man at
 
 38 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OK, 
 
 John's over punch and vingt-et-un ; and we had 
 to tumble out of bed and rush into chapel, twisting 
 on our coats, and swearing at our destinies, as we 
 went. The Viewaway (the cleverest pack in the 
 easterly counties, though not, I admit, up to the 
 Burton, or Tedworth, or Melton mark) met that 
 day, for the first run of the season, at Euston Hol- 
 lows, five miles from Cambridge ; and Curly, who 
 overcame his laziness on such occasions, staggered 
 into his stall, the pink dexterously covered with 
 his surplice, his bright hair for once in disorder* 
 and his blue eyes most unmistakably sleepy. 
 'Who'd be a hapless undergrad? That fellow 
 De Vigne's dreaming away in comfort, while we're 
 dragged out by the heels, for a lot of confounded 
 humbug and form,' lamented Curly to me as we 
 entered ; while the readers hurried the prayers over, 
 in that sing-song recitative in favour with college- 
 men a cross between the drone of a gnat, and 
 the whine of a Suffolk peasant. We dozed com- 
 fortably, sitting down, and getting up, at the right 
 times, by sheer force of habit ; or read Dumas, or 
 Balzac, under cover of our prayer-books. The 
 freshmen alone, tried to look alive and attentive; 
 those better seasoned knew it was but a ritual, 
 much such an empty, but time-honoured, one, as 
 the gathering of Fellows at the Signing of the
 
 GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 39 
 
 Leases, at King's; or any other moss-grown formula 
 of Mater; and attempted no such thing; but rushed 
 out of chapel again, the worse instead of the 
 better for the ill-timed devotions, which forced us, 
 in our thoughtless youth, into irreverence and 
 hypocrisy : a formula as absurd, as soulless, and as 
 sad to see, as the praying windmills of the Hindoos, 
 at which those 'heads of the Church,' who uphold 
 morning-chapel as the sole safeguard of Granta, 
 smile in pitying derision! 
 
 When T got back to my rooms I found break- 
 fast waiting, and De Vigne standing on the hearth- 
 rug. Audit and hare-pie had not much temptation 
 for us that morning ; we were soon in the sad- 
 dle, and off to Euston Hollows. After a brisk 
 gallop to cover, we found ourselves riding up the 
 approach to the M.F.H.'s house, where the meet 
 took place in an open sweep of grassland belted 
 with trees, just facing the hall, where were gathered 
 all the men of the Viewaway, mounted on power- 
 ful hunters, and looking all over like goers. 
 There was every type of the genus sporting man ; 
 stout, square farmers, with honest bull-dog phy- 
 sique, characteristic of John Bull plebeian; wild 
 young Cantabs, mounted showily from livery- 
 stables, with the fair, fearless, delicate features 
 characteristic of John Bull patrician : steady old
 
 40 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 whippers-iri, very suspicious of brandy; wrinkled 
 feeders, with stentorian voices that the wildest 
 puppy had learned to know and dread ; the cour- 
 teous, cordial, aristocratic M.F.H., with the men 
 of his class, the county gentry ; rough, ill-looking 
 cads, awkward at all things save crossing country ; 
 no end of pedestrians, nearly run over themselves, 
 and falling into everybody's way ; and last, but in 
 our eyes, not least, the ladies who had come to see 
 the hounds throw off. 
 
 De Vigne exchanged his reeking hack for his 
 own hunter, a splendid thorough-bred, with as 
 much light action, he said, as a dauseuse, and as 
 much strength and power as a bargeman. Then 
 we rode up to talk to the M.F.H 's wife, who was 
 mounted on a beautiful little mare, and intended 
 to follow her husband and his hounds over the Cam- 
 bridge fences. 
 
 ' Who is that lady yonder ? ' asked De Vigne, 
 after he had chatted some moments with her. 
 
 ' The one on the horse with a white star on his 
 forehead? Lady Blanche Fairelesyeux. Don't 
 you know her? She is a widow, very pretty and 
 very rich.' 
 
 * Yes, yes, I know Lady Blanche,' laughed De 
 Vigne. ' She married old Faire two years ago, 
 and persuaded him to drink himself to death most
 
 GRAXVILLE DE VIGNE. 41 
 
 opportunely. No, I meant that very handsome 
 woman there, talking to your husband at this 
 moment, mounted on a chesnut with a very wild 
 eye.' 
 
 ' Oh, that is Miss Trefusis ! ' 
 
 'And can you tell me no more than her mere 
 name ? ' 
 
 ' Not much. She is some relation what I do 
 not know exactly of that detestable old woman 
 Lady Fan tyre, whose "recollections" of court 
 people are sometimes as gross anachronisms as the 
 Cointe de St. Germain's. They are staying with 
 Mrs. St. Croix, and she brought them here ; but 
 I do not like Miss Trefusis very much myself, and 
 Mr. L' Estrange does not wish me to cultivate 
 her acquaintance.' 
 
 ' Then I must not ask you to introduce me ? ' 
 said De Vigne, disappointedly. 
 
 ' Oh yes, if you wish. I know her well enough 
 for that; and she dines here to-night with the 
 St. Croix. But there is a wide difference, you 
 know, between making passing acquaintances, and 
 ripening them into friends. Come, Captain de 
 Vigne, I am sure you will ride the hounds off 
 the scent, or do something dreadful, if I do not let 
 you talk to your new beauty,' laughed the young 
 mistress of Euston Hollows, turning her mare's
 
 42 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 head towards the showy chesnut, whose rider had 
 won so much of De Vigne's admiration. 
 
 She was as dashing and magnificent in her way as 
 her horse in his with a tall and voluptuously-perfect 
 figure, which her tight dark riding-jacket showed 
 in all the beauty of its rounded outlines, while her 
 little hat, with a single white feather, scarcely 
 shadowed, and did not conceal, her clear profile, 
 magnificent eyes, and lips by which Velasquez or 
 Titian would have sworn. Splendid she was, and 
 she had spared no pains to make the tableau ; 
 and though to a keen eye, her brilliant colour, 
 which was not rouge, and her pencilled eyebrows, 
 which were tinted, gave her a trifle of the actress 
 or the lorette style, there was no wonder that 
 De Vigne, impressible as a Southern by women's 
 beauty and at that time as long as it was beauty, 
 not caring much of what stamp or of what order- 
 was not easy till Flora L'Estrange had introduced 
 him to her. So we rush upon our doom ! So we, 
 in thoughtless play, twist the first gleaming and 
 silky threads of the fatal cord which will cling 
 about our necks, fastened beyond hope of release, 
 as long as our lives shall last ! 
 
 The Trefusis (as she was called in the smok- 
 ing-rooms), surrounded as she was by the best 
 men of the Viewaway, ruling them by force of
 
 GRANTILLE DE VIGNE. 43 
 
 that superb form and face, bowed very gra- 
 ciously to De Vigne, and smiled upon him. He 
 had caught her eyes once or twice before he 
 had asked Mrs. L' Estrange who she was; and 
 now, displacing the others with that calm, un- 
 conscious air of superiority, the more irritating 
 to his rivals that it was invariably successful, 
 he leaned his hand on the pommel of her saddle, 
 and talked away to her the chit-chat of the hour. 
 The Trefusis intended to follow the hounds, as 
 well as L'Estrange's wife and Lady Blanche Faire- 
 lesyeux ; so De Vigne and she rode off together 
 as the hounds, symmetrical in form, and all in 
 good condition, though they were a provincial 
 establishment, trotted away, with waving sterns 
 and eager eyes, to draw the Euston Hollow's 
 covert. 
 
 The cheery * Halloo ! ' rang over coppice and 
 brushwood and plantation ; the white sterns of 
 the hounds flourished among the dark-brown 
 bushes of the cover; stentorian lungs shouted out 
 the ' Stole away ! hark for-r-r-r-rard ! ' and as 
 the finest fox in the county broke away, De Vigne 
 struck his spurs into his hunter's flanks, and rattled 
 down the cover, all his thoughts centered on the 
 clever little pack that streamed along before him ; 
 while the whole field burst over the low pastures
 
 44 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 and oak fences and ox-rails, across which the fox 
 was leading us. I dashed along the first three 
 meadows, which were only divided by low hedges, 
 with all the excitement and breathlessness of a 
 first start; but as we crossed the fourth at an easy 
 gallop, cooling the horses before the formidable leap 
 which we knew the Cam, or rather a narrow sedgy 
 tributary of it, would give us at the bottom, I took 
 time, and looked around. Before any of us, De 
 Vigne was going along, as straight as an arrow's 
 flight, working his bay up for the approaching 
 trial ; never looking back, going into the sport 
 before him as if he never had had, and never 
 could have had, any other interest in life. The 
 Trefusis, riding as few women could, sitting well 
 down in her saddle, like any of the Pytchley or 
 Belvoir men, was some yards behind him, * riding 
 jealous,' I could see ; rather a hopeless task for a 
 young lady with a man known in the hunting- 
 field as he was. The M.F.H. was, of course* 
 handling his hunter in masterly style, his little 
 wife keeping gallantly up with him, though she 
 and her mare looked as likely to be smashed by 
 the first staken-bound fence as a Sevres figure or 
 a Parian statuette. Curly, who, thanks to his 
 half-broken hunter, had split four strong oak bars, 
 and been once pitched neck and crop into Cam-
 
 GRAXVILLE DE VIGXE. 45 
 
 bridge mud, was coming along with bis pink sadly 
 stained ; while Lady Blanche and four of the men 
 were within a few paces of him, and the rest of 
 the field were scattered far and wide : quaint bits 
 of scarlet, green, and black, dotting the short 
 brown turf of the pasture lands. 
 
 Splash! went the fox into the sedgy waters of 
 this branch of classic Cam, and scrambled up upon 
 the opposite bank. For a second the hounds lost 
 the scent ; then, they threw up their heads with a 
 joyous challenge, breasted the stream, dashed on 
 after him, and sped along beyond the pollards on 
 the opposite side far ahead of us, streaming out 
 like the white tail of a comet. De Vigne put his 
 bay at the leap, but before he could lift him over, 
 the Trefusis cleared it, with unblanched cheek and 
 unshaken nerve. She looked back with a laugh, 
 not of gay girlish merriment, such as Flora 
 L'Estrange would have given, but a laugh with a 
 certain gratified malice in it : and he gave a mut- 
 tered oath at being 'cut down' by a woman, as 
 he landed his bay beside her. 
 
 I cleared it, so did the M.F.H., and, by some 
 species of sporting miracle, so did his wife and her 
 little mare. One of the yeomen found a watery 
 bed among the tadpoles, clay, and rushes it might 
 be a watery grave, for anything I know to the
 
 46 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 contrary and poor dear Curly was tumbled 
 straight off his young one, and lay there, a help- 
 less mass of human and equine flesh, while Lady 
 Blanche lifted her roan over him, with a gay, un- 
 sympathizing ' Keep still, or Mazeppa will damage 
 you !' 
 
 The run had lasted but ten minutes and a half 
 as yet, and the hounds, giving tongue in joyous 
 concert, led the way for those who could follow 
 them, over blackthorn hedges, staken-bound 
 fences, and heavy ploughed lands, while the fox 
 was heading for Sifton Wood, where, once lodged, 
 we should never unearth him again. On we went 
 at a killing pace; De Vigne leading the first 
 flight, by two lengths, up to a cramped and awk- 
 ward leap; a high, stiff, straggling hedge, with 
 a double ditch, almost as wide as a Leicestershire 
 bullfinch. Absorbed as I was in working up my 
 hunter for the leap, I looked to see if the Trefusis 
 funked it. Not she ! and she cleared it, too, 
 lifting her chesnut high in the air, over the ugly 
 blackthorn boughs; but on the slippery marshy 
 ground the horse fell, heavily and awkwardly, fling- 
 ing her forward ; so at least they told me after- 
 wards. The courtly M.F.H. stopped to offer her 
 assistance, but she waved him on ; De Vigne had 
 forgotten all his chivalry, and led straight ahead
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 47 
 
 without looking back ; while picking up her hunter, 
 the Trefusis remounted, nothing daunted by her 
 fall. Lady Blanche's Mazeppa refused the leap; 
 and with a little petulant French oath, she rode 
 further down, to try and find a gap ; while my 
 luckless under-bred one flung me over his head, 
 rolling on his back in rushes, nettles, mud, and 
 duckweed, and before either he or I could re- 
 cover ourselves and shake off the slough, the fox 
 was killed, and the whoop of triumph came ring- 
 ing far over plantations and pastures, on the clear 
 October air. 
 
 With not a few unholy oaths, less choice than 
 Lady Blanche's, I rode through the gap lower 
 down, and made my way to the finish. The 
 brush was awarded to De Vigne by the old 
 huntsman, who might have given it to the Tre- 
 fusis, for she was only a yard or two behind him ; 
 but Squib had no tenderness for the sex ; indeed, 
 he looked on them as having no earthly business 
 in the field, and gave it with a gruff word of 
 compliment to Granville, who of course handed it 
 to Miss Trefusis, but claimed the right of sending 
 it up to town, to be mounted on ivory for her. 
 That dashing Amazon herself, sat on her trem- 
 bling and foam-covered chesnut, with the dignity 
 and royal beauty of Cynisca, returning in her cha-
 
 48 . "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 riot from the Olympic games, and De Vigne seemed 
 to think nothing more attractive than this haughty, 
 triumphant, imperial woman, who had skill and 
 pluck worthy a Pytchley Nestor, /preferred little 
 Flora's girlish pity for the ' poor dear fox,' and 
 her pathetic lamentation to her husband that she 
 'dearly loved the riding, but she would rather 
 never see the finish.' However, as De Vigne 
 said the morning before, chacun a son gout ; if we 
 all liked the same style of woman where should 
 we be? We rival and jostle and hate each other 
 enough as it is, about that centre of all mischief, 
 the Beau Sexe, Heaven knows ! 
 
 We had another run that day, but it was a very 
 slow affair. We killed the fox, but he made 
 scarcely any running at all, and we might have 
 scored it almost as a blank day; but for our first 
 glorious twenty minutes, one of the fastest things 
 I ever knew, from Euston Hollows up to Sifton 
 Wood. Lady Blanche went back in ill-humour : 
 missing that ditch had put the pretty widow in 
 dudgeon for all the day ; but the Trefusis ! it's 
 my firm conviction that Mazeppa's gallop could 
 not have tired that woman. She rode, as De 
 Vigne observed admiringly to me, with as firm a 
 seat and as strong a hand as any rough-rider. 
 Excellence in his own art pleased him, I suppose,
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 49 
 
 for be watched her more and more ; and rode back 
 to Euston Hollows, witb her through the gloam- 
 ing, some nine miles from where the last fox was 
 killed, looking down on her beauty with bold, 
 tender glances. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 50 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 IN THE ACADEMIC SHADES OF GRANTA. 
 
 L'ESTRANGE had bid us send our things over to 
 his house, and make our toilettes there, after the 
 day's sport ; and when we went down into the 
 drawing-room, we found the Trefusis sitting on an 
 amber satin couch, queening it over the county 
 men, a few college fellows or professors, and the 
 borough Members. There were Mrs. St. Croix 
 and her two daughters, showy, flighty, hawked- 
 about women, and the Gwyn-Erlens, fresh, nice- 
 looking girls ; and Lady Blanche, recovered from 
 her ill-humour, and ready to shoot down any game 
 worth or not worth the hitting ; and the Countess 
 of Turquoise, who thought very few people knew 
 what fun was, she told me, and instanced the 
 dreary social torture called dining out ; and Mrs. 
 Fitzrubric, a bishop's wife, staying in the neigh- 
 bourhood, who considered the practice of giving 
 buns at school feasts sensual, but showed herself 
 no disrelish for champagne and mock turtle. And
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 51 
 
 there was that ' detestable old woman,' according 
 to Flora, the Lady Fantyre, widow of an Irish 
 peer, a little, shrivelled, witty, nasty-thinking, 
 and amusing-talking old lady, with a thin, sharp 
 face, a hooked nose, very keen, bright, cunning, 
 quizzical eyes, a very candid wig, and unmistak- 
 able rouge. She chattered away, in a shrill treble, 
 of intimate acquaintance with court celebrities, 
 some of whom certainly she could never have 
 known, for the best of reasons, that they were 
 dead before she was born ; and, having seen a 
 vast deal of life, not all of the nicest, and picked up 
 a good deal of information, she passed current in 
 nine cases out of ten, with her apocryphal stories 
 and well-worn title, which covered a multitude of 
 sins, as coronets do and charity doesn't. But she 
 was ' not visited ' where her departed lord's rank 
 might have entitled her to be, partly because she 
 had a rather too marked skill at cards; but chiefly, 
 I have no doubt, because she had no balance 
 at any bank save Homburg and Baden, and was 
 obliged to live by her wits, those wits being repre- 
 sented by the four honours and the odd trick. If 
 poor old Fantyre had had a half-million or so at 
 Barclay's, I dare say the charitable world would 
 have let her buy oblivion for all the naughty se- 
 crets hidden in her old wigged head. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 * Diana turned to Venus, and no mistake,' whis- 
 pered Curly to me, as we looked at the Trefusis, 
 her beauty heightened by her toilette, which was 
 as tasteful as a Parisienne's, and would have 
 chimed in with M. Chevreul's artistic notions. 
 De Vigne, the moment he entered, crossed over 
 to her, and, seating himself, began to talk. 
 Whether the lustrous gaze of his eyes, which 
 knew how to express their admiration, got their 
 admiration returned ; or whether she had wit 
 enough to appreciate his conversation, where the 
 true gold of sense, and talent, rang out in dis- 
 tinction to the second-hand platitudes, or Punch- 
 cribbed mots, of the generality of people, I will not 
 pretend to decide. At any rate, by some spell or 
 other, he distanced his rivals by many lengths. 
 
 They naturally spoke of the run of that morn- 
 ing, and the Trefusis, flirting her fan with stately 
 movement, and turning her full glittering eyes 
 upon him, asked very softly, * What do you think 
 you did this morning that pleased me ? ' 
 
 De Vigne expressed his happiness that any act 
 of his should do so. 
 
 'It was when we took that ditch by Sifton 
 Wood, and my stupid chesnut fell with me. You 
 rode on, and never looked back ; your thoughts 
 were with the hounds, not with me ! '
 
 GRAXV1LLK DE VIGNE. 53 
 
 * You are more forgiving to my discourtesy than 
 I can be to myself,' smiled De Vigne. ' What 
 you are so generous as to pardon I cannot recall 
 without shame.' 
 
 'Then you are very silly,' she interrupted him. 
 * A man in a time of excitement or danger should 
 have something better to think about than a 
 woman.' 
 
 * It is difficult, with Miss Trefusis before us, to 
 think there can be anything better than a woman,' 
 whispered De Vigne. 
 
 She looked at him and smiled, too; with some- 
 thing of malice in it as when she had cleared the 
 Cam before him a smile that at once repulsed, 
 and fascinated ; annoyed, and piqued him. Just 
 then dinner was announced as served. L'Estrange 
 took away my bewitching Countess of Turquoise ; 
 Curly led in Julia St. Croix, with whom he 
 seemed wonderfully struck, Heaven knows why, 
 except that young fellows will go down before 
 any battered or war-worn arrows at times ; and 
 De Vigne gave his arm to the Trefusis, to whom 
 he talked during all the courses with a devotion 
 which must have interfered with his proper ap- 
 preciation of the really masterly productions of 
 the Euston Hollows chef, and the very excellent 
 hock and claret of L'Estrange's cellar. Whether
 
 54 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 he had much response I cannot say for I was 
 absorbed in looking at Lady Turquoise from far too 
 respectful a distance to please me : but I should 
 fancy not, for the Trefusis was never, that I heard* 
 much famed for conversation; still someway or 
 other she fascinated him with her basilisk-beauty, 
 and when Flora gave the move she looked into 
 his eyes rather warmly for an acquaintance not 
 twelve hours old as yet. We were some little 
 time before we followed them, for De Vigne and 
 the Members got on the Reform Bill, and did not 
 get off it again in a hurry; and though Lady 
 Turquoise was bewitching, and the Trefusis' eyes 
 magnificent, and the St. Croix very effective as 
 they sang duets in studied poses, Chateau Mar- 
 gaux and unfettered talk proved more attractive 
 to us. When we returned to the drawing-room, 
 however, De Vigne took up his station beside the 
 Trefusis again, paying her marked attention, while 
 Flora L'Estrange sang charming little French 
 chansons, and Julia St. Croix tortured us with 
 bravuras, and the cruel Countess of Turquoise 
 flirted with the county Member. What an into- 
 lerably empty-headed coxcomb, he seemed to me, 
 I remember ! 
 
 ' What a fine creature that Trefusis is ! ' said 
 De Vigne, as he drove us back to Cambridge in a
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 55 
 
 dog-cart. 'On my life, she is a magnificent 
 woman ! Arthur, she reminds me of somebody 
 or other I can't tell whom somebody, I dare 
 say, I saw in Spain or in Italy, or in India, 
 perhaps.' 
 
 * Shall I tell you? ' said Curly. 
 
 * Yes, pray do ; but you've never been about 
 with me, old boy, how should you know ? ' 
 
 * I was with you at the Chancery, and I haven't 
 forgotten Lucy Davis.' 
 
 ' The Davis ! ' exclaimed De Vigne, the light 
 of old days breaking in upon him, half faded, half 
 familiar. ' By Jove ! she is something like that 
 girl ; I declare I had forgotten that schoolboy 
 episode, Curly. So she is like her, if Lucy had 
 been a lady instead of a dressmaker. The deuce ! 
 I hadn't bad taste then, boy as I was ! How many 
 things of that kind one forgets ' 
 
 * Lucy didn't look like a woman who'd allow 
 herself to be forgotten. She'd make you remem- 
 ber her by fair means or foul,' said Curly. 
 
 * What ! do you recollect her so well, young 
 one ? ' laughed De Vigne. ' I must say, she seems 
 to have made more impression upon you, than 
 she has done on me. There was the very devil in 
 that girl, poor thing, young as she was ! She was 
 bold, bad, hardened to the core. But this Tre-
 
 56 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 fusis, Curly ! she does bring that girl to my 
 mind, certainly, and there is in her something 
 there was in Lucy Davis a something intangible 
 which repels, while her exterior beauty allures 
 one. Perhaps it is in both alike a cold heart 
 within.' 
 
 ' If we were only allured where there are warm 
 hearts, we should keep in a blessed state of indif- 
 ference,' said I, thinking savagely of Lady Tur- 
 quoise and that confounded county Member. 
 
 ' Hallo, Arthur ! what has turned you cynic ? ' 
 laughed De Vigne. 'Only this very morning 
 were you sentimentalizing over the " Lady of 
 Shalott," and wanting to inflict it on me ! ' 
 
 ' Yes, and you stopped me with the abominable 
 quotation, " Ass ! am I onion-eyed ? " I say, De 
 Vigne, I wish you'd tell us how that affair with 
 Lucy Davis ended ? Curly and I saw you quar- 
 relling the day before you left.' 
 
 ' I never quarrelled ! ' said De Vigne, con- 
 temptuously. ' I never do with anybody ; if they 
 don't say what I like, I tell them my mind at once, 
 and there's an end of it. But I never quarrel ! 
 I met Lucy that evening as I was going into 
 Frestonhills, and when I told her I was about to 
 leave, she demanded what do you think? 
 nothing less than a promise of marriage ! Only
 
 ORANVILLE DE VIGNE. 57 
 
 fancy from me to her! She even said I had 
 made her one ! I've been guilty of many mad 
 things, but never of one quite so insane as that. 
 I told her flatly it was a lie so it was, and it put 
 me in a passion, to be saddled with such an 
 atrocious falsehood : I never can stand quiet, 
 and see people trying to chisel me, you know. I 
 offered to do anything she liked for her ; to pro- 
 vide for her as liberally as she chose. But not 
 a word would she hear from me ; she was mad, 
 I suppose, because she could not startle or chicane 
 me into admitting the promise of marriage, having 
 possibly in her eye the heavy damages an enlight- 
 ened court would grant to her " innocent years " 
 and her " wrongs ! " At any rate, she would not 
 hear a word I said, but she poured her invectives 
 into my ear, letting out that she had never loved 
 me, but had intended to make me a stepping-stone, 
 to the money, and rank, she was always pining 
 after ; that, having failed, she hated me, and that 
 before she died, would be revenged. 
 
 ' By George ! what an amusing idea. She'd be 
 puzzled to do it, I fancy.' 
 
 'Rather,' laughed De Vigne, reigning up his 
 mare ; ' but women say anything in a passion. 
 Lucy Davis had gone straight out of my mind, till 
 you said that handsome Trefusis made you think
 
 58 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 of her. I am glad the St. Croix and L'Estranges 
 are coming to lunch with you, Curly ; I want to 
 see more of my imperial beauty; and I must 
 be back at Vigne by Saturday. Sabretasche, and 
 Pigott, and Severn, and no end of men are coming 
 down for the pheasants; I wish you were too, 
 old fellows ! Good night ; Au revoir ! ' And De 
 Vigne set us down before Trinity, and drove on to 
 the Bull ; smoking, and thinking, very likely, of 
 his superb Trefusis. 
 
 Oh, those jolly Cambridge days ! The splendid 
 manner in which we bumped Corpus and Kathe- 
 rine Hall, and carried off the Cup, to the envy of 
 all the University ; the style in which we thrashed 
 the Exeter Eight, with ignominy unspeakable, 
 before the eyes of Henley ; the row and scuffle of 
 Town and Gown rows, dear to the British passion 
 for hard hits, where Curly knocked a cobbler down 
 and then gave him in charge for an assault ; the 
 skill with which that mischievous young Honour- 
 able caught his whip round the shovel-hat of a 
 dean, raising that venerated article of dress in mid- 
 air, and only escaping rustication by dashing on 
 with his tandem-team too quickly for identifica- 
 tion : were they not all written, in their day, 
 among the records of Trinity men's larks ? 
 
 We used to vow we were confoundedly tired of
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGXE. 59 
 
 Granta, aiul so I dare say we might feel at the 
 time ; but how pleasant they were, those light- 
 hearted college days ! the honours of the Eight- 
 oar ; the thrashing of the Marylebone Eleven ; the 
 rattle cross country, for the Cesarewitch, or the 
 Cambridge Sweepstakes ; the flirtations of pretty 
 shop-girls in Petty Cury, or Trumpington Street ; 
 the raving politics of the Union, occasional pre- 
 lude to triumphs, forensic and senatorial ; the 
 noisy wines, where scanty humour woke more mer- 
 riment than wittiest mots do twenty years after; 
 and Cambridge port passed with a flavour, that no 
 olives or anchovies can give to Comet claret now. 
 How pleasant they were, those jolly college days ! 
 As I think of them, many kindly faces and joyous 
 voices rise before me ! Where are they all ? Some 
 lying with the colours on their breast beside the 
 Euxine Sea, and along the line of the Pacific ; 
 some struck down by the assassin's knife in the 
 temples at Cawnpore ; some sleeping beneath the 
 sighing of the Delhi palms, or of the sad Atlantic 
 waves ; some wasting classic eloquence on country 
 hinds, in moss-grown village churches; some 
 fighting the great fight, between science and death, 
 in the crowded hospital-wards of London ; some 
 wearing honour, and honesty, and truth from their 
 hearts, in the breathless, up-hill press of the great
 
 60 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 world ; all of them, living or dead, scattered far 
 away over the earth, since those old days, in the 
 shadow of the academic walls ! 
 
 The time to lionize Cambridge, as everybody 
 knows, is May and June, when the backs are all 
 in their glory ; when the graceful spires of King's 
 rise up against blue skies ; when the white towers 
 of John's stand bosomed in green leafy shades; 
 when the Trinity limes fill the air with fragrance, 
 and the sun peers through the great shadowy elm- 
 boughs, of Neville's Court ; and the brown 
 Cam flows under its bridges, with water-lilies 
 and forget-me-nots on its breast, gliding, as though 
 conscious that it was in classic shades, through 
 vistas of waving boughs, and past gray, stately 
 college walls ; bringing into the grave haunts of 
 Learning, the glad and vernal freshness of the 
 Spring. May is the time for Cambridge; still, 
 even in October, we managed to give the 
 L'Estranges, and the St. Croix, a very good recep- 
 tion. Women are always royally received by 
 Cantabs, and our guests were calculated to excite 
 the envy of all the University. We did the lions 
 with very little architectural appreciation ; but the 
 science of eyes and smiles, is a pleasanter one than 
 the science of styles and orders; and we were 
 quite as contented, and I have no doubt much
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGXE. 61 
 
 better amused, than if, Ruskin a la main, we had 
 been competent to pull to pieces the beauty of 
 King's, and prate of ' severity ' and ' purity.' 
 Happy in our barbarianism, we crossed the Bridge 
 of Sighs with a laugh at old Fan tyre's jokes; 
 strolled down the Fellowship Walk, telling Julia 
 St. Croix, who had not two ideas in her head, 
 that Bacon's Gate would, to a surety, fall down on 
 her; went in at Humility, through Virtue, and out 
 at Honour, flirting desperately under those grave 
 archways; and hurried irreverently through the 
 libraries, where reading-men, cramming in niches, 
 looked up, forgetting their studies at the rustle of 
 Lady Blanche's silk flounces, and Thorwaldsen's 
 * Byron ' seemed to glance with Juanesque admi- 
 ration at the superb eye of the Trefusis, as she 
 lifted them to that statue ; which does, indeed, as 
 the poet himself averred, make a shocking nigger 
 of him. 
 
 * How strange it seems to me,' said De Vigne, 
 as, entering King's Chapel, we brushed against 
 one of the senior Fellows, who had dozed away in 
 college chambers all the prime of his life ' how 
 incomprehensible, that men can pass a whole 
 existence, in the sort of chrysalis state of which 
 one sees so much in Universities. That muff is 
 a Kingsinan ; he obtained his fellowship by right,
 
 62 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 his degree without distinction. He lives on, fud- 
 dling his brains which he has never worked since 
 he got his Eton captaincy with port, and playing 
 solemn rubbers, and eating heavy dinners, till a 
 living falls as fat as his avarice desires. He has 
 no thoughts, no ambition, no sphere beyond the 
 academic pale.' 
 
 ' And no love, I dare say, save audit, and no mis- 
 tress save turtle -soup,' laughed Flora L'Estrange. 
 
 'Perhaps he had once, one whom the selfish 
 creeds of the Fellowship system parted from him 
 long ago,' said Curly, with a tender glance at that 
 very practical-minded flirt, Julia St. Croix. 
 
 ' That's right, Curly,' said De Vigne, amusedly, 
 ' make a romance of it. Fellows of colleges, with 
 snuff and whist, and dry routine, are such appro- 
 priate subjects for sentiment ! But after all, Miss 
 Trefusis, that man is not a greater marvel to me 
 than one of those classical scholars, who is nothing 
 but a classical scholar, such as one meets here and 
 in Oxford, binding down his ambitions to the 
 elucidation of a dead tongue, exhausting his 
 energies, in the evolving of decayed philosophies, 
 spending, as Pelham says, " one long school-day 
 of lexicons and grammars," his memory the charnel- 
 house for the bones of a lifeless language, his brain 
 enacting the mechanical role of a dictionary or an
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 63 
 
 encyclopaedia, living all his life without human 
 aspirations or human sympathies, and in his death 
 leaving no void among men, not missed even by a 
 dog.' 
 
 * It would not suit you ? ' asked the Trefusis, 
 smiling. 
 
 * No, no,' chuckled the old Fantyre to herself, 
 * he'll have his pleasure, I take it, cost him what 
 it may.' 
 
 '//' echoed De Vigne, 'chained down to the 
 limits of a commentator's studies ; or a Hellenist's 
 labours ! Heaven forbid ! I love excitement, 
 action, change ; a mill-wheel monotony would be 
 the death of me. I would rather have storms to 
 encounter, than no movement to keep me alive.' 
 
 ' Are you so changeable, then ?' 
 
 * Well, yes ! I fancy I am. At least, I never 
 met anything that could chain me long as yet.' 
 
 He laughed as he spoke, leaning against one of 
 the stalls, the sun streaming through the rich 
 stained glass full upon his face, and his dark lus- 
 trous eyes, gleaming with amusement, at a thou- 
 sand reminiscences evoked by her speech. The 
 Trefusis looked at him with a curious smile, 
 perhaps of longing to chain the restless and way- 
 ward spirit, perhaps of pique at his careless words, 
 perhaps of resolve to conquer and to win him ; it
 
 64 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 might have been hate, but it certainly was not 
 love ! Still Flora L' Estrange whispered to her 
 husband : 
 
 'Miss Trefusis will marry De Vigne if she 
 can?' 
 
 L'Estrange laughed, and looked at Granville 
 and his companion, as they were (in appearance) 
 discussing the subjects of the storied windows of 
 Holy Henry's chapel, but talking, I fancy, of other 
 topics than sacred art or history. 
 
 * Quite right, my pet, but I hope she wont. I 
 would as soon see him marry a tigress ! ' 
 
 Tired of lionizing, we soon returned to Curly's 
 rooms, where the best luncheon which could be had 
 out of Cambridge shops, and Trinity buttery, with 
 London wine, and game from his governor's pre- 
 serves, was ready for us. Curly never did any- 
 thing without doing it well, and his rooms were, 
 I think, the most luxurious in all Granta, with his 
 grand piano, his bronzes, and his landscapes, mixed 
 up with tobacco-pots, boxing-gloves, pipes, and 
 portraits of ballet pets, and heroes of the Turf and 
 the P. R. The luncheon was as merry as it was 
 lavish what college meal, with fast, pretty women 
 at the board, ever was not ? and while the Bad- 
 minton and Champagne-cup went round, and the 
 gyps waited as solemnly and dreadfully as gyps
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 65 
 
 ever do, on like occasions, a cross-fire of wit and 
 fun and nonsense, shot across the table, and mingled 
 with the perfume of Curly's hothouse bouquets, 
 enough to bring the stones of time-honoured 
 Trinity about our irreverent heads. De Vigne, in 
 very high spirits, laughed and talked with all the 
 brilliance for which society had distinguished him; 
 Flora and Lady Blanche were always full of mis- 
 chievous repartee ; Curly and Julia St. Croix 
 flirted so desperately, that if it had not been for 
 the publicity of the scene, I believe the boy would 
 have gone straight away into a proposal. Lady 
 Fantyre, especially, when the claret cup had gone 
 round freely, was so amusing that we forgot she 
 was old, and the Trefusis, if she did not contribute 
 equally to the conversation, sat beside De Vigne, 
 darting glances at him from her large Spanish 
 eyes, and looking handsome enough to be inspira- 
 tion to anybody. 
 
 'So you leave Cambridge to-morrow?' she said, 
 as they were waiting for the St. Croix carriage 
 to take them home again. 
 
 ' Yes. If you were going to remain I should 
 stay too ; but Mrs. St. Croix tells me you leave 
 on Monday,' said De Vigne, in a low tone, with 
 an admiring glance, to which few women would 
 have been insensible. 
 
 VOL. i. F
 
 66 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OK, 
 
 She looked at him with that cold, malicious 
 smile, which, had I been he, would have made 
 me very careful of that woman. 
 
 ' It is easy to say that, when, as I am going on 
 Monday, I cannot put you to the test ! ' 
 
 De Vigne's eyes flashed; he threw back his 
 head, coldly and haughtily. 
 
 * I never trouble myself to say what I do not 
 mean, Miss Trefusis.' 
 
 She laughed ; she had found she had power 
 to pique him ! 
 
 ' Then will you come and see me in town after 
 Christmas ?' 
 
 What he answered I know not, but I dare say 
 it was in the affirmative ; he would hardly have 
 refused anything to such a glance as she gave him. 
 He lingered beside their carriage, and when it 
 rolled away, stood in the Trinity gateway with a 
 smile on his lips, twisting in his fingers a white 
 azalea she had given him. But, two hours after, 
 the flower was thrown into the college grate, and 
 the bedmaker swept it out with the cinders ! So 
 he was not very far gone as yet. The next morn- 
 ing, after we had ' done chapel,' De Vigne, who 
 had sent on his groom, hunters, and luggage the 
 day before, walked down to the station, and we 
 with him.
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 07 
 
 * I wish you two fellows were coming to Vigne 
 with me,' he said, as we went along. * You don't 
 know what a bore it is having a place like that ! 
 So much is expected of one. You belong to the 
 county, and the county makes you feel the rela- 
 tionship pretty keenly, too. You must fill the 
 house in .the Recesses. You must hear horrible 
 long speeches from your tenantry, wishing you 
 health and happiness, while you're wishing them at 
 the devil. You must have confounded interviews 
 with your steward, who looks frightfully glum at the 
 pot of money that has been dropped over the Good- 
 wood, and hints at the advisability of cutting down 
 the very clump of oaks that makes the beauty of 
 the drawing-room view. Then, worst of all, you're 
 expected to hunt your own county, even though 
 it be as unfit as the Wash or the Black Forest, 
 while you're longing to be with the Burton or 
 Tedworth, following Tom Smith, or Tom Edge, or 
 Pytchley men, who don't funk at every bull- 
 finch!' 
 
 * Do you hunt the Vigne pack, then, always ? ' 
 asked Curly. 
 
 * I ? No. I never said I did all those things. 
 I only said they are expected of me, and it's tire- 
 some to say no.' 
 
 * Then you must make love to the Trefusis, if 
 
 F 2
 
 68 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 you dont't like " No," for her eyes say, " Do do 
 it," as clearly as eyes can speak.' 
 
 He laughed. ' Yes. I must admit she doesn't 
 look a very impregnable citadel.' 
 
 ' Not if you make it worth her while to sur- 
 render ? ' 
 
 * None of them surrender for nothing*' said De 
 Vigne, smiling. ' With some, it's cashmeres ; 
 with others, yellow-boys ; with some, it's position ; 
 with others, a wedding-ring. I can't see much 
 difference myself, though I'd give cashmeres in 
 plenty, and should be remarkably sorry to be 
 chiselled into settlements.' 
 
 ' I should fancy so,' said Curly ; * only think of 
 the annihilation of larks, liberty, fun, claret, latch- 
 keys, oyster suppers, guinguettes, and Cafes Re- 
 gence, expressed in those two doomed words, " a 
 married man ! '' To my mind, marrying's as bad 
 as hanging, and equally puts a finish to all life 
 worth supporting!' 
 
 ' Did you tell Julia your views, Curly ? ' asked 
 De Vigne, quietly. 
 
 'Pooh ! stuff! What's Julia to do with me? 
 the girl at the Cherryhinton public, is a vast lot 
 better-looking,' muttered Curly, with an embar- 
 rassment that made me doubt if the limes of 
 Trinity had not heard different opinions enunciated
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. GO 
 
 with regard to the Holy Bond. N.B. Julia St. 
 Croix that day three months, tied herself to that 
 same snuffy, portly, wine-embalmed Fellow, she 
 had laughed at with us, in King's Chapel. To be 
 sure he had then become rector of Snooze-cum- 
 Rest ; and when Ruth goes to woo Boaz, we may 
 always be pretty certain she knows he is master 
 of the harvest, and has the golden wheat-ears in 
 her eye, sweet innocent little dear though she look. 
 ' The Cherryhinton public ! I see that's why 
 skittles and beer have become suddenly delightful,' 
 laughed De Vigne. 
 
 * Why not ?' asked Curly, meekly. ' Skittles 
 are no sin, and malt and hops are man's natural 
 aliment ; and as for barmaids ! why, if one's 
 denied houris and nectar, one must take to Jane 
 and bitter beer, n'est-ce pas ? ' 
 
 * Don't know,' said De Vigne. * I prefer Quartier 
 Breda and Champagne. As Balzac says, " Une 
 femme, belle comme Galatee ou Hel&ne, ne pourrait 
 me plaire tant &oit peu quelle soit crottee ! " 
 
 * You forgot that once you didn't repudiate 
 Lucy Davis ? 
 
 ' Lucy was half a lady, in dress at least,' laughed 
 De Vigne, * and she got up uncommonly well, 
 too; however, that was in my schoolboy days. 
 After vulguses and problems a kitchen-maid is
 
 70 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 pardonable; and as for the young woman who 
 presides over the post-office, or the oyster patties, 
 she is perfectly irresistible ! The laissez-aller of 
 the Paphian Temple, as the fine writers say, is so 
 delightful after the stiff stoicism of the Porch ! ' 
 
 ' Well, thank Heaven, the Paphian Temple is 
 built everywhere,' said Curly, 'and you find it 
 under the taps of XXX, as well as in the gilt walls 
 of a Breda boudoir ; or the poor wretches who 
 haven't the Breda gold key, would get locked into 
 very outer darkness indeed ! Here's the train just 
 starting. By Jove, that's lucky ! All right, old 
 fellow. Here's Puck ; tumble in, old boy/ 
 
 And the * old boy ' being ' tumbled in ' (he was 
 a wiry blue terrier), De Vigne seated himself, and 
 was rolled off en route to Vigne with a pretty 
 brunette opposite him, who seemed imbued with 
 extreme admiration of the terrier or his master. 
 Girls always begin by calling his children * little 
 loves ' to a widower, though the brats be as ugly 
 as sin ; and by admiring his dog to a bachelor, 
 though frightened to death it should snap at them ! 
 
 Curly and I saw the train off and walked back 
 to Granta, to console ourselves, first with billiards 
 and beer at Brown's, then with some hard practice 
 on the river. 
 
 Eheu ! fugaces ! I belong to the Blue
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 71 
 
 Jersey B.C., the first in England ; but somehow I 
 don't feel the zest now that I used to feel, with 
 ' Time, Five ! ' ' Well pulled Five ! ' in my ear 
 from our Stroke (poor fellow ! he went down with 
 jungle-fever, and is lying in the banyan shadows, in 
 Ceylon sand) and the shrill imperous shrieking, as 
 the speed and bottom of Oxford told against us, of 
 that wicked little dog Hervey, our Coxswain (he's a 
 bishop now, and hush-hushes you, and strokes his 
 apron, if you whisper the smallest crumb of fun over 
 his capital comet wine). Dear old Cambridge ! I 
 wouldn't give a straw for a Cambridge man who 
 didn't grow prolix as he talked, or wrote of her, and 
 didn't empty a bumper of Guinness's or Mo'e't as 
 his taste may lie in her honour. A man may read, 
 or he may not read, at college. I prefer the boy 
 who knows how to feather his oar, to one who only 
 knows Latin quantities and Greek unities ; but at 
 any rate, whether he get first classes or not, he will 
 find his level, measure his weight, and learn un- 
 less he be obtuse indeed that through college life, 
 as through all other life, the best watchwords are 
 Pluck, and Honour ! 
 
 / learnt that much at least, and it is no mean 
 lesson, though I must admit that, after having had 
 my cross taken away, been gated times innumer- 
 able, having done all the books of Virgil by way
 
 72 
 
 HELD IN BONDAGE ; OR, 
 
 of penance (paying little Crib, my wine-merchant's 
 son, to write them out for me), and been shown 
 up before the proctor on no less than six separate 
 occasions, I got rusticated in my fourth term, and 
 finally took my name off the books. The governor 
 laughed, preferred the Pewter I had to show, and 
 my share in winning the Challenge Cup, to any 
 Bell's or Craven's scholarships, and paid my debts 
 without a murmur. Too good to be true, you will 
 say, ami lecteur ? No ; there are fathers who can 
 remember they have been young ; though they are 
 unspeakably rare as rare as ladies who can let you 
 forget it ! 
 
 Now came the question, what should I do? 
 'Nothing,' the correct thing, according to the 
 governor. ' Stand for the county,' my mother 
 suggested. 'Go as attache to my cousin, the 
 envoy to St. Petersburg/ my relatives opined, 
 who had triumphed, with much unholy glory, over 
 my rustication, as is the custom of relatives from 
 time immemorial. As it chanced, I had no fancy 
 for either utter dolce, the bray of St. Stephen's or 
 the snows of Russia, so I put down my name for 
 a commission. We had plenty of interest to push 
 it, and the 'Gazette' soon announced, ' th P. O. 
 Lancers, Arthur Vane Tierney Chevasney, to be 
 Cornet, vice James Yelverton, promoted ;' and the
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 73 
 
 th, always known in the service as the Dashers, 
 was De Vigne's regiment, my old Frestonhills hero. 
 The Dashers were then quartered at Kensington 
 and Hounslow, and the first person I saw as I drove 
 through Knightsbridge was De Vigne's groom, 
 Harris, riding a powerful thorough-bred, swathed in 
 body-clothing, whom I recognized as the bay of the 
 Euston Hollows run. As soon as my interview 
 with the Adjutant and the Colonel were over, I 
 found out De Vigne's rooms speedily. He had 
 the drawing-room floor of a house in Kensington 
 Gore, well furnished, and further crowded with 
 crowds of things of his own, from Persian carpets 
 bought in his travels, to the last new rifle sent 
 home only the day before. I made my way up 
 unannounced, and stood a minute or two in the 
 open doorway. They were pleasant rooms, just 
 as a man likes to have them, with all the things 
 he wants about him, ready to his hand; no madame 
 to make him miserable by putting his pipes away 
 out of sight, and no housekeeper to drive him 
 distracted by sorting his papers, and introducing 
 order among his pet lumber. A setter, a retriever, 
 and a couple of Skyes, were on the hearth-rug 
 (veritable tiger-skin) ; breakfast, in dainty Sevres, 
 and silver, stood on one table, sending up an 
 aroma of coffee, omelettes, and devils ; the morn-
 
 74 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 ing papers lay on the floor, a smoking-cap 
 hung on a Parian Venus ; a parrot, who appa- 
 rently considered himself master of the place, was 
 perched irreverently on a bronze Milton, and 
 pipes, whips, pistols, and cards* were thrown down 
 on a Louis Quinze couch, that Louise de Keroualle 
 or Sophie Arnould might have graced. From the 
 inner room came the rapid clash of small-swords, 
 while " Touche, touche, louche ! riposte ! hola ! " was 
 shouted, in a silvery voice, from a man who, lying 
 back in a rocking-chair in the bay-window of the 
 front room, was looking on at a bout with the foils 
 that was taking place beyond the folding-doors. 
 The two men who were fencing were De Vigne 
 and a smaller, slighter fellow; the one calm, cool, 
 steady, and never at a disadvantage, the other, 
 skilful indeed, but too hot, eager, and rapid : for in 
 fencing, whether with the foils or the tongue, the 
 grand secret is to be cool, since, in proportion to 
 your tranquillity, grows your opponent's exaspera- 
 tion ! The man in the bay-window was too deeply 
 interested to observe me, so I waited patiently 
 till De Vigne had sent his adversary's foil flying 
 from his hand. 
 
 He turned with one of his sunny smiles : ' Ah ! 
 dear old fellow, how are you ? Charmed to see you. 
 This is the best move you ever made, Arthur. Mr.
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNK. 75 
 
 Chevasney, Colonel Sabretasche, M. de Cheffon- 
 taine, a trio of my best friends. We only want 
 Curly to make the partie carree perfect. Sit 
 down, old boy; we have just breakfasted, I am 
 sorry to say, but here are the things, and all the 
 sardines, and you shall soon have some hot choco- 
 late, and cotelettes.' 
 
 While he talked he forced me into an arm- 
 chair, and disregarding all my protests that I had 
 already breakfasted twice once at Longholme 
 and once at a station rang for his man. De 
 Cheffontaine flung himself on a sofa, and began 
 with a mot on his own defeat ; the fellow in the 
 bay-window got lazily out of his rocking-chair 
 and strolled over to us. De Vigne took his meer- 
 schaum, and we were soon talking away as hard as 
 we could go, of the belles of that season, the pets 
 of the ballet, Richmond, the Spring Meetings, the 
 best sales in the Yard, the last matches at Lord's, 
 the chances of Heliotrope's being scratched, the 
 certainty that Vane Stevens's roan filly would 
 lose the trotting-match, with other like topics of 
 the Town and the Hour. Sabretasche was, I 
 found, a Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, and Major of 
 the Dashers, and a most agreeable man he seemed, 
 lying back in his chair, making us laugh at witti- 
 cisms which he spoke, quietly and indolently, in a
 
 76 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 soft, low, mellow voice. Had I been a woman 
 that beautiful face would have done for me irre- 
 trievably, as, according to report, it had done for 
 a good many. Beautiful it was ; with its pallid, 
 aristocratic features, its large mournful eyes, its 
 silky moustaches, and rich wavy hair. Reckless 
 devil-may-care, the man looked, the recklessness of 
 one who heeds nothing in heaven or earth ; a little 
 hardened by the world and its rubs, rendered 
 cynical, perhaps, by injustice and wrong ; but in 
 the eyes there lay a kindness, and in the mouth a 
 sadness which betokened better things. He might 
 have been thirty, five-and-thirty, forty. One could 
 no more tell his age than his character, though, 
 looking at him, one could fancy it true what the 
 world said of him that no man ever found 'so 
 faithful a friend, and no woman so faithless a 
 lover, as in Vivian Sabretasche. 
 
 ' Chevasney, who do you think is one of the 
 reigning beauties up here?* asked De Vigne, 
 pushing me some cubas. 
 
 ' How should I know? The Cherryhinton bar- 
 maid ? ' 
 
 ' Don't be a fool.' 
 
 ' The Trefusis, then ? ' 
 
 ' Of course. She is still living with that abomi- 
 nable old Irish woman. They're in Bruton Street ;
 
 OKANVILLE DE VIONK. 77 
 
 a pleasant house, only everybody wonders 
 where the Peeress finds the needful. They give 
 uncommonly agreeable receptions. Don't they, 
 Sabretasche ? ' 
 
 * Oh, very ! ' answered the Colonel, with an 
 enigmatical smile, * especially to you, I've no 
 doubt ; and the only tax levied on one for the 
 entertainment is to pay a few compliments to 
 mademoiselle, and a few guinea points to my lady. 
 I can't say all the guests are the best ton ; there 
 are too many ladies designated by the definite 
 article, and too many gentlemen with cordons in 
 their button-holes ; but they know how to amuse 
 one another, and the women, if not exclusive, are 
 at least remarkably pretty. The Trefusis is more 
 than pretty, especially smoking a cigarette. Shall 
 you allow her cigars when you're married to her, 
 De Vigne?' 
 
 ' Not when I am.' 
 
 ' There's an unjust fellow ! How like a man 
 that is ! ' cried Sabretasche. ' What's charming 
 in any other woman becomes horrid in his wife. 
 You remind me of Jessie Villars : when her hus- 
 band smokes, she vows the scent will kill her; 
 when Wyndham meets her on the terrace, taking 
 his good-night pipe, she lisps there's nothing so 
 delightful as the scent of Latakia! Come, Mr.
 
 78 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 Chevasney, I don't mind prying into my friends' 
 affairs before their faces. Have not De Vigne 
 and the Trefusis had some nice little flirtation 
 before now ? ' 
 
 ' To be sure,' I answered. ' It began to be 
 rather a desperate affair ; the Trinity backs could 
 tell you many a tale, I dare say. He came down 
 for Diana, and forsook her for Venus.' 
 
 ' But you can't say, old fellow, I ever deserted 
 the Quiver for the Ceinture,' cried De Vigne. 
 * The Viewaway was never eclipsed by the Tre- 
 fusis ! ' 
 
 ' I don't know that. Have you taken up the 
 affair where you left it ? ' 
 
 * I never reveal secrets that ladies share,' said 
 De Vigne, with a demure air, ' but I'll be very 
 generous, Arthur. I'll take you to call on 
 her.' 
 
 ' Bien oblige. What do you think of this 
 beauty, M. de Cheffontaine ? ' I asked of the 
 lively little Baron. 
 
 ' Oh ! ' laughed he, ' all your English women are 
 superb, divine, when they are not prudes ! ' 
 
 * And that is a fault you cannot pardon ? ' asked 
 Sabretasche, with his low silvery laugh. 
 
 * Nor you ! but one cannot reproach the Tre- 
 fusis with it ! '
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 79 
 
 Sabretasche laughed again, and quoted 
 
 ' Non, jamais tourterelle 
 N'airaa plus tendrement. 
 Comme elle etait fidele 
 A son dernier araant ! ' 
 
 De Vigne did not appear best pleased ; he lifted 
 his head to look out of the window into the park, 
 and as he looked his annoyance seemed to increase. 
 I followed his glance, and saw the Trefusis on a 
 very showy bay, of not first-rate action, taking 
 her morning canter. 
 
 * Ah, talk of an angel, you know ! there she 
 is,' said Sabretasche. ' Wise woman to show 
 often en amazone ; it suits her better than any- 
 thing. She has met little Jimmy Levison, and 
 taken him on with her. Poor Jimmy ! between 
 her smiles and old Fantyre's honours he won't 
 come off the better for those Bruton-street soirees. 
 Why, De Vigne, you look quite wrathful ! You 
 wouldn't be jealous of little Jimmy, would 
 you?' 
 
 I don't suppose De Vigne was jealous of little 
 Jimmy ; but I dare say he was not flattered to see 
 the same wiles given to trap that very young 
 pigeon, which were bestowed to lure a fiery hawk 
 like himself. 
 
 * It amuses me to see all those women taking
 
 80 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 their morning rides,' Sabretasche continued. 
 
 * They love their darling horses so ! and they do 
 so delight in the morning air ; and the green trees 
 look so pleasant after the dusty pave I and they 
 never hint that they know the Knightsbridge men 
 will be looking out for them, and that Charlie will 
 be accidentally lounging by the rails, and Johnnie 
 be found reading the " Morning Post " under 
 the large avenue. The Trefusis will tell us that 
 she cannot exist without her morning trot on 
 " dear Diamond," but, sans doute, she remembered 
 that De Vigne would be pretty sure to be break- 
 fasting by this window, not to mention that she 
 had whispered to little Jimmy her wish to see his 
 new grey hack. I always look under women's 
 words as I look under their veils; they mean 
 them to embellish, but I don't choose they should 
 hide.' 
 
 * How do you act, Colonel,' laughed De Vigne, 
 
 * when you come to a Shetland veil tied down 
 very tight ? ' 
 
 * I never yet met one that hadn't some holes ! ' 
 said Sabretasche. * No women are long a puzzle ; 
 they are too inconsistent, and betray their arti- 
 fices by overdoing them. She is out of sight now, 
 De Vigne. Would you like your horse ordered ? ' 
 
 De Vigne laughed.
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 81 
 
 ' Thank you, no. Do you go to the new opera 
 to-night, Sabretasche ? ' 
 
 * Yes; though I should go with infinitely more 
 pleasure, if I could get the glories of Gluck, and 
 Mozart, instead of the sing-song ballads of Verdi 
 and Balfe.' 
 
 ' Music is the god of his idolatry ! ' said De 
 Vigne, turning to me. * It is positively a passion ! 
 Your heaven will be composed of sweet sounds, 
 eh, Sabretasche ? ' 
 
 * As yours of houris and of thorough-breds ? ' 
 
 ' Perhaps ! I should combine Mahomet's and 
 the Indian's ideas into one almond eyes and a 
 good hunting-ground ! Look here, Arthur, at 
 this "Challenge." That man yonder did it. Isn't 
 he a clever fellow too good to lie still in a 
 rocking chair, and talk about women ? ' 
 
 I looked at the * Challenge ' a little marble 
 statuette from Landseer's picture ; and product of 
 the Colonel's chisel. It was really a wonderful 
 little thing; every minutia, even each fine point 
 of the delicate antlers, being most beautifully 
 and perfectly finished. 
 
 4 How immensely jolly to have such talent ! ' 
 said I, involuntarily expressing my honest admi- 
 ration. * What a resource it must be what a 
 refuge when other things pall ! ' 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 He smiled at my enthusiasm, and raised his 
 eyebrows. 
 
 ' Cui bono ? ' he said softly, as he rose and 
 pushed back his chair. 
 
 The man interested me ; and when he and the 
 Baron were gone, I asked De Vigne what he 
 knew of him, as we stood waiting for his tilbury, 
 to go and call in Bruton Street. 
 
 ' Of Vivian Sabretasche ? I know much of him 
 socially, little of himself; and of his history if 
 history he have nothing. He is excessively kind 
 to me ; honourable and generous in all his deal- 
 ings ; a gentleman always. More of him I know 
 not, nor, were we acquainted ten years, should I 
 at the end, I dare say, know more.' 
 
 < Why?' 
 
 ' Why ? For this reason that nobody does. 
 Hollingsworth and he were cornets together ; yet 
 Hollingsworth is as much a stranger to the real man 
 as you or I. There are some fellows, you know, 
 who don't wear their hearts on their sleeves ; he 
 is one, I am another. Men are like snowballs : to 
 begin with, it's a piece of snow, soft and pure and 
 malleable, and easily enough melted ; but the 
 snowball soon gets kicked about and mixed up 
 with other snow, and knocked against stones and 
 angles, and hurried, and shoved, and pushed along
 
 GKANVILLE DE VIGNE. 83 
 
 till, in sheer self-defence, it hardens itself into a 
 solid, impenetrable, immovable block of ice ! ' 
 
 ' Nonsense ? You are not that.' 
 
 * Not yet, thank God!' 
 
 I should say he was not ! The passionate blood 
 of six-and-twenty, was more likely to be at boiling- 
 point, than at zero. 
 
 <* 2
 
 84 " HELD IN BONDAGE;" OK, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A SUBTLE POISON DRUNK IN THE CHAMPAGNE AT 
 AN OPEEA SUPPER. 
 
 VERY good style was the Bruton Street house, and 
 very good style the Trefusis, with the rose light 
 falling on her from the window, where she was 
 surrounded by plants, and birds in cages and on 
 stands, with a little fellow of the Guards, and a 
 courtly French exile, lounging away their morning 
 there. She was dressed in the extreme of fashion 
 almost too well, if ladies will admit such a 
 thing to be possible. She always reminded 
 me of some first-rate actresses at the Fran- 
 <^ais or the Bouffes playing the rules of high-bred 
 women, looking and speaking like ladies of the 
 best society ; and yet whom, do what one will, and 
 be they as graceful as they may, one cannot divest 
 of a certain aroma, due rather to the proximity 
 of the proscenium and foot-lights, than to any 
 fault of breeding in themselves ; yet a something 
 which we know we should not discover in the
 
 GRANVLLLE DE VIGNE. 85 
 
 true Marquises and Baronnes of the Fau- 
 bourg. 
 
 She looked up with a smile of conscious power, 
 gave her hand tenderly to De Vigne, with a full 
 sweep of her superb eyes under their thick fringes ; 
 bent her head to me, and put her Pomeranian dog 
 on his knee. Old Lady Fantyre was there play- 
 ing propriety, if Propriety could ever be persuaded 
 to let herself be represented by that hook-nosed, 
 disreputable, detestable, amusing old woman, who 
 sat working away at the tapestry-frame, with her 
 gold spectacles on, occasionally lifting up her little 
 keen brown eyes and mingling in the conversation, 
 telling the old tales of ' ma jeunesse,' of the Bath 
 and the Wells, of Ombre and Quadrille, Sheri- 
 dan and Selwyn, Talleyrand and Burke, ' old Q.' 
 and Lady Coventry. 
 
 ' I remember you at Cambridge, Mr. Chevasney, 
 and our merry luncheon too,' said the Trefusis, 
 as if Cambridge belonged to some dim era of her 
 childhood, which it was astonishing she could 
 recall at all. 
 
 * What ! my dear,' burst in Lady Fantyre, ' you 
 don't mean to say you remember all your acquaint- 
 ances, do you ? If so, ye'll have enough to do.' 
 
 * Certainly not. But when they are as agree- 
 able as Mr. Chevasney '
 
 86 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 * Of course of course. Les presents ont toujours 
 raison' continued the Viscountess, in her lively 
 treble , * as true, by the way, that is, as its twin 
 maxim, Les absents ont toujours tort ; it would be 
 hard, indeed, if we might not tell tales of our 
 friends when they couldn't hear us ! But I know 
 we used to give cuts by the dozen. I remember 
 walking down the Birdcage Walk with Selwyn, 
 (poor dear Selwyn, there isn't his like in this day; 
 I remember him so well, though I was but a little 
 chit then !) and a man, a very personable man, too 
 but Lord ! my dear, not one of us came up 
 and reminded George he had known him in Bath. 
 What do you think Selwyn did, my dear ? Why, 
 stared him in the face, of course, and said, 
 " Well, sir, in Bath I may possibly know you 
 again." ' 
 
 'That beats Brummel, when a lady apologized 
 for keeping him so long standing by her carriage : 
 " My dear lady, there is no one to see it ! " ' said 
 De Vigne, laughing. 
 
 ' Abominable !' cried the Trefusis. * If I had 
 been that woman, I would have told him I had 
 made sure of that, or I would not have hazarded 
 my reputation by speaking to him ! ' 
 
 ' Brummel would have been very willing to 
 have been seen with you] said De Vigne, fixing
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIOXK. 87 
 
 his eyes on her, and he knew pretty well how to 
 make his eyes talk. 
 
 ' There's not one of you men now-a-days like 
 Selwyn,' began the old raconteuse again, while the 
 Trefusis bent her stately head to her boy Guards- 
 man, and De Vigne balanced his cane thought- 
 fully on the Pomeranian's nose. 'You talk of 
 your great wit Lord John Bonmot, why, he hasn't 
 as much wit in his whole body as there was in 
 poor dear George's little finger ! Ah ! there isn't 
 one half the verve among you new people there 
 was in my young time. Where is the man among 
 you, who can make laughter run down the table 
 as my friend Sheridan could ? Which of you can 
 move heads, and hearts, like Billy Pitt ? Where 
 among those idle lads in the Temple, who smoke 
 Cavendish, and drink Bass, till they think nothing 
 better than tobacco and beer, shall I see another 
 Tom Erskine? Which among those brainless 
 scribblers who print poems, that make one want 
 a Tennyson's Dictionary only to understand the 
 foolish adjectives in 'em, can write like that boy 
 Byron, with his handsome face and his wry foot ? 
 Lord ! and what a fuss there was with him when 
 he was first made a lion ! And then to turn his 
 coffin from the Abbey ! Such comic verses as he 
 made on my parrot too, he and young Hobhouse ! '
 
 88 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 And old Fantyre, having fairly talked herself 
 out of breath, at last halted ; and De Vigne, an- 
 noyed first of all with little Jimmy in the morn- 
 ing, and secondly with the attention the Trefusis 
 gave her Cornet, neglected her for the Vis- 
 countess, with much parade thereof. 
 
 ' I fear you are right, madam,' he said, laughing. 
 * Ours is an age of general action rather than 
 individual greatness. We have a good catalogue 
 of ships, but no Ulysses, no Atrides, no Agamem- 
 non ' 
 
 * Ah ! I don't remember them; they weren't in 
 our set ! ' responded Lady Fantyre, naively. 
 
 'Or perhaps,' continued De Vigne, stroking his 
 moustaches with laudable gravity, 'it is rather 
 that education is diffused so much more widely 
 that the particular owners of it are riot so much 
 noticed. Arago may be as great a man as Galileo, 
 but it is natural that a world which teaches the 
 laws of gravitation in its twopenny schools, 
 scarcely regards him with the same wonder 
 as if they disbelieved in the earth's move- 
 ment, and were ready to burn him for his 
 audacity.' 
 
 * Ours is an age of science and of money,' 
 suggested the Frenchman, 'whose chief aim is to 
 economize labour and time; an age in which
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGM . 89 
 
 everything is turned to full account, from dead 
 seaweed, to living brains.' 
 
 * Yes,' said De Vigne, * we are eminently prac- 
 tical ; we extract the veratrin from crocuses, and 
 value Brunei more than Bulwer ! We throw our 
 millions into a scheme for cutting through an isth- 
 mus, but we should not spare our minutes to listen 
 to the music of the spheres though Pythagoras 
 were resuscitated to teacli us them. So best! 
 Many more of us find it, of much greater import- 
 ance to get quickly to India, than to wait for all 
 the learning of the schools; and Adam Smith, 
 though infinitely more prosaic, is a much more 
 useful philosopher than Bolingbroke.' 
 
 * Captain de Vigne, why don't you stand for 
 your county ? ' asked the Trefusis, playing with 
 her breloques, and looking truly magnificent in 
 her rose-velvet setting. 
 
 * Because I'm before my time,' laughed De 
 Vigne. ' If I could have a select Cabinet of esprits 
 forts I should be delighted to join them, and help 
 
 them to seminate liberty and tolerance ; but really 
 to settle Maynooth grants, to quarrel on " rags or 
 no rags,*' to settle whether we shall confine our- 
 selves to "corks squared for rounding" or admit 
 rounded corks into the country, to hear one noble 
 lord blackguard his noble friend opposite, and one
 
 90 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OK, 
 
 hon. member split hairs with another hon. member 
 it would be beyond me, it would indeed ! I 
 would as soon go every night to an old ladies' tea- 
 fight, where bonnets were rancorously discussed 
 and characters mercilessly blackened over Sou- 
 chong and muffins ! ' 
 
 * Come ! ' said the Trefusis, ' you find such fault 
 with your generation, you should set to work and 
 regenerate it ? Hunting with the Viewaway, and 
 lounging about drawing-rooms, won't do much 
 towards improving your species ? ' 
 
 ' Why should I ? As Sabretasche says, " Cui 
 bono ? " ' answered De Vigne, annoyed at her sar- 
 castic and nonchalant tone. 
 
 * Then you have certainly no business to sit at 
 home at ease and laugh at other men over your 
 claret and Cubas ! Why may not other geniuses 
 have equal right to that easy put off of yours, 
 " Cui bono? "" 
 
 * They have not equal right, if they have once as- 
 sumed to be geniuses. Let a man assert himself to 
 be something, be it a great man or a scoundrel, and 
 the world expects him to prove his assertion. But 
 an innocent man like myself, who troubles nobody ; 
 and never sets up for a mute inglorious Milton, 
 declining to sing, only because his audience isn't 
 good enough for him ; has a right to be left to his
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 91 
 
 claret and Cubas, and not to be worried, because 
 it happens he is not, what he never pretended 
 to be.' 
 
 The Treftisis looked at him maliciously ; there 
 was the very devil in that woman's eye. 
 
 * And are you content to be lost in the bouquet 
 of the wine, and buried in the smoke of the 
 tobacco ? Are you satisfied with spending your 
 noble existence in an allegorical chaise-lounge, 
 picking out the motes and never remembering the 
 beam ? ' 
 
 The tone was provoking in the extreme ; it put 
 up De Vigne's blood, as the first touch of the 
 snaffle does a young thorough-bred. He stroked 
 his long moustaches. 
 
 'That depends upon circumstances. When I 
 have had my full swing of devilries, extravagances, 
 dissipations, pleasures, Trefusises, and other 
 charming flowers which beset the path of youth, I 
 may, perhaps, turn to something better ! ' 
 
 It was an abominably rude speech ; and though 
 De Vigne spoke in the soft, courteous tone he 
 used to all women, whether peeress or peasant, 
 eighty or eighteen, it had its full effect on the 
 Trefusis. She flushed deeply, then turned pale, and 
 I should not have cared to provoke the malignant 
 glance those superb eyes shot upon him. She
 
 92 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OK, 
 
 took no notice, however, and, turning to her 
 Guardsman, thanked him for a bouquet which 
 he had sent to her, and pointed it out to him, 
 set on a console near. 
 
 De Vigne drove the tilbury from the door 
 supremely gloomy and silent : 
 
 ' I say, Arthur,' he said at last, ' Victor Hugo 
 says, somewhere, that we are women's playthings, 
 and women are the devil's. I fancy Satan will 
 get the worse of the bargain, don't you ? ' 
 
 ' The deuce I do ! that's to say, if the war's in 
 words; though I must say you polished off the 
 Trefusis neatly enough just now. Did you see 
 the look she gave you ? ' 
 
 ' Yes,' said De Vigne, shortly. ' However any- 
 thing's better than a milk-and-water woman. I 
 should grow sick of a girl who always agreed with 
 me. They look so pretty when their blood's up ! 
 Where shall we go now ? Suppose we turn into 
 the Yard, and take a look at those steel greys 
 Sabretasche mentioned ? I want a new pair to 
 run tandem. And then we can take a turn or 
 two round the Ring, and I'll show you the women 
 worth cultivating, young one.' 
 
 We followed out his programme, bargained for 
 the greys at two hundred and fifty and immensely 
 cheap, too, for they were three-parts thorough-
 
 GRANVILLE DE VHJXK. 93 
 
 bred, with beautiful action drove half-a-dozen 
 times round the Ring, where fifty pair of bright 
 eyes gleamed softly on De Vigne, from the Mar- 
 chioness of Hautton in her stately barouche, to 
 little Coralie of Her Majesty's ballet in her single 
 horse brougham ; and then went to mess, where, 
 the Dashers (being as crack a corps as the Tenth, 
 the Eleventh, or the Blues,) had a peculiar pattern 
 for their plate, a Cordon bleu for their cook, and 
 a good claret connoisseur in their Colonel. The 
 claret was better than Cambridge port, the dinner 
 was rather superior to Hall, and the men furnished 
 wit choicer than Monckton's Joe Miller jokes, and 
 Phil Hervey's Simon the Cellarer, at our Wines. 
 I liked this dash of my new life at any rate, 
 and I regretted leaving the table when Sabretasche 
 invited me to go with him, to the Opera, for I 
 didn't care two pins for music ; I did not dare, 
 however, to refuse the first favour from such an 
 exclusive man, and, besides, having just seen little 
 Coralie in the Ring, I consoled myself with the 
 thought of the ballet. De Vigne was going too, 
 for reasons best known to himself; and went to 
 his stall, while I followed the Colonel to his box, 
 in the middle of the second act. 
 
 Sabretasche spoke not at all while Grisi was on 
 the stage, and I put my lorgnon up and took a
 
 94 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 glance round the house. I always think Her Ma- 
 jesty's, on a grand night, with all the boxes filled 
 with the handsomest and best-dressed women in 
 
 r 
 
 town, one of the prettiest sights going ; and I did 
 the grand tier deliberately, going from loge to 
 loge, so that it was some little time before I got 
 on the second ; and in one of its centre boxes, with 
 the scarlet folds of an opera cloak floating round 
 her, and scarlet camellias against her white lace 
 dress, and in her rich dark hair, sat the Trefusis, 
 with little bright-eyed, hooked-nosed, bewigged, 
 and black Mechlin'd, old Fantyre as a foil. 
 
 Presently the Trefusis raised her bouquet to 
 her lips quite carelessly, to take its perfume, I 
 presume ! I happened to look down at De 
 Vigne : his lorgnon was fixed on her too. He 
 smiled, left his stall, and in a minute or two I 
 saw him displacing young Lascelles of the Blues 
 and bending down over the Trefusis. 
 
 ' What do you think of that affair, Chevasney ? ' 
 said the Colonel to me, as the curtain came down. 
 
 ' I don't know how it stands. Enlighten me, 
 will you ? ' 
 
 Sabretasche shook his head. 
 
 * I know no more than yourself. De Vigne, 
 like all wise men, is silent upon his own business, 
 and I never attempt to pry into it. I see the
 
 GRAXVILLK DK VUJNK. 95 
 
 thing on its surface, and it seems to me that the 
 lady is serious, whatever he be.' 
 
 * Serious ? Oh, hang it ! he can't be serious.' 
 
 * Tant pis pour lui if he be,' said the Colonel, 
 smiling. ' But, my dear boy, you do not know 
 women as yet ; how should you, in two-and- 
 twenty years, have read that enigmatical book, 
 which is harder to guess at than Sanscrit or Black 
 letter? You can never fathom the deep game 
 that a clever one like the Trefusis, if I mistake 
 her not, can play when she chooses.' 
 
 /, the most knowing hand in Granta I, who if 
 I did pique myself on any one thing, piqued my- 
 self on my skill and knowledge in managing the 
 beau sexe /, to be told I did not know women ! 
 I pocketed the affront, however, as best I might, 
 for I felt a growing respect for the Colonel, with 
 his myriad talents, his brilliant reputation, and 
 mysterious reserve ; and told him I did not believe 
 De Vigne cared an atom more for the Trefusis 
 than for twenty others before her. 
 
 * I hope so,' he answered ; 'but that chess they 
 are playing yonder ends too often in checkmate. 
 However, we will not prophesy so bad a fate for 
 our friend ; for worse he could not have than to fall 
 into those soft hands. By the way, though, her 
 hands are not soft, they are not the hands of a lady.'
 
 96 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 ' You have a bad opinion of the Trefusis, 
 Colonel?' 
 
 ' Not of the Trefusis in particular.' 
 
 ' Of her sex, then ? ' 
 
 ' I may have cause,' he answered briefly. ' How 
 full the house is, and how few of those people 
 come for music ! How few of them would care if 
 it were dance trash of D'Albert's, instead of Doni- 
 zetti's symphonies, if the dance-music chanced to 
 be most in fashion. Make it the rage, and three- 
 quarters of the music lovers here would run after 
 a barrel-organ ground on that stage, as they are 
 now doing after Mario. Half England, if the 
 Court, the Peerage, and Belgravia voted the sun a 
 bore, and a rushlight comme il faut, would in- 
 stantly shut their shutters and burn rushlights 
 while the fashion lasted ! And then people care 
 for the world's opinion ! ' 
 
 ' Because they can't get on without it.' 
 
 * True enough ! they despise it, but they must 
 bow to it before they can use it and turn it to 
 their own ends; those must, at least, who live by 
 sufferance on it, and through it. Thank God, I 
 want nothing from it, and can defy it at my 
 leisure; or rather forget and neglect it; de- 
 fying is too much trouble. A man who defies 
 is certain to raise a hue and cry at his heels,
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 97 
 
 whose bray and clamour is as senseless as it is 
 deafening, and no more able to declare what it 
 has come out after than Dogberry. Ah, you are 
 studying that girl in the fifth from the centre. 
 That is little Eulalie Papillon. Does she not look 
 a pretty, innocent dove ? Yet she will cost those 
 three fellows with her more than a racing stud, 
 and she is as avaricious as Harpagon ! I should 
 like to make a computation of how many of these 
 people come for music. That old man there, who 
 droops his head and takes snuff during the 
 entr'actes ; those fellows on the ground-tier taking 
 shorthand notes for the daily journals ; one or two 
 dilettante ladies who really know something of 
 fugues and symphonies : those are all, I verily 
 believe. Little Eulalie comes to show herself, 
 and carry Bevan off to her petit souper, for fear 
 any fairer Lais should pounce on him ; those 
 decolletees and diamondized old ladies come be- 
 cause it is one of the Yards where their young 
 fillies tell best, and may chance to get a bid. 
 Lady Ormolu there, that one with marabouts in 
 her hair, comes because her lord is a Georges 
 Dandin, and she has no chance of meeting Villiers, 
 who is her present lover, anywhere else. Mrs. 
 Lacquers is here because there was a rumour that 
 her husband's Bank would not stand, and he, who 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 is a Bible Society president and vessel of grace, 
 but who still keeps one eye open on terrestrial 
 affairs, has told her to exhibit here to-night, and 
 be as lively as possible, with plenty of rubies about 
 her, so that he may get off to Boulogne. Dear 
 man ! he remembers u Aide4oi et Dieu faidera" ' 
 
 ' Have you a private Belphegor in your pocket, 
 sir ? ' said I, dropping my lorgnon, * to help you 
 unroof the houses and unlock your acquaintances' 
 brains ? ' 
 
 ' My Belphegor is Experience,' laughed Sabre- 
 tasche. ' And now hush, if you please, Chevas- 
 ney ; there is Grisi again, and as / come for 
 music, though nobody else may, I like to be 
 quiet.' 
 
 It was curious to note the change that came 
 over his melancholy expressive countenance, as he 
 listened to the prima donna, and I saw the gaze of 
 many women fixed upon him, as, with his eyes 
 half-closed, and his thoughts far away, he leaned 
 against the side of his box. They said he was 
 dangerous to women, and one could hardly won- 
 der if he were. A gallant soldier in the field ; a 
 charming companion in club or mess-room ; accom- 
 plished in music, painting, sculpture, as in the 
 hardier arts of rifle and rod; speaking most conti- 
 nental languages with equal facility ; his manners
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 99 
 
 exquisitely tender and gentle, his voice soft as the 
 Italian he best loved to speak, his face and form 
 of unusual beauty; and, to back him, all that 
 subtler art which is only acquired in the Eleusinia 
 of the boudoir, no marvel if women, his pet play- 
 things, did go down before Vivian Sabretasche. 
 He had been born in Italy, where his father, having 
 spent what money he had at the green tables, 
 lived to retrench retrenchment being always 
 synonymous in English minds with the Continent, 
 though whether a palace, even if a little tumble- 
 down, ortolans, lachryma-christi, and nightly 
 reunions, do tend to tighten purse-strings and 
 benefit cheque - books, is an open question. 
 Luckily for Sabretasche, his uncle, a rich old rout, 
 of the Alvanley and Pierrepoint time, went off the 
 stage without an heir, and he came in for all the 
 property, a princely balance at Barclay's, a town 
 house, and a moor up in Inverness-shire. On his 
 accession, he left the Neapolitan Hussars, entered 
 the Queen's, and took the position to which his 
 old name and new wealth entitled him. It was 
 always the popular idea that Sabretasche had 
 some history or other, though why he should have 
 nobody could probably have told you ; but every- 
 body loved him, from the charger that followed 
 him like a dog and ate out of his hand, to the 
 
 H 2
 
 100 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 young cornets who, in their debts and their diffi- 
 culties, always found a lenient judge and a kind 
 friend in gay, liberal, highly-gifted, and ultra- 
 fashionable Vivian Sabretasche. 
 
 When he had drunk his fill of music, and I had 
 clapped little Coralie to my heart's content ; an 
 ovation that young lady little needed, having a 
 hired claque of her own in omnibus-boxes, not to 
 mention some twenty men who threw her bouquets 
 with genuine bracelets and bravissime; Sabre- 
 tasche and I, passing through the crush-room, or 
 rather the draughty, catarrh-conferring passages 
 which answer to that portion of Her Majesty's now- 
 a-days, came close to De Vigne with the Trefusis 
 on his arm, while little Lascelles escorted Lady 
 Fantyre, nowise enraptured apparently at the 
 charge of that shrewd old dame, with her sandal- 
 wood perfume, and her old lace, of a price, and dirt, 
 untold. Lady Fantyre's carriage was not yet up> 
 and we stood and chatted together, the Trefusis 
 smiling very graciously on us, but reserving all 
 her most telling glances for De Vigne, on whose 
 arm she hung with a sort of proprietorship, for 
 which I cursed her with most unchristian earnest- 
 ness. 
 
 ' Come home to supper with us,' whispered the 
 Trefusis, as their carriage was at last announced.
 
 GRANYILLE DE VIGNE. 101 
 
 De Vigne accepted the invitation with a flash 
 of his eyes, which showed one well enough the 
 Trefusis was beginning to play the deuce with him ; 
 and old Fantyre extended it to Sabretasche and 
 to me. The Colonel smiled, bowed his acqui- 
 escence, and told his man to drive us to Bruton 
 Street, as De Vigne sprang into the Fantyre 
 brougham. 
 
 ' I was engaged to what I liked much better, 
 lansquenet at Hollingsworth's ; but I want to see 
 how the game lies in Bruton Street. I fancy that 
 woman's moves will be worth watching,' said 
 Sabretasche, throwing himself back on his cushions. 
 ' By the way, who is she do you know ? ' 
 
 ' The devil I don't ! Somebody up at Cam- 
 bridge said she was old Fantyre's companion ; 
 others whispered her daughter, others her niece, 
 others, what the old woman said herself, that she 
 is the child of her brother a John, or James, or 
 something monosyllabic, Trefusis. 
 
 * No very exalted lineage that,' returned Sabre- 
 tasche ; * for if report be true and I believe it is 
 the Fantyre at sixteen was an orange-girl, crying, 
 " Who'll buy em, two a penny ! " up Pall Mall ; that 
 Fantyre, the most eccentric of eccentric Irishmen 
 (and all Hibernians have a touch of madness !) 
 beheld her from his window in Arthur's, fell in
 
 102 "HELD IN BOXDAGE;" OR, 
 
 love with her foot and leg, walked out, offered to 
 her in the street, was accepted of course, and 
 married her at seventy-five. What fools there 
 are in the world, Chevasney ! She pushed her 
 way cleverly enough, though as to knowing all 
 the exclusives she talks about, she no more knew 
 them than my dog did. She heard of them, of 
 course ; saw some of the later ones at Ranelagh 
 and the Wells ; very likely won francs at piquet 
 from poor Brummel, when he was in decadence at 
 Caen, to put him in mind of the palmy days when 
 he fleeced Coombe of ponies ; possibly entertained 
 Talleyrand when he was glad of an English 
 asylum ; and, of course, would get together Moore, 
 and Jeffreys, and Tom Erskine, and all the young 
 fellows ; for a pretty woman and a shrewd woman 
 can always make men forget she sprang from the 
 gutter. But as to the others pooh ! she was no 
 more intimate with them than I; old Fantyre 
 himself was in far too mal odeur, and left his widow 
 to live by her wits rather than to figure as a leader 
 of ton. Here we are : it will all be very comme il 
 faut. I bet you, Chevasney, Lady Fantyre is 
 afraid of my eye-glass ! ' 
 
 It was all comme il faut. De Vigne was sitting 
 beside the Trefusis, his glowing, passionate eyes 
 fixed on hers ; while in her face was merely the
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 103 
 
 look of calm, conscious beauty, gratified at triumph 
 and exigeant of homage ; a beauty the embodiment 
 of tyranny; a beauty which would exult in denying 
 the passion it excited ; a beauty only a tool in the 
 hands of its possessor, to pioneer a path for her 
 ambitions, and draw within her reach the prizes 
 that she coveted. 
 
 De Vigne did not look best pleased to see us. 
 I dare say he would have preferred a tte-a-tete 
 supper with old Lady Fantyre dozing after her 
 champagne ! Such, however, was denied to him ; 
 perhaps they knew how to manage him better 
 than to make his game too easy. Do any of us 
 care for the tame pheasants knocked over at our 
 feet in a battue, as we do for an outlying royal that 
 has led us many hours' weary toil, through burn 
 and bracken, over rock and furze ? We knock 
 down the pheasants to swell our bag, and leave 
 them where they fall, to be picked up after us ; 
 but difficulty and excitement warm our blood and 
 fire our pride, and we think no toil or trouble too 
 great to hear the ping of the bullet, and see the 
 deer grallocked at last ! 
 
 We had a very pleasant supper. Opera- 
 suppers are always pleasant to my mind; there 
 is a freedom about them that gives a certain 
 pointe a la sauce, which it would be better for
 
 104 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 ladies to put down among their items for enter- 
 tainment, a good deal oftener than they do. There 
 was plenty of champagne, and, under its genial 
 influences the Fantyre tongue was loosened, and 
 Sabretasche amused himself with the old lady's 
 shrewd wit and not over-particular stories ; a 
 queer contrast enough himself to the little 
 snuffy, rouged, and wigged Irish peeress, with his 
 delicate beauty of feature, and singular refinement 
 of tone ; while De Vigne, fired by the Parthian 
 glances which had been so freely bestowed on 
 him, and the proximity of that superb Trefusis, his 
 idol at least for the present talked with the 
 wit of which, when he chose, no man on earth 
 could give out more brilliant corruscations. The 
 Trefusis never said very much ; hers was chiefly 
 silent warfare. 
 
 'What did you think of the ballet, Colonel?' 
 asked old Fantyre, peering up into his face. At 
 seventy-six women are still much kinder to a 
 handsome man than to a plain one. 
 
 ' I thought very little of it,' answered Sabre- 
 tasche. ' Coralie has no grace ; boys make a fuss 
 with her because she happens to be pretty, but as 
 for her dancing faugh ! scores of Castilian girls 
 I have seen doing the fandango, under the village 
 chesimt-trees, would beat her hollow.'
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 105 
 
 ' Glorious dance that fandango is ! ' said De 
 Vigne. ' I have danced the fandango ; no more 
 able to help myself when the girl and the casta- 
 nets began, than the holy cardinals, who, when 
 they came to Madrid to excommunicate the 
 cachucha, ended by joining in it ! Like the rest 
 of us, I suppose, they found forbidding a thing to 
 other people, very easy and pleasant, but going 
 without it themselves rather more difficult.' 
 
 ' You never go without a thing you like, do 
 you ? ' asked the Trefusis. 
 
 ' Certainly not. Why should I ? ' 
 
 * I don't know ; only boys who have revelled 
 in Bath buns, sometimes rue it, when they realize 
 
 Chromate of lead.' 
 
 * Oh ! ' as for that,' laughed De Vigne, * the 
 moralists make out that a sort of Chromate of lead 
 follows, as natural sequence, any Bath buns one 
 may fancy to eat. I don't see it myself.' 
 
 ' Your best Bath buns are women, De Vigne ? ' 
 said Lady Fantyre, with her silent chuckle, ' and 
 you'll be uncommonly lucky, my dear, if you don't 
 find some Chromate of lead, as you call it, after 
 one or two of them.' 
 
 * He will, indeed,' smiled Sabretasche. ' Ladies 
 are the exact antipodes of olives : the one begins 
 in salt, and leaves us blessed with a delicious rose
 
 106 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OK, 
 
 aroma ; the other, with all due deference, is nectar 
 to commence with, but how soon, through our 
 fault entirely, of course, they turn into very gall ! ' 
 
 Lady Fantyre chuckled again ; she was a wise 
 old woman, in her way, and enjoyed nothing more 
 than a hit at her own sex. To be sure, she was 
 leaving the field very fast, and perhaps grudged 
 the new combatants her cast-off weapons. 
 
 ' True enough, Colonel ; yet, if one may believe 
 naughty stories, the flavour's been one uncommonly 
 to your taste?.' 
 
 Sabretasche shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 ' My dear lady, can one put aside the Falernian 
 because there will be some amari aliquid at the 
 bottom of the glass? Nobody loved the sex 
 better than Mahomet, yet he learned enough 
 from his favourite almond eyes to create his heaven 
 without women ! ' 
 
 ' What a heathen you are, Sabretasche ! ' cried 
 De Vigne. * If I were Miss Trefusis, I wouldn't 
 speak to you ! ' 
 
 ' My dear fellow, I could support it ! ' said 
 Sabretasche, naively, with such delicious Brum- 
 melian impudence that I believe Lady Fantyre 
 could have kissed him a favour for which the 
 Colonel would have been anything but grateful. 
 
 The Trefusis's eyes glared; De Vigne, sitting
 
 GRAXVILLE DE VIGXE. 107 
 
 next her, did not catch their expression, or I 
 think, though he might be getting mad about her, 
 he would not have taken the trouble he did, to 
 look so tenderly at her, and whisper, ' If he could 
 bear it, / could not.' 
 
 * Yes, you could,' said the Trefusis, through her 
 pearly teeth. * You would make me the occasion 
 for an epigram on female caprice, and go and pay 
 the same compliments to Lady Hautton or Coralie 
 the danseuse. I never knew the man who could 
 not support, with most philosophic indifference, 
 the cruelty of one woman if he had another to 
 turn to ! provided indeed she had not left him for 
 some one else, when, perhaps, his pride might be 
 a little piqued.' 
 
 De Vigne smiled; he was pleased to see her 
 annoyed. 
 
 ' Well ! we are philosophic in self-defence, 
 probably; but you are mistaken in thinking so 
 lightly of the wounds you give : and I am sorry 
 you should be so, for you will be more likely to 
 refuse to what you fancy a mere scratch, the heal- 
 ing touch that you might, perhaps, be persuaded 
 to accord if you were more fully aware of the 
 harm you had done.' 
 
 Sabretasche interrupted him. 
 
 * Talking of wounds, De Vigne ? My dear
 
 108 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 fellow, who gets them now ? (This vanille cream 
 is excellent, Lady Fantyre. Vanille is a very 
 favourite flavour of mine.) The surest way of 
 wounding, if such a thing be possible when the 
 softest little ingenue wears a chain-armour of 
 practical egotism, is to keep invulnerable your- 
 self. Miss Trefusis teaches us that.' 
 
 * Curse the fellow ! ' muttered De Vigne. 
 
 He liked Sabretasche cordially, but he could 
 have kicked him at that moment with an intense 
 degree of pleasure ! 
 
 'You know the world, Colonel,' smiled old 
 Fantyre. ' I like men who do : they amuse one. 
 When one's been behind the scenes oneself, those 
 poor silly fools who sit in front of the stage, and 
 believe in Talma's strut and Siddons's tears, in 
 the rouge and the paint, and the tinsel and the 
 trap-doors, do tire one so ! You talk of your 
 ingenues; I'm sure they're the most stupid lot 
 possible !' 
 
 'Except when they're ingenues de Saint L6? 
 laughed De Vigne. 
 
 * Which most of them are,' said the Fantyre. 
 'Take my word for it, my dear, if you find a 
 woman extra simple, sweet, and prudish, you will 
 be no match for her ! Sherry's a very pleasant, 
 light, innocent sort of wine, but strychnine's
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGXE. 109 
 
 sometimes given in it, you know, for all that ; 
 and if a girl cast her eyes down more timidly than 
 usual, you may be pretty sure those eyes have 
 looked on queerer scenes than you fancy.' 
 
 * To be sure,' said De Vigne. * I would a good 
 deal sooner have to deal with an Athenais de 
 Mortemar, than with a Fran9oise d'Aubigne. I 
 should be on my guard against the wicked little 
 Montespan, but I should be no match for Sainte 
 Maintenon. " (Test trap contre un mari " (or un 
 amant) "d'etre coquette et devote: unefemme devrait 
 opter" ' 
 
 "Then when you marry, you will take your 
 wife out of a guinguette rather than a convent?' 
 asked the old lady, with a comical smile. 
 
 The Trefusis shot a keen, rapid, hard glance at 
 him, as he laughed, * Come, come, Lady Fantyre, 
 is there no medium ? ' 
 
 ' Between prudes and Aspasias ?' said her shrill 
 little treble. ' No, sir not that I ever saw and 
 even, les extremes se touchent, you know.' 
 
 ' Hush ! hush ! ' cried Sabretasche, ' you will 
 corrupt me, Lady Fantyre positively you will 
 you will make me think shockingly of all my 
 kind, soft-voiced, soft-skinned friends ! ' 
 
 * Somebody has made you think as badly of 
 women as you can,' said the sharp old woman.
 
 110 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 'Not I! What do you think of that Moselle, 
 DeVigne?' 
 
 He thought it good, but not so good as the 
 Trefusis, who acted out the song, ' Drink to me 
 with thine eyes,' in a manner eminently calculated 
 to intoxicate him more, than all the wine ever 
 pressed from Rhenish vineyards. And when she 
 took a little dainty cigarette between her lips, and 
 leant back on her favourite rose couch, laughing 
 at the Fantyre scandals, and flashing on De Vigne 
 her brightest glances; even Sabretasche and I, 
 who were set against her by that most dogged 
 thing, a prejudice, could not deny that a finer 
 woman had never worried a man's peace of mind 
 out of him, or sent him headlong into follies which 
 shut out all chance of a fairer future or a wiser 
 path. 
 
 ' Come in and smoke a pipe, Arthur,' said De 
 Vigne, when we had at length left the "Fantyre 
 petit souper, and Sabretasche had gone to his lans- 
 quenet at Rollings worth's. ' Tisn't worth while 
 going anywhere else to-night ; it's three now. I 
 have some splendid Glenlivet (how naturally one 
 offers a Cantab something to drink ! as naturally 
 as to a cabman, I declare), and 1 shall like a chat 
 with you. Hallo ! where's my number. Con- 
 found it ! why do they build town-houses all alike,
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. Ill 
 
 that one can't know one's own by a particular 
 mark, as the mother in the novels always knows 
 her stolen child ? Symmetry ? Oh ! that's like 
 Sabretasche. One wants symmetry in a racer, I 
 allow, but in one's lodging-house I could put up 
 without it, rather than pull up Vivandiere on 
 her haunches twice for nothing. Where's my 
 latch-key ? Right on, up the stairs ; I'll follow 
 you. By George! who's that smoking in my 
 rooms ? It can't be Harris, because I gave him 
 leave to go to Oremorne, and not come home till 
 morning, in time to fill my bath. It is tobacco, 
 Arthur. What a devilish impertinence !' 
 
 He pushed open the door. On De Vigne's pet 
 sofa, with a French novel in his hand, and a meer- 
 schaum in his lips, lay lazy, girlish-looking, light- 
 hearted ' Little Curly.' 
 
 * Curly ! ' cried De Vigne. ' By Jove, how 
 delighted I am ! Curly ! Where, in Heaven's 
 name, did you spring from, my boy ? ' 
 
 * I sprang from nowhere,' responded Curly, 
 taking his pipe out of his mouth. 'I've given up 
 gymnastics, they're too fatiguing. I drove down 
 from Claridge's, in a cab that privately informed 
 me it had just taken six cases of scarlet fever, and 
 three of small-pox, to the hospitals ; I found you 
 were out of course I knew you would be and
 
 112 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 with the philosophy which always characterizes my 
 slightest movements, took Le Brun, found out a 
 pipe (how well you brown yours, by the way), and 
 made myself jolly.' 
 
 ' Quite right,' responded De Vigne, who was a 
 perfect Arab for hospitality. 'Delighted to see 
 you. We're quite a Frestonhills reunion. What 
 a pity the Doctor is not here, and dear Arabella ! 
 But I say, Curly, have you got quit of Granta, 
 like this direputable fellow, or are you only run 
 up on leave, or how is it?' 
 
 ' Don't you remember my degree was given me 
 this year because I am a Peer's son ? ' asked Curly, 
 reprovingly. * See what it is to be a Goth, with- 
 out a classical education ! You should have gone 
 to Granta, De Vigne, you'd have been Stroke of 
 the Cambridge Eight, not a doubt of it. There's 
 muscle gone to waste ! It's very jolly, you see, 
 being an Honourable, though I never knew it ; 
 one gets credit for brains whether one has them 
 or not. What an inestimable blessing to some of 
 the pillars of the aristocracy, isn't it ? I suppose 
 the House of Lords was instituted on that prin- 
 ciple ; and its members are no more required to 
 know why they pass their bills, than we, their sons 
 and heirs, are required to know why we pass our 
 examinations, eh?'
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 113 
 
 ' And what are you going to do with yourself 
 now?' put in De Vigne. 'For the present you'll 
 keep on that sofa, and make yourself whisky-toddy; 
 but aprits?' 
 
 * Aprbs ? Well, the governor wanted me to go 
 in for diplomacy, but I wasn't up to it lies are 
 not my specialty, they're too much trouble ; so I 
 demonstrated to him that it was clearly my mission 
 to drink brandy, distract women, run into debt, 
 curse parade, turn out on show days, move from 
 Windsor to Knightsbridge and back, and otherwise 
 enjoy life, and swear at ennui with you fellows in 
 the Queen's. His mind was not open to it at 
 first, but I soon improved his limited vision, and 
 my name's now down at the Horse Guards, where, 
 after a little neat jobbery, I dare say the thing'll 
 soon be done.' 
 
 ' Your governor manageable? ' said I. 
 
 Curly yawned, and opened his blue eyes a little 
 wider. 
 
 ' Of course ; I should cut him if he wasn't. 
 You see he's a snob (I wanted him to put on his 
 carriage-panel 
 
 " Who'd have thought it ? 
 Cotton bought it ! " 
 
 but he declined), and my mother's a Dorset ; gave 
 her title for his yellows. Now my brother Gus, 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 poor devil ! is the regular parvenu breed : short, 
 thick, red whiskers, snub nose, and all the rest of 
 it ; while I, as you see, gentlemen,' said Curly, 
 glancing at himself with calm, complacent vanity, 
 
 * am a remarkably good-looking fellow, eminently 
 presentable and creditable to my progenitors : a 
 second Spurina, and a regular Dorset. Therefore, 
 the governor hates Gus (sneaky I consider it, 
 as it is through his remarkable likeness to him 
 that Gus is fit to frighten his looking-glass), but 
 adores me, and lets me twist him round this little 
 finger of mine, voyez-vous ? ' 
 
 ' And how's Julia ? ' asked De Vigne. 
 
 Curly looked as savage as he could look. 
 
 'Julia? Confound her! how should I know? 
 She's been and hooked some old boy or other, I 
 believe, poor devil ! ' 
 
 ' Who's the poor devil ? ' laughed De Vigne ; 
 
 * the man for being caught, or you for being 
 deserted ? Take comfort, Curly ; there never was 
 a man jilted yet who didn't return thanks for it 
 twelve months after. When I was twenty, and 
 went over to Canada for six weeks' buffalo-hunt- 
 ing, 1 fell mad in love with a great Toronto 
 beauty, a sheriff's widow. Such ankles she had, 
 and didn't she show them on the Ontario ! It 
 was really one of the most serious affairs I ever
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 115 
 
 had, and she flirted me into a downright proposal. 
 The most wide-awake man, is a donkey when he 
 is young. But who should come on the scene 
 just then but a rich old fur-merchant, with no end 
 of dollars, and a tremendous house at New York ; 
 and my little widow, thinking I was very young, 
 and knowing nothing whatever of Vigne and its 
 belongings, quietly threw me over, forswore all 
 the pretty things we'd said to one another in 
 sledging and skating, and went to live among the 
 Broadway belles. I swore and suffered horribly ; 
 she turned the pampas into swamps, and absolutely 
 made me utterly indifferent to bison. I lived on 
 pipes and soda-water for a week, and recovered. 
 But when I ran over to America last winter to 
 see Egerton of the Rifles, I met in Quebec a 
 dreadful woman, ten stone at the least, in a bright 
 green dress, with blue things in her hair, and 
 rubies for her jewels, her skin as yellow as gold, 
 and as wrinkled as the Fantyre's ; and / might have 
 married that woman, with her shocking broad 
 English, and her atrocious "Do tell!" What 
 fervent thanks I returned for the fur-merchant's 
 creation and my own preservation ! So will you, 
 Curly, when, ten years hence, you happen to drop 
 in at the Snoozeinrest Rectory, and find Julia as 
 stiff as her brown-paper tracts, and as vinegar as 
 
 12
 
 116 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OK, 
 
 the moral lessons she gives her parishioners, re- 
 stricting her pastor and master to three glasses, 
 and making your existence miserable at dessert 
 by the entrance of four or five brats with shrill 
 voices and monkey propensities, who make you 
 look at them and their mother with a thrill of the 
 deepest rapture, rejoicing that, thank Heaven, you 
 are not a family man ! ' 
 
 De Vigne spoke the truth. Why the deuce 
 did not he remember that his passion for the 
 Trefusis might be quite as utterly misplaced as 
 his fancy for the Toronto widow, or the Cantab's 
 flirtation with Miss Julia ? But, ah me ! if the 
 truth were always in our minds, or the future 
 always plain before us, should we make the fifty 
 false steps that the wisest man amongst us is cer- 
 tain to rue before half his sands are run ? If they 
 knew that before night was down the sea-foam 
 would be whirling high, and the curlews screaming 
 in human fear, and the gay little boat lying keel 
 upwards on the salt ocean surf, would the plea- 
 sure-party set out so fearlessly in the morning 
 sunshine, with champagne flowing and bright eyes 
 glancing, and joyous laughter ringing over the 
 golden sands and up to the fleecy heavens ?
 
 (iKAXVILLE DE VIGNE. 117 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 WHAT WAS UNDER THE CARDS. 
 
 THAT night, after we were gone, old Fantyre sat with 
 her feet on the fender of her dressing-room, sans 
 wig, teeth, rouge, cosmetique, velvet, or lace ; and 
 an uncommonly hideous old woman she must have 
 looked in that guise, I am certain, though, thank 
 Heaven ! I cannot speak to the fact from ocular 
 observation. The Trefusis sat there, too, looking 
 all the handsomer for dishabille, in a cerise- 
 hued peignoir and fur slippers, and her thick long 
 raven hair unbraided, and hanging to her waist. 
 
 ' My dear,' began the Fantyre, ' do you think 
 you hold the trumps in that game you're 
 playing? ' 
 
 4 Certainly I do. Why?' 
 
 * Beause I'm not so sure. You're playing fast 
 and loose with De Vigne, and that don't always 
 succeed. Brummel said to me, "If we pique a 
 woman, she is ours." That's true enough with us, 
 because we're such fools ; nine times out of ten a
 
 118 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 woman don't care a rush for a man who's dying 
 at her feet; while she's crazy about some ugly 
 brute, who takes no more notice of her, than he 
 does of his dirty boots. Women love to go to 
 heel, and they'll crawl after a man who double- 
 thongs them, in preference to one who lets them 
 rule him. Besides, we're jealous; we hate one 
 another like poison from our cradles ; and if a man 
 neglects us we fancy he likes somebody else, and, 
 of course, that's quite enough to make us want to 
 trap him away from her, whoever she be ! But 
 with men sometimes it's a dangerous game. 
 They're the most impatient creatures in creation, 
 and if one trout won't rise to the fly, they go off 
 and whip another stream. All fish are alike pretty 
 well to 'em, so that they fill their basket. Men's 
 aim is Pleasure, and if you don't give it to 'em 
 they will go somewhere else for it.' 
 
 ' True enough,' said the Trefusis ; ' but, at the 
 same time, to a good many men Difficulty is 
 everything. Men of hot passion and strong will 
 delight in pursuit, and soon grow tired of victory. 
 They enjoy knocking the bird over ; that done, it 
 loses all interest for them. De Vigne is such a 
 man : rouse his pride, you win him yield easily, 
 and you miss him.' 
 
 ' Maybe, my dear maybe ! You know him
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 119 
 
 better than I do, and must manage him as you 
 choose. I dare say he does like climbing over 
 spikes and chevaux-de-frise to get what he 
 fancies; he's the stamp of creature that's never 
 happy out of excitement or danger, and Mon- 
 taigne thinks like you : " EUes nous battent mieux 
 en fuyant, comme les Scythes" How racy his old 
 French is ! I wish I had known that man ! I 
 say, those two friends of his, shouldn't be with 
 him too much, for they don't like us : that boy 
 Chevasney ' 
 
 * Boy, indeed ! ' echoed the Trefusis. 
 ' But De Vigne is fond of him ? ' 
 
 ' I believe so ; but De Vigne is never influenced 
 by anybody.' 
 
 * I hope he may not be, except by you, and that 
 won't be to his advantage, poor fellow ! He's a 
 very handsome pigeon, my dear a very hand- 
 some one, indeed ! ' chuckled the old lady. ' But 
 the other one is more dangerous than Chevasney ; 
 I mean that beautiful creature what's his name ? 
 
 Vivian Sabretasche. He don't think much 
 about us, I dare say ; but he don't like us. He 
 sees through us, my dear, and, ten to one, he'll 
 put De Vigne on his guard.' 
 
 ' De Vigne listens to nobody who comes be- 
 tween him and his passion of the moment ; and
 
 120 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 how is it possible that Sabretasche should see 
 through us, as you term it ? ' 
 
 ' Not all our hand, my dear, but one or two 
 cards. That calm nonchalant way of his conceals 
 a wonderful dea^ of keen observation too keen 
 for us. Vivian Sabretasche is very witty and 
 very careless, and the world tells very light stories 
 of him ; but he's a man that not Satan himself 
 could deceive.' 
 
 4 Well, nobody wants to deceive him.' 
 ' Don't you want to marry his friend ? ' 
 ' Enough of that, Lady Fantyre ! I will neither 
 be lectured nor schooled. You agreed to help 
 me, but you agreed, too, to let me succeed in my 
 own way. I tell you, I know how to manage 
 him, and that before this year is out, in spite of 
 Chevasney, Sabretasche, or anybody yes, in spite 
 of himself I shall be Granville de Vigne's 
 wife ! ' 
 
 ' I wish you may, my dear/ said the Fantyre, 
 with another chuckle. 'Well, don't talk to me 
 any more, child. Get Le Brun, will you, and 
 read me to sleep.'
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 121 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A DOUBLED-DOWN PAGE IN THE COLONEL'S BOOK 
 OP LIFE. 
 
 WHAT a pace one lives at through the season ! 
 And, when one is fresh to it, before one knows 
 that its pleasant, frothy, syllabub surface is 
 only a cover to intrigues, petty spites, jea- 
 lousies, partisanships, manoeuvres ; alike in St. 
 Stephen's as at Almack's ; among uncompro- 
 mising patriots as among poor foreigners farm- 
 ing private banks round about St. James's 
 Street; among portly aristocratic mothers, trot- 
 ting out their innocent daughters to the market, 
 as among the gauze-winged, tinselled, hard- 
 worked deities of the coulisses ; how agreeable it 
 is ! Illusion in one's first season lasts, I think,, 
 about the space of one month. With its blissful 
 bandeau over our eyes, we really do admire the 
 belles of the Ring and the Ride ; we go to balls 
 to dance, and to dinners for society. We swallow 
 larks for ortolans, and Cremorne gooseberry for 
 Clicquot's. We believe in the innocent demoiselles,
 
 122 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 who look so naive, and such sweet English rose- 
 buds at morning fetes, and do not dream those 
 glossy braids cover empty, but world-shrewd little 
 heads, ever plotting how to eclipse dearest Cecilia 
 or win old Hauton's coronet ; we accept their 
 mamma's invitations, and think how kindly they 
 are given, not knowing that we are only asked 
 because we bring Shako of the Guards with us, 
 who is our bosom chum, and has fifteen thousand 
 a year, and that, Shako fairly hooked, we, being 
 younger sons, shall be gently dropped. We go 
 to the Lords and Commons, and believe A. when 
 he says he has the deepest admiration for his 
 noble friend B., whom he hates like poison ; and 
 we reverence D. when he pleads for the liberty 
 of 'the people,' whom over his claret he classi- 
 fies as ' beastly snobs.' We regard the coulisses 
 with delight, as a temple whose Eleusinia it is 
 high honour to penetrate, and fall veritably in 
 love with all those fair nymphs fluttering their 
 spirit veils as Willis's, or clanking their spurs as 
 Mazurka maidens. 
 
 That delightful state of faith lasts about a 
 month, then we discard the bandeau, and use 
 an eye-glass instead ; learn to confine ourselves 
 to * Not bad-looking ' before the handsomest 
 woman in the Park; find out that dinners are
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 123 
 
 a gathering 1 to consume hock and turbot, but 
 not by any means bound to furnish society ; pro- 
 nounce balls a bore, and grow critical of Moets. 
 We are careful of the English rosebuds, knowing 
 that, kept out of view, those innocent petals have 
 thorns, which they know well how to thrust out 
 and dexterously impale us on them. We take 
 mamma's invitations at their worth, and watch 
 the dragons' teeth opening for that luckless Shako, 
 with grim terror of a similar fate ; we laugh over 
 rum-punch with a chum of ours, a whip in the 
 Commons, who lets us into a thing or two con- 
 cerning the grandiose jobbery of Downing Street ; 
 and find out that coulisses atmosphere, however 
 agreeable, is no exclusive boon ; that its sesame 
 is a bracelet to the first dancer, who, though she 
 may take a Duke's brougham, is not insensible 
 to even a Cornet's tribute, if it come from Hunt 
 and Roskill, and we give less love and more 
 Cremorne lobster-salad to the Willis and Mazurka 
 maidens ! 
 
 Such, at least, was my case ; and when I was 
 fairly in the saddle and off at a pace, like a 
 Doncaster favourite's, through my first season, 
 enjoyed it considerably, even when the bandeau 
 was off my eyes, which, thanks to De Vigne and 
 Sabretasche, took place very speedily.
 
 124 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OE, 
 
 Of De Vigne I did not see so much as if no 
 Trefusis had been in being, for he was constantly 
 after her, going with her to morning concerts, or 
 Richmond luncheons; riding with her in the 
 Park; lending her a horse, too, for that showy 
 bay of hers had come out of Bruton Mews, and 
 no livery-stable mount is fit for any mortal, much 
 less for a female ; attending her everywhere, but 
 not as yet 'compromising' himself, as, according 
 to the peculiar code of honour in such cases, we 
 may give a girl a bracelet with impunity to our- 
 selves; but are lost if we hazard a diamond 
 circlet for her * third finger ; ' That comes rather 
 hard on those poor women, by the way; for 
 Lovelace may talk, and look, and make love, in 
 every possible style ; yet, if he stop short of the 
 ' essential question,' Lovelace may go scot free ! 
 We remark what a devil of a girl it is to 
 flirt ; and her sworn allies, who have expressed 
 sympathy to her in crossed notes of the fondest 
 pathos, agree among themselves 'How conceited 
 poor Laura is to fancy Lovelace could be serious ! 
 Why, dear, all that means nothing ; only Laura, 
 poor thing! has had so little attention, she 
 doesn't know what it is. If she had had a man 
 mad about her, as you and I have had, love ah ! 
 do you remember poor Frank Cavendish at the
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGXE. 125 
 
 race ball ? ' Whereon the sworn allies scent their 
 vinaigrettes, indulging pleasurable recollections; 
 and Lovelace burns Laura's lock of hair which 
 he asked for, under the limes in the moonlight ; 
 thinks ' How deucedly near I was ! must be more 
 careful next time,' and wonders what sort of girls 
 he shall find at Brighton. 
 
 De Vigne, however, as long as he would not 
 come well up to hand, received no flirting kind- 
 nesses from the Trefusis not even so much as 
 a note to thank him for his concert-tickets, or 
 a flower from the very bouquet he had sent her. 
 Perhaps she knew by clairvoyance, that her Cam- 
 bridge azalea had gone ignominiously into the 
 grate; for she tried on that style no more, but was 
 coy and reserved, as if Hannah More had been 
 her chaperone instead of old Sarah, Lady Fantyre. 
 This worried, excited, and roused De Vigne, and 
 I saw, without needing much penetration, that he 
 was drinking deeper and deeper of a stimulant 
 which he never refused when it was fairly to his 
 lips, and which brings worse follies and wilder 
 deeds, and more resistless madness to men than 
 lie in the worst insanities of del. trem., or the 
 dreams of a thousand grains of opium ! Sabre- 
 tasche and I used to swear at the power of the 
 Trefusis, and lament De Vigne's infatuation toge-
 
 126 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OK, 
 
 ther ; but we could do nothing to weaken either : 
 opposition to a man in love is like oil to fire ! 
 
 Sabretasche was remarkably kind to me ; he 
 introduced me in his set, one of the most intel- 
 lectual in town ; he admitted me to his charming 
 dinners ; and he let me into his studio, the most 
 luxurious miniature art-palace possible, where, 
 when employed on his marble or on his canvas, 
 no one was ever allowed to disturb him. Sabre- 
 tasche knew to perfection the great art, ' How 
 to live,' and he had every facility for enjoying 
 life : riches, refined taste, art, intellect ; men 
 who sought him, women who courted him, a 
 facile wit, a sweet temper; yet, somehow or 
 other, you could trace in him a certain shadow, 
 often dissipated, it is true, in the sunshine of his 
 gay words, and the music of his laugh ; but cer- 
 tain to creep over him again an intangible 
 shade of disappointment. Perhaps he had ex- 
 hausted life too early; perhaps his excessive re- 
 finement was jarred by the very pleasures he 
 sought ; perhaps the classic mould of his mind 
 was not, after all, satisfied with the sedatives he 
 gave it : however, as for speculating on Sabre- 
 tasche, all town pretty well did that, more or less, 
 but nobody in town was ever any the wiser for it. 
 One morning I was going to breakfast with him; his
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 127 
 
 nominal breakfast-hour was noon ; though I be- 
 lieve he often rose very much earlier, took a 
 cup of coffee, and chipped, or read, or painted 
 in his studio. I took my way across the Gar- 
 dens to Sabretasche's house, which was at the 
 upper end of Park Lane, taking that detour for 
 motives of my own. Gwendoline Brandling, 
 Curly 's eldest sister, an exquisite nymph of 
 eighteen, with crepe hair, had confided to me the 
 previous day, over strawberry-ice, at a fete at 
 Twickenham, that she was in the habit of accom- 
 panying her little sisters in their morning walk 
 with their governess, to ' put her in mind of the 
 country,' and the Hon. Gwen being a fresh, 
 honest-hearted, and exceedingly nice-looking girl, 
 I took my way through the Gardens about eleven, 
 looking out for Curly's sister among the pretty 
 nursemaids, ugly children, and abominable ankle- 
 breaking, dress-tearing perambulators which filled 
 the walks. There was no Hon. Gwen at present; 
 and I threw myself down under one of the trees, 
 put my eye-glass in my eye, and took out that 
 day's * Punch ' to while away the time till Gwen 
 and her attendants might come in sight. 
 
 Suddenly a voice fell on my ear, speaking 
 coarsely and jocosely in Italian, * Come, signer, why 
 waste time about it ? You know that your secret
 
 128 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OK, 
 
 is worth more than I ask. You know you would 
 give half your riches to make sure it would never 
 be known by anybody, to efface it altogether eh, 
 excelknza ? Come ! I ask a very low price ; not 
 worth jangling about ; no more to you than a few 
 scudi to me. Why waste time? You know I 
 can bring proofs over in twenty-four hours, and 
 then the show-up ' 
 
 'Take it, and begone with you !' 
 
 Ye gods ! that last voice, cold, contemptuous, 
 full of disgust and wrath, I recognized as Sabre- 
 tasche's ! Involuntarily I turned to look ; and saw 
 the most fastidious and the proudest man in town, 
 in company with a shabbily, showily-dressed fellow, 
 with rings on his fingers and a vulgar, insolent 
 face, which wore at that minute an abominably 
 insulting smile, as the Colonel shoved a roll of 
 bank-notes into his hand, loathing and impatience 
 quivering over his own features. The man laughed 
 a laugh as impudent as his smile : 
 
 * Thank you, signer, a thousand thanks. I won't 
 trouble you again till I'm again in difficulties.' 
 
 Sabretasche gave him no answer, but turning 
 his back upon the man, folded his arms upon his 
 chest, and walked away across the Gardens, with 
 his head bent down, while the fellow counted the 
 notes with glistening, triumphant eyes, crushed
 
 GRAXVILLE DE VIGNK. 129 
 
 them up as if he loved their crisp new rustle, 
 stroked his beard, whistled an air from * Figaro,' 
 and strolled on towards the gate ; leaving me in a 
 state of profound amazement at the vulgar ac- 
 quaintance the Colonel had selected, and the 
 secret, by which this underbred foreigner seemed 
 able to hold in check, so profound a man of the 
 world as Sabretasche. 
 
 Just at that minute, Gwen and her duenna 
 appeared in the distance; and I went to meet 
 them, and talked of Grisi and Mario, of Balfe's 
 new song, and Sims Reeve's last concert, with the 
 hundred topics current in the season, while the 
 little ones ran about, and the French governess 
 chatted and laughed, and Gwen smiled and looked 
 like a sunbeam, and told me about her ponies and 
 dogs and flowers down in Hampshire. Poor Gwen ! 
 She is Madame la Duchesse de La Vieillecour now, 
 not over happy, I fear, despite the diamonds I saw 
 flashing on her brow and neck last night at the 
 Tuileries. In the gorgeous glories of her Champs 
 Elysees hotel, in the light beauty of her summer 
 villa at Enghien, in the gloomy state and magni- 
 ficence of her chateau in the Cote d'Or, whose mas- 
 sive iron gates close like a death-knell, does she ever 
 think, I wonder, of those spring mornings in the 
 Gardens when she was in her spring-time too ? 
 
 VOL. i. K
 
 130 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 It was just twelve when I reached the Colonel's 
 house. I was shown straight to his own room; 
 and there he lay on one of the couches, calm, cool, 
 imperturbable as ever, not a trace visible of his 
 past excitement and irritation, very unlike a man 
 with a secret hanging over his head and darkening 
 his life ! He stretched out his hand with a kind 
 smile : 
 
 ' Well, Arthur. Good morning to you. You 
 are just in time for the match ; Du Loo has not 
 been here five minutes.' 
 
 Du Loo was a heavy, good-humoured, stupid 
 fellow in the Blues, who prided himself on his fine 
 teeth and his boxing, and who was going, at half- 
 past twelve, to have a little play with Fighting 
 Chatney, one of the Fancy, who let himself out to 
 beat gentlemen, in order that gentlemen might 
 learn to beat. 
 
 On the carpet at Sabretasche's feet lay a great 
 retriever, the one thing in the whole world for which 
 he cared, chiefly, I believe, because, when a stray 
 pup, it had trusted itself to his kindness. 
 
 ' Poor old Cid ! ' said he, pausing in his break- 
 fast to set the dog down some larded guinea-fowl. 
 * I spoil him for sport, you say ? Perhaps ; but I 
 don't want him for sport, and I make his life 
 comfortable. I see in him one thing in this Via
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 131 
 
 Dolorosa; that is perfectly content and happy; and 
 it is a treat to see it. Cid and I are fast friends ; 
 and we love one another, don't we, old boy ? ' 
 
 The Cid looked up at him with two honest, 
 tender brown eyes, and wagged his tail : Sabre- 
 tasche had talked to him till, I believe, the dog 
 understood him, quite as well as I did. 
 
 * There are lots of women, Colonel,' said Du 
 Loo, ' who'd bid high for the words you throw 
 away on that dog ! ' 
 
 ' Possibly. But are any of them as faithful, and 
 honest, and worthy, as my Cid? The Cid would 
 like broken bones and a barn with me, as well as 
 French cookery and velvet cushions. I'm sorry I 
 couldn't say as much for my fair ladies, Du Loo.' 
 
 ' The devil ! no,' yawned the Guardsman. 'Catch 
 a woman giving up her opera-box, and her mil- 
 liner. Why, the other night I saw Nelly Lac- 
 quers, the British Beggars' Bank man's wife, got 
 up no end at the Silverton drum, laughing and 
 talking, waltzing, and carrying pearls worth two 
 thousand ; and, by George ! if there isn't a war- 
 rant out against her husband this morning for 
 swindling ! Mustn't she be a horrid, heartless, 
 little bit of flippery ? ' 
 
 ' It doesn't follow/ said Sabretasche. ' Most 
 likely he sent her there to disarm suspicion, while 
 
 K2
 
 132 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 he shipped off his specie to France or America, and 
 got his passport to Calais. I never judge people ; 
 seemingly bad actions may have good motives, 
 good ones may spring from base and selfish ends. 
 " Judge not, lest ye be judged." When will the 
 world take that gentle injunction to heart ? Never ! 
 It loves to quote " An eye for an eye," and " Depart 
 from me, ye accursed ; " but it is oblivious of the 
 " Mote and the beam," and of " He that is without 
 sin among you, let him cast a stone at her ! " If 
 a man break his own leg, he thinks it a " sad ac- 
 cident," a " great affliction ; " if he see his friend 
 break his, he has no hesitation in pronouncing it 
 " a judgment." ' 
 
 Du Loo stared at him. 
 
 ' What the deuce, Colonel ! you turning ser- 
 monizer ? ' 
 
 * No, my dear fellow, I have enough conscience 
 left not to preach before practising ; though truly 
 if that were the rule in the land, few pulpits would 
 be filled ! But I have one virtue tolerance; there- 
 fore I may preach that. There is your friend, 
 Fighting Chatney. Now for your seventh heaven, 
 Du Loo!' 
 
 ' And yours too ? ' 
 
 ' Mine? No ! there is a degree of absurdity in two 
 mortals setting solemnly to work to pommel one
 
 GRANTILLE DE VIGXE. 133 
 
 another; there is something unpoetic, and coarse, 
 and savage, about blood and bruises; and, besides, 
 it is so much exertion ! However, go at it ; it 
 is for Arthur's delectation, and I can go into my 
 studio if I'm tired.' 
 
 Du Loo and his pet of the Fancy retired to the 
 far end of the room, and there set-to, delivering 
 from the left shoulder, and drinking as much beer 
 between their rounds as a couple of draymen. As 
 the match had been arranged for my express plea- 
 sure, of course I watched it with the deepest in- 
 terest, though Sabretasche's remarks for once gave 
 the noble art a certain degree of ludicrousness, min- 
 gled with the admiration with which I had been 
 accustomed to regard such ' little mills.' Du Loo 
 finally floored the bruiser, to his own extreme 
 glorification, while the Pet very generously growled 
 out to him that he might be as great a man as the 
 Tipton Slasher, if he would but train himself pro- 
 perly. Du Loo left, and Sabretasche asked me to 
 stay ten minutes, to let him finish a picture which 
 he had been amusing himself by taking of me, in 
 crayons ; a portrait, by the way, which is a far 
 better one than any I have ever had done by R.A.s, 
 and which my mother still cherishes devotedly at 
 Longholme. 
 
 * What a strange fellow Du Loo is,' said the
 
 134 "HELD IN BOKDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 Colonel, * or, rather, what a common one ! The 
 man's greatest delight is a Moulsey mill, and his 
 ambitions are locked up in the brutalities of the 
 Ring. Of any higher world he is utterly ignorant. 
 Talk to him of art and genius, you might as well 
 discourse to him in Hebrew ! Take him out under 
 the summer stars, he would look bored, yawn, and 
 ask for his cigar. Positively, Arthur, he makes 
 one feel one's link to the animals mortifying close. 
 In truth, the distance between the zoophytes and 
 man, is not wider than the gulf between a Goethe 
 and a prize-fighter, is it ? It is proportion of brain 
 which makes the master superior to his dog; 
 should it not make as distinct a mark, between 
 the clod of the valley, and the cultured scholar ? 
 But why am I talking all this nonsense to 
 you? You have more amusing occupation than 
 to listen to my fancies. Turn a little nearer 
 the light. That is it ! Have you seen De Vigne 
 to-day ? ' 
 
 ' No ; he was gone to Albert Smith's with the 
 Trefusis and Fantyre, confound them ! Do you 
 think she will win, Colonel ? ' 
 
 * My dear boy, how can I tell. I think she 
 will if she can. " Donne gentile devote d'amore " 
 generally manage to marry a man if they have full 
 play with him. If De Vigne only saw her in
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGXE. 135 
 
 morning calls, when his head was cool, and others 
 were with him, possibly he might keep out of it ; 
 but she waltzes with him she waltzes remarkably 
 well, too she shoots Parthian glances at him in 
 the tete-a-tete of conservatories, after the mess 
 champagne ; moreover, ten to one, in some of 
 those soft moments, he will say more than, being 
 a man of honour, he can unsay.' 
 
 * And be cursed for life ! ' 
 
 ' Possibly. Love does that for a good many, 
 and in the fantasy of early passion many men 
 have surrendered their entire lives to one who 
 has made them a blank ! Troublesome eyes 
 yours are, Arthur ; I can't make out their colour. 
 What present will you give Mrs. de Vigne on her 
 wedding-day ? ' 
 
 ' Confound her, none ! ' I shouted. * He's a 
 vast deal too good for fifty such as she a cold, 
 calculating, ambitious, loveless intriguer ' 
 
 ' One would think you were in love with her 
 yourself, Chevasney ! Let me catch that terri- 
 fic expression, it would do for a Jupiter To- 
 nans.' 
 
 ' And she is so wretchedly clever ! ' I groaned. 
 
 ' In artifice ! yes ; by education ! no. Her 
 knowledge is utterly superficial. I cannot ima- 
 gine where she has lived. She speaks shockingly
 
 136 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 un grammatical French, with a most atrocious 
 English accent;' she neither plays nor sings. Yet 
 she waltzes, rides, and dresses splendidly, and has 
 a shrewd, sharp sarcasm, which passes muster as 
 wit among her admirers. In fact, she is a para- 
 dox ; and I shall regret nothing more, than to see 
 De Vigne misled through his senses by her mag- 
 nificent beauty, stooping to tie himself for life 
 to a woman with whom he will have nothing in 
 common, who will have neither feeling to satisfy 
 his heart, nor mind to satisfy his intellect, and 
 with whom I would bet great odds a week after 
 the honeymoon he will be disgusted.' 
 
 ' Can't you persuade him ? ' I began. He 
 stopped me with an expressve gesture ; he had 
 much of the Italian gesticulation. 
 
 * Persuade ? Son garqon I if you want to 
 force a man into any marriage, persuade him 
 against it ! No one should touch love affairs. 
 Third persons are certain to barbotter the whole 
 thing. The more undesirable the connection, and 
 the more you interfere, the more surely will the 
 " subject " grow obstinate as a mule under your 
 treatment. Call a person names to anybody over 
 whom she has cast a glamour, and if he have any- 
 thing of the gentleman, or the lover, in him, out of 
 sheer amour propre, and a sort of wrong-headed,
 
 GRAXVILLE DE VIGXE. 137 
 
 right-hearted chivalry, he will swear to you she is 
 an angel/ 
 
 * And believe it, perhaps.' 
 
 * Most likely, until she is his wife ! There is a 
 peculiar magic in that gold circlet, badge of servi- 
 tude for life, which changes the sweetest, gentlest, 
 tenderest betrothed into the stiffest of domestic 
 tyrants. Don't you know that, when she's en- 
 gaged to him, she is so pretty and pleasant with 
 his men friends, passes over the naughty stories 
 she hears of him from " well-intentioned " ad- 
 visers, and pats the new mare that is to be 
 entered for the Chester Cup ? But twelve months 
 after, his chums have the cold shoulder and the 
 worst wine ; and she gives him fifty curtain ora- 
 tions on his disgraceful conduct, while he wonders 
 if the peevish woman who comes down an hou r 
 too late for breakfast, can by any possibility be 
 identical with the smiling young lady who poured 
 his coffee out for him, with such dainty fingers, 
 and pleasant words, when he stayed down at her 
 papa's for the shooting.' 
 
 I laughed. ' Don't ever get married yourself, 
 Colonel, for the sake of Heaven, women, and con- 
 sistency ! ' 
 
 He smiled, too, as he answered : 
 
 ' " A young man married is a man that's
 
 138 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 marred." ' That's a golden rule, Arthur ; take it 
 to heart. Anne Hathaway, I have not a doubt, 
 suggested it ; experience is the sole abestos, 
 only unluckily one seldom gets it before one's 
 hands are burnt irrevocably. Shakspeare took to 
 wife the ignorant, rosy-cheeked, Warwickshire 
 peasant girl, at eighteen ! Poor fellow ! I picture 
 him, with all his untried powers, struggling like 
 new-born Hercules for strength and utterance, 
 and the great germ of poetry within him, ting- 
 ing all the common realities of life with its rose 
 hue ; genius giving him power to see with God- 
 like vision, the " fairies nestling in the cowslip 
 chalices," and the golden gleam of Cleopatra's sails ; 
 to feel the " spiced Indian air " by night, and the 
 wild working of kings' ambitious lust ; to know 
 by intuition, alike the voices of nature unheard 
 by common ears, and the fierce schemes and 
 passions of a world from which social position 
 shut him out ! t picture him in his hot imagi- 
 native youth, finding his first love in the yeoman's 
 daughter at Shottery, strolling with her by the 
 Avon, making her an " odorous chaplet of sweet 
 summer buds," and dressing her up in the fond 
 array of a boy's poetic imaginings ! Then when 
 he had married her, he, with the passionate ideals 
 of Juliets and Violas, Ophelias and Hermiones
 
 GRANYILLE DE VIGXE. 139 
 
 in his brain and heart, must have awoke to find 
 that the voices so sweet to him, were dumb to her. 
 The " cinque spotted cowslip-bells " brought only 
 thoughts of wine to her. When he was watching 
 "certain stars shoot madly from their spheres," 
 she most likely was grumbling at him for moon- 
 ing there after curfew-bell. When he was learning 
 Nature's lore in " the fresh cup of the crimson 
 rose," she was dinning in his ear that Hammet 
 and Judith wanted worsted socks. When he was 
 listening in fancy to the " sea-maid's song," and 
 weaving thoughts to which a world still stands re- 
 verentially to listen, she was buzzing behind him, 
 and bidding him go card the wool, and weeping 
 that, in her girlhood, she had not chosen some 
 rich glover or ale-taster, instead of idle, useless, 
 wayward Willie Shakspeare ! Poor fellow ! I can 
 picture him in his vehement youth and his re- 
 gretful manhood. He did not write, I would 
 swear, without fellow-feeling, and yearning, over 
 souls similarly shipwrecked, that wise saw "A 
 young man married, is a man that's marred ! " My 
 dear Arthur, I beg your pardon! I am keeping 
 you a most unconscionable time, but really your 
 eyes are very troublesome. I say, some men are 
 coming here for lansquenet to-night, will you 
 come too? and do bring De Vigne if you can.
 
 140 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OK, 
 
 One sees nothing of him now, and there are few 
 so well worth seeing. Au revoir, mon cher. I 
 have an immense deal of work before me. I am 
 going to the Yard to bid for Steel Patterson's 
 cream filly; then to the Twelfth's mess luncheon; 
 next I have an appointment to meet the Go- 
 dolphin all town's talking of that fair lady, so I 
 reveal no secret ; and apr&s, I must dress to dine 
 in Eaton Square, and I much question if any of 
 them are worth the exertion they will cost me, 
 except, indeed, the cream filly ! ' 
 
 Wherewith the Colonel dismissed me. As I 
 saw him that night when De Vigne and I went 
 there for the promised lansquenet, courteous, ur- 
 bane, gay, nonchalant, witty, I saw no trace of any 
 mysterious secret, nor any lingering touch of the 
 haughty anger and impatient disgust which he had 
 shown to his singular companion of the morn- 
 ing. But then no more did I see, what all the 
 world said they saw, that Vivian Sabretasche was 
 a heartless libertine, an unprincipled gambler, 
 an egotist, a sceptic, a sinner of the deepest dye, 
 to be condemned immeasurably in boudoir scan- 
 dals and bishops' dinners, and only to be courted, 
 and visited, and have his crimes passed over, be- 
 cause he was rich, and was the fashion.
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 141 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE LITTLE QUEEN OP THE FAIRIES. 
 
 ' ARTHUR, who do you think has gone to the dogs 
 through that rascally British Beggars' Bank ? ' 
 said De Vigne one afternoon, unharnessing himself 
 after one of the greatest bores in life a field-day 
 in Hyde Park and talking from his bedroom to 
 me, as I sat drinking sherry and seltzer, before 
 going into my rooms in the barracks. 
 
 ' How should I know, out of half-a-million ! ' 
 * Do you remember old Tressillian, of Weive 
 Hurst?' 
 
 1 Of course. The devil ; you don't mean him ?' 
 ' I am sorry to say I do ; he has lost every 
 penny. To think of that scoundrel, Sir John 
 Lacquers, flinging Bible texts at your head, 
 thrusting his charities into your face, going to 
 church every Sunday as regularly as a verger, and 
 to morning prayers on a week-day, building his 
 almshouses, and attending his ragged schools ! And 
 now he's cut off to Boulogne, with a neat siirplus,
 
 142 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 I'll be bound, hidden up somewhere ; and widows, 
 and children, and ruined gentlemen will reap the 
 harvest he has sown. Bah ! it makes one sick of 
 humanity ! ' 
 
 ' And is Tressillian one of his victims ? ' 
 
 * I believe you ! I saw his name on the list 
 some days ago, and on Monday I met him with 
 the child that used to be at Weive Hurst- 
 daughter ; no, grand-daughter wasn't she ? ' 
 
 ' Little Alma. Yes. We used to say she'd be 
 a pretty woman. Well, go on ? ' 
 
 * I was very pleased to see him. You know I 
 always liked him exceedingly. I asked him where 
 he was living : he said, with a smile, " In lodgings, 
 in Surrey Street ; you know I can't afford 
 Maurigy's now : " and I called on him there yes- 
 terday : such a detestable lodging-house, Arthur ! 
 Brummagem furniture and Irish maids ! He is 
 just the same simple, courtly old man as ever. 
 I'm not a susceptible fellow; but, I give you 
 my honour, it cut me to the heart to see that 
 gallant old gentleman beggared through that 
 psalm-singing, pharisaical swindler; and bearing 
 his reverses like the plucky French noblesse that 
 my father used to shelter at Vigne after the '89.' 
 
 * And has he nothing now ? ' 
 
 ' Nothing. His entire principal was placed in
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIQNE. 143 
 
 Lacquers's bands; Weive Hurst is gone to pay 
 his creditors, and one can do nothing to aid him : 
 he is so deucedly no ! so rightly proud. Come 
 with me to-day and see him ; we shall drive there 
 in ten minutes, and we must be doubly attentive 
 to him now. There will be just time between this 
 and mess, if you ring, and tell them to bring the 
 tilbury round.' 
 
 The tilbury soon came round, and the new steel 
 greys, tandem, set us down in Surrey Street. 
 
 One of the Irish maids who had so excited De 
 Vigne's disgust showed us up-stairs. Tressillian 
 was not at home, but was expected in every 
 minute ; and we sat down to wait for him. Through 
 the windows, on those dismal leads which admit to 
 the denizens of Surrey Street a view of the murky 
 Thames and steam transports of the Cockneys, the 
 little girl was standing, who, as soon as she caught 
 sight of De Vigne, ran into the room and wel- 
 comed him with exceeding warmth and an accession 
 of colour that might have flattered him much had 
 she been a few years older. 
 
 She was about nine or ten, an awkward and 
 angular age ; but she had neither angles nor 
 awkwardness, and was as pretty as they ever are 
 in their growing time, with hair of glistening gold, 
 bright in shade as in sunshine, and deep blue eyes,
 
 144 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OE, 
 
 brilliant and dark under her black silken lashes, 
 which promised, in due time, to do a good deal of 
 damage. In her little dainty Paris-mode dress 
 of soft white muslin and floating azure ribbons, the 
 child looked ill-fitted for the gloomy atmosphere 
 of Surrey Street. Poor little thing ! a few weeks 
 before she had been the heiress of Weive Hurst, 
 now, thanks to that goodly creature Sir John 
 Lacquers, her future promised to be a struggle 
 almost for daily bread. 
 
 'I am glad you are come!' she exclaimed, 
 running up to De Vigne. ' Grandpapa will be 
 pleased to see you, and you will do him good. 
 When he is alone he grows so sad, and I can do 
 nothing to help him. I am no companion for him, 
 and if I try to amuse him if I sing to him, or 
 talk, or draw I think it only makes him worse : 
 he remembers Weive Hurst still more ! ' 
 
 * Do you not miss Weive Hurst, Alma?' asked 
 De Vigne. 
 
 The child's eyes filled with tears, and the blood 
 rushed over her face. 
 
 ' Miss Weive Hurst ! Oh, you do not guess 
 how much, or you would not ask me ! My 
 beautiful, darling home, with its trees, and its 
 flowers, and its sunshine ! Miss Weive Hurst ! 
 In this cold, dark, smoky place, where I never see
 
 ORANVILLE DE VIGNE. 145 
 
 the sun, or hear the birds, or. feel the summer 
 wind ! ' 
 
 And the little lady stopped in her vehement 
 oration, and sobbed as if her heart would break. 
 
 ' What an excitable little thing ! ' said De 
 Vigne, raising his eyebrows ; then he bent gently 
 towards her, as courteously as if she had been 
 a Duchess. 'I beg your pardon, Alma; I am 
 sorry if I have vexed you. I could not know 
 how much you loved your home ; and, perhaps 
 who knows ? you will go back to it again some 
 day.' 
 
 She raised her head eagerly. 
 
 Ah ! if I could hope that ! ' 
 
 ' Well, we will hope it ! ' smiled De Vigne. 
 
 * Some of those flowers which love you so much, 
 will tell the fairies that sleep in their buds, to 
 come and fetch you back, because they want to see 
 their little Queen.' 
 
 She looked at him half in surprise. 
 
 * Ah ! you believe in fairies, then ? I love you 
 for that.' 
 
 ' Thank you. Do you, then ? ' 
 
 ' Of course,' said Alma, with the reproving tone 
 of a believer in sacred creed, to a heathenish sceptic. 
 
 * Shakspeare did, you know. He writes of Ariel 
 and Puck, Peas-blossom and Cobweb, who " pluck 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 the wings from painted butterflies," and " kill 
 cankers in the musk rose-buds." Milton, too, 
 believed in Fairy Mab, and the Goblin, whose 
 "shadowy flail had threshed the corn that ten 
 day-labourers could not end." Flowers would not 
 be half flowers to me without their fairies, and ? 
 besides !' continued Alma, with the decision of a 
 person who clinches an argument, 'I have seen 
 them, too ! ' 
 
 ' Indeed ! But so have I.' 
 
 * Where ? ' asked Alma, breathless as a dilet- 
 tante to whom one breathes tidings of a lost 
 Correggio. 
 
 * There ! ' said De Vigne, lifting her up in his 
 iron grasp before the high mirror on the mantel- 
 piece. 
 
 She laughed, but turned upon him with injured 
 indignation. 
 
 ' What a shame ! You do not believe in them 
 not the least more than grandpapa. I will not 
 love you now no, never again ! ' 
 
 ' My dear child,' laughed De Vigne, ' even your 
 sex don't love and unlove, quite in such a hurry. 
 Don't you care for your grandpapa, then, because 
 he has never seen fairies ? ' 
 
 'Care for grandpapa! Oh, yes!' she cried 
 passionately, * as much as I hate hate / those
 
 ORANV1LLE DE VIGNE. 147 
 
 cruel men who have robbed him of his money. 
 I would try not to care for Weive Hurst if he 
 were happy, but he will never be happy with- 
 out it any more than I.' 
 
 * Do you remember me, Alma ? " I asked, to 
 change her thoughts. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 ' Do you remember him ? ' 
 
 She looked very tenderly and admiringly on 
 De Vigne. 
 
 4 Oh yes ! When I read " Sintram," I thought 
 of him as Sir Folko.' 
 
 De Vigne laughed. 
 
 * You bit of a child, what do you understand of 
 Sintram?'" 
 
 * I understand Sir Folko, and I wish I had been 
 Gertrude.' 
 
 ' Then you wish you had been my wife, made- 
 moiselle ? ' 
 
 Alma considered gravely for a moment, looking 
 steadily in De Vigne's face. 
 
 ' Yes ; I think I should like to have you to 
 take care of me, as he took care of Gertrude.' 
 
 We went off into shouts of laughter, which 
 Alma could not understand. She could not see 
 that she had said anything laughable. 
 
 ' I thought you were never going to love me 
 
 L2
 
 148 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 again, Alma ? A wife ought to love her husband,' 
 said De Vigne. 
 
 Alma made a moue mutine and turned away, 
 her blue ribbons and her gold hair fluttering 
 impatient defiance. Just then her grandfather 
 came in, the stately, old master of Weive 
 Hurst. 
 
 ' How do you do ? ' cried De Vigne. ' I am 
 having an offer made me, Mr. Tressillian, though 
 it is not leap year. I hope you will give your 
 consent ? ' 
 
 ' I will never marry anybody who does not 
 believe in fairies ! ' interrupted Alma, running back 
 again to her leads. 
 
 ' If she make a like proposal five or six years 
 hence to any man, she'll hardly have it neglected,' 
 said I, when Tressillian had recalled who I was, 
 and shaken hands with me. 
 
 Tressillian smiled sadly. ' Her love will be a 
 curse to her, poor child, for she will love too well ; 
 as for her being neglected, she will not have the 
 gilding necessary to make youth protected, beauty 
 appreciated, or talent go down, if she should chance 
 to have the two latter as she grows older.' 
 
 ' Which she is pretty sure to have, unless she 
 alters dreadfully.' 
 
 Boughton Tressillian sighed. ' Yes, she is
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 149 
 
 pretty enough, and she is clever. I believe she 
 already knows much more than young ladies 
 who have just " finished." She would learn even 
 better still if she were not so wildly imagina- 
 tive. Poverina! she is ill-fitted to grapple with 
 the world. Whether I spend my few years 
 between four bare walls or not, matters little; 
 but hers Well, De Vigne, what news to- 
 day. Is the Ministry going to keep in or 
 not?' 
 
 De Vigne stayed some half-hour chatting with 
 him, telling him all the amusing on dits of the Clubs, 
 and all the fresh political tittle-tattle of the morn- 
 ing, while Tressillian, after that single expression 
 of regret for Alma, alluded no more to his own 
 affairs, and discussed current topics with the intel- 
 ligence and interest of a man of intellect ; enter- 
 taining us with the same cheerful ease as he had 
 done at Weive Hurst, meeting his reverses with 
 a philosophy of the highest, yet of the simplest, 
 order. De Vigne was more courtly, more delicate, 
 more respectful to the ruined gentleman, than he 
 was to many a leader of high ton, for, haughty 
 and imperious on occasion as he was, there was 
 a touch of true chivalry in his character. Go 
 down in the world, De Vigne stretched out his 
 hand to you, be you what you might ; rise high,
 
 150 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OK, 
 
 and he cut you, or snubbed you, as he might see 
 fit. De Vigne was not like the world, mes- 
 sieurs ! 
 
 ' How I should enjoy straightening my left 
 arm for the benefit of that cursed hypocrite of 
 the British Beggars Bank,' began De Vigne, 
 tooling the tilbury back again through the Strand ; 
 and, so far forgetting himself in his irritation as to 
 venture to use the whip to his wheeler, who re- 
 venged the insult by a pas d'extase, which pro- 
 duced frightful commotion among the omnibusses, 
 whose conductors swore in inelegant language at 
 * the confounded break-neck nob ! ' ' The morality 
 of the age is too ridiculous ! For the banker's 
 clerk, who, with a sick wife and starving children, 
 yields to one of the fiercest temptations that can 
 beset a man, and takes one drop out of the sea of 
 gold around him, it thinks penal servitude too 
 kind a boon ! To the Banker himself, who has 
 reduced forty thousand people to want, the world 
 is lenient, .because he stuck his name on mis- 
 sionary lists, and came to public meetings with 
 the Bible on his lips : and, after a little time has 
 slipped away, men will see him installed in a 
 Roman palace, or a Paris hotel, and will flock to 
 his soirees by the dozens ! ' 
 
 ' Of course ; don't you think that if Mephis-
 
 ORANVILLE DE VIGNE. 151 
 
 topheles set up here in Belgravia, and gave the 
 best dinners in London ; he would get us all 
 to dine with him ? ' 
 
 * To be sure. Men measure you by what you 
 give them. If you're a poor devil with only small 
 beer in your cellar you are ostracized, though you 
 be the best and wisest man in Athens ; if you've 
 good claret, they will come and drink it with 
 you, and only discuss your sins behind your back ; 
 and if by any chance you have pipefuls of 
 Johannisberg and Tokay, you will have all the 
 cardinal virtues voted to you, without your giving 
 testimony to your even recognizing the cardinal 
 virtues at all ! Hallo ! gently, gently, Psyche ! 
 what a hard mouth she has. Confound her ! she 
 will set Cupid off again, and I shall figure in the 
 police reports as taken up for furious driving. I 
 say, what can Tressillian do ? ' 
 
 'Do?' 
 
 ' Yes. What can he do that I can find him ? 
 he is a gentleman and a scholar, but his age shuts 
 him out from any post such as he could ever 
 accept. He has no money -he must do some- 
 thing. I shall talk to Sabretasche; he has no 
 end of interest everywhere if he would only exert 
 it. I think he would if I asked him, so that we 
 might get some pleasant gentlemanlike sinecure
 
 152 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 for the old man, where he would not have much 
 to remind him painfully of his reverses. I'll see ! 
 By the way, Chevasney, you'll try and get leave 
 to come down with me for the 1st. It's a horrid 
 bore, but I can't get mine till then. I wanted 
 it a month earlier/ 
 
 'To go to Brighton?' I knew the last 
 week in July would see the Fantyre and Tre- 
 fusis transplanted from Bruton Street to Kemp 
 Town. 
 
 He laughed. ' Well, Brighton's very pleasant 
 in its season, and town is utterly detestable in 
 August, when everybody not tied by the leg as 
 we are is yachting in the Levant, or fishing in 
 Norway, or bagging black game, or doing some- 
 thing worth doing. However, we must make up 
 for it among the turnips and stubble ; I think 
 my preserves are the best in the county. You 
 must come down, Arthur I can't do without 
 you, it's a crying cruelty to coop military men 
 up in the shooting season ; besides, you are a 
 great pet of my mother's.' 
 
 * Doesn't she ever come to town ! ' 
 
 ' Oh, yes ; but her health is delicate. She has 
 no daughters to bring out, and I think she prefers 
 the country in the spring and summer. Here one 
 loses Summer altogether. We don't know such a
 
 GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 153 
 
 word; it is merged into the Season, and the 
 flowers grow on ladies' bonnets instead of meadow 
 lands. Well ! I like it best. I prefer society to 
 solitude. St. Simon Stylites had very fine medi- 
 tations, I dare say, and a magnificent bird's-eye 
 view of the country ; but I must say Rabela- 
 sian Philosophies would seem more like life to 
 me, and I fancy I see more of human nature in 
 the Pre Catalan than the Prairies.' 
 
 ' Yet you go mad after nature sometimes, you 
 oddfellow?' 
 
 ' Of course. There is a grandeur about the 
 wide stretch of sea in a sunny dawn, or the sweep 
 of hills and birch woods on a Highland moor, 
 beside which the fret and flippery of human life 
 are miserably insignificant. No man, who has 
 any manhood in him at all, but feels the better 
 for the fresh rush of a mountain wind. But for 
 all that, I am neither poet nor philosopher enough, 
 to live with nature always, and forswear the 
 coarser elements of life; lansquenet, racing, Co- 
 ralies, champagne, and all one's other habitual 
 agrements. Hang it, Arthur, why do you set 
 me defining ; can't you let me enjoy ? Ten years 
 hence I will theorize on life as much as you 
 please, just now I prefer taking it as it comes. 
 There ! we did the distance in no time. Re-
 
 154 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 mind me to speak to the messmen about that 
 would-be '15 port. It is the most daring sloes- 
 and-damsons that was ever palmed off on any- 
 body. Thank Heaven, nobody can deceive me 
 in wine.' 
 
 ' Nor in anything else ? ' 
 
 ' I hope not. If they can, I have not knocked 
 about the world to much purpose, eh ? ' 
 
 If De Vigne set his mind on doing anything, 
 whether it was taking a cropper, or winning a 
 woman, hooking a salmon, or canvassing a county, 
 he never rested till it was done ; therefore, having 
 taken Boughton Tressillian's cause steadily to 
 heart, he set all the levers going which were 
 available, to find something suitable to the old 
 man's broken fortunes and refined tastes. He 
 never let Sabretasche alone till the Colonel, 
 who knew everybody, used his interest too, a 
 thing he detested doing, because, as he said, it 
 ' gives you so much trouble, and lays you under 
 Obligation ; a debt nobody ever allows you to 
 forget that you owe them.' To please De Vigne, 
 however, he exerted himself; and between them 
 they procured a consulate for Tressillian, at a 
 large pleasant town on the Mediterranean shore, 
 which had of late years become almost an English 
 settlement, ' whose climate was exquisite, scenery
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 155 
 
 perfect, combined with admirable English and 
 Italian society,' according to the elegant language 
 of the guide-books, who told no lies about it for a 
 wonder. 
 
 Anybody who wanted to see the side of De 
 Vigne's character that made those who really 
 knew him love him with the love of Jonathan for 
 David, should have seen him offering his consul- 
 ship to Tressillian, with the most delicate tact and 
 feeling, so that the ruined gentleman could feel 
 no obligation which could touch his pride, and 
 could receive it only as a thoughtful forestalling 
 of his wishes. That Tressillian felt it deeply I 
 could see, but De Vigne refused all thanks, and 
 the old man felt the kindness all the deeper 
 for his disclaimer of it. * You are a noble fellow,' 
 he said heartily; 'you will find your reward some 
 day.' 
 
 * My dear sir,' laughed De Vigne when he 
 felt things at all he generally turned them off in a 
 jest * I get many more rewards than I deserve, I 
 fancy ; my life's all prizes and no blanks, except, 
 now and then, the blank of satiety. I am not one 
 of those who "do good and blush to find it known;" 
 for the simple reason that I never do any good 
 at all, and have not blushed since I was seven, 
 and fell in love with my mother's lady's-maid, a
 
 156 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 most divine Frenchwoman, with gold ear-rings, 
 who eventually took up with the butler bad 
 taste, after me, was it not? You won't desert 
 me for anybody I hope, Alma? You will see 
 sublime Italians at Lorave ? ' 
 
 ' They will not be as handsome as you are, Sir 
 Folko,' responded Alma Tressillian, with frank 
 admiration. 
 
 ' Thank you, cher enfant; you will teach me to 
 blush if you flatter me so much. Will you take 
 me in, Alma, if I and my yacht call upon you 
 any time ? ' 
 
 * Oh, do ! do ! ' cried Alma, vehemently, ' and 
 sail me on the sea, and I will show you the mer- 
 maids under the waves, with their necklets of sea- 
 shells, and their fans of pink weed ! You will see 
 them, indeed you will, if you will only believe in 
 them ! ' 
 
 'Most apt illustration of faith,' laughed De 
 Vigne. 'People see tables turn, and violins 
 dance with broomsticks, and hear Shakspeare 
 talk through a loo-table, by sheer force of be- 
 lieving in them ! When will that child ever 
 learn to come down to the coarse realities of 
 actual every day existence ? ' 
 
 ' No,' said Tressillian, ' I am afraid I have 
 hardly taken the best way of educating her for
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 157 
 
 the real world. She should have gone to school, 
 to learn the sober practicalities, and wise inanities 
 of English schoolgirls. Her solitary life, with 
 books and flowers, has encouraged the enthu- 
 siasm, and imagination, which come, I suppose, 
 with her foreign blood; but then, I always 
 thought she would be raised above heeding, or 
 considering, the world ! much more above ever 
 working in it ! ' 
 
 A few days afterwards, Tressillian, with his 
 grand-daughter and an English governess he had 
 engaged for her, set off for Lorave. De Vigne 
 and I saw them at the South-Eastern station, 
 and little Alma cried as bitterly at parting with 
 him as any of the women who loved him could 
 have done ; only the tears were not got up for 
 effect, and washed off no rouge, like most of 
 theirs ! De Vigne consoled her with the pro- 
 mise of a yachting trip to Lorave, and came away 
 from the station to drive the Trefusis down to 
 dinner at the Star and Garter, where he was 
 going to give an entertainment of unusual ex- 
 travagance and splendour even for that dashing 
 hotel, of which the Trefusis was undisputed Queen, 
 and looked it too, drinking Badminton with 
 much the same air as Juno must have worn 
 drinking Ambrosia, and outshining all the women
 
 158 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 in beauty, and figure, and toilette: for which 
 the women of course hated her, and respected 
 her in one breath: for, cordially as a lady de- 
 tests a handsome sister, it is notable that she 
 no less despises an ill-dressed or ugly one. To 
 be handsome a woman thinks an unpardonable 
 crime in her rival; but to be plain is a most 
 contemptible faux pas ! 
 
 I can remember De Vigne now, sitting at the 
 head of the table, that bright June evening, at 
 Richmond. How happy he looked! his fore- 
 head slightly flushed with pleasure and triumph, 
 his eyes flashing fire, or beaming softness and 
 tenderness, on the Trefusis, his musical voice 
 ringing out with a careless, happy harmony. Dear 
 old fellow! Life's best gifts seemed to lurk for 
 him in that goblet of Claret Cup, which he lifted 
 to his lips, with a fond pledge (by the eyes) to 
 the woman he loved. Yet, if he had known 
 his future, he would have filled the glass with 
 hemlock rather than have coupled the Bodmin- 
 ton with her name ! Ah, well, mes freres ! he is 
 not the only man for whom, the name that rang 
 so sweetly, breathed in the toast of love, has 
 chimed a bitter death-knell through all his after- 
 life! 
 
 The Trefusis did her best to lure him into
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGXE. 159 
 
 ' definite action ' that night, as he sat by her at 
 dinner ; and leaned out of the window afterwards 
 beside her ; the delicate perfume of her hair 
 mingling with the fragrance of roses and helio- 
 tropes from the garden below, the low jug-jug 
 of the nightingale joining with their own low 
 voices, and the summer starlight gleaming on both 
 their faces his, impassioned, eager, earnest; hers, 
 fair indeed, but fair with the beauty of the rock- 
 crystal, which will melt neither for wintry frost 
 nor tropic sunshine. She did her best ; and the 
 hour and the scene alike favoured her. She bent 
 forward, she looked up in his face, and the moon's 
 rays gave to her eyes a liquid sweetness never 
 their own : De Vigne began to lose control over 
 himself; the passion within him took the reins; 
 he who all his life through had denied himself 
 nothing ; neither knew nor cared how to check 
 it. He bent towards the Trefusis, his fiery pulses 
 beating loud ; while his moustaches touched her 
 low, smooth brow : Heaven knows what he might 
 have said, but I went up to them, ruthlessly: 
 
 * De Vigne, the horses are put to, and Miss 
 Trefusis wants to be in town by eleven, in time 
 for Mrs. Delany's ball ; everybody's gone or 
 going.' 
 
 A fierce oath was muttered under De Vigne's
 
 160 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 moustaches he can be fiery enough if he's 
 crossed. The Trefusis gave me a look well ! 
 such as you, madame, will never give a man, if 
 you are prudent, even though he be your lover's 
 fidm Achates, and comes in just when he is not 
 wanted. Then she rose, drawing on her gloves 
 with a sweet, courteous smile : 
 
 ' Oh ! thank you, Mr. Chevasney; how kind 
 of you to come and tell us ! I would not be late 
 at dear Mrs. Delany's for the world; you know 
 she is a very pet friend of mine.' 
 
 I had saved him that time, and, idiot-like, 
 triumphed at my success. Might I not have 
 known that no forty-horse power can keep a man 
 from committing himself, if he is bent upon it ? 
 and might I not have known that if a fellow 
 enters himself for any stakes with a woman, she 
 will have cantered in and carried off the Cup 
 before he has saved half the distance, let him 
 pride himself upon his jockeyship never so 
 highly ? 
 
 I had saved De Vigne, and I don't think he 
 bore me any good will for it, for he drove me and 
 a couple of other men back in his phaeton to Ken- 
 sington, in gloomy silence. He could not go to 
 Mrs. Delany's, for the best of all reasons that 
 he was not asked. Ladies never do invite with
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 161 
 
 their pet friends the quarry their pet friends are 
 trying the hardest to lure ; not from envy, pretty 
 little dears ! who would think of accusing them of 
 that ? Do they ever, by any chance, break the 
 Tenth Commandment, and covet their neighbour's 
 carriage, horses, or appointments, diamonds, point, 
 flirtations, or anything that she has ? 
 
 And the day after that the Trefusis went down 
 to Brighton, to drive the Dragoons distracted, who 
 should see her cantering over the South Downs, 
 or waltz with her at their own balls, to drink 
 in intoxication with the clang of the Express 
 Galop ; or meet her on the Esplanade, with that 
 magnificent face shadowed by her little cobweb 
 veil, swaying them all with her grand beauty, as if 
 her carved ivory parasol- handle had been a sceptre, 
 with a spell as potent^as Venus's ceinture. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 162 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE FORGING OF THE FETTERS. 
 
 DE VIGNE and I consumed not a little cognac and 
 Cavendish, swearing over our durance vile, when 
 everybody was gone, and town was empty; and 
 after six weeks' consummation of anathemas, soda 
 water, and Latakia, sufficient to last a troop for a 
 twelvemonth, he and I were glad enough when 
 we were at last swinging down in the express to 
 Vigne on the 31st of August. I wondered in 
 my own mind he was not off to Kemp Town, but 
 I was too glad to find that the partridges out- 
 balanced the Trefusis to make any comment upon 
 it. 
 
 Vigne was about eighty miles from London ; a 
 pretty picturesque village, of which nearly every 
 rood belonged to him ; and his park was almost as 
 magnificent a sweep of land as Holcombe or Long- 
 leat. It was with something warmer than pride, 
 that he looked across, over his wide woodlands 
 glowing in the August sunset, the great elm-trees
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 163 
 
 throwing their wide cool shadows far over the rich 
 pasture land beneath ; the ferns, high as a man's 
 elbow, waving in the breeze ; the deer trooping 
 away into the deep forest glades ; and the length- 
 ened avenues, stretching off in aisles of burnished 
 green and gold, like one of Creswick's English 
 landscapes. A mile and-a-half of one of those 
 magnificent elm-avenues, brought us to the Jiouse, 
 which was more like Hardwick Hall in exterior 
 than any other place I know, standing grandly, 
 too, something as Hardwick does ; but in interior, 
 though the hall and other parts of it, were mediaeval 
 enough, it was what Hardwick certainly is not 
 or was not, when last I saw it luxurious and 
 modern to the last degree, with every elegance 
 and comfort which upholstery and science have 
 taught the nineteenth century to look upon as 
 absolute requirements. 
 
 De Vigne threw the ribbons of the drag to a 
 groom, and sprang down, while the deep bay of the 
 dogs in the kennels some way off, gave him a wel- 
 come. In the hall he had another : as his mother, 
 Lady Flora, a soft, delicate woman, with eyes and 
 voice of great beauty and sweetness, came out from 
 a morning-room to meet him, with both her hands 
 outstretched, and a fond smile on her face. De 
 Vigne loved his mother tenderly and reveren- 
 
 M 2
 
 164 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 tially. She had been a wise woman with him : as 
 a child, she had stimulated his energies instead of 
 repressing them, and, with strong self-command, 
 let him risk a broken limb, rather than teach him 
 his first idea of fear, a thing of which De Vigne 
 was as profoundly ignorant as little Nelson. As a 
 boy, she had entered into all his sports and amuse- 
 ments, listening to his tales of rounder?, ponies, 
 cricket, and boating, as if she really understood 
 them. As a man she had never attempted to inter- 
 fere with him. She knew that she had trained him 
 in honour and truth, and was too skilled in human 
 nature to seek to pry into a young man's life. 
 The consequence was, that she kept all her son's 
 affection, trust, and confidence, and, when she did 
 speak, was always heard gently and respectfully ; 
 indeed, he would often tell her as naturally of his 
 errors and entanglements as he had, when a child, 
 told her of his faults to his servant or his Shet- 
 land. 
 
 The house was full, chiefly of men come down 
 for the shooting, with one or two girls of the 
 Ferrers family, Lady Flora's nieces, who would 
 have liked very well to have caught their cousin, 
 for their father, though he was a Marquis, was 
 as poor for a peer, as a curate with six daughters, 
 and no chance of preferment. But their cousin
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 165 
 
 was not to be caught by their trolling, at 
 least. 
 
 * I am delighted to see you, Mr. Chevasney,' 
 said Lady Flora, when I went down to the draw- 
 ing-room after my bath, and hot coffee. 'You 
 know you were always a favourite of mine, at first, 
 ne vous en deplaise, because you were a friend of 
 Granville's, and then for your own sake. There 
 will be some people here to-morrow to amuse you, 
 though you gentlemen never seem to me so happy 
 as when you are without us. Shut you up in your 
 smoking, or billiard, or card-room, and you want 
 nothing more ! ' 
 
 ' True enough ! ' laughed De Vigne. ' It is an 
 ungallant admission, but it is a fact, nevertheless. 
 See men at college wines, in the jollity and merri- 
 ment of a camp, in the sans gene enjoyment of a 
 man dinner ! Deny it who will, we can be happy 
 without ladies, but ladies cannot be happy with- 
 out us ! ' 
 
 * How conceited you are, Granville ! ' cried 
 Adelina Ferrers, a handsome blonde, who thought 
 very well of herself. * I am quite sure we can ! ' 
 
 ' Can you, Lina ? ' said De Vigne, leaning against 
 the mantelpiece, and watching his mother's dia- 
 mond rings flash in and out, as she did some bead- 
 work. ' Why do we never hear of ladies' parties,
 
 166 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 then ? Why, when we come in after dinner, do 
 we invariably find you all bored to the last extent, 
 and half asleep, till you revive under our kindly 
 influence ? Why, if you are as happy without us, 
 do we never see you establish Women Clubs to 
 drink tea, or eau de Cologne, or sal volatile ; to 
 read new novels and talk over dress ? ' 
 
 * Because we are too kind. Our society im- 
 proves you so much, that, through principle, we 
 do not deprive you of it,' answered Lady Lina, 
 with a long glance of her large azure eyes. 
 
 * That's a pity, dear,' smiled De Vigne, ' because, 
 if we thought you were comfortably employed, we 
 could go off to the partridges to-morrow with much 
 greater pleasure ; whereas to know, as we do, that 
 you will all be victims of ennui till we come back 
 again, naturally spoils sport to men like myself, of 
 tender conscience and amiable disposition ! ' 
 
 * This is the fruit of Miss Trefusis's flattery, I 
 suppose,' sneered Blanche Ferrers, the other cousin, 
 who could not stand fun, and who had made hard 
 running after De Vigne a season ago. 
 
 * Miss Trefusis never flatters,' said De Vigne, 
 quietly. 
 
 * Indeed ! ' said Lady Blanche. f I know nothing 
 of her. I do not desire ! ' 
 
 The volumes expressed in those four last words
 
 GRAXVILLE DE VIGNE. 167 
 
 were such, as only women like Blanche Ferrers, 
 could possibly compress in one little sneering sen- 
 tence. De Vigne felt all that was intended in it ; 
 his eyebrows contracted, his eyes flashed fire ; he 
 had too knightly a heart not to defend an absent 
 woman, and a woman he loved ; as dearly as he 
 would his own honour. 
 
 * It would be to your advantage, Blanche, if you 
 had that pleasure. Miss Trefusis would make any 
 one proud to know her ; even the Ladies Ferrers, 
 though the world does say they are fond of ima- 
 gining the sun created solely that it may have the 
 honour of shining on them.' 
 
 He spoke very quietly, but sarcastically. His 
 mother looked up at him hastily, then bent over 
 her work ; Blanche coloured with annoyance, and 
 smiled another sneer. 
 
 ' Positively, Grauville, you are quite chivalrous 
 in her defence ! I know it is the law at Vigne for 
 nobody to disagree with you ; nevertheless, I shall 
 venture, for I must assure you, that far from 
 esteeming it an honour to know Miss Trefusis, I 
 should deem it rather a dishonour ! ' 
 
 How like a lion fairly roused, and longing to 
 spring, he looked ! He kept cool, however, but his 
 teeth were set hard. 
 
 * Lady Blanche, it is rather dishonour to your-
 
 168 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 self, to dare to speak in that manner of a lady 
 of whom you have never heard any evil, and who 
 is my friend. Miss Trefusis is as worthy respect 
 and admiration as yourself, and she shall never be 
 mentioned in any other terms in my presence.' 
 
 Gallant he looked, with his steady eyes looking 
 sternly down at her, and his firm mouth set into 
 iron ! A whole history of love and trust, honour 
 and confidence, the chivalry which defended the 
 absent, the strength which protected the woman 
 dear to him, were written on his face. Was she, 
 who was absent and slandered, worthy it ? 
 
 Blanche laughed derisively, but a little timid- 
 ly; it was not easy even for her to be rude to 
 him. 
 
 ' Respect and admiration ! Really, Granville, 
 one would believe report, and imagine you in- 
 tended to give Lady Fantyre's what? niece, de- 
 pendent, companion which is it ? your name ? ' 
 
 'Perhaps I do. As it is, I exact the same 
 courtesy for her, as my friend, that I shall do if 
 ever she be my wife ! ' 
 
 He spoke slowly and calmly, still leaning on 
 the mantelpiece ; but his face was white with 
 passion, and his dark eyes glowed like fire. A 
 dead silence followed on his words : the silence of 
 breathless astonishment, of unutterable dismay:
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIONE. 1GO 
 
 Lady Flora turned as white as her bead-work, 
 and she did not trust herself to look at her son, 
 but in a moment or two she spoke, with gentle 
 dignity. 
 
 * Blanche, you forget what you are saying. 
 You can have no possible right to question your 
 cousin's actions or opinions. Let this be the last 
 I hear of such a discussion. Mr. Chevasney, if 
 you wish to be useful, will you be kind enough to 
 hold this skein of floss silk for me ? ' 
 
 Just at that moment some of the men came in 
 and surrounded Adelina and Blanche; it was a 
 relief to everybody : Lady Flora went on winding 
 her silk, not daring to look up at her son, and he 
 stayed where he was, leaning on the mantelpiece, 
 playing with a setter's ears, till dinner was an- 
 nounced as served : then he gave his arm to the 
 Marchioness, and was especially brilliant and 
 agreeable all the evening. 
 
 That night, however, when most of us had gone 
 off to the bachelor wing, De Vigne rapped at the 
 door of his mother's dressing-room. She expected 
 it, and admitted him at once. He sat by the fire 
 for some moments, holding her hand in his own ; 
 De Vigne was very gentle with what he loved. 
 His mother looked up at him, with a few words : 
 ' Dearest, is it true?'
 
 170 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 ' Yes.' Where he meant much, he also gene- 
 rally said few words. 
 
 His mother was silent. Perhaps, until now, she 
 had never realized how entirely she would lose 
 her son to his wife ; how entirely the new passion 
 would sweep away and replace the old affection ; 
 how wholly, and how justly, his confidences, his 
 ambitions, his griefs, his joys, would go to another 
 instead of to herself. Perhaps she knew how unfit 
 De Vigne was to be curbed and tied ; how much 
 his fiery nature would shrink from the burden of 
 married life, and his fiery heart refuse to give 
 the love exacted as a right : perhaps she knew, by 
 knowledge of human nature, and experience of 
 human life, how true it is that ' a young man 
 married is a man that's marred.' 
 
 ' Your wife ! ' she said, at last, tears in her 
 voice and in her eyes. * Granville, you little 
 guess all those words sound to me ; how much I 
 have hoped, how much I have feared, how much 
 I have prayed for, in your wife ! Forgive me, 
 dear ; I can hardly accustom myself to it yet.' 
 
 And she bent her head, and sobbed bitterly. 
 May we believe with Madame de Girardin ? 
 
 ' C'est en vain que Ton nomme erreur, 
 
 Cette secrete intelligence, 
 Qui portant la lumiere au fond, 
 
 Sur des maux ignores nous fait ge"mir d'avance ! '
 
 GRAXVILLE DE VIGNE. 171 
 
 De Vigne bent his head, and kissed her. It 
 was very rarely he saw his mother's tears ; and in 
 proportion to their rarity they always touched 
 him. They were both of them silent. The next 
 question she asked, came with the resignation of a 
 woman, to a man whose purpose she knew she 
 could never alter, nor even sway, any more than 
 she could stir the elm-trees in the avenues, from 
 the beds that they had lain in for lengthened 
 centuries. 
 
 * You really love her then ? ' 
 
 * More passionately than I have ever loved a 
 woman yet ! ' 
 
 That sealed the sentence. Lady Flora knew, 
 that never in love, as in sport, had De Vigne 
 checked his fancy, or turned back from his 
 quarry. 
 
 * God help you then ! ' , 
 He started at the uncalled-for prayer ; it was an 
 
 involuntary utterance of the trembling tenderness, 
 the undefined dread with which she regarded his 
 future. He smiled down gaily at her. ' Why, 
 mother, what is there so dreadful in love ? One 
 would fancy you thought shockingly of your sex, 
 to view my first thought of marriage, through 
 smoked glasses.' 
 
 She tried to smile. ' It is such a lottery ! '
 
 172 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 ' Of course it is ; but so are all games of 
 chance ; and, if one ventures nothing, one may go 
 without play all one's life. As for happiness, t/tat 
 is at very uncertain odds at all times, and the 
 only wise thing one can do is to enjoy the present. 
 Does not La Bruyere tell us that no man ever 
 married yet, who did not in twelve months' time 
 wish he had never seen his wife ? It is true 
 enough for that matter ; so that, whether one does 
 it sooner or later, one is equally certain to repent.' 
 He spoke with a light laugh and a fearless confi- 
 dence in his own future which went to his mo- 
 ther's heart. She took both his hands in hers. 
 
 * Granville, you know I never seek to interfere 
 with your opinions, plans, or actions. You are a 
 man of the world, far fitter to judge for yourself 
 than I am to judge for you ; but no one can love 
 you better than I ? ' 
 
 ' Indeed no,' said De Vigne, tenderly, ' none so 
 well.' 
 
 * And no one cares for your future life as I ? 
 Therefore, will you listen to me for a minute?' 
 
 ' Sixty, if you like.' 
 
 * Then, tell me,' said his mother gently, ' do 
 you really think yourself that you are fitted for 
 married life, or married life fitted for you ? ' 
 
 * Don't put it in that way ! ' cried De Vigne,
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 173 
 
 impatiently. ' Married life ? No! not if I were 
 chained down into dull domesticity; but in our 
 position marriage makes little or no difference in 
 our way of life. We keep the same society, have 
 the same diversions as before. We are not chained 
 together like two galley-slaves, toiling away at one 
 oar, without change of scene or of companion. 
 She must be my wife, because, if she is not, 
 I shall go mad ; but she is no woman only fit 
 " to suckle fools and chronicle small beer," and 
 she would be the last to deprive me of that 
 liberty, of which, you are quite right in thinking, 
 I should chafe incessantly at the loss ! But I am 
 talking myself, not listening to you. What else 
 were you going to say ? ' 
 
 ' I was going to say are you sure you will 
 never love again ? ' 
 
 De Vigne grew impatient again. He threw 
 back his head ; these were not pleasant sugges- 
 tions to him. 
 
 ' Really, my dear mother, you are looking very 
 far into futurity ! How can I, or any man, by 
 any possibility, answer such a question ? We 
 are not gods, to foresee what lies b.efore us. I 
 know that I love now love more deeply than I 
 have ever done yet, and that is enough for me ! ' 
 
 * That is not enough for me,' answered his mo-
 
 174 "HELD is BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 ther, with a heavy sigh. * I can foresee your 
 future, for I know your nature, your mind, your 
 heart. You will marry now, in the mad passion 
 of the hour ; marry as a thousand men do, giving 
 up their birthright of free choice and liberty, and 
 an open future, for a mess of porridge of a few 
 hours' delight ! I know nothing of Miss Trefusis, 
 nor do I wish to say anything against her ; but 
 I know you. You marry her, no doubt, from 
 eye-love; for her magnificent beauty, which re- 
 port says is unrivalled. After a time that beauty 
 will grow stale and tame to you ; it will not be 
 your fault ; men are born inconstant, and eye-love 
 expires, when the eye has dwelt long enough on it, 
 to grow tired and satiated. Have you not, times 
 out of number, admired and wearied before, Gran- 
 ville ? Then there will come long years of regret, 
 impatience of the fetters once joyfully assumed, 
 perhaps ; for you require sympathy and compre- 
 hension ; miserable years of wrangling and re- 
 proaches, such as you are least fitted of all men to 
 endure. You will see that your earlier judgment 
 was crude, your younger taste at fault ; then, with 
 your passions strengthened, your discernment 
 matured, you will love again love with all the 
 tenderness, the depth of later years love, to find 
 the crowning sorrow of your life, or to drag another
 
 ORAXVILLE DE VIGNE. 175 
 
 in to share the curse you already have brought 
 upon yourself. Can you look steadily at such a 
 future ? ' 
 
 A chill of ice passed through his veins as he heard 
 her the true foreshadowing of a most bitter doom! 
 Then he threw the presentiment off, and his hot 
 blood flowed on again in its wilful and fiery course ; 
 he answered her passionately and decidedly. 
 
 ' Yes ! I have no fear of any evil coming to me 
 through my love. If she will, she shall be my 
 wife, and whatever my future be, I accept it.' 
 
 The day after our arrival I found the reason for 
 De Vigne's throwing over Brighton for his own 
 home. The Trefusis and Lady Fantyre came down 
 to stay at Follet, a place some three or four miles 
 from Vigne, with some friends of the Fantyre, 
 whose acquaintance she had made on the Conti- 
 nent ; people whom De Vigne knew but slightly, 
 but whom he now cultivated, more than he gene- 
 rally troubled himself to do, much more exclusive 
 members of that invariably stiltified, stuck-up, and 
 pitiably-toadied thing, the County. 
 
 The 1st of September came, gray, soft, still, as 
 that delightful epoch of one's existence always 
 should, and up with the dawn we swallowed beer 
 and coffee, devils and omelettes, too hastily to 
 appreciate them, and went out, a large party;
 
 176 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OK, 
 
 for Sabretasche had come there the night before, 
 with several other men, to knock the birds over, 
 in De Vigne's princely preserves. What magic 
 is there in sport to make us so mad after it? 
 What is the charm that lies hid in the whirr of 
 the covey up from the stubble, and makes dan- 
 dies contentedly wade through ploughed fields in 
 sloppy weather; carrying their gun through drip- 
 ping turnips ; knee-deep in mud, or dead-beat, but 
 triumphant, from the knowledge of forty brace in 
 the bag on the pony's back ? A strange charm 
 there is a charm we enjoy too much to analyze ; 
 and De Vigne, whose head and heart were full of 
 different game, and Sabretasche, who hated dirty- 
 ing his hands, and shrank from most people and 
 most things as too coarse for his artistic taste, alike 
 swore to the truth of it, with the dogs and the beat- 
 ers round them in the open, or lying in the shade 
 of some great hedge-trees, discussing Bass and a 
 cold luncheon, with more appetite than they ever 
 had for the most delicious breakfast at the Maison 
 Doree, or the daintiest hors d'ceuvre at Tortoni's. 
 
 Though De Vigne did not allow a battue on his 
 lands, I think we had almost as many head of game 
 in the bags as if we had had one, when twilight 
 had put an end to the ever-longed-for First, and 
 we had returned to the bachelor's wing to dress for
 
 GRANVILLE DE V1GXE. 177 
 
 dinner. Coming out of my room, I met De 
 Vigne, and he put his hand on my shoulder. 
 
 4 Well, Arthur, hadn't we good sport to-day ? 
 I say, send off any of that game you like any- 
 where ; you know lots of people. Isn't it 
 beautiful to see Sabretasche knock down the 
 birds ; such a lazy fellow as he is, too ? ' 
 
 ' He's not a better shot than you ? ' 
 
 ' Don't you think so ? But then he's a disciple 
 of the dolce, and I always go hard at anything I 
 take in hand.' 
 
 * You don't sell your game ? ' I asked, knowing 
 I might just as well ask him if he sold hot pota- 
 toes! 
 
 ' Sell it ? No, thank you ; I am not a 
 poulterer ! I have sport, not trade ; the fellows 
 who sell the game their friends help them to kill, 
 should write up over their lodge-gates, "Game 
 sold here, by men who would like to be thought 
 gentlemen, but find it a losing concern." I would 
 as soon send my trees up to London for building 
 purposes as my partridges to Leadenhall. The 
 fellows who do that sort of thing must have some 
 leaven of old Lombards, or Chepe goldsmiths in 
 them ; and though they have an Escutcheon in- 
 stead of a Sign now, can't get rid of the trader's 
 instinct ! ' 
 
 VOL. L x
 
 178 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 I loved to set De Vigne up on bis aristocratic 
 stilts, they were so deliciously contradictory to the 
 radical opinions he was so fond of enunciating ! 
 The fact was, he was an aristocrat at his heart, a 
 radical by his head, and the two Creeds sometimes 
 had a tilt, and upset one another. 
 
 ' Is anybody coming to dinner to-night ? ' I was 
 half afraid somebody was, whom I detested to see 
 near him at all. 
 
 ' Yes,' he answered, curtly. * There are the 
 Levisons, Lady Fantyre and Miss Trefusis, Caven- 
 dish and Ashton.' 
 
 For my life I couldn't help a long whistle, I 
 was so savage at that woman getting the better 
 of us all so cleverly ! 
 
 * The deuce ! De Vigne, your mother and that 
 nasty, gambling, story-telling old Fantyre will 
 hardly run in couples ? ' 
 
 For a second his cheek flushed. 
 
 ' It is my house, I invite whom I see fit. As 
 for my mother, God bless her ! she will hardly 
 find a woman good or true enough to run in 
 couples with her. She is too good and true to 
 be prudish or censorious. I have always noticed 
 that it is women who live in glass houses who 
 learn quickest to throw stones, I suppose in the 
 futile hope of inducing people to imagine that
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 179 
 
 their dwellings are such as nobody could possibly 
 assail.' 
 
 * Why the devil, De Vigne,' said I, * are you so 
 mad about that woman ? What is it you admire 
 in her ? ' 
 
 He answered with the reckless passion which 
 was day by day getting more mastery over him. 
 
 * How should I define ? I admire nothing I 
 admire everything ! I only know that I will move 
 heaven and earth to gain her, and that I would 
 shoot any man dead who ventured to dispute her 
 with me ! ' 
 
 ' Is she worth all that ? ' 
 
 His eyes grew cold and annoyed ; I had gone a 
 step too far. He took his hand off my shoulder, 
 and saying, with that hauteur which no man 
 could assume more chillingly, ' My dear Che- 
 vasney, you may apply the lesson I gave Lady 
 Blanche yesterday, to yourself; I never allow any 
 remarks on my personal concerns/ passed down 
 before me into the hall : where, just alighted from 
 the Levisons' carriage, her cloak dropped off one 
 shoulder, something shining and jewelled wreathed 
 over her hair, the strong wax-light gleaming on 
 her face, with its rich geranium-hue in the cheek, 
 and its large, luminous eyes, and its short, curved, 
 upper lip, stood in brilliant relief against the carved
 
 180 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OK, 
 
 oak, dark armour, and deep-hued windows of the 
 hall the Trefusis. De Vigne went down the 
 wide oak staircase and across the tesselated pave- 
 ment to her side, to welcome her to Vigne ; and 
 she she thought, I dare say, as she glanced round, 
 that it would be a conquest worth making : the 
 master and the home. 
 
 Lady Flora looked earnestly at her as she 
 entered. It was the first time she had seen her, 
 for the Trefusis had been driving when, by her 
 son's request, she had called on the Levisons, with 
 whom she had not more acquaintance than an 
 occasional dinner, or rencontre at some county 
 gathering. Beautiful woman as the Trefusis 
 looked and that she was this her worst enemies 
 could never deny in that hard though superb 
 profile, in those lips curved downwards while of 
 such voluptuous beauty, in those eyes so relent- 
 less and defiant though of such perfect hue and 
 shape, his mother found how little to hope, how 
 much to fear ! 
 
 Yet the Trefusis played her cards well. She 
 was very gentle to Lady Flora. She did not 
 seem to seek De Vigne, nor to try and mono- 
 polize him ; and with the Ladies Ferrers she 
 was so calm, so self-possessed, and yet had so little 
 assumption, that, hard as Lina and Blanche were
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGXK. 181 
 
 studying to pick her to pieces, they could not find 
 where to begin, till she drew off her glove at 
 dinner, when Blanche whispered to Sabretasche, 
 who had taken her in, * No sang pur there, but 
 plenty of almond paste ! ' to which the Colonel, 
 hating the Trefusis, but liking De Vigne too well 
 to give the Ferrers a handle against their possible 
 future cousin, replied, * Well, Lady Blanche, per- 
 haps so but one is so sated with pretty hands 
 and empty heads, that one is almost grateful for a 
 change ! ' 
 
 Whereat Blanche, all her governesses, Paris 
 schools, and finishing, not having succeeded in 
 drilling much understanding into her brain, was 
 bitterly wrathful, and, in consequence, smiled extra 
 pleasantly. 
 
 The Trefusis acted her part admirably that night, 
 and people of less skill in society and physiognomy 
 than Lady Flora would have been blinded by it. 
 
 * What a master-spirit of intrigue that woman 
 would be in a court ! ' said Sabretasche to me. 
 * No man certainly no man in love with her 
 can stand against the strong will and skilful 
 artifices of an ambitious and designing intrigante. 
 Solomon tells you, you know, Arthur, that the 
 worst enemy you young fellows have is Woman, 
 and I tell you the same.'
 
 182 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 ' Yet, if report speak truly, Colonel, the sex 
 has no warmer votary than you ? ' 
 
 * Whenever did report speak truly ? Perhaps 
 I may be only revenging myself; how should 
 you know ? It is the fashion, to look on Pa- 
 mela as a fallen star, and on Lovelace as a hor- 
 rid cruel wretch. I don't see it always so, my- 
 self. Stars that are dragged from heaven by the 
 very material magnets of guineas, cashmeres, love 
 of dress, avarice, or ambition for a St. John's 
 Wood villa, are not deeply to be pitied ; and men 
 who buy toys at such low prices are little to 
 be censured for not estimating their goods very 
 high. The price of a virtuous woman is rarely 
 above rubies ; it has only this difference, that the 
 rubies set as a bracelet will suffice for Coralie, while 
 they must go round a coronet to win Lady Blanche ! 
 A propos! whatever other silly things you do, 
 Chevasney, never make an early marriage.' 
 
 * I never intend, I assure you,' I said, tartly. I 
 thought he might have heard of Gwendolina, and 
 be poking fun at me ; and Gwen, I knew, was not 
 for me, but for M. le Due de Vieillecour, a poor, 
 wiry, effete old beau, who had been about 
 Charles X. 
 
 ' Very well, so far ; but you need not look so 
 indignant, no man can tell into what he may be
 
 ORANVILLE DE VIGNK. 183 
 
 drawn. No one is so secure ; but that next year 
 he may commit the sin, he utterly ridicules this. 
 Look at De Vigne; six months past he would 
 have laughed in your face if you had spoken to 
 him of marriage. Now he would be tempted to 
 knock you down if you attempted to dissuade him 
 from marriage ! What will he gain by it ; what 
 won't he lose ? If she were a charming woman, 
 he would lose his liberty, his pleasant bachelor 
 life, his power of disposing of himself how and 
 where he choses, without query or comment. 
 With a woman like the Trefusis he will lose 
 more ; he will lose his peace, his self-respect, his 
 belief in human nature; and it will be well if 
 he lose not his honour! He will have always 
 beside him a wife from whom his whole soul 
 revolts, but to whom his hot-headed youth has 
 fettered him, till one or the other shall lie in the 
 grave. There is no knowing to what madness, 
 what misery, his early marriage may not lead him, 
 to what depths of hopelessness, or error, it may 
 not drag him. Were he a weak man, he would 
 collapse under her rein, and be henpecked, cheated, 
 and cajoled; being a strong one, he will rebel, 
 and, still acting and seeing for himself, he will 
 find out in too short a time, that he has sacrificed 
 himself, and life, and name, to a Mistake.'
 
 184 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 He spoke so earnestly for listless, careless, non- 
 chalant, indolent Sabretasche, that I stared at him, 
 for he was almost proverbially impassive; he 
 caught my eye, and laughed. 
 
 ' What do you think of my sermon, Arthur? 
 Bear it in mind if you are in danger, that is all. 
 Will you come out into the card-room, and have 
 a game or two at ecarte ? You play wonderfully 
 well for so young as you are ; but then you say a 
 Frenchman taught you ? I hate to play with a man 
 who cannot beat me tolerably often ; there is no 
 excitement without difficulty. The Trefusis knows 
 that ! Look at her flirting with Monckton in her 
 stately style, while De Vigne stands by, looks 
 superbly indifferent, and chafes all the time like a 
 hound held in leash, while another is pulling down 
 the stag ! ' 
 
 * She will not make you happy, Granville ! ' 
 said his mother that night, when De Vigne bid 
 her good night in her dressing-room, as was his 
 invariable custom. 
 
 He answered her stiffly. ' It is unfortunate you 
 are all so prejudiced against her.' 
 
 ' I am not prejudiced,' she answered, with a 
 bitter sigh. * Heaven knows how willingly I 
 would try to love anyone who loves you, but a 
 woman's intuition sees farther sometimes than
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 185 
 
 a man's discernment can penetrate, and in Miss 
 Trefusis, beyond beauty of form and feature, J see 
 nothing that will satisfy you : there is no beauty 
 of mind, no beauty of heart ! The impression she 
 gives me is, that she is an able schemer, a clever 
 actress, quick to seize on the weak points of those 
 around her, and turn them to her own advantage ; 
 but that she is forgive me ! illiterate, ambitious, 
 and heartless ! ' 
 
 ' You wrong her and you wrong yourself ! ' 
 broke in De Vigne passionately. ' Your anxiety 
 for me warps alike your own penetration and 
 charity of feeling. I should have thought you 
 were above such injustice ! ' 
 
 * I only wish I may do her injustice,' answered 
 his mother, gravely. ' But oh, Granville, I fear 
 I fear ! Dearest, do not be angry, none will ever 
 love you more unselfishly than I ! If I tremble 
 for your future, it is only that, I know your cha- 
 racter so well. I know all that, as years go on, 
 your mind will require, your heart exact, from the 
 woman who is your wife. I know how quickly 
 the glamour fades in the test of constant inter- 
 course. A commonplace, domestic woman would 
 drive you from her side to another's ; a hard, 
 tyrannous, beautiful woman will freeze you into 
 ice, like herself. I, who love you so dearly, how
 
 186 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OK, 
 
 can I look calmly on to see the shipwreck of 
 your life ? My darling ! my darling ! I would 
 almost as soon hear that you had died on a 
 battle-field, as your father did before you, as hear 
 that you had given your fate into that woman's 
 hands ! ' 
 
 His mother's tenderness and grief touched De 
 Vigne deeply ; he knew how well she loved him, 
 and that this was the first time she had sought to 
 cross his will, but he stooped and kissed her with 
 fond words, and rose, of the same persuasion 
 still ! It were as easy to turn the west wind from 
 its course, as it sweeps wild and free over the sea 
 and land, as by words or counsel, laws or warn- 
 ings, to attempt to stem the self-willed, headlong 
 current of a man's mad passion. 
 
 Had any whispered warning to Acis of his fate, 
 would he have ever listened or cared when, in 
 the sunset glow, he saw the witching gleam of 
 Galatea's golden hair ? When the son of Myrha 
 gazed up into the divine eyes, and felt his own 
 lips glow at the touch of * lava kisses,' could he 
 foresee, or, had he foreseen, would he have ever 
 heeded, the dark hour when he should lie dying, 
 on those same Idalian shores? 
 
 The Trefusis played her cards ably. A few 
 days after she played her ace of trumps, and her
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 187 
 
 opponents were obliged to throw up] their hands. 
 De Vigne did not ask his mother to invite her 
 and Lady Fantyre there; infatuated though he 
 was, and wisely careless on such subjects gene- 
 rally, I think he felt that the old ci-devant orange- 
 girl, with her nasty stories, her dingy reputation, 
 and her clever tricks with the four honours, was 
 not a guest suitable to his high-born, high-bred 
 mother. But a day or two after was his birth- 
 day, a day which, contrary to his own taste, but 
 in accordance with old habit, had been celebrated, 
 whether he was present or not, with wonderful 
 eclat and magnificence. This year, as usual, ' the 
 County,' and parts of surrounding counties, too, 
 came to a dinner and ball at Vigne ; and the 
 Levisons had been included in the invitations a 
 month before we went down, now, of course, the 
 Trefusis would accompany them. 
 
 As De Vigne had not even the slight admixture 
 of Roger de Coverley benevolence assumed by 
 some county men at the present time, as he had 
 not the slightest taste for oats or barley, did not 
 care two straws how his farms went or how his 
 lands were let, and hated toadying and flummery 
 as cordially as he hated bad wine, the proceedings 
 of the day very naturally bored him immensely ; 
 and he threw himself down, after replying to his
 
 188 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 tenants' speeches, on one of the couches of the 
 smoking-room, with an anathema on the whole 
 thing. 
 
 ' What a happy fellow you are, Sabretasche ! ' 
 said he to the Colonel, who had retired from the 
 scene to one of the sofas with a pile of periodi- 
 cals and a case of genuine Manillas. * You have 
 nothing on your hands but your town-house, that 
 you can shut up, and your Highland lodge, where 
 you can leave your dogs for ten months in the 
 year; and have no yeomanry, tenants, and ser- 
 vants, to look to you yearly for sirloins and Octo- 
 ber, and a speech that is more trouble to make 
 than fifty parliamentary ones !' 
 
 ' Ah ! my dear fellow,' yawned Sabretasche, * I 
 did stay in that tent pitying you beyond measure, 
 till my feelings and my nerves couldn't stand see- 
 ing you martyrized, and scenting that very ex- 
 cellent beef, and hearing those edifying cheers any 
 longer; so, as I couldn't help you, I took com- 
 passion on myself, shut myself up with the maga- 
 zines, and thanked Heaven I was not born to that 
 desideratum " a fine landed property ! " 
 
 De Vigne laughed. 
 
 ' Well, it's over now ! I shouldn't mind it so 
 much if they would 't talk such bosh to one's 
 face praising me for my liberality and noble-
 
 ORANVILLE DE VIGN'E. 189 
 
 minded ness, and calling me public-spirited and 
 generous, and Heaven knows what. They're 
 a good-hearted set of fellows, though, I be- 
 lieve ' 
 
 ' Possibly,' said Sabretasche ; ' but what extent 
 of good-heartedness can make up for those dread- 
 fully broad o's and a's, and those terrific " Sunday- 
 going suits," and those stubble-like heads of hair 
 plastered down with oil ? ' 
 
 'Not to you, you confounded refiner of refined 
 gold,' laughed De Vigne. ' By-the-by, Sabre- 
 tasche, don't you sometimes paint lilies in your 
 studio ? That raffine operation would suit you to 
 a T. I suppose you never made love to a woman 
 who was not the ultra-essence of good breeding 
 and Grecian outline ? ' 
 
 Sebretasche gave a sort of shudder; at some 
 recollection, or at the simple suggestion. 
 
 ' Well,' said De Vigne ; * Cupid has a vernacular 
 of his own which levels rank sometimes ; a pretty 
 face, is a pretty face, whether it is under a Paris 
 bonnet, or a cottage straw. But what I hate so, 
 in this sort of affair, is the false light in which 
 it makes one stand. Here am T, who don't see 
 Vigne for nine months out of the year, sometimes 
 not at all, who delegate all the bother of it to 
 my steward, who neither know nor care when the
 
 1 90 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 rents are paid, nor how the lands are divided, 
 cheered by these people as if I were a sort of god 
 and king over them and, deuce take them ! they 
 mean it, too ! Their fathers' fathers worshipped my 
 father's fathers, and so they, in a more modern 
 fashion, cheer and toast me as if I were a combined 
 Cincinnatus and Titus ! You know well enough I 
 am nothing of the kind ! I don't think I have a 
 spark of benevolence in my composition. I could 
 no more get up an interest in model cottages, and 
 prize fruit, than I could in Cochin-Chinas or worsted 
 work, and the consequence is that I feel a hum- 
 bug, and instead of returning thanks to-day to my 
 big farmers, and my small retainers, I should have 
 liked to have said to them, " My good fellows, you 
 are utterly mistaken in your man. I am glad you 
 are doing well, and I won't let any of you be 
 ground down if I know it; but otherwise I don't 
 care a jot about any of you, and this annual affair is 
 a very great bore to me, whatever it may be to you; 
 arid I take this opportunity of assuring you that, 
 far from being a demigod, I am a very graceless 
 cavalry man, and instead of doing any good with 
 my twenty thousand a year, I only make ducks 
 and drakes of it as fast as I possibly can." If I 
 had said that to them, I should have relieved 
 myself, had no more toadying, and felt that the
 
 URANVILLE DE VIGM . 191 
 
 Vigneites and I understood one another. What a 
 horrid bother it is one can't tell truth in the world !' 
 
 * Most people find the bother lie, in having to 
 tell the truth occasionally!' said the Colonel, with 
 his enigmatical smile. * You might enjoy having, 
 like Fenelon's happy islanders, only to open your 
 eyes to let your thoughts be read, but I am afraid 
 such an expose would hardly suit most of us. You 
 don't agree with Talleyrand, that language is given 
 us to conceal our thoughts ? ' 
 
 De Vigne looked at him as he poked up his pipe. 
 
 ' Devil take you, Sabretasche ! Who is to know 
 what you mean, or what you think, or what you 
 are ?' 
 
 * My dear fellow,' said the Colonel, cutting the 
 Westminster slowly with one hand, and taking out 
 his cigar with the other, ' nobody, I hope, for / 
 agree with Talleyrand, if you don't.' 
 
 The County came a few to dinner, many to 
 the ball, presenting all the varied forms of that 
 peculiar little oligarchy ; a Duke, two Marquises, 
 two Earls, four or five Barons, high-dried, grand 
 old Dowagers, with fresh, pretty-looking daugh- 
 ters as ready for fun and flirtation as their maids; 
 stiltified County Queens, with daughters long on 
 hand, who had taken refuge in High-Churching 
 their village, and starched themselves very stiff in
 
 192 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 the operation. Pretty married women, who waltzed 
 in a nutshell, and had many more of us after them 
 than the girls. County beauties, accustomed to 
 carry all before them at race balls if not at Al- 
 mack's, and to be Empresses at archery fetes if 
 they were only units in Belgravia. Hunting 
 Baronets, who liked the music of the pack when 
 they threw up their heads, much better than the 
 music of D' Albert's waltzes. Members with the 
 down hardly on their cheeks ; other Members, 
 whose mission seemed to lie much more in the 
 saddle than the benches. Rectors by the dozen, 
 who found a village dance on the green sinful, but 
 a ball at Vigne a very pardonable error ; scores of 
 military men, who flirted more desperately and 
 meant less by it than any fellows in the room ; 
 all the County, in fact, and among them little old 
 Fantyre, with her hooked nose, and her queer re- 
 putation, her dirty, priceless lace, and her jewels 
 got nobody knew how, and her daughter, niece, 
 or companion, the intrigante, the interloper, but 
 decidedly the belle of the rooms, the handsome 
 and haughty Trefusis. Superbly, in truth, she 
 looked in some dress, as light and brilliant as sum- 
 mer clouds, with the rose tint of sunset on them, 
 while her eyes, dark and lustrous as an East- 
 ern's, shot their dangerous languid glances. One
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIONK. 193 
 
 could hardly wonder that De Vigne offended past 
 redemption the Ladies-in-their-own-right, all the 
 great heiresses, all the County princesses royal, 
 all the archery-party beauties; and careless 
 of rank, right, or comment, opened the ball 
 with the Trefusis. It was her crowning tri- 
 umph, and she knew it. She knew that what 
 he dared to begin, he would dare to follow out, 
 and that the more censure he provoked, the 
 more certainly would he persevere in his own 
 will. 
 
 * We have lost the game ! ' said Sabretasche to 
 me, as he passed me, waltzing with Adelina 
 Ferrers. 
 
 It was true. De Vigne was then waltzing 
 that same valse with her; whirling her round, 
 the white lilies of her bouquet de corsage crushed 
 against his breast; her forehead resting on his 
 shoulder, his moustaches touching her hair as 
 he whispered in her ear, his face glad, proud, 
 eager, impassioned ; while the County femi- 
 nine sneered, and whispered behind their fans, 
 * what could De Vigne possibly see in that 
 woman ? ' and the men swore what a deuced fine 
 creature she was, and wondered what Trefusis she 
 might be? 
 
 And that waltz over De Vigne gave her his 
 
 VOL. I. o
 
 194 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 arm and led her out of the ball-room to take 
 some ice, and then strolled on with her into the 
 conservatories, which, thanks to Lady Flora, were 
 brilliant as the glories of the tropics, and odorous 
 as a rich Indian night, with their fragrance ex- 
 haling from citron and cypress groves, and their 
 heavy clusters of magnolias and mangoes. There, 
 in that atmosphere, that hour, so sure to banish 
 prudence and fan the fires of passion ; there, to 
 the woman beside him, glorious as one of the 
 West Indian flowers above their heads, but chill 
 and unmoved at heart, as one of their brilliant 
 and waxen petals, De Vigne poured out in terse 
 and glowing words the love that Beauty alone so 
 madly and strangely awakened, laying generously 
 and trustfully, as knight of old laid his spoils and 
 his life, at his queen's feet, his home, his name, his 
 honour before the woman he loved. And she sim- 
 ulated tenderness to perfection ; she threw it into 
 her lustrous eyes, she forced it into her blushing 
 cheek, it trembled in her softened voice, it 
 glanced upwards under her dark lashes. It was 
 all a Lie, but a lie marvellously acted : and 
 while De Vigne bent over her, covering her 
 lips with passionate caresses, drinking in with 
 every breath a fresh draught of intoxication, 
 his heart beating loud and quick with the
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGM-. 195 
 
 triumph of success, was it a marvel that lie 
 forgot his past, his future, his own experience, 
 others' warnings, anything and everything, save 
 the Present, in its full and triumphant de- 
 lirium ? 
 
 02
 
 196 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE BLOW THAT A WOMAN DEALT. 
 
 1 1 SAY, Arthur she has outwitted us ! ' 
 
 * The devil she has, Colonel ! ' 
 
 * Who would have believed him so mad ? ' 
 
 ' Who would have believed her so artful ? ' 
 
 ' Chevasney, men are great fools ! ' 
 
 ' And women wonderful actresses, Colonel ! ' 
 
 1 Right; but it is a cursed pity.' 
 
 ' That De Vigne is taken in, or that women are 
 embodied lies, sir which ? ' 
 
 'Both!' 
 
 And with his equanimity most unusually ruffled, 
 and his nonchalant impassiveness strangely dis- 
 turbed, Sabretasche turned away out of the ball- 
 room, which De Vigne and the Trefusis, after a 
 prolonged absence, had just re-entered ; his face 
 paying plainly enough, that his cause was won ; 
 hers telling as clearly, that Vigne and its master 
 were captured. 
 
 When the dawn was rising, and the great gates
 
 GRAXVILLE DE VIGNE. 197 
 
 had closed after the last carriage- wheels, De Vigne 
 went to his mother in her dressing-room. He 
 wished to tell, yet he shrank from paining her 
 it came out with a jerk at last 'My mother, 
 wish me joy ! I have won her, and /have no fear ! ' 
 
 And when his mother fully realized his words, 
 she burst into the most bitter tears that she had 
 ever shed for him ; for whatever in his whole life 
 De Vigne's faults might be to others, in his con- 
 duct to his mother he had none. He let her 
 tears have their way ; he hardly knew how to 
 console her ; he only put his arm gently round 
 her as if to assure her that no wife should ever 
 come between herself and him. When she raised 
 her head she was deathly pale pale, as if the 
 whole of his future hung a dead and hopeless 
 weight upon her. She said no more against it ; 
 it was done, and she was both too wise, and loved 
 him too truly, to vex and chafe him with useless 
 opposition. But she threw her arms round him, 
 and kissed him, long and breathlessly, as she had 
 kissed him in his child's cot long ago, thinking of 
 his father lying dead on the Indian shore with 
 the colours for his shroud. 
 
 ' My darling ! my darling ! God bless you ! 
 God give you a happy future, and a wife who will 
 love you, as you can love will love ! '
 
 198 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 That, passionate broken prayer was all his 
 mother ever said to him of his marriage. 
 
 De Vigne received few congratulations; but 
 that sort of thing was quite contrary to his taste, 
 and on opposition, none of his relatives, not even 
 the overbearing, knock-me-down, Marchioness of 
 Marqueterie, who gave the law to everybody, 
 dared to venture. She only expressed her opinion 
 by ordering her own carriage for the hour, and the 
 day, at which .the Trefusis came for the first time 
 to stay at Vigne. Lady Flora treated the Tre- 
 fusis with a generous courtesy, which did its best 
 to grow into something warmer, and watched her 
 with a wistful anxiety which was very touching. 
 But it was evident to everyone that, though her 
 future daughter-in-law was most carefully atten- 
 tive, reverential, and gentle to De Vigne's mother, 
 repressing everything in herself, or in Lady Fan- 
 tyre, that could in the slightest degree shock or 
 wound her refined and highly - cultivated taste, 
 she and Lady Flora could never assimilate, or 
 even approach. This careful courtesy was all that 
 would ever link them together, and, in this in- 
 stance at least, the extremes did not touch. 
 
 However, for the three weeks longer, that I 
 remained there, on the surface all went on remark- 
 ably smooth. The Ferrers, of course, had left
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGXE. 199 
 
 with their mother. The Trefusis, as I have said, 
 was irreproachable. Sabretasche was infinitely 
 too polished a gentleman, to show disapproval 
 of what he had no earthly business with ; and 
 limited himself to an occasional satiric remark 
 on her, so veiled in subtle wit and courtesy, 
 that, shrewd as she was, she felt the sting, but 
 could not find the point of attack clearly enough 
 to return it. De Vigne, of course, saw everything 
 couleur de rose, and only chafed with impatience at 
 the probation of an engagement which the Tre- 
 fusis would not allow to end before Christmas (I 
 think she rather enjoyed fretting and irritating him 
 with denial and delay) ; and his mother resigned 
 herself to the inevitable, and did her very best, 
 poor lady ! to find out some trace of that beauty 
 of heart, thought, and mind, which her delicate 
 feminine instinct had told her, was wanting in the 
 magnificent personal gifts with which nature had 
 enriched the woman who was to be his wife. 
 
 So all went harmoniously on at Vigne through- 
 out that autumn ; and the County talked them- 
 selves hoarse, speculating on his union with an 
 unknown, sans rank, prestige, history, or any- 
 thing to entitle her to such an honour, in 
 whom, whether she were daughter or protegee of 
 that disreputable old woman, Sarah Lady Fan-
 
 200 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 tyre, Society could decide nothing for certain, nor 
 make out anything at all satisfactory. No wonder 
 the County were up at arms, and hardly knew 
 which to censure the most De Vigne for daring 
 to make such a misalliance, or the Trefusis for 
 daring to accept it ! And the Colonel thought 
 with the County. 
 
 * If I ever took the trouble (which I don't, 
 because hate is an exhausting and silly thing) to 
 hate anybody, it would be that remarkably hand- 
 some and remarkably detestable Trefusis,' said 
 Sabretasche, as he wrapped a plaid round his 
 knees on the box of the drag, which was to con- 
 vey him and me to the station, to take the 
 train for Northamptonshire. To which county, 
 well-beloved of every Englishman for the mere 
 name of Pytchley, Sabretasche was going down 
 for the five weeks that still remained of his leave, 
 having invited me to accompany him ; and where 
 I enjoyed myself uncommonly, hunting \vith 
 that slap-up Pack, and managing more than once 
 to be in at the finish, by dint of following that 
 best of mottoes, for which we are indebted to the 
 best Master of Hounds who ever went to cover, 
 ' Throw your heart over, and your horse will 
 follow!' 
 
 Each day I spent with him I grew more at-
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 201 
 
 tached to the Colonel ; tbe longer I saw him in his 
 own house, so perfect a gentleman, so perfect a 
 host ; the longer I listened to his easy, playful 
 talk on men and things, his subtle and profound 
 satire on hypocrisies and follies. It was impos- 
 sible not to get, as ladies say, fond of Sabretasche ; 
 his courtly urbanity, his graceful generosity, his 
 ready wit, all made him so charming a companion ; 
 though of the real man it was difficult, as De 
 Vigue said, to judge, through the nonchalance, in- 
 dolence, and impassiveness, with which the Colonel 
 chose to veil all that he said or did. He might 
 have some secret or other in his past life, or his 
 present career, which no man ever knew; he 
 might be only, what he said he was, an idler, a 
 trifler, a dilettante, a blase and tired man of the 
 world, a nil admirari-ist. Nobody could tell. 
 Only this I could see, gay, careless, indolent 
 though he was, that in spite of the refined selfish- 
 ness, the exquisite epicureanism, the voluptuous 
 enjoyment of life which his friends and foes attri- 
 buted to him, Vivian Sabretasche, like most of 
 the world's merry-makers, was sometimes sad 
 enough at heart. 
 
 'Friends? I don't believe in friends, my dear 
 boy,' said the Colonel, one night when we sat over 
 the fire, after a run with the Pytchley; a splendid
 
 202 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OK, 
 
 burst over the country up wind, fifteen minutes alone 
 with the hounds ; and a kill in the open. * There 
 are hundreds of good fellows who like Vivian 
 Sabretasche, and run after him because he amuses 
 them, and is a little of the fashion, and is held a 
 good judge of their wine, and their stud, and their 
 pictures. But let Vivian Sabretasche come to 
 grief to-morrow, let his Lares go to the Jews, and 
 his Penates to the devil; let the Clubs, instead of 
 quoting, black-ball him, and the ' Court Circular,' 
 instead of putting him in the Fashionable Intel- 
 ligence, cite him among the Criminal Cases, which 
 of his bosom friends will be so anxious then to 
 take his arm down St. James's Street ? Which of 
 them all will invite and flatter him then ? Will 
 Orestes send him haunches of venison? Will 
 lolaiis uncork his comet wine for him, and Pylades 
 stretch out his hand to him, and pick his fallen 
 pride out of the dirt of the gutter, and fight his 
 battle for him when he has crippled himself? 
 Pshaw ! my dear Arthur, I take men at my 
 valuation, not at their own. Don't you 
 know 
 
 " Si vous 6tes dans la dtltresse, 
 O mes amis, cachez-le bien, 
 Car Phomme est bon et s'interesse 
 A ceux qui n'ont besoin de rien ! " '
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 203 
 
 ' It is a sad doctrine, Colonel/ said I, who was 
 a boy, and wished to disbelieve him. 
 
 He laughed a little. ' Sad ? Oh, I don't 
 see that ; nothing in life is worth calling sad. 
 According to Heraclitus, everything is sad ; ac- 
 cording to Democritus, nothing is sad. The true 
 secret is to take things as they come, and not 
 trouble yourself sufficiently about anything to give 
 it power to trouble you. Enjoy your youth. Take 
 mine and your school-friend Ovid's counsel 
 
 " Utendum est aetate. Cito pede labitur setas. . . . 
 Ilac raihi de spina grata corona data est." ' 
 
 * But how's one to keep clear of the thorns ? ' 
 ' By flying butterfly-like, from rose to rose, and 
 handling it so delicately, as not to give it time 
 to prick you ! Love makes a poetic and unphilo- 
 sophic man, like Dante or Petrarca, unhappy ; 
 but do you suppose that Lauzun, Grammont, the 
 Due de Richelieu, were ever made unhappy by 
 love ? No, the very idea makes one laugh ; the 
 poets took it au serieux, and suffered in conse- 
 quence ; the courtiers only made it their pastime, 
 and enjoyed it proportionately. It all depends on 
 the way one lays hold of the roses of life ; some 
 men only enjoy the dew and fragrance of the 
 flower, others mismanage it somehow, and get 
 only the thorns.'
 
 204 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 * You've the secret, then, Colonel,' said I, 
 laughing, ' for you get a whole conservatory of the 
 most delicious under the sun, and not a thorn, 
 Fd bet, among them ? ' 
 
 ' Or, at all events, my skin is hard enough not 
 to be pricked,' smiled Sabretasche. ' I think 
 many men begin life, like the sand on the top 
 of a drum, which obeys every undulation of the air 
 from the notes of a violin near ; they are sensi- 
 tive and susceptible, shrinking at wrong or injury, 
 easily moved, quickly touched. As years go on, the 
 same men are like the same sand when it has been 
 pressed, and hardened, and burnt in fusion heat, 
 and exposed to frosty air, and made into polished, 
 impenetrable glass, on which you can make no 
 impression, off whose icy surface everything glides 
 away, and which it is impossible to cut with the 
 hardest and keenest of knives. The sand is the 
 same sand; it is the treatment it has met with 
 that has changed it. How I do prose to you, 
 Arthur ! and of all the ills, a man has least 
 right to inflict on another, are his own theo- 
 ries or ideas ! Fill your glass, my boy, and pass 
 me those macaroons. How can those poor crea- 
 tures live who don't know of the Marcobrunnen 
 and Macaroons of existence ? It is a good thing 
 
 o o 
 
 to have money, isn't it ? It not only buys us friends,
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 205 
 
 but it buys us what is of infinitely more value- 
 all the pleasant little ayrements of life. T would not 
 keep in the world at all if I did not lie on rose- 
 leaves ! ' 
 
 Wherewith the Colonel nestled himself more 
 comfortably into his arm-chair, laid his head on 
 the cushions, closed his eyes, and smoked away 
 at his perfumed hookah, the most fragrant and 
 delicate Narghille, that ever came out of Persia. 
 
 On the 31st of December, Sabretasche and De 
 Vigne, Curly and I (Curly had got his commis- 
 sion in the Coldstreams, and was the prettiest, 
 daintiest, most flattered, and most flirted with 
 young Guardsman of his time), went down by the 
 express, through the snow-whitened fields and 
 hedges, to Vigne, where, contrary to custom, its 
 master was to take his bride on the first morning 
 of the New Year. It was to be a very gay wed- 
 ding. De Vigne, always liberal to excess, now 
 perfectly lavish in his gifts, had followed the 
 French fashion, he said, and given her a corbeille 
 fit for a princess of Blood Royal, which the Tre- 
 fusis, having no delicacy of appropriation, accepted 
 as a right. There were to be twelve bridesmaids, 
 not the quite exclusive, and ultra high-bred, young 
 ladies who would have followed Adelina or Blanche 
 Ferrers, but still very stylish-looting girls, ac-
 
 206 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 quaintances of the Trefusis. There were to be 
 such a breakfast and such rejoicings, as had never 
 before been seen, even at that proverbially magni- 
 ficent place. Such a wedding was entirely con- 
 trary to De Vigne's taste and ideas, but the more 
 others had chosen to run down the Trefusis, the 
 more did he delight to honour her, and therefore 
 he had asked almost everybody he knew, and 
 almost everybody went; for all who knew him 
 wished him well, except his aunt and her daughters 
 the Ladies Ferrers. They went, because else, the 
 world might have said that they were disappointed 
 he had not married Blanche ; but very far from 
 wishing him well, I think they fervently hoped 
 he might repent his hasty step, in sackcloth and 
 ashes, and their costly wedding presents were 
 much like Judas's kisses. Wedding presents sin- 
 gularly often are ! As she writes the delicately 
 mauve-tinted congratulatory note, wishing dearest 
 Adeliza every joy that earth can give, and assur- 
 ing her she is the very beau ideal of a perfect 
 wife, is riot Madame ten to one saying to her 
 elder daughter, 'How strange it is that Fitz 
 should have been taken in such a bold, flirty girl, 
 and nothing pretty in her, to my taste ? ' And 
 as we shake Fitz's hand at our Club, telling him 
 he is the luckiest dog going to have such a pretty
 
 GRANTILLE DE VIGNE. 207 
 
 girl, and such a lot of money by one coup, are we 
 not fifty to one thinking, 'Poor wretch ! he's glad 
 of the tin, I suppose, to keep him out of the 
 Queen's Bench ? But, by George ; though I am 
 hard up, I wouldn't take one of those confounded 
 Peyton women if I knew it ! Won't she just 
 check him nicely, with her cheque-book and her 
 consols !' 
 
 One could hardly wonder that if the Trefusis 
 had been proved a perfect Messalina or Frede- 
 gonde, no man in love with her would have given 
 her up as she sat that last evening of the Old 
 Year on one of the low couches beside the 
 drawing - room fire at Vigne, looking with the 
 ruddy glow of the fire-gleams upon her like one 
 of Rubens', or Guide's, dark, glowing, volup- 
 tuous goddesses or sybils. De Vigne was lean- 
 ing over her with eyes for none but her. His 
 mother sat opposite them both, delicate, graceful, 
 fragile, with her diaphanous hands, and fair pure 
 profile, and rich, soft, black lace falling in folds 
 around her, her eyes yearningly fixed upon her 
 son ; while just behind her, playing ccartt with 
 Curly, who was devotedly fond of that little 
 dangerous French game, was old Lady Fantyre, 
 with her keen, wicked eye, and her rouged, 
 withered cheek, and her fan and feathers, flowers
 
 208 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 and jewels, and her dress decolletee at seventy- 
 six ! 
 
 ' Look at De Vigne ! ' said Sabretasche to me. 
 ' His desires on the eve of fulfilment, he imagines 
 his happiness will be also. How he bends over that 
 chair, and looks down into her eyes, as if all his 
 heaven hung there ! Twelve months her.ce he will 
 wish to God he had never looked upon her face.' 
 
 ' Good Heavens, Colonel ! ' I cried involuntarily, 
 what evil, or horror, do you know of her ? ' 
 
 ' None of her, personally,' said Sabretasche, with 
 a surprised smile. ' But is she not a woman ; and 
 is not De Vigne, poor fellow, marrying too early ? 
 With such premises my prophecy requires no 
 diviner's art to make it a very safe one. As 
 great a contrast as that rouged, atrociously- 
 dressed, abominable old orange-woman is to his 
 own charming and graceful mother, will be De 
 Vigne's real future to his imaginary one. How- 
 ever, he is probably in Socrates' predicament, 
 whether he take a wife or not, either way he will 
 repent; and he must be satisfied ; he will have the 
 handsomest woman in England ! Few men have 
 as much as that ! ' 
 
 ' Ladies ought to hate you, sir,' said I, ' instead 
 of loving you as idolatrously as they do ; for you 
 certainly are their bitterest enemy ? '
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 209 
 
 * Not I,' laughed Sabretasche. ' I am very fond 
 of them, except when they try and hook my 
 favourite friends, and then I would say to them, 
 as Thales said to his mother, that in their youth 
 men are too young to be fettered, and after 
 their youth they are too old. I am sorry for De 
 Vigne very sorry; he is doing what in a little 
 time, and for all his life through, he will long to 
 undo. But be must have his own way ; and per- 
 haps, after all, as Emerson says, marriage may be 
 an open question, as it is alleged from the begin- 
 ning of the world, that such as are in the institu- 
 tion want to get out, and such as are out want 
 to get in ! Marriage is like a mirage : all the 
 beauty it possesses lies in keeping at a distance 
 from it.' 
 
 He moved away with that light laugh which 
 always perplexed you as to whether he meant 
 what he said in mockery or earnest, and began to 
 arrange the pieces for a game at chess with one of 
 the ladies. He was very right. His wife would 
 be the woman of all others, from whom, in maturer 
 years, De Vigne would be most certain to revolt. 
 A man's later loves, are sure to be widely distinct in 
 style from his earlier. In his youth, he only asks 
 for what charms his eyes and senses ; in manhood 
 if he be a man of intellect at all he will go 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 further, and require interest for his mind, and re- 
 sponse for his heart. 
 
 The last hour of the Old Year chimed at once 
 from the bell-tower of Vigne, the belfry of the old 
 village-church, and the countless clocks through- 
 out the house ; as a little gold Bayadere on the 
 mantel-piece struck the twelve strokes slowly and 
 musically on her tambourine. Lady Flora, in her 
 own boudoir, heard it with passionate tears, and 
 on her knees, prayed for her son's new future which 
 this New Year heralded. De Vigne, alone in the 
 library with his betrothed, heard it, and pressed 
 his lips to hers, with words of rapturous delight, 
 to welcome this New Year coming to them both. 
 Sabretasche heard it as he leant over the chair of 
 a lovely married woman, flirting a outrance, and 
 bent backward to me as I passed him : * There goes 
 the death-knell ! The last day of De Vigne's free- 
 dom is over. Go and put on sackcloth and ashes, 
 Arthur.' 
 
 The Colonel's words weighed curiously upon me 
 as I rose and dressed on the morning of New 
 Year's-day. I, a; young fellow, who looked on life 
 and all its chances as gaily as on a game at cricket, 
 who should have come to this wedding as I had 
 gone to a dozen others, only to enjoy myself, drink 
 the AY and Sillery, and flirt with all the bridesmaids,
 
 GRAXVILLE DE VIGXE. 211 
 
 dressed with almost as dead a chill upon me, I 
 could not have told why, as if I had come to 
 De Vigne's funeral rather than to his marriage. 
 There seemed little reason for regret, however, 
 as I met him that morning coming out of his 
 room, and held out his hand with his sunny smile. 
 I wished him joy in very few words I wished it 
 him too well to be able to get up an eloquent or 
 studied speech. 
 
 ' Thank you, dear Arthur,' he answered, turning 
 his door-handle with a joyous, light-hearted laugh ; 
 * I am sure all the fairies would come and bless my 
 marriage if you'd anything to do with the ordering 
 of them. Come in, old fellow, and have a cigar 
 my last bachelor smoke it will keep me quiet 
 till she is out of her maid's hands. Faugh ! how 
 I hate the folly of wedding ceremonial ! The idea 
 of dressing up Love in white favours, and giving 
 him bride-cake ! It was not so Cupid and Psyche 
 were wed. I think Eros would have turned his 
 back on the whole affair if they had subjected him 
 to a bishop's drawl, and an attorney's prosaic busi- 
 ness, eh ? Try those Manillas, Arthur.' 
 
 He smoked because, my dear young ladies, men 
 accustomed to the horrid weed, can't do without 
 it, even on their wedding-day ; but quiet he was 
 not : he had at all times more of the tornado in 
 
 P2
 
 212 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 him, than anything like the Colonel's equable calm; 
 and he was restless and excitable, and happy as 
 only a man in the same cloudless and eager youth, 
 with the same fearless and vehement passion, can 
 ever be. He soon threw down his cigar, for a 
 servant came to tell him that his mother would 
 like to see him in her own room ; and De Vigne, 
 who had been ceaselessly darting glances at the 
 clock, which, I dare say, seemed to him to crawl 
 on its way, went out, joyous as Romeo's, 
 
 ' Come what sorrow may 
 It cannot countervail this interchange of joy.' 
 
 He never thought of Friar Laurence's prophetic 
 reply : 
 
 ' These violent delights have violent ends, 
 And in their triumph die ; like fire and powder, 
 Which as they kiss consume ! ' 
 
 By noon we were all ready. In the dining-hall, 
 with its bronzes and its deer- heads, and the regi- 
 mental colours of his father's Corps looped up 
 between the two end windows, with his helmet, 
 sabre, and gloves above them, the breakfast, sump- 
 tuous enough to have done for St. James's or the 
 Tuileries, was set out, with its gold plate, its hot- 
 house flowers, and its thousand delicacies ; and in 
 the private Chapel the wedding party was assem- 
 bled, with the sun streaming brightly in, through
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 213 
 
 the coloured light of the stained windows. It was 
 a very brilliant gathering. There 1 were the Mar- 
 chioness of Malachite and the Ladies Ferrers, 
 looking bored to the last extreme, and appearing 
 to consider it too great an honour for the mosaic 
 pavement to have the glory of bearing their foot- 
 steps. There were other dainty ladies of rank, 
 friends of Lady Flora's. There were the dozen 
 bridesmaids in their gauzy dresses and their 
 wreaths of holly or of forget-me-not ; there were 
 hosts of men, chiefly military, whose morning 
 mufti threw in just enough shade among the 
 bright dresses, as brilliant by themselves as a bou- 
 quet of exotics. There were, strangely enough, 
 close together, bizarre, quick-eyed, queer old Lady 
 Fantyre, and soft, fragile Lady Flora ; and, there 
 was De Vigne, standing near his mother, chatting 
 and laughing with Sabretasche, but all his senses 
 alive, to catch the first sound which should tell 
 him, of the advent of his bride. 
 
 How well I can see him now, as if it were but 
 yesterday, standing on the altar-steps where his 
 ancestors, through long ages past, had wedded noble 
 gentlewomen and fair patrician girls from the best 
 and bravest Houses in the land I can see him 
 now, standing erect, his head up, one hand in 
 the breast of his waistcoat, his eyes, dark as night,
 
 214 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 brilliant and luminous with eagerness ; a flush of 
 excitement and anticipation on his face; not a 
 shade, not a fear, seeming to rest upon him ! His 
 mother's eyes were riveted on him, with a mournful 
 tenderness, she could not, or did not care to, con- 
 ceal; her lips quivered; she looked at me, and 
 shook her head. That wedding party was very 
 brilliant, but there was a strange, dull gloom over 
 it which everyone felt, yet none could explain ; and 
 little of the joyous light-heartedness which make 
 " marriage- bells " proverbial for mirth and gaiety. 
 There was a very low but an irrepressible mur- 
 mur of applause, as his bride swept silently up 
 the aisle. Never had we seen her look so hand- 
 some. Her voluptuous form was shrouded in 
 the shower of lace that fell around her, and 
 about her, from her head, till it trailed behind 
 her on the ground. The glowing damask-rose 
 hue of her cheeks, not one whit the paler this 
 morning, and the splendid brilliance of her eyes, 
 were enhanced, not hidden, by the filmy floating veil. 
 A wreath of orange-flowers, of course was woven 
 in her hair, and a ceinture of diamonds, worthy an 
 imperial trousseau one of the gifts of her lavish 
 and bewitched lover were jewels fitted to her. 
 She was matchless as a dream of Rubens' ; but 
 I looked in vain, as her eyes rested on De
 
 GRANTILLE DE VIGNE. 215 
 
 Vigne's, for one saving shadow of love, joy, 
 natural emotion, tremulous feeling, to denote that 
 he was not utterly thrown away ; and only wedded 
 to a priceless statue of responseless marble ! 
 
 She passed up to the altar with her retinue of 
 bridesmaids, in their snowy dresses and bright 
 wreaths, into the light streaming from the painted 
 windows. She stood beside him ; and the service 
 began ; one of the Ferrers family, the Bishop of 
 Southdown, read the few words which linked them 
 for life with the iron fetters of the Church. Every- 
 one who caught the glad, firm, eager tone of De 
 Vigne's ' / will,' remembers it to this day re- 
 members with what trusting love, what unhesi- 
 tating promptitude he took that vow for * better 
 or worse ! ' Prophetic words ! which say, whatever 
 ill may come of that rash oath sworn, there will 
 be no remedy for it ; no help, no repentance that 
 will be of any avail ; no furnace strong enough, to 
 unsolder the chains they forge for ever ! 
 
 De Vigne passed the ring over her finger ; they 
 knelt down, and the priest stretched his hands 
 over them, and forbade those whom God had 
 joined together any Man to put asunder. And 
 they rose husband and wife. 
 
 They came down the altar steps, De Vigne's 
 face radiant, in its frank joy, its noble pride,
 
 216 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 looking down upon her with his brilliant eyes, 
 now soft and gleaming ; while she looked 
 straight before her, her lips slightly parted with 
 a smile, probably of triumph and of exultation, 
 that she, unknown and unsupported, called by all 
 an interloper, by many an adventuress, was now 
 the wife of the last of a haughty House, whose 
 pride throughout lengthened centuries had ever 
 been that all its men were brave and all its women 
 chaste; that not a taint rested on its name, not a 
 stain upon its blood, not a spot upon its shield. 
 
 We passed down the chapel into the vestry, 
 De Vigne gazing down on her with all the 
 eagerness of passion. But he had no an- 
 swering glance of love. The day of acting, be- 
 cause the need for acting, was over now. The 
 register was open; he took the quill, and 
 dashed down hastily his old ancestral name ; pass- 
 ing it into her hand with fondly whispered words. 
 She took it, threw back her veil, and wrote 
 
 " LUCY TREFUSIS OR DAVIS." 
 
 De Vigne was bending fondly over her, his lips 
 touching her hair, with its virginal crown, as she 
 wrote. With one great cry he suddenly sprang 
 up, as men will do upon a battle-field^vhen struck 
 with their death-wound. Seizing her hands in
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 217 
 
 his, he held her away from him, reading her face 
 line by line, feature by feature, with the dim 
 horror of a man in some vague dream of hideous 
 agony. And she smiled up in his face ; the smile 
 of a fiend. 
 
 * Granville de Vigne, do you know me now ? ' 
 Aye ! he knew her now. He still held her at 
 
 arms' length, staring down upon her, the truth in 
 all its vile horror, its abhorred shame, eating 
 gradually into his very life ; seeming as it were to 
 turn his warm blood to ice, and chill his very 
 heart to stone. She laughed a mocking derisive 
 laugh, which broke strangely, coarsely, brutally, 
 on the dead silence round them. 
 
 * Yes ! Granville, yes ! my young lover, I am 
 your Wife, of your own act, your own will. Do 
 you remember the poor mistress you mocked at ? 
 Do you remember the summer day when you 
 laughed at my vengeance ? Do you remember, my 
 husband? Before all your titled crowd, I take 
 my revenge, that it may be the more complete. 
 I would not wait for it, nor spare you one iota 
 of your shame, nor let you keep it secret hidden 
 in your heart ! I renounce my own ambitions to 
 humble you lower still. They are hearing us ! 
 All your haughty relatives, your fastidious friends, 
 who have tried so long to stop you in your mad
 
 218 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 passion. They listen to me ! They see you dis- 
 honoured -for ever in your eyes and theirs ! They 
 will go and tell the world, what you would neverhave 
 told it, that the last of his Line has given his home, 
 his honour, his mother's place, his father's name 
 that proud name which only yesterday you told me 
 no disgrace had ever touched, no bad blood ever 
 borne ! to the despised love of his boyhood, his 
 own cast-off low-born toy ; a beggar's child ; a 
 
 ' PEACE ! ' 
 
 At that single word, hoarse as a death-cry in 
 its unutterable agony, she was silenced perforce. 
 The blood had left his lips, and cheeks, a blue and 
 ghastly hue ; and settled on his forehead in a dark 
 crimson stain like the stain on his own honour. 
 His eyes were set and fixed, as in some mortal tor- 
 ture, wide-open and vacant in their pain ; his teeth 
 were clenched as men clench them in their last 
 struggle ; and his hand was pressed upon his heart, 
 as he gasped for breath, like one suffocated by 
 a deadly grip that throttles him. In the horror 
 of the moment, all round him were dumb and 
 paralyzed ; even she, in her rancorous hate, paused, 
 awe-stricken at the ruin she had wrought, silent 
 before the anguish, shame, and loathing that con- 
 vulsed his face, as he flung her from him with a 
 wild shrill laugh.
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 219 
 
 ' Peace ! woman devil ! or I shall have your 
 life!' 
 
 But his mother threw herself before him. ' Oh, 
 God ! he is mad ! Stay, for my sake, stay ! ' 
 
 He strained her to his heart with convulsive 
 force : 
 
 * Let me go let me go ! ' 
 
 None could attempt to arrest him. He pushed 
 his way through the crowd, hurling them aside, 
 like a madman, and we heard the rapid rush of 
 carriage-wheels as they rolled away God knows 
 where.
 
 220 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ON THE FIRST DAY OF A NEW YEAR. 
 
 ON another New Year's Day, ten years from that 
 fatal marriage in the church at Vigne, the tropic 
 sun streamed down on parched sand, and tangled 
 jungle, where, in the sultry stillness of the noon, a 
 contest for life and death was raging. Far away 
 on the blue hills slept the golden day ; the great 
 palm-leaves drooped languidly; the jaguars, and the 
 tigers, lay couched in the grasses; the florikens, and 
 parrots, closed their soft, brilliant-hued wings to 
 sleep; all nature in the vast solitudes was at 
 peace; even the broad sheet of the river was 
 calm as a tideless lake, pausing in its rapid rush, 
 from its mountain cradle, to its ocean grave. All 
 nature was hushed and still, but the passions of 
 man were warring ; when do they ever rest ? It 
 was a skirmish of English cavalry andBeloochee in- 
 fantry, in a small plain between large woods or hunt- 
 ing grounds, and the red sun shone with an arid glare 
 on the glittering sabres, and white linen helmets
 
 GRANTILLE DE VIGNE. 221 
 
 of the Europeans, and the gorgeous turbans, 
 and dark shields of the mountaineers, who were 
 darkening the air with their clashing swords, 
 and breaking the holy hush of wood and hills 
 with long rolling shouts, loud and terrible as 
 thunder. The mountaineers doubled the English 
 force ; they had surprised them, moreover, as, not 
 thinking of attack, they trotted onwards from one 
 garrison to another, and the struggle was sharp and 
 fierce. The English were but a handful of Hussars, 
 under command of their Major, and the odds were 
 great against them. But at their head was one to 
 whom fear was a word in an unknown tongue, in 
 whose blood was fire, and whose heart was bronze. 
 Sitting down in his saddle as calmly as at a meet, 
 his eyes steady arid quick as an eagle's, hewing 
 right and left like a common trooper, the English 
 Major fought his way. The Beloochee swords 
 gleamed round him without harm, while, crashing 
 through their bright-hued turbans, every stroke 
 of his sabre told. They surged around him, they 
 climbed, they wrestled, they tore, they panted for 
 his blood, they caught his charger's bridle, they op- 
 posed before him one dense and bristling forest of 
 swords ; still, he bore a charmed life, alike in single 
 combat hand to hand, or in the broken charge of 
 his scattered troop. In the fierce noontide glow; in
 
 222 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" on, 
 
 the pitiless vertical sun-rays ; while the wild shouts 
 of the natives rang up to the heavens, and the 
 ceaseless clang and clash of the sabres and shields 
 startled the birds from their rest, and the tigers 
 from their lair ; the English Major fought like grim 
 death, as these blows glanced harmless off him, as 
 from Achilles of old ; fought till the native warriors, 
 savage heroes though they were, fled from his path, 
 awe-stricken at his fierce valour, at his matchless 
 strength, at his god-like charm from danger. He 
 pursued them at the head of his Cavalry, after 
 the skirmish was over, far away across the plain ; 
 then, as he drew bridle, and put his reeking sword 
 back into its sheath, another man near him, looked 
 at him in amazement : ' On my life, De Vigne, 
 what an odd fellow you are ! You look like the 
 very devil in the midst of the fight ; and yet when 
 it's over, after sharper work than any even we 
 have seen, deuce take you if you're not as cool as 
 if you'd walked out of a barrack-yard !' 
 
 The same 1st of January, while they were en- 
 joying this Cavalry skirmish in Scinde, we were 
 bored to death by a review at Woolwich. The 
 day was soft and bright, no snow or frost, as Sabre 
 tasche, with his Italianized constitution, remarked
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGXE. 223 
 
 with a thanksgiving. There was Royalty to inspect 
 us ; there were pretty women in their carriages in 
 the inner circle ; and there was as superb a lun- 
 cheon as any military man could ask, in the finest 
 mess-room in England ; and we, ungrateful, I sup- 
 pose, for the goods the gods gave us, swore away 
 at it all, as the greatest curse imaginable. It is a 
 pretty scene enough, I dare say, to those who have 
 only to look on ; the bright uniforms and the 
 white plumes, the greys and the bays, the chesnuts 
 and the roans, the dashing staff and the cannon's 
 peaceful roar, the marching and the counter- 
 marching, the storming and the sortie, the rush and 
 the charge ! I dare say it may be all very amusing 
 to lookers-on, but to us, heated and bothered and 
 tired, obliged to go into harness, which we hated 
 as cordially as we loved it the first day we sported 
 in our Cornethood, it was a nuisance inexpressible, 
 and we should have far preferred fatiguing our- 
 selves for some better purpose under the jungle- 
 trees in Scinde. 
 
 We were profoundly thankful when it was all 
 over and done with, when H.R.H. F.M. had de- 
 parted to Windsor without luncheon, and we were 
 free to go up and chat with the women in the 
 inner circle, and take them into the mess-room. 
 There were very few we knew, yet up in town ;
 
 224 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OK, 
 
 but Parliament was about to meet, unusually 
 early that year, and there were several from 
 jointure houses, or little villas at Richmond, or 
 Twickenham, or Kew, with whom we were well 
 acquainted. 
 
 * There is Lady Molyneux,' said Sabretasche, 
 who was now Lieut.-Colonel of Ours. ' I dare say 
 that is her daughter with her. I remember she 
 came out last season, and was very much ad- 
 mired, but I missed her by going that Ionian Isle 
 trip with Brabazon. Shall we go and be intro- 
 duced, Arthur? She does not look bad style, 
 though to be sure these English winter days, are 
 as destructive to a woman's beauty, as anything 
 well can be !' 
 
 The Colonel wheeled his horse round up to the 
 Molyneux barouche, and I followed him. Ten 
 years had not altered Sabretasche in one iota ; he 
 had led the same lounging, indolent, fashionable, 
 artistic kind of life ; his face was as handsome, his 
 wit as light, his conquests as various and far-famed 
 as ever. He was still soldier, artist, sculptor, di- 
 lettante, man of fashion, all in one, the universal 
 criterion of taste, the critic of all beauties, pictures, 
 singers, or horses, popular with all men, adored by 
 all women, and really chained by none. There- 
 fore Vivian Sabretasche, whose word at White's
 
 GRAXVILLE DE VIGNE. 225 
 
 or the U. S. could do more to damage, or increase, 
 her daughter's reputation as a belle, than any 
 other man's, had a very pleasant bow and smile 
 in the distance, from Lady Molyneux ; and a very 
 delicate lavender kid glove belonging to that 
 peeress, put between his fingers, when he and I 
 rode up to her carriage. 
 
 * Ah ! ' cried the Viscountess, a pretty, super- 
 cilious-looking woman, who was passee, but would 
 not by any means allow it, * I am delighted to see 
 you both. We only came to town yesterday ; 
 Lord Molyneux has taken a house in Lowndes 
 Square, and there is positively scarcely a soul that 
 we know here as yet ! Rushbrooke persuaded us 
 to come to this review to-day, and Violet wished 
 it. Allow me to introduce my daughter to you. 
 Violet, my love, Colonel Sabretasche, Mr. Che- 
 vasney,Miss Molyneux.' 
 
 Violet Molyneux looked up in the Colonel's 
 face as he bowed to her ; and probably thought 
 at least she looked as if she did that she had 
 never seen any man so attractive, as he returned 
 her gaze with his soft, mournful eyes, and that 
 exquisite gentleness of manner, to which be owed 
 half his reputation in the tender secrets of the 
 boudoir and flirting-room ; and leaning his hand 
 on the door of the carriage, bent down from his 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 saddle, studying the new beauty, while he laughed 
 and chatted with her and her mother. We used 
 to say Sabretasche kept a list of the new beauties 
 entered for the year, as ' Bell's Life ' has a list of 
 the young fillies entered for the Oaks ; made a 
 cross against those worth noticing, and checked 
 off those already flirted with and slain ; for the 
 Colonel was indisputably as dangerous to the beau 
 sexe as Lauzun. 
 
 Violet Molyneux was certainly worthy of 
 being entered in this mythical book if it existed ; 
 her complexion white as Parian, with a wild-rose 
 colour in her cheeks, her eyes large, brilliant, and 
 wonderfully expressive, generally flashing with the 
 sweetest laughter ; her hair of a soft, bright, ches- 
 nut hue ; her figure slight but perfect in sym- 
 metry ; on her delicate features the stamp of 
 quick intelligence, heightened by the greatest 
 culture ; and in her whole air and manner the 
 grace of high rank, and fashionable dress. Gifted 
 with the gayest spirits, the cleverest brain, and 
 the sweetest temper possible, one could not wonder 
 that she was talked over at Clubs ; engaged by 
 more than her tablets could record at every ball, 
 and followed by a perfect cavalcade when she 
 cantered down the Bide. Sabretasche soon took 
 her off to the mess-room, a Lieutenant-General
 
 GRANTILLE DE VIGNE. 227 
 
 escorting her mother, and I found myself sitting 
 on her left at the luncheon : an occasion I did not 
 improve as much as I otherwise should have done, 
 from the fact of his being on the other side, and 
 persuading the young lady to give all her atten- 
 tion to him ; for, though he was scarcely ever 
 really interested in any woman, he liked to flirt 
 with them all, and always made himself charming. 
 The Hon. Violet seemed to find him charming 
 too ; and chatted with him gaily and frankly, as if 
 she had known him for ages. 
 
 ' How I enjoyed the review to day ! ' she began. 
 ' If there are three sights greater favourites of 
 mine than another, they are a review, a race, and 
 a meet, because of the dear horses.' 
 
 ' Or their masters ? ' said Sabretasche, quietly. 
 
 Violet Molyneux laughed. 
 
 ' Oh ! their masters are very pleasant too, though 
 they are certainly never so handsome, or so tract- 
 able, or so honest as their quadrupeds ! Most of 
 my friends abuse gentlemen. I don't ; they are 
 always kind to me, and unless they are very young 
 or stupid, generally speaking amusing.' 
 
 * Miss Molyneux, what a treat ! ' smiled Sabre- 
 tasche, who could say impudent things so gracefully, 
 that every one liked them from his lips. * You 
 have the candour to say what every other young 
 
 Q2
 
 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 lady thinks. We know you all like us very much, but 
 none of you will ever admit it ! You say you en- 
 joyed the review ? I thought no belle, after her first 
 season, ever condescended to " enjoy " anything.' 
 
 ' Don't they ? ' laughed Violet ; * how I pity 
 them ! I am an exception, then, for I enjoy an 
 immense number of things ; everything, indeed, 
 except my presentation, where I was ironed quite 
 flat, and very nearly crushed to death, and, finally, 
 came before her Majesty in a state of collapse, 
 like a maimed india-rubber ball. Not enjoy 
 things ! Why, I enjoy my morning gallop on 
 Bonbon ; I enjoy my flowers, and birds, and dogs. 
 I delight in the opera, I adore waltzing, I perfectly 
 idolize music, and the day when a really good 
 book comes out, or a really good painting is ex- 
 hibited, I am in a seventh heaven. Not enjoy 
 things ! Oh, Colonel Sabretasche, when I cease 
 to enjoy life, I hope I shall cease to live ! * 
 
 'You will die very early, then!' said Sabretasche, 
 with something of that deepened melancholy 
 which occasionally stole over him, but which he 
 was always careful to conceal in society. 
 
 She started, and turned her bright eyes upon 
 him, surprised and stilled: 
 
 4 Colonel Sabretasche ! Why ? ' 
 
 He smiled ; his usual gay, courteous smile :
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 229 
 
 * Because the gods will grudge earth so fair a 
 flower, and men so true a vision, of what angels 
 ought to be ; but thanks to preachers, poets, and 
 painters never are' 
 
 She shook her head with a pretty impatience : 
 'Ah ! pray do not waste compliments upon me; 
 I detest them.' 
 
 * Vraiment ? ' murmured the Colonel, with a 
 little, quiet, incredulous glance. 
 
 ' Yes, I do indeed. You don't believe me, I 
 dare say ? Because I have so many of them, Cap- 
 tain Chevasney ? Perhaps it is. I have many more 
 than are really complimentary, either to my taste 
 or my intellect.' 
 
 ' Ladies like compliments as children like bon- 
 bons,' said Sabretasche, in his low trainante voice. 
 ' They will take them till they can take no more ; 
 but if they see ever so insignificant a one going to 
 another, how they long for it, how they grudge it, 
 how they burn to add it to their store ! This is 
 ceil de perdrix, will you try it ? 
 
 ' No, thank you,' answered the Hon. Violet, 
 with a ringing laugh. The sarcasms on her sex 
 did not seem to touch or disturb her ; she rather 
 enjoyed them than otherwise. ' What is the news 
 to-day ? ' 
 
 'Nothing remarkable,' answered Sabretasche.
 
 230 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 ' Births, deaths, and marriages all put together, to 
 remind men, like Philip of Macedon's valet, that 
 they come into the world, to suffer in it, and go out 
 again ! Much like all other news, Miss Molyneux, 
 except that your name is down as among those 
 arrived in town, and my friend De Vigne is men- 
 tioned for the Bath.' 
 
 * Ah ! that Major de Vigne ! ' cried Violet. 
 ' Where is he ? who is he ? what has he really 
 been doing? I heard Lord Hilton talking about 
 him last night, saying that he had been a most 
 wonderful fellow in India, and that the natives 
 called him what was it ? " the Charmed Life," I 
 think. Is he your friend ? ' 
 
 ' My best,' said Sabretasche. ' Not Jonathan 
 to my David, you know, nor lolaiis to my Orestes ; 
 we don't do that sort of thing in these days. We 
 like each other, but as for dying for each other, 
 that would be far too much trouble ; and, besides, 
 it would be bad ton too demonstrative. But I 
 like him ; he is as true steel as any man I know, 
 and I shall be delighted to have a cigar with him 
 again, provided it is not too strong a one. Dying 
 for one's Patroclus would be preferable to en- 
 during his bad tobacco.' 
 
 Violet looked at him with her radiant glance : 
 
 ' Well, Colonel Sabretasche, if your cigar be not
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIQNE. 231 
 
 kindled warmer than your friendship, it will very 
 soon go out again, that's all ! ' 
 
 * Soit ! there are plenty more in the case,' smiled 
 Sabretasche, ' and one Havannah is as good as 
 another, for anything I see. But about De Vigne 
 you have heard quite truly; he has been fighting 
 in Scinde like all the Knights of the Round Table 
 merged in one. He is Major of the th Hussars, 
 and he has done more with his handful than a 
 general of division might have done with a whole 
 squadron. His Colonel was put hors de combat 
 with a ball in his hip, and De Vigne, of course, 
 had the command for some time. The natives 
 call him the Charmed Life, because, despite the 
 risks he runs, and the carelessness with which he 
 has exposed his life, he has not had a single scratch ; 
 and both the Sepoys he fights with, and the Beloo- 
 chees he fights against, stand in a sort of awe of 
 him. The th is ordered home, so we are look- 
 ing out to see him soon. I shall be heartily glad, 
 poor old fellow ! ' 
 
 ' Provided, I suppose, he brings cheroots with 
 him good enough to allow him admittance ? ' said 
 Violet. 
 
 * Sous entendu,' said the Colonel. * I would in- 
 finitely prefer losing a friend to incurring a dis- 
 agreeable sensation. Would not you ? '
 
 232 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 * Oh ! of course,' answered the young lady, with 
 a rapid flash of her mischievous eyes. ' Frederick's 
 feelings, when he saw Katte beheaded, must have 
 been trifling child's play, to what the Sybarite 
 suffered from the doubled rose-leaves ! ' 
 
 * Undoubtedly,' said Sabretasche, tranquilly. ' I 
 am glad you agree with me ! If we do not take 
 care and undouble the rose-leaves for ourselves, 
 we may depend on it we shall find no one who 
 will take so much trouble for us. To Aide-toi et 
 Dieu t'aidera, they should add Aide-toi et le monde 
 t'aidera, for I have always noticed that Providence 
 and the world generally befriend those who can do 
 without their help.' 
 
 ' Perhaps there is a deeper meaning in that,' 
 answered Violet, ' and more justice than first 
 seems? After all, those who do aid themselves 
 may deserve it the most, and those whose heads 
 and hands are silent and idle, hardly have a right 
 to have the bonbons of existence picked out and 
 given to them.' 
 
 ' I don't know whether we have a right to 
 them, but we find them pleasant, and that is all 
 1 look at ; and besides, Miss Molyneux, when you 
 have lived a little longer in the world, you will 
 invariably find that it is to those who have much, 
 that much is given, and vice versa. Guineas pour
 
 GfeAXVILLE DE VIGNE. 233 
 
 into the gold plate held by that " decidedly pious 
 person," Lord Savinggrace, but pence will do for 
 the parish poor-box. Turtle and tokay are given 
 to an heir-apparent, but a cutlet and new port will 
 suffice for a younger son. Establish yourself on a 
 pedestal, the world will worship you, even though 
 the pedestal be of very poor brick and mortar ; lie 
 modestly down on a moorland, though it be, like 
 James Fergusson, for genius to study science, why, 
 you may lie there for ever if you wait for anybody 
 to pick you up ! The world has a trick of serving, 
 like the Swiss Guard and the secret police, which- 
 ever side is uppermost and pays them best. How- 
 ever, thank Heaven I want nothing of it, and it is 
 very civil to me/ 
 
 ' Because you want nothing of it ? ' 
 
 ' Precisely.'
 
 234 " HELD IN BONDAGE 5" OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE * CHARMED LIFE ' COMES BACK AMONG US. 
 
 * THANK God I have found a girl who has some 
 notion of conversation. I believe, with the Per- 
 sians, that ten measures of talk were sent down 
 from Heaven, and the ladies took nine; but of 
 conversation, argument, repartee the real use of 
 that most most facile, dexterous, sharp-pointed 
 weapon, the tongue what woman has a notion ? 
 They employ a thousand superlatives in describing 
 a dress, they exhaust a million expletives in 
 damning their bosom friend, their boudoirs hear 
 more twaddle than the Commons si tfest possi- 
 ble ! and they rail harder over their coffee-cups, 
 at their sisters' short-comings, than a popular 
 preacher over his sounding-board, at the vices he 
 pets sub rosa. But as for conversation, they have 
 not a notion of it ; if you begin an argument, they 
 either get into a passion or subside into mono- 
 syllables ! A woman who has good conversation 
 is as rare as one who does not care for scandal. I
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 235 
 
 have met them in Paris salons, and we have found 
 one to-day.' 
 
 So spoke Sabretasche at mess that night a 
 propos of Violet Molyneux, who was under dis- 
 cussion in common with our ox-tail and our 
 wine. 
 
 * Then you allow her your approval, Colonel,' 
 said Montressor, of Ours. 
 
 * Certainly I do,' said Sabretasche. ' This soup 
 is not good, it is too thin. She is exquisitely 
 pretty, even through my eye-glass, which has a 
 sad knack of finding the lilies cosmetique and the 
 eyebrows tinting ; and, what is much better, she 
 is actually natural and fresh, and can talk as if 
 Nature had given her brains, and reading had 
 cultivated them. I dare say they count on her 
 making a good marriage.' 
 
 ' No doubt they do. Jockey Jack has hardly a 
 rap,' replied another man. ' They can't keep up 
 their Irish place, so they hang out in town three 
 parts of the year, and take a shooting-box, or visit 
 about for the rest. Confound it, I wouldn't be 
 one of the Upper House, without a good pot of 
 money to keep up my dignity, for anything I could 
 see ! Violet came out last season, you know ? ' 
 
 * Yes, I know ; I remember hearing she made a 
 great sensation,' answered the Colonel. ' Ormsby
 
 236 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 told me she was the best thing of the season the 
 first, by-the-by, I was ever out of London. Lady 
 Molyneux must try to run down Regalia, or 
 Cavendish Grey, or one of the great matrimonal 
 coups. My lady knows how to manoeuvre, too ; 
 I wonder she should have a daughter so frank and 
 unaffected.' 
 
 ' They've seen nothing of one another,' answered 
 Pigott, who always knew everything about every- 
 body, from the price Lord Goodwood gave for his 
 thorough-bred roan fillies, to the private thoughts 
 that Lady Honoria Bandoline wrote each night in 
 her violet-velvet diary. * My lady's always run- 
 ning out somewhere ; if you were to call at eight 
 in the morning you'd find her gone off to early 
 Matins ; if you were to call at twelve, she'd be 
 off to the Sanctified and Born-again Clear- 
 starchers' jubilee with Lord Saving-grace ; at two, 
 she'd be closeted and lunching with her spiritual 
 master whoever he chance to be who gives 
 her confession and eats her croquis ; at three, 
 she'd be having a snug boudoir flirtation ; at 
 four, she'd be in the Park, of course, or at a 
 morning concert; at six, she'd be dressing for 
 dinner ; at ten, she'd be off to three or four balls 
 and crushes ; and so between the two she certainly 
 carries out that delightful work, " How to Make
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 237 
 
 the Best of Both Worlds," which my Low Church 
 sister sent me the other day ! ' 
 
 ' With the idea that you were doing your very 
 utmost to make the worst of 'em, Charlie ? ' 
 laughed Sabretasche. * I don't know the volume 
 Heaven forfend ! but the title sounds to me 
 sneaky, as if it wanted to get the sweets out of 
 both, yet compromise itself with neither. Your 
 sketch of Lady Molyneux is as true to life as one 
 of Leech's ; but certainly her child is about as un- 
 like her as could possibly be imagined.' 
 
 ' Oh, by George ! yes,' assented Montressor, 
 heartily ; ' Mis Vy hasn't one bit of nonsense 
 about her.' 
 
 * And she's a divine waltzer turn her round 
 in a nutshell.' 
 
 ' And can't she ride, just ! * 
 
 'And her voice smashes Alboni's to pieces, her 
 shake's perfection.' 
 
 ' And she can talk ! ' added Sabretasche, in his 
 quiet voice. ' I will call in Lowndes Square to- 
 morrow. So the th is ordered home ? We 
 shall see De Vigne again.' 
 
 ' Unless he exchange to a regiment still on 
 active service/ said Pigott. 
 
 ' He won't do that/ I answered. ' I heard from 
 him last Marseilles mail, and he said he intended
 
 238 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 to return overland. Poor fellow ? what ages it is 
 since we've seen him ! ' 
 
 ' It is ten years, isn't it ? ' said Sabretasche, 
 setting down his champagne-glass with half a sigh. 
 ' He has had some sharp work out there. I hope 
 it has done him good. I never wish to see a man 
 look as he looked last time I saw him.' 
 
 * Where's his rascally wife ? ' asked Montressor. 
 
 * The Trefusis ? For Heaven's sake don't call 
 her his wife,' said I, impatiently. ' /'ll never give 
 her his name, though the law may. She is at 
 Paris, cut by all his set of course, living with the 
 Fantyre, in a dashing hotel in the Champs Elysees, 
 keeping a green and gold Chasseur six feet high, 
 and giving suivies soirees to a certain class of un- 
 titled English and titled French, who don't care a 
 fig for her story, and care a good deal for her 
 suppers.' 
 
 * Which she buys with De Vigne's tin, hang 
 her ! She calls herself Mrs. De Vigne, I think ! ' 
 
 ' She is Mrs. De Vigne,' said Sabretasche, with 
 that bitter sneer which occasionally passed over 
 his features. * You forget the sanctity, solemnity, 
 and beauty of the marriage tie, my dear Mon- 
 tressor. You know it is too " holy " to be severed, 
 either by reason, justice, or common sense ! ' 
 
 'Holy fiddlesticks, Colonel,' retorted Mon-
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 239 
 
 tressor, contemptuously ; ' the best law for that 
 confounded woman would have been Lynch law ; 
 and if I'd had my way, I would have taken her 
 out of church that morning and shot her straight 
 away out of hand.' 
 
 * Too handsome to be shot, Fred.' 
 
 * She will not be so handsome in a few years ; 
 she will soon grow coarse,' said the Colonel, that 
 most fastidious of female critics. * She is the 
 full-blown dashing style to strike youngsters, but 
 there is not a single charm that will last.' 
 
 ' Are there in any of them ? None last long 
 with you, Colonel, I fancy ? ' 
 Sabretasche laughed gaily. 
 
 * To be sure not ! 
 
 " Therefore is love said to be a child, 
 Because in choice he is so oft beguiled." 
 
 Don't you admit the truth of that ? ' 
 
 ' I should hope I do. Well, after all, his mar- 
 riage won't matter to De Vigne, except the loss 
 of the three thousand a year he allows her ; to be 
 sure, there's the blow to his pride, and he is a 
 terribly proud fellow.' 
 
 Sabretasche looked up, ' Some men's honour 
 is sensitive, Pigott ; others like their understand- 
 ings somewhat dull.' 
 
 Pigott did not relish the hit.
 
 240 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 * Well, why did he do it ? He needn't have 
 been such a fool ! ' he said, sulkily. 
 
 Sabretasche's eyes lit angrily. 
 
 * If you are never more of a fool, Pigott, than 
 De Vigne, you may thank Heaven ! His passions 
 led him into error; but if every man I know 
 were as worthy respect as he, the world would be 
 a better one. /, at least, will never sit by to hear 
 him ridiculed.' 
 
 Those were very strong words from our care- 
 less, impassive, indolent Colonel, and they had their 
 effect accordingly. He spoke very quietly not rais- 
 ing his voice ; but Pigott cared not to provoke him 
 further. He drank down his sherry with rather a 
 nervous laugh : 
 
 * Oh ! we know he's a brick ; all I hope is, that 
 he won't come home and tumble into love with 
 Violet Molyneux, or some other young filly.' 
 
 Sabretasche laughed ; he hated dissensions, and 
 was always ready to restore harmony to any 
 table. 
 
 ' I hope not, too. That young Irish beauty is 
 exceedingly love-provoking. She has done a good 
 deal of damage, hasn't she ? ' 
 
 Six weeks or so after this, I was dining with 
 Sabretasche at his own house one of those 
 charming, exclusive little dinner parties which were
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGXE. 241 
 
 his specialite. The other men had just left ; and 
 the Colonel and I were sitting before the inner 
 drawing-room fire, with the Cid stretched on 
 the rug between us; Sabretasche lying full 
 length on a sofa inhaling perfume from his 
 hookah, and I in a low chair smoking, talking of 
 De Vigne, for the th had been ordered home, 
 and he coming via Marseilles, was expected in a 
 few days at furthest. 
 
 ' What a sin it is that such a union should be 
 valid/ said Sabretasche. 'I think I hear that 
 wretched woman tell me, with her cold, trium- 
 phant smile, " Colonel Sabretasche, my father's 
 name was Trefusis, my mother's name was Davis 
 one was a gentleman, the other a beggar-girl. 
 I have as much, or as little, right to one as to the 
 other. Let your friend sue for a divorce, the law 
 will not give it him." ' 
 
 * Too true ; the law will not. Our divorce law 
 is ' 
 
 ' An inefficient, insufficient, cruel farce ! ' said 
 Sabretasche, more energetically than I had ever 
 heard him say anything in his life. ' In an infatuated 
 hour a man saddles himself with a she-devil like 
 the Trefusis a liar, a drunkard, a mad woman ; 
 what redress is there for him ? None. All his 
 life through he must drag on the same clog; 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 fettering all his energies, crushing out all his 
 hopes, chaining down his very life, festering at 
 his very heart-strings. There, at his hearth, 
 must sit the embodied curse there, in his home, 
 it must dwell there, at his side, it must be, till 
 God release him from it ! ' 
 
 I looked up at him in surprise, it was very un- 
 usual to see him so warm about anything. He 
 took up his hookah again ; yawned, and pointed 
 to a marble statuette of his own chipping, on 
 which the firelight was gleaming. 
 
 ' Look at that little Venus Anadyomene, Arthur, 
 with the fire-light shining on her; quite Rem- 
 brandtesque, isn't it ? I'll paint it so to-morrow.' 
 
 ' Do, and give the picture to Violet Molyneux. 
 But if you divorce for insanity, every husband sick 
 of his wife can get a certificate of lunacy against 
 her ? If for drunkenness, what woman will be safe 
 from having drams innumerable sworn to her ? If 
 for incompatibility of temper, after every little 
 temporary quarrel, scores would fly to the divorce 
 courts, and be heartily sorry for it after ? Come, 
 how would you redress it?' 
 
 ' My dear fellow,' said Sabretasche, languidly, 
 ' I'm not in parliament, thank Heaven for it ; for, 
 if I were, my conscience would be always pricking 
 me to try and introduce a little common sense
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 243 
 
 among that body, and, as the operation would be 
 of an Augean-stable character, I'm much too idle 
 a man for it to be to my taste. You talk like a 
 sage. / only feel for poor De Vigne, I mean.' 
 
 * You don't feel more for him than I, Colonel 
 the Jezebel of a woman ! That such an union 
 should be legal, is a disgrace. At the same time, 
 divorce seems to me, of all the niceties of legis- 
 lature, the most ticklish and unsatisfactory to 
 adjust. If you were to shut the door on divorce, 
 there is an evil unbearable; if you open it too 
 wide, almost as much harm may accrue ? ' 
 
 * My dear Chevasney, you talk like a pater- 
 familias, a Solon of seventy, a moral machine 
 without blood, or bones, or feelings,' said Sabre- 
 tashe, impatiently. ' I don't care a straw for 
 theories ; I look at facts. Put yourself in the 
 position, Arthur, and then sit in judgment. I take 
 it if every man had to do that, the laws would 
 be at once wiser and more lenient ; whereas now, 
 on the contrary, it is your man who has the stolen 
 pieces in his pocket, who cries out the most vehe- 
 mently for the thief to be hanged, hoping to throw 
 off suspicion ! Put yourself in the position ! Now 
 you are young and easily swayed, you fall in love 
 as you phrase it with some fine figure or pretty 
 face. Down you go headlong, never stopping to 
 
 R2
 
 244 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 consider whether her mind is attuned to yours, her 
 tastes in common with yours, her character such as 
 will go well with yours, in the long intercourse 
 that takes so much to make it harmony, so little 
 to make it discord. You marry her; the honey- 
 moon is barely out, before the bandage is off your 
 eyes. We will suppose you see your wife in her 
 true colours coarse, perhaps low-bred, with not 
 a fibre of her moral nature that is attuned to yours, 
 not a chord in heart or mind that is in harmony 
 with yours. She revolts all your better tastes, 
 she checks all your warmer feelings, she debases 
 all your higher instincts ; union with her, humbles 
 you in your own eyes; contact and association 
 with her, lower your tone of thought, and imper- 
 ceptibly draw you down to her own level. Your 
 home is one ceaseless scene of pitiful jangle, or of 
 coarser violence. She makes your house a hell, 
 she peoples your hearth with fiends ; she and her 
 children hideous likenesses of herself bear your 
 own name, and make you loathe it. Perhaps you 
 meet one the utter contrast of her, the fond ideal in 
 your youth of what your wife was to be ; one in 
 whom you realize all you might have been, all you 
 might have done! You look on Heaven, and 
 devils hold you back. You thirst for a purer life, 
 and fiends mock at you and will not let you reach
 
 GRANV1LLE DE VIGNE. 245 
 
 it. What escape is there for you? None but 
 the grave ! Realize this realize it and you will 
 feel how as a prisoner lies dying for the scent of 
 the fresh air, while the free man sits contentedly 
 within ; so a man, happily married, or not married 
 at all, looks on the question of divorce, in a very 
 different light to a man fettered thus, with the 
 torments of both Prometheus and Tantalus, the 
 vulture gnawing at his vitals, the lost joys mocking 
 him out of reach ! ' 
 
 His indolence was gone, his impassiveness 
 changed to vivid earnestness ; his melancholy eyes 
 darkened and dilated : I shuddered involuntarily. 
 
 * You draw a terrible picture, Colonel, and a 
 true enough one, no doubt, as many men would 
 witness if one could see into their homes and 
 hearts. But what I want to know is, how to 
 redress it ? What judge could dive into the hid- 
 den mysteries of human life, the unuttered secrets 
 of mutual love or mutual hate? What judge 
 could say where the blame lay ; or, seeing only 
 the surface, and hearing only the outside, weigh 
 the just points of fitness or unfitness? Who can 
 decide between man and woman? Who, seeing 
 the little of the inner existence that is ever re- 
 vealed in a law court, could judge between them ? 
 We know how mischievously absurd the divorce
 
 246 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 mania was in Germany? How Dorothea Veit 
 broke with the best of husbands, on the plea of 
 " want of sympathy," and went over to Frederick 
 Schlegel ; and how the Sensitive doctrine of 
 which Schleiermacher was inaugurator, made it 
 only necessary to be tied, to feel the want of being 
 " sympathetically matched," and being untied 
 again. Men would marry then as carelessly as 
 they flirt now, and would, as soon as a pretty face 
 had grown stale to their eye, find out that she 
 was a vixen, a virago, addicted to gin, or anything 
 that suited their purpose, though she might really 
 have every virtue under heaven. Don't you think 
 that it is impossible, as long as human nature is 
 so changeable, and short-sighted, or marriage num- 
 bered among our social institutions at all, to trim 
 between too much liberty in it and too little ? ' 
 
 * Hush, hush, my good Arthur ! ' cried the 
 Colonel, with a gesture of deprecation; 'pray 
 keep all that for the benches of St. Stephen's 
 some twenty years hence, it is far too chill, sage, 
 and rational for me to appreciate it. I prefer 
 feeling to reasoning always have done. Possibly, 
 the evils might accrue that you prophesy; but 
 that does not at all disprove what I say, that the 
 marriage fetters are at times the heaviest handcuffs 
 men can wear; heavier than those which chain
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 247 
 
 the galley-slave to his oar, for he has committed 
 crime to justify his punishment, whereas a man 
 tricked into marriage by an artful intrigante, or 
 hurried into it by a mad fancy, has done no harm 
 to any one except himself ! If you have such a 
 taste for reason, listen to what John Milton 
 that grave, calm Puritan and philosophic Repub- 
 lican, the last man in the universe to let his 
 passions run away with him says on the score.' 
 He stretched out his hand to a stand of books 
 near him, and took out a Tetrachordon, bound, 
 as all his books were, in cream-coloured vellum. 
 * Hear what John Milton says : " Him I hold 
 more in the way to perfection who foregoes an 
 impious, ungodly, and discordant wedlock, to live 
 according to peace, and love, and God's insti- 
 tution, in a fitter choice ; than he who debars 
 himself the happy experience of all godly, which 
 is peaceful conversation in his family, to live a 
 contentious and unchristian life not to be avoided ; 
 in temptations not to be lived in ; only for the 
 false keeping of a most unreal nullity, a marriage 
 that hath no affinity with God's intentions, a 
 daring phantasm, a mere toy of terror; awing 
 weak senses, to the lamentable superstition of 
 ruining themselves : the remedy whereof God in 
 his law vouchsafes us; which, not to dare USP,
 
 248 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 he warranting, is not our perfection, but is our 
 infirmity, our little faith, our timorous and low 
 conceit of charity ; and in them, who force us to it, 
 is their masking pride, and vanity, to seem holier 
 and more circumspect than God." What do you 
 say now ? Can you deny the justice, the wisdom, 
 the wide charity and reason of his arguments? 
 It is true he was unhappy with his wife, but he 
 was a man to speak, not from passion, but from 
 conviction. Milton was made of that stern stuff 
 that would have you cut off your right hand if it 
 offended you. In Rome he would have been. a 
 Virginius, a Cincinnatus ; in the early Christians' 
 days, he would have died with Stephen, endured 
 with Paul. He is not a man like myself, who do 
 no earthly good that I know of, who am swayed 
 by impulse, imagination, passion a hundred thou- 
 sand things, who have never checked a wish or 
 denied a desire. Milton is one of your saints and 
 heroes, yet even he has the compassionate wisdom 
 to see that divorce would save many a man, whom 
 an unfit union drives headlong to his ruin. He 
 knows that it is cowardice and hypocrisy, and, as 
 he says, a wish to seem holier and more circum- 
 spect than God, which makes your precisians for- 
 bid what nature and reason alike demand, and to 
 which, if the Church and the Law forbade freedom
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 249 
 
 ever so, men would find some means to pioneer 
 their own way. You may cage an eagle out of 
 the sunlight, but the bird will find some road to 
 life, and light, and liberty ; or die beating his wings 
 in hopeless effort. Look there ! Good Heavens ! ' 
 
 I sprang up; he rose very quickly for his usual 
 indolent movements. In the doorway stood De 
 Vigne, and we grasped his hands silently, none of 
 us speaking. The memory of that last scene in 
 the chapel at his fatal Marriage Altar, was strong 
 upon us all. 
 
 Then Sabretasche put his hand on his shoulder, 
 pushed him gently into an arm-chair before the 
 fire, and said, softly, as a man speaks to a woman, 
 
 ' Dear old fellow ! there is no need for us to say 
 welcome home ? ' 
 
 De Vigne looked up with something of his old 
 smile, though it faded instantly. 
 
 ' No need, indeed : and dont say it. I know 
 you are both glad to see me, and let us forget that 
 we have ever been separated. Arthur, old boy, if 
 it wouldn't sound an insult, I should tell you you 
 were grown ; and as for you, Sabretasche, you are 
 not a whit altered ; it is my belief you wouldn't 
 change if you lived as long as Sue's Wandering 
 Jew ! They told me at the barracks, Arthur was 
 dining with you, and so I came on straight. My
 
 250 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 luggage is still in the Pera, but I brought up some 
 cheroots. Try them, both of you.' 
 
 We saw that he wished to sweep away the past, 
 and avoid all allusion to his own fate ; and we fell 
 in with his humour. Smoking round the fire, we 
 tried to ignore every painful subject; but as I 
 looked at him, I found it hard not to utter aloud 
 my curse on the woman who had sent him out into 
 exile. 
 
 Ten long years had not passed without leaving 
 their stamp upon him. His face had lost the glow, 
 the bright eagerness the rounded outline of his 
 earlier youth. Pale he had always been but now 
 the pallor was that of marble, as if the hot young 
 blood surging through his veins had been suddenly 
 frozen ; as when the first breath of winter checks, 
 the free, warm, vehement waters in their course, 
 and chills them into ice. It was still the face of a 
 man of wayward will, and strong passions, but of 
 waywardness which bad cost him dear, and of pas- 
 sions that were chained down perhaps for ever. 
 
 ,You have seen good service out there, De 
 Vigne,' begun Sabretasche, to lighten the gloom 
 which was stealing upon us, 'On my word we 
 feel quite proud of you ! What a lion you have 
 been, old fellow.' 
 
 De Vigne smiled.
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 251 
 
 * I looked a lion because I was among puppy 
 dogs ! Yes, I saw good service, not so much, 
 though, as I should have liked. Some of it was 
 pretty sharp work, but we dawdled a whole year 
 away at that miserable Calcutta court ; if it had 
 not been for pig-sticking I should never have 
 borne it at all, but I got no end of spears. Then 
 we went up to a hill station, where there was 
 nobody but an old judge, and a missionary or two, 
 who had been bankrupt shoemakers, and taken to 
 dispensing Grace, as a means of getting a few 
 shillings from those discerning Christians who 
 sent them out, firmly crediting their assurances 
 that they felt " specially called." There the hill 
 deer, and the ortolans, and a tiger or two, kept us 
 going ; and then we were ordered off to have a 
 shy at the mountain rebels. They fought magni- 
 ficently, I must say. Ah ! by Jove ! ' cried De 
 Vigne, his eyes lighting up, * there at last I really 
 lived. The constant danger, the ceaseless vigi- 
 lance, the free life, the sharp service, roused me 
 up, and gave me a zest for existence which I 
 thought I had lost for ever.' 
 
 * Nonsense, nonsense ! ' cried the Colonel. ' You 
 will have zest enough in it again by-and-by. No 
 man on the sunny side of forty has lost what he 
 may not regain.'
 
 252 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 'Except where one false step has murdered 
 pride and ruined honour!' said De Vigne, between 
 his teeth. ' Well, Sabretasche, what have you 
 been doing all these years ? Flirting, buying pic- 
 tures and painting them, setting the fashion, and 
 criticizing new singers, as usual, I suppose.' 
 
 ' Don't talk of the years ! ' cried Sabretasche, 
 lifting his eyebrows. ' If I see to-morrow I shall 
 be forty-five. It is disagreeable to grow old ; one 
 begins to doubt one's attractions ! ' 
 
 ' You are young enough ! and yet, I don't 
 know ; it is a popular fallacy that time counts by 
 years. One is old according to the style of one's 
 life, not the length of it.' 
 
 ' I heard Violet Molyneux tell you last night, 
 Colonel, that you were in your second youth, and 
 the first prime of manhood. So take comfort,' 
 said I. 
 
 He smiled. ' Poor little fool ! ' he muttered, 
 under his moustaches. 
 
 ' Violet Molyneux who is she ? ' asked De 
 Vigne. * That's a new name to me. Is she a 
 daughter of Jockey Jack, as we used to call 
 him?' 
 
 'Yes,' I answered; 'and a lovely creature. 
 She's a fresh beauty, and a new love for Sabre- 
 tasche, who worships him most devoutly especially
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 253 
 
 since she came to his studio this morning and saw 
 his last painting of Esmeralda and Djali.' 
 
 * Don't crack me up, Arthur,' said Sabretasche, 
 rather impatiently. ' Jockey Jack has a daughter 
 who knows how to talk, and sings well enough 
 to please me (two especial miracles, as you can 
 fancy, my dear De Vigne) ; but, certainly, both 
 her tongue and her thorax, do their business un- 
 usually well, and she is very lovely to boot. What 
 have I been doing, did you say? Leading just 
 the same life I have led for the last twenty years. 
 Making love to scores of women, wasting my time 
 over marble and canvas, heading a Hyde Park 
 campaign, or directing a Richmond fete ! Ca- 
 ramba ! one gets tired of it.' 
 
 'Why lead it, then?' 
 
 * Because none are any better. Do my scien- 
 tific friends, who absorb their energies in classify- 
 ing a fossil encrinite; my parliamentary friends, 
 who concentrate their energies in bribing the Un- 
 washed ; my philanthropic friends, who hoax the 
 public, and get hoaxed themselves, by every text- 
 quoting thief who has the knack, and the tact, to 
 touch up their weak points ; my literary friends, 
 who write to line portmanteaus ; my celebrated 
 friends, who toil to get heart-disease, and three 
 damning lines in history, do these, any of them,
 
 254 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 enjoy themselves one wit the more ; or fail to say 
 with Solomon, "Vanity of vanities all is vanity"? 
 Tell me so show me so, and I will begin their 
 life to-morrow. Our vocation is to amuse our- 
 selves, and slay our fellow-creatures by way of in- 
 termediate pastime; and it is as good a one, for 
 all I can see, as any other.' 
 
 'To slay our fellow-creatures!' cried De Vigne. 
 ' Come, come, put it a little more gracefully. Tn 
 fight like Britons to die for our colours. Some- 
 thing a little more poetic and patriotic ! ' 
 
 * Same thing, my dear De Vigne ; only the 
 wording different ! ' 
 
 ' You like the same life as the Cid, Colonel,' 
 said I, smiling. ' To eat daintily, sleep warmly, 
 lie on cushions without anybody to trouble you, 
 and kill your game when the spirit moves you.' 
 
 *And love most truly, and do my duty, as far 
 as I see it, most faithfully? No, no, Arthur, 
 that doesn't do for me at all; it's not in my 
 role.' 
 
 'You'll write on the Cid's grave,' said De 
 Vigne, * as Byron wrote on Boatswain's, 
 
 " In life the firmest friend, 
 The first to welcome, foremost to defend." ' 
 
 ' Yes, indeed ; and like him 
 
 " I never had but one, and here he lies."
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 255 
 
 The Cid,' said Sabretasche, drawing the dog's ears 
 through his hands * the Cid is the only thing 
 that cares for me.' 
 
 ' For you, the adored of all women, the cher ami 
 of all beauties, the " good fellow " of every man 
 worth knowing in town ! What do you mean by 
 only having a dog to care for you ? The world 
 would never believe you.' 
 
 ' I mean what I say. Son Dieu I how much 
 does the world know of any of us?' 
 
 * Little enough,' said De Vigne, * but it is 
 always of those of whom it knows least, that 
 it will affect to know most ; and the stranger 
 you sit next at a dinner-party, is ten to one 
 far better acquainted with your business than 
 you are yourself. We shall hear you are to 
 marry what is her name? Violet Molyneux 
 soon?' 
 
 * Not I,' said Sabretasche ; * at least you may 
 hear it, but I shall live, and die, as I am now 
 alone ! Who would care for reports ? I can as 
 soon imagine a man taking heed of every tuft of 
 dandelion that passes him in the air, or every in- 
 sect that crawls beneath his feet, as taking note of 
 the reports that buzz round his career.' 
 
 * By Jove, yes ! ' cried De Vigne. 'Out campaign- 
 ing, one is free from all that trash. Before the can-
 
 256 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 non's mouth men cannot stop to split straws ; and 
 with one's own life on a thread, one cannot stop to 
 ruin another's character. I do not know how it 
 j Sj I have read pretty widely, but philosophers 
 never preached endurance to ine as well as Na- 
 ture. A few months ago I was camping out to 
 net ortolans. Round us was the dense stretch of 
 the forests and jungles ; no wind, no sound, ex- 
 cept the cry of the hill deer; nothing stirring, 
 except now and then an antelope flitting like a 
 ghost across the clearing, and, over it all, the 
 southern stars. On my life, as I lay there by our 
 watch-fire alone, with my pipe, it struck me that, 
 if we would let her, Nature would be a truer 
 teacher than creeds or homilies. Human life 
 seems so small beside the vast life of great forests. 
 The calm grand silence rebukes our own feverish- 
 ness. We who fancy that the eyes of all the uni- 
 verse are on us, that we are the sole love and 
 charge of its Creator, feel what ephemera we are 
 in the giant scale of existence; what countless 
 myriads of such as we, have been swept from their 
 place out of sight, and not a law of the spheres 
 around been stirred, not a moment's pause been 
 caused, in the silent march of creation ! Under 
 men's tutelage, I grow impatient and irritated. 
 What gage have I that they know better than I ?
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 257 
 
 They rouse me into questioning their dogmas, into 
 penetrating their mysteries, into searching out, and 
 proving, the nullity of the truths they assume for 
 granted ; but under the teaching of Nature I am 
 silent. I recognize my own inferiority. I grow 
 ashamed of my own pride.' 
 
 * Aye ! ' answered Sabretasche. * A wayside 
 flower, a sunny savannah, even a little bit of 
 lichen on a stone in the Campagna, has taught 
 one truer lessons than are taught in the forum or 
 the pulpit. Man sees so little of his fellow-man ; 
 he is so ready to condemn, so slow to sympathize 
 with him, that, if he attempt to teach, he is far 
 more apt to irritate than aid ; but, to the voices of 
 Nature, the bluntest sense can hardly fail to listen, 
 and they speak in a tongue, translatable alike to 
 the Indian in his woods, and the savant in his 
 study.' 
 
 * But one is apt to lose sight of Nature in the 
 hurry and conflict of actual every-day social life ? 
 Standing alone among the Alps, a man learns his 
 own insignificance ; but once back in the world, 
 the first line of a favourable review, the first 
 hurrah of an admiring constituency, the first ap- 
 plause that feeds his ear in the world he lives in, 
 will give him back his self-appreciation, and he 
 will find it hard not to fancy himself of the im- 
 
 VOL. i. s
 
 258 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 portance to the universe that he is to his clique. 
 That is partly why I was unwilling to leave cam- 
 paigning. There the jungle and the stars took me 
 in hand, and there, by my camp-fire, I would listen 
 to them, though God knows whether I be the 
 better for it. Here, on the contrary, men will be 
 prating at me, and I shall chafe at them, and it 
 will be a wonder if I do not kick out at some of 
 them. My guerilla life suits me better than my 
 fashionable one.' 
 
 * You are too good for it all the same,' said 
 Sabretasche ; ' and if you should put the kicking 
 process into execution, it will be a little whole- 
 some chastisement for them, and a little sanitary 
 exertion for you ! Jungles and planets are grander 
 and truer, sans doute, but Johannisberger and So- 
 ciety are equally good for men in their way, and, 
 besides they are very pleasant ! ' 
 
 ' Your acme of praise, Sabretasche,' laughed De 
 Vigne. ' I agree with you that human nature is, 
 after all, the best book we can learn, only the 
 study is irritating, and one sees so much en noir 
 there, that if we look too long we are apt to fling 
 away our lexicon, with a curse.' 
 
 ' The best way, after all,' said the Colonel, with 
 a cross between a yawn and a sigh, 'is to take 
 nothing seriously! Men and women are mario-
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIUNK. 259 
 
 nettes ; learn the tricks of their wires and strings, 
 and make them perform, at your will, tragedy, 
 comedy, farce, whatever pleases your mood. Hu- 
 man life is a kaleidoscope, with which the wise 
 man amuses himself; it has pretty pictures for the 
 eye, if you know how to shake them up, and as 
 for analyzing it, pulling it to pieces, for being only 
 bits of cork and burnt glass, and quarrelling with 
 it for being trumpery instead of bond fide bril- 
 liants cui bono?--jou won't make it any 
 better.' 
 
 ' Possibly ; but I shall not be taken in by it.' 
 
 ' My dear fellow, I think the time when we are 
 taken in by it is the happiest part of our lives.' 
 
 ' Maybe. His drum is no pleasure to a boy 
 after he has broken it, and found the music is 
 empty wind, with no mystery about it whatever ! 
 I say, what is your clock ? Am I not keeping you 
 from some engagemeut or other ? ' 
 
 * None at all,' answered Sabretasche, * and you 
 will just sit where you are for the next four hours. 
 Give me another cheroot, and take some more 
 brandy. Is it likely we shall- let you off early ? ' 
 
 We did not let him off early ; and all the small 
 hours had chimed before we had done talking, 
 with the fire burning brightly, and the Cid lying 
 full length between us, with his muzzle between 
 
 s2
 
 260 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 his fore-pads, while De Vigne told us tales of his 
 Indian campaign that roused even listless Sabre- 
 tasche, and fired my blood like the war-note of 
 the Long Roll, or the trumpet call of Boot and 
 Saddle!
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 261 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 SABRETASCHE, HAVING MOWED DOWN MANY 
 FLOWERS, DETERMINES TO SPARE ONE VIOLET. 
 
 FROM the hour he had left her in the vestry 
 at Vigne church, De Vigne had never seen the 
 woman who, by law, stood branded on him as his 
 wife. His passion changed to loathing, and the 
 hate wherewith he hated her was far greater than 
 the love wherewith he had loved her. Could it 
 be otherwise ? Could any man feel anything but 
 deadliest hate towards the woman who had out- 
 witted and entrapped him, outraged his honour, 
 shivered his pride to the dust, and shaped her ven- 
 geance in a form which must press upon him with 
 a dead and ice-cold weight, strike from his path 
 all the natural joys that bloom so brightly for a 
 man so young ; and stretch over his whole exist- 
 ence a shadow all the blacker that its giant upas- 
 tree sprang from the forgotten seed of a boyish 
 sin. He left her in the madness of his agony; 
 and swore never to touch even her hand again.
 
 262 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 Passion changed to abhorrence, and what had 
 charmed and intoxicated him with the sensual 
 beauties of form, now filled him only with abhor- 
 rence and disgust. He saw her bearing his own 
 name, holding his own honour; coarse, cruel, ill- 
 born, ill-bred, the pollution of her past life vainly 
 covered with the varnish of society; and seeing 
 her thus, knew that till one or other was in the 
 grave this woman was his WIFE. Remorse, too, 
 was added to his curse. His mother had died of 
 that fatal blow which had struck at the root of 
 her son's peace and honour. She had been for 
 some years aware, though she had never allowed 
 De Vigne to be told of the frail tenure on which 
 she held her life, that any sudden emotion or 
 excitement might at any time be her death-blow : 
 a secret she had kept with that silent heroism of 
 which here and there women are found capable. 
 As De Vigne left the chapel, Sabretasche had 
 lifted her up in what he believed to be a faint- 
 ing fit: it was a swoon, from which she never 
 awoke, and her son was left lo bear his curse 
 alone. 
 
 I have seen men writhing in their death agony, 
 I have seen women stretched across the lifeless 
 body of their lover on the battle-field ; I have 
 seen the torture of human souls cooped up by
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 263 
 
 shoals in hospital sick-wards ; I have seen mortal 
 suffering in almost all its phases and they are 
 varied and pitiful enough, God knows! but I never 
 saw any so silent and yet so awful as De Vigne's, 
 when we hurried after him up to town. When we 
 found him, the Trefusis's revenge had done its 
 work upon him ; lengthened years would not 
 have quenched life, and light, and youth, as the 
 remorse, the humiliation, the conflicting passions 
 at war within him, had already done. The 
 tidings we brought crowned the anguish that had 
 entered into his life. Gently as Sabretasche 
 broke it to him, I thought it would have killed 
 him. His lips turned grey as stone, he staggered 
 like a drunken man, and threw up his arms in his. 
 blind agony. 
 
 ' My God ! and / have murdered her ! ' That 
 was all he said. Under what throes his iron 
 pride was bowed in his night watches beside the 
 lifeless form of the mother whose love for him had 
 slain her, no one knew. He was alone in his 
 doom, and I could only guess by my knowledge of 
 him how madly he cursed the passions that had 
 wrought his ruin, how long and silently the vul- 
 ture of remorse gnawed his heart away, with the 
 haunting memory of his folly and its fruit. 
 
 As rapidly as possible he exchanged into the
 
 264 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 th Hussars, and sailed for Scinde. He saw 
 none of his old companions and acquaintance, 
 save the Colonel and myself; he shunned all who 
 had been witnesses of his marriage, all who knew 
 of the stain upon his name. It is easy to bear 
 the contempt and censure of the world when 
 defiance of its laws brings fame and rapture ; but 
 its sneer may be hard even to a brave man to 
 bear, when the world has cause to call him Fool, 
 when it can triumph in vaunting its own superior 
 penetration, in recalling its own wise prophecies 
 of his fall, and in compelling him to make the 
 most difficult of all confessions to a proud heart 
 * / was wrong I ' 
 
 He commissioned Sabretasche to make arrange- 
 ments with his wife, but all that the Colonel, 
 consummate man of the world though he was, 
 could do, was to exact that she should receive an 
 allowance of three thousand a year, on condition 
 that she never came to England. The Trefusis 
 accepted it, possibly because she knew the law 
 would not give her so much, and went to Paris 
 and the Bads, leading a pleasant life enough, I 
 doubt not, but careful to make it far too proper a 
 one outwardly, at the least to give him any 
 chance of a divorce. Separated from him at the 
 altar, she was still legally his wife and bore his
 
 GRANTILLE DE VIGNE. 265 
 
 name. By what miracle of metamorphosis, by 
 what agency, assistance, or self-education, she had 
 been enabled to change and exalt herself, we knew 
 not then, nor till long afterwards. That De Vigne 
 had not recognized her was scarce astonishing. 
 In those long years the unformed girl of seventeen 
 had changed into the mature beauty of five-and- 
 twenty ; she had grown taller, her form had deve- 
 loped, fashion, dress, and taste lent her beauty a 
 thousand aids unknown to her in her earlier days. 
 It was not wonderful that, having forgotten Lucy 
 Davis, and almost all connected with her, he should 
 fail to recognize her in so utterly different a sphere, 
 so entirely altered as she was in feature, manner, 
 station, and appearance; though how she had so 
 metamorphosed herself I used to think over many 
 and many a time, never able to find a solution. 
 
 At length, after ten years' absence, De Vigne 
 returned home to resume the social life he had 
 so suddenly snapped asunder. To careless eyes 
 he was much the same, but / felt that the 
 whole man was changed. Reserved, sceptical of 
 all truth and of all worth, his generous trust 
 changed to chill suspicion, his fiery impetuosity 
 chained down under a semblance of icy cyni- 
 cism, his strong passions held down under 
 an iron curb, the treachery of which he had
 
 266 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OK, 
 
 been the victim seemed to have wholly altered 
 his once frank, warm, and cordial nature. 
 
 ' The fact is/ said Curly to me, as we were riding 
 down Piccadilly to the Park, ' De Vigne, poor 
 fellow ! is as frozen by this miserable mesalliance 
 as the ships in the Arctic Seas. It would do him 
 a world of good to fall in love again, but he won't. 
 Ah, by Jove, here he is ! Beautiful creature, that 
 mare, of his is three parts thorough-bred; and 
 just look at her wild eye. How are you, De Vigne ? 
 My dear fellow, I'm deucedly glad you're come 
 back!' 
 
 ' Very kind of you, Cqrly,' laughed De Vigne, 
 ' but I'm not sure I re-echo you. A gallop in the 
 cool night through the jungle is preferable to 
 pacing up and down the Ride yonder.' 
 
 ' Wait till the Ride is full,' replied Curly, ' with 
 all the gouty wits, and the dandy politicians, and 
 the amazoned belles, and the intensely got-up 
 stock-brokers, and the immensely showy livery- 
 stable hacks, who would go so delightfully if they 
 weren't, par hasard, broken-winded, or knocked- 
 kneed by way of diversity ! Wait till the season, 
 my good fellow till you drink Seltzer as thirstily 
 as a tired hound drinks water, till you spend the 
 summer nights crushed up on the staircases, till 
 you waste a couple of hundred giving a dinner to
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 267 
 
 men and women who, having eaten your croustades, 
 drive away to demolish your character, wait 
 till the season, and then you'll admit the supe- 
 riority of enjoyment to be found in Town ! 
 There's nobody in it yet, except, indeed, Violet 
 Molyneux.' 
 
 ' Whom I have not seen,' said De Vigne ; ' but 
 I will call, for I used to know her mother very 
 well ; an eminently religious flirt ! I have a cu- 
 riosity to see this young beauty, because she has 
 Sabretasche's good word.' 
 
 * A good word, by-the-by, that's apt to do them 
 as much damage in one way as his condemnation 
 does in another. She little knows what a desperate 
 Lothario he is. I wonder if he'll ever marry ? ' 
 
 ' I wonder if you'll ever hang yourself, Curly ? ' 
 said De Vigne, dryly. * I say, shall we go and 
 call on the Molyneux now ? May as well.' 
 
 * Do ! I like calling,' responded Curly. ' You 
 kill the hour, you learn all the news, you enjoy 
 the luxury of hearing one best friend scandalize 
 and cut up another dear acquaintance ; and you 
 can win Lady A.'s love for life by revealing to her 
 the strictly private secret Mrs. B. has just con- 
 fided to you, under a solemn seal of silence, 
 relative to Miss C. ! Society wouldn't half go on; 
 there wouldn't be a tithe of the on dits sown that
 
 268 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 are necessary to our welfare if it weren't for that 
 blessed institution, " morning calls." ' 
 
 Lady Molyneux was at home, a rare thing for 
 that restless mosaic of religion and fashion, of 
 decided ' ton ' and pronounced * piety ; ' and we 
 found her, chatting with one of her beloved 
 spiritual brothers, the Bishop of Campanile, a 
 most pleasant ban viveur, by no means a Saint 
 Anthony on the score of earthly temptations, 
 while in a low chair sat Violet Molyneux talking 
 to Sabretasche, who was listening to her with an 
 air of half-indolent amusement, and magnetizing 
 her with the soft lustrous gaze of his mournful 
 eyes, that had wound their way into so many 
 women's love. 
 
 Lady Molyneux welcomed us all charmingly. 
 She was made of milk of roses, that dear woman; 
 while there was a shadow of impatience in her 
 daughter's tell-tales eyes at having her talk in- 
 terrupted : of course she was too much of a 
 lady to show it, and the Colonel, who had a 
 knack of monopolizing a woman quietly, did not 
 give up his seat, and soon resumed his discussion 
 with her, which it seemed was on the poets of the 
 present day. 
 
 ' What do you think of the " Ideals of the Lotus 
 and the Lily ? " ' asked Violet of De Vigne, re-
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 269 
 
 ferring to the book they were discussing, the last 
 mystical nonsense that had issued from the ima- 
 gination of the pet rhymer of the day. 
 
 ' I cannot say I think much,' smiled De Vigne. 
 ' To read that man's works one wants a dictionary 
 of all his unintelligible jargon, his " double-bar- 
 relled adjectives," his purposely-obscured meanings! 
 I suppose he fancies chiaroscuro the best tone for 
 paintings, that he draws his word-pictures in such 
 densely dark style.' 
 
 * All that is treason here, De Vigne,' said 
 Sabretasche, with a smile. ' Miss Molyneux is 
 the patron and champion of everything visionary, 
 high wrought, and unintelligible to ordinary mor- 
 tals. These raving individuals, "sad only for 
 wantonness," strangely please dreamy young ladies 
 and gentlemen ignorant of the true meaning, sor- 
 rows, and burdens of this " work-a-day world." ' 
 
 Violet made him a graceful reverence. 
 
 ' Thank you. Is that a hit at me ? It does not 
 strike home, if it is, because my worst enemies 
 could never say I was dreamy, though they may 
 call me what is it, high wrought ? But you for- 
 get, that feeling romance, as you are pleased to 
 call it has been the germ and nurse of all great 
 writers. The swan must suffer before it sings. 
 Did not his child-love inspire Dante? Would
 
 270 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 Petrarch have been all he is but for the " amore 
 veementissimo ma unico ed onesto ? " Did not his 
 passion for Mary Chaworth have its influence for 
 life upon the writings of Byron? And was not 
 Leonora d'Este to Tasso what Diana's kiss was to 
 Endymion?' 
 
 'And was not the domestic misery of Milton's 
 married life the inspiration of that glorious tirade 
 upon women in Adam's magnificent speech?' asked 
 Sabretasche quietly ; ' and but for Anne Hathaway, 
 might we have ever had that fiery oration of 
 Posthumus : 
 
 " Even to vice 
 
 They are not constant ; but are changing still 
 One vice, but of a minute old, for one 
 Not half so old as that?"' 
 
 ' Some better woman taught him, then,' cried 
 Violet, ' that from women's eyes 
 
 " Sparkles still the right Promethean fire. 
 They are the books, the arts, the academes 
 That show, contain, and nourish all the world ! " ' 
 
 Sabretasche bowed his head in acknowledgment 
 of defeat. 
 
 ' You have conquered me, as Rosaline conquered 
 Biron ! ' 
 
 He said the words as he had said such things to 
 scores of other women as lovely as Violet Moly-
 
 GRANYILLE DE VIGNE. 271 
 
 neux ; from anybody else she would have taken 
 them at their value ; at the Colonel's glance her 
 colour deepened. 
 
 ' But don't you think, Miss Molyneux,' suggested 
 De Vigne, * that when Tasso languished in Fer- 
 rara dungeons, he must have wished he had never 
 seen the Este family ? Don't you fancy that 
 Gemma Donati must have rather cancelled Dante's 
 good opinion of the beau sexe, and that his " wife 
 of savage temper " may have been a bitter tonic, 
 rather than sweet balm to his genius ? And as 
 for Byron well ! Miss Milbanks was rather a 
 thorn in his side, wasn't she ? And with all the 
 romance in the world, I think, when he called on 
 Mrs. Musters, he must have thought he had been 
 rather a fool. What do you say ? ' 
 
 *I say, Major De Vigne,' responded Violet, 
 * that you have not a trace, not a particle, not an 
 infinitesimal germ of romance ! ' 
 
 * Thank Heaven no ! ' said De Vigne, with a 
 laugh. 
 
 I doubt, though, if the laugh was heartfelt. I 
 dare say he thought of the time when romance 
 was hot and strong in him, and trust and faith 
 strong too ! 
 
 ' I pity you, then ! Where I think you sceptical 
 men err so much,' said Violet, turning her bril-
 
 272 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 liant eyes on Sabretasche, * is in confounding 
 false and true, good and bad, feeling with senti- 
 ment, genius with pretension. Why at one sweep 
 condemn the expression of unusual feeling as 
 sentiment, simply because it is unusual ? Deep 
 feeling is rare ; . but it does not follow that it is 
 unreal. You tread on a thousand ordinary flowers 
 daisies, buttercups, cowslips, anemones in an 
 every-day walk ; they are all fair, all full of life ; 
 but out of all the Flora, there is only one Sensitive 
 Plant that shrinks and trembles at your touch. 
 Yet, though the Sensitive Plant is organized so 
 far more tenderly, it is no artificial offspring of 
 mechanism, but as fresh and real, and living a 
 thing as any of the others ! ' 
 
 De Vigne and Curly were now chatting with 
 Lady Molyneux, whose bishop had taken his conge. 
 Sabretasche still sat by Violet a little apart. 
 
 ' I believe you,' he said, gently ; * there are 
 sensitive plants, so fresh and fair, that it is a sin 
 they should ever have to shiver in rude hands, 
 and learn to bend with the world's breath. But 
 live as long as we have, and you will know that 
 the deep feeling of which you are thinking is never 
 found in unison with the poetic and drivelling 
 sentiment we ridicule. Boys' sorrows vent them- 
 selves in words men's griefs are voiceless. If
 
 GRAXVILLE DE VIGXE. 273 
 
 ever you feel pray God you never may vital 
 suffering, you will find that it will never seek 
 solace in confidences, never lament itself, but 
 rather hug its torture closer, as the Spartan child 
 hugged the fierce wolf-fangs. You will find the 
 difference between the fictitious sorrows which 
 run abroad proclaiming their own wrongs; and 
 the grief which lies next the heart night and 
 day, and, like the iron cross of the Romish 
 priest, eats it slowly, but none thf> less surely, 
 away.' 
 
 They were strange words to come from Vivian 
 Sabretasche ! Violet looked at him in surprise, 
 and her laughing eyes grew sad and dimmed. 
 He had forgotten for the moment where he was ; 
 at her earnest gaze he roused himself with the 
 faintest tinge of colour on his face. 
 
 * I am going to ask you to do me a most 
 intense kindness; would you mind singing me 
 Hullah's "Three Fishers?" I declare to you it 
 has haunted me ever since I heard you sing it on 
 Tuesday night; and it is so seldom I hear any 
 music that is not a screech rarely, indeed, any- 
 thing that satisfies me as your songs do.' 
 
 She sprang up joyously. ' Oh yes, if you will 
 sing me those glorious Italian songs of yours. 
 ' Major de Vigne, if you have no romance, I am 
 
 VOL. L T
 
 274 "HELD IN BONDAGE-," OR, 
 
 quite sure you cannot care for music, so I give 
 you full leave to talk to mamma as loudly as ever 
 you like, I am going to sing only to Colonel 
 Sabretasche.' 
 
 Sabretasche looked half-pleased, half-amused at 
 the distinction accorded to him, and followed her 
 to the back drawing-room, where he leaned on the 
 piano looking down upon her, while Violet sang 
 with one of the best gifts of nature a clear, bell- 
 like, melodious voice, highly tutored, and as flexible 
 and free as the song of a mavis in spring-time. I 
 am not sure whether her mother was best pleased 
 or not at that musical tSte-a-tSte, for Sabretasche 
 had an universal reputation as a most unscrupulous 
 flirt, and Lady Molyneux knew his character too 
 well to think he was likely to be doing any more 
 than playing with Violet, as the most attractive 
 beauty in town. But then, again, his word was 
 almost law in all matters of taste. He could 
 injure Violet irretrievably by a depreciating criti- 
 cism, and could make her of tenfold more market- 
 able value by an approving word, for there were 
 numbers of men at the Clubs who moulded them- 
 selves by his dictum. So Lady Molyneux let 
 them alone. 
 
 I don't suppose, however, that she noticed 
 Violet drawing out a large bunch of her floral
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGXE. 275 
 
 namesakes from a Bohemian glass, and lifting 
 them up for Sabretasche to scent. 
 
 * Are they not delicious ? They remind me of 
 dear old Corallyne, when I used to gather them 
 out of the fresh damp moss. Do you know Kerry, 
 Colonel Sabretasche? No? Oh, you should go 
 there ; it is so beautiful, with its blue lakes, and 
 its wild mountains, and its green, fragrant wood- 
 lands.' 
 
 ' I should like it, I dare say,' said Sabretasche, 
 smiling, * with you for my guide. I want some 
 added charm now to give " greenness to the grass 
 and glory to the flower." Once I enjoyed them 
 for themselves, as you do ; but as one gets on in 
 life there is too silent a rebuke in nature for us to 
 enjoy it unrestrainedly. Is Lord Molyneux's estate 
 in Kerry?' 
 
 * Don't call it an estate,' laughed Violet ; * it 
 always amuses me so when I see it put down in 
 the peerage. It is only miles and miles of moor- 
 land, with nothing growing on it but tangled 
 wood and glorious wild-flowers. There are one or 
 two cabins with inhabitants like kelpies. The 
 house has been, perhaps, very grand when all we 
 Irish were kings, and you Sassenachs, Roman 
 slaves; but at the present moment, having lost 
 three-quarters of its roof and nine-tenths of its 
 
 T 2
 
 276 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 timbers, having rats, and owls, and ghosts innu- 
 merable, no windows, and no furniture, you would 
 probably think it more picturesque than comfort- 
 able, and feel more inclined to paint it than to 
 live in it.' 
 
 *But you lived in it?' 
 
 * Ah ! when I was a child ; but it was a little 
 better then. There was a comfortable room or 
 two in it, and I was very happy there with my fa- 
 vourite governess and my little rough pony, when 
 papa and mamma were up here or in Paris, and 
 left us to ourselves in Corallyne. I wonder if I 
 shall ever be as happy as I was there ? ' 
 
 1 You are very happy here ? ' said Sabretasche, 
 with a sort of pity for the joyous heart to which 
 sorrow was yet but a name. 
 
 'Happy? Oh, yes; I enjoy myself, and T am 
 always light-hearted ; but I have things to annoy 
 me here ; the artifices and frivolity of society 
 worry me. I want to say always what I think, 
 and nobody seems to do it in the world.' 
 
 * The world would be in hot water if they did. 
 But pray speak it to me.' 
 
 ' I always do ! Yes, I enjoy London life. I like 
 the whirl, the excitement, the intellectual dis- 
 cussion, the vivid, real life men lead here. I 
 should enjoy it entirely if I did not see too many
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 277 
 
 hard, cruel, worn faces under the fair smiling 
 masks.' 
 
 ' Pauvre enfant ! ' murmured Sabretasche. ' Do 
 you suppose there are any light hearts under the 
 dominoes ? ' 
 
 ' Yours is not a light one ? ' 
 
 ' Mine ! ' echoed the Colonel, with a strangely 
 melancholy intonation ; then he laughed his gay 
 soft laugh. 'If it is not, mademoiselle, you are 
 the first who had penetration enough to find it 
 out. I am queteur of amusement in general to 
 all my friends ! There is De Vigne going, and 
 so must I. I shall not thank you for your 
 songs.' 
 
 ' No ! I am so tired of meaningless thanks and 
 vapid compliments,' she said laughingly. 'You 
 would not have asked me to sing if you had not 
 wished to hear me, for I know that on principle 
 you never bore yourself.' 
 
 ' Never,' replied Sabretasche, in his usual in- 
 dolent tone. 'No one is worth such a self- 
 sacrifice.' 
 
 ' Not even I ? ' asked Violet, raising her eye- 
 brows. 
 
 ' To suppose such a case, I must first imagine 
 you boring me, which just at present is an hypo- 
 thesis not to be imagined by any stretch of poetic
 
 278 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 fancy,' laughed Sabretasche, as he held out his 
 hand to bid her good morning. 
 She held the violets up to him. 
 
 * You have forgotten the flowers ? ' 
 
 ' May I have them ? ' he asked, softly, with one 
 of those glances, in which his lengthened expe- 
 rience in that mysterious book, a woman's heart, 
 had perfected him. 
 
 She gave them to him with a bright flush and 
 smile. He slipped them hastily into the breast of 
 his waistcoat, and came forward to Lady Moly- 
 neux. 
 
 ' Violet, my love,' began her mother, as the door 
 closed on us, ' Colonel Sabretasche comes here a 
 great deal ; I wish you would not be quite so 
 quite so expansive with him.' 
 
 * Expansive ! ' repeated Violet, in sheer as- 
 tonishment. * What do you mean ? ' 
 
 ' I mean what I say, my dear Violet,' repeated 
 the Viscountess, the milk of roses turning a little 
 sour. * You treat him quite as familiarly as if he 
 were your father or your lover. You need not co- 
 lour, I don't say he is the last ; God forbid he should 
 be, with his principles. I know he makes himself 
 agreeable to you, but so, as every one will tell 
 you, he has done for the last twenty years to any 
 pretty woman that came across his path ; and your
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 279 
 
 speech to his friend De Vigne, about " singing only 
 to Colonel Sabretasche," was not alone unmaidenly, 
 it was absurd.' 
 
 ' How so ? I only cared for him to hear it and 
 like it.' 
 
 * It was all very well for him to hear it and like 
 it,' replied my lady, irritably prominent piety has 
 a queer knack of souring the temper 'his ex- 
 treme fastidiousness makes his good word well 
 worth having ; the best way to make your opinion 
 of value in society is to admire nothing, as he 
 does ! But, at the same time, it is a dear way of 
 gaining his applause to keep all other men in the 
 background while you are flirting with him. Be- 
 fore you saw him you liked Regalia, and Killury, 
 and plenty of others, well enough ; now you really 
 attend to no one else.' 
 
 ' Because I see their inferiority to him,' inter- 
 rupted Violet, vehemently. * All they can do is to 
 ride, and waltz, and smoke ; he has the genius of 
 an artist. They think they please me by vapid 
 flattery; he knows better. They are one's sub- 
 jects, he is one's master ! ' 
 
 Lady Molyi;eux was seriously appalled by such 
 an outburst. She raised her eyebrows sarcas- 
 tically : 
 
 * You admire Vivian Sabretasche very much,
 
 280 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 Violet? I should not advise you to say so, my 
 dear.' 
 
 ' Why not? it is the truth.' 
 
 ' Few truths can be spoken/ replied the emi- 
 nently religious, fashionable lady, coldly. * Why 
 you had better not proclaim your very Quixotic 
 admiration for Sabretasche, because he bears as 
 bad a character for morality as he bears a good 
 one for talent and fashion. What his life has been 
 every one knows ; he is a most unprincipled liber- 
 tine. No one ever dreams of expecting anything 
 serious of him ; he is the last man in the universe 
 to marry, but a flirtation with him may very greatly 
 injure your prospects 
 
 ' Oh, mamma, pray don't ! ' said Violet, with a 
 dash of contemptuous hauteur. ' I am so sick of 
 those words ; they are so lowering, so pitiful, so 
 conventional, making a market of oneself! I 
 cannot bear to hear you speak so. As to his being 
 to his meaning anything " serious," I would 
 rather die than learn to look upon him as a spe- 
 culation, or class him with all those men who try 
 to buy me with their settlements. As to his life, 
 he has led the same life as most men, probably ; 
 but you need only look in his eyes to see whe- 
 ther anything base or cruel can attach itself 
 to him.'
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGXE. 281 
 
 Her mother sighed, and sneered, and smiled 
 unpleasantly. 
 
 ' My love, the way you talk is too absurd. You 
 forget yourself strangely. How is it possible for 
 you to judge of the character of a man over forty, 
 a blase man of the world, who was one of the 
 greatest roues about town while you were a little 
 child in the nursery ; it is too ridiculous ! But 
 go and dress for dinner. The dear bishop, and 
 Cavendish Grey, and Killury will dine here.' 
 
 'Poor sensitive plant, it would be a pity my 
 hands should touch it and wither its freshness and 
 fairness,' thought the Colonel, as he turned his 
 tilbury from the door. 'Vivian Sabretasche, I say, 
 are you growing a fool ? Don't you know that the 
 golden gates won't open for you? You barred 
 them yourself; you have no right to complain. 
 Have you not been going to the bad all the days 
 of your life ? Have you not persuaded the world, 
 ever since you lived in it, that you are a reckless, 
 devil-may-care Don Juan, a smasher of the entire 
 Decalogue ? Why should you now, just because 
 you have looked into that girl's bright eyes, be 
 trying to trick yourself and her into the idea that 
 you possess such affairs as heart, and feeling, and 
 regrets, because she, fresh to life, is innocent 
 enough to have a taste for such nonsense ? All
 
 282 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 folly all folly! Back to your animate friends, 
 
 horses and men, and your inanimate loves, chisel 
 and palate, or you may grow a fool in your older 
 years, as many wise men have done before. You've 
 pulled up many fair flowers in your day, you can 
 surely leave that one Violet in peace.' 
 
 'Oh, mamma, she is such a pretty girl, and 
 Ash ton is so abominably stupid ; he must have 
 knocked them down on purpose. Open the door, 
 Colonel Sabretasche, and let me out. It is of no 
 use telling me not I will ! ' 
 
 With which enunciation of her own self-will 
 the Hon. Violet Molyneux sprang to the ground 
 in the middle of St. James's Street, just opposite 
 the bay-window, to the unspeakable horror of her 
 mother, and the excessive amusement of De Vigne 
 and Sabretasche, who were driving in the Moly- 
 neux barouche. One of the powdered, white- 
 wanded, six-feet-high plushes that swayed to and 
 fro at the back of the carriage, having dismounted 
 at some order of his mistress's, had happened to 
 push, as those noble and stately creatures are 
 given to pushing every plebeian peripatetic, against 
 a young girl passing on the pavement. The girl 
 had with her a portfolio of pictures, which the 
 abrupt rencontre with Ashton sent out of her
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGXE. 283 
 
 grasp, scattering its contents to the four winds of 
 heaven, and to apologize was the work of a second 
 with that perfectly courteous, but, according to her 
 mamma and her female friends, much too impul- 
 sive and unconventional young beauty, the Hon. 
 Violet, whose fatal lessons, learnt on the wild 
 moorlands and among the fragrant woods of her 
 beloved Corallyne, the aristocratic experiences of 
 her single season had been sadly unable to unteach 
 her. 
 
 ' Ashton, how can you be so careless ? Pick 
 those drawings up immediately and very care- 
 fully,' said the young beauty, as, turning to the 
 young girl, she apologized with polished courtesy 
 for the accident her servant had caused, while 
 Ashton, in disgusting violence to his own feelings, 
 was compelled to bend his stately form, and even 
 to so far fall from his pedestal of powdered pro- 
 priety and flunkeyism grandeur, as to run yes,, 
 absolutely run after one of the sketches, which, 
 wafted by a little breeze that must have been that 
 mischievous imp Puck himself, ambled gently and 
 tantalizingly down the street. The young girl 
 thanked her with as bright a smile as Violet's, 
 and votes were divided in the club windows as to 
 which of the two was the most charming, though 
 the one was a fashionable belle, with every adjunct
 
 284 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 of taste and dress, and the other an unpro- 
 tected little thing walking with a woman-servant 
 in St. James's Street ; an artist probably, or a 
 governess. She took her portfolio (by this time 
 men in the clubs were all looking on, heartily 
 amused, and Sabretasche and De Vigne were 
 picking up the pictures, on the back of which 
 they had time to observe the initials "A. T., St. 
 Crucis-on-the-hill, Richmond Park," with much 
 more diligence than the grandiose Ashton ;) 
 thanked Violet with a low graceful bow, and was 
 passing on, when she looked up at De Vigne. 
 Her lips parted, her eyes darkened, her face 
 brightened ; she stood still a minute, then she 
 came back : ' Sir Folko !' But he neither saw nor 
 heard her, his foot was on the step of the ba- 
 rouche ; Ashton shut the door with a clang, 
 swung himself up on the footboard, and the 
 carriage rolled away into Pall Mall. 
 
 * Violet, Violet ! how you forget yorself, my 
 love ? ' whispered Lady Molyneux, scandalized and 
 horror-stricken. ' I wish you would not be quite 
 so impulsive. All the gentlemen in White's were 
 staring at you.' 
 
 ' Let them stare, mamma, dear,' laughed Violet, 
 merrily. * It is a very innocent amusement, it 
 gives them a great deal of pleasure and does me
 
 GRAXVILLE DE VIGNE. 285 
 
 no harm. What glorious blue eyes that girl had, 
 and such lovely hair. You should laud me for my 
 magnanimity in praising another woman so pretty.' 
 
 * For magnanimity in that line is not a virtue 
 of your sex,' said De Vigne. 
 
 ' You cynical man ! I don't see why it should 
 not be.' 
 
 * Don't you ? Did you, on your honour, then, 
 fair lady, ever speak well of a rival.' 
 
 ' I never had one.' 
 
 * You never could,' whispered Sabretasche, bend- 
 ing forward to tuck the tiger-skin over her. 
 
 ' But supposing you had?' persisted De Vigne. 
 
 ' I hope I should be above maligning her ; but 
 I am afraid to think how I should hate her.' 
 
 She spoke with such unnecessary vehemence, 
 that her mother and De Vigne stared. Violet's 
 eyes met the Colonel's ; her colour rose, and he, 
 incongruously enough, turned his head away. 
 
 ' If Miss Molyneux treats the visionary things 
 of life so earnestly, what will she do when she 
 comes to the realities ? ' laughed De Vigne. 
 
 Lady Molyneux sighed ; on occasions she would 
 play at tender maternity, but it did not sit well 
 upon her. 
 
 * Ah ! Major de Vigne, if we did not find some 
 armour besides our own strength in our life
 
 286 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 pilgrimage, few of us women would be able to 
 endure to the end of the Via Dolorosa.' 
 
 * True ! Britomart soon finds a buckler studded 
 with the diamonds of a good dower, or stiffened 
 with the parchment-skins of handsome settle- 
 ments ; and, tender and gentle as she looks, ma- 
 nages to go through the skirmish very unscathed 
 by dint of the vizor she keeps down so wisely, 
 and the sharp lance of the tongue she keeps al- 
 ways in rest against friend and foe ! ' 
 
 ' What thrusts of the spear you deserve, Major 
 de Vigne ; you are worse than your friend, and he 
 is bad enough!' cried Violet, looking rather 
 lovingly, however, on the Colonel, despite his 
 errors. ' I am sure if women take to lance and 
 vizor, it is only in self-defence, for you would 
 pierce us with your arrows if you could find a hole 
 in our armour.' 
 
 ' But here and there is a woman who unhorses 
 us at once, and on whom it is a shame to draw 
 our swords. Agnes Hotots are very rare, but 
 when we do find them, Ringsdale is safe to go 
 down before them,' said Sabretasche, with his elo- 
 quent glance. 
 
 ' I should think you have both of you been 
 conquered or imprisoned some time or other by 
 some Cynisca, or Maria de Jesu, whom you can-
 
 GRAXVILLE DE VIGNE. 287 
 
 not forgive, and who makes you so bitter upon us 
 all !' laughed Violet. 
 
 She said it in the gay innocence of her heart ! 
 Both were silent: and Violet instinctively felt 
 that she had trodden on dangerous ground then 
 De Vigne laughed, though a curse would have 
 been better in unison with his thoughts. 
 
 ' Miss Molyneux, with all due deference to 
 your sex, there are few men I fear, who, if they 
 told you the truth, would not have to confess 
 having found, that those warm and charming feel- 
 ings with which you young ladies start fresh in 
 life, have a knack of disappearing in the atmo- 
 sphere of society, as gold disappears melted and 
 swallowed up in aqua regia.' 
 
 * Will you let your pure gold be lost in De 
 Vigne's metaphorical aqua regia ? ' whispered the 
 Colonel, half smiling, half sadly, as he handed her 
 out, at her own house. 
 
 'Oh! never!' 
 
 ' You mean it now, but Well, we shall see ! ' 
 And Sabretasche led her up the steps with his 
 low, careless laugh. ' When you are Madame la 
 Princess d'Hautecour, or her Grace of Regalia, per- 
 haps you will not smile so kindly on your old 
 friends ! ' 
 
 She turned pale ; her large eyes filled with un-
 
 288 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OK, 
 
 shed tears. She thought of the violets she had 
 given him a few days before. 
 
 * You are unkind and unjust, Colonel Sabre- 
 tasche,' she said haughtily. ' I thought you more 
 kind, more true ' 
 
 ' I am neither,' said Sabretasche, abruptly for 
 that ultra suave and tender squire of darnes. 
 * Ask your mamma for my character, and be- 
 lieve what she will tell you. I would rather 
 you erred in thinking too ill though that peo- 
 ple would say is impossible than too well of 
 me.' 
 
 * I could never think ill of you ' 
 
 * You would be wrong, then,' said Sabretasche, 
 gravely. 
 
 Just then her mother and De Vigne entered, 
 and the Colonel, with his light laugh, turned round 
 to them with some jest. Violet could not rally 
 quite so quickly. 
 
 That night, at a loo party at Sabretasche's 
 house, De Vigne and I told the other fellows of 
 Violet's impulsive action in St. James's Street ; 
 while the Colonel went on with his game in 
 silence. 
 
 * She's a great deal too impulsive ; it's horrid 
 bad ton,' yawned little Lord Killtime, an utterly 
 blase gentleman of nineteen.
 
 GKANVILLE DE VIGNE. 289 
 
 * I like it,' said Curly. * It's a wonderful treat 
 now-a-days to see a girl natural.' 
 
 * She is very lovely, there is no doubt about 
 that,' said De Vigne, ' I dare say they mean to 
 set her up high in the market. Her mother is 
 trying hard for Regalia.' 
 
 ' He's a lost man, then,' said Wyndham, who 
 had cut the Lower House and Red Tape for the 
 lighter loves of Pam and Miss. * I never knew 
 the Molyneux, senior, make hard running after 
 any fellow but what she finished him (she's re- 
 treated into the bosom of the Church now, and 
 puts up with portly bishops and handsome popu- 
 lar preachers : women often do when they get 
 passees ; the Church is not so difficile as the laity, 
 I presume !) ; but ten or less years ago I vow it 
 was dangerous to come within the signal of her 
 fan, she'd such a clever way of setting at you.' 
 
 * Jockey Jack didn't care,' laughed St. Lys, of 
 the Eleventh. ' Well, her daughter's no ma- 
 noeuvrer; and, by George, it's worth a guinea a 
 turn to waltz with her.' 
 
 ' She's not bad looking,' sneered Vane Castle- 
 ton, the youngest son of his Grace of Tiara, the 
 worst of all those by no means incorruptible, and 
 very far from stainless pillars of the state, the 
 ' Castleton family.' But, by George, I never 
 
 VOL. I. U
 
 290 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 came across so bold, off-hand, spirited a young 
 filly.' 
 
 Sabretasche looked up, anger in his languid, 
 tired eyes. 
 
 ' Permit me to differ from you, Castleton. Your 
 remark, I must say, is as much signalized by know- 
 ledge of character as it is by elegance of phra- 
 seology ! Young fellows like Killtime may make 
 such mistakes of judgment ; we who know the 
 world should be wiser.' 
 
 De Vigne, sitting next him, looked up and 
 raised his eyebrows at the Colonel's unusual in- 
 terference and warmth. 
 
 Etta, Brute?' 
 
 Sabretasche understood, and gave him an ad- 
 monitory kick under the table. 
 
 ' Whose portrait is that, Sabretasche ? ' asked 
 De Vigne, to stop Vane Castleton's tongue, point- 
 ing to a portrait over the mantelpiece in the inner 
 drawing-room, where we were playing; the por- 
 trait of a very pretty woman. 
 
 ' My mother, when she was twenty. Didn't 
 you know it ? It was taken just before she mar- 
 ried. I believe it was an exact likeness, but I 
 don't remember her.' 
 
 ' It reminds me of somebody I cannot think 
 of whom. I beg your pardon, I take " miss." '
 
 ORANVILLE DE VIGXE. 291 
 
 'Why will you talk through the game?' said 
 I. * Don't you think the picture is like that 
 girl who occasioned Violet's championship this 
 morning? That's whom you are thinking of, I 
 dare say.' 
 
 * Who's talking now, I wonder ? ' said De Vigne. 
 ' Heart's trumps ? I did not notice that girl ; I 
 was too amused to see Miss Molyneux. No, it is 
 somebody else, but who, I cannot think, for the 
 life of me.' 
 
 ' Nor can I help you,' said Sabretasche, ' for 
 there is not a creature related to my mother living. 
 But now Arthur mentions it, that little girl was 
 not unlike her; at least, I fancy she had the same 
 coloured hair. A propos of likenesses, there will 
 be a very pretty picture of Lady Geraldine Ormsby 
 in the Exhibition this year. I saw it, half finished, 
 at Maclise's yesterday.' 
 
 'Why don't you exhibit, Sabretasche?' said 
 Wyndham. ' You paint a deuced deal better than 
 half those Fellows and Associates ! ' 
 
 * Bien oblige ! ' cried the Colonel. * I should be 
 particularly sorry to hang up my pets off my easel 
 to be put level with people's boots, or high above 
 their possible vision, or if honoured with the 
 "second row" be flanked by shocking red- 
 haired pre-Raphaelite angels and staring por- 
 
 u 2
 
 292 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 traits of gentlemen in militia uniform ; and criti- 
 cized by a crowd of would-be cognoscente and di- 
 lettante cockneys, with a catalogue in their hand 
 and Ruskin rules in their mind, who go into 
 ecstasies over cottage scenes with all Teniers' 
 vulgarities, and none of Teniers' redeeming talent. 
 Exhibit my pictures ? The fates forefeiid ! Wynd- 
 ham, help yourself to that Chablis, and, De Vigne, 
 there is some of our pet Madeira. How sorry I 
 am Madeira now grows graves instead of grapes ! 
 Nonsense ! Don't any of you think of going 
 yet. Let us sit down again for a few more 
 rounds.' 
 
 We did, and we played till the raw February 
 dawn was growing gray in the streets, while we 
 laughed and talked over Sabretasche's wine 
 laughs that might have jarred on Violet's ear, 
 and talk that might have made her young 
 heart heavy, coming from her hero's lips. But 
 when we were gone, and the fire was burning 
 low, the Colonel sat before the dying embers 
 with his dog's head upon his knee, and 
 thought : 
 
 * What a fool I am ! Women, wine, cards, art, 
 play are they all losing their enchantment ? Are 
 my rose-leaves beginning to lose their scent, and 
 crumple under me? That girl child she is to
 
 (JRANVILLE DE VIGXE. 293 
 
 me has been the only one who has had pene- 
 tration enough to see that the bal masque has 
 ceased its charm. She reads me truer than all of 
 them. She will believe no ill of me. She almost 
 makes me wish there were no ill for her to be- 
 lieve ! Shall she be the first woman to whom J 
 have shown mercy, the first for whom I have re- 
 nounced self? Cid, old boy ! is your master wholly 
 dead to generosity and honour because the world 
 happens to say he is ? ' 
 
 That night De Vigne and I smoked our pipes 
 together over his fire in Wilton Crescent, where 
 he had taken a furnished house. Vigne had been 
 shut up since his mother's death, and he rarely 
 alluded even distantly to the scene of his folly and 
 his wrongs ; I do not think he could have endured 
 to revisit, far less to live in it. 
 
 ' Is Sabretasche really getting touched by that 
 bewitching Irish girl ? ' said I to him, as we sat 
 smoking. 
 
 * God knows ! He was rather touchy about 
 her, wasn't he ? But that might only be for the 
 pleasure of setting down Castleton, a temptation I 
 don't think I could forego myself. According to 
 his own showing, he's never in love with any 
 woman, but he makes love to almost all he conies 
 across.' 
 
 t
 
 294 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 ' Oh, he's a deuced fellow for women ! 
 but he might be really caught at last, you 
 know.' 
 
 ' Certainly,' assented De Vigne ; ' none are so 
 wise that they may not become fools ! Socrates, 
 .when he was old, sage that he was, did not read in 
 the same book with a woman without falling in 
 love with her.' 
 
 ' You are complimentary to love ? Is it inva- 
 riably a folly ? ' 
 
 'I think so. At least, all / wish for is to keep 
 clear of it all the rest of my life.' 
 
 ' Why ? ' 
 
 ' Good God ! need you ask ? From my boy- 
 hood I was the fool of my passions. To love a 
 woman was to win her. I stopped for no con- 
 sideration, no duty, no obstacle ; I let nothing 
 come between me and my will. I was as obstinate 
 to those who tried ever to stop me in any pursuit, 
 as I was weak and mad in yielding up my birth- 
 right at any price, if I could but buy the mess of 
 porridge on which I had for the time being set 
 my fancy. Scores of times I did that scores of 
 times some worthless idol became the thing on 
 which I staked my soul. Once I did it too often ! 
 It is such eternal misery that that woman, so low- 
 born, so low-bred, shameless, degraded, all that I
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 295 
 
 know her to be, should bear my name, should pro- 
 claim abroad all the folly into which my reckless 
 passions led me. Thank God I knew it when I 
 did thank God I left her as I did thank God 
 that no devils like herself were born to perpetuate 
 my shame, and make me loathe my name because 
 they bore it ! Then .you ask me if I am steeled 
 to love ! It has changed my whole nature the 
 misery of that loathsome connection ! It is not 
 the tie I care for it is the shame, Arthur the 
 bitter, burning, shame ! It is the odium of know- 
 ing that she bears my name, the humiliation that 
 twice in my life have I been fooled by her beauty ; 
 it is the agony that my mother, the only pure, the 
 only true friend whom fate ever gave me, was 
 murdered by my reckless passions ! ' 
 
 His hands clenched on the arms of his chair, 
 and the black veins swelled upon his face; it 
 looked as though cast in chill, grey stone. It was 
 my first glimpse of those ghastly dark hours, which, 
 exorcised or invisible, in society and ordinary life, 
 fastened relentlessly upon him in his hours of 
 solitude ; of that sleepless and merciless Remorse 
 which dogged his steps by day, and made night 
 horrible. 
 
 At that same hou.r, in a little bed whose curtains
 
 296 "HELD is BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 and linen were white and pure as lilies, a young 
 girl slept, like a rosebud lying on new-fallen snow; 
 her golden hair fell over her shoulders, her blue 
 eyes were closed under their black, silky lashes, 
 a bright, happy smile was on her lips, and as she 
 turned in her dreams, she spoke unconsciously in 
 her sleep two words ' Sir Eolko ! '
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 297 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE QUEEN OF THE FAIRIES IS FOUND IN 
 RICHMOND. 
 
 NOT content with his house in Park Lane, Sabre- 
 tasche had lately bought, beside it, a place at 
 Richmond that had belonged to a rich old Indian 
 millionnaire. It had been originally built and 
 laid out by people of good taste, and the merchant 
 had not lived long enough in it to spoil it : he 
 had only christened it the * Dilcoosha,' which title, 
 being out of the common, Sabretasche retained. 
 It was very charming, with its gardens, sloping 
 down to the Thames, and was a pet with the 
 Colonel; a sort of Strawberry Hill, save that 
 his taste was much more symmetrical and grace- 
 ful than Horace's ; and he spent plenty of both 
 time and money, touching it up and perfecting it 
 till it was beautiful in its way as Luciennes. De 
 Vigne and I drove down there one morning, 
 towards the end of February, to see the paces 
 tried, on a level bit of grass-land outside the
 
 298 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 grounds, of a chesnut Sabretasche had entered for 
 Ascot. Stable slang and the delights of 'ossy 
 men ' were not refined enough for the Colonel's 
 taste, but he liked to keep a good racing stud ; 
 and he wished to have De Vigne's opinion on 
 Coronet, who had won the Champagne Stakes the 
 autumn before at Doncaeter, and run a good 
 second at the Cesarewitch ; for De Vigne, who 
 was very well known in the Ring and the Rooms, 
 was one of the surest prophets of success or failure 
 that ever talked over a coming Derby on a Sunday 
 afternoon at Tattersall's. 
 
 ' What trick do you think my man Harris 
 served me yesterday ? ' said De Vigne, as we 
 came near Richmond. 
 
 4 Harris that good-natured fellow ? What 
 has he done ? ' 
 
 * Cut and run with a dozen of my shirts, three 
 morning, two dress-coats; in fact, a complete 
 wardrobe; and twenty pounds or so I really 
 forget how much exactly that I had left on the 
 dressing-table when I went to mess last night. 
 And that man I took out of actual starvation at 
 Bombay! have forgiven him fifty peccadilloes, 
 let him off when I found him taking a case of 
 my sherry, because he blubbered and said it was 
 for his mother, found up the poor old woman, who
 
 GKAXVILLE DE VIGNE. 299 
 
 wasn't a myth, and wrote to Stevens at Vigne to 
 give her an alrashouse ; and then this fellow walks 
 off with my goods ! And you talk to me of 
 people's gratitude ! Bah ! How can you have 
 the face, Arthur, to ask me to admire human 
 nature ? ' 
 
 ' I don't ask you to admire it Heaven fore- 
 fend ! I don't like it well enough myself. What 
 a rascal ! 'Pon my life there seems a fate in 
 your seeing the dark side of humanity.' 
 
 * The dark side ? Where's any other ? I never 
 found any gratitude yet, and I don't expect any. 
 People court you while you're of use to them ; 
 when you are not, you may go hang. Indeed, 
 they will help to swing you off the stage, to lessen 
 their own sense of obligation. By Jove ! we're 
 half-an-hour too early for the Colonel.' 
 
 4 Too early ? ' said I. ' Then let's go and see 
 that pretty little artist of St. James's Street. I 
 always meant to look her up ; and you said she 
 lived somewhere near here.' 
 
 * I think she did ; St. Crucis something or 
 other. What a naughty fellow you are, Arthur,' 
 laughed De Vigne. ' We'll try and find her out, 
 if you like ; though I don't think it's worth while. 
 Hallo ! my good man ; is there a place called St. 
 Crucis anywhere in Richmond ? '
 
 300 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 ' St. Crucis-on-the-Hill be you meaning, sir ? a 
 little farm?' said the hedge-cutter he asked, who 
 was sitting in the sun eating his dinner. ' Take the 
 road to your left, then the turning to the right, and 
 a mile straight on will see you there.' De Vigne 
 tossed him half-a-crown, tooled the greys in the 
 direction told him, and we soon arrived in the quiet 
 lane where the little farm-house stood ; turned in 
 at the gate it was as much as the dashing mail- 
 phaeton could do to pass it and into a small paved 
 court on one side of which stood the house, long, 
 low, thatched, and picturesque, more like Hamp- 
 shire than Middlesex ; with a garden, an orchard, 
 and a paddock adjoining ; all now black and bare 
 in the chill February morning. 
 
 ' Does a young lady, an artist, reside here ? ' De 
 \/igne inquired at the door; scarcely had he 
 spoken than the young girl herself, looking tempt- 
 ingly pretty in-doors, came out of an inner room 
 and ran up to him. ' Ah ! it is you ? how glad I 
 am ! Do come in, pray do ? ' 
 
 ' What a strange little thing !' whispered De 
 Vigne to me, as we followed her through the house 
 to a room at the west end, a long, low chamber 
 with an easel standing in its bay-window, and 
 water-colours, etchings, pastels, etudes, pictures of 
 all kinds, hung about its walls ; while some books,
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 301 
 
 and casts, and flowers, gave a refinement to its 
 plain simplicity, often wanting in many a gilt and 
 gorgeous drawing-room I have entered. 
 
 ' So you recognized me ? How kind of you to 
 come ! ' said the girl, looking up in De Vigne's 
 face. 
 
 De Vigne was wholly surprised ; he looked at 
 her for some moments. 
 
 * Recognize you ? I am ashamed to say I da 
 not.' 
 
 * Ah ! and yet you have called on me. I do not 
 understand?' said the little artist, with a sunny 
 smile, but very marked bewilderment in her eyes 
 and words. 'I have never forgotten you. Sir 
 Folko. I knew you the other day, when that 
 young lady's servant knocked down my portfolio. 
 Have you quite forgotten little Alma ? I am so 
 glad to see you you cannot think how much ! ' 
 
 And Alma Tressillian held out both her hands 
 to him, with a bright, joyous welcome on her 
 upraised face. 
 
 * Little Alma ! ' repeated De Vigne. ' Yes, 
 yes ! I remember you now. Where could my 
 mind have gone not to recognize you at once? 
 You are not the least altered since you were a 
 child. But how can you have come from Lorave 
 to London ? Come, tell me everything ? My dear
 
 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 child, you are not more pleased to see me than I 
 am to see you ! ' 
 
 Alma was little altered since her childhood: 
 now, as then, her golden hair and eloquent dark- 
 blue eyes, with the constant change, and play, and 
 animation of all her features, made her greatest 
 beauty. They were not regularly beautiful as 
 Violet Molyneux's, their mobility and extreme in- 
 tellectuality of expression was their chief charm, 
 after all. She was not so tall as Violet, nor had 
 she that exquisite and perfect form which made 
 the belle of the season compared with Pauline 
 Bonaparte ; but she had something graceful and 
 fairy-esque about her, and both her face and figure 
 were instinct with a life, an intelligence, a radi- 
 ance of expression which promised you a rare 
 combination of sweet temper and hot passions, 
 intense susceptibility, and highly-cultivated intel- 
 lect. You might not have called her pretty : you 
 must have called her much more irresistibly 
 winning and attractive. 
 
 'Come, tell me everything about yourself,' 
 repeated De Vigne, as he pushed a low chair for 
 her, and threw himself down on an arm-chair 
 near. ' You must remember Captain Chevasney 
 as well as you do me. We shall both of us 
 be anxious to hear all you have to tell ; though,
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIG^E. 303 
 
 I am ashamed to say that in taking the liberty to 
 call on the fair artist whose pictures I picked up, 
 I had no idea I should meet my little friend the 
 Queen of the Fairies ! ' 
 
 * Indeed ! Then I wonder you came, though I 
 am very glad to see you ? Why should you call 
 on a stranger ! Yes, I recollect Captain Che- 
 vasney,' smiled Alma, with a pretty bend of her 
 head (she did not add ' as well '). ' I was so 
 sorry when you did not see me that day in Pall 
 Mall ; I thought I might never come across you 
 again.' 
 
 ' But where is your grandpapa ? is he in 
 town ? ' 
 
 She looked down, and her lips quivered : 
 ' Grandpapa has been dead three years.' 
 
 * Dead ! My dear child, how careless of me ! 
 I am grieved, indeed ! ' exclaimed De Vigne, in- 
 voluntarily. 
 
 ' You could not tell,' answered Alma, looking 
 up at him, great tears in her blue eyes. * He 
 died more than three years ago, but it is as fresh 
 to me as if it were but yesterday. Nobody will 
 ever love me as he did. He was so kind, so 
 gentle, so good. In losing him I lost everything ; 
 I prayed day and night that I might die with 
 him ; he was my only friend ! '
 
 304 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR, 
 
 'Poor little Alma!' said De Vigne, touched 
 out of that haughty reserve now habitual to him. 
 ' I am grieved to hear it, both for the loss to you 
 of your only protector, and the loss to the world 
 of as true-hearted a man as ever breathed. If I 
 had been in England he would have seen me at 
 Lorave, as I promised, but I have been in India 
 since we parted. I wish I had written to him ; I 
 ought to have done so; but one never knows 
 things till too late.' 
 
 ' He left a letter for you, in case I should ever 
 meet you. You were the only person kind to us 
 after the loss of his fortune,' said Alma, as she 
 sprang across the room all her movements were 
 rapid and foreign knelt down before a desk, and 
 brought an unsealed envelope to De Vigne, di- 
 rected to him by a hand now powerless for 
 ever. 
 
 'This for me? I wish I had seen him,' said 
 De Vigne, as he put it away in the breast of his 
 coat. ' I ought to have written to him ; but my 
 own affairs engrossed me, and we are all pro- 
 found egotists, you know, to whatever unselfish- 
 ness we may pretend. What was the cause of 
 his death ? Will it pain you to tell me ? ' 
 
 'Paralysis. He had a paralytic stroke six 
 months before, which ended in congestion of the
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 305 
 
 brain. But how gentle, how good, how patient 
 he was through it all ! ' 
 
 She stopped again ; the tears rolled off her lashes. 
 She was quite unaccustomed to conceal what she 
 felt, and she did not know that feeling is bad ton I 
 
 1 And you have been in England ever since ? ' 
 asked De Vigne, to divert her thoughts. 
 
 ' Oh no!' she answered, brushing the tears off her 
 lashes. * You know the governess grandpapa took 
 for me to Lorave? She has been extremely kind. 
 She was with me at his death. I was fifteen then, 
 and for a year afterwards she stayed with me in 
 Lorave; I loved the place so dearly, dearer still 
 after his grave was there, and I could not bear to 
 leave it. But Miss Russell had no money, and no 
 home. She works for her living, and she could 
 not waste her time on me. She was obliged to 
 look for another situation, and when she came 
 over to it it is in a rector s family near Staines 
 I came with her, and she placed me here. My 
 old nurse has this farm ; grandpapa bought it for 
 her many years ago, when she left us and married. 
 Her husband is dead, but she still keeps the farm, 
 and makes bread to send into town. It was the 
 only place we knew of, and nurse was so delighted 
 to let me have the rooms, that I have been here 
 ever since.' 
 
 VOL. i. x
 
 306 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 ' Poor little thing, what a life ! ' cried De Vigne, 
 involuntarily. ' How dull you must be, Alma.' 
 
 She raised her eyebrows and shrugged her 
 shoulders. Gesticulation was natural to her, and 
 she had caught it from the Italians at Lorave. 
 
 ' Buried alive ! Sylvo to talk to, and the flowers 
 to talk to me ; that is my society. But wherever 
 I might have been, I should have missed him 
 equally, and I can never be alone while I have my 
 easel and my books.' 
 
 ' Have you painted these ? ' I exclaimed, in 
 surprise, for there were masterly strokes in the 
 sketches on the walls that would have shamed 
 more than one ' Associate.' 
 
 ' Yes. An Italian artist, spending the summer 
 at Lorave, saw me drawing one day, something 
 as Cimabue saw little Giotto, and had me to his 
 studio, and gave me a regular course of instruction. 
 He told me I might equal Elizabetta Sirani. I 
 shall never do that, I am afraid, but I find a very 
 good sale for my sketches; they take them at 
 Ackermann's and Rowney's, and I work hard. I 
 sketch every day out of doors, to catch the winter 
 and summer tints. But I hate winter; it is so 
 unkind, so cheerless ! I always paint Summer in 
 my pictures ; not your poor pale English season, 
 but summer golden and glorious, with the boughs
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 307 
 
 hanging to the ground with the weight of their 
 own beauty, and the vineyards and corn-fields 
 glowing with their rich promise ! ' 
 
 ' Enthusiastic as ever ? ' laughed De Vigne. 
 * How are our friends the fairies, Alma ? ' 
 
 * Do you suppose I shall give news of them 
 to a disbeliever?' said Alma, with a toss of her 
 head. ' I have not forgotten your want of faith. 
 Are you as great a sceptic now ? ' 
 
 ' Ten times more not only of fairy lore, but of 
 pretty well everything else. Fairies are as well 
 worth credence as all the other faiths of the 
 day; I would as soon credit Queen Mab as a 
 "doctrinal point!" What do you think of the 
 fairies now ? ' 
 
 * Look? Do you not think I sketched that from 
 sight ! ' said Alma, turning her easel to him, where 
 she had drawn a true Titania, such as * on pressed 
 flowers does sleep,' for whom ' the cowslips tall 
 her pensioners be : ' 
 
 ' Where oxlips and the nodding violets grow, 
 Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine, 
 With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine, 
 Lulled in those flowers with dances and delight ; ' 
 
 the veritable fairy queen of those dainty offsprings 
 
 of romance, who used to meet 
 
 ' in grove or green, 
 By fountain clear or spangled starlight sheen.' 
 
 x2
 
 308 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OK, 
 
 ' How splendidly you draw, Alma ! ' exclaimed 
 De Vigne. ' If you exhibited at the Water-Colour 
 Society, you would excite as much wonder as Rosa 
 Bonheur. And do these pay you well ? ' 
 
 ' Yes ; at least, what seems so to me.' 
 
 * Pauvre enfant I ' smiled De Vigne ; her ideas 
 of wealth and his were strikingly different. ' A 
 friend of mine is a great connoisseur of these 
 things. I must show them to him some day ; but 
 I cannot stay now, for I have an engagement at 
 two, and it is now striking.' 
 
 ' But you will come and see me again/ inter- 
 rupted Alma, beseechingly. ' Pray do. You can- 
 not think how lonely I am. I have no friends, 
 you know.' 
 
 * Oh yes, I will come,' answered De Vigne. ' I 
 have much more to hear about you and your pur- 
 suits. How could you know us, Alma, after so 
 long ? ' 
 
 ' I did not know Captain Chevasney,' said the 
 little lady, with uncomplimentary frankness, * but 
 I knew you perfectly. The first picture I could 
 sketch was one of you for Sir Folko. You know 
 I always thought you like him ! Besides, grand- 
 papa talked of you so constantly, and I was so 
 expecting you to come to Lorave with your yacht, 
 as you had promised, that it was impossible for me
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 309 
 
 to forget you. I was so grieved when you did not 
 notice me in Pall Mall. T called you, but you did 
 not hear. You were thinking of that young lady. 
 How lovely she was ! Who is she ? ' 
 
 ' Lord Molyneux's daughter, I was not think- 
 ing of her, though, but that the pair of horses in 
 her carnage were not worth half what I heard 
 they gave for them,' said De Vigne, laughing, as 
 he offered her his hand ; ' and now, good-by. I 
 am very pleased to have found you out, and you 
 must pardon us our impertinence in calling on one 
 whom we thought a stranger, since it has led us 
 to one whom we may fairly claim as an old friend !' 
 
 Alma looked gratefully in his face, and bid him, 
 with a radiant smile, not defer his visit to St. 
 Crucis, as he had done his yachting to Lorave. 
 She guessed little enough what had prevented that 
 yachting to Lorave. 
 
 ' Strange we should have lighted on that child ! 
 That's your doing, Arthur, going after the beaux 
 yeux ! ' said he, as we drove to the Dilcoosha. 
 ' She is the same frank, impulsive, enthusiastic 
 little thing as when we first saw her. She was 
 the heiress of Wieve Hurst then ; now she has to 
 work for her bread. Who can prophesy the ups 
 and downs of life ? Boughton Tressillian was game 
 to the backbone. Perhaps she inherits some of his
 
 310 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 pluck it is to be hoped so she will want it. A 
 woman, young, unprotected, and attractive as she 
 looks, is pretty sure to come to grief some way or 
 other. Her very virtues will be her ruin ! She 
 is not one of your sensible, prudent, cold, common- 
 place women, who go through the world scathless ; 
 too wise to err, too selfish to sacrifice themselves ! 
 Alma will come to grief, I am afraid. Here, take 
 the reins, Arthur, and I will see what her grand- 
 father says.' 
 
 He tore open the letter, and gave a long 
 whistle. 
 
 * What's the matter ? ' said I. 
 
 ' She isn't his grandchild after all.' 
 
 ' Not ? His daughter, I suppose ? ' 
 
 ' No ; no relation at all. The letter is broken 
 off unfinished ; probably where his hand failed 
 him, poor old man. He says my name recurred 
 to him as the only person who had not heeded his 
 decline of fortune, and the only man of honour whom 
 he could trust. Out of his income as consul he con- 
 trived to save her a few hundreds votia tout! 
 He must leave her, of course, to struggle for her- 
 self; and this is what weighs so heavily upon him, 
 because, it seems, he adopted this child when she 
 was two years old, believing he would make her 
 an heiress ; and, according to his view of the case,
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 311 
 
 he considers he has done her a great wrong. Who 
 she is he does not tell me, except that she was a 
 little Italian girl. He was going, no doubt, to 
 add more, as he began the letter by saying he 
 wished her secret to be known to some one, 
 and having heard much of my mother, appealed to 
 her, through me, to aid and serve Alma if she 
 would ; but here the sentence breaks off un- 
 finished.' 
 
 ' Do you think Alma knows it ; she calls him 
 her grandfather still ? ' 
 
 ' Can't say yet of course she does,' said De 
 Vigne, with a cynical smile. ' No woman's curi- 
 osity ever allowed her to keep an unsealed letter 
 three years and never look into it ! Here we are. 
 It will be as well not to tell Sabretasche of his neigh- 
 bour, eh ? He is such a deuced fellow for women, 
 and she would be certain to go down before his 
 thousand-and-one accomplishments ! Not that it 
 would matter much, perhaps ; she will be some- 
 body's prey, no doubt, and she might as well be 
 the Colonel's, save that he is a little quicker fickle 
 than most, knowing better than most, the value of 
 his toys.' 
 
 With which concluding sarcasm De Vigne 
 threw the reins to his groom, who met him at the 
 door, and entered that abode of perfect taste and
 
 312 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 epicurean luxury, known as the Dilcoosha, where 
 Sabretasche and luncheon were waiting for us. And 
 where, after due discussion of Strasbourg pates, 
 Comet Hock, Bass, and the news of the day, we 
 inspected the chesnut's paces, pronounced him 
 pretty certain, unless something unforeseen in the 
 way of twitch and opium-ball occurred, to win the 
 Queen's Cup, and drove back to town together, 
 De Vigne to go to billiards at Pratt's, Sabretasche 
 to accompany the Molyneux to a morning concert, 
 and I to call on a certain lady who had well-nigh 
 broken my heart, when it was young and break- 
 able, who had exchanged rings with me under the 
 Kensington Garden trees, when she was fresh, fair, 
 Gwen Brandling, and who was now staying in 
 town as Madame la Duchesse de la Vieillecour, 
 black velvet and point replacing the muslin and 
 ribbons, dignity in the stead of girlish grace, and a 
 Jin sourire of skilled coquetry in lieu of that heart- 
 felt smile, Gwen's whilom charm. I take it 
 doves are sold by the dozen on the altar-steps of 
 St. George's ? but it is true that the doves 
 have a strange passion for the gold coins that 
 buy them, and would not fly away if they 
 could ? 
 
 N'importe ! Madame de la Vieillecour and I 
 met as became people living in good society ; if
 
 GRANTILLE DE VIGNE. 313 
 
 less fresh she was perhaps more fascinating, and 
 though one begins life tender and transparent as 
 Sevres, one is stone-china, luckily, long before the 
 finish, warranted never to break at any blows 
 whatever.
 
 314 "HELD IN BONDAGE; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HOW A WIFE TALKED OF HER HUSBAND. 
 
 IN a very gay and gaudy drawing-room in the 
 Champs Elysees, in an arm-chair, with her feet on a 
 chaufferette, in a rich cashmere and laces, looking 
 a very imposing and richly-coloured picture, sat 
 De Vigne's wife, none the less handsome for the 
 wear of Paris life, intermixed with visits to the 
 Bads, where she was almost as great an attraction 
 as the green .tables, and the sound of her name as 
 great a charm as the irresistible " Faites wire jeu, 
 messieurs I " A little fuller about the cheek and 
 chin, a trifle more Juno-esque in form, a little 
 higher tinted in the carnation hue of her roses, 
 but otherwise none the worse for the ten years 
 that had passed since she wore the orange-blos- 
 soms and the diamond ceinture on her marriage 
 morning. 
 
 She had an English paper in her hand, and was 
 running her eye over the fashionable intelligence.
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGXE. 315 
 
 Opposite to her was old Fantyre, her nose a little 
 more hooked, her eye sharper, her rouge higher, 
 a little more dirty, witty, and detestable, than of 
 yore; taking what she called a demie-tasse, but 
 which looked uncommonly like cognac uncon- 
 taminated by Mocha. And these two led a 
 very pleasant life in Paris; with the old lady's 
 quick wits, questionable introductions, and imper- 
 turbable impudence, and the younger one's beauty, 
 riches, and excessive freedom ! 
 
 ' What's the matter, my dear ? ' asked Lady 
 Fantyre; 'you don't look best pleased.' 
 
 'I am not pleased,' said the Trefusis (such I 
 must call her), her brow dark, and her full under- 
 lip protruded. ' De Vigne is back.' 
 
 ' Dear, dear! how tiresome !' cried the Fantyre ; 
 ' and just when you'd begun to hope he'd been 
 killed in India. Well, that is annoying. It's a 
 nice property to be kept out of, ain't it ? But 
 you see, my dear, strong men of his age are not 
 good ones to be heir to, even with all the chances 
 of war. So he's come back, is he ? What for, I 
 wonder?' 
 
 ' Here it is, among the arrivals : " Claridge's 
 Hotel : Major de Vigne." He is come back 
 because he is tired of Scinde, probably. I wonder
 
 316 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 if he will come to Paris ? I should like to meet 
 him.' And the Trefusis laughed, showing her 
 white teeth. 
 
 'Why, my dear? To give him a dose of 
 aconite ? No, you're too prudent to do anything 
 of that sort. Whatever other commandments 
 you break, my dear, it won't be the Sixth, because 
 there's a capital punishment for it,' said the old 
 lady, chuckling at the idea. ' You'd like to meet 
 him, you say I shouldn't. I don't forget his 
 face in the vestry. Lord ! how he did look ! his 
 face as white as a corpse, and as fierce as the 
 devil's.' 
 
 'Did you ever see the devil ?' sneered the Tre- 
 fusis. 
 
 * Yes, my dear in a scarlet cashmere ; and 
 very well he looks in women's clothes, too,' said 
 the Fantyre, with a diabolical grin. 
 
 The Trefusis laughed too. 
 
 ' He has found me dangerous, at any rate.' 
 
 'Well, yes; everybody has, I think, that has 
 the pleasure of your acquaintance,' chuckled Lady 
 Fantyre. * But I don't think so much of your 
 revenge, myself. Very poor ! What's three thou- 
 sand a year out of his property ? And as for not 
 letting him marry, I think that's oftener kindness
 
 GEANVILLE DE VIGNE. 317 
 
 than cruelty to a man. Don't you think it would 
 have been better to have queened it at Vigne, and 
 had an establishment in Eaton Square, and spent 
 his twenty thousand a year for him, and made 
 yourself a London leader of fashion, and ridden 
 over the necks of those haughty Ferrers people, 
 and all his stiff-necked friends that beautiful 
 creature, Vivian Sabretasche, among 'em. What 
 do you think, eh ? ' 
 
 ' It might have been better for me, but it 
 would have spoilt my revenge. He would have 
 left me sooner or later, and as he is infinitely too 
 proud and reserved a man to have told any living 
 soul the secret of his disgrace, I should have 
 lost the one grand sting in my vengeance his 
 humiliation before the world.' 
 
 ' Pooh, pooh, my dear, a man of fortune is 
 never humiliated; the world's too fond of him! 
 The sins of the fathers are only visited on the 
 children where the children are going down in 
 the world.' (The Fantyre might be a nasty old 
 woman, but she spoke greater truths than most 
 good people.) *So, you sacrificed your aggran- 
 disement to your revenge ? Not over sensible, that.' 
 
 ' You can't accuse me of often yielding to any 
 weakness,' said the Trefusis, with a look in her
 
 318 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR, 
 
 eye like a vicious mare's. ' However, my revenge 
 is not finished yet.' 
 
 Eh ? Not ? What's the next act ? On my 
 word, you're a clever woman, Lucy. You do my 
 heart good.' 
 
 The first time, by the way, that Lady Fantyre 
 ever acknowledged to a heart, or the Trefusis 
 received such a compliment ! 
 
 ' This. I know his nature you do not. Some 
 day or other De Vigne will love again, and passion- 
 ately. Then he will want to be free ; then, in- 
 deed, he shall realize the force of the fetters by 
 which I hold him.' 
 
 The old lady chuckled over the amusing pros- 
 pect. 
 
 ' Very likely, my dear. It's just what they can't 
 do, that they always want to do. Tell a man 
 wine's good for him, and forbid him water, he'd 
 forswear his cellar, and run to the pump imme- 
 diately! And if you heard that he'd fallen in 
 love, what would you do ? ' 
 
 ' Go to England, and put myself between her 
 and him, as his deserted, injured, much enduring, 
 and loving wife.' 
 
 Old Fantyre drank up her coffee, and nodded 
 approvingly.
 
 GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 319 
 
 ' That's right, my dear ! Play your game. Play 
 it out ; only take care to keep the honours in your 
 own hand, and never trump your partner's card.' 
 
 ' Not much fear of my doing that,' said the 
 Trefusis, with a smile. 
 
 There was not, indeed ; she marked her cards 
 too cleverly, for she was keen enough to be Queen 
 of the Paris Greeks. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SON8, STAMFORD STREET 
 AND CHARING CROSS.

 
 
 BRARV FACUTY