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HER
LAURENCE
i<
NEW NOVELS
JFrcmk Cce ScneMct.
I. HER FRIEND LAURENCE.
H. MADAME.
HI. 'TWIXT HAMMER AND ANVIL.
The London Spectator says : " A new and powerful novel-
ist has arisen. * * * It is seldom that we arise
from the perusal of a story with the sen^e of ex-
citement which Mr. Benedict has produced.
* * * We rejoice to recognize a new
novelist of real genius, who knows
and depicts powerfully some of
the most striking and over-
mastering passions of the
human heart."
All published handsomely bound in cloth. Price $1.50each,
and sent/ree by mail, on receipt of price, by
G. W. CARLETON & CO., PUBLISHERS,
New York.
HER FRIEND LAURENCE.
BY
FRANK LEE BENEDICT,
AUTHOR OV
"MY DAUGHTER ELINOR," "MISS VAN KORTLAND,"
"TWIXT HAMMER AND ANVIL," "MADAME,"
ETC., ETC., ETC.
NEW YORK:
G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers,
MADISON SQUARE.
MDCCCLXXIX.
COPYRIGHT, 1879,
BT
FRANK LEE BENEDICT.
SAMTTK. STODDBB,
STEREOTYPER,
90 ANN STHEET N. Y.
TROW
PRINTING AND BOOK Bnn>me Co.
N. Y.
TO
THE VISCONDESSA DE STO. AMAEO
THE MOST APPRECIATIVE OF READERS,
THE MOST DISCRIMINATING OP CRITICS,
AND THE
WARMEST OF FRIENDS.
AFFECTIONATELY,
FRANK LEE BENEDICT.
FLORENCE, ITALY, May, 1879.
2072160
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. For His Daughter .- 9
H. The Forbidden Path 18
HI. The Omen 24
IV. A Bouquet of Jessamines 38
V. Her First Visit 48
VI. La Belle Samaritaine 59
VII. Dead as Pharaoh 69
VIII. His Discovery 79
IX. Her Coming 90
X. Mi-Cargme 99
XL Set Right 108
XII. Three-and-Thirty 116
XIII. She Accused Herself 126
XIV. The Arabic Lessons 136
XV. Announced "Miss Danvers " 143
XVI. From America 148
XVII. Giulia's Greek 156
XVIII. An Unwelcome Confidence 165
XIX. Diogcnes's Advice 180
XX. A Girl's Troubles 191
XXI. Before the Pope's Portrait 202
XXII. A Bold Stroke 212
XXHI. In the Studio 222
XXIV. Like Jonah's Gourd.. 229
via CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
XXV. Mary's Resolve 239
XXVI. " The End of Our Romance " 246
XXVH. Against Fate 259
XXVHL " She Said Good-By " 272
XXIX. A Morning Ride 278
XXX. Two Notes 287
XXXI. An Unpleasant Mission 297
XXYTT Gone ! 305
XXXm. Christened Circe 316
XXXIV. In the Sorceress's Toils 324
XXXV. Each Blunders 333
XXXVI. Her Last Effort 340
XXXVII. Still Her Work 349
XXXVHI. For Whom He was to Die 361
XXXIX. Once Too Often .368
XL. The Story Told. 377
XLI. When Dawn Broke 388
XLII. After All.. . 400
HER FRIEND LAURENCE.
CHAPTER I.
FOR HIS DAUGHTER.
HE Amaldi Palace stands in a small square, not
far from the beautiful old church of Santa Maria
Novella, fills up nearly one side of the piazza, and
is stately enough to be noticeable, rich as Flor-
ence is in picturesque and storied edifices.
There are three or four courts, and the vast pile has
numerous occupants ; but one quadrangle, with its separate
entrance, belongs to Violet Cameron. She has not, however,
asserted her claims to proprietorship by giving her portion
of the mansion a new name ; and therein, I think, has shown
wisdom. Nowadays, in Florence and Rome, the traveler
not unfrequently finds historical dwellings, which have been
re-christened under the Anglo-Saxon cognomens of their
present owners ; but I cannot persuade myself that Palazzo
Sankey and Villino Jenkinson sound as well as their original
Italian titles.
In the beginning of October, 187-, Miss Cameron
returned to Florence, after more than a year's absence, in-
tending to spend the rest of the autumn, and perhaps the
whole winter, unless it should prove one of those hopelessly
rainy seasons, which the variable Tuscan climate will occa-
sionally disgrace itself by adopting and clinging to for
several consecutive months.
At an early hour on the morning after her arrival she
was seated in her dressing-room a pretty nook, with its
walls paneled in blue silk, the windows hung with blue
1* [9]
10 FOR HIS DAUGHTER.
and white draperies, and the easy-chairs and couches covered
with the faintest possible tint of azure velvet. A door
stood open, and showed a boudoir, rich and quaint as a
cinque-cento casket ; beyond, other open doors gave glimpses
of a long suite of apartments, which were the envy of half
her acquaintance, though to attempt a description of the
various chambers, with their treasures of art and virtu,
would only make this page sound like ah auction catalogue.
Miss Cameron had drunk her coffee, and was indulging in
the luxury of complete idleness, looking her best, too, in an
undress which would have been very trying to many women
a gown of some dead white woolen stuff, loosely confined
about the waist by a broad ribbon, and her hair (dark
auburn, with golden reflections upon it) brushed back
from her forehead, and falling in heavy masses over her
shoulders. Even in that severely simple toilet and the
rigid truthfulness of the morning light, six-and-twenty was
the most a close observer would have assigned as her age ;
but Violet Cameron had counted three years beyond thirty,
and reached the era at which her sex, as a rule, is forced to
relinquish all claims to appearing youthful. I think it was
the indescribable softness and purity of her complexion
which kept her face so young ; and even feminine critics
never tried to hint that the delicate bloom in her cheeks,
like the color in the heart of a wild rose, was not natural.
Women did say her eyes were green, and, I believe,
rightly ; but they were nevertheless wonderfully beautiful
eyes, which gained added depth from the blackness of the
arched brows, and the lashes. so long and thick as to cast
that peculiar shadow which less fortunate woinen are
obliged to supply by factitious aids.
She was too small to be called handsome ; the features
were too irregular for perfect beauty ; and her grace and
supreme elegance (that highest and most indefinable charm)
rendered the term pretty inapplicable. She seemed to have
caught certain characteristics of each of the three types,
and Nature had managed the combination with such skill
that the result was a loveliness as unique as it was indis-
putable.
Three-and-thirty years of age, and unmarried. So I
must call her my elderly heroine, though, in the presence
of her radiant fairness, the epithet would have become a
positively ludicrous misnomer.
FOR EI8 DAUGHTER. 11
Miss Cameron's meditations were interrupted by tho
opening of a door ; steps crossed the boudoir ; and a thin,
faded voice, which one would have sworn belonged to an
. ancient spinster, called, quaveringly :
" Good-morning, dear ! May I come in ? Excuse this
early visit. Clarice said you were up, and I wanted but
it is a shame to disturb you "
" Pray come in !" Miss Cameron said, as the unseen
speaker's sentence trailed off into a sigh. " I may be un-
entertaining, but I am not dangerous, I give you my
word."
The portiere was pushed farther back by a hand which
suited the voice long, bony, and uncertain in its move-
ments; but it was not until Miss Cameron repeated her in-
vitation that their owner appeared. She gave the effect of
unusual height, from the fact that each separate part
neck, waist, and limbs seemed unduly elongated; and she
was so thin that apparently only skin and bones had been
left after that drawing-out process.
Fifty-five at least; tiny wrinkles, like cracks in yellow
porcelain ; straggling cork-screw curls ; a perpetual smile ; a
habit of carrying her head on one side of breaking her
sentences with inexpressibly irritating little gasps these
were Miss Bronson's chief characteristics, whereto I may
add a morbid taste in the matter of faded pink bows, which
she had a mania for pinning on every available spot, from
the crown of her head to the toes of her slippers.
" Good morning, Eliza," said Miss Cameron. " I hope
you have slept off the fatigues of the journey."
" Oh, perfectly ! And how fresh you look !" with a
sigh so much deeper than ordinary, that Miss Cameron
added :
" What hav.e you got on your soul or your conscience ?
Something troubles you, I know. Your voice is more
Eolian-harp-like than usual."
"My love, I am in a state of such painful uncertainty!"
" My love, people say that is the normal state of all us
spinsters. But sit down and reveal your woes. I don't ask
you to weep on my sympathetic bosom, but I will do any-
thing short of drying tears to show my tender interest,"
said Miss Cameron, laughingly.
Miss Bronson seated herself, slipped from her arm into
her lap a canvas reticule worked with worsted flowers of
13 FOR HIS DAUGHTER.
such discordant hues that they gave her friend a sensation
like incipient sea-sickness, and shook her head pensively.
" Are you carrying your trouble in that preposterous
bag?" Miss Cameron asked. "It is ugly enough to hold
all the ills of Pandora's box, though Hope would die in dis-
gust if shut up there."
" I declare, ray dear, you are as witty as a play ; but I
don't know is it now at least among foreigners "
" What, in the name of goodness ?"
" Exactly the thing to talk so differently from every-
body else," sighed Miss Bronson. " Please don't be
offended at my mentioning it, but several times people
have said to me, they should know you were an American
just by your conversation."
" I hope so ! I don't propose to cultivate stupidity for
the sake of being supposed a native of some other country.
Perhaps, too, I talk through my nose."
"Oh no! You have nothing of the nasal intonation."
" Do say twang, Eliza ! We are not school-mistresses
any longer, and there is no necessity for using long words,"
said Miss Cameron, laughing outright.
"I wish you would not speak so often of having been a
schoolmisti'ess," expostulated Miss Bronson ; " it does not
matter for me, but with your wealth and beauty "
" My dear, the wealth gives me the privilege of saying
what I please ! I am proud of having been a school-
ma'am ! Why, I should be heartily ashamed of myself if
I had always led as useless a life as I do now ! I am very
doubtful whether fate did me any kindness in putting an
end to my drudgery. Good heavens ! ten years gone since
then and I meant to have done so much ! And here I am
thirty-three, and have accomplished literally nothing !"
"You know what French people say .' that a woman
in reality lias only the age she looks,' " said Eliza, glancing
in the mirror as if to determine how many years this privi-
lege would take off her own record.
1 " French people have talked nonsense in regard to
women since the foundation of the Gallic empire " (" Er-
roneously declared by many authors to have begun with
Charlemagne," parenthesized Miss Bronson), " and will
continue to do so until the day of Judgment, whenever
they began," pursued Miss Cameron. "But never mind
13
my age, or the follies of the Gauls : what secret have you
got shut up there?"
At this reminder of her errand, the spinster made a
sudden nervous movement which sent several sealed en-
velopes flying out of the reticule.
" Ugh ! 1 was right to compare the thing to Pandora's
box !" shivered Miss Cameron. She stooped to pick up two
of the epistles which had fluttered close to her chair,
adding, in the playfully teasing way whereby she often
perplexed poor Eliza : "They are for me ! Why were you
hiding my correspondence in your sack ? If you mean to
turn postman I shall buy you a uniform."
"Oh oh! don't look wait till I explain !" cried the
antique virgin despairingly, as her friend was about to open
the envelopes. " Please don't look !"
Miss Cameron laid the missives down and watched the
spinster execute a kind of weird waltz, which was rather
like a caricature of Dinorah's Shadow-dance.
" This is exceedingly mysterious," she said ; " even awe-
inspiring !"
"My dear," continued Miss Bronson, as soon as she
reached the speaking stage of her eccentric exercise, "I have
a message which is, so to speak, a key to the whole matter."
" Then pray give me the key, else I shall force the lock,"
returned Miss Cameron, with a glance towards the letters,
which caused Eliza to dance anew.
" One moment I wanted to break it "
"I hate broken news as I do broken china," interrupted
Miss Cameron. " Pray give it to me entire, whatever it may
be. If it cornes in fragments it will be sure to excoriate my
temper, just as broken china would my fingers."
"You make me laugh so ! He ! he ! ha ! ha !" And, as
a proof that her merriment was heart-felt, Miss Bronson
began to cry.
Any person unaccustomed to the spinster's vagaries would
either have been alarmed or ready to shake her from sheer
impatience, but experience had taught Miss Cameron that
emotion of any soi't in the presence of Eliza's small agita-
tions was usually emotion wasted, for, as a rule, the slighter
the cause, the more force she put into her demonstrations.
So now her friend only said, composedly:
" You will tell me when you can."
"Yes I wanted to break "" sobbed Eliza : then travc
14 FOR HIS DAUGHTER.
a great gulp and burst out, " Your cousin George Danvers
is dead."
Miss Cameron changed color, put lier hand over her
eyes, and remained silent for a few seconds, during which
Eliza sat choking behind her pocket-handkerchief, and by
the time she emerged from its depths Miss Cameron had
resumed her former attitude.
" He died to me so many years since that I cannot pre-
tend to be deeply affected," she said, in a voice which was
awed rather than saddened. " If he can see me or cares
to see he is certain that I have no hard feeling towards
him. Once I thought I could never say this, but I can now,
freely."
" Oh, my dear, that is like you ! But only think he
had lost his fortune every penny. His daughter is left
absolutely destitute."
" Do you know, I had forgotten he had a daughter,"
returned Miss Cameron, with a little wonder in her tone.
<l That shows me how completely I had put him and his out
of my mind ! Yes, he had a daughter she must be
eighteen. His wife died ?"
"To be sure ; and he married again. It seems the poor
girl and her stepmother are not good friends oh ! his
letter is heart-breaking !"
" lie wrote to you ?"
" And to you," said Eliza, pointing towards the epistles
on the table. " Only think ! they have been lying here
more than a month ; and oh, he does so plead it would
soften a stone ! The wife can go to her relations but the
unfortunate girl will not be received by them "
" I think the quickest way to make me understand the
whole matter will be to let me read the explanations,"
Miss Cameron interrupted, with a mildness which spoke
volumes for her powers of self-restraint. " Give me your
letter first, please."
Eliza declared that she had already done so, and was as-
tounded when accused of guarding it still in her Pandora's
box. She handed out a packet of cough lozenges, then a
roll of knitting, then a receipted hotel-bill insisting wildly
that each article in turn was the required epistle, and weep-
ing bitterly all the while. Finally, Miss Cameron took
ssion of the bag and turned its multifarious contents
upon the table. Eliza shrieked over the confusion her
FOR HIS DAUGHTER. 15
friend was making, but Miss Cameron did not heed her
distress. She found the document at length, and said :
" You can pick up the things while I am reading.
Please don't speak to me till I have finished ; I am so dull
that I can only attend to one thing at a time ;" which was
as near a reproof as she ever went in her dealings with his
sometimes troublesome daughter of Vesta.
Eliza began collecting her treasures, and Miss Cameron
read the letter through, then observed calmly :
" What a miserable opinion the poor man had of human
nature up to the very last, since he thought it necessary to
write you this piteous appeal to try and touch my hard
heart."
" Oh, my dear, he felt he had wronged you so ter-
ribly !"
" And he supposed I would be unforgiving. It was
natural, no doubt, for him to fear that, since in my case he
would have been "
"But the poor girl? And he is gone where "
Miss Cameron held up her hand and finished the sen-
tence thus :
" Where the things of this world must look very unim-
portant, since they do so to us ten years after their hap-
pening, however weighty they seemed at the time."
Miss Bronson feared that the assertion sounded sadly
unorthodox, and went out of the room in silence; partly be-
cause she perceived it would be cruel to inflict further com-
panionship on Violet, partly to meditate over this speed),
and prepare herself to convict her friend, in case conscu-m-e
and certain old Calvinistic writers, in whose gloomy
polemics she had a faith which we will hope is rare in our
day, should decide that the sentiment savored of heresy.
Miss Cameron examined her letters, opening first the
epistle from George Danvers the utterance of a dying
man; and, as such, according to the creeds in which we
have all been reared, a communication to be received with
solemn respect.
An odd thought crossed Violet Cameron's mind as she
read one which others of us have had under similar cir-
cumstances, and been startled thereby, because so utterly
opposed to our theories namely, why, because the man
A\as dying, should any particular weight attach to his re-
quest ?
16 FOR HIS DAUGHTER.
Fathers, on their death-beds, ask pledges of their chil-
dren, which must fetter those children for years; husbands
beg wives never to marry; wives entreat husbands not to
wed some particular woman. Having received the desired
promises, the departing spirits go tranquilly out of the
world go away, we believe, to an existence fuller of frui-
tion than this, to a happiness of which happiness here can
give no conception certainly not regretting the friends
they have left, else they could not find peace even in
heaven living new lives, untrammeled by any duty to their
mourners on earth, who are considered worse than heathens
if they fail to obey every wish of the dead, however un-
reasonable, however difficult, or, indeed, impracticable, the
changes of this mortal sphere may render such obedience.
Violet indulged this i-eflection ; then was a little shocked ;
then thought herself silly for being so. But George Dan-
vers had asked nothing which she deemed unreasonable or
shrank from granting.
Miss Cameron's widowed father had died soon after
her seventeenth birthday. George Danvers settled his
estate. The orphan was declared penniless, but the execu-
tor speedily became wealthy. A few people suspected him
of cheating. Violet felt assured of his guilt ; for her
father, during his brief illness, had shown her that the
property he left (consisting of large coal and iron mines),
though involved, would afford her an ample income, if
matters were honestly and wisely conducted.
She had refused to become a pensioner on her relative's
bounty, and had told him her certainty that he was a rob-
ber. He had grossly defrauded he admitted this in his
letter but he had always meant to right her when he
should grow rich enough ! Now death stood near ; a sud-
den financial crisis had ruined him ; and in all the world
there was no human being to whom he could appeal in his
daughter's behalf, save to the cousin whom he had so deep-
ly wronged.
The stepmother wrote, just after her husband's death,
a letter full of complaints and self-commiseration. Her
own fortune had been swallowed up, and she could not ask
her relations to burden themselves with the care of a girl
who, ever since her father's second marriage an event
which had occurred some six years previous had plainly
FOR HIS DAUGHTER. 17
shown that she considered his new wife and her connections
interlopers and foes.
The third letter was from the orphan, Mary Danvers,
written still later girlish, highflown, but not a bad letter
by any means its whole tenor proving her ignorance of
the causes which had separated the cousins for so many
years.
Miss Cameron recollected that, owing to the long delay,
the poor child might have suffered torments worse than
those of purgatory ; at least, no more time should be lost.
She prepared a telegram for her lawyer in New York, tell-
ing him how and where to communicate with Mary Danvers,
and promising letters by the next steamer ; though, if any
suitable escort offered before their arrival, the young lady
might start on her voyage. This done she wrote to him
and to George's daughter ; and, as she finished, Eliza
Bronson appeared again, with her eyes and nose in a pitiable
state, and her doubts in regard to Miss Cameron's heresy
still unsettled.
" Read these, Eliza," said Violet, holding out the epis-
tles.
The spinster slowly perused the two, and exclaimed :
" Really, dear, you are almost an angel, if only you
wouldn't give in to foreign carelessness about spending
Sunday !"
" Please have the dispatch sent at once, and the letters
put in the post," said Miss Cameron. " And just call
Clarice. I shall go for a ride. The air will do me good."
" Yes," Miss Bronson assented ; but her tone and man-
ner showed that she still had a weight on her mind, and
desired to be questioned.
" What is it ?" Miss Cameron asked, resignedly.
"About about mourning. Shall you put on black?"
" No," Miss Cameron replied, without hesitation.
" My dear, that will look so odd ! Everybody does it
for a few weeks say six, if not a very near relative."
" George Danvers has already been dead almost two
months," said Miss Cameron. " To go into black now
would only be exposing myself to hear and answer the
same question forty times each day for the next fort-
night."
" Yes, but custom, my dear custom !"
18 THE FORBIDDEN PATH.
" Since people do not know what has happened, their
prejudices cannot be shocked."
" Very well !" sighed Miss Bronson.
" Eliza," said her friend, coldly, " when my father died,
I was so poor that I could not buy mourning. Do you
think it fitting I should adopt it for his for George
Danvers ?"
" I I perhaps not," murmured the spinster.
Miss Cameron went into her bedroom. By the time
Eliza had reached the boudoir, she called :
" I dare say you are right ! I will wear white and
lavender and gray for a few weeks. Now I hope your con-
science is at rest."
Miss Bronson wept again, and retired, so satisfied in
every particular, that she could not have been more com-
placent had they just heard of a wedding instead of a
death.
CHAPTER II.
THE FORBIDDEN PATH.
ISS CAMERON mounted her horse and rode off
into the Cascine, finding the lovely wood de-
serted, as it usually is, save for an hour or two
before sunset.
Away to the right, Fiesole and its range of
blue hills, glorious with sunshine, shut in the view ; on the
left, through the aisles of trees, Violet caught glimpses of
the Arno and the plain beyond. A low bi-eeze sang among
the branches like a harp accompaniment to the songs of the
birds the sky was a vast dome of turquoise, flecked here
and there with opal clouds and, in spite of her grave pre-
occupation, the beauty of the scene did not escape Miss
Cameron's eyes. She loved nature, as she did everything
else beautiful, with a genuine love, and Italy possessed for
her that peculiar attraction which it must have for all im-
aginative people. She was given to day-dreams, which,
had she transcribed them, might have made her known as a
poet ; but she never thought of doing this they were her
THE FORBIDDEN PATH. 19
chief treasures, which she liked to keep sacred between
herself and her soul. She had learned to guard her secret
when in girlhood life suddenly assumed an aspect so bald
and commonplace that she fostered this visionary faculty
in order to forget now and then the coldness and closeness
of existence. A governess inclined to dreams would be a
lusus naturce intolerable to parents or the wise heads of
scholastic institutions, and Violet's fancies were not allowed
to interfere with the conscientious fulfillment of her duties.
In the early days she had been forced to struggle hard
for patience had felt like a caged bird as if she must die
if relief did not come. But by degrees she conquered that
restlessness, gradually grew accustomed to the routine and
restraint, and, if not happy, perhaps as nearly reached con-
tentment as youth often does.
Violet did not remember her mother ; when she was a
little child Miss Bronson had been selected for her gov-
erness, who, if not a woman of powerful intellect, was at
least well-informed, prudent, and loved her charge most
tenderly.
When orphanage and poverty overtook Violet, Miss
Bronson would gladly have toiled for and supported her,
but this the girl would not permit, so Eliza obtained situa-
tions for both in a boarding-school where she had herself
been educated. Violet, at first received as a pupil-teacher,
rose rapidly in rank till, before her season of toil ended,
she stood next to the stately lady who ruled in those halls
of Minerva, and the destiny to which my heroine had
looked forward was of one day becoming mistress of the
establishment.
The change to her present position had arrived as unex-
pectedly as the tempest which at her father's death flung
her from luxury into want it possessed, too, a certain halo
of romance.
During a summer vacation she accompanied one of the
scholars to her home, and there formed the acquaintance of
a gentleman who had known her parents. Mr. Goring was
no longer young a widower, and standing very much alone
in the world. He fell in love with the beautiful gov-
erness, and her friends thought her insane to decline his
hand. Reason and common-sense urged her to accept, but,
at the end of the six months' probation he had begged, she
definitely refused his offer. It was hard to cast aside the
20 THE FORBIDDEN PATH.
future which showed so bright in contrast to her surround-
ings harder to give him pain, for his whole heart centered
in his plea. But, to her mind, a marriage unsanctified by
love love so strong that it could work miracles became
a bartering of body and soul, from which she recoiled with
unutterable loathing. Other women, feeling the respect
and esteem which she felt, might have accepted been right
in so doing : to her it was simply impossible.
Eighteen months later Mr. Goring died in Brazil, and,
with the exception of legacies to his dead wife's relatives
he had none of his own bequeathed his vast fortune to
Violet Cameron. There would be nothing specially inter-
esting in the records of the ensuing decade, looking back
from which the old workaday epoch seemed strangely un-
real. It had passed as it might have been expected to do
with a woman rich, beautiful, and unmarried save in one
particular : nothing like love had touched her heart not
so much as a brief fancy which she could weave an idyl
over. She had lived in the world, been surrounded by ad-
mirers ; but no voice from any man's soul had possessed
power to waken a response in hers.
Even women never thought of setting her down any-
where near her age ; if she told it to some confidant she
was not believed, and Eliza Bronson, exaggeratedly scrupu-
lous in general, burdened her conscience with many pre-
varications to prevent such possibility.
That she had gone so many years beyond all claim to
girlhood appeared inconceivable to Violet herself, even
when she laughingly adopted the title of old maid. She
was as young in her feelings as her face naturally enough,
too, since love, life's profoundest mystery, remained only a
name and a dream.
Violet rode on more and more rapidly, trying to forget
the hosts of perplexed, inexplicable fancies which beset
her, following in the wake of the recollections roused by
George Danvers's letter. She turned her horse so abruptly
down one of the side alleys that she nearly exterminated a
gentleman who had just emerged into it from the recesses
of the wood.
They caught sight of each other at the same instant.
The gentleman sprang aside, and Miss Cameron reined in
her steed so suddenly that she sent him back on his
haunches. She received a somewhat reproachful glance
THE FORBIDDEN PATH. 21
from the stranger, then Selim engaged her attention, for,
offended at the unexpected and vigorous check, he began
to stand on his hind legs and perform antics more like
those of a trained horse in a circus than was agreeable to
his rider.
Her narrowly-escaped victim stood watching the ex-
hibition, no doubt with the intention of coming to her aid
if assistance should prove necessary ; but in a very few
seconds she convinced Selim that wisdom would dictate a
return to his duty and the legitimate use of his limbs.
Violet was about to speak some words of apology and
hurry on, when she dropped her whip, which the gentleman
picked up, and she, sufficiently vexed with herself and
Selim to be unreasonable, hastily decided that even the
ceremonious lifting of the stranger's hat conveyed a fresh
reproach.
Of course she could do no less than offer her thanks,
and, as she looked full at him, she perceived her blunder ;
the dullest woman living could not have mistaken the
expression in his face for anything save wondering and
respectful admiration. Still she could not resist saying :
" I must beg your pardon. I ought not to have ridden
so fast round the corner ; but it is very unsafe for any per-
son to walk in these alleys, meant only for equestrians."
lie smiled slightly, still he did smile, and evidently in
amusement at her neatly-combined apology and reproof.
" The next turning is the one the signora should have
taken," he said, with a bow. As he spoke he pointed to a
signboard at the side of the road, and Violet read thereon,
printed in very legible characters and in two languages,
" Peri pedoni for foot-passengers."
" It seems I was in the wrong every way. Pardon
again," she said ; and, to make matters worse, she felt her-
self coloring like a school-girl.
Her groom rode up at this juncture, and repeated the
announcement that his mistress had strayed into forbidden
paths ; but Violet urged Selim on, and the groom was
obliged to follow, and her haste lost her the slight satisfac-
tion of hearing that the guardians of the wood might bear
a portion of the blame for removing the bar which ought
to have obstructed the route. The gentleman went his
way and Miss Cameron went hers or the way not hers by
23 TUE FORBIDDEN PATH.
right and of course both took with them some thought of
the brief encounter.
Violet had spoken in Italian, and the stranger had
replied in the same tongue, but her trained ear caught a
foreign accent.
" Not English, however," was her reflection. " He
looked like some of those handsome men one sees in
Athens. No doubt he is a Greek a worthless race as a
rule ; and I would wager anything he is no exception."
As for the gentleman, his meditations, conducted in the
same language as her own, ran somewhat in this fashion :
" What a superb creature ! However, I dare say she
never looked so well before and never will again ! Diffi-
cult to make that woman turn back, whatever path she had
started on. How old ? Not a young miss, certainly five-
and-twenty perhaps. How vexed she tried to be with me
just because herself in the wrong ! However, it was like a
woman like anything human, for that matter, though we
men always pretend to think such little errors are monop-
olized by the softer sex."
Miss Cameron reached home for the twelve-o'clock
breakfast, and found a note from a friend awaiting her.
"You dearest, wickedest, most delightful of creatures !
Carlo heard last night of your arrival. If you meant to let
the day pass without sending me word, don't admit the fact,
else I never, never will forgive you ! We are out at the
villa. I am literally tied fast by the foot, or ankle, which I
managed to sprain a week ago with an awkwardness that
merited the punishment it received. Half a dozen people
only among the nicest of our set are coming this evening
to condole with me; be sure to brighten us by adding
yourself to the number. As a reward I will present two or
three charming new men only you are a hard-hearted
wretch, and this will be no inducement.
" But come at all events, that I may hate you for having
grown more beautiful and bewitching than ever, as every-
body who met you last winter says you have. The idea of
your stopping so long away from our dear Florence, where
we are all as charming and sinful as usual, and adore you as
you do not deserve to be adored, icicle of a barbarian that
you are, and nobody more devoted than your affectionate
"NiNA MAGNOLETTI."
THE FORBIDDEN PA TIT. 23
Then followed a long postscript, which carried the note
into the middle of a second sheet, and still left some bit of
wonderful news unfinished the whole written in graceful
French, though apparently a sp'ider's leg had been employed
as a pen caressing, careless, decousu ; in short, a letter
very characteristic of its writer, a pretty little Russian,
who several years previous had gilded afresh one of the old
Florentine titles with her roubles, carrying a heart into the
transaction and receiving one in return, which she still
owned, in spite of numerous temporary aberrations on the
part of its original proprietor.
"I shall go to Nina's to-night," Miss Cameron said to
Eliza, more thoughtful of her old friend than Madame
Magnoletti had been. " I don't ask you to go with me
because I know you are tired, and besides, they are sure to
play baccarat, and that always shocks your scruples."
" My dear, do not call them scruples."
" Your morality, then any fine-sounding name you
please."
This was said late in the day, as the two were driving
in the Cascine.
" It is too early to expect Florentines to be back from
their villeggiatura, but I see quite a number, and a good
many foreigners," pursued Miss Cameron, as they ap-
proached the open space where it is the habit for carriages
to halt ; a habit formed in the days when a band played
there, and people stopped under pretense of listening to the
music a thing nobody ever did by any chance. Then she
added hastily, " Oh, that horrid Greek !"
" What horrid Greek ?" asked Eliza.
" I don't know, and I don't want to ! I nearly demol-
ished him this morning, and he was so exasperatingly polite
that I hate him."
" That gentleman on the gray horse ? Why, he is not
horrid at all ! What a very elegant man !"
" He shall be Adonis if you choose, but I hate him all
the same ! For mercy's sake don't look that way ; he will
know I have been telling you ; he is capable of bowing.
Those Greeks are equal to any impertinence."
" Did he tell you he was a Greek ?" asked the literal
Eliza.
" Good heavens ! Do you suppose I stopped to inquire
into his history and antecedents ? No doubt they would
24 THE OMEN.
form a sweet tale for virginal ears to listen to ! Eliza,
Eliza ! I begin to fear that foreign wickedness has contam-
inated you ! I shall send you back to America to recover
your what shall I call it ? moral tone. Now that, I
think, is a fine phrase !" .
" You make me laugh so, that you put everything out
of my head !" cried Eliza, as soon as she could recover her
gravity. " Did you nearly run over him ? Do tell me
about it," for the spinster dearly loved anything in the
shape of a romance.
Violet was spared answering ; the victoria had stopped,
and was immediately surrounded by a group of men eager
to welcome the heiress, and Eliza received a share of the
superabundant compliments, since she lived near the rose,
and her good opinion might be of value. But she did not
forget the stranger, and suddenly said in English to Miss
Cameron :
" There he is again ! Such a melancholy face ; it is
quite attractive ! Just ask his name "
" I would not hear it for the world," interrupted Violet;
" don't I tell you I hate the man ! You dreadful woman,
showing an improper interest in a depraved Greek !"
A fresh invasion of admirers claimed Miss Cameron's
attention, and Eliza herself was so engrossed that she had
no opportunity to gain any information concerning Violet's
enemy, for when she recollected him, and turned to get
another glance, the gray horse and its rider had disap-
peared.
CHAPTER III.
THE OMEN.
ISS CAMERON did not reach the Magnoletti
villa until rather late, and she found madame's
"half-dozen" friends increased to several times
that number, who, with invitation or without, had
presented themselves.
In one room there was music in another men, and
women too, were playing baccarat, and the pretty hostess
THE OMEN. 25
reclined on a sofa in the center salon, arrayed as an invalid
in the most becoming costume imaginable.
o o
She received Violet with rapturous greetings, and made
her sit down beside the couch, about which gathered knots
of people anxious to renew their acquaintance with the
beautiful American ; but after a while the two friends
were left more at liberty, and able, in the intervals of
general conversation, to exchange notes upon matters
which possessed a personal interest.
In the midst of some story madame was relating she
noticed Miss Cameron start and turn uneasily in her chair.
" What is the matter ?" she asked.
" I don't know," Violet replied carelessly, though shiver-
ing from head to foot. " A sudden chill, as if somebody
were walking over my grave : you remember our senseless
English saying?"
"Yes," rejoined the marchesa. "But it is not senseless
I believe in it ! I am dreadfully superstitious, like any
true Russian."
" You are a dear little Muscovite goose no, duck !"
said Violet, trying to laugh, but unable to subdue the
singular nervous trembling.
Nina laughed with the same apparent effort ; she was
startled by her friend's change of color, and the troubled
expression in her eyes.
" You are not well," she said, desirous to reassure her-
self and Violet by assigning a physical cause to the dis-
turbance. " You were tired from your journey, and the
drive out here has upset you."
" Yes, that is it I'm tired," Miss Cameron answered,
holding her fan before her face.
Though ordinarily little given to presentiments, the
sensation which oppi'essed her seemed a warning of danger
not bodily peril ; as if some element inimical to her peace
were about to force itself into her life.
The marchesa beckoned to a gentleman and bade him
bring a glass of wine. While she was thus occupied, Violet,
wondering at her own folly, could not resist glancing
about, half expecting to see some mysterious object start
up and, by its hostile presence, explain the omen.
Another instant and her eyes fell upon a person standing
in a window opposite. Pie had not been there a few mo-
ments before, she knew. His gaze met hers. She recog-
2
26 THE OMEN.
nized the stranger whom she had encountered in the morn-
ing. Violet almost felt that her laughing assertion to Miss
Bronson had been the truth she hated this man ! Who
was he ? what was he ? how came there ?
He stood leaning one arm on the sill tall, pale ; the
mouth shrouded by a long drooping mustache, the thick
curling hair somewhat worn off the temples ; the counte-
nance intellectual and handsome, stamped with that pecu-
liar melancholy which in another age was regarded as a
premonition of early or violent death, though the breadth
of the head and the vigor of the finely-molded chin pre-
served the face from any signs of the weakness of character
which usually belong to that type of physiognomy.
Violet turned impatiently away. The messenger had
come back with the wine, which she drank to escape expos-
tulations ; then the gentleman was dispatched upon some
new errand, just to be got rid of, and Violet, making a
strong effort to listen, heard Nina say, apparently continu-
ing a sentence lost upon her :
"I want you to know him. He went with us to the
lakes, and Carlo and I both like him hugely. Are you bet-
ter now ? Ah, here he comes." And the stranger was
standing before her, and Nina saying : " My dear, let me
present one of your countrymen. Mr. Aylmer, you told
me you had never had the pleasure of meeting Miss Cam-
eron. I shall expect you to be my devoted slave all winter
for affording you the happiness."
Mr. Aylmer was bowing to her, Violet, but answering
the marchesa :
"Since I am only human, I must be that, whether I will
or no."
" Question !" cried Madame Magnoletti. " Are men
human ? My own opinion is that they have no claim to be
so considered, in spite of their assertions qufen dis-tu, ma
Violette?"
And Violet, able to bend her head in response to the in-
troduction, leaned back in her chair, and played negligently
with her fan, finding some slow, half-disdainful, fine lady
notes in her voice wherewith to reply:
" As to the race, female philosophy does not go fai'
enough to decide. In particular instances, it can only
admit that a mysterious Providence has granted poor woman
nothing better."
THE OMEN. 27
" For victims," rejoined Aylmer, laughing so lightly
that, in her overstrained mood the pleasant sound gave
Violet a shock a beneficial one, acting upon her mind as a
dash of cold water would have done upon her physical
nerves.
Straightway her composure returned ; she was ready to
smile at her laie absurd sensation, to pronounce it simply a
result of bodily fatigue ; above all things, to refuse Mr.
Aylmer any share in its meaning, even if it were to be con-
sidered magnetic or supernatural.
And Nina, watching her, rejoiced to see that the odd
discomposure had passed, in no way connecting Aylmer
therewith ; in spite of her quickness not having perceived
that Violet's eyes had so much as glanced towards him
while he stood in the window.
They talked gayly for a few moments, then other men
came up, and Mr. Aylmer yielded his place. When an op-
portunity offered, Nina asked :
" What do you think of him ? I did not say too much.
He really is charming now admit it, mademoiselle la diffi-
cile !"
"Which 'him'?" returned Violet. "You have pre-
sented three different men to me within the last ten
minutes."
"Your countryman Laurence Aylmer the others are
of no consequence. You know, as a rule, Carlo does not
take to foreigners, anymore than Florentines do generally ;
but he came to us under unusual auspices," pursued Nina,
eagerly. " Alexis is traveling in America I wrote you so
I am sure it was your fault he went off ! You heartless
thing ! why wouldn't you be my sister?"
" Nonsense !"
" Oh, very well you are a barbarous wretch ! How-
ever, it is not Alexis and his broken heart that are in ques-
tion now, but this stranger within our gates ! You must
know Alexis was out hunting on those dreadful American
prairies tigers no, buffaloes or whatever it is they hunt
there and he fell ill with some horrible fever, such as one
must go to America to catch, and along comes Aylmer with
his party and nurses Alexis, and saves his life. Now isn't
it like a story ?"
" Very like," Violet replied languidly.
" You don't care !" cried Nina. " Alexis, and Aylmer,
28 THE OMEN.
and every other man might be devoured by fevers or buffa-
loes, and you would only yawn. Well, I shall finish my
history just to punish you. Alexis thought he was dying,
and made Aylmer promise to come and break the news to
me ; but after all he didn't die."
" Naturally, he did not do what he said he would being
mortal," observed Violet. " But since Count Apraxin failed
to keep his word, what sent my countryman in search of
you ?"
" Oh, he was coming to Europe in any case, it seems.
Alexis had written us volumes about him, and of course we
received him with open arms ; you know how warm-hearted
Carlo is, in spite of his pretense at cynicism."
" Though I did not know his generous impulses went to
the length of allowing you to receive young men with open
arms."
" Don't be literal it is always coarse. Well, his whole
story is a romance. He lost a fortune through the villainy of
some man he had trusted so he has taken to literature, and
comes here to write a book. It ought to be poetry, but it
isn't though he looks a poet, every inch of him ! Archaeo-
logical, Carlo says ; but, thank heaven, I don't know what
it means, and when Carlo tried to explain, I went fast
asleep : though, I give you my word, I woke up quickly
enough when he flew into a rage and said he was going to
see Giulia da Rimini. My dear, she is more odious and
outrageous than ever. But where was I ?" gasped Nina,
stopping to take breath.
" I have not the least idea," groaned Violet. " You are
worse than the waters of Lodore if you ever heard of them."
"I have I know as much English as you ! But no
matter ; you'll not get rid of my story by abusing me."
" Do you mean to say the story is not ended yet ?"
" Well, I am afraid it is but now own that he looks
like a hero ! And isn't it quite in keeping for him to be
ruined? And of course he must find a princess to fall in
love with him only it seems dreadful he should not be
rich ; and I hope that wretch who brought it about has to
suffer Mr. Han Ban no, Danvers ! A villain, my dear,
and one of your countrymen, too, as might be expected
take that scratch for your impertinence. Of course Aylmer
has not said a word, but Alexis wrote us all about it, and I
remembered the wretch's ugly name George Danvers."
THE OMEN. 29
Another of George Danvers's victims certainly a
reason for Violet to sympathize with the man, instead
of trying to fancy that she disliked him because of the
morning's unfortunate encounter.
" George Danvers !" she repeated mechanically.
" Yes ; but never mind him he is dead and gone,"
said Nina. " I want everybody to like Aylmer ; he is a
great favorite already. Now you won't hate him, will
you ?"
" Not unless you worry me about him," replied Violet.
" I promise ! And I have an idea ! There is that ter-
rifically rich little American girl down in Rome I forget
her name ; but she would be the very partie for him."
And here, to Miss Cameron's relief, other guests came up
and engrossed the marchesa's attention. Violet accepted
some man's arm and walked through the salons, talking and
being talked to, as was her duty stopping for a little in
the card-room behind the Marchese Magnoletti's chair, at
his request, to bring him good luck.
After awhile she found herself in the music-hall, and
paused to listen to a young professional, with the most
delicious tenor voice Florence had discovered in years.
Then she suddenly felt a longing to escape from everybody
for a few minutes, and seized an opportunity when she
could stray unperceived into a gallery beyond. She stood
by one of the windows, looking out over the moonlit lawn
and gardens. She heard a step on the marble pavement,
tu'-ned, and saw Mr. Aylmer walking back and forth at the
farther end of the great apartment, where a row of pillars
cast long black shadows across the dazzling floor.
She moved slowly towards him. He stood still, watch-
ing her. The moonlight, which transfigures all objects,
rendered her wondrously beautiful. He had an odd fancy
that he was seeing her as her soul would appear in a higher
stage of existence, freed from the shackles which fetter us
here.
" Mr. Aylmer," she said, in her low, clear tones.
He came forward, the admiration, which just then had
a certain solemnity akin to awe mingled with it, visible in
his face ; but Violet was too much occupied with her own
thoughts to notice. As he reached her side, she said,
abruptly :
80 THE OMEN,
" I want you to tell me something aboat George Dan-
vers and bis family."
He regarded her in astonishment. Evidently, too, the
subject was a painful one to him.
" How did you know they were acquaintances of mine ?"
he asked.
" Of course the marchesa told me," she answered, and
could hear an impatient ring in her voice, which troubled
her as a sort of rudeness, though she could no more check
it than find a satisfactory reason therefor.
" The marchesa has been told nothing of them by me,"
he said, a little coldly.
" At least, she knows that you met with losses through
Mr. Danvers never mind how she knew it," returned
Violet, marveling more and more at herself ; and, indeed,
this almost peremptory abruptness was so unlike her
ordinary demeanor that her best friends would have mar-
veled too. " You did have trouble through his means ?"
" I beg your pardon, Miss Cameron. I do not think I
ought to talk of him, unless you have some strong motive
for desiring it. He is dead, and I don't want to be harsh
or unjust."
" George Danvers was my cousin. I want to hear
about his daughter. You know her ? Well, tell me what
she is like."
" A little it strikes me now I know she is a relative
a little like you," returned he, after a pause, in which he
had appeared somewhat disturbed, naturally enough, after
such sudden touching of a deep wound.
" Like me ? I am not sure that is a recommendation,"
Violet answei'ed, trying to get back her ordinary manner.
" Nor is she," he said. " I cannot explain what I mean.
There is a suggestion of you in her, nothing more I don't
know how to express it as there is of a flower in a bud."
" Poetical, but not clear," said Miss Cameron, with a
laugh. " So you suffered through that wretched man ? I
fear he was a very bad one not even kind to his wife and
daughter."
" I fear not," Aylmer replied, and his voice showed that
he could reveal more had he chosen showed, too, that he
did not choose. " I never heard Danvers speak of you.
Your relationship takes me by surprise," he added.
" No, he was not likely to speak of me," she said. " We
THE OMEN. 81
had not met for many years. I wrote to his daughter this
morning. I have invited her to come to me. 1 am sorry
you suffered at the father's hands."
" Oh, at twenty-seven, when one loses only money, one
ought not to complain," Aylmer replied, cheerfully. " I
have health, strength a good deal left, you see."
" Twenty-seven !" Why should the words give Violet
a fresh shock ? Why should she mentally repeat them
again and again ? She did, though vexed with herself the
while more than ever irritated against him, asking her
conscience if this rose from envy. Twenty-seven, and a
man his whole life before him ! And she thirty-three,
and a woman youth a thing of the past. Even had she
numbered only his years, this would still be the case, since
she was a woman.
She began walking up and down between the pillars.
Her long silken skirts trailed over the pavement, their soft
ivory tint making a pretty contrast to the cold, bluish-white
of the marble. The moonbeams wove a crown about her
hair, which looked black in their glory ; her ej'es black
too, unnaturally large and bright, from the inexplicable un-
rest which had troubled her soul during the last hour.
He walked beside her ; and for a few moments they
talked of Italy, of Florence, of the galleries, and, as sud-
denly as her unrest had seized her, the feeling died.
" Was ever woman in such an idiotic mood as I am?"
Violet thought. " I am frightened, cross everything that
is silly, and all without reason." Then she said aloud :
" Now I must go back. After all, you have told me noth-
ing about George Danvers's daughter. You shall do that
another time."
Again he looked somewhat troubled, but she had her
head turned away.
" Whenever I have the pleasure of seeing you again,"
he said.
" The marchesa will bring you to my house, if you like
to come," she answered. Then that same ill-disposed im-
pulse rose in her breast anew, and she added, " I am just
off a long journey ; after awhile, when I get rested, I shall
begin to receive people."
She moved on so quickly that he could not help under-
standing he was not to follow, and he remained gazing
32 THE OMEN.
after her as she glided away like a spirit among the moon-
beams.
Violet, reflecting that her behavior during the entire in-
terview had been open to censure, again marveled what
could 7'ender her this night so unlike herself, and, once
more back in the salon, rushed into her gayest mood and
charmed everybody. Later, she caught a glimpse of Mr.
Aylmer standing silent near the marchesa's sofa. After
that she did not see him again.
Violet's carriage was the last to leave the villa ; Nina
had kept her for more confidential talk over nothing, and
Carlo insisted upon his right to a little attention, vowing
that he had been afforded no opportunity even to speak to
her.
" You should make opportunities," said Nina.
"As I am neither baccarat nor Giulia da Rimini, I can-
not expect him to take so much trouble," rejoined Violet.
Carlo wrung his hands, and declared that, between his
wife and the woman he worshiped, no man was ever so
ill-treated as he, and altogether they wasted a good half-
hour in nonsense which would not repay for the trouble of
setting down in black and white, though it amused the
speakers sufficiently.
Violet drove away up the dazzling white road, so pre-
occupied that she did not notice how fast the horses went,
or that several times her faithful Antonio, seated on the
box, spoke reprovingly to the coachman, who remained ob-
stinately deaf to his expostulations.
The night was unusually warm for Tuscany at that sea-
son ; summer seemed to have come back during the last
few days. The landau had been left open, and a soft
breeze, odorous of fields and woods, kissed Violet's cheek ;
the moon glowed like a great disk of illuminated alabaster
in mid-heaven ; the farther hills rose shadowy and gigantic
in the silvery, mysterious light.
Now the sound of rapidly rushing water became audi-
ble, and a sharp turn in the road brought them close to a
stream swollen by late rains to ominous dimensions.
The highway grew very narrow here ; a break in the
wall which guarded it on the side of the torrent, had not
been mended. The horses took fright at a dog which ran
past barking fiercely ; they swerved and reared. The
coachman plied the lash ; Antonio shrieked at him in angry
THE OMEN. 33
alarm, and Violet suddenly roused herself to a sense of the
danger by which they were menaced a fall over the pre-
cipitous bank.
Before she could move, a man started out from the
shadow of a tree close to the edge of the stream, waved
his hat full in the faces of the terrified animals, arid as they
backed, seized them by the bridles. At the same instant,
Antonio snatched the reins from the coachman, and tug-
ging thereat with all his force, helped to turn the horses'
heads into the road again.
The danger was over, but even as Violet thought this,
the beasts plunged forward, and the pole struck the man's
shoulder with such violence that he fell backwards.
There followed a few seconds of partial insensibility,
fuller of agony than any pain she had ever endured, from
the ability her mind preserved to take in a sense of utter
helplessness ; then the horses had been stopped, and she
saw Antonio stooping over a body prostrate in the dust.
Presently how she got there she could no more have told
than if she had been in some dreadful dream she was be-
side him, looking down into the face of Laurence Aylmer
cold, white, fixed ; the face of a dead man, she thought ;
a man killed in the very act of saving her life.
Violet heard her own voice though the words seemed
spoken without her volition saying :
" Is he dead ? "
"I cannot tell," Antonio replied, in the same half-whis-
pering tone. They both stared anew at the white face that
he supported on his knee, and another question broke simul-
taneously from their lips :
" What are we to do ? "
The coachman came up ; he had fastened the horses to
a tree, where they stood quiet enough now the mischief was
done, and he himself appeared perfectly sober, whatever he
might have been before the accident occurred.
He leaned forward, studied the white face in his turn,
and muttered :
"tifattodiluif"
"And if so, you murdered him !" returned Antonio, in
a fierce whisper ; " you drunken assassin ! "
" I was not drunk," said the coachman, hoarsely; "I
had a presentiment of evil on me ask the marchese's cook
if I did not tell him so."
2*
34 THE OMEN.
Violet canght the explanation, and with difficulty re-
frained from a burst of hysterical laughter. There was
something hideous, revolting, in the fat, coarse creature's
looks and speech in that presence, which hurt her like a
broad farce intruded in the midst of a tragedy.
"And you fulfilled your presentiment ?" said Antonio.
" Holy Saint Joseph, only listen to him ! " groaned the
coachman, flinging up both arms.
" Hush ! " Violet said sternly, and her voice silenced the
pair. She turned sick and cold, but the lethargy which had
locked her senses and kept her powerless as a person in a
nightmare, suddenly passed she could think and act.
"You must put him into the carriage," she said. " Quick,
Antonio ! don't lose any more time."
Both men were sane enough to carry out an order,
though neither would have been capable of suggesting an
idea. They managed between them to lift their burden
into the landau. Violet took off a thin scarf, which was
wrapped about her head, and bade Antonio dip it in the
water, a command which, after several abortive efforts, he
succeeded in obeying. As she moistened the forehead and
lips of the insensible man she felt a slight quiver stir his
frame.
" He is not dead ! " she whispered, and now her strength
came back.
Antonio laid his hand on the feebly-pulsating heart,
and, after an instant, repeated :
" He is not dead ! Shall we take him to the villa, ma-
demoiselle ? "
" Yes no ; that would only be wasting time there is
no doctor there. How far are we from the town ?"
"More than a mile, mademoiselle."
Violet stepped into the carriage.
"Drive on drive fast ! " she said.
What a journey that was what an endless period those
brief moments seemed to cover. Violet sat supporting the
heavy, helpless head, unable to move her eyes from the
face which showed ashen and rigid in the moonlight. Her
presentiment ! Was this what the dreadful warning had
meant ? Killed killed under her wheels ! George Dan-
vers had ruined this man, and now she was the means of
sending-him out of the world ! By what strange fatality
had she and her race proved such a curse to him ? Hosts
THE OMEN. 35
of vague, wild thoughts rushed through her brain others
came she could exercise no control over her mind ; it wan-
dered where it would. Was he dead already ? If so,
where had it gone that soul ? She stared up at the moon
and stars : heaven itself seemed so pitiless, so mocking in
its tranquil beauty !
Oh, the time the time ! Would the drive never end
never ?
Then Antonio's voice roused her. They had reached
the city gates. Antonio leaned down in his seat and said :
"Where are we to go? Does mademoiselle know
where the poor gentleman lived ? "
Miss Cameron's lips framed a mute negative.
" And it is two o'clock every place shut not an hotel
would open to let that in," moaned Antonio, emphasizing
his meaning by a gesture towards the motionless form.
Violet shivered from head to foot in an icy chill ; then
a thought suggested itself : no, some power extraneous to
hor faculties appeared to suggest it.
" Drive to Professor Schmidt's," she said; "Via della
Scala."
Doctor Schmidt was an old German physician, retired
from practice ; a man with a European reputation. She
was certain of his being in Florence they had come from
Venice together.
The carriage rolled down the street. What a noise the
wheels made on the stones it sounded like thunder in her
ears ! All the while she was watching that face ; she
wanted to look away she could not ! Heavier and
heavier grew the weight upon her shoulder ; was he dead
yet dead ?
Then the landau paused in front of the professor's
house. It chanced that the old savant had been reading
late ; just before the carriage stopped he had opened a
window of his study, which was on the ground-floor, and
stood looking out. Violet saw him.
" Come come quick !" she called in German.
The doctor laid his great pipe down upon the window-
sill, lifted his spectacles and stared open-mouthed.
"Ac/i Gott! Fraulein Cameron !" he exclaimed.
He hurried out of doors ; the instant he caught sight of
the face resting on Miss Cameron's shoulder, he cried :
36 THE OMEN.
" Gott in Himmel it is Laurence Aylmer ! What is
this? What is this?"
It required only a brief explanation to make him under-
stand what had happened. Violet gave it clearly enough,
in spite of her fright and horror.
" Is he dead ?" she whispered.
A moment's dreadful silence, then the professor an-
swered :
"No, not dead. He must be got home. Take him
home."
" I don't know where he lives," groaned Violet.
"No hotel would receive him these brutes of Floren-
tines !" added Antonio, who, in his quality of ex-courier,
spoke every civilized language like his mother-tongue.
" True, true !" muttered the professor. " And I have no
room. The fools are altering my apartment. I have
hardly a place to put my bed."
" To my house !" cried Violet. " Get in, professor ; we
are losing time. Come come !"
The doctor rushed back into his study, and returned
quickly with a square box in his hand.
As the carriage dashed off, Violet heard the coachman
croak again like some bird of ill-omen :
" Efatto diluiF
" My poor Laurence !" said the professor. " lie came
to see me this very morning."
" Oh, then you know where he lives ?"
" No ; lie "was just changing quarters agreed to come
to-morrow. I knew him well in America a splendid fel-
low ! To see him like this ! Ach Gott! but it is of no
use lamenting," he broke off gruffly.
They reached the palace. The porter was still up, and
Miss Cameron's maid awaiting her return ; every other
member of the household had been in bed for hours.
The ground-floor contained a suite of rooms which
Violet had fitted up for friends who might chance to stop
with her. Was the place in order ? she asked. Surely, in
perfect order, the porter averred. So the men carried their
burden into the apartment, and laid it on the bed in the
sleeping-room ; Violet following mechanically.
The professor turned quite fiercely upon her, as his
manner was, saying :
THE OMEN. 37
" You are to go away, Fraulein ; you are not wanted
here."
" He is not dead ?" again she whispered. " You are
certain ?"
" Plenty of life in him yet plenty ! There, there, get
to your bed ; get to your bed."
But though he growled out the order and frowned
blackly from under his beetle-brows, he led her gently to
the door, patting her hand as if she had been a child.
She found her maid waiting above stairs, and dismissed
her without mentioning what had happened, unable to bear
questionings or feminine lamentations just then.
After a little she went out on the landing again and lis-
tened no sound was audible from below. It seemed to
her that she waited a long time ; the suspense became
unendurable. She crept down to the entrance-hall and
peered into the lodge it was empty ; probably Giovanni's
services had been required. She paused near the door of
the apartments in which the injured man lay, then mounted
^e staircase again, treading as cautiously as though her
step could disturb the sufferer.
She paced the antechamber and adjacent salon. An
hour elapsed. Her vigil remained unbroken ; but go to
her room, even keep still, she could not. She felt so guilty,
so wicked ! She recollected her haughty words in the
morning, her ill-disguised irritation of the evening, with a
shame almost as passionate as remorse. Verily, the trouble
presaged by her soul had come, but not of the nature she
had dreaded. The omen had been fulfilled, but he was the
sufferer. The time dragged on ; yet, though exhausted by
fatigue and excitement, she must have news before she
tried to sleep.
Through the arched casement, which almost filled one
end of the antechamber, gray gleams began to break across
a gap in the shutters. Day had come again. She won-
dered what it would be like, after the awful experience of
the night.
At last she heard a sound the careful opening and
closing of a door then steps on the stairs. Antonio, en-
tering, found himself face to face with his mistress, so pale
and wan that her appearance fairly startled him.
" Is it all over ?" she asked, in a hoarse whisper.
" No, no, mademoiselle ! There is every hope !" ho
38 A BOUQUET OF JESSAMINES.
cried eagerly. " I could not come before. I did not dream
that mademoiselle was waiting."
" I wanted to hear," she answered, drawing a breath of
relief. " How is he hurt ?"
"The left shoulder is dislocated the blow from the
pole did that," Antonio explained. " He fell with such
force on the back of his head that it has caused concussion
of the brain."
" Then he is insensible !"
" Oh, completely may stay so for forty-eight hours ;
but the professor is sure everything will go well," he added
hastily, seeing her shrink. " Mademoiselle must get to her
bed ; she will be ill. The doctor remains. I only came up
to put out the lamps ; I had forgotten them."
" He will not not die the professor is sure ?"
" There is every hope," Antonio asserted, more reso-
lutely than he had warrant for doing. " The doctor is so
skillful kind, too, though he does speak roughly some-
times ! But the thing now is for mademoiselle to get to
her bed. Yes, indeed, that is what is imperative !"
Violet found a certain sense of relief in receiving any
positive direction. She went away to her room, undressed,
and lay down, and, before long, fell into a deep, dreamless
slumber.
CHAPTER IV.
A BOUQUET OF JESSAMINES.
LEEP calmed Miss Cameron's nerves sufficiently,
so that she was able to appear like her ordinary
self.
Clarice brought her Antonio's report. There
was no change in the injured man's condition.
The professor had gone home, but would return at nine
o'clock. Miss Bronson appeared, greatly excited by the
news which had reached her naturally enough eager for
particulars of the accident ; and, to avoid giving them,
Violet hurried her off to an early church service which
some saint's day offered.
A BOUQUET OF JESSAMINES. 39
After the professor had visited his patient, he came up
stairs and explained the state of the case. The stupor was
the inevitable result of the hurt to the brain, and might last
from thirty-six to forty-eight hours. After that, if every-
thing went well, recovery need not be a long affair. But,
hopefully as he tried to speak, Violet could see that he was
very anxious.
" And he must stay where he is till cured," said the pro-
fessor ; "no removing for him. So make up your mind to
it, Fraulein Cameron. Ah, how do you do, Miss Bronson ?
You look as fresh as a field daisy," he added, as the
spinster entered just in time to hear that closing verdict,
which tilled her with horror.
Her mind had been sorely disturbed by the remarks of
acquaintances she encountered at church ; and even her
sympathy for suffering paled momentarily before her dread
of the reports to which the accident and the stranger
gentleman's presence under that roof might give rise.
" Here the poor fellow is, and here he stays !" continued
the professor.
" From the way you speak, one would think I wished to
Bend him away," returned Violet.
" No, no ; I am not likely to think that ! Still, it is un-
fortunate," said Schmidt, rubbing his nose.
" Most unfortunate," sighed Eliza, as she sank into a
chai r.
Now the old German and Miss Bronson were antipa-
thetic to one another, and the instant she echoed his words,
Schmidt could not help rejoining :
u Why so, Miss Bronson ?"
" Such talk as there will be you know Florence !"
" I know the galleries and museums, but I don't know
your gossips, if they are what you mean by Florence,"
said he.
" Please don't call them my gossips," retorted Eliza,
bridling ; " I think no one not my worst enemy, if I have
an enemy could accuse me of a taste for such society."
" I have accused you of nothing ! An enemy why
shouldn't you have one, or twenty, as well as another tell
me that, Miss Bronson ?" cried the professor, triumphantly.
" You said yourself it was unfortunate," sighed Eliza.
" But I was not thinking of the gossips."
" Well, one has to think of them ! Oh, they will say
40 A BOUQUET OF JESSAMINES.
dreadful things ! A young gentleman in the house with
two lone ladies."
The professor put his hand to his mouth and made a
grimace behind it which Eliza did not catch, but Violet
laughed outright.
" We can hardly be called ' lone,' with such a troop of
servants," she said. " Really, Eliza, I don't think we run
much risk."
" I know what will be said, as well as if I had heard it,"
replied Eliza, with prophetic voice and mien; "it will not
be the Italians alone, though the Americans and English
always do ascribe the slanders to them, I know !" and she
began to fan herself with a newspaper which lay on the
table, fixing her eyes with mingled sternness and reproach
on the physician, as if the whole affair were his fault.
" She would make a splendid model for a picture of
Cassandra," said old Schmidt, taking a pinch of snuff ;
" now would she not, Fraulein Cameron ?"
" I am not thinking of models or pictures," returned
Eliza, loftily.
" No, no, you make us think of them," said the provok-
ing savant ; " that is your mission."
"Come, Eliza, don't be miserable," added Violet. "If
people abuse me, I will exonerate you from any share of
blame. What coflld I do ?"
" Mr. Aylmer has ai'esidence of some kind somewhere
I suppose" replied Eliza, with withering emphasis.
"But I did not know where, my dear."
The doctor took snuff and studied Eliza with a slow,
German appreciation.
" You will have to endure it," he said. " Miss Bronson,
your character will be ruined, but you can come out in a
new one, that of martyr. You are a religious woman you
believe in the saints, and all the rest of the family ! You
ought to be thankful that martyrdom is permitted you.
The early Christians were eager for it, so their historians
say : you must imitate them imitate them."
" Professor Schmidt, I do think you are the cruellest man
alive !" whimpered Eliza ; " but you might spare me jests
on that subject ! You may be a materialist ; but it is no
reason "
" Wait, wait !" broke in the savant ; "what is a mate-
rialist ? Do you tell me that first."
A BOUQUET OF JESSAMINES. 41
"A man who believes in nothing like you," cried
Eliza, growing vexed enough to turn upon him.
" Wrong," said the professor, in a tone of enjoyment,
"entirely wrong! Now, about those early Christians of
yours "
" Do not try to shake my faith," broke in Eliza ; " you
cannot do it. 1 believe the Bible, and the Apostles' Creed,
and "
"And fore-ordination and general damnation, and all
the other ' ations,' " finished the doctor, while she was taking
breath. " Well, well, don't get excited it is bad for the
digestion. What you call the soul may not be of much
consequence, but the stomach is."
" Violet, it is dreadful to hear him talk so. I wonder
you can let him !" moaned Eliza.
" My dear, I grew accustomed to hearing you two quar-
rel last summer in the Dolomites. I am past being
shocked by what either of you can say."
" Now suppose we take St. Paul," continued the savant.
"Admit that he wrote the first four of the epistles which
bear his name, what have you proved? He made a gross
blunder he said the end of the world was at hand.
Now, one of two things : either he was deceiving others,
or he deceived himself. Assume the latter to have been
the case. You do away with all possibility of his being
inspired you "
" I won't hear !" shrieked Eliza, and, putting her handa
to her ears, she ran out of the room.
The savant looked at Violet with a mingled humor and
satisfaction.
" I thought I could find a way to make her leave you
in peace," said he. " She'll not worry you about her
gossips again to-day."
" I dare say she was right enough in saying that all
sorts of nonsensical reports will be spread."
" I dare say she was. But you don't mean to care ?"
" No, of course not."
" Come," said the professor, frowning at her with fierce
approval; " you remember what the Englishman, S)'dney
Smith said, about God and the strawberry ? Well, I shall
apply it to you. No doubt Nature could have framed a more
sensible woman, but I don't believe Nature ever did. And
now I am going back to my patient."
42 A BOUQUET OF JESSAMINES.
Violet had known the professor for several years, and
knew that his heart was on the same scale as his great in-
tellect. He was an old man now, but vigorous as ever in body
and mind. He had given up the practice of his profession
a long while before, though frequently called upon for ad-
vice in difficult cases, and his decisions were regarded
almost like those of fate. He was a naturalist as well as a
physician, and had written various books, which had been
translated into several languages. Unfortunately, these
works so clearly proved the unorthodox tenor of his opinions
that many people regarded him as a potent emissary of the
Evil One. But, whatever he believed or disbelieved, he
certainly carried out more thoroughly the chief precept of
the Master than any person Violet had ever met, and she
had a warm friendship for him. He never attempted to
trouble her religious faith, though now and then he could
not resist teasing Miss Bronson, for there were times when
she irritated him.
" I cannot tell why she should," he would say, " and you
can't tell why the buzzing of a blue-bottle fly irritates you,
but it does."
Yet he was very good to her ; indeed, his acquaintance
with the two ladies began by his curing poor Eliza of a
severe attack of sciatica, which seized her while sojourning
in the Tyrol, and she felt exceedingly grateful to him,
though nobody could shudder more profoundly over his
heterodoxy. She would as soon have dreamed of robbing
a church as reading one of his productions, and was kept in
mortal fear by his threats of dedicating to her a volume
which he declared himself concocting upon her favorite
Apostle, whose name so often sounded as a battle-cry be-
tween them.
" Has he gone ? " asked the spinster, putting her head in
at the door. " Oh, my dear, when he is doing a kindness
he talks more dreadfully than ever ! But you are writing ;
I disturb you."
" I have finished only a note to Nina. Please ring the
bell ; one of the men must ride out to the villa immediately.
I did not like to send until I had heard the professor's opin-
ion after his morning visit."
When the order had been given, Eliza sat down and
sighed vigorously.
A BOUQUET OF JESSAMINES. 43
" So unfortunate," she repeated ; " so terribly unfortu-
nate ! "
" If you want to be unhappy, my dear," said Violet,
" you must hunt up some less preposterous bugbear, else I
can offer you no sympathy. You forget that poor man
was hurt in saving me from danger."
Eliza was silenced and ashamed, but not convinced.
She could not help still regarding Violet as a heedless girl,
only saved from indiscretions by her companionship ; oc-
casionally falling into them in spite of that witness the
present instance. Poor Eliza felt confident that if she had
gone to the villa, matters would somehow have been differ-
ent, and she dwelt upon this idea, notwithstanding its man-
ifest absurdity, until she made herself very wretched.
It was a relief to the spinster when not only the
marchese appeared in hot haste, but Nina, though her ankle
was so swollen that she had to be carried up stairs.
" Here I am," she said ; " and a regular old man of the
sea you will find me. Carlo says I must not stir for several
days."
"Your presence will be a comfort to Eliza," replied
Violet. " You are not very correct, but at least you are
married, and so will answer as a dragon to protect us two
youthful innocents."
They teased Miss Bronson sadly, not so much for the
satisfaction of doing it as to keep from dwelling upon their
fears.
Late in the following afternoon Aylmer recovered con-
sciousness, but at first he had no recollection of the acci-
dent. The details of the preceding day came back his
adventure in the Cascine and slowly his mind followed
along the track of events till he reached his second meet-
ing with that beautiful woman ; but it refused to go further
than the moment when, roused from his reverie by the
roadside, he saw her in danger, and sprang up with some
vague wild determination to save or die with her.
He passed a comfortable night, and the next morning
the autocratic professor allowed Carlo to visit him for a
few moments. Aylmer could talk but little ; he said some-
thing in his slow, difficult speech about the trouble he was
in all ways to his good friend. Before Carlo could answer
he caught the professor's glance, so comically ferocious that
he had much ado not to laugh.
44 A BOUQUET OF JESSAMINES.
"He wants to fret over my holding him fast in my
den," said the savant, bestowing a second scowl of intelli-
gence on Carlo, who, with Italian quickness, perceived that
the doctor had concealed from the patient the fact of his
being in Miss Cameron's house lest the knowledge should
worry him.
" I am sorry I haven't you out at the villa," the
marchese observed, " but you couldn't be better off than
in the clutches of our ogre."
" Just so !" returned the professor, nodding his appre-
ciation of the speaker's acquiescence in his wise deception.
" However, it makes no difference what anybody is glad or
sorry about. I propose to have him up very soon, but he
has got to belong to me, body and soul recollect that,
young American ! And now you have talked more than
enough. Magnoletti may take himself off, and don't you
so much as wink till I give you leave."
Carlo went back up stairs to give an account of his in-
terview.
"What with Nina established in your drawing-room
and poor Aylmer down below a sister already provided
for nurse, and the professor evidently intending to keep
his quarters here, I think, Miss Cameron, you had better
open the house as a public hospital and be done with it," he
said.
" As it will not be for moral or rather immoral incura-
bles, you will stand no chance of admittance," returned his
wife, " nor will Giulia da Rimini either."
" Positively the first time I have heard her name
to-day !" cried he.
" She will be here before it ends see if she is not,"
said Nina. "She has been making eyes at Aylmer ever
since he came to Florence."
" Nonsense, Nina !" and Carlo's voice sounded a little
nettled.
" I know it is nonsense, Carlo, for he never so much as
looks at her if he can help it. He does not share your
abnormal tastes ; he hates black women."
" He tells you that just because you are a colorless little
thing," retorted Carlo, and I'eceived a severe pinch for his
impertinence.
Eliza considered the whole conversation improper, and
sighed over Violet's fondness for this careless-tongued pair,
A BOUQUET OF JESSAMINES. 45
though she had almost as great a weakness for them her-
self, in spite of her disapproval of their talk and habits of
thought.
Although Miss Cameron's arrival had been so recent
that as yet she had paid no visits, the news of the accident
afforded people too good an excuse for calling to await
such ceremony. Not only many of her friends carne, but
numerous persons, mostly waifs from the American and
English colonies, took that opportunity to try and establish
an acquaintance, or at least renew relations with Miss
Bronson. Few of the visitors saw Violet, but Eliza
appeared and received so many kisses from enthusiastic
Anglo-Saxon ladies, that her nose felt quite tender. She
related the adventure so often, that she succeeded in giving
it with great dramatic effect, and tried so hard to explain
how it happened the hero was lying under Violet's roof,
that the simple facts grew into a mystery which would
have been enough to ruin the reputation of a dozen
ordinary women.
But common rules could not apply to the conduct of a
lady so rich as Violet Cameron ; whatever she did was well
done, from hiding a man in her house to cutting off as
many heads as Bluebeard. Women might slander her ;
might believe and say the most atrocious things as they did
of each other, but they would bow down before her all the
same and lick the dust at her feet for it was gold-dust.
" I have told everybody how it came about," Eliza
said, triumphantly. " No one thinks you did wrong,
Violet ; it is such a relief !"
" How can you keep from strangling her ?" cried Nina,
when the spinster was again called out of the room. " Im-
agine her explanations !"
" I would rather not ! But no matter what she says, if
she only relieves her feelings. I am very fond of her ; it
is better she should ruin my reputation than be unhappy."
Presently a visitor was announced for the marchesa,
and into the salon floated Giulia da Rimini dark, haughty,
handsome, Roman-looking, and exquisitely-dressed.
" Didn't I tell you she would come !" Nina had time to
whisper.
" My dear Miss Cameron my darling Nina !" cried the
duchess, and kissed each in turn. " I went out to the villa,
Nina, and heard you came here yesterday. I feared you
46 A BOUQUET OF JESSAMINES.
were worse and wanted to be near the doctor. My alarm
must excuse my rushing in on you, Miss Cameron, in this
unceremonious fashion."
" However brought about, I am of course charmed to
receive your visit," said Violet.
"I only just heard of the accident," continued the
duchess. " Gherardi was inquiring after Mr. Aylmer as I
drove up. What an escape you had, dear Miss Cameron
and the unfortunate young Ah, yes, Nina, you are
right to frown. It is too dreadful to talk about. But, at
least, he is doing well, they tell me ?"
" Better than could have been expected," Nina replied.
The duchess uttered more flattering and pretty speeches,
and, after a few moments, bowed herself out.
" Now, why did she come ?" questioned Violet.
" Bah !" cried Nina, contemptuously. "She had heard
of Aylmer's being here. I'd wager my little finger she
sees him before she leaves the house."
" Oh, even she could not go so far !"
"Who lives will see," said Nina; "and if I were to
live a hundred years, and she too, Giulia could never do
anything to astonish me. Mark my words, she will visit
Aylmer !"
"They must be on very intimate terms for her to risk
such a step," Violet answered, with a sudden haughty inflec-
tion in her voice.
"Nothing of the sort. I tell you, he can't endure her !
But let us talk of something else. That woman makes me
ill ! I have a conviction she will not get through another
season without a scandal that must put her out of the pale ;
and I own I shall not be sorry."
Other visitors were received, and Nina forgot the
duchess and her own prophecy, though it rankled in
Violet's mind ; and she asked herself why, since neither
the lady nor Mr. Aylmer were anything to her, save that
he was perforce a guest under her roof. But as this rose
from the fact that he had 1'isked his life on her account, to
entertain suspicions of him would be very unworthy.
Still, she could not help feeling that gratitude to a man
capable of yielding to Giulia da Rimini's fascinations would
seem a galling yoke.
Perhaps an hour later, the professor appeared, having
promised to report personally to the two ladies after his
A BOUQUET OF JESSAMINES. 47
next visit to his patient. He entered in great wrath, ex-
claiming :
"I'll not have this, you know! If I am to cure that
fellow, I'll not allow his room to be poisoned by such trash !
It must have been one of you sent them ! I expected bet-
ter things of you both."
As he spoke he flung a bouquet of jessamines on the
table between them. Nina stared contemptuously at the
flowers for an instant, then burst into peals of laughter,
exclaiming :
"Giulia's bouquet! She had it in her belt, and the
odor nearly suffocated me. Now, Violet, own I was right !"
" Whose bouquet '? What do you say?" growled the
professor.
" Never mind," said Violet, in a voice so cold and odd
that Nina glanced at her in surprise, and stopped laughing.
"Please throw those dreadful things out of the window,
professor. The smell is sickening."
"Perfectly so," added Nina, pretending to arrange her
hair, but watching Violet from between her fingers.
The professor opened a window, and flung the flowers
away. As he returned, the silence struck him ; and he
feared that, well as both ladies knew him, and freely as they
encouraged his brusque modes of speech, he might this time
have annoyed them by his excitement.
" Have I said something to offend you ? Don't mind.
You know I'm a bear ; and I've a horror of flowers in a
sick-room," he said, with a look of comical penitence on his
ugly face, which set Nina laughing again.
"Certainly not," said Violet.
" Only don't suspect us of such crimes," added Nina.
" We've neither been nor sent to your patient."
" Very strange !" muttered the doctoi'. " The sister
saw nobody ; but then she had fallen to praying, and when
she does that, she wouldn't know if a whole regiment, horse
and foot, tramped iu !"
" I don't suppose your wretched prisoner accused us,"
said Nina.
" He was in no state to tell anything muttering and
gabbling, with his face as red as fire. No doubt there will
be the very deuce to pay !"
" Let us hope the consequences will not prove serious,"
48 HER FIRST VISIT.
said Violet ; and while she and the professor talked, Nina
sat thinking.
" Is she offended because it was in her house Giulia be-
haved so? Offended she is ! It can't be on the man's ac-
count, for she never saw him till the night before last !
Well, I'll not tease her ; unless she mentions the matter, I
shall not."
When they were left alone, Violet did not make any
allusion to the affair ; but the next day, out of sheer idle-
ness, Nina began turning over a visiting-list which Violet
had been correcting from her old Florentine note-book, and
saw a heavy black line drawn across the name Guilia,
Duchess da Rimini.
CHAPTER V.
HER FIRST VISIT.
WEEK went by. Laurence Aylmer had been
very ill since the day the professor found the
flowers on his bed. He had managed during
the doctor's absence to disarrange his bandages
while only partially conscious, and the result
was a cold and high fever, which for some time left him no
lucid interval.
The old German actually lived in the sick-room, and
certain physicians, who did not like him and considered
that in taking the case into his hands he had interfered
with their rights, since he pretended to be no longer a
medical practitioner, declared that in the secrecy of that
chamber he was trying all manner of dreadful experiments
on the unfortunate man.
Of course these rumor*, originating with the doctors,
grew into positive and terrible- tales in the mouths of other
people, and one energetic o'd maid from Columbia gave a
"tea" for the express purpose of expounding her views in
regard to the matter. Sir? thought the American ladies
ought to interfere in behalf of their countryman, barba-
rously tortured, nay, slowly murdered, under the hands of
this heartless German savant, who, to use the energetic
HER FIRST VISIT. 49
female's own words, "was capable of sacrificing hecatombs
of humanity in pursuit of what ho termed the cause of
science." She proposed appointing a committee to wait
upon the professor, and tell him plainly that unless he would
consent to call a consultation of physicians, they, the coun-
trywomen of this luckless gentleman, must appeal to the
American Minister in Rome, publish letters in the Tourist
call Heaven and earth to witness their protest against
conduct which was a disgrace to the latter half of our
glorious century.
Many speeches were made, and a great deal of tea and
orgeat drunk, but though numerous plans of action were
discussed, even to an assault upon the palace and a rescuing
bodily of the victim by the Amazons a proposal which
originated with a tiny withered spinster, who, in spite of
her size, appeared as determined as if animated by the spirit
of Penthesilea still the meeting proved a failure, so far as
carrying any of the projects into execution went.
Poor Eliza Bronson heard all the news, and with bitter
tears and mournful wails, warned her friend, and was driv-
en nearly frantic by the laughter of Violet and Nina, who
at once informed the professor, and that reckless person
laughed far louder than they.
Nina remained Miss Cameron's guest. Some little im-
prudence had inflamed her ankle again, and the professor
condemned her to another week of repose, threatening to
keep her in a supine position for the next three months if
she did not obey.
Carlo came and went. A knot of Nina's intimate friends
were a great deal at the house, so the little lady had amuse-
ment ; and Violet, still beset by that inexplicable dislike
for solitude and reflection, seemed as eager for society as
Nina herself.
Both good taste and sympathy caused the ladies to re-
frain from anything which could come under the head of
gayeties, though of course outsiders declared that " revel-
ings and orgies went on in the palace, while the professor's
victim groaned under the same roof, helpless in the octopus
clutches of his Teutonic tormentor" a fine phrase which
was conceived and uttered by the virgin who had proposed
an onslaught of Amazons on behalf of the martyr. True,
these reports of unseemly revels were contradicted by other
tales, that Miss Cameron had been secretly married to the
3
50 HER FIRST VISIT.
sufferer, that he was not in the house, not living even, and
that the professor was essaying some new mode of embalm-
ing. But in Florence it is not difficult for people to believe
a dozen stories, diametrically opposed to each other, at one
and the same time, and it had been long since the various
coteries had found a common subject of interest so engross-
ing and so dramatic.
On the eighth day Aylmer was better, and Violet Avent
that evening to a -concert given by some young aspirant for
fame, where the appearance of influential persons would be
even more important than their money. She had not be-
fore spent the evening abroad, and hesitated about leaving
Nina to Miss Bronson's society, which the little lady did
not fully appreciate Carlo being absent on a visit to an
estate he owned near Perugia. However, Nina declared
that if her hostess stopped at home she would render her-
self odious, and pleaded so hard with her to go, that Violet
changed her mind at the last moment, and accompanied
some friends who called for her.
Midnight had struck when she returned. As she was
mounting the stairs, the professor looked out of the apart-
ment on the ground-floor and called to her.
" Can I speak to you a moment ?" he inquired.
" Of course," Violet said ; and bade Antonio go on and
tell Clarice not to wait up any longer. She saw the
professor appeared worried, and asked quickly, "Nothing
wrong ? He your patient is not worse ?"
"Not seriously worse, perhaps ; but the fever has come
back, and he has no business to have fever," returned the
professor, in an injured tone. "The obstinacy of human
nature is really something stupendous ! But come in and
sit with me, please. Miss Bronson is doubtless asleep, and
BO can't be shocked at the impropriety of your visiting
a gay Lothario of sixty-seven at this late hour. I have
sent the sister to lie down for awhile."
Violet laughed and yielded to his whim, as she fancied it.
Beyond the salon they entered was a second ; then
came the room where Aylmer lay ; at the side of this, one
in which a bed had been arranged for the professor when-
ever he chose to remain.
The doors were open, and Violet could hear the murmur
of a voice from the sick man's chamber.
" Who is talking to him ?" she asked, in surprise.
HER FIRST VISIT. 51
" Why, that's himself ; he's been at it for the last half-
hour mutter, mutter !" growled the professor. " He gab-
bles about seeing the carriage on the brink of the river. If
I rouse him he answers sanely enough, but in a moment
begins to wander again talking about a garden places in
America Lord knows what ! I thought you wouldn't
mind going in for a little ; perhaps your voice would
quiet him. In that sort of partial delirium sometimes
a mere trifle will compose a patient, if it happens to fall in
with his delusion."
" I will do so, of course," Violet answered ; " but are
you sure that seeing me will not agitate him still more?
We are such entire strangers "
She paused abruptly, her utterance checked by a
thought engrossing as it was sudden. Strangers ? Why,
it seemed as if they had known one another for years !
Then she began hastily to account for this sensation : it
rose from the fact that his accident had been caused by his
efforts in her behalf ; from his having lain for so many
days under her roof ; from but the professor was speaking,
and she had no leisure to listen to her own absurd imagin-
ings, or seek solutions thereof.
" That's just it you mustn't startle him. You are a
\voman of brains ach Gott ! what a different world it
would be if there were more of your sort ! You can com-
prehend what I want. You must wait till he begins again
about a lady, and flowers, and all that nonsense ; then sit
down by him e*nter into his delusion, so you will be a part
of it you see ?"
" Yes," Violet replied, and her voice sounded cold.
The professor's mention of the jessamines brought to
her mind that rather stern criticism of the wounded man
which she had indulged whenever she recollected Giulia da
Rimini's visit. The savant had evidently forgotten his
own outbreak and the reason of his annoyance. She had
time to be glad of this obliviousness on his part, to wonder
why she was glad. Then he spoke again, and all the while,
through the swift rush of her fancies, through the effort to
listen to her companion's words, she could hear the sound
of that painful voice from the sick-room, monotonous, low,
yet eager and troubled.
"Of course you understand," the professor continued
approvingly ; "one is always sure you can that is the
52 HER FIRST VISIT.
pleasure of dealing with a woman like you ! Come now,
stand where he can't see you till the right moment, then go
in. You can quiet him you must ! I don't wish to give
any narcotics ; I depend on you."
He shook his head fiercely at her, and, in his earnest-
ness, seized her loose sleeve, quite unconscious of his rude-
ness, and hurried her through the adjoining salon to the
chamber beyond.
Violet stood still upon the threshold and looked in ; a
large, lofty room, whose vaulted roof added to the sense of
space and height, decorated, like the rest of the suite, with
furniture old as the palace itself. A lamp burning upon a
table formed an island of light in the center of the cham-
ber, and cast faint rays across the carved bedstead and
damask canopy. At first Miss Cameron could distinguish
nothing ; she closed her eyes for a few seconds. When
she opened them, gradually the different objects became
visible. A bronze Moor, holding a candelabra, frowned at
her near the door ; farther on, a marble nymph peeped out
of a niche, with a flower-vase in her hand ; the single-
lighted candle of the Moor's burden struck her face. She
seemed to bestow a smirk on the African, and cast an evil
glance at Violet from the corners of her dead eyes.
The island of light in the middle of the room grew
brighter ; Miss Cameron could see the bed distinctly. The
curtains were flung back, the sick man lay motionless ; she
caught the feverish glitter of his eyes, the worn outline of
his countenance, and the words he uttereM in that weary,
monotonous voice were perfectly audible.
"She promised to come she promised ! I am so tired.
I shall never be done counting them she promised !"
The professor, standing behind Violet, touched her
shoulder in sign that she was to go forward. She stepped
softly across the floor and sat down by the bed. The suf-
ferer saw her, stretched out his hand aimlessly, saying :
" I thought you had gone away ! Don't go ! I can
smell the flowers now ! Ah, you have taken me into the
garden. I was so tired of that room ; it is cool and pleas-
ant here."
His wandering hand rested upon hers he held it fast ;
his eyes closed ; a smile parted his lips ; he lay silent for
some minutes. The professor crept back into the adjoin-
ing room. Violet did not stir.
HER FIRST VISIT. 53
Presently Aylmer looked at her again.
" It was very good of you to come," he said ; " I want-
ed yon so much."
Did he know what he was saying? He spoke so com-
posedly that for an instant Violet thought him quite
rational, but his next words proved her mistake. " I saw
the flowers I knew when you came in I wanted to speak
to ask you to stay ! Then you were gone, and the flowers
were gone too ; the Moor stole them he steals everything
you send ! But you have come back now ; you have come
back !"
He fancied that Giulia da Rimini had returned ! Pie
lifted her fingers to his lips ; a thrill of disgust shook
Violet ; she felt degraded he mistook her for that woman !
She snatched her hand away.
" Don't go," lie moaned ; " don't leave me !"
Violet looked up and saw the professor in the doorway ;
he made a warning signal. She must not shrink ; she must
humor the sick man's odious fancy ; repose might be of
vital necessity. Whatever he was however wicked, she
could not refuse her aid. She let him take her hand again.
" You will stay ?" he said. She did not answer. " She
won't speak ; she won't speak !" he murmured com-
plainingly.
" I am here I will stay," she whispered, though the
words seemed to choke her, and the touch of his fingers
burned like fire. He talked brokenly on, each disconnected
phrase only bringing additional proof that her angry dis-
gust was deserved.
" Are you here are you here ? Don't you remember
that night? I want to tell you ! I hate that Moor ; the
old man said he was your husband ! They are all gone
now ! Yes, say it over say it over !"
And so he fell asleep with a smile on his lips, still hold-
ing her hand fast. She dared not stir, for fear of disturb-
ing him ; and the horror, the sense of degradation, and
mingled therewith a sting of disappointment and pain, as if
this stranger had been long and well known, and she had
suddenly learned how she had deceived herself in regard to
him, growing each instant stronger. It was all odious,
dreadful !
At last he turned slightly on his pillow, and his fingers
relaxed their grasp ; she drew hers away, rose, and went
54 HER FIRST VISIT.
noiselessly out of the room, shuddering from head to foot
as if she had escaped from something noisome, yet still
with that* sensation of pain and regret at what? Ah, the
question was impossible to answer !
"It has succeeded admirably," the professor said, as he
followed her into the farther salon. " lie will sleep for
hours ; you managed perfectly ! A quiet night, and I shall
be at ease about him. Yes, yes, we are on the right road
now."
Violet did not reply ; she felt giddy and faint. She
saw a carafe of water on the table, filled a glass and drank
eagerly.
"You are tired ; you look pale," said the professor,
frowning at her from under his bushy eyebrows. " Come ;
you have done enough for this time ; go you to bed."
" Good-night," she said.
" I shall give you my arm up the stairs "
" Good heavens ! because you have two patients in the
house, don't think I must be ill too," she interrupted
with a fretfulness which she could not repress.
" Tut, tut ! don't contradict me !" cried the professor.
" When I say I shall do a thing, I always do it ! I mean
to give you my arm up the stairs."
Violet accepted his courtesy, just to avoid further
words.
" I am well satisfied," continued the professor. " To-
morrow our patient shall begin a new life. Fraulein, you
are a very sensible person."
"I am not ; and if I could be, I wouldn't !" exclaimed
Violet, and then began to laugh, though she was shivering
still.
" You are nervous," pursued the professor, with a little
disdain audible in his voice. "It is an odd thing that,
though women can sometimes be efficient in a crisis, their
nerves always suffer for it."
" A man's opinion !" retorted Violet. " You may be
wisdom incarnate, but you will never understand women,
professor ; so you may as well give up the effort."
" God forbid that I should lose my time making it !"
said he, with pious fervor.
They passed through the entrance-hall, and up the stairs ;
the professor jesting and laughing in his low ponderous
fashion Violet trying to laugh and speak gayly in reply.
HER FIRST VISIT. 65
In the vast antechamber large enough to hold a
modern house they saw Antonio, the trustworthy, fast
asleep on a medieval settle, as hard and uncomfortable as
it was picturesque and valuable.
" I can't believe in your dreadful theories that men have
been evolved from apes, but I can believe the vital princi-
ple in that faithful creature has been in a Newfoundland
dog," said Violet.
She dropped the professor's arra, and was about to
wake Antonio, when an exclamation from the savant
checked her.
" Ten thousand devils !" he growled ; but the surprise
in his voice formed an excuse for the ejaculation.
Violet's eyes followed his gesture. In the doorway of
the salon a human head appeared, wrapped in a scarlet
shawl. Two wild orbs glared at the pair for an instant,
then the vision vanished.
Repeating his unseemly outburst, the professor rushed
forward, and Violet hurried after.
In an easy-chair sat Eliza Bronson, her head wrapped in
the red shawl ; her right hand uplifted, and grasping an
empty phial.
"I have poisoned myself," she said, in a voice where
diverse emotions found vent fear and a sort of reproach-
ful triumph being pre-eminent.
" Great heavens !" cried Violet. " What do you
mean ?"
" I have poisoned myself," repeated Eliza, separat-
ing the words by pauses, in order to give them increased
emphasis.
The doctor darted upon the phial, seized it, smelled it,
and exclaimed :
" If you dare to have hysterics, I'll let you die, as sure
as my name is Schmidt !"
" Violet, perhaps you will listen to my last words," said
Eliza, bestowing a glance of scorn upon the professor.
" Now, what do you think you have taken ?" asked he.
" I know ! Madame Magnoletti's liniment ! You
ought to be aware of its contents. It was your prescrip-
tion," said Eliza.
" I mean, what antidote ?"
c< Everything ! It is too late ! The white of an egg
but that is for arsenic ! Some cold tea no matter ! Oh,
56 HER FIRST VISIT.
Violet, you were down in that man's room ! I heard you.
Do not deny it !"
" Then why didn't you come after us ?" cried the pro-
fessor.
" Sir," said she, " I can die, but I cannot be indeli-
cate !"
The professor smelled at the bottle again. Something
in his face assured Violet that Miss Bronson's fears were
uncalled for, but the professor's words were not reassuring.
" Why did you take poison ?" he asked.
" I had a frightful neuralgia. I caught up the phial,
and swallowed the contents, thinking it was my mixture.
The instant I had done so I perceived my error. I looked
at the bottle," continued Eliza, in an awful tone. " I rec-
ognized it as that which held the marchesa's liniment,
though how it came in my room I know not."
Violet regarded the professor. His face remained
inscrutable as that of the Sphinx. Eliza leaned back in
her chair, and gasped in majestic resignation.
" Salt and water," pronounced the professor, medita-
tively.
" I have taken a pint !" cried she, triumphantly.
" Then in a few moments you will be very sick," said
he ; " at least, I hope so. If not, we will think of some
other remedy ; but you have drunk as good a simple anti-
dote as any. We must wait a little."
Eliza turned her back upon him.
" Violet," she said, " it is a solemn thought that before
dawn breaks I may be where I shall hear the cherubs
sing."
" Terrible, if they scream like human cherubs," said the
professor. " Why, you might as well talk about fairies as
such personages ! Miss Bronson, you will be resolved into
the elements so much hydrogen, so much oxygen "
" Peace, railer !" broke in Eliza.
" I suppose you would object to to afterward I
mean to autopsy," said the professor, in an insinuating
tone, waving his right hand in the air, as fancying that it
held a scalpel.
" Violet, do you hear ? and I still living ! In my very
hearing he proposes that sacrilege !" moaned Eliza.
"My dear professor, do tell her that she is not poi-
soned," said Violet, appealingly.
HER FIRST VISIT. 57
He held out the bottle in answer, with a look so tragic
that Eliza began to realize the reality of what she was
rather playing at, yet from first to last had been in earnest
about and though this is a very unintelligible sentence, no
other language would express her feelings.
" Do not ask him to deceive me," sobbed she.
" No, no," said the professor. " But later, when it's all
over, when your so-called self is resolved into the ele-
ments "
" Heathen !" groaned Eliza, drying her eyes. A peti-
tion for him to make some further essay of skill had been
upon her lips, but his heretical speech roused her wrath
and brought back her courage.
" After that," pursued the professor, unmoved and
deaf, " would you permit, in the cause of science, that
autopsy "
Eliza interrupted him by a shriek.
" I'll not be autop top there's no such word as autop-
ticized," she cried, with her school-teaching instincts strong
upon her even then. " But I mean, whatever the word to
express it may be, that my lifeless frame shall not become
the victim of your sacrilegious experiments. Unless my
friend she whom I have called my friend will promise, I
leave her house this instant. There must be some roof
beneath which my corpse can lie safe from your nefarious
designs."
''Schnapps !" exclaimed the professor, so abruptly and
with such energy that he startled Violet even ; as for Eliza,
she bounded in her chair as if she had been electrified.
"What?" she shrieked, not catching the word, and
afraid he had pronounced some dreadful sentence of doom.
" A sure remedy. I never thought of it till now. Wait,
I'll be back in a minute !" and away rushed the professor.
Eliza rolled her head and winked her eyes. This sud-
den excitement on the professor's part made her certain she
was in bad case indeed.
"Violet," she said faintly, "think how it would be with
me if at a moment like this I had not a sure faith, a cer-
tainty of being among the elect, to give me support."
Whatever the dose she had swallowed, it had evidently
affected Eliza's brain. Violet hastened into the anteroom
when she heard the old German's step.
"In the name of goodness, what has the poor creature
8*
58 HER FIRST VISIT.
taken ?" she asked, meeting the professor with a square
bottle under his arm.
" Nothing of consequence," he answered. "There was
laudanum in it ; you know even a few drops affect her.
The dose has gone to her head, and now I propose to send
a glass of schnapps after it ; then she will go to bed and
sleep like a top."
"And and your patient?" Violet asked hesitatingly.
"Oh, he instill sound likely to stay so. The sister is
sitting by him," said the professor. "At present, our duty
is towards your friend Elizabeth Eliza, or whatever and
do our duty we must." He hurried into the salon, crying,
"Here we are ! This is the little fat gentleman that means
to save your life, my Miss Bronson ;" and he brandished
the square bottle before the spinster's eyes.
" What is he giving me ?" moaned Eliza, sleepily. " Vio-
let, I feel a strange drowsiness, I see double. Oh ! oh ! it
is the end !"
" Dominus vobiscum," chanted the professor, in a deep
bass voice, as he began to pour the sparkling liquid into a
goblet.
" Do go away," said Violet, and took the bottle from
him, concealing her face so that Eliza might not be shocked
or hurt by her irrepressible laughter.
She mixed a little of the spirits with a judicious quan-
tity of water, and gave it to the spinster, who drank, and
in a few moments grew both courageous and dizzy.
" Sir, you have saved my life," she said, turning towards
the professor with majesty tempered by tenderness, while
the old sinner stood looking at her and rubbing his hands
in glee ; " you have saved my life I thank you ! I abhor
your principles, I repudiate your doctrines, but I am grate-
ful for your care."
"Good !" chuckled the professor ; " schnapps forever !"
"Violet," continued Eliza, " I love you, but I shudder
over your future ! I warn you now that if you linger in
this unhallowed land, and if you do not relinquish Mari-
olatry, you will lose your soul lose your soul. Ifis" and
she pointed a finger of dreadful warning at the professor,
" his is lost already."
She disappeared ; went straight to her room, and as the
professor had prophesied, slept sweetly till morning.
LA BELLE SAMARITAINE. 69
CHAPTER VI.
LA BELLE SAMARITAIKE.
NLY the next day Giulia da Rimini again pre-
sented herself.
Miss Cameron was seated with Nina in the
salon she had appropriated to her guest, and, as
ill-luck would have it, Carlo had entered a few
moments before.
Nina had a headache, and Violet was bathing her fore-
head with eau-de-Cologne, when her maid brought in the
duchess's card. The marchesa made a little grimace as she
read the name, and handed the bit of coronetted paste-
board to her friend, whispering :
" One must receive her !"
" The visit is for you," Violet answered in the same
tone, rising as she spoke ; " there is no reason why I
should stop. She does not come to see me I have not
returned her call."
But Nina caught her dress and pulled her down upon the
sofa again, with an eager, supplicating look, while her lips
inaudibly framed the entreaty :
" Stay do stay !"
" What are you two talking about ?" called Carlo from
the table, where he sat trying some combination of cards ;
" who is your visitor ?"
" He will go away with her if we don't let her come
up," Nina murmured rapidly. " If you vex her, she will
punish me. Wait till I am gone before you take any de-
cisive step."
Violet stared in astonishment, but the tears in the little
woman's eyes softened her, and she bowed acquiescence.
" Have you both lost your tongues ? " asked the
marchese.
Violet treated him to a contemptuous glance which
escaped his short sight, but Nina caught it and muttered :
" Oh, don't !" Then she added aloud to her maid,
" Tell madame I am not well this morning, but I will see
her."
60 LA BELLE SAMARITAINE.
" What madame ?" demanded the persistent Carlo.
" The Duchess da Rimini ! As yon hate women's gossip
you had better run away," said Violet, quite savagely.
Carlo laughed, put up his glass, glanced at the speaker,
and then at Nina.
"Heaven help us!" cried he; " how have I offended
you, Miss Cameron? You snubbed me in such a wife-like
tone that I had to look twice to be certain it was not my
legal guardian who spoke."
" Your legal guardian is more amiable than I," returned
Violet, affecting to laugh, for Nina's eyes, full of supplica-
tion, were still upon her ; "I am in one of my bad moods,
when anything in the shape of a question irritates me."
" Carlo," said Nina, speaking so gayly that Violet won-
dered at her self-control, " if you know any one of her ad-
mirers who means to risk his fate to-day, pray warn him,
not to venture."
" It would only be Christian charity," he replied, let his
lorgnon drop, and went back to his cards.
If there had been, as Violet fancied, a little suspicion in
his face, it died out when Nina spoke in that natural way,
accompanying her words with one of her childish bursts of
laughter.
"So," thought Violet, " Master Carlo has teased her, has
he? Well, he never shall again, on that woman's account !
Make your visit, madame the duchess ! I never expected
to be glad to see you ; but this time I am I am indeed !"
She rose, went over to the table and stood behind the
marchese's chair, apparently absorbed in the cards spread
out upon the cloth, and asking some question in regard to
them.
Madame da Rimini was announced, and swept into the
room with her customary slow, majestic tread.
" My poor Nina my dearest Nina ! Still tied fast to
that odious sofa ! Heavens, it is too cruel !" she cried,
moving towards the couch.
There was the sound of a kiss ; Nina had leisure to
respond, and the duchess to utter more sweet, condoling
words, before Violet gave any sign of having observed the
visitor's entrance or moved so as to permit Carlo to rise.
She turned ; the duchess was regarding her, endeavoring
to look as if now she had leisure to see Miss Cameron, but
with another expression visible in her face, try as she might
LA BELLE SAMARITA1NE. 61
to hide it, a certain wondering fear if it were possible a
slight could befall her.
Violet made a low obeisance ; but in spite of her
gracious manner, no woman could have failed to understand
her hostile intentions.
" Si matinale et si belle, madame la duchesse ! " she cried.
" How good of you to come so often to see the marchesa in
her imprisonment ! You are a true sister of charity in
your kindness to the wounded and suffering."
A faint quiver disturbed the duchess's firm mouth, but
almost imperceptible as it was. Nina caught it. She waited
in a thrill of pleasurable expectation. Violet meant to deal
the odious creature some cruel blow, and Violet would do
it neatly and well the Russian could trust her.
But though the duchess feared that her little secret had
been discovered, she did not intend to be stabbed by this
impertinent American, if her well-trained skill could parry
the thrust.
" A visit to so old and valued a friend as the marchesa
could scarcely come under that head, chdre demoiselle" she
replied, with a supercilious little smile which put Violet
outside the pale of such intimacy as pointedly as words
could have done.
The two women of course understood her meaning, but
it was Greek to Carlo in his masculine dullness, though he
perceived that matters were not going smoothly between
the duchess and Violet. He glanced from one to the other,
then stole a furtive look at his wife ; but Niiia, busy
arranging her cushions, appeared as innocent as a dove.
" No matter what head her visit comes under, I can't
see what I have done that the duchess should refuse to
notice me," he said hastily, moving forward as he spoke.
" Ah, are you there, marchese ?" returned she in her
indolent voice, vouchsafing him a glance very different
from that which she had bestowed upon Violet. Sunshine
was not softer than the smile he received ; a lance not
sharper than the look shot at Miss Cameron. She sank into
a seat and extended him the tips of her daintily-gloved
fingers, which he kissed in his graceful Italian fashion.
" And what news of the match ?">^ asked eagerly.
" Is it to come off or not?" ^f
" Yes ; I believe it is decided for Saturday."
" What match ?" Nina inquired.
62 LA BELLE SAMARITAINE.
"Between Marco Goldoni's horse and one of Harry
Stanhope's," Carlo explained.
" And I have dozens and dozens of gloves on it," cried
the duchess, in the same pretty, eager way. " Marchese,
do tell me that Marco's gray will win !"
But, interested as she appeared, Nina knew she had
rushed into the subject merely to hinder Miss Cameron
from speaking. The little woman chafed inwardly that the
thrust she felt confident Violet had meant to deal should
be so easily prevented, and for Carlo to have aided the
duchess, even unintentionally, doubled Nina's annoyance.
During some moments the trotting-match was enthu-
siastically talked of ; Nina took her share in the conversa-
tion, but Violet sat aloof, the visitor's own words giving
her the right to consider that she had no more to do with
playing hostess than if she had met the lady under the
marchesa's roof.
Now, if Griulia had left matters on this fooling, she
might perhaps have rendered it impossible for Miss Came-
ron to hit her with a buttonless foil ; but that lady's cour-
teous, yet palpable negation of any concern in her visit,
irritated the Sicilian beyond endurance, and nrged her
imprudently on to be the assailant in a second clashing of
swords, convinced that if the Amei'ican had been cognizant
of her little escapade, she would have betrayed the fact on
their first encounter.
Unfortunately for Giulia she did not understand
Violet, and rushed on her fate that of being exposed
before Carlo. Some remark of Miss Cameron's, in answer
to a question from Nina, afforded the duchess a delightful
opportunity to sneer at America and the freedom granted
unmarried women in that country.
" It seems odd to us Latins," said she in her sweetest
voice, and one must have heard an Italian utter a mechan-
cete to form an idea of the exquisite perfection of tone and
manner, "but we are so antiquated, so prejudiced, so igno-
rant, we European women, compared with the dazzling
transatlantic beauties !" She addressed Nina, but by an
indescribable something, for she made no gesture, rendered
the compliment tp American women a tribute of special
admiration and plicate mockery to Violet Cameron her-
self. " How one envies the brilliant creatures ! One
might admit their supremacy in point of loveliness and
LA BELLE SAMAR1TAINE. 63
wit, and still be patient, but it is the liberty allowed
them which irks us, held in bondage by tiresome old
customs."
" Yes, yes," cried Nina, just to push Giulia forward to
IKT doom, ready, Russian-like, to enjoy her enemy's
defeat the more from having feared that it would fail.
" You are right, duchess ; but still, would such freedom
suit our ideas ?"
"Ah, that is the question! I am afraid we glory in
our slavery to custom ; it is ingrained in our natures.
Still, one envies the Americans all the same ! One
would like to hate them, but, being women, we appreciate
their fascinations too thoroughly to do that."
" Upon my word, Fleur Violette, that pretty speech
deserves your best courtesy," cried Carlo, really believing
that the duchess desired to be especially agreeable.
"Oh, a man!" was Nina's thought.
" But, duchess," asked Violet, " what do you so par-
ticularly envy us Americans ?"
" I have said the freedom granted our sex in your
native land."
" Surely, once married, an Italian woman is free
enough," said Violet ; and the duchess saw her own error,
but could "not remedy it.
" When freedom comes too late !" sighed she, hoping
to silence Violet by the difficulty of finding any answer
with a sting in it which would not appear a rudeness.
" How ?" exclaimed Miss Cameron. " Freedom cannot
come too late !"
Giulia shook her stately head, saying :
" Ah, Nina darling, mademoiselle argues as an unmarried
lady naturally would ! She does not know those dreadful
tyrants as we do," waving two fingers towards Carlo, and
giving him a smile, as she spoke.
" Oh," said Carlo, " Miss Cameron is a cruel, icy-hearted
creature, utterly indifferent even to attractions like mine."
" There may be a reason for that," laughed the duchess.
"You must not forget the interesting invalid below stairs !
By the way, how is Mr. Aylmer this morning ?"
" Better," said Nina and Carlo, speaking at once
" Better," repeated Violet, laughing gayly as she spoke.
" But take care, duchess, that you content yourself with
64. LA BELLE SAMARITAINE.
inquiring here ! That cross old professor is lying in wait !
Oh, if you had seen him the other day dash up here, and
shake your pretty bunch of jessamines in our faces, accus-
ing us of trying to poison his patient, when Nina could not
leave her sofa, and I could not dream of intruding into the
lion's den, being an American woman in a foreign land
and unmarried !"
Blush ? Yes, the duchess did, through all her rouge !
Carlo gave her one furious glance, and began to rearrange
his cards ; Nina nursed her foot, in order to hide her face,
conscious that its triumph would not bear exposure ; Violet
sat calm as a summer morning.
" Marchese," she added, " did I not tell you the duchess
was a good Samaritan ? But, alas, in our century Samari-
tans meet with a poor reward ! The professor still vows that
her kind visit to Mr. Aylmer retarded his recovery by at
least a fortnight."
The duchess not quick-witted, though shrewd tried
to laugh ; Carlo made a still more miserable pretense at
merriment ; Nina remained occupied with her foot ; Violet's
smiling serenity knew no change.
" Warning !" cried Carlo, somewhat too bitterly.
"Don't play the Samaritan one is not appreciated."
" Don't be found out, you mean, else the professors fall
upon you," Miss Cameron gayly amended, with a glance at
the duchess which sent the Sicilian's blood up to boiling-
heat.
Before any additional words could be spoken by either
of the group, Antonio announced fresh visitors witty Lady
Ilarcourt, bringing in her train Gherardi, Harry Stanhope,
and several other men.
" I knew if we sent up our names we should not be ad-
mitted," cried her ladyship. "So I persuaded these cowards
to help me storm the citadel."
There followed a torrent of merry talk. In the midst
of it, after trying unsuccessfully to take a part, appear at
ease, and at the same time soften Carlo by sundry beseech-
ing glances, to which he, obdurate as a Trojan, paid no at-
tention, Madame da Rimini rose.
" Going to leave poor Nina already ?" questioned Violet,
sweetly.
The duchess turned on her. The enamel of politeness
LA BELLE SAMARITAINE. 65
cracked in the heat of her wrath, and gave a glimpse of the
coarse virago under.
" I have a thousand things to do," she replied ; and her
voice was so sharp that everybody looked up, but she strug-
gled in vain to subdue nature. "I shall come again when
I may be of some use to rny friend."
" Samaritaine tot/jours," said Violet, and that wretched
Carlo laughed, looking full in the duchess's face the while.
The luckless Giulia stood dumb for an instant.
" Stanhope," said Carlo, " give madame your arm to her
carriage ; but take Paulo with you to protect her from
your fascinations, and to make Lady Harcourt and my wife
say bitter things of her, out of sheer jealousy, on account
of her cavaliers."
Now the Englishman was elderly and unimpressionable,
and Paulo was the duchess's own brother-in-law, whom she
hated with a hatred surpassing even that of women.
Nina metaphorically flapped the wings of her soul in
delight, but poor Carlo was only a man, and hastened to
impair the perfect retribution he had brought about.
' I am master of the house for the nonce," he added,
" and cannot leave Miss Cameron exposed to the wiles and
enormities of these other male monsters."
" Oh, you goose !" Nina mentally groaned.
The duchess, so pale with anger that the spots of rouge
showed like a blotch on either cheek, seized the advantage
given by Carlo's superfluous words.
" Miss Cameron will lend you to me to the foot of the
stairs," said she. " I am afraid of the dangerous Colonel,
and Paulo came on purpose to make love to Nina. You
can't in decency refuse him three minutes free from your
Argus eyes."
" Mille diables ! she has the best of it after all !"
thought the little Russian.
But the Muscovite reckoned defeat without taking into
consideration the American reserve, bent on punishing the
offender to the uttermost.
" Go, Carlo, my friend," said Violet ; " see the duchess
safe to her carriage. The professor lies in wait for her,
and if she so much as looks towards the door of the den
where he is torturing his victim, he will fall upon her."
" What, what !" cried Lady Harcourt. " Giulia, have
86 LA BELLE SAMAEITAINE.
you been trying to prevent that New World barbarian from
dying in peace ?"
" On the contrary," said Violet, quick as a flash, " she
went in the other day and laid sweet jessamines on his pil-
low, and the professor nearly murdered Nina and poor me,
just because we were women too, and the" offender la belle
Samaritaine had escaped, and he found only us innocents
to visit his wrath upon."
In many circles the bit of comedy might have been
wasted, but these types of Florentine society appreciated
the scene as thoroughly as ever a knot of Parisian critics
enjoyed the most delicately-drawn exhibition of character
in one of Victorien Sardou's plays.
The duchess knew it, and the replique rested with her.
To remain silent would be to damn herself. Florence
might pass over Impropriety, but not stupidity. And,
difficult as the situation was in itself, her fierce anger in-
creased its difficulties. But she must answer. She could
be coarse if wit failed ; at least the men would believe
what she said witty, just on account of its coarseness.
" I am not afraid of your professor," said she ; " I have
already appeased him. I agreed to give Carlo up to you,
dear Miss Cameron, and to let Nina have the American."
But the quizzical glances directed towards her drove her
on to add : "To ratify the bargain, the professor is to sup
with me on Sunday night. Will you all come ? Lady
Harcourt, promise in the general name."
" I promise," returned my lady, "promise for all. We
shall not forget."
" Au revoir, dear," said the duchess, and kissed Violet's
cheek.
She floated out on the marchese's arm, and the instant
the door closed Lady Harcourt exclaimed :
" I don't understand the mot of the charade, but, great
heavens ! Violet Cameron, you must have hit her hard
when she was pushed to the extreme of giving a supper !"
" Don't understand the motf" cried Gherardi. "Well,
I fancy poor Aylmer would "
" Hush !" broke in her ladyship. " We may be scan-
dalous in Florence, but a sick man's room and his female
visitors are sacred silence, evil tongue !"
Going down stairs, the duchess for a little talked any
nonsense that would come into her head, just to give it
LA BELLE SAMARITAINE. 67
time to stop whirling, then wondered quickly what explana-
tion would be best, or rather least hurtful to her cause, and
ended by ignoring the matter.
" Oh, marchese," she said, " I have to go to that dread-
ful railway man about the dividends ; can't you be good-
natured, and bully him for me ?"
" I could have done so last week," retorted he ; " but
Gresham and I quarreled yesterday. I only know one
person who could soften him, that's Aylmer but he is
too ill."
The speech was not bad for a man's effort, but it gave
the duchess a chance.
" Cruel !" she cried, released his arm, and dropped into
an attitude of dignified melancholy. " You could hear me
insulted you can try to wound me after !"
"The odor of jessamine always turns my stomach," said
Carlo.
" Then luckily I did not find you that day." exclaimed
the duchess, with a burst of truthfulness wonderfully well
done. " I did go into the creature's room. The doors
were open I thought I heard your voice. I wanted to tell
you I was sorry for having teased you that last evening.
But you were not there. I ran out the bouquet must
have fallen from my corsage. Oh, that wretched, mali-
cious woman !"
Carlo waited calmly till she had finished, then extended
his arm anew, saying only :
" Shall I tell your people to drive to Gresham's
office ?"
The duchess shut her lips hard to keep from panting,
like a person who had mounted a steep hill too fast. Carlo
put her hand in his arm and led her on.
" Where to ?" he asked, as they reached the court.
" Home," she answered, faintly ; then, making a violent
effort to recover herself and speak playfully, she added, "If
you like to come, I'll give you some punch, instead of Eng-
lish four-o'clock tea."
" I am heart-broken ; but I promised to sit awhile with
poor Aylmer," returned he, and helped her into the car-
riage.
From a window which overlooked the courtyard, that
malicious Gherardi watched the pair and cried, utterly
regardless of the marchesa's presence :
68 LA BELLE SAHARITAINE.
" He goes he does not go ! Which side do you take,
Lady Harcourt ; and how many pairs of gloves upon it?"
" He goes !" exclaimed Stanhope. " Fifty pounds to
ten !"
"You have lost," said Lady Harcourt, who had reached
the window ; " and you are fitly punished for speaking !"
Everybody was gone at last ; the marchesa and Violet
were alone.
You angel !" cried Nina ; " but oh, you have made a
terrible enemy Silician take care !"
" Chef" returned Violet, with an accent perfectly
Italian and a disregard of consequences purely Anglo-
Saxon.
" I had been a little jealous, I will admit now," pursued
Nina ; " it was the first time it will be the last where
Giulia is concerned ! JVly dear, Carlo will never forgive
the blow to his vanity ; she had written him a letter only
that morning."
" He cared nothing for her ; you cannot think he did !"
" No, no ; not in earnest but he is a man ! However,
it is ended, thanks to you. If ever I can repay you, I vow
no, I won't, for women always break their oaths."
" Don't repeat that stale old slaader," said Violet ;
" not women, only the make-believes."
" But I love you ! Let me hug you, this instant ! I
never was troubled about him before ; though, if I repeat
that so often, you will not believe me. Well, you have
cured him ! Oh, the cat ! she will never dupe him now
but you you oh, my dear !"
" Bah !" said Violet ; " did Giulia da Rimini suppose
she was a match for us ? Let her try to punish me we
shall see ! In the meantime, my love, we will have some
tea, just to get the taste of her name out of our mouths."
DEAD AS PHARAOH. 69
CHAPTER VII.
DEAD AS PHARAOH.
ISS CAMERON did not like to think of her visit
to the sick-room, for each time she did so the
circumstances connected therewith seemed to
increase in significance. Many of her sex would
have contented themselves with expending cen-
sure on the duchess, but this was contrary to Violet's creed,
which recognized the injustice of condemning a woman
and letting the man go scot-free.
Still she rejoiced at having punished Giulia. She de-
tested exhibitions of spite, and would have scorned to em-
ploy them in her own behalf ; but in this instance her con-
duct was justified by its motive : she had acted in defense
of her friend had triumphed too. Only the day before
the duchess's supper, an opportunity offered of proving
this.
Lady Harcourt called at the house to leave some won-
derful remedy, for which she had sent to England, and
which was to cure Nina's ankle in a magical fashion. Violet
and the marchese had been out on horseback, and came in
just as her ladyship had risen to take leave.
" I can't even stop to say ' How do you do,' she said,
" for I have to go to a breakfast, a concert, and into
the bargain sell a picture for a young painter dear to my
soul, who is dying of consumption."
" Occupation enough for one morning, certainly," re-
turned Violet.
" I shall see you both to-morrow night," continued
Lady Harcourt. " Remember, Giulia gives us a supper !
Never, not even when presented to his gracious majesty on
my seventeenth birthday, was I in such excitement, and I
do not expect to be again if I should live a thousand years.
Dear, blessed Giulia never gave a supper before and will
never give another, so I mean the affair to be memorable."
" If she dies when the bills come in, her death will rest
on your conscience," said Carlo.
" There will be no bills, caro mio," replied her ladyship.
70 DEAD AS PHARAOH.
" Every restaurateur, from Doney down to the lowest tyro,
knows your charming enslaver too well to send so much as
a rnadeleine to her house, unless paid in advance."
"Not even a Madeleine penitente?" asked Violet.
" She might consider the offering personal," rejoined
Carlo.
" She will be one herself, you wicked American witch
is already ; not on account of her sins, but her rashness in.
proposing the supper," added Lady Harcourt, laughing.
" She could prove her penitence and avoid the feast by
entering a convent," said Violet.
" Don't condemn her to that," cried Nina. "At least,
give her the privilege of a monastery."
"She will get out of the dilemma without adopting any
such extreme measures," said Carlo.
"Not this time !" returned Lady Harcourt, triumph-
antly. " I have written her three notes and sent several
men to ask the hour she can't escape. I told her I should
bring some friends whom I had already invited to my
house."
" That is fiendish cruelty," said Violet.
" On your part," retorted my lady. " You forced her
into giving the supper, Violet Cameron. You put her in a
corner, and she had to eat you or be eaten in order to get
out. She chose the latter alternative. But wait, my dear.
Giulia will pay you before the winter is over, or rather,
make you pay, supper and all !''
" Really !" laughed Violet. " How am I in fault ?"
" Oh, I don't know ; I ask no questions, I await the
course of events. I am reasonably fond of you, I adore
her fa va sans dire! If she poisons you I'll come to the
funeral, I promise that." And off my lady ran, pausing in
the doorway long enough to add, " I shall stop down stairs
to inquire after poor Aylmer, but the professor need not be
vexed, for I have no jessamines to leave, and no reputation.
I say that to save you the trouble."
" Supper indeed !" quoth Carlo. " I know one person
who will not be deluded."
" But you will go you must," said Nina; "and you
too, Violet."
"There is no necessity in my case. The duchess made
it so evident she was not visiting me the day she gave the
invitation, that I am absolved from any part therein. But
DEAD AS PHARAOH. 71
Carlo is not, and for once in the annals of anybody's his-
tory, pleasure will be united with duty."
" Then have some refreshment ready for me when I get
back. I shall be starved if I trust to what I get there,"
cried Carlo.
" Entendu /" said Violet. " But be sure you appear in
time to partake of it, though Circe and all her nymphs
stand in the way."
" I am sick of Circe, and I hate her nymphs," rejoined
Carlo.
Nina glanced at Violet from the corners of her beauti-
ful almond-shaped eyes. Carlo was looking at his wife, but
he lost the glance, though Violet, whose head was half
turned away, caught it distinctly. If the married pair
lived to the age of the patriarchs, Carlo would never be
permitted to dream that Nina had for an instant been jeal-
ous of the duchess. Indeed, while this by-play went on, his
thoughts ran in this fashion :
" I swear that little wife of mine is the daintiest, sweet-
est, most charming creature in the world. It is ridiculous
that I could have been attracted by that great coarse
Rimini I never was !"
And, though neither of the ladies were observing him,
so far as he knew, both were as cognizant of his reflections
as if he had put them into spoken language.
Carlo's fancy for the duchess, already on the wane when
her misadventure occurred, had been killed outright as dead
as Pharaoh.
He went to the famous supper which would supply
Lady Harcourt with gibes and jests during the whole sea-
son. There was a mayonnaise and weak punch with the
sugar left out, and the duchess informed her guests that
one glass of punch would do nobody .ny harm, and nobody
was tempted to try a second.
But beggarly as the feast appeared to the invited, the
expense rankled in Giulia's mind. She would without hesi-
tation lavish thousands of francs upon her dress, or lose
them at cards would in both cases, if impossible to avoid
the necessity, pay her debts with a reasonable degree of
resignation, but in spite of this she was miserly beyond
belief. So she had two causes for virulent hatred against
Violet, and positively she hated her worse for having unin-
tentionally forced her to give the supper than for deliber-
72 DEAD AS PHARAOH.
ately exposing her to Carlo. She did not care about him,
but he had lately come into possession of a large sum of
ready money. The duchess wanted money, was terri-
bly cramped this season, and she had meant him to pay
certain debts, the creditors for which were importunate
creatures who gave her no peace.
A caprice for Laurence Aylmer she had, and a singularly
strong one, insensible as he seemed to her fascinations. She
had been confident the day she entered his rooms that she
could do so with impunity.
When she went to the house she had not dreamed there
would be a possibility of seeing him, but as she was de-
scending the stairs, she perceived that the doors of the
ground-floor apartment were open not a soul in sight.
The duchess peeped into the first salon empty. She
passed on. In the second room the sister knelt before the
statue of some saint, her head buried in her hands, so deeply
absorbed in prayer that she was lost to all sublunary sur-
roundings. Giulia noiselessly crossed the carpeted floor
and gained the sick room.
Aylmer slept, his head supported high upon the pillows ;
the open collar of his night-shirt exposing the graceful neck
and the outlines of the muscular shoulders.
The woman crept up to the bed, leaned over, and pressed
her lips upon his throat. The caress roused the wounded
man ; he opened his great eyes, into which a sudden fever-
ish brightness rushed, and half raised himself, uttering
some incoherent exclamation. She believed that he recog-
nized her, but she heard a step in the room at the side of
the chamber, and fled, afraid of discovery dropping the
bouquet of jessamines on his pillow as she hurried away.
She ran out just in time to escape the professor, ran
through the salon where the sister still knelt, and reached
the outer door, but before she could cross the threshold,
met Antonio.
" I have made a most unfortunate blunder," she said
quickly; "I thought the Marchesa Magnoletti was estab-
lished in this apartment ! Luckily neither the sick man
nor his nurse saw me. Say nothing about my mistake, if
you please ; it is most annoying to me ;" and as she spoke,
she actually put ten francs in his hand ! She would almost
rather have submitted to the loss of one of her perfect
teeth, but there was no escape.
DEAD AS PUARAOH. 73
During the ensuing fortnight Miss Cameron's visits to
the sick-room continued very frequent.
The professor would come for her, and she could not
refuse his request ; indeed, there was no reason why she
should, save the personal shrinking caused by her belief
that the patient mistook her for Giulia Rimini, since he
babbled about the jessamines and her sudden disappear-
ance. Why had she gone why ? And did she remem-
ber
What? The often-begun sentence could never get itself
finished. His mind was always unable to seize one special
incident that he desired to recall, though it haunted his
fancy with wearisome persistency.
" I can't tell it I can't tell it !" he would say, in a de-
spairing tone, then sometimes become vexed that she did
not help him, and cry : " You could give me the word, and
you will not ; you are cruel cruel !"
But the instant he said this he regretted it, and would
snatch her hands and press his fevered lips on them, ex-
claiming :
" I did not mean that ; you know I did not ! Say you
are sure I did not mean it !"
Violet could neglect no effort to quiet him. The pro-
fessor told her frankly that the humoring of his fancies
might have a great effect upon his recovery. Indeed, if
she hesitated about letting the sick man hold her hand, or
kept him waiting for an answer to his eager questions, she
would immediately become aware of the professor's head
thrust in at the door, his lynx-eyes glaring at her from
under their bushy brows. Nor did he content himself with
glaring ; he did not scruple even to shake his fist at her,
while he stood on one leg and waved the other in the air
like an impatient Mercury preparing for flight.
Sometimes in the midst of her pity and annoyance her
inexplicable bitterness towards the patient her anger at
herself for such emotion a fit of laughter would seize
Violet, forcing her to bury her head in the counterpane to
smother the ill-timed merriment which hurt her cruelly all
the while. To catch the absurd side of the situation, yet
comprehend so clearly its grave aspect, seemed like regard-
ing a dismal tragedy and seeing some evil-disposed imp
thrust a grotesque caricature thereof close at its side.
On a certain evening the professor's patience, never his
4
74 DEAD AS PHARAOH.
strong point a thing noticeable both in great savants and
great saints had been completely exhausted by his patient's
having delirium when he ought to be sane, and behaving in
every particular just the opposite of what was his obvious
duty. So when the doctor heard the outer doors open to
admit Miss Cameron on her return from the opera, he
dashed into the entrance-hall. In his haste he nearly fell
over the lady, and was freshly irritated by the burst of
laughter wherewith she acknowledged his presence ; stand-
ing there so beautiful in her white draperies, that the pro-
fessor could not decide which emotion predominated in his
soul a wicked desire to shake her, or a ridiculous impulse
to go on his knees, as if one of the angelic beings, concern-
ing whose existence he affected such doubts in his discus-
sions with Eliza Bronson, had suddenly appeared before
him.
" What have I done that you should try to bring my
ill-spent existence to an abrupt close by running over me ?"
Miss Cameron asked.
"Done!" thundered the professor. "Everybody does
the very thing that is out of place and absurd !"
" Witness your trying to crush me when I enter my
house," laughed Violet.
"I am not talking about myself," he grumbled. " It is
no matter about me !"
" And no matter if I am broken in pieces, I suppose !"
returned she, still laughing.
"Oh, very well! If you can do nothing better than
sneer, and behave like like well, like a woman ach, mein
Gott, there is no other comparison serves then I'll leave
you !" thundered the professor.
" First you had better tell me what is the matter," said
Violet.
" Matter !" he echoed. " Everything except, indeed,
what ought to happen ! I swear by the river Styx and the
northern god Thor, that never, never if I live to be old as
Methuselah, and visionary as Eliza Bronson's St. Paul
will I ever again take the charge of an American ! No,
not if we were the only two people left on this terrestrial
globe !"
" I know what ails you," said Violet. " You have had
no supper."
DEAD AS PHARAOH. 75
"I wonder when I could have found an instant to snatch
a morsel !" cried he.
" Go up stairs, and you shall have many morsels tooth-
some and indigestible as any that even a German cook
could devise. Antonio, take good care of the professor,
and see he has some beer," she added, looking over her
shoulder towards that personage, who stood secretly
smiling at the irate savant. " I will sit with your patient
while you are gone, Esculapius. I suppose that is what
you want."
The professor began to laugh.
" I'd like to say no, just from a spirit of contradiction,"
he said ; " but I should only punish myself. If you don't
go, he will rave all night, like the fool he is, and I shall
have to watch him ; for I notice that blessed sister always
enjoys her soundest sleep when there is the most need of
her keeping awake ! Per Bacco, if your religious fables
had any foundation, what a drowsy set the elect would be
up in their pearl-gated paradise !"
" My dear professor, eat your supper, drink your beer,
and convince yourself that at least your corporeal part is
not a delusion," counseled Miss Cameron.
" Tausend ten/els!" exclaimed the savant, glowering at
her. " You really are a beauty ! It is a pity you are only
so much hydrogen, and oxygen, and "
" Never mind the rest of the unpleasant compounds,
you dreadful old materialistic absurdity," interrupted
Violet, and disappeared within the arched portals which
led to the sick man's quarters.
The professor snorted, settled his cravat, frowned at
Antonio, and ejaculated :
" She is the most wonderful creature in the world
about the only one worthy the name of woman."
"She is, sir," said Antonio, in the meekest under-key of
his many-toned voice. He knew that if he spoke the pro-
fessor would snub him ; if he did not speak, the professor
would rate him for his impertinence. " She is indeed, sir."
" Mind your business !" howled the savant. " Who per-
mitted you to have opinions ? Set you up, indeed ! As if
you had reached the stage of development when the human
animal acquires what they call a soul the fools !"
Antonio bowed low.
" What are you jerking about for like a monkey?" de-
76 DEAD AS PHARAOH.
manded the professor. " Do you know we are all a superior
sort of apes not so very superior either nothing else, the
grandest of us?"
" If you please, sir whatever you like, sir," said
Antonio.
" I don't like it at all," shouted the professor ; " but
my likings don't change facts. Oh, see here, come up
stairs and find me a crust ! My stomach is as empty as a
balloon that is what makes me theoretical."
" It is not exactly the word I should have chosen to ex-
press your damnable ill-temper," muttered the Swiss, but
wisely spoke so low that his commentary did not reach the
ears of the irascible savant, who, before they gained the
top of the stairs, had forgotten hunger and annoyance in
the interest with which he questioned Antonio about a sick
baby belonging to some one of Miss Cameron's numerous
pensioners.
Violet entered the apartment of the rez-<le-chaussee. In
the salon next Aylmer's chamber sat the sister. Her arras
rested on a table, her head reposed on her arms, and she
was slumbering sweetly ; the slow, measured breathings
which escaped her lips at regular intervals sounding so like
" Ave ave Maria a ve," that it seemed as if she must
be continuing her orisons in her sleep.
Miss Cameron reached the bedroom. The instant her
foot crossed the threshold, lightly as she trod, carefully as
she gathered her silken draperies in her hand, to prevent
any rustle disturbing the sick man's ear, the voice which
she had heard as she traversed the salons ceased its utter-
ance : the sufferer lay perfectly quiet.
The same effect had so often been produced during the
past days and nights that Violet could not call it chance.
At first she had endeavored to do so, had smiled at the
professor's talk about magnetic influence, psychological
mysteries, and the rest ; but that her presence could always
mysteriously soothe the patient was certain. True, there
remained the idea that he mistook her for some one else ;
and that some one else, of all women, Giulia da Rimini !
This was hard. It rendered her visits always a trial ;
mixed something revolting therewith, which would not bear
thinking about, and brought back the stern judgment that
she had determined to put aside until he should be restored
to health.
DEAD AS PHARAOH. 77
As she seated herself by the bed, Aylmer looked up,
and said eagerly :
" Thanks, thanks ! What a shame for rue to trouble
you like this !"
lie spoke so rationally that, for an instant, she thought
he knew what he was saying, then recollected how several
times she had allowed herself to be deceived by similar ap-
pearances.
He shut his eyes. His fingers, stretched out across the
counterpane, moved slowly, restlessly, and would not be
still. She knew what she should have to do lay her hand
in his. This little struggle of wills invariably took place
between them invariably she was obliged to yield.
So now, after waiting so long that her conscience re-
proached her as cruel, she laid her cool fingers upon his
palm. His hand closed quickly over hers, a smile hovered
about his lips lingering there even after he had fallen
asleep.
She sat still for perhaps twenty minutes was beginning
to wonder the professor did not return to think she might
rise, trusting to the soundness of the sick man's slumber
not to disturb him wheiuhe opened his eyes again, saying
softly :
" I did not dream it you are here !"
" Yes, I am here," she answered, humoring his mood as
the doctor had bidden her always to do.
" It is too bad you should be troubled ! You were here
when I fell asleep I know ! I can tell the moment you
reach the threshold."
How rational his voice sounded ; weaker, slower too
than usual Could he be conscious what he was saying ?
" You did not think I could tell ? I can always recog-
nize your step, even when I am a little out of my head. It
does wander very often, I know ; but somehow I can't stop
it ! Now it feels steady that is because you are here."
She could not resist the impulse to discover whether,
delirious or not, he recognized her ; or whether, entering
his dreams and fancies, he mistook her for that evil-eyed
Circe, to be mistaken for whom, even by the disordered
imagination of a sick man, appeared a degradation.
" Because you are here," he repeated in a low, contented
lone.
" Do you know who I am ?" she asked.
78 DEAD AS PHARAOH.
" What a question, Miss Cameron !"
She was so astonished that she tried to draw her hand
away.
" Don't !" he said, piteously ; " don't ! My head will
go if you do. And I want to tell you something I
have wanted to so long : it is always so hard to remember !
I try when you are not here I think I shall when you come
back ; then it goes it goes !"
Partially sane he certainly was ; he must be soothed.
This was no time for nonsensical scruples or whims on her
part. She must quiet him ; it was simply a humane neces-
sity, as much as it would be to give him a drink if he com-
plained of thirst.
" You will recollect presently," she said. " See, I am
here I will sit beside you."
" Not know you ? What an odd idea !" he rambled
on ; " why, I did from the very first, bad as my head was.
Though, somehow, that once it did not seem to be you
but that was my head. You just came softly in and laid
the flowers on my pillow. Ha, ha ! the fever, you know
I dreamed you kissed me ! Yet it didn't seem you some-
body trying to deceive me ! Then the doctor carried off
the flowers. I wanted to tell him to let them alone, but I
could not make him understand. Not know you ? It was
only that once I had any doubt only that once !"
So he babbled on, holding her hand fast, recognizing
her, but not able to repress the utterance of any fancy
which crossed his mind ; not sufficiently rational to attempt
to do so.
And Violet sat beside him until he again fell asleep.
He had known her from the first : the flowers he had
believed her gift ! It was not Giulia da Rimini who occu-
pied his thoughts ; her censure had been undeserved. The
woman's coming was not his fault. Nina had vowed over
and over that he disliked the creature ! And and he
had always known her, Violet, even in the height of his
delirium.
Yes, the old professor was right ! The human soul
intellect intelligence call it by whatever name science
pleased held strange, inexplicable mysteries.
He had known her Violet ! She could sit there in
peace ! She had been unjust to him, and she was sorry,
very sorry.
HIS DISCO VEST. 79
CHAPTER VIII.
HIS DISCOVERY.
YLMER'S fever yielded, his strength began to
return, and the doctor pronounced him conva-
lescent. At first he shrank from any effort at
thought ; it caused a confusion in his brain re-
sembling the delirium, which, having as a rule
been only partial, left him conscious his wits were astray,
making him sometimes feel as if an exterior intelligence
had lodged itself in his soul, and was watching his mental
aberrations with cynical amusement.
Miss Cameron's visits ceased with the recovery of his
reason, and Ayhner did not mention her name, afraid of
learning that his impression of her frequent presence was as
unreal as his other delusions. Indeed, for a while, even the
accident seemed a part of those feverish visions. Then
that settled into reality, as did the fact of her safety.
He liked to lie with closed eyes and recall the noiseless
appearance of that beautiful figure when his wanderings be-
came painful the touch of her cool hand, the sound of her
low sweet voice. As he grew able to reflect, he argued
that his fancy was not surprising, since no woman had ever
impressed him so deeply from the moment of their meeting,
and during the entire day and evening which closed so
tragically she had been the prominent subject in his mind.
He had stood at a distance and watched her that after-
noon in the Cascine, would not even ask a question con-
cerning her, prevented by some impulse as strong as he
felt it romantic and boyish. She had started up before him
like a revelation of beauty from some higher sphere, such
as the old Greeks believed occasionally granted to mortals,
and he wanted as long as he could to keep her separate
from ordinary humanity. Though he smiled at his own
folly he obeyed it, and carefully avoided several acquaint-
ances whom he noticed conversing with her, lest he should
be obliged to listen to verbiage which would at once trans-
form his goddess into common clay.
A few hours later she had appeared again to his sight,
80 H18 DISCOVERY.
more lovely than ever. For a little he had been troubled
by something in her manner which seemed to imply a pre-
judice against him, but that fear vanished under the charm
of her conversation. He had driven out to the villa with a
friend, but he desired to escape companionship on his re-
turn. The night was so perfect that he determined to walk
back to Florence. He had seated himself by the roadside,
lost in some vague dream, of which she was the object,
when roused by the tramp of the frightened horses.
His last thought before he sank down, down into the
dark so the catastrophe presented itself to him had been
of her danger ; every faculty of mind and body concen-
trated in a wild effort to save her. So it was natural
enough that her image should have haunted his delirious
hours, and her fancied presence have possessed the power
to calm him, as he recollected had often been the case.
The professor wished his patient still to remain in igno-
rance of his whereabouts, and when the marchesa got able
to go down stairs, cautioned her to wear a bonnet, so that
she might be supposed to have come from her own house.
Carlo also had to be vouchsafed admittance to the sick-
chamber, but the savant, fearful of some indiscretion,
glared and frowned till the poor man could not talk at all,
and behaved so stupidly that ungrateful Aylmer rejoiced
over his departure, whereupon the old tyrant chuckled
hugely.
More days passed. Nina had paid another visit ; Carlo
had been sat upon anew, and at last, though the sweetest-
tempered of mortals, he could not refrain from asserting
himself a little when he and the doctor went up stairs.
" The poor fellow can be removed now," he said ; " so
he might as well hear the truth. It is quite dreadful for us
to make Miss Cameron's house a hotel any longer."
" I don't care !" retorted the savant. " Why did she
smash him under her horses' hoofs? I'll tell him when
I'm ready, not before. Ach, m,ein Gott ! you boy you
marchesino are you to teach the old German ?"
Though Violet joined in the laughter with which Nina
and Carlo received the professor's testiness, she was not
pleased at his refusal to let her offer any sign of gratitude
or sympathy to the patient.
" He must think ine an absolute monster," she said.
HI8 DISCOVERT. 81
" Hasn't spoken of yon," returned the German, in a sat-
isfied tone.
" No wonder ! Probably he does not consider me worth
mentioning a woman who does not even take the trouble
to inquire after him when he received his injury in saving
her ! Come, professor, I will not endure such tyranny any
longer."
" Won't you, indeed !" growled the professor.
"At least take him a message from her," urged Nina.
" Message !" echoed the professor, in high contempt.
" Or a bunch of jessamines," laughed Carlo, and Nina
laughed too with all her heart.
Violet turned and pulled down a blind which let too
much light in upon a stand of flowers. A wave of color
like a reflection of the sunbeams crossed her cheeks, but
luckily nobody noticed it.
" I'll have no risks run," pursued the savant. " I have
studied the fellow as carefully as if he were a bit of fossil
from which I could make out a new animal that would prove
a link between man and his monkey ancestor, instead of
that useless phase of development, a modern young dandy."
" Take that, Carlino mio," parenthesized Nina.
" Just so," said the professor. " No, no ; leave me to
manage matters. I don't suppose the Fraulein really wants
to turn us out."
" Now, professor !"
" It was the marchese's insinuation."
" Aren't you ashamed, Carlo ?" said Violet.
" I am ashamed of him," added Nina.
" You dreadful old scarabeus of a professor !" cried
Carlo. " You bring them down on me in order that you
may escape." At this juncture Eliza Bronson, seated in a
corner to which she had retired on Schmidt's entrance,
heaved an ostentatious sigh. " Pray come to my rescue,
Miss Bronson," continued Carlo.
" Oh, marchese," returned she, with a shiver, " please
do not ask me. Everybody here knows my sentiments !"
" If you come to anything so tender, I, as that wretch's
injured wife, had better leave the room," cried the incorri-
gible Nina.
" Eliza, I shall be obliged to engage you a mentor," said
Violet.
" As soon as my patient is better, I shall feel highly
4*
82 HIS DISCOVERT.
honored if I can be intrusted with that pleasurable duty,"
observed the professor, in an insinuating voice.
" Now, Miss Bronson, do not be silenced by their folly,"
pleaded Carlo. "Speak out ; give me your moral support."
Eliza assumed her governess manner, sitting as erect in
her chair as if it had been a schoolroom official bench.
" I cannot jest upon a subject which appears to my
mind I do not judge for others " she cast a glance of
condemnation at Nina and Violet, which grew positively
withering as it fell upon the professor, who acknowledged
it by a second bow, very grave and serious. " If I speak at
all I can be silent if desired "
" By no means !" cooed the professor, with the amiabil-
ity of a very hoarse dove.
" Then I must speak sincerely," pursued Eliza.
" Sincerity is what I want," said Carlo : " sincerity and
justice."
" I honor your sentiments, marchese," replied Eliza, as
incapable of comprehending a jest as a statue of Minerva
would be. "I have told Miss Cameron I said it at first
I have warned her again and again what would be the result
of that ill-advised step ill-advised at least in my opinion
remember I only speak as a unit of introducing that
stranger gentleman under the roof of two lone ladies "
" Ach Gottf" snorted the professor, unable to control
his delight.
" Yes, and I repeat it now, repeat it with energy !" cried
Eliza, glaring at the disrespectful savant. " Neither gibes
nor sneers shall prevent me, when called upon to testify, from
speaking the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth !" 1
" Sir Samuel Johnson 1" the professor remarked to Nina,
in an audible whisper.
Eliza paused to overwhelm this troubler of her eloquence
with the proofs of his own ignorance.
" The great man whom you mention only bore the title
of Doctor of Arts, nor was he the author of the sentiment
I quoted," said she, with lofty condescension. " But in
your character of German professor both errors are perhaps
excusable, Mr. Schmidt."
" Miss Bronson, I thank you for setting me right, and
promise never to interrupt you again," replied he suavely.
" I have been silent," continued Eliza, " because I per-
ma DISCOVERY. 83
ceived that my opinion was not desired, but now I am
called on, and must declare that my worst fears have been
more than fulfilled. Yes, Violet, you mary smile you,
marchesa, may encourage her thoughtless levity but I, her
real friend, the guide of her youth, I shudder at the reports
which are current."
" Miss Bronson, your verdict overwhelms me," cried the
professor.
" Sir," said she, " I should be glad if I could think you
spoke seriously, with the gravity becoming so renowned a
man."
" How neatly she mingles condemnation and compli-
ment !" cried the unabashed professor, lifting both hands
in sign of admiration.
" Wherever approval is possible, be it much or little, I
hope I always accord it," said Eliza. " I trust that at least
I am a just woman "
" Then you are a phenomenon indeed !" cut in he.
" Why, even your pet St. Paul "
Eliza interrupted him by rising. She swept to the
door, paused, and addressed the company generally, rolling
up her eyes as if to include the cherubs on the ceiling in
her explanation.
" I must excuse myself," she said, in a voice at once
tremulous and. dignified. " I have learned to endure a
great deal, but not sneers upon sacred subjects and charac-
ters not that ! no, no !"
" St. Paul declared that women "
But Eliza was gone. The professor laughed till his
eyes were full of tears, and the others laughed too, even
while reproaching him for his unmerciful teasing of the
poor spinster.
" It does her good," he declared, " puts new life in her,
and she enjoys it. The worthy Miss Bronson belongs to
the type of women who is happiest when most miserable."
The truth was that, independent of his professional
solicitude, the doctor had motives for wanting to defer
explanations as long as possible. He disliked the idea of
the separation which must ensue, the going back to his
bachelor abode, and the isolation he had always declared
necessary to a student.
The society of those gay young people had come to the
professor like a breath of fresh air, a season of repose iij
84 HIS DISCO VERT.
some summer garden among sunshine and flowers, and he
hated to relinquish it, though he spluttered dreadful
sounding German imprecations over his own folly, and
added many opprobrious epithets not in keeping with the
learned titles he had a right to claim.
Occasionally he caught himself wondering whether
there might not be a strange happiness for a man who,
instead of consecrating his life to science, lived the exist-
ence of common mortals, loved, married, and possessed
children to brighten his age beautiful, clever, appreciative
daughters like the marchesa and Fraulein Violet a son
gifted and full of glorious promise as this Laurence.
But, in spite of the professor's care, the disclosure
which he desired still further to avert, came the very day
after Eliza Bronson had gratified the party by an exposi-
tion of her views as to the present state of affairs in Miss
Cameron's household.
The savant had left Antonio to assist the patient to
bathe and dress ; that operation concluded, the invalid
must rest for half an hour sleep if he could then take
some soup, and later be allowed to sit up awhile. Each de-
tail in the day's programme had been carefully expounded,
and both Aylmer and Antonio knew that no shadow of in-
fringement upon his commands would be permitted by the
professor, any more than if he were an Eastern satrap.
His toilet completed Aylmer lay down again ; Antonio
seated himself near the bed, and before very long his
charge appeared to have sunk into slumber. As Antonio
was congratulating himself on the fact, he suddenly remem-
bered that he had forgotten to give the porter a message,
and as any forgetfulness of duty constituted a crime in the
faithful creature's code, he felt suitably guilty.
The nurse was in the adjoining salon he would beg
her to repair his error. So he stole to the door with elab-
orate caution, and succeeded in atti'acting the sister's
attention from her book of " Hours."
" I must not go out," he whispered, as she approached ;
" the professor bade me not. Would you be so good, ma
soeur, as to tell Giovanni that Miss Cameron "
" I can't hear," interrupted the sister, in a mournful
voice, like a wind across a burial-ground.
" Tell the porter that my mistress that Miss Cameron
says "
HIS DISCOVERY. 85
These words reached Aylmer's ear. He was not asleep,
only lying quiet, recalling those hours of delirium bright-
ened by the fancied companionship of that beautiful
woman ; just tired enough after his recent exertions to
enjoy the sort of waking dream wherein her image floated
up from the misty depths of the past days' mental wander-
ings, only all the while conscious of a vague regret that
there had been no reality in them.
And straight across his reverie Antonio flung her name ;
he heard it distinctly, cautiously as the man spoke.
" My mistress Miss Cameron !"
Aylmer half raised himself on his pillow, listened
eagerly, but not another syllable could he catch. He sank
back again, and when Antonio reached the bed, his face
was turned towards the wail : apparently he still slept.
There he lay thinking thinking. He did not wish to
ask a question yet ; only to lie in luxurious invalid ease, and
dwell upon the new reflection which warmed his very soul.
That recollection so strongly impressed upon his mind
was no part of his delusions ! She had been there again
and again appearing in her loveliness to quiet him when
that fear of some inexplicable danger which she ran, ren-
dered his fancies insupportable pain. She had sat by his bed ;
it was no trick of imagination that he could still feel the
touch of her hand on his hear the sound of her voice
which, even while he thought his conviction of having
heard it a cheat, thrilled his heart like a strain of music.
It was all real ! She had cared she had come to him !
They had, as he remembered telling her over and over, grown
friends. He could recall other avowals he had made of hav-
ing known and loved her in some existence anterior to this ;
where, where ? No matter ! He had found her again, and
they should never part anymore never! She had promised!
And he had actually uttered these declarations to her
not to a creature of his imagination assuming her likeness,
but to her ! He exulted to think those interviews had been
no fantasy ! Then he recalled the visit when he had spoken
to her about the flowers, and they really had lain upon his
pillow, and her hand had placed them there ! And think-
ing these things, at length he fell asleep. When he woke,
Antonio had disappeared, and the professor stood at the
foot of the bed regarding him with an affectionately fero-
cious glance.
86 HIS DISCOVERT.
" Upon my word, young man, you will soon equal the
exploits of the Seven Sleepers," said he. " I told you to
rest twenty minutes or so, and you have slept like a rock
for more than an hour, and your soup has twice been sent
back to keep hot."
Aylmer laughed in a joyous fashion. The thought which
had gone with him into slumber was uppermost in his mind
when he woke.
" Odd," quoth the professor, " that only men and
hyenas share the capacity for laughter. Ah, I forgot,
the animal called the Australian jackass. But the folly is
perhaps excusable in a fellow so weak bodily and mentally
as you."
" I feel strong as a second Hercules ! I am well you
have cured me, old Esculapius do you hear ? And I want
my soup ; if it doesn't come instantly, I'll eat the sister !"
" What an overdose of religion you would get," said
the professor, eyeing him narrowly. " Yes, you are quite
yourself again ! I forgive your sleeping longer than I
ordered, since it has done you so much good. And here
comes the soup, and By the hammer of Thor, did
I bid you bring chicken, too, you silly she prayer-monger?"
cried the professor, scowling at the sister, but, luckily for
her peace of mind, uttering the epithets which closed his
sentence in German. She had grown accustomed to his
ferocity, and enjoyed his grim humor in her demure
fashion, though his jokes often caused her to say many
extra aves (and she said enough at any time), because
afraid such hearty laughter might be a sin.
" Yes, you did, and I mean to eat it to the last scrap,"
said Aylmer.
He fortified himself with his repast before he took any
further notice of the professor, who studied him attentively
while pretending to read a newspaper.
" That hour's sleep would not account for the change,"
thought the savant. " Some mental shock a pleasant one
has happened to him. A shock ! How ? who would
dare give my patient a shock without permission, I should
like to know !"
He scowled towards each corner of the room in turn at
an imaginary offender, finally concentrating his gaze on
the marble nymph, and so formidable was he of aspect,
that had the figure been Galatea newly awakened to life,
HIS DISCOVERT. 87
she certainly would have speedily petrified under his awful
stare.
"Professor !" said Aylraer, abruptly.
" It is coming !" meditated the savant. " Whatever it
may be, it is coming ! After all, better than for him to be
brooding over fancies."
Though the learned man did not know it, this reflection
was an excuse he offered his conscience for the curiosity he
felt to learn the cause of the convalescent's high spirits,
and as curiosity is a weakness unworthy a philosopher, he
gave it another name in order to avoid self-contempt.
" Professor !" repeated Aylmer, with the impatience
always considered allowable in a person just turning into
the highroad of recovery after a dangerous illness.
" Eh ? did you speak ?" asked the wise man, deceitfully
pretending to rouse himself with difficulty from some inter-
esting paragraph, and holding the journal partially before
his face.
" Please to lay down that newspaper for a moment,"
said Aylmer.
" What, what !" growled the professor. " He begins to
order his doctor about. The school-boy rises against his
master, the pot questions the potter ! Come, come, none
of that, you rebel, else I'll find a dose that will make you
as obedient as you were two days since."
Aylmer laughed again. There was such a ring of re-
turning health and strength in the merriment that it sounded
like music to the professor's ears.
" Whose bouse did you tell me this was ?" demanded
Aylmer.
" So !" said the savant, mentally. " I thought that
was it !"
" Can't you answer ? whose house ?" persisted the
patient.
" Did I say ?" returned the professor, in a questioning
tone, as if trying to call to mind any such information on
his part.
" Yes, you did," retorted Aylmer ; " you know you did.
You said it was yours."
" Oh, very well ; if I told you, there is no necessity of
interrupting my reading in order to ask again," said the
professor, coolly. " Here is a very interesting resume of
88 HIS DISCOVERT.
a speech by Gladstone ; if you like I'll read it to you, as a
reward for being so well to-day."
" I don't care a fig about Gladstone's speech it is youra
I am thinking of," answered Ayltuer, gayly. " You did say
this house was yours !"
"You have already made that assertion ; you have made
a great many other foolish ones during the last weeks. I
hope you are not losing your head again not much of a
head, to be sure, but, as it is the best you've got, it would
be wiser to stick to it," said the professor.
" Come now, leave prevarication to your pet Bismarck
and his fellow-diplomatists. You said this was your
house."
" What a persistent devil ! Very well, for the sake of
peace, admit that I did ; what then ?"
" Why, it is not."
"Then we have come to the end of the matter, and I
can read my newspaper," replied the professor.
Aylmer snatched the journal with boyish playfulness.
"You can't escape that way," said he. "You said it
was your house, and it isn't, and so "
" I told a lie, that's all," interrupted the professor, com-
placently.
" Of course you did : what for ?" questioned Aylmer.
" To keep you from fretting and worrying and making
an idiot of yourself, you ungrateful development of a pro-
toplasm," cried the professor, laughing too.
"Then it is Miss Cameron's house ! She did come to
see me I did not dream it !" exclaimed Aylmer, excitedly.
" And if you are going to lash yourself into fresh fever
I'll go away !" thundered the professor.
" No, no don't, don't ! Tell me all about it, like a
good-natured old fellow as you are."
" I'll not be called good-natured ; that is one insult too
many," cried the professor.
" What a dolt I was to let myself be convinced that her
coming was a dream," Aylraer continued half aloud, with a
sudden color in his face, a sudden brightness in his eyes,
which caused the doctor to make a hasty clutch at his wrist
to ascertain what story the pulse was telling.
" If you excite yourself I'll shave your head at once !
I've had worry enough over you, "said he.
" I've no more fever than you," retorted Aylrner. Then
HIS DISCOVERT. 89
he laid his hand on the professor's and added coaxingly :
" Ah, now tell me all about it. See, I am perfectly quiet,
and I want to hear."
" Well, well," grumbled the professor, charmed with the
spirit in which his patient received this discovery. "The all
is easily told. After the horses tumbled you over you were
put into the carriage, and she Miss Cameron brought you
into Florence and drove to my house. We didn't know
where you lived ; my place was upset. We couldn't ex-
actly consign you to a hospital, so she brought you here.
That's the whole."
" I did not dream it," Aylmer was thinking. " She has
been here often, talked to me, held my hand, sat in that
very chair." He glanced towards the fauteuil in which the
professor was established, and exclaimed imperiously :
" Get up out of that chair ; take another !"
" There, he is mad again ; I was sure of it," snarled the
professor.
" I will be, unless you do exactly as I say. It's my turn
to give orders now," said Aylmer, laughing, but tugging at
the savant's hand with such force as he could muster.
" Come, I'll take this one," said the professor, rising.
"Now tell me why, you rebel."
"Oh, I couldn't see you so well "
" That's not a prevarication that's a falsehood !" broke
in the savant.
" You perceive what your example has done," said Ayl-
mer. " It was just a sudden whim that made me wish you
to get up. I may have whims a sick man's privilege."
"Well, well," returned the professor, "you may do
pretty much what you like. I am content with you for
taking the news as you do. You can understand why I let
you think yourself in my house. You would have worried
over being a trouble, perhaps have insisted on being re-
moved, and that well, that would have made a pretty ket-
tle of fish," concluded the professor, inelegantly but for-
cibly.
Aylmer was dreaming again. That voice rang in his
ear the touch of those slender fingers thrilled his pulses
anew. He roused himself, becoming suddenly aware of
the professor's last speech in the odd way in which, when
occupied with some engrossing thought, one does recall
90 HER COMING.
words that one was not aware of hearing when they were
uttered.
" All the same, it is shocking to think what a bore I
have been," he said, but there was slight compunction in his
tone. " I can be removed, and I must be ;" and now his
accent sounded regretful enough.
" Nothing can be arranged to-day. You have done
enough, and too much," replied the professor. " Lie down
like a sensible fellow, else you will not be fit to stir for
another week. So, so ! be a good boy, and listen to Glad-
stone's eloquence."
Aylmer consented with praiseworthy obedience, glad to
have another half-hour with his pleasant fancies. The
reading would not disturb their course, and the professor
was as well aware of this fact as the patient.
"Yes, read to me," Aylmer added absently, as he lay
back among his pillows.
The doctor took up the newspaper again, and readjusted
his glasses, then dropped both, struck by a new thought.
" Sapperment !" he exclaimed ; " how did you find out ?
Who told you who dared, after my express orders ?"
" Never mind how I know it. Nobody told me. I
evolved it out of my inner consciousness, as if I had been
a German professor," said Aylmer.
They both laughed ; then the savant began the speech,
and Aylmer lay quiet, and for a whole hour there was no
sound in the room save the reader's slow, deep tones.
" But he has not heard a syllable," thought that gentle-
man, glancing up as he turned a page. " No matter, it
keeps him quiet ; that is the important thing just now."
CHAPTER IX.
HER COMING.
HE afternoon passed evening was drawing on.
Before the professor set out for a walk he
looked into Aylmer's room. He found his
patient sitting up, but not in the easy-chair
from which he had obliged the doctor to rise
he had refused that bidding the sister place it opposite
HER COMING. 01
him. She obeyed his direction, too much accustomed to
sick people's vagaries to give his whim a thought, any more
than she had done his sudden fussiness over the arrange-
ment of his hair and the difficulty he made about his attire,
insisting that he would not wear a dressing-gown, and giv-
ing her no peace until she found among his wardrobe a
certain loose breakfast-coat, which proved a very pictur-
esque and becoming garment, with its wide sleeves and the
tracery of dark blue that relieved its gray tint.
" I'm all right," Aylmer replied to the professor's ques-
tions. " But it begins to be confoundedly lonesome staying
cooped up here by myself."
" So !" thought the savant ; then added aloud : " I mean
to bring you a visitor but mind, if I find you excited and
feverish when I get back, you'll not see a human face again,
except that salad-in-a-cellar looking sister, for another
week."
" I'll be as good as gold if only I'm not left alone," re-
turned Aylmer ; " but let me go into the salon. I want a
change."
The professor assisted him into the next room, coaxed
him to half lie down on a sofa and promise not to stir ;
then he went away without having vouchsafed any infor-
mation in regard to the visitor, nor had Aylmer so much as
asked.
It was sunset ; through a great arched window swept a
soft glow from the western sky. He could look over a
stretch of green lawn, across a group of oleanders, down a
broad alley, which led away into the recesses of the garden
one of the largest and finest in Florence.
In the distance, walking slowing up the path, he saw a
woman's figure a figure which he recognized. (Remem-
ber, he was just escaping from the dominion of that Giant
Despair called illness, so wild thoughts and irrational
fancies were excusable !) It was not the Miss Cameron
whom the world knew the lady he had only seen on four
occasons while able to recognize her as a real presence. It
was the beautiful vision that had so many times appeared
at his eager summons when in his hours of delirium she
alone could keep his soul from drifting down the blacker
gulf which loomed beyond. The vision he had addressed
so freely the incarnation of the spirit he had known in
some lost world where their union possessed such complete-
92 , HER COMING.
ness that their two lives formed a perfect whole one, yet
dual, and this duality had made the bliss of living, and
But he recognized the absurdity of his reflections, and
almost thought himself insane again. He sat upright and
looked eagerly out at the approaching form, trying to sub-
due those vagaries of imagination by the force of his will.
Involuntarily he uttered her name, then began to won-
der how he knew she was called Violet ; but he had no leis-
ure to recollect, for unawares he spoke aloud and roused
the sister seated in the adjoining salon. She supposed he
had summoned her, and, dropping her half-counted rosary,
appeared in the doorway.
" Does the signore want something ?" she said.
And he, impatient, afraid to turn his eyes from the case-
ment lest the figure beneath the oleanders should fade, and
so prove to him that he was the victim of fresh delusions,
only waved her back with a gesture at once imperious and
supplicating. The good sister, trained by long experience
in sick-rooms till her commonplace mind had reached a
knowledge of what it was best to do under any and every
circumstance, quietly returned to her chair, and fell to
counting her beads again.
And still, through the window-pane and the oleander
boughs, Aylmer watched with his soul in his eyes, and to
convince himself of his own sanity, tried to separate Miss
Cameron the actual from the visionary creature of his
feverish dreams tried, but could not.
He positively studied each detail of her dress in his
effort to be rational. She must have just come in from a
drive ; her long green silken petticoat swept over the
ground in heavy folds ; above it was looped a tunic of
some thick dead white material, bordered by the brilliant
plumage of tropical birds ; beneath her cavalier's hat with
its drooping feather, he could see the bands and falling
masses of her auburn hair which the sunlight turned to
gold.
She stopped to examine a flowering shrub lifted her
arm to pull a branch within reach. The rays fell full upon
her face sent a wave of light into the great eyes flitted
over the melancholy mouth as if seeking to win a smile.
It was she the woman the world knew Violet Cam-
eron ; all the same, it was the vision of the past days his
friend his queen his soul of soul !
HER COMING. 93
Then he heard a voice call abruptly, and came back to
reality with a shock. A pane of the window stood open ;
he could not see the sage, but there was no mistaking those
tones.
" Fraulein," they said, " I have been hunting for you !
My adored Miss Bronson told me that you had come in
from your drive. Why do you hide in the garden like a
Dryad when I want you ?"
She did not answer ; waved her hand to the unseen
speaker and disappeared.
With a sigh arid a sensation of terrible impatience
which rendered each second interminable, Aylmer leaned
his head back against the sofa cushions and waited.
He would not look out the garden appeared suddenly
to have grown dark ; its depths, thick with shadows, re-
minded him of the blackness into which sometimes in his
fever he had been forced to gaze. He waited, that burn-
ing impatience growing stronger. During his illness the
vision had always appeared at such moments : would Miss
Cameron come now and thereby prove her identity with
it ? Or was this present instant only part and parcel of
the former fancies nothing real even the discovery of the
morning delusion also ?
So far he reached in his questionings, then his strained
senses caught the opening and closing of a door ; caught
the rustle of female garments nearer coming nearer.
Where he sat he could not see into the rooms beyond,
but the sweep of those silken robes, soft as the plash of
water in a crystal basin, thrilled him till the ecstasy became
pain, because it roused anew the fear that everything
face glorious eyes slow gliding step musical rustle
was a fantasy. Then he heard her voice ah, it was all
real her voice !
She was speaking to the sister, making some kind in-
quiry, then he heard nothing more. His pulses surged up
in such united, tumultuous beat that he grew deaf and
blind.
After this dizzy pause came her tones again, close at
hand, addressing him, bringing him back to reality, but a
reality which was a higher heaven even than his dreams.
" The professor bade me come and sit with you. No-
body ever ventures to disobey the professor, so you cannot
send me away."
94 HER COMING.
The whirling mists cleared from before his eyes, and he
saw her standing on the threshold. Through the arched
window floated a broad ray of red-golden light, and illumi-
nated face and figure as she stood. In his excitement he
forgot the courteous phrases he was trying to frame
could only stretch out his hands in eager welcome, crying,
uncertain whether he addressed the creation of his fancies
or the living woman :
" I thought you would never come again ! I thought
you would never come !"
And Violet, mistress of herself as she supposed, was
forced, in order to convince something in her soul of this
supremacy, to inform reason that the strange thrill which
shook her rose out of a fear that the professor had erred in
thinking his patient wholly recovered from fever.
"So I must humor him," she thought, moved towards
the sofa, let him take her hand, and said aloud :
" I am glad to see you so well. But you are not to tire
yourself. The professor will never forgive me if he finds
that a visitor has excited you."
" It is such a rest such a rest !" Aylmer murmured, for
a few instants unable to lift his dizzy head from the cush-
ions, unable to check or regulate his utterance ; holding her
hand fast ; his eyes, unnaturally large from illness, fixed
yearningly upon her face. "It is not a dream say that it
is not a dream !"
With an effort Violet roused herself to the requirements
of her role as visitor to an invalid, accredited by the physi-
cian with sufficient sense to render her coming a benefit, not
a harm.
She drew her hands away gently, though obliged to
employ a certain force to release them, and sat down in an
arm-chair by his sofa, saying, with a playfulness which was
a greater effort still :
" The professor does not permit his patients to have
fancies when they are able to sit up and receive guests. So
take care, for one never knows when he may be hovering
about. Any way, I see his great meerschaum pipe with the
ogre's head lying on the table ; I am certain it is listening,
and will repeat every word. How wicked it looks, to be
sure ! I always tell him it is his familiar."
Aylmer recovered self-control to recollect that he risked
making this interview the last if he did not manage to get
HER COMING. 95
back reason enough to separate dreams and reality, and
behave like an ordinary convalescent receiving an ordinary
visit.
" I am afraid be bas smoked the rooms out of all possi-
bility of ever being habitable Miss Cameron."
The little pause before pronouncing her name was
caused by the effort required to repress a word which
would have utterly ruined the success of his speech in
proving his sanity he had come so near saying Violet.
" Oh, no," she replied ; "I shall like the trace of his pres-
ence. I have a great weakness for the good, gruff old
doctor."
The fright which his hardly repressed blunder occa-
sioned Aylmer helped him on to a tolerable pretense of
composure.
" Good to me indeed !" he said. " How am I ever to
thank him or you, Miss Cameron ?"
" I should think, where I am concerned, forgiveness
would be the difficulty, since but for me you would not
have met with your accident, would not "
She left her sentence unfinished.
" I am so thankful I was there," he half whispered.
Again his hand stretched out to take hers ; then he re-
membered that such privilege was at an end ; and she,
noting his gesture, had to recollect that obedience to his
caprices was no longer a necessity, so natural would it have
seemed to let her fingers drop into his.
" We must not talk of all that yet," she said, as he hur-
riedly drew back his arm. " Some time thanks will be
mine to offer, if I can find words."
"No, no "
" The ogre is listening ; his grim eyes plainly say, ' No
exciting subjects,' " she interrupted, laughingly. " I am
very, very glad to find you doing so well, Mr. Aylmer.
You have had a weary bout, but thank heaven it is over."
" Yes, I am quite sound again. I shall be able to re-
move and let your house end its term of serving as hospi-
tal," he answered, conscious that his words were fairly un-
gracious, yet unable to check them. He felt hurt by her
determination to keep the conversation on an ordinary foot-
ing, even though he had just been mentally admitting the
necessity.
" The professor will settle all that," she answered. "He
96 HER COMING.
will permit no interference, especially from his patient.
As for me, I am sure I do not need to tell you how glad I
have been that I could be of the slightest use in any
fashion."
" In more ways than one you have shown that kind-
ness," he said, a fresh eagerness quickening his voice. " I
can remember everything begins to come back quite clearly
how good you were to sit with me when I had driven the
professor to the end of his resources and his patience."
He remembered ? Surely only the fact which he had
just stated nothing beyond the certainty that she used to
sit with him and possessed an ability to soothe his pain.
He did not recollect his delirious utterances, when to quiet
him she talked as great nonsense as he humored his fancy
about the lost world where they had known each other
allowed him to kiss her hands ! Oh, assuredly he did not
remember those things. To think he did would render their
future intercourse difficult, for they had yet to become ac-
quainted. This was the strangest part of the matter, as
strange to Violet as to him.
" You had a visit from the marchese this morning,"
she said abruptly, just for the sake of breaking the
silence.
" Oh yes, he is very good-natured," Aylmer answei-ed
wearily. " But men, though they are well enough when
one is strong, are so out of place in a sick-room. Carlo
fell over a footstool and upset a glass of water on the bed.
He meant it all for the best ; but it is trying, you know."
" Very, no doubt," Violet said, laughing. " However,
those trifles will soon cease to annoy you ; you are recover-
ing so fast that before long it will be your turn to upset
furniture and spill goblets of water over sick people."
" Oh, no doubt, though the professor says I must take
great care," said Aylmer, with a sudden wicked repulsion
against this rapid recovery, which would involve being
cast out of Paradise.
No doubt it was delightful to have health, but really
illness had its compensations. So great did they appear
at this instant that Aylmer would have resigned himself if
the professor had entered and pronounced that his patient
must not stir from his sofa or change his companion for at
least a month.
Somehow Violet perfectly comprehended what gave
HER COMING. 97
rise to the petulant, even undignified answer, since one is
always ready to smile at a man's willingness to be careful
of his health. She was. gratified by his dislike to go away,
though she hastened to tell herself that this was natural
and right on her part. He had saved her life ; she ought
to feel an interest in him, to like him, to wish to be
pleasant in his eyes.
Then, after a pause, so filled with thought to both that
neither knew how long it lasted, Aylmer added :
" But all the same, Miss Cameron, I don't propose to
keep indefinite possession of a whole floor of your house.
It is quite shocking, and I ought well, I ought to be
much more ashamed than I am."
" Ah, I forgive you the rest, for the sake of the end of
your sentence," returned Violet. " Nothing considering
the manner in which you received your injury could pain
me more than for you to suppose that your presence under
my roof was any gene"
" Thanks. Yes, somehow I do know," cried he. " You
see please don't be vexed I forget that you can't feel
as if you were acquainted with me. I seem to know you
so well ! I mean, I got so used to seeing to expecting
you when I was ill."
Here he broke down ; Violet sat with bowed head, and
did not offer to help him.
"I say it all very badly. I am afraid it sounds dread-
fully impertinent," he continued, despairingly trying to
make amends if he had said anything wrong, yet conscious
that if she chose to be offended, each word led him deeper
into the slough ; " but I have to try and say it the best I
can in my clumsy way ! You don't mind, do you ? And
you have been so good to me that I can't seem just like a
stranger they say people never do to whom one has been
kind ! I am sure I only confuse things worse each word I
speak ; but you do understand ?"
And Violet, ashamed of the sudden fit of shyness which
had kept her silent under the eager glances that pointed
his speech, looked up and smiled, holding out her hand as
she did so.
" I understand that we are very good friends and mean
to remain so," she answered.
"Ah !" was his only response, but the tone held such
a ring of contentment that it spoke volumes.
5
98 HER COMING.
He did not seem inclined to let her hand go now he had
possession of it, but she drew it away presently, and began
to talk of other things than those which had immediate
connection with themselves.
The room had tilled with the shadows of twilight
neither knew. Violet was brought back to a sense of the
length of her visit by noticing that the sister had lighted a
lamp.
" I shall be late for dinner," she said, rising ; "as I
have guests, it will not do to keep them waiting. I hope
before long you will be able to join us, Mr. Aylmer."
"Yes, I hope so!" Then, very dolefully, "Must you
go ? Oh, I beg your pardon ! It was so kind of you to
come."
" How is he, that newly-come-back-to-life atom ?" called
a voice from the door, and the professor entered.
" Much better, I am sure," Violet said.
" Yes ; Miss Cameron's visit has done me more good
than all your drugs," said Aylmer.
"As if I gave drugs ! Well, never mind. Yes better :
pulse good. Come, come, it is all right ! Miss Cameron
must promise to visit you to-morrow."
"Mr. Aylmer wishes to run away at once," she said.
" I forbid it !" cried the doctor. " He must not make
any change for some days yet. I'll not have him upset the
good effects of my care by any nonsensical scruples."
Aylmer would have liked to hug the old man.
" You are quite right," said Violet ; " it would be very
ungrateful."
" I really am in earnest," the professor continued ; " a
change from one house to another is a serious matter. Do
what we might, it would be like a new climate."
" You hear ?" said Violet, once more offering her hand
to the invalid. " Try not to regret your imprisonment too
much ; we will lighten it all we can."
She went out of the room, leaving the faint perfume
which hung about her dress to soothe him by its fragrance,
and he, without remonstrance, yielded to the professor's
order that he was to go to bed ; and, once there, slept
soundly and well.
MI-CAREME. 99
CHAPTER X.
MI-CARlhlE.
OWARDS the close of Aylmer's imprisonment he
was able, with the help of Antonio's arm, to get
up stairs several times.
On his first visit, to the intense amusement
of the observers, he achieved a wonderful ex-
ploit thoroughly charmed Miss Bronson. From that hour
she forgot all fear for her own and Violet's reputation.
Whenever Aylmer remembered to enter some feeble pro-
test against remaining any longer a nuisance, Eliza proved
the most urgent in her warnings that he must have patience
and commit no imprudence, and waxed pathetic over his
using a word which might imply that he thought his friends
capable of wearying in the pursuance of what was at once
a duty and pleasure the careful guarding of his conva-
lescence.
She fretted him a good deal by rushing about in his
wake with footstools, unexpectedly burying him under rugs
or shawls to avert insidious draughts, uttering doleful little
squeaks when he rose suddenly, convinced that he was
about to fall, and selecting her stateliest phrases to reprove
the others for their lack of attention. Once the professor
declared that in his opinion his late patient was a lazy
young dog who pretended weakness in order to excite sym-
pathy. Eliza, as usual, accepted the jest as a serious accu-
sation, turned sharply on the old German and informed him
that it was sufficient for a man to be an atheist to add
hard-hearted ness to this sin rendered him a monster.
But Aylmer bore her well-intended persecutions with
outward patience, and would not allow Nina and the savant
to tease her nearly so much as they wished ; her very pecu-
liarities had a sacredness in his eyes, because she was inti-
mately connected with Miss Cameron.
So the little party, containing such apparently incon-
gruous elements, passed many pleasant houi-s. It grew the
habit for them all to spend a great deal of time in Aylmer's
salon. Carlo sacrificed the attractions of cercle and cards
100 MI-CAREME.
in an astounding fashion, and Eliza accused the marchesa
and Violet of downright cruelty if they ventured to inter-
fere with the convalescent's claims by going out to drive
or accepting any invitation for the evening.
But these enjoyable days came to an end. Aylmer grew
so well that he needed more exercise than occasional walks
in the garden afforded, and of course when he could leave
the palace inclosures, there was no excuse for his returning
in the character of resident.
The professor decided that a breath of sea-air would
prove beneficial, so one morning he carried Laurence off to
Spezia. Carlo and Nina went back to the villa, and the
two " lone ladies " were free to resume the propriety so
precious to Eliza. To Violet's great diversion, before the
day was over that return caused the spinster a slight sensa-
tion of boredom, and she positively snubbed the most potent
of all the American colonists who chanced to pay her a
visit, and, learning that Mr. Aylmer had been able to quit
the house, ventured upon some congratulatory remark.
"You were quite savage with that stately dame," Violet
said, when the guest had departed.
"My dear," replied Eliza, "I trust I shall never fail in
my duty towards you, nor can I submit personally to glar-
ingly gross injustice. To hint that it must be a relief to
have Mr. Aylmer gone was to imply that we were too selfish
to entertain sympathy for illness and suffering."
Violet good-naturedly refrained from reminding her
what her own opinions had been until recently, as the accu-
sation of inconsistency would have cruelly hurt the over-
sensitive Eliza, who believed herself entirely free from that
weakness so common to humanity.
The next morning letters came from Mrs. Danvers and
her step-daughter.
" The poor lady has been ill," Violet explained. " Mary
has nursed her. Mr. Danvers's death seems to have brought
them closer together that is a comfort."
"And when does the daughter sail ?"
" There is no time set ; she cannot leave her step-mother
yet. Who knows ? perhaps they would rather keep to-
gether. I shall write to-day and make that possible, if
they prefer it."
Violet was conscious of wishing that they might ; she
bad an odd shrinking from George Danvers's daughter.
MI-CAREHE. 101
Then she reproached herself therefor, and wrote kindly and
heartily.
Ten days went by days during which a strange rest-
lessness asserted its supremacy over Violet's will, changing
its form at pleasure with Protean facility ; now assuming
the guise of despondency, anon of elation, and vexing her
always by its lack of foundation in reason or common-
sense.
At length she received a note from Nina, begging her
to spend a few days at the villa.
" I have taken cold, and am feverish and miserable,"
the little lady wrote. " Those dreadful workmen have not
yet left the house in town, so I am forced to remain here.
Carlo is good as gold though I do not care to put him
forth as transferable currency but I am sure he is terribly
bored. So do come, like an angel or like yourself, which
will be better. I am afraid to ask dear Miss Bronson to
accompany you, because, in order to keep Carlo at home, I
encourage waifs from the gaming set every evening, and
the house resembles a small Monaco ; but if she can sup-
port the wickedness, I shall be charmed to see her."
Of course Violet would go. Nina's society was always
a pleasure, and a change of any sort acceptable just now.
She gave Miss Bronson the invitation, but that wise virgin
shook her head in disapproval.
" I have my soul to think of," she said ; " and I must
think of yours, since you are so heedless ! No, Violet, I
cannot countenance gambling. I do not wish to be severe
on the marchesa ; I pity her for the ctrait to which she is
driven, but I blame her too. Ye shall not put a cushion
under sin nay, not even to bolster up a weak husband !"
added Eliza, in a terrible voice.
It was evident she fancied herself uttering a quotation
from some Calvinistic divine whose authority stood next
that of the Bible, and Violet felt the mistake very natural,
since the phrase sounded so like the eloquent denunciations
of those stern judges.
She reached the villa towards dusk. As the carriage
drove up Nina came flying out into the portico, followed
by a pack of dogs, big and little, which barked so furiously
that for a few seconds not a word of their mistress's salu-
tation was audible.
"I can only hear the greetings of your abominally
102 MI-CAREME.
spoiled pets, but I suppose, from the expression of your
face, I may conclude you are glad to see me," Violet said,
when the noise died away a little.
" Indeed I am 1 You were so late I began to fear you
would not come till to-morrow. Don't abuse the dogs ;
they are only showing their delight at your arrival. Trot
is not here ; she is the happy mother of five such pretty
puppies. I'll give you a choice among them. You must
go and visit her, else her feelings will be hurt."
" I congratulate Trot on her increase of family, and I
cannot say I miss her voice," said Violet. " And how are
you ? Really not well, or was that only a pretext to
frighten me into obeying your whim ?"
" A happy mingling of truth and falsehood, my dear, as
a woman's assertions ought to be," replied the marchesa.
"I have had neuralgia, and I meant to be ill if you refused.
But come in ! We have some people to dine Carlo
invited them," she continued, as she led her friend into the
stately old entrance-hall ; " you'll not mind, however, as
they are all men."
" How often must I tell you not to disgrace yourself by
repeating such cant phrases !" cried Violet. " I like femi-
nine society, and so do you ; the fashion women have of
declaring it a bore is disgusting ! I hate their novels for
that very reason. They seem to think they show the supe-
riority of their heroines by making them detest every
other woman moan over the English after-dinner hour
say and do everything to afford men a right to despise tjhe
sex from its own confessions."
" I stand convicted you are right. I'll never hint
such a thing again, even if I think it ; at least, not to
you," returned Nina. " Ah, here is a listener who I am
certain approves every word you have uttered with such
overwhelming energy."
The hall widened in the center to a vast room where
couches and chairs were placed, statues lived in the niches,
and pictures decorated the walls a favorite haunt of the
household. They had reached the arch as Nina spoke.
Violet look up ; the broad space was lighted by several
concealed lamps ; in the soft mysterious radiance she saw
Laurence Aylmer standing at the foot of the marble stair-
case which he had just descended. He came quickly for-
ward, face and eyes aglow with pleasure.
MI-CAREME. 103
'I am so very glad to see you !" he exclaimed. "I
went to your house as soon as I reached town, but you
were out Miss Bronson out too ! I was quite in despair,
since I could not call twice in the same day. Luckily I
met Magnoletti, and he invited me to come home with
him, promising me the pleasure of finding you here."
" Makes no account whatever of his hostess," cried
Nina. " Oh, wretched young man ! I would never for-
give you, only you have come back looking so well
that one must pardon you anything is it not so, Violet?"
" He certainly seems quite recovered," Violet an-
swered, giving him her hand and a cordial smile.
He had appeared so unexpectedly that she felt startled
of course, only on that account she had leisure to
assure herself of this even while she went on to express
her gratification at the evident benefit he had derived
from the sea-air.
" Did you hear her diatribe ?" Nina presently de-
manded.
" Yes, and agreed thoroughly with it," he said. " I
never could comprehend that lack of esprit de corps
whicli women show. If they hold each other cheap, they
cannot blame men for holding them all so."
" That is unbearable ! I am obliged to endure Miss
Cameron's abuse, but I will not yours. Where are Carlo
and those familiars of his?"
" They went into the billiard room."
" Could not exactly venture to sit down to baccarat
before dinner, so must console themselves with a milder
sort of gaming ; and without even waiting to pay me their
respects ! Upon my word, I believe Gherardi and Pisano
take this house for an hotel, and the rest are as bad."
" You were not here to receive them : the marchese
made your excuses said you were probably dressing, and
proposed the billiard-room by way of consolation for your
absence," Aylmer replied.
" Of course you will defend them ! I notice men
always stand by each other in an odious fashion."
" In order to set a lofty example, and cure women of
that great error Miss Cameron so justly condemned."
" Nonsense ! You do it because you are all so horribly
wicked you are obliged to hang together like brigands,"
retorted she. " There is no hurry about going up stairs,
104 MI-CAREME.
Violet ; it is not much after seven. I don't mean to dine
until half-past eight ; I shall keep those monsters from the
card-table as long as possible."
" Now I wonder I do wonder what her real reason may
be !" said Aylmer. " Can you imagine, Miss Cameron ?"
" I shall watch to find out ; she is certain to betray her-
self before the evening is over," Violet answered.
" And she talks about the necessity of women's keep-
ing faith among themselves !" cried Nina. " My dear, as
a reward for having shown that you are no better than your
sisters, I'll tell you ! My delightful gallant countryman,
Prince Sabakine, is coming. He was obliged to go as far as
Milan with the Grand Duchess could not reach Florence
before now must take a special train in order to do that
there is devotion for you ! Well, then, time to dress
forty minutes to drive out here, even with his horses ; so
you see, I had to say half-past eight ! Now, admire my
frankness."
" Since you only confess your iniquity because you knew
we should discover it," said Violet.
"I shall go off to the billiard-room," vowed Nina.
" You are both too malicious for endurance, so I may as
well recollect that I ought to show a little courtesy to
Carlo's evil spirits."
She ran gayly away. Violet sat down upon a couch
just inside the arch, annoyed with herself for a ridiculous
impulse to follow her friend. Something in Aylmer's eyes
brought a remembrance of those visits the professor had
forced her to pay his patient. To recall the broken reve-
lations of his delirium always fluttered her, and just now
the sensation vexed her. It was too absurd to remember
what a man had said in fever as if he knew whom he
addressed or what he uttered !
" And my dear old Diogenes, is he quite well ?" she
asked.
" Oh, yes ; kind as ever, and as resolute to be considered
a Black Forest wolf," Aylmer replied. "lean give you
no idea of his goodness since we have been away. But
indeed the sympathy I have received in quarters where I
had no right to expect it, leaves me bankrupt in gratitude."
" We agreed not to talk about ' that," Violet said,
"since I have certain debts which I cannot pay."
"You know I consider it the greatest favor fate
MI- GAREME. 105
ever showed me that I was permitted to be of use to you,"
he exclaimed.
His voice and eyes lent this speech a meaning far beyond
compliment, but the phrases themselves sounded like the
exaggerated flattery any man might have felt it his duty
to offer, so they afforded her an opportunity to retreat
from the subject with a jest, though it hurt her to jest
upon that theme.
Aylmer at once followed her lead in the direction she
gave the conversation, perhaps a little afraid to dwell upon
the serious side of the adventure which had carried their
intercourse so far out of the ordinary track afraid lest he
might utter words he had no right to speak. Such liberty
would be worse than ungenerous, since the peculiar footing
on which they had been placed by his accident and its con-
sequences would render it difficult for her to check his pre-
sumption as easily and decidedly as she might have done in
the case of another who committed the blunder, after so
brief an acquaintance, of betraying a secret which his heart
or fancy had garnered. So they talked of any trifle which
either could snatch at, gayly, carelessly, as befitted the mo-
ment, yet there was a subtle difference which rendered the
conversation unlike an ordinary tete-d-tete a difference per-
ceptible to the woman as to the man, though she would not
allow her soul to admit the fact, while he gloried therein.
Miss Cameron began admiring a stand of plants near
the sofa ; he selected some graceful drooping blossoms, and
wound a few green sprays about them.
" There is nothing so pretty in the hair as these little
fern leaves," he said, as he handed her the bouquet, and his
eyes asked her to wear his gift.
" Unfortunately, neither the blue-bells or the ferns suit
the color of my dress. One can't venture to be inartistic
in these days," she answered ; and then recollected that she
had replied to his glance rather than his words.
" You ought never to wear anything but white," he ex-
claimed, quickly. "I always think of you as you looked
the night I met you ( here. You were in white, too, the
first evening you came into my prison "
He paused, conscious that a word more might take him
back to unsafe ground, then added, with a laugh too trem-
ulous to perform its duty well : "I was so much indulged
by you all during my illness that I forget I have lost the
5*
106 MI-CAREME.
privilege of being autocratic in ray opinions. I still occa-
sionally find myself scolding the professor, and before I had
been here an hour the raarchesa had to remind me that I
was no longer absolute."
Nina appeared again at the instant, and spared Violet
the necessity of any reply.
" I am going up stairs," she said ; " I could not miss
being ready for my model Russian. Come and see how
pretty I have made your rooms, Violetta mia ! I expect
you to be so charmed that you won't have the heart to de-
sert me, or them, for a fortnight. By that time I trust the
workmen will leave Casa Magnoletti free, unless they have
some special reason for forcing me to spend my life in the
country."
When the marchesa had left Violet's dressing-room,
Clarice said to her mistress :
" I have laid out that new green costume for mademoi-
selle." .
" I shall wear white," returned Miss Cameron.
" Mademoiselle has lived in white of late positively
lived in it ! People will think she has only one dress !"
pleaded Clarice, in despairing accents. " And the green
costume is a perfect picture vert tendre, mademoiselle !"
Violet was putting her flowers in water. She dropped
them hastily into the little vase, slightly uncomfortable as
she thought why she had dissented from the maid's choice.
" Vert tendre be it," she answered.
" And mademoiselle will look like an enchanted prin-
cess," cried Clarice, gratified, as humanity always is, by
having her own way. But when half dressed, Violet
glanced at the flowers. Surely she need not be ashamed to
do so little a thing as wear a particular color to please a
man who had saved her life. The absurdity was in hesi-
tating as if there were any reason why she should hesi-
tate ! " I don't like the green ; I am too pale this evening.
I shall wear white," she said, with decision."
And white it was. Clarice never attempted expostula-
tions when her mistress spoke in that tone.
Her toilet completed, Violet took the bouquet, separa-
ted it, put a part in her hair, and fastened the remainder in
her corsage. As she was thus occupied, a bloom so delicate
yet so rich stole into her cheeks, a light so brilliant yet so
soft flooded her eyes, that when she turned from the niir-
MI-CAREME. 107
ror, Clarice, with a magnanimity few mortals would have
been capable of displaying after such recent rejection of
their advice, cried out :
"Mademoiselle was right ! She is fairly dazzling !"
" You are a prejudiced little goose," Violet said, laugh-
ing.
But she was looking her loveliest, and she knew it.
The vivid blue flowers over the white brought out the fair-
ness of her neck, which the square-cut bodice revealed ;
and the open sleeves showed the matchless arms, which
were the admiration of every sculptor in Italy.
Aylmer was standing near the door as she entered the
drawing-room. He got no chance to speak, for the
marchese and the guests who had not yet seen her came
forward to claim her attention. But Violet caught one
glance from those dark eyes, so eloquent in its appreciation
of her compliance with their owner's wish that she had an
uneasy sensation of having done wrong in obeying his
caprice.
Then Sabakine was sent by the hostess to bring Miss
Cameron to the sofa where she was seated, and altogether
Aylmer found no opportunity to address a word to her,
and he betrayed his annoyance so plainly to the marchesa's
keen eyes that she took occasion to say in his ear :
"I told you this morning that after Carnival comes
Lent."
" So it does, and one submits ; but it is a shame of you
to forget there is a mi-careme" he replied, with a readiness
which delighted the appreciative Russian.
" You are very near it trust me," she said.
When they entered the dining-room he discovered what
she meant. Of course, Miss Cameron fell to the host, but
Aylmer's seat was at her other hand. Nina, occupied by
something Sabakine was narrating, found time to dart a
quick glance towards Aylmer, and gave him an infinitesi-
mal nod, which said distinctly :
" Mi-careme at last, you see !"
And if he had been her adorer instead of her friend,
she could not have received a look of more fervent
gratitude.
108 SET BIGHT.
CHAPTER XI.
SET EIGHT.
the dinner proved delightful to the young man ;
one of those banquets of the gods whereof
each of us has partaken in turn.
In the drawing-room afterwards everything
went well for a time. Under a pretense of
wanting to smoke, Carlo and his friends strayed into a dis-
tant salon ; Sabakine and Aylmer remained with the ladies,
and a partie carree is by no means unpleasant to a man
when he has not reached a stage where he is at liberty to
utter his thoughts freely to the object of his fancy.
But presently into the quiet came the sound of carriage
wheels, and directly there appeared a knot of people suf-
ficiently intimate with the marchesa to come uninvited for
the purpose of enlivening her seclusion.
Foremost among the group entered Giulia da Rimini,
stately and Cleopatra-like as usual, on her lips that indolent
half-smile, and in her heavy-lidded black eyes that inscruta-
ble expression which Nina so cordially hated. The duchess
took the explanation upon herself, making her voice dis-
tinctly audible through the comments and laughter of her
companions, low and unemphatically as she spoke :
" We were all at the opera ; it was worse than usual.
Then nobody had a reception nobody had offered a sup-
per, so I proposed that we should drive out by moonlight
and see you, Nina darling."
" You are always having happy inspirations, dear
Giulia," returned the marchesa, with her sweetest smile.
" Who would venture on a supper, duchess ?" exclaimed
Sabakine. " You have rendered that impossible by your
brilliant success. I shall never pardon you for having given
it while I was away."
Nina was in ecstacies so was everybody else but the
duchess proved equal to the occasion.
"I am ashamed now, pripce, to recollect that our friends
made themselves so charming, I had no opportunity to miss
you," said she, and passed ou to greet Violet. " My dear
SET RIGHT. 109
Miss Cameron, what an unexpected pleasure ! Why, Mr.
Aylmer, is this you or your double ? I thought you safe at
the sea-side, in the hands of your doctor."
"Heavens !" muttered Nina. "If she could only teach
people to tell falsehoods with such grace, she might earn a
fortune."
" She makes a very fair living at cards as it is," returned
Sabakine ; " don't suggest the idea, or between the two
professions she will ruin us all."
Nina's implied belief that the duchess had known whom
she should meet was perfectly correct, and her proposal to
her friends to drive out to the villa had been caused by that
knowledge.
Carlo had so far proved obdurate to every attempt to
lure him back to his allegiance. If she changed her tactics,
showed a willingness to let him go and give Aylmer the
benefit of her smiles, the marchese might be roused to dis-
pute the post of honor by her side, and she could then
assert that her conduct had been inspired by a wish to pun-
ish his lack of faith in her explanation of that unlucky visit
to his friend's sick-room.
Society might say what it liked about her ; so long as
she did not violate certain conventionalities, Florence could
not turn the cold shoulder her position and family influ-
ence would prevent that ; and if she avoided such penalty
she cared little whether people called her a high-born
swindler or names which designated vices more especially
feminine.
So to-night she affected a certain air of familiarity with
Aylmer, still preserving her majestic indolence. She forced
him to attend exclusively to her, and covertly watched Miss
Cameron, in the hope that lady's self-control would not
be perfect enough to repress some sign of trouble or annoy-
ance, in case Aylmer had gained any special hold upon her
thoughts during the past weeks.
But Miss Cameron, engrossed by half a dozen men,
apparently found no leisure to notice the duchess and her
companion. That Aylmer had a strong fancy for his beau-
tiful countrywoman, the signora was able to decide to her
own complete dissatisfaction. He could not keep his eyes
off Violet ; he started each time the duchess's voice recalled
him to a sense of his duty, and once was positively guilty
of the enormity of asking what she had said, and, to add to
110 SET RIGHT.
the crime, apologized for his absent-mindedness. These
things nettled the lady ; still they acted as provocatives,
and rendered her more determined and eager than ever to
dazzle the man and bring him to her feet.
" Where is the marchese ?" she inquired.
" In the card-room," Aylmer replied.
" Of course ! I need not have asked ! I want to look
on at the game you know cards have a fascination for
me."
He rose with alacrity, hoping that, once within sight
of the table, her arch-passion would assert its supremacy
and cause her to join the gamblers.
" Mr. Aylmer and I are going to see them play bacca-
rat," Giulia said to Madame Magnoletti.
Nina had no objection. While courting the goddess
Chance, Venus herself might stand close to Carlo, and he
would offer no homage beyond an indifferent bow and
smile ; besides, the marchesa never wavered in her con-
viction, founded on a thorough knowledge of her husband's
character, that the capricious creature had escaped forever
from the Sicilian's thraldom.
When Carlo looked up and saw the duchess beside his
chair, he made a little grimace under his long mustache
very like one of Nina's childish moues. Giulia was leaning
on Aylmer's arm, apparently absorbed in his conversation
even while she tapped her host's shoulder with her fan by
way of salutation. Carlo's Italian astuteness fathomed the
signora's wiles as quickly as if he had been a woman, and
his eyes brightened with sudden amusement when he
glanced towards her companion.
" Is fortune favorable?" she asked. "How very cross
Gherardi looks !"
"Because you stopped beside Carlo's chair instead of
mine, dttckessa mia," said that gentleman.
" Has Carlo lost his tongue ?" she continued, employing
the marchese's Christian name with the familiarity so
common in Italy, and so shocking to dignified Anglo-
Saxons.
"I was only trying to find some suitable phrase of
welcome. You know I am a slow creature," he answered.
" Useless, I suppose, to ask you to join us ?"
"Later, perhaps," she said, smiling at the manner in
which the question was put. She fancied his tone
SET EIGHT. Ill
betrayed pique, and flattered herself that her new lino
of conduct would speedily bring him out of his pretended
indifference.
The other players offered each some remark, then the
duchess passed on.
" You do not mean to play ?" Aylmer asked, finding it
difficult to repress his disappointment within decent limits.
Indeed, his state of mind was perfectly evident to the
niarchesa when she met them in the conservatory, where
she had gone to show Sabakine and several other people
some marvelous plant her brother had sent from America,
and the mischievous lady derived great amusement from
his sufferings, as she adroitly allowed him to perceive.
The duchess believed that he had determined, if possible,
to resist her spells. In her present frame of mind this
credence, instead of rousing her fierce temper, rendered
her more bent on conquering him that he strove against it
was a proof he comprehended his danger. Did he want
Violet Cameron's money ? Well, perhaps later she would
help him win it, but just now the heiress should not stand
in the way, either from the inducements her fortune offered
or any caprice Aylmer might have for the lady herself.
Altogether, nearly an hour elapsed before the wretched
man could escape. The duchess recollected that she must
not let Carlo's pique attain too keen an edge, else it would
not serve the purpose for which she meant to employ it.
Aylmer deposited her at the card-table with the ungrateful
reflection that he knew exactly how Sinbad felt when begot
rid of the Old Man of the Sea, and hastened away.
Madame da Rimini was not sorry to see him go. She
knew that when she wished to fascinate, she never ought to
play cards in the presence of her victim. In ten minutes
she had forgotten Aylmer everything in the interest of
the game. Her eyes blazed with a cold, keen flame like that
on Damascus steel ; her mouth set so hard that the lips were
a mere scarlet thread ; two deep lines disfigured her fore-
head ; her fingers shut with claw-like tenacity : her atti-
tude so fixed and rigid that the cords stood out on her neck,
and marred her chief beauty, till she seemed suddenly to
have grown years older.
Nina and Sabakine stopped to exchange observations
concerning her as they strolled through the room.
"She is actually unrecognizable," Nina said.
113 SET BRIGHT.
"One sees the real woman," he replied: " a horrible
caricature of what she manages to appear under ordinary
circumstances."
"She is a dreadful creature !" ejaculated Nina.
" Well, yes. If she had not had the good luck to be
born grande dame, she would undoubtedly have found her
way to the galleys before now. Thanks to her being Maz-
zolini's daughter and wearing Rimini's title, she will prob-
ably manage to die decently in her bed," said Sabakine,
with that entire freedom of speech concerning acquaintan-
ces which is so marked a characteristic of Florentine society.
" Where is the duke now ?"
" In Paris, as usual. They divide France and Italy be-
tween them, and manage to keep the best friends in the
world. ' Unefemme forte' he said to me last spring, in
speaking of her ; ' but she gives me an abnormal taste for
human blood an unfortunate mania on my part, as it pre-
vents my enjoying her society.'"
" He is worse than she !"
" Hum ! I could not say that. He as nearly approaches
her gifts as a man can. But he is wise to remain in Paris.
There is no doubt that on the last visit he paid the house
of his ancestors she set fire to his bed-curtains when he was
asleep, and locked him in his room."
" I never did quite believe that story."
"He told me himself as a good joke; it would have
been a better one if he had burned to death, as he came
near doing."
Aylmer found Miss Cameron in the drawing-room, but
she was so constantly surrounded that he could not get
within reach ; and he wandered about in a restless fashion,
hoping that at least after the guests' departure he might
have her for a few minutes to himself ; but when he came
back from seeing some lady to her carriage, Violet had dis-
appeared.
" Miss Cameron has gone to bed, like a sensible woman,"
said Nina, " and I shall follow her example I am tired to
death. My Russian bored me, Carlo has been losing money,
and you have neglected me shamefully, Mr. Aylmer. The
world is dust and ashes, and I shall go to sleep. Good-
night."
After she had gone, Carlo, who prided himself on con-
ducting his household according to English principles in
SET RIGHT. 113
many ways, asked Aylmer to have some sort of liquid re-
freshment and a cheroot oblivious that his Anglo-mania
failed in the present instance, as he was drinking orgeat
and seltzer instead of brandy and soda, and his smoking-
room, as usual, the place where he chanced to be when in a
mood for a cigarette.
But Aylmer declined these mild Italian attempts at dis-
sipation, and went off to his chamber, feeling that the
evening, which began so charmingly, had ended in a very
dismal fashion.
The next morning the professor came out to see his late
patient, and amused them all by his account of an inter-
view with Miss Bronson. He had gone to the house, un-
aware of Miss Cameron's absence, and found Eliza in a very
elevated mood, from the effects of an aesthetic tea given by
some old maid on the previous evening.
She delivered a long lecture upon his heterodoxy, warn-
ing him of the evil repute it would bring in this world and
the Dives-like destiny it must inevitably procure in the
next. He drove her nearly frantic by declaring that the
book he had so often proposed to dedicate to her was ready
for the press, and improvised an inscription which asserted
that her sympathy with his peculiar views had been his
sweetest solace during the long hours devoted to the prep-
aration of the volume.
" I left her in tears," said the professor, with grim de-
light ; "and I affected to think it was the proof of my
esteem which touched her. The more she tried to explain
and to reject my friendship and my heresies, the duller and
deafer I grew. At the hour it is, I am certain she has as-
sembled a conclave of all the spinsters among her acquaint-
ance, and is searching for some means to avert the awful
fate which hangs over her."
Aylraer was haunted by a fear that he had fallen in
Miss Cameron's esteem. He could not say that her manner
had changed she talked freely and pleasantly ; but, in
spite of his efforts to believe himself mistaken, the impres-
sion remained in his mind that a certain distance had come
between them as if he suddenly stood on the footing of a
mere acquaintance, instead of enjoying the fi'iendly rela-
tions which had grown up during his convalescence.
But in what way could he exculpate himself ? He in-
wardly rebelled, as circumstances often force a man to do,
114 SET RIGHT.
against sundry injustices in the social code which give
women like the duchess an opportunity to place him in a
very unpleasant position without the privilege of defense
a position where silence is self-condemnation, yet to open
his lips must make him appear a conceited idiot.
The marchese and Aylmer were in the billiard-room
before dinner. Aylmer was saying that he must drive into
town to inquire concerning some letters which had failed
to arrive.
" Keep out of the duchess's way," said Carlo, who was
almost as much given to teasing as the professor himself.
"If she gets those pretty tiger-claws of hers on you, my
friend, you will not be allowed to come back to us."
"Confound the duchess!" returned Aylmer. "Never
never in any country did I meet a woman so odious !
I used to wonder how you could dance attendance upon
her, but I see you have recovered from your folly."
" Come, come, that is turning the tables on poor me
with a vengeance, just because I gave you a friendly coun-
sel out of the goodness of my heart !"
" Your goodness of heart be blessed !" said Aylmer.
" I saw how she was worrying you last night," con-
tinued Carlo, laughing. " I would have gone to your res-
cue, only I was busy. If you wouldn't make it so plain
that you are blind to her fascinations, la belle Giulia would
ten to one let you alone."
Before Aylmer could reply, Miss Cameron came in from
the conservatory.
" Marchese," said she, " Nina says you purloined the
little microscope the professor gave me yesterday. Posi-
tively, you are as bad as a magpie for hiding everything
you can pick up in your pockets."
"Friend of my soul, magpies don't wear pockets. It is
odd that though the feminine mind conceives comparisons
in profusion, they are always incorrect," cried Carlo.
"Less incorrect than your habit of petty larceny it
quite amounts to to what. is that long word, Mr. Aylmer,
which it is proper to use when a marquis steals, instead of
a poor common wretch who must go to prison therefor?"
" Kleptomania, do you mean V"
"Exactly! Take care, Carlo, or it will lead you to a
lunatic asylum ! Do you intend to give me iny microscope ?
We want to examine some leaves."
SET RIGHT. 115
" What a persistent creature ! I have lost it I never
had it I gave it back to you," said Carlo, hunting in the
multifarious recesses of his coat, which he fondly believed a
thoroughly English garment, and finally pulling out the
desired article.
" Here it is, after all ; I must have picked it up by
accident."
" I notice that your sins are always committed by acci-
dent," returned Violet, " and I never knew a man who met
with so many misfortunes."
" All the same, I suppose Aylmer and I may go and look
at the leaves ; he is an ignorant young person, and needs to
improve his mind in various ways."
" I certainly chose ill when I selected your society for
that purpose, my dear Carlo," rejoined Laurence.
" You will have to adopt his pet excuse the victim of
accident, Mr. Aylmer," said Violet.
She spoke carelessly ; she smiled with even more indif-
ference, yet Laurence's heart bounded ; he knew that his
peace was made the distance had been bridged over the
ice which had spread between them, chilling him to the
soul, imperceptible as it was, had melted suddenly he was
back in June warmth again.
She had heard the marchese's words fortune had
favored him indeed. He could have hugged the uncon-
scious bringer-about of this present state of affairs.
" After all, one can't help liking him in spite of his
errors !" said Laurence, clapping Carlo on the shoulder by
way of giving a little relief to his feelings.
" Praise is sweet, but it may be too forcibly expressed,"
said the marchese, pretending to groan.
" May we go and have a peep through the microscope,
Miss Cameron !" Aylmer -inquired. A few minutes before
he would have felt as if taking a liberty in asking anything
of her, but his courage was entirely restored.
" Violet Cameron !" Nina called from the terrace upon
which the windows of the billiard-room opened. " If you
think to leave me to study botany alone, while you mono-
polize the only two men available, you do not know the
woman with whom you have to deal ! I am amiable and I
am self-sacrificing, but there are limits, I warn you !"
" She might at least have sent you the microscope," said
Carlo, " if she had any conscience."
1 16 THREE- AND- THIRTY.
" The most powerful microscope ever invented would
fail to discover any such treasure in your anatomy," re-
torted Nina.
" What did I say about women's inability to make com-
parisons ?" cried Carlo, triumphantly. " Angel of the house,
conscience is not a treasure learn that before you turn on
your husband when he generously comes to your assist-
ance."
" And a. statement is not a comparison, Master Carlo,"
said Violet ; " learn that."
" Oh, good heavens ! These displays of rhetoric all
come from the professor's leaving that horrid microscope ;
pray break it, Mr. Aylmer, or there will be no living with
the pair," cried Nina.
The three joined her on the terrace and laughed and
talked nonsense and were very happy, while the day
drew to its close and the western sky waxed glorious as if
the farthest heavens had suddenly opened Woods and
fields glowed with amber radiance the very highway
became a band of dazzling light the river a halo. In the
distance appeared beautiful Florence, a sweep of burnished
roofs and glittering walls Giotto's tower and the vast
dome of the cathedral rising in the midst, while on the
height above, San Miniato's church seemed floating in space ;
every object glorified, transfigured, by the supernal light.
CHAPTER XII.
THREE-AND-THIRTY.
HE four spent many such idle, pleasant hours,
and time fled with the rapidity it displays when
life has reached, as it does occasionally, a season
where no important event occurs to mark its
course, though each day is so full of tranquil
enjoyment that our usually restless souls forget to look back
or forward.
Their intimacy with Nina and Carlo insensibly drew
Violet and Laurence Aylmer into an intimacy almost as
THREE-AND-THIRTY. 117
complete, affording them an opportunity to become more
thoroughly acquainted with each other's real characters
than months of ordinary intercourse could have done.
On the eighth day Lady Harcourt drove out to the villa,
and insisted upon taking Carlo home with her to dine and
meet some friends whom she had invited.
" I must have an even number," she said, "and of course
Nina and Violet can more easily spare the mated masculine
bird than the one with undipped wings."
At table the marchesa was seized with a nervous head-
ache, and obliged to go to her room.
" As you both belong to the Anglo-Saxon race, I need
not offer any absurd excuses, or carry Miss Cameron off,"
she said. " I will lie down awhile ; then I shall be ready
for some tea and your united fascinations. Make yourself
agreeable, Mr. Aylmer, and remember I give you permis-
sion to smoke Violet doesn't mind in the least, sensible
creature that she is. You shall have your coffee on the
terrace. It is a shame to stop in-doors such a lovely night.
And now I will retire, while I can do so with grace and
elegance."
So the two guests were left to entertain each other.
" We were told not to stop in the house," Violet said,
walking towards an open window. " Obedience and incli-
nation can be united for once. What a marvelous evening !"
Aylmer followed her out upon the terrace, and they sat
down. The old major-domo came with the coffee-tray, and
placed it on a tiny table between them. He brought also
a wrap for Miss Cameron, saying :
" Pardon, signorina : but one gets a chill so easily."
" Hardly in this weather, Pietro ; it is like summer,"
she said, amused at his addressing her by that girlish title.
" And not weather to be trusted, because it is unseason-
able," persisted Pietro.
" Certainly this is the realization of one's dreams about
an Italian autumn," Aylmer said, as he put the shawl over
Violet's shoulders.
" Yes, and you are very fortunate, since it is your first
experience. As a rule, the nights at this season are almost
as sharp here in Tuscany as in our own middle States."
They sippe-1 their coffee and conversed in a desultory
fashion upon any and every subject that chanced to float
up of their friends, Carlo and Nina, people in Florence,
118 THREE- AND- THIRTY.
some new books, the lovely effect of the moon on the hills,
the tints a painter would require to express the shadows
the cypresses cast shadows which looked black, but were
not, one discovered, after studying them.
Gradually the conversation grew more earnest, as talk
about books brought forth individual opinions ; and sitting
there in the moonlight, Violet Cameron's loveliness height-
ened tenfold, and wrought its natural effect upon the man
beside her.
A brief silence ensued ; something Aylmer said set
Violet dreaming, and he did not recall her ; but when she
glanced towards him, he was regarding her so earnestly,
with such involuntary revealings in his eyes, that she felt
the color deepen in her cheek.
" I was wondering where you had gone," said he.
" I was only watching the moon," she answered.
"More than that you looked as if your soul had
drifted off into the farthest brightness."
" How very poetical !"
"That was the way you looked. I began to fear you
would never come back. It would have been worse than
the distance that seemed to come between us just at the
beginning of our visit here," he said, trying to speak jest-
ingly, though an undertone of earnestness was very per-
ceptible.
" Now that is more fanciful than your other poetry,"
returned she.
"No, no," he said, "it was not fancy ; and I felt quite
frozen as if I had been exiled into some bleak Arctic
region."
"I hope you have come back from your exile," she
answered, laughing, though with a little effort. " It must
have been voluntary."
"Indeed, no. But I have come back please don't
banish me again," he pleaded, with an impulsiveness the
more striking, the more attractive, too, from its contrast to
the usually quiet manner which made him appear older
than he was. " Say you will not ! If I do anything, or
seem to do anything of which you disapprove, try to think
you misunderstand to believe I would cut my right hand
off sooner than risk your censure."
Before he finished the sentence he had ceased even to
attempt a pretense of playfulness.
THREE-AND-TIIIRTY. 119
"At least I can assure you there is no distance of ray
making between us," she said. But this phrase did not ex-
actly suit the exigencies of the case, so she continued, be-
fore he could speak : " No distance at all, I mean. I hope
we are very good friends. You may be certain that if I
do misjudge you and I may often, being an impatient
woman I shall never hesitate to atone for my blunder."
" Thanks !" he exclaimed, with more emphasis than was
necessary, extending his hand as he spoke.
Now Violet did not want to take his hand ; it would
give a seriousness to the explanation from which she
shrank, yet to refuse might appear a ridiculous, prudish
calling him to order. Still she hesitated, vexed with her-
self for so doing, as a rapid question flitted through her
mind. Was she afraid ? if so, of whom him or herself?
And he was waiting with his hand outstretched, his
eyes on her face only a second, of course, long as the in-
terval seemed to her. She got her wits back oh ! the
shame of having lost them even for the space necessary to
demand the reason of her soul ! She tapped his fingers
lightly with her fan, and said :
"This is not a last dying speech, that we should grow
tragic over it."
" I told you those weeks of imprisonment had made me
exigeant," returned he, trying to speak calmly. " But,
after all, it is not my fault everybody spoiled me."
"Then I suppose we must have patience with our own
work, unless you make it absolutely necessary for us to put
you on a moral diet of bread and water," said she, with a
radiant smile, which set his heart beating so rapidly that he
almost thought she must hear its pulsations.
" You could not fail to be kind and generous," he
answered, the unsteadiness of his voice giving a signifi-
cance to his words which made them too earnest for mere
compliment. " I will try to deserve it at least you may
be sure of that."
The tone, the eager look in his eyes startled Violet still
further out of that deceitful calmness which she had kept
unbroken during the past days by treating her own soul
with as much reticence as if it had been a stranger's, but
she replied with assumed lightness :
" Take care you keep your good resolutions. If that
120 THREE- AND- THIRTY.
were as easy in practice as it is in theory, what admirable
creatures we should all be !"
" I never felt my own failures as I do since I have
known you. You are so much better and nobler than
other women that you make one ashamed of common
thoughts and aims," he cried, carried so completely beyond
self-control that he could not weigh his speech.
He had never spoken like this. Violet's troubled sensa--
tion grew stronger, not at the words themselves she was
too accustomed to men's flatteries to have noticed these
but the tone in which they were uttered the passion of
his eyes, which said so much more than voice or phrase
fairly confused her, and rendered difficult the effort to treat
his remark lightly, skilled as she was in the knowledge
whereby a woman accustomed to society increases her
natural feminine tact.
" You forget, only yesterday we agreed that exaggerated
compliments were very uncomplimentary things in reality,"
said she, laughing; " a presupposing of inordinate vanity on
her part who receives them."
"You know I did not intend a compliment I was just
thinking aloud !" he exclaimed, each instant carried further
away from the restraint he had hitherto managed to put
upon himself.
"Monologues went out along with the old-fashioned
novels," returned she, that effort at playfulness growing
still more difficult.
" I seem to know you so well ; all those weeks of illness
make the beginning of our acquaintance look so far off.
Oh, I don't think it had any beginning where I was con-
cerned ; it was just as if I had found something I had lost
and been searching for ever since."
She was so beautiful in her quiet pose ; the moonlight
made her complexion so unearthly in its fairness, her eyes
so superhuman in their dark glow, that the man lost his
head altogether ; forgot all his wise resolves, forgot every-
thing save that in this glorious creature he had found the
ideal perfection which had haunted his fancy so long.
What did he say what did she answer? ^Neither
could have told ! He did not make love to her in the or-
dinary sense of the phrase, but he let his whole soul out as
he hurried on in eager talk of those blessed days when she
brightened his sick-room with her presence, and Violet was
THREE-AND-THIRTT. 121
moved by his eloquence to forget for a few moments that
just below the height to which his imagination had floated
them, the bleak rocks of reality showed sharp and cruel in
the common light of the common world.
Then the very fire of his speech forced reflection upon
her. What did this language mean? Was she to think
that his heart Oh, she would not even complete the
absurd thought ! Mere compliments empty trash such
as young men talked to any woman tolerably pretty and at-
tractive, who chanced to sit with them in the moonlight !
Part of a young man's education, but not the style of conver-
sation for her to listen to for her, sobered by the weight of
her three-and-thirty years ! How nonsensical to be fluttered
even for an instant ! Was it possible that the dreamy
idleness of these past days, whose spell upon himself he de-
scribed so vividly, had enthralled her too ? No, no ! Back
to the realm of common-sense and commonplace ! Wis-
dom, Violet Cameron, wisdom ! An old maid yes, an
old maid ! No Juliet of eighteen on her balcony with
Romeo below ; a spinster, well on towards middle age,
just as near as if her face were plain and wrinkled already
(as it ought to be), instead of keeping, from some absurd
freak of nature, a semblance of youth a cruel freak,
since it exposed her to this to the bitter consciousness
that not only had fancy led him astray, but she, she had
let the charm of this lotus-flower-crowned season wile her
into forgetfulness.
And all the while he went on speaking, and all the while
her heart and soul were thrilled by his eager words, even
in the midst of her ability to listen to the upbraidings of
ber suddenly-roused judgment.
What was he saying oh, what was he saying?
" Ah, admit that all these things at once put our
acquaintance on an exceptional footing that they prevent
my seeming just like the ordinary crowd about at least
say so much !"
" We are very good friends, and mean to stay so," she
heard her voice say, not speaking from any volition of her
own ; she felt as if some guardian power spoke through
her, good-natured enough to wish to save them both future
pain : save him at least no matter about her an old
maid's sufferings from a wounded heart were only laugh-
able ! Well, well ! in order to waken him it was only
122 THREE-AND-TIIIRTY.
necessary to tell her age ; his dream if he had been
dreaming had occupied his imagination merely a young
man's fancy ! Yes, tell her age and he would speedily dis-
cover that he had deceived himself in regard to his heart
having stirred, just as her face by its deceitful smoothness
had deceived him into a belief that she was young enough
to be the cause of such commotion.
" How old are you?" she asked, abruptly.
Aylmer was not exactly confused, but a little taken
back by this interruption to his blank vei*se. Some vague
remembrance of speculations in regard to her years, which
he had several times overheard, flitted through his mind
influenced his reply too.
" I am twenty-eight," he said ; " at least I shall be so
soon that I may call it my age."
He was exactly three months and four days past twenty-
seven, but then mathematical precision always sounds sen-
tentious and absurd !
" I am twenty-eight," he repeated, as if the second as-
sertion would do away with the fact of the birthday not
having yet arrived.
" And I am thirty-four ; at least (to quote your words),
I shall be so soon that I may call it my age," returned she,
with the merriest laugh that ever made music on the lips
of a girl at sixteen. Laugh she would laugh gayly too,
if the effort killed her : though if she could not havo
laughed, she would have been ready to kill herself, she said
mentally.
I am trying to relate events exactly as they occurred
to give a description of feelings just as they arose,
whether wise or foolish, orderly or inconsequent so I
must tell the whole. Aylmer felt as if he had suddenly
received a douche of ice-water full on his fired fancy !
An unmarried woman of four-and-thirty is almost an old
woman that was the one conscious, stupid thought in his
i
mind.
" Yes, I am thirty-four," continued Violet, still follow-
ing his speeches as models no bitterness, no hesitation in
her tone her voice soft, airy, careless, and full of enjoy-
ment. Somehow, she did feel a certain triumph, as if
crushing her own vanity. Later, a measure of sadness
and regret might mingle with the remembrance, but for
^he instant the comical side of the situation appealed to
THREE-AND-TIIIRTT. 123
her, and her amusement was perfectly genuine. " Too
old, you see, not to have exhausted the pleasure of exag-
gerated compliments ; especially averse to being treated to
them by my friends my real friends."
Still under the influence of that sensation, which I can
only describe by my comparison of the douche of ice-water,
he looked at her again as she sat laughing her eyes bril-
liant, her color heightened, her complexion soft and trans-
parent as a child's. She was jesting quoting the verdict
of some envious woman curious to see if he would
credit it.
" No doubt you will be thirty, and thirty-four, if you
live long enough," he said, laughing too.
He recognized the doleful comrnonplaceness of the
remark, but he was too determined to consider what she
had said a joke to attempt compliments which might imply
any faith in its having been serious.
A certain bitterness seized Violet ; whether towards him
on account of his unbelief, or against Fate for its cruelty,
she could not have told.
" Must I bring a certificate of birth in order to end
your courteous doubts ?" she asked. . " I shall be thirty-
four years old within the twelvemonth."
She was in earnest, he perceived that. Further expres-
sion of incredulity would appear an impertinence. Yet
never had he seen her look younger never so beautiful !
" You'd better not let the girls of seventeen know the
fact, else they will certainly strangle you," he blurted forth,
with a school-boy sort of honesty so ludicrously out of keep-
ing with his six feet of stateliness that somehow the answer
sounded as complimentary as it did absurd.
" Promising young man !" cried Violet, laughing again,
though now her laughter stung away down close to her
heart. " But no more pretty speeches, please. I told you
the truth to do away with the necessity. I am tired of sugary
talk ; I have had enough ! No need of it, even between
a man and a woman, when the two are friends."
She held out her hand, recollecting as she did so how a
few instants previous she had shrunk from accepting his ;
but the recollection only rendered her more resolute in her
frankness she was three-and-thirty, and could claim the
privileges of her age.
But the spell of her beauty was too potent for any wise
1 24 THREE- AND- THIRTY.
warning of hers, any flash of disappointment, long to affect
its influence ; it surged back with redoubled force from the
very reaction of that brief shock.
" Friends !" he echoed, pressing his lips upon her fingers.
He might have said more have shown her thai he pro-
nounced the word in repudiation of his willingness to be
kept upon the calm ground of friendship, but she prevented
any such dangerous avowal by interpreting his exclamation
into an acceptance of her tacitly-proposed treaty.
" That is right thanks ! And now you will remember
that flowery phrases are a little just a little out of place
say twelve or thirteen years too late !"
Her determined jesting, though it hurt and vexed him,
produced one fortunate effect it brought a conviction that
if he did not acquiesce in thus pushing the conversation
back to an ordinary footing, he should risk vitally injuring
his own cause, and, agitated as he was, he managed with
more address than many men would have shown.
" I'll weed out all the flowers carefully henceforth," he
said, trying to imitate her playful tone.
" The sure way to keep me good-natured," she answered.
" The rose-bud style makes me feel silly."
" Oh, there are exceptions to all ordinary rules," said he.
" If you will have eternal youth you must take the conse-
quences, as the few other women so endowed had to do in
their time."
He stopped short. Ninon's name had been on his lips
as a comparison ; then he remembered that Ninon and
every other woman whom history had chronicled as hold-
ing, past youth, past middle age, the undimmed love-
liness which gave them absolute sovereignty over men's
hearts, had been women whose conduct rendered any refer-
ence to their names exceedingly out of place in this con-
nection.
"True," said Violet, quickly, by the strange clairvoy-
ance which the great sympathy between their minds gave
her, reading his thought as plainly as if it had been uttered.
" But unfortunately, as you reflected after speaking, all the
examples you can think bf were wicked women."
"Oh !" he exclaimed, with an indescribable impatience.
" Well, well, I am sorry they were bad," said she, piti
lessly.
" And to compare
TUREE- AND- THIRTY. 125
"Yes, yes, never mind don't be shocked. Recollect
that a woman of ray age lias a right to talk freely on all sub-
jects. The years which have lost me youth give some
compensation I may say things a girl could not, and yet
be neither indecorous nor indelicate."
She resolved to cure him effectually to cure herself
too, or rather so to sear any possible wound by the hot iron
of sarcastic speech, that it should close and heal without
delay. The scar would remain, no doubt ah, even physi-
cal wounds received after early youth leave an indelible
scar ! Well, the sight of it, maybe the ache of it now and
then, would be good for her soul.
She found time, in the instant which followed her last
remark, to elaborate with womanly quickness her thought
much further and more clearly than I, with my clumsy pen,
have been able to express in that paragraph of description,
yet be ready before he could speak to pursue her advantage
by another thrust of the hot iron which was to scorch them
both into recovery.
" Good heavens ! surely I may say what I like ! Past
thirty-three ! Why, if I had married at sixteen, as so many
American girls do, I might have almost grown-up daugh-
ters about me. No freedom of speech would have been
considered unfitting then."
She had overdone her work ! He looked at her as she
spoke, immortal in her youth apparently, rose quickly, and
held out his arm, saying :
" Come into the house a moment, please."
She obeyed, thinking that, whatever his reason for the
demand, compliance therewith would put an end to the con-
versation, which had gone far enough.
He led her into the salon, where the lamps were burning
brightly, and, before she suspected his intention, conducted
her towards a great mirror and pointed to the radiant
image shining therein.
" I can't help laughing," he said ; " it is too absurd."
Violet gave one glance at their figures reflected side by
side, and turned quickly, saying, with as much iciness as
her voice could muster :
" Facts are stubborn things ; dates the stubbornest facts
of all."
" I don't care about dates," cried he ; " they have no
significance when so utterly refuted. I don't care !"
126 SHE ACCUSED HERSELF.
" But I do," said Violet, and removed her hand from
his arm.
Before he could answer, Nina appeared in the doorway,
exclaiming :
" Oh, there you are ! My headache is quite gone.
Please to amuse me and make me forget my dreadful
dream ! I saw Giulia da Rimini pushing a woman over a
precipice, and I screamed out ; and it was you, Violet I
saw your face then. Mr. Aylmer was trying to save you,
and somebody a young girl looking helplessly on ! Oh,
it was horrible ! don't let me think about it ! Ring the
bell, Signer Lorenzo ; we will have some tea. I need it,
and you ought to, after all my trouble in my dreams about
you both."
CHAPTER XIII.
SHE ACCUSED HERSELF.
LONE in her room that night, Violet sat down
opposite her mirror, looked sternly at the
reflection therein, and began to ask it certain
questions, determined to have them answered
if she waited till the sun rose.
What ailed her what had come over her during these
past weeks and to what must she attribute the strange
mental aberration whereof she boldly accused herself ?
Laurence Aylmer had conceived a fancy for her very
probably he called it love ; a young man's fancy was the
correct name, and Violet nodded severely as she put that
portion of her soliloquy into words.
" You are not a girl, not even a very young woman,
that I should call in any modest reticence to your aid," she
told the image, which smiled at this remark, thereupon
appearing so youthful in its radiant loveliness that Violet
cried out in wrath : " You may try with all your might to
look twenty-four, but you are an old maid just the same !
You will be four-and-thirty your next birthday, miss you
can't delude me /"
But this thrust, which gave her the more satisfaction
SHE ACCUSED HERSELF. 127
because it hurt either her heart or vanity, had no effect on
the image ; it smiled at her still, serene in the arrogance of
beauty.
" Four-and-thirty !" repeated Violet, venomously, and
tried to wrinkle her forehead, but the image would only
copy her pretty dimples, apparently regarding the frown
as a mere shadow not worth photographing.
" He is seveu-and-twenty," pursued Violet ; " seven-
and-twenty why, a boy still, who must indulge in a score
of fancies before he learns what love means ! And you
like him yes, you do ! I am too much ashamed of you to
give a stronger name, though you deserve it. And you
have been dreaming about fate, and called your acquaint-
ance with him something set outside common laws, because
a few little romantic circumstances surrounded its com-
mencement. And you never have loved anybody ; destiny
wasted your girlhood so far as love was concerned except
once, and then you had neither soul nor brains to appre-
ciate the man who catne to you with the offering of his
great heart a man worth a score of this Romeo you are
poetizing over !"
But here the image looked such utter and overwhelming
unbelief, that Violet was forced to retract the assertion if
she desired to fulfill her vow of being perfectly honest.
" No, I don't mean that. He is as clever and honorable
and good as he is handsome ; oh, I am not afraid to speak
the truth !" and she fairly shook her clenched hand in the
glass. Then hearing her own voice clear and distinct,
started and glanced over her shoulder, with a nervous
fancy that she was not alone with her own reflection in the
mirror, but that some supernatural agency was directing
the whole matter. A sudden feeling of pity struck her for
that beautiful face, and she exclaimed : " It is hard hard !
Life gives you everything when it is too late too late !"
She leaned her head upon the table and sobbed like
a child, she, whose tears so seldom flowed without good
reason, and then were usually caused by the woes of others,
not her own.
In the commonplace light of the morning, Violet felt
reassured of her own strength felt a little grave, sad too ;
naturally, she admitted, after recalling the chill uneventful-
ness of her girlhood, the emptiness of that spring which
ought to have held experiences enough to crowd all later
128 SHE ACCUSED HERSELF.
years so full of happy memories that even age would not
appear barren.
This thought kept her from being ashamed of her tears.
She had reason to regret her youth, left void of what ren-
ders youth beautiful. Neither gratified dreams nor hopes
had come within its reach ; it had waned and died without
attaining youth's highest apotheosis love. She had been
defrauded, and neither here nor hereafter could existence
atone for the wrong. She might be happy in this world
and the next, but that void in memory would always
remain. No compensation could be made her ; the blank
could never be filled, because it was now too late to let her
heart waken, even if the enchanter were to call with such
power that his voice sounded like the summons of Destiny
itself.
Love was for the young ; to her age belonged moderate
sentiments. Friendship, esteem, affection, if one pleased ;
but four-and-thirty and love were anomalies as absurd as
low-necked dresses on some spinster of Eliza Bronson's
years, and the consequent display of bones which had done
such good service for half a century, that it seemed at once
ridiculous and unfeeling to expose them now.
The very passion of Violet's mood would have proved
to another person that in spite of her assertions she had
not reached a stand-point so wholly within the control of
reason and common-sense as she believed. Some vague
idea of this nature occurred to her, and she gave a new
fling at the image, which, though a little pale and sad-eyed,
only looked the more lovely in its softened guise.
" It is silly even to think of what might have been,"
Violet said to her victim ; " wicked too a rebellion against
Providence."
The image stared at her with a sudden bitter smile on
its beautiful mouth a sudden tire in its beautiful eyes, and
seemed to say :
" I hate Providence then, if it is the fault of Providence
that I am to have no youth !"
Violet started up, frightened, as you and I have been
more than once when our souls have cried out with super-
natural strength against their human miseries, roused by
some catastrophe to utter the unanswerable demand of a
reason for those griefs and disappointments, to bear which
SHE ACCUSED HERSELF, 129
has seemed at such moments the sole ground to assign for
our creation.
As Violet was leaving the hands of the skillful Clarice,
the roll of carriage-wheels became audible ; voices, too,
from below made themselves heard in the dressing-room,
situated in an angle of the building that commanded a view
of the entrance.
" Why, I am sure it is Mademoiselle Bronsone !" ex-
claimed Clarice, running to a window and peeping out.
" Yes, yes, it is and the professor. She weeps, the poor
demoiselle oh, how she weeps !"
" What can be the matter ?" cried Violet, hastening to-
wards the door.
"Mademoiselle should not disquiet herself," counseled
Clarice, philosophically. " The good Demoiselle Bron-sone
weeps so easily ! The professor laughs ; he pretends to be
comforting her but he laughs, the wicked one ! He is
always happy to tease the poor lady ! It is nothing mad-
emoiselle may be assured it is nothing."
When Violet reached the lower corridor, she saw her
friend standing in the door, talking excitedly to old Pietro,
though with no other effect than to make him look utterly
helpless and imbecile, as in her agitation she spoke English,
while the professor leaned, calm and dignified, against a
pillar, regarding her with his most Sphinx-like smile.
" I want Violet !" moaned Eliza, breaking off in what
appeared to be some recital of disaster, and turning des-
perately upon the sage. " Oh, professor, don't stand there
like a bronze statue, but say it so the creature can under-
stand, for I am so troubled that I cannot speak my own
language, much less his ! Violet I must see Violet !"
" And here she is," said that lady, moving forward.
Miss Bronson uttered a shriek and fell upon her neck,
weeping b^terly. Pietro discreetly disappeared, and, in
his wicked^knjoyment of the spinster's distress, the pro-
fessor stood on his left foot, and with difficulty kept from
waving his right leg in the air after a fashion which would
have been highly unbecoming a man of his reputation and
scientific acquirements.
" I hope there is nothing serious the matter," said
Violet, loosening the clasp of Eliza's arms, so as to be able
to breathe and speak.
G*
130 SHE ACCUSED HERSELF.
" Matter !" groaned Miss Bronson, and paused, choked
by sobs.
" How do you do, Fraulein ?" asked the professor, as
beamingly as if Eliza had been chanting a humorous ditty.
" We have come to make you an early visit give us
welcome !"
"I perceive that you have," replied Violet, unable to
repress her laughter at the ludicrous contrast between
Eliza's misery and the savant's determined, not to say dia-
bolical, cheerfulness.
" Don't laugh don't !" moaned Miss Eronson, sinking
into a chair. " Oh ! oh ! the ceiling fell and ruined every-
thing ! A wreck a mere wreck ! I said I'd better escape
with my life, and so live to tell you ; and I brought the
professor most improper but not a time to stop for cere-
mony ! And, oh ! I did all I could I'd have held it up
with broomsticks till I was crushed ; but how could I sup-
port a whole house ? And I warned you not to buy it
you must admit that ! I begged and prayed you not to buy
it ! Two lone ladies in a corrupt foreign land ! So do not
blame me ; oh! that I cannot bear! "it is too much too
much !"
" What does she mean, professor ?" demanded Violet.
" All fallen in all !" cried Eliza. " Yes, tell her, pro-
fessor ; break it as gently as you can. Be prepared, Violet
be prepared. And I begged you not to buy it ; I prayed
you to flee from the wickedness of this Papistical country !"
She sobbed so loud that it was impossible for the pro-
fessor to utter a syllable, but he reassured Miss Cameron
by a glance which in a less distinguished personage might
almost have been considered a wink.
" Try not to sob so loud, Eliza," said Violet ; " you will
rouse the whole household : besides, you don't give the
professor an opportunity to tell me what is the matter."
" Speak, professor, speak !" ordered Eliz^" when I
have begged you, implored you to tell the tale ! Oh, was
there ever a man so perverse?" and her sudden irritation
against the savant helped to compose her slightly.
" Miss Bronson has been somewhat agitated," the pro-
fessor began.
" Somewhat ! " repeated Eliza, in a strangled scream.
" In fact, she had a little fright "
"A little fright ! Oh, if that is the way you state mat-
SHE ACCUSED HERSELF. 131
ters, pray let me break the awful news myself," said Eliza,
putting her handkerchief to her eyes, and then removing it
to bestow a withering glare upon the sage. " I thought
yes, I own it, I thought, professor, that at such a moment
your much-vaunted friendship for Miss Cameron would
have asserted itself ! I fondly believed that you would
employ such mental resources as you could command to
break gently to her the catastrophe !" Then her dignity
failed, and she began to wring her hands, crying : " Oh,
Violet, Violet ! the whole house may have fallen in by now
everything ruined 1 and I begged and besought ' :
" Yes, I know you did," interrupted Violet. " Come,
whatever the accident and I suppose it must be something
terrible at least you are alive and unhurt. And here is
the professor Safe too, and ready to unfold the tale, if you
will allow him."
" Oh, the professor !" exclaimed Eliza, in high scorn ;
" he is safe enough, and as useless as only a man can be.
Standing there, dumb and deaf, when he came on purpose
to help me impart the news ; though a person who pretends
to have a dozen Oriental languages at his command might,
one would think, find some tongue in which to reveal the
tidings !"
"If I had a pencil I would attempt to make it clear in
hieroglyphics on the door-post," said the professor.
"And that is the way he has treated me during the whole
drive !" cried Eliza, spreading wide her hands with a ges-
ture of despair. "I could not have believed no, unless
he had proved it himself I could not have believed that
any human being would behave as he has done to a friend
a lady !"
"Heavens, professor, what do I hear?" said Violet.
"I did my best to soothe her," replied the professor,
every feature of his grim face lighted with ecstatic enjoy-
ment. " Why, she was quite composed, and laughed
heartily during our drive. It is only seeing you that has
unnerved her."
Eliza gave him another disdainfid glance, and turned
away her head, rising slowly and with majesty.
"Violet," she said, "if you will permit, I shall go up
to your room and repose myself for a little. Now that
you know the worst now that I have told you what has
happened I feel the effects of my late terror. It only re-
132 SHE ACCUSED HERSELF.
mains for me to thank Professor Schmidt for the great as-
sistance he has given in this moment of need, and to assure
him that. I heartily regret having burdened his scientific
mind with our troubles."
She swept down the corridor towards the stairs, looked
back over her shoulder to say :
" You have your usual rooms, I suppose, Violet ?"
" Yes, my dear," replied Violet, mildly, and Eliza dis-
appeared.
The professor rubbed his hands and chuckled.
" Fraulein," said he, " I have seen her under the influ-
ence of many varying emotions, but I don't think she ever
gave us anything so delicious as this ! She really has sur-
passed herself ! I wish oh, I wish I could have embalmed
her with that expression on her face !"
" Now tell me what foundation there was for her dis-
tress ?" asked Violet. " I suppose the house is not quite
in ruins?"
" A bit of the ceiling fell in one of the anterooms," the
professor explained. " I had gone to the house to beg our
beloved Eliza to send you a little parcel (only some pamph-
lets you wanted), and then I thought I might as well go up
stairs and write you a note. She dashed out just as I
reached the landing, with half a dozen women after her as
frightened as herself ; it was even better than the poison-
ing scene, I assure you/'
"Poor Eliza, to have to depend upon you for sym-
pathy !" laughed Violet.
" Nobody could have been more sympathizing than I
was," said the professor. "She finally decided to drive
over here and tell you the fatal tidings, and as 1 had noth-
ing to do, I thought I would accompany her and see you
all. Everybody is well, I hope? Have you taken good
care of my Laurence ?"
" Here he comes with the marchese, so he can speak for
himself," Violet said, as Aylmer and his host appeared
from the garden. She exchanged greetings with the two
gentlemen, then went away to find Miss Bronson, not sorry
to escape the eager, questioning looks which Aylmer's eyes
cast upon her.
She would return home ; that determination seized her
while mounting the stairs. The accident which Eliza had
come to report would serve as an excuse, and she wanted
SHE ACCUSED HERSELF. 133
to get away. Just now, to remain under the same roof
with Aylmer would give him so many opportunities of re-
newing the conversation of the previous night that she
should be at a disadvantage. .After a few days of not see-
ing her, he would have had leisure to attain to a more sen-
sible mood, be ready to listen to her wise arguments, and
not trouble the course of their friendship by any further
approaches to romantic folly.
She found Eliza established in an easy-chair in her
boudoir, drinking sal volatile and water, and relating the
accident to Clarice, who listened with well-simulated
interest.
"So a bit of the ceiling fell in the antechamber," said
Violet, as the maid retired. " Quite a special interposition
of Providence. I always hated those frescoes."
" Really, Violet," observed Miss Bronson, looking hor-
rified, "it is positively wicked to speak in that light
way "
"But since no harm was done !"
"Such a state as the room is in ! And we might all
have been killed every soul in the house, and half the
people we know into the bargain !" cried Eliza. " And
you to speak so carelessly instead of being grateful yes,
prayerful, over our escape !"
" I'll be as grateful as you like, my dear ; but I can't
help rejoicing at the opportunity for changing those fres-
coes. You are safe, and so is the rest of the household
our friends are, too no damage done that I can discover."
" It is downright cruel of you to speak like that, when
you know how fond I was of that dear little rococo dog ;
and he never ought to have stood on the anteroom table,
and now he is smashed to atoms, and nothing left but the
end of his beautiful little red tail with a black spot on the
tip !"
"My dear, he was only china ! We'll stop at Janetti's
this very day, and I'll buy you a more picturesquely ugly
one even than he. I saw a charming beast there vivid
green mediaeval with no tail at all, but he had two heads
to make up for the lack ! So don't be downcast, Eliza."
"It is your levity that troubles me," said Eliza ; "if I
could only teach you to see that life is a serious matter
that we are creatures of an hour ; here perhaps to-day,
134 SUE ACCUSED HERSELF.
and to-morrow ah, where ? Who shall say gone like
sparks "
"Or your little blue dog with a red tail !" interrupted
Violet.
"Heedless, unreflecting girl !" sighed Eliza.
" Signorina !" muttered Violet, thinking of the previous
evening, and feeling so near mingled tears and laughter,
that she felt herself as absurd as^Eliza. "If I don't take
care we shall be two hysterical old maids together !"
" What did you say, Violet ?"
"I say that I am going back to town with you. I
have an excuse, and, to own the truth, I am not sorry to get
away."
"Why, nothing unpleasant has happened, I hope?
Nina hasn't done anything to annoy you ?"
"What an idea! And the marchese "
" Oh !" broke in Eliza, lifting her hands and eyes
towards heaven, and beginning to shiver, " Oh, after that
nothing will ever surprise me ! But you don't mean it.
He wouldn't he hasn't "
"Hasn't what, in the name of goodness?"
" Yet why need I be surprised ? Those Italians one is
never safe ! But, for Nina's sake poor Nina ! oh ! I hope
he hasn't "
"What do you mean?" cried Violet. "Speak out.
You quite make one's flesh creep."
" Creep ! yes indeed ! The wickedness of these Floren-
tines is enough ! I need not wonder ; and yet and yet
oh, try to think you were mistaken ! He hasn't "
" Yes !" shouted Violet in desperation. " Now are you
satisfied ? If so, try to become sane and talk of something
else."
" Oh !" ejaculated Eliza anew, " I knew he would, sooner
or later I expected it I warned you !" she added, with
the resignation of a person who, after enduring suspense
for months, feels a certain sensation of relief when the blow
falls. " Those dreadful Italians all alike ! Poor Nina
his wretched wife ! My dear, I'll break it to her if you
think she ought to be told. I will not shrink from duty,
however painful. I will not desert you, my poor darling !"
" Well, that's kind of you, at all events."
" And he has he has ! I thought you looked pale no
wonder ! You are right to leave the house. Oh, if you
SHE ACCUSED HERSELF. 135
had only gone before ! it is too late now to prevent what
has happened "
" Suppose you tell me what that is ?" asked Violet.
" You said the marchese had been making love to you !
If you told it as a jest, then I can only say I think it very
unbecoming and indelicate to joke upon such matters !"
cried Eliza, angrily, as Violet's peals of laughter warned
her that she had misunderstood the state of the case.
" Poor Carlo, I am sure he would think it a great hard-
ship," Violet said, as soon as she could speak. "Now,
Eliza, rein in your vestal imagination for the rest of the
day ; it really is too brilliant for anybody but a sensational
novel-writer to own."
" I think you are very unkind, Violet. I know you
don't mean to be, but you always forget how sensitive I
am ! You are so heedless, so unreflecting, so "
" Young !" added Violet, with mocking emphasis.
" Don't leave out that item in the count ! And now let us
go down to breakfast. Mind you stand by me, for Nina
will be outrageous and try to keep me ; but I must go I
really must ; I do so want to get home !"
" Something has happened, I am sure of it !" cried the
spinster.
" Something will if you don't stop teasing me," returned
Violet, laughing again. " I shall, certainly do you a mis-
chief, my blessed Eliza, before my ill-spent existence comes
to an end I know I shall ; I feel it looming in the future,
as the poets say."
Then Eliza laughed too, and felt greatly relieved she
always did after having made a scene; and luckily, by al-
lowing her that privilege now and then, during the rest of
the time she managed to conduct herself with very toler-
able equanimity, and was not, in reality, taking the year
together, more trouble or annoyance to Miss Cameron than
any human creature must be who is flung on one's hands
the twelve months in and out, even though that segment of
humanity had a genius equal to Michael Angelo's, or a face
as pretty as Madame le Brun's portrait, painted by her own
partial brush.
Violet expected the marchesa to be horridly indignant
over her departure perhaps uncomfortably curious as to
its cause ; but nothing ever happens as one anticipates.
136 THE ARABIC LESSONS.
Carlo had brought news that the workmen had at last
left Casa Magnoletti free.
" So we shall flit ourselves immediately," Nina said ;
" and therefore I forgive your desertion, Violet."
" Going to-day, Miss Cameron !" cried Aylmer, dole-
fully.
" Going !" repeated the professor, saving her the trouble
of reply, " and so are you, young idler ! You are to get to
work ; I have plenty cut "and dried, and came on purpose
to carry you back to it."
CHAPTER XIV.
THE AEABIC LESSONS.
TSS CAMERON returned home, and amid the
plenitude of sage resolves which she indulged
at this period, determined that she would no
longer consume so many hours in idle visits and
amusement.
On the way to town she admitted the professor into her
confidence, and consulted him upon the feasibility of tudy-
ing Arabic as an employment which could not come under
the head of frivolous recreation. He encouraged the idea
because he was to be her teacher, though he knew as well
as she that the whim would only prove a means for wasting
his time and hers ; but with the usual determined blindness
of humanity, he no more admitted the fact to himself than
Violet allowed her motives and feelings to stare her in the
face without some vail of pretense flung across their
features.
The professor grew enthusiastic over her plan, and
endeavored to discover numerous benefits certain to accrue
therefrom. He labored so hard and failed so ignomin-
iously, that Violet at last burst out laughing, and the pro-
fessor laughed as heartily as she, while Eliza Bronson
looked severe disapproval of their levity.
"I can see nothing ludicrous in the project of serious
THE ARABIC LESSONS. 137
study," she said ; " and I do not know, Violet, whether I
am most surprised at you or the professor."
" I am as serious as the grave," began Violet, but Eliza
lifted her hands to enjoin silence.
" Do not be profane," she cried with a shudder ; " do
not !"
The professor bounced in delight no other word can
serve, savant though he was he bounced, and Violet nodded
her head in responsive enjoyment, while Eliza stared coldly
upon them, and presently observed with tine disdain :
" As you are not Chinese mandarins strung on wires,
but reasonable, rational human beings "
"Not I, at least," interrupted Violet.
" With immortal souls," pursued Eliza, impressively.
" Not proven !" broke in the professor. " We are sim-
ply, my dear, dearest Miss Bronson, huge masses or
agglomerations of molecules."
" Violet, stop the carriage !" shrieked Eliza. " I'll walk
I'll walk every step of the way from here to the city
gates, rather than be exposed to listen to such horrible
theories ! After the escape we have had when the very
ceiling fell as a warning, to hear him talk like this !"
" Ach, mem G-ott ! now she accuses me and my heresies
of causing that disaster," exclaimed the professor, with a
hypocritical attempt at a groan.
" Sir," said Eliza, " I accuse you of nothing I leave
that to your conscience "
" No well-organized animal has one," interposed the
professor.
" And your Maker !" added Eliza, in a sepulchral
whisper. " Beware, Doctor Schmidt, beware !"
" Potztaitsend ' ! " gasped the professor.
" Spare me the coarse horror of those Teutonic oaths,"
said Eliza, with majesty. " For many yeai's an instructress
of the young a position which I trust I held with credit
to myself, with good effect upon others "
" I am sure of it," cut in the professor.
" I became (if you will hear me out)," pursued Eliza
" I became too conversant with the harsh intricacies of
your native tongue, not to comprehend those expressions
which, alas ! are only too redundant in your language too
ordinarily on the lips of mej? who ought, from their talents
and position, to be models "
138 THE ARABIC LESSONS.
" Sapperment /" faltered the professor, shrinking into a
corner of the carriage.
" Like you," continued Eliza, following up her advan-
tage.
" Then, if I am a model, that enough."
" As you ought to be," cried Eliza, making the sentence
all capitals by her energy.
" And is not," said Violet ; " so, my dear, the professor
and I will return to Arabia, and settle about the hours for
our wanderings there."
Eliza pulled her vail over her face, leaned back in her
seat, and withdrew her attention from all mundane matters
and sinful triflers, sporting recklessly on the verge of the
abyss, which was the good spinster's favorite appellation
for the mystery-shrouded existence beyond this earthly
sphere.
The first decisive step Miss Cameron took, in accordance
with her resolution to waste less time, was to deny her-
self to Giulia da Rimini.
" She is at home, and he is with her !" thought the
Sicilian. " Only wait ! I will punish her for her insolence
before three months go by only wait !"
The flash in her black eyes so startled her footman, as
he stood at the carriage-door awaiting further orders, that
he afterwards told the coachman he would rather break
stones on the highway in a galley-slave's dress than call
himself Duca da Rimini, so long as that fiery-orbed dame
lived to bear the title of duchess, though Alps and Apen-
nines and all the other mountain-ranges of Europe might
tower between him and her.
Violet insisted upon commencing her Arabic studies
without delay, but, to her astonishment, when the professor
appeared on the appointed morning, he came accompanied
by a second pupil no less a person than Mr. Laurence
Aylraer.
"I had already promised to give this ignorant fellow
some lessons. I can't afford to waste time over two sepa-
rate scholars you must just stumble on together," the
professor explained, with an easy assurance which quite
took Violet's breath away with such dogged determina-
tion, too, in face and voice, that in any case she could
hardly have ventured to question his dictum.
" I expect speedily to grow so Oriental that I shall talk
THE ARABIC LESSONS. 139
in hexameters, or whatever may be the Eastern equivalent
for that unpleasant form of verse," said Laurence, so far
from making any excuse for the liberty the professor had
taken in presenting him, that he seemed to Violet triumph-
ant ; as if he had managed to thwart her in some way, and,
for the life of her she could not help coloring under his
glance, though she felt vexed with him and -herself there-
for.
"I hope Mr. Aylmer is willing to begin with first prin-
ciples," said she, opening at random the book nearest
to her hand.
" At the very alphabet, and to work his way up step by
step," replied Laurence, with an odd ring in his voice.
This time she would not so much as look towards him ;
she had no desire to see the significance of his speech
accentuated by the light of those dangerous eyes.
The professor glanced at each in turn from under his
shaggy brows.
" Humph !" said he. " One strange language at a time.
I am here to teach you Arabic don't exercise your wits
before me in a tongue that I cannot understand."
After this speech a silence came upon his two pupils,
and he took advantage of it to expound his peculiar theories
as to the way in which Oriental languages should be stud-
ied ; proved conclusively that anybody who could not ac-
quire them with great facility, in a very brief space of time,
by pursuing his original method, must be a dolt ; and
wound up by informing the pair that he did not expect
either to do him or his system any credit, though it would
undoubtedly be the fault of their powers of application, and
not of their brains.
Then, without rhyme or reason, he glared anew at the
pair ; then he ejaculated, in a growl like that of a hungry
lion :
" Sapperment /" and neither of his scholars asked him
what he meant, or what had caused the unseemly outburst.
Violet had her eyes fixed on the trimmings of her gown, as
if counting the threads in the fringe ; and Aylmer was
finding difficulty in settling his arm-chair at a proper angle
as to the table, and the professor glared in vain.
" So !" said he, and flung open a volume with a bang.
"Begin, "you male pupil, because it is a masculine right,
and it is only a false, unnatural and depraved state of soci-
140 THE ARABIC LESSONS.
ety which has given rise to the habit of offering precedence,
out of a mawkish sentimentality styled courtesy, to the
female animal. Begin, I say !"
And his pupil meekly obeyed.
" Upon my word," chuckled the professor, when the
lesson was finished, " I take great credit for my power of
discipline, and I must say you certainly seem inclined to
prove yourselves prize scholars in point of obedience."
And this time Violet, feeling Aylmer's eyes upon her,
did not hesitate to glance towards him and to return his
smile, which thereupon grew so joyous that her trouble-
some conscience immediately began to reproach her for
having already failed in the letter as well as spirit of the
bond she had signed and sealed with Wisdom, leaving the
regulation of her conduct entirely in the guidance of that
goddess.
About a fortnight later, Violet received a letter from
America announcing Mrs. Danvers's death news for which
previous epistles had prepared her. The date of Mary's
sailing was not fixed. A friend in New York, with whom
she was now stopping, would make the voyage with her, so
her cousin would have no reason for anxiety, but at present
Mrs. Forrester found it impossible to name the day for
starting.
The weeks went by ; autumn waned ; December came,
but the weather retained its amiability, and there was not
even a suggestion of ice or Tramontana in the air.
It seemed to Violet that she lived more quickly during
this period than in her whole previous life lived so much
and so far, that often she had to count the weeks day by
day in order to satisfy herself that they were so few : yet
even after doing this and being numerically convinced, the
sense of time of a great length of time having passed
since her return to Florence remained as strong as ever.
Pleasant, pleasant weeks, save when now and then she
roused up to fear that she regarded life less practically than
she ought, but finding always excuses wherewith to con-
tent reason, with whom she still regarded herself as on the
most intimate terras.
The Arabic studies speedily sank into a farce, whose
name neither professor nor scholars had the assurance to
mention, though the lessons continued, and formed an ex-
cuse for many delightful hours. Often the teacher would
THE ARABIC LESSONS. 141
fail to appear, or would come very late, giving as a plea
that he bad been occupied and forgot. But Miss Cameron's
fellow-pupil never forgot ; he was always punctual to the
moment, and Eliza Bronson, who, with her habit of taking
things seriously, believed in the lessons and several times
presented herself as a spectator, was so edified by the dili-
gence with which during her visits Mr. Aylmer studied the
big books with their mysterious characters, that she felt
confident of his rapid progress, and convulsed the professor
by declaring that she had known from the first he would
possess great capabilities for the language.
" By the shape of his head ?" suggested the savant.
"No," said Eliza ; " I have relinquished phrenology as
a failure, so have all thinking people. I am surprised you
should betray any faith therein, professor yon, who have
so little to spare."
" For that reason I cultivate it whenever I can," said
the professor.
"By the shape of his nose," pursued Eliza, regardless of
the savant's mild attempt at exultation. " I tried to get
you to read that interesting pamphlet in regard to the ex-
pression of noses, but you would not. Now, Mr. Aylrner's
nose is as purely Arabian as if he were an Arab, and so "
" Is a second-hand clothes-dealing Jew's," added the
cruel professor.
He had great difficulty to make his peace with Miss
Bronson after this offensive speech ; any remark which
militated against Mr. Aylmer's superhuman excellence,
physical, mental and moral, being a positive crime in her
eyes.
It would be useless to deny that learning Violet Cam-
eron's age had given Laurence Aylmer a certain shock :
no man could discover that he loved a woman so much his
senior and not feel the situation an anomaly.
" Why, when I was forty she would be almost fifty ; a
man is young still at forty. Marrying a person older than
himself would seem like choosing a guardian instead of a
wife !"
So his thoughts ran on several occasions, but were
always speedily checked by the reminder that he had no
reason to suppose Miss Cameron would ever dream of wed-
ding him. In his penitence he said bitter things against
his own conceit, unjustly too, for he was far from that com-
143 THE ARABIC LESSONS.
monest form of masculine vanity the belief that every
woman who smiled at him must be his incurable victim,
and that he needed only to mention marriage to the Venus
di Medici to transform her at once to flesh and blood, and
cause her to descend from her pedestal as meek and obe-
dient as an odalisque gratefully stooping to pick up her
sultan's pocket-handkerchief.
Indeed, those reminders of her age speedily faded ; the
thing simply seemed impossible in the presence of her
fresh loveliness. He perceived, too, that in feeling she was
as youthful as in her face ; younger far than he, for his
somewhat morbid, reserved temperament had given him
opinions and habits of thought more like those of a person
who had passed the meridian of life than of one still so
distant from that era.
Day by day his love for Violet grew the ruling power
in his soul, and he knew that there had come to him an
affection which must be as lasting as existence itself.
He loved her, and chafed restlessly under the restraints
which she managed to put upon their intercourse. She
treated him like a valued friend both in public and private,
but frequently as he saw her alone, she contrived, with a
tact few even of her sex could have shown, to keep their
conversation aloof from dangerous subjects, to prevent
any avowal in words.
His eyes told his story plainly enough, however those
beautiful eyes, whose passionate utterances made her heart
thrill tumultuously whose light haunted her in lonely
hours, often weakening her wise resolves till she was ready
to believe she wronged him in calling his love a mere
fancy, making her weep sometimes over her lost youth, and
causing her to repeat that bitter complaint :
" Everything comes too late ! Life is cruel to me very
cruel !"
ANNOUNCED "MISS DANVER8" 143
CHAPTER XV.
ANNOUNCED "MISS DANVERS."
HE last rays of the setting sun brightened the
room where Violet Cameron sat idle and medi-
tative after a long morning given up to visitors.
Nobody else was likely to appear at this
hour. Miss Bronson had gone to her own
apartments, believing she told the truth when she an-
nounced her intention of reading a sermon by way of a
little improving occupation, so as not to feel that mere
mundane matters had wholly engrossed her day. In reality,
she went to enjoy a short nap, but the tortures of the In-
quisition could not have forced her to admit even mentally
that she was capable of giving way to such a weakness of
the flesh, wasting any of the precious spare moments which
ought to be devoted to " improving the time" a phrase
often on her lips.
So Violet, left to solitude, yielded without scruple to
the luxurious indolence which crept over her, and let her
fancies wander whither they would, unconscious that in
these days she indulged herself more and more in the vis-
ionary habit which only a few weeks previous she had
assured reason she was determined to relinquish. Had she
been roused suddenly she could not have told the subject
of her reverie. A thousand vague thoughts flitted like
strains of music through her soul ; hosts of events con-
nected with the past autumn, unimportant yet strangely
sweet, wove themselves like soft rhymes into the melody,
and not a measure but held some reference to the friend
linked so closely with all the pleasant recollections of this
season her friend Laurence, as she called him always in
her reflections the very title a safeguard against any im-
portunate warning from conscience or common-sense.
Antonio abruptly flung Aylmer's name across the idle
sweetness of her reverie. It so often happened that he ap-
peared at similar junctures that occasionally Violet was
almost startled by the coincidence only almost, for even
if one were unpractical enough to admit the idea that some
144 ANNOUNCED "MISS DANVERS."
subtle magnetism of thought brought the coincidence about,
it would only be a proof of the sympathy which must exist
between two minds in order to render friendship perfect,
and that this their intercourse was, and was to remain,
Violet had so thoroughly impressed upon her soul that very
rarely did any troublesome doubt intrude.
And he entered now, eager and glad, through all con-
ventional calm of manner ; she glad too right and fitting
surely on his part and hers, since he was her friend her
friend Laurence.
" Is it past all decent hours for a morning visit ?" he
asked, as he sat down opposite her, after paying the first
salutations.
" Entirely ! Well-regulated people are beginning to
think of their dinners."
" But I am not well regulated."
"It is fortunate Miss Bronson does not hear. You
would risk your lofty place in her esteem by such a humili-
ating confession."
" Well, then, I forgot it was so late. Would that excuse
satisfy her ?"
" I am afraid not ; it is so palpably an after-thought
that even my credulous Eliza would not be deceived."
" Then it is better to take refuge in trutn," said he. "I
waited on purpose till I was certain everybody would be
gone. One never gets a chance to speak to you when you
have a crowd of people about."
" What a shocking accusation ! A good hostess can
make each of her guests, no matter how many she may
have, feel himself especially noticed."
" I fear I am dull to-day not equal to social require-
ments," said he.
" The idea of paying visits in such a mood ! I expect
people to amuse me."
" You don't look in a humor for it ; I saw that as I
came in."
"Pray how did Hook?"
" Like a Sybil like some priestess of Apollo "
" Oh, worse and worse ! Miss Bronson would give you
up in despair ! Even moderate exaggeration is distasteful
to her but this ! Besides, she considers any reference to
the heathens or their deities highly indecorous, not to sav
1 1 * w
wicked."
ANNOUNCED " MIS3 DANVERS." 145
"How lucky she is absent! In ray present state of
mind I should be certain to ruin myself hopelessly," he
answered ; but the smile on his lips belied his regret so
expressively, and the light in his eyes grew so dangerous,
that Violet wished the spinster were there. She perceived
that he was in one of the moods which would recur in spite
of her prudence, when he became difficult to manage
moods which disturbed temporarily the conviction she in-
sisted upon considering settled, that no vagrant fancies
were to trouble the even tenor of their friendship.
" Ah, you admitted you felt dull," said Violet, catching
quickly at any advantage ; "I think Eliza would not con-
demn that severely. She has great patience with dull
books, why not dull people ?"
" You mean to impress my unlucky choice of a word on
me three times in that one sentence !"
" Good gracious ! do you wish to insinuate that I am
dull too ?"
"Even my blankest stupidity could not carry me to
such a point. Sometimes I wish you were ; you would not
be so quick to flay and scarify every little truth that uttera
itself in spite of me."
" What a quantity of long phrases ! And it is not the
truth I find fault with scarify, as you poetically term it
only that bad habit you will not cure of paying exaggerated
compliments. I have told you over and over that such
nonsense between friends was unnecessary."
" I didn't think you would call speaking from my heart
nonsense," said he, rushing on forbidden ground at once
assuming, too, the purely masculine privilege in such an
encounter, of seeming hurt by her levity or indifference ;
let a woman feel as deeply as she may, her sense of woman-
ly dignity must prevent her employing that weapon.
" Say a liberty an impertinence, if you will but not
nonsense."
" We won't quarrel over mere words," returned Violet,
pleasantly, with the comfortable assurance of being mis-
tress of herself and the situation.
"Excuse me, but it is a question of feelings, not
words !" cried he, with another dangerous flash from his
eyes, which shook her confidence as to the ease with which
she should keep the ice of conventionalities unbroken
nay, worse still, brought a swift fear that she had too
7
146 ANNOUNCED "MISS DANVEB8. n
hastily exulted at her victory over the image in the mir-
ror. " Only listen only let me explain !"
" Compfiments do not need explanation," returned she,
holding fast desperately to that signification for his utter-
ances. " A woman who has seen as many seasons as I, and
heard as much persiflage talked, does not hold a man au
pied de la lettre for every poetical speech in which he may
think gallantry compels him to indulge."
" That is unkind !" said he.
" Come, I'll not acknowledge it ! If you had said un-
civil, I might have owned you were right, but unkindness
implies an intention to wound. I am sure I don't wish to
punish your bad habit of paying compliments so severely."
" Compliments ! How you insist on using that word,
when you know it is utterly misplaced ; unwise, too, con-
sidering your stand-point."
"How unwise?" she asked, and realized that she had
given him an advantage, but the question was uttered.
" Because such very determined affecting to believe
everything I say persiflage, looks almost as if you were
afraid of recognizing my earnestness, and you know "
She knew what he was going to say ; another instant,
?nd he would hurry on in passionate speech, which would
effectually destroy the guise of friendship to which she
had, with so much trouble, confined their relations. She
knew it ; the delicious utterances thrilled her as if already
pronounced, but prevent their expression she must.
" You are right," she said ; " I am afraid !"
"Violet !" he exclaimed, speaking her name for the first
time a passionate joy breaking out in face and voice.
He made a quick movement to seize her hands, which were
resting upon the table before her. She did not remove
them out of his reach, but she clasped them hard together
till they looked cold and firm in the shadowy room as two
sculptured hands, while something in her eyes, $s she
looked full at him, prevented his carrying out his inten-
tion, though again her name broke from his lips : " Violet !"
" Let me speak," she said, outwardly calm, in spite of
her agitation. " Yes, I am afraid I will tell you why. I
do not wish to lose my friend I do not wish to have our
pleasant intimacy (so very pleasant to me) disturbed ; and
this must happen if he will not remember that any ap-
proach to flirtation on the part of a woman of my age
ANNOUNCED " MISS DANVERS." 147
would be as unworthy her, as any brief fancy on his for a
person years older than himself would be misplaced and
unnatural."
She spoke the words very slowly, very composedly ;
but oh, they hurt, they hurt, in spite of her strength and
courage !
" Oh, all that "
" Is truth and common-sense," she interrupted smiling.
" So now let us be sensible, my friend Laurence."
And she spoke his name too for the first time. If a
voice from the portals of heaven had called bidding him
enter, the tones could not have sounded more entrancing to
his ear. Every effort she made to break his chains only
riveted them closer.
" So we will get back to the regions of common-sense
and stay there," she continued before he could speak, smil-
ing at him still, even while her heart shivered and ached as
if she were pressing a weight of ice down upon it. " Re-
member, if you talk in a way to make me feel silly, I shall
think it is because I have been trying to affect the graces
of a young girl, and so be obliged to despise myself at
almost thirty-four ; recollect, Laurence, almost thirty-
four !"
He dared not continue he knew that he should
receive his dismissal then and there if he did ; yet to let
himself be so effectually checked was not only painful, but
irritating.
" You are hard hard !" he exclaimed, wisely taking
refuge in an affectation of petulance which would afford
her an opportunity to pretend to think it only his man's
vanity she had wounded. " I wish I were ill again I wish
I had never got well !"
" Upon my word !"
" I do ! You were kind then. Ah, I dare say you have
forgotten ; but I remember everything the slightest detail
even to that day when you laid the flowers on my
pillow."
How stupid she had been not to tell him the truth long
before ! Yet perhaps it was fortunate after all that she
had not it would come with more force now.
" I have never forgiven the professor for robbing me,"
he added.
148 FROM AMERICA.
" You could easily have had more from the same quar-
ter," said she, laughing.
" Why, you have never so much as given me a rose-bud
since !" retorted he.
" Oh, I had nothing to do with the matter ! You must
thank the Duchess da Rimini ! It was she left the jessa-
mines romance is not my forte."
" What do you mean ?"
" Just what I say romance is not "
" No no ! You did not put the flowers there ?"
" Most certainly not ! I hope I am free from prudery,
still nothing but necessity would have induced me to pay
you visits."
" And you have let me deceive myself all this time !"
he cried, with mingled anger and disappointment.
" Really, I did not suppose you recollected the poetical
incident," said she, laughing again.
" Oh, you are hard to me hard !" he exclaimed, bit-
terly.
But before he could add another word the door opened,
and Antonio's slow, measured voice announced :
" Miss Danvers !"
CHAPTER XVI.
PKOM AMERICA.
HE interruption was so unexpected, Violet's
thoughts so engrossed by Aylmer's words and
her own efforts to keep the conversation upon
the safe ground of banal compliment, that for
a second Antonio's announcement only caused
her a vague sensation of wonder, and she repeated the
name in a low tone, almost as if trying to recollect what
connection her mind had therewith :
" Miss Danvers !"
" From America," added Antonio, his varied experience
enabling him to take in the position at once. He felt as
guilty as though he had committed a willful sin more so,
FROM AMERICA. 149
perhaps, for in Antonio's peculiar creed a stupidity was less
pardonable than a crime, and he retreated sorely crest-
fallen, thinking, " I deserve to be thrown down stairs ! I
ought to have remembered, though it is an at-home day,
there are visitors and visitors, and not have intruded so
suddenly when mademoiselle was alone with him!"
Miss Cameron and Ayltner had risen simultaneously ;
she got her wits back in a flash (at the same time becoming
aware of a very odd expression in Aylrner's eyes), and saw
the new-comer hesitating near the door. A young girl
dressed in deep mourning, with a heavy crape vail, which
might have befitted a widow, falling over her face, so that
she was obliged to push it back, and she did so in an
annoyed fashion. A pretty girl prettier than ever in her
embarrassment, wherewith mingled an attempt at self-
assertion which might end in anger or cause her to run
away in a fright if she were not received in a fashion to
assure her that her visit was welcome. But though all this
showed so plainly in countenance and attitude, she appeared
neither bold nor disagreeably missish ; somehow she gave
the eifect of a child playing at being a woman.
Violet hurried forward, and the little visitor cried :
" Oh, I have come to see my cousin, Miss Cameron, if
you will please tell her ! I am Mary Danvers if you don't
believe it you can ask Mr. Aylmer ! He can say who I am
if he chooses, and not some pretender, though he acts as if
he didn't remember me ! And and my cousin asked me
to come !"
She looked inexpressibly tired ; a burst of tears was
evidently imminent, in spite of her determination.
Violet reached her side, embraced her cordially, and
placed her in the nearest chair, saying rapidly :
" My dear child, I am delighted to see you ! You took
me so by surprise that I couldn't- think at all for a second.
I am so very, very glad you have got here !"
" Oh, thank you," returned the other, in a hurried way,
rather shrinking from Violet's caress. " If you will please
tell my cousin Miss Cameron "
" My dear, I am your cousin !" cried Violet, putting
both arms about her. " Welcome, a thousand times !"
Mary Danvers stared in astonishment almost incre-
dulity.
" Are you Violet ? are you really ?" she exclaimed.
150 FROM AMERICA.
" Why, of course I am ; for whom do you take me ?"
laughed Miss Cameron, pushing the heavy vail still farther
back from the eager, wondering face. " You are tired
out "
" Oh ! but I needn't be such a goose !" broke in Mary.
" And to think of ray not knowing you ! I thought you
would look el I mean " She stopped in confusion.
" You couldn't know me by instinct," >said Violet, caress-
ing her. " I am so sorry there was no one at the station to
meet you ; if you had sent me word "
" Oh ! weren't you expecting me ?" interrupted Mary
again. " Didn't you receive the telegram ?"
" No, indeed ; but never mind you are here !"
" Oh, she sent one from Paris I wouldn't stop and
after all you did not receive it ; and to fall in on you like
this ! Oh ! I don't like it !" cried the visitor, and it was
plain that it required a great effort to keep back a sob.
" And who came with you ? Of course you did not
make the journey alone ?"
" I told you she sent a telegram," rejoined Mary, in that
injured little voice, and her chin, which she had with much
difficulty just quieted, began to quiver anew. " But maybe
she forgot she did forget so ; and I ought to have attended
to it myself : but I had such a dreadful headache. Oh dear,
it is too bad to have taken you by surprise !"
" Not of the least consequence don't think of it. You
have come, and that is enough," said Violet, very sorry for
her, though unable to repress a feeling that so much con-
fusion was misplaced, even while she appreciated the girl's
efforts to overcome it. " You are worn out by your jour-
ney, poor dear, and that makes you nervous."
"Yes, that is it," assented Mary, but Violet saw her
blue eyes wander towards Aylmer, who stood waiting till
the first salutations between the cousins were over before
he came forward to renew his acquaintance with the younger.
" Here is some one you know," said Violet. " Come
and speak to her, Mr. Aylmer ; the sight of a familiar face
will do her good."
Was there something peculiar in the manner of both ?
Aylmer, at least, had recovered his usual demeanor by the
time he reached the ladies. He held out his hand to the
new-comer, saying :
FROM AMERICA. 151
" How do you do, Miss Danvers ? I am very happy to
meet you again."
"Thanks; you are very good," returned Mary, primly.
She let him take her hand, but quickly drew it away, and
said, looking at Violet : " I I have not seen him since be-
fore poor papa died."
Now she sobbed outright, but controlled herself in a
moment.
Violet, anxious to change the current of her thoughts,
began to speak of her journey. Aylmer joined in about its
fatigues, and, as soon as an opportunity offered, added :
" I will take myself off, Miss Cameron, and give you
and your cousin an opportunity to make acquaintance. I
shall come to-morrow, if I may, to hear if she finds herself
quite rested."
" Yes, pray do. Au revoir," said Violet, pleasantly ;
but she did not offer him her hand, and Aylmer noticed the
omission.
"Good-morning, Miss Danvers," he continued.
" Good-morning," Mary answered, and gave him another
of her odd glances, at once mutinous and reproachful like
a child who feels that it has suffered injustice, and does not
quite know what form of defense it ought to assume ; is a
little afraid, too, that its self-assertion will be laughed at.
Aylmer went his way, divided between a natural mascu-
line annoyance at the interruption of his interview with
Miss Cameron and the reflections which the sight of George
Danvers's daughter roused in his mind.
Violet saw her cousin glance after the retiring guest,
and noticed that odd expression on her face ; but in the poor
child's present state, it was impossible to decide whether
emotion or physical weariness unnerved her. Then, too,
this arrival in the house of an unknown relative afforded
reason for a certain excitement.
"And who was your compagnon de voyage ?" she asked.
" Oh, please don't speak French !" cried Mary, almost
irritably. " It makes me homesick ! I've studied it, and
I can read well enough ; but it doesn't sound a bit the
p:\ine when people talk it. Oh, I don't mean to be impo-
lite, you know !"
" It is just a silly habit of mixing languages that per-
sons living on the Continent fall into," said Violet, rather
amused to hear how very apologetic her voice grew.
152 FROM AMERICA.
" I should not," replied Mary ; but she spoke so like a
naughty, willful child that the words did not sound rude.
" And who took care of you on the journey ?" asked
Violet.
" Why, Mrs. Forrester. Oh, you didn't get the telegram !
It is that makes it so awkward, and me such a goose ! I
thought you would know all about it, and be expecting
me."
" But I am just as glad to see you, my dear a pleasant
surprise is always welcome," said Violet, feeling ashamed
because the girl's behavior rendered a little effort at pa-
tience necessary. " Mrs. Forrester ? oh yes you wrote
me you were to sail with her. But I did not think you
could have reached Liverpool yet."
" She changed her mind just after I wrote, and we left
a week before we intended," said Mary. " I got your dis-
patch to say you would send to England to meet me it
came the day we sailed ; but Mrs. Forrester was coming
down to Florence, so I did not want to trouble you. I
might have written from London," she added, contritely ;
" but we were so busy the few days we were there sight-
seeing all the time and she said a telegram would do."
" Of course, my dear don't think about it. But where
is Mrs. Forrester ? why didn't she come to the house, so
that I might thank her for taking care of you ?"
"That was another thing that hurried us," cried Mary.
" The day we left London she got a message from her
sister in Rome, who was very ill ; and I wouldn't let her
lose any time : so I changed trains at Pistoja and she went
on. I knew I could do well enough for that little journey,
even if I didn't speak Italian, but "
She had got on so easily in these last speeches that
Violet thought the embarrassment all over, and now the
child suddenly turned scarlet, her eyes grew so bright they
looked angry, and then the tears gathered in them again,
and a fresh sob broke her voice ; but Mary struggled gal-
lantly for self-control, and once more conquered.
"Lean back and rest a little longer ; then we will go to
your room, and you shall get your wraps off," Violet said
kindly.
" I am very comfortable, thanks," answered the small
personage, sitting upright as a dart, though too pretty and
slight for the attitude to seem ungraceful.
FROM AMERICA. 153
" But you look so tired," said Violet, for the sake of
saying something.
" It doesn't rest me to loll in a chair," replied Mary,
still busy subduing her freshly-returned excitement; "I
like a hard one best." As she spoke she removed herself
into a straight-backed mediaeval affair, in which no creature
of the present ease-loving generation had ever before been
known to sit.
This bit of assertion seemed to do Mary good, but she
was still longing to cry, Violet perceived, and the fact kept
her from mentally styling her new inmate disagreeable ;
odd enough, to be sure, but a rather attractive oddity.
"Did you have a good passage across the Atlantic, I
mean ? Were you sea-sick ?" Violet asked.
" Mrs. Forrester was ; I never suffer," announced Mary,
with the air of a veteran sailor. Perhaps Violet's face ex-
pressed a certain wonder as to where she gained her experi-
ence, for the girl added quickly, as if her veracity had
been called in doubt, " I went to Florida and back by sea
when I was a little girl, with papa."
Another sob here. Violet caught herself wondering
how strange it seemed there should be any person to weep
over George Danvers's loss ! He had certainly made plenty
of people shed tears by his misdeeds ; then she felt
ashamed of such hard-hearted reflections in this poor girl's
presence.
"You shall have some tea," she said; "that always
rests one." She rang the bell, and Antonio appeared in his
customary speedy fashion. She gave her order, adding,
"Everything is ready is Miss Danvers's rooms ? Have her
boxes been carried up ?"
" Pardon, mademoiselle, none have come ; I was about
to ask mademoiselle if I should send "
" Oh, my baggage I forgot it !" interrupted Mary,
springing out of her chair. The recollection of an odious
adventure which she meant to keep to herself checked fur-
ther speech. She had hurried through the station, and
sprung precipitately into the nearest hack, only thinking of
escape ; and from that moment to this had not remem-
bered those trunks which had weighed so heavily on her
mind during the whole journey. And she could offer no
explanation. Cousin Violet would believe her heedless and
silly, and conceive a prejudice against her ; but a recital of
154 FROM AMERICA,
the facts would afford still stronger grounds for censure.
Girls had no business to meet with adventures. Mary had
no creed more firmly fixed than this. Cousin Violet would
be shocked decide that she had been ill brought up per-
haps condemn her father therefor. A dread of blame fall-
ing upon the memory of her dead parent was always her
first fear in these days. She bad lived for months in a
constant state of watchful defense, which would have gone
far to render a girl less healthy in body and mind either
hopelessly morbid or downright vixenish.
And the trunks might be lost stolen ; not only her
wardrobe, but every precious relic she possessed, gone in a
single fell swoop. Did ever such miseries befall another '?
Why, all the woes possible came upon her at once, big and
little ! As a crowning stroke to her discomfiture, she had
said " baggage," and that was an Americanism she had
read so in an English book ! And Cousin Violet, who had
lived so long abroad, would think her uneducated as well
as silly ! In her troubled bewilderment she could pay no
attention to some question of her cousin's, but caught her-
self muttering, " Buggage !" a wild, impossible combina-
tion of the two words, which made her feel that her brain
was positively softening.
But Violet had turned to the man again, without
noticing her insane ejaculation ; and, oh, she was speaking
calmly about rooms and arrangements ; and the trunks
might be stolen had been already, no doubt ! Mary
started forward with some confused idea of rushing off in
search of her property heard Violet exclaim :
" Don't stir, dear child !" and dropped back into her
chair, and again her lips muttered that impossible word :
" Baggage !"
" What did you say, dear ?" Miss Cameron asked.
Mary only shook her head ; she was past speech ; so
completely exhausted by fatigue and varying emotions that
she did not care what became of the trunks, or herself, or
anything in the world.
"Just give Antonio the ticket for your boxes," Violet
said ; and Mary managed to find her pocket-book and ex-
tract the paper, but, oh, she was sure she appeared hope-
lessly idiotic. And she could not explain ; and between
vexation, weariness, and a shuddering disgust to recall her
adventure, she turned positively sick and faint.
FROM AMERICA. 155
After Mary had drunk her tea, she felt somewhat re-
stored ; yet all the while, as Violet sat talking in a kindly
cheerful fashion, an odd sensation that everything was un-
real oppressed the newly-arrived visitor. She could hardly
yet believe this the cousin whom she had pictured as faded
and elderly, perhaps pretentious and affected, on the
strength of having been a beauty this lady, so youthful,
so lovely, so like Mary's exalted ideas of what a princess
or a poetess ought to be ! She found it difficult to accept
this brilliant creature as a relative in place of the ideal
which she had formed and elaborated with the positiveness
of her age had shrunk from a little, too and, while glad
to discover her error, she indulged a certain sense of injury
thereat. Mary was a model to girls in general for her
readiness to admit that she had made a mistake or been in
the wrong, but she had a trick of retaining that injured
feeling under her penitence as a sop to her dignity.
" Now I will show you your rooms," Violet said.
" Come this way, dear."
For a space Mary quite forgot her troubles and annoy-
ances in admiration of the charming nook which Violet had
furnished with such care.
" My bedroom is next yours," she explained, as they
sat down in the boudoir, "and Miss Bronson's apartments
are next this room, so you will not feel solitary."
Mary showed so much pleasure, and expressed her grati-
fication so prettily, that Violet ventured to hope she had
got quite at her ease, and that now they could begin to
make acquaintance.
" My house is a rather gay one," she said presently, d
propos to some details about her daily life, " but you shall
not be worried at present."
" Oh, I noticed you wore no mourning," rejoined Mary,
and stopped, confused and vexed at having spoken the
words ; yet the sense of injury came back.
" I did for a few weeks," Violet renlied quietly ; " as
long as is customary, unless for one's immediate family.
You must recollect that I had not seen your father for
many years."
" Yes of course I beg your pardon ! Oh, I don't
know what ails me ; I say everything wrong ; I never be-
haved so in my life and you are so good to me !" cried
Mary, her features working tremulously.
156 GIULIA'S GREEK.
" You are tired, that is all," Violet said. " Now, my
dear, I am going away, so that you can lie down and rest
before dinner ; you will feel better then. Try to sleep,
and wake up remembering that you are at home !"
She kissed the girl's forehead and went out of the
room. Left to herself, Mary indulged in a hearty fit of
crying, which did her good. She slept afterwards, and by
the time she met her cousin and Miss Bronson, had re-
covered sufficient self-control to behave sensibly, though
still embarrassed enough to be stiff and precise ; a bearing
which caused Violet serious doubts as to the probability of
her proving a satisfactory companion, but which prepos-
sessed Eliza at once in her favor, stiffness and dignity being
synonymous terms in the spinster's mind.
CHAPTER XVII.
GIULI A'S GREEK.
AVE you seen Giulia's Greek ?" asked Lady Har-
court, as she established herself in the coziest
corner of Nina Magnoletti's salon.
It was the little Russian's reception-day, and
a knot of people, Violet Cameron among them,
was gathered in the room. Her ladyship had just entered,
and barely gave herself time to exchange salutations with
her friends before she put her question.
" Has Giulia found a Greek?" demanded Nina.
" ' When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of
war,' " quoted Sabakine, with mock sententiousness.
" I knew you would get off that stale old quotation,"
cried Lady Harcourt. " Yes, Nina, she has ; he only ar-
rived yesterday ! Oh, my dear, there is the most wonder-
ful history attached "
"Already?" broke in Sabakine.
"Be quiet, and let me tell my news not a soul of you
had heard ! How delightful to be first in the field for
once ! And how do you suppose she came by him ?"
" Advertised !"
GIULIAS GREEK. 157
" Made a compact with the devil !"
" Won him at cards !" This last suggestion was Saba-
kine's.
" No, no ; nothing so hackneyed and commonplace as
either of those devices," said Lady Harcourt.
" And bhc would have nothing to offer his Satanic
majesty, since she gave him her soul long since," Sa-
bakine added.
"Do tell me!" pleaded Nina. "Nobody will ever
guess."
" Miss Cameron is the only one who does not try her
powers," said Lady Harcourt, " Yankee though she be !
Yes, I understand," she continued, as Violet only smiled
rather disdainfully in response. " Not worth the trouble !
My dear, you never will appreciate Giulia, in spite of all
my efforts to make you."
" Oh yes, I think I do," returned Violet.
"At her value," added Sabakine, "which is above
rubies ! But don't drive us mad with curiosity, Lady Har-
court ! Who made the duchess a present of a Greek '?"
" Her husband !"
A chorus of incredulity followed ; Miss Cameron alone
remained silent and indifferent.
" Her husband !" repeated Lady Harcourt, nodding her
head impressively, and looking slowly around the circle till
her eyes rested upon Violet. " Miss Cameron is the only
polite person among you," she added ; " I shall tell ray
story for her special benefit."
" So kind of you," said Violet, laughing at her mis-
chievous friend's efforts to tease her.
" One may be less doubting than Thomas, still there are
limits to one's credulity," said Nina.
" Lady Harcourt evidently thinks not," observed Saba-
kine.
" Hush, you pair of schismatical Muscovites !" cried her
ladyship. " Yes, a gift of marital affection, and a very
nice-looking one too : who could ever say a harsh word
against the duke after this ?"
"Are we to accept the duchess's unaided testimony as
to the quarter from whence the cadeaic arrives?" asked
Sabakine.
" Not a bit of it ; he comes under the husband's seal. I
saw the proofs," said Lady Harcourt.
158 GIULIXS GREEK.
" Ah, do tell me !" urged Nina. " It is cruel to play
with all the better feelings of our natures in this fashion."
"My dear, I have to work up gradually to my fine
effects ;* one is not allowed such a marvel to relate every
day ! Well, then, I drove to Giulia's to carry "
Her ladyship was interrupted by the entrance of Carlo
and Aylmer.
"How do you do, Mr. Aylmer?" cried Nina. "Oh,
don't speak, either of you ! Lady Harcourt had just begun
to tell us something so interesting."
" I can begin again."
"Pray lose no more time ! Giulia has got a Greek
her husband sent him Lady Harcourt went to the house
and found him. Now, now, please go on, my dear friend."
"Oh, that story ; have you only just heard that?" cried
the provoking Carlo.
" I have long suspected you of being the most depraved
of men, and now I am convinced !" retorted her ladyship.
"You only want to spoil my dramatic effects you know
nothing about it !"
" And what business have you here on my reception
morning, I should be glad to learn ?" demanded Nina.
" Don't I know, my lady ?" cried Carlo, holding up a
letter. " Nina inia, behold my excuse for this unseemly
intrusion !"
" What is it let me see !" pleaded Nina, hurrying for-
ward and playfully trying to snatch the letter ; but he held
it out of her reach, while allowing her to look at the seal.
" The duke's crest positively !"
" Certainly this is the age of miracles !" said Sabakine.
" Da Rimini makes his wife a present of a young Greek.
Did you say he was young, Lady Harcourt ?"
" And handsome, too !"
" And selects Carlo, of all people in the world, as his
confidant," pursued Sabakino, who was exasperating Aylmer
by keeping the seat beside Miss Cameron.
" Oh, at this rate we shall never get at the facts," cried
Nina, sinking back in her chair. " Lady Harcourt, if you
have a heart in your bosom, go on with your story."
" And I'll come in with the Greek chorus," said Carlo.
" I drove to Giulia's to carry her some of my wonderful
embrocation her little girl had hurt her hand," explained
her ladyship.
GIULIAS GREEK. 159
" Ah well, the poor little thing stands a chance of being
cured, since she can be treated for nothing," Sabakine
whispered audibly.
Nina menaced him with a paper-knife.
" And there sat Giulia and the Greek ! I thought at
first I must have been let in by accident ; but no ! Giulia
received me with unbounded enthusiasm, and begged per-
mission to present Giorgio Dimetri a great friend of her
husband's. He had just brought her a letter ; the duke par-
ticularly requested her to do all in her power to make the
signore's stay in Florence agreeable. How could she begin
better than by bringing him to the notice of a person,
etcetera, etcetera, as myself spare my modesty ! Then
we talked ; the fellow is well-mannered enough and cer-
tainly handsome. I should say a consummate rascal and
well, I don't know how to explain what I mean. I got
an idea that Giulia was afraid of him. I did, positively !"
" Giulia afraid !" exclaimed Nina.
" It does sound absurd. However, he was exaggeratedly
courteous and complimentary, and then he went away, and
I thought how fortunate I was not a censorious person, else
I should be wondering where she picked him up ! But
Giulia knows this is a wicked world, and she treated me* as
if I were as wicked as Sabakine himself brought her
proofs. Actually showed me the duke's letter so very
prettily worded joining praise of his wife and his friend
so neatly, that I cried out in admiration."
" And what did she say ?" asked Sabakine.
" ' Dear Alfredo is such a superior man !' " quoted Lady
Harcourt, with so perfect an imitation of the duchess's
manner and languid voice, that everybody laughed.
" And now for your part in the comedy, Carlo," said
Nina.
" What a changeable world this is !" cried Sabakine.
" To what is that d propos?" asked Nina.
"A. propos to Carlo's turning out the duke's confidant
instead of the duchess's," returned Sabakine, coolly.
Everybody laughed again, Nina as heartily as the
others ; each week convinced her more thoroughly that
Carlo's cure was too complete for any danger of a relapse.
With all her arts, Giulia da Rimini could never again
move him anv more than if he had been made of stone
160 GIULIA'S GREEK.
instead of the sadly inflammable materials which entered
into his composition.
" Read your letter, Carlino mio," said she ; and Carlo
read aloud the gracefully-worded lines in which the duke
recommended Signor Dimetri to the marchese's friendly
offices.
" It really does all seem like a charade to which one
hasn't the clue," said Lady Harcourt. " Carlo, had you
written to Da Rimini that Giulia was rather lonely these
days ?"
" How could I, while Aylrner was here ?" replied mis-
chievous Carlo.
" Ha ! sits the wind in that quarter !" exclaimed her
ladyship ; then she added meditatively : " That supper is
not paid for yet."
She glanced from Nina to Violet. Besides themselves
and Carlo, no one comprehended the allusion, but the trio
recollected what she had said to Violet ; and now, for the
first time, it struck Miss Cameron that the countess some-
times went a little too far in her pleasantries ; then, meet-
ing her friendly, merry gaze, thought herself absurd to be
piqued.
" Have I a supper to pay for, Lady Harcourt ?" asked
Aylmer, just because he must say something after Carlo's
speech, which had turned all eyes, except Violet's, upon
him.
" H'm !" said her ladyship. " At all events, it was pro-
phesied that but never mind ! And did you receive
the Greek with open arms, Carlo ?"
" I should have done so, but unfortunately I was out
when he called," Carlo replied.
"I want to ask a favor of you, Carlino, but I suppose
you have no time to spare," said Sabakine, so soberly that,
quick-witted as the marchese was, he thought the Russian
in earnest.
" Of course," he answered ; " always at your service.
Why should you think I hadn't time ?"
" I thought you would have to put the Greek up a little
in his new metier the retiring shopman always coaches the
fellow that takes his place," said Sabakine, as grave as a
judge.
" Attend to your manners, Alexis," said Carlo. " No-
body cares about your morals, but "
QIULIAS GREEK. 161
" One moment," interrupted Lady Harcourt. " Get me
some jeweler's cotton, somebody, if Carlo is going to dissect
Sabakine's mental anatomy. My ears are not hardened
enough to endure that."
As soon as there was a lull in the laughing chatter, Miss
Cameron rose to take her leave.
" Going already, Violet !" expostulated Nina.
" I must. You know my cousin arrived yesterday. I
promised to take her out to drive."
" A cousin a feminine one ! You are less fortunate
than Giulia," said Lady Harcourt.
" But my deserts are so much less, you must remember !"
" I hope Miss Danvers is well," Aylmer said, as Violet's
rising brought him within reach of her.
" Rather tired yet a little shy and disconsolate, too, I
am afraid."
" She certainly cannot be so long in your house."
"I hope not," Violet replied.
" I was going to inquire after you all," continued Ayl-
mer, " but I saw your carriage pass in the street. May I
come to-morrow?"
" Of course. By the way, the professor has promised
to dine with us enfamille. Pray come too, if you are not
better occupied."
"As if that were possible ! I shall be delighted !" re-
turned he, with more energy than the occasion absolutely
required ; but fortunately the others were listening to some
remark of Lady Ilarcourt's, and did not hear.
A rose that Violet wore i'n her corsage dropped on the
floor. Aylmer picked it up, and she held out her hand,
saying :
" Thanks !"
He bent over her gloved fingers as if in leave-taking,
holding back the flower and looking at her with such an
eager entreaty to be allowed to keep it that permission or
refusal seemed important, trifling as the matter was. So
Violet simply appeared unconscious that she had lost the
rose, and turned to exchange some last laughing words
with Nina and the rest.
Carlo came forward and offered his arm to conduct
her down stairs, and Aylmer thought his friend a monster
for not leaving the pleasant duty to him. He longed to
take his departure also, but his culte was so sacred that he
162 GIULIA8 GREEK.
never could bear doing the least thing which would render
his attentions to Miss Cameron pointed in the eyes of their
acquaintances. His precious secret must risk no contam-
ination from premature exposure to those sharp-witted,
careless-tongued people, who made a jest of every subject
under heaven, from an idyl to a tragedy.
This time he had a little reward for his self-denial in
listening to her praises. As the door closed behind Violet
and Carlo, Lady Harcourt exclaimed, with unusual earnest-
ness :
" That charming creature always affects me like a breath
of pure air."
"I really believe she lives in some higher sphere, and
just stoops to us occasionally," said Sabakine ; then, as if
ashamed of ever speaking seriously, he added with a laugh :
" To leave her is like going out of church, without any of
the bored sensation."
" Oh, nobody could pose less for a saint," rejoined Lady
Harcourt. " She is never prudish, never shocked ; yet
somehow, bright and witty as she is, she gives me the feel-
ing of a Una set in the midst of our I mean your wick-
edness."
"Because she is the best, purest creature that ever
lived !" cried Nina, enthusiastically.
" Isn't that her one fault ?" asked Sabakine. " She is
a thought cold her atmosphere is a little too rarefied."
" She has a heart equal to her head, and that is saying a
great deal," responded Nina.
" Only no man has ever succeeded in waking it," said
Sabakine.
" I hope, for her sake, none ever will," observed Lady
Harcourt. " It would be curious to watch her under such
circumstances, but she is so earnest, so enthusiastic beneath
her coating of ice, that the experiment would probably
prove dangerous, considering what you men are."
"You need not compliment her at our expense, eh, Ayl-
mer?" pronounced Sabakine, with a mischievous glance.
" I agree with Lady Harcourt," Laurence replied, so
quietly that Nina indulged in a hasty wonder if it could be
possible her idea in regard to the state of his feelings was
without foundation.
As the marchese was helping Violet into her carriage,
she said :
GIULIA'S GREEK. 163
" There come Giulia da Rimini's yellow liveries down
the street ; you will have the happiness of handing her
up stairs. No doubt she has brought her Greek to exhibit
to Nina."
Carlo was not sensitive, but he had no mind to endure
the quizzical looks of his friends when he returned with
Giulia and the new-comer, as he should have to do in case
Violet's supposition proved correct ; and he did not wish a
tete-a-tete with her on the stairs if she came alone.
" Which way are you going ?" he asked.
" Home," she replied.
" Couldn't you drop me in the Piazza Maria Novella ?
I have an errand there," he said.
" Oh yes ; get in if you choose to risk Mrs. Grundy's
censure, supposing we are seen. Dear me, what a mortal
terror you must have of Circe, since you are willing to
sacrifice both our reputations in order to avoid her !"
" I thought you would admire my strength of mind,"
returned Carlo, laughing, as he stepped into the carriage
and gave the order to the footman.
" Or your prudence," amended Violet.
" Do you really suppose I am obliged to cultivate that
cowardly virtue where the Rimini is concerned ?" said
Carlo, for though exceeding!) 7 sensible in most respects, he
could never keep his overweening vanity from crying out
at the slightest possible prick.
" I should be sorry to have so poor an opinion of you,"
she replied, and changed the conversation : jests on the
subject were disagreeable to her.
Carlo was very attentive and tender to his wife in these
days, often stopping away from the club and resisting the
attractions of baccarat to remain with her. He always be-
haved like this after one of his wanderings of fancy ; it
was the certainty that the vagary would soon pass which
kept Nina from becoming jealous enough for real un-
happiness, and she possessed the wonderful wisdom and
tact to receive the offender's return with a sweetness
which few women would have been able to emulate.
She never reproached him ; appeared neither sad nor
sulky ; she simply ignored what had happened, and ren-
dered herself as fascinating as if he had been a new
victim to be immolated on her shrine.
By pursuing this line of conduct she kept a firm hold
164 GIULIAS GREEK.
over the butterfly nature of her husband. He always
came back usually came speedily, too ; for, besides the
masterly talents she displayed in her treatment of him,
she seldom failed very soon to find means of putting
his temporary goddess at a disadvantage. The woman
for whom he conceived one of his violent, short-lived
fancies, Nina was sure to pet and make much of ; seek her
society, offer her entertainments, lay little pitfalls, and sit
serenely by and watch the lady fall into them, and so dis-
gust Carlo ; and she did it all so innocently that he never
discovered the dispelling of his dream was Nina's work.
He only decreed the other woman an idiot ; he beheld her
commonplace, vapid, mere clay, unadorned by any poetical
light, and marveled that he could for an instant have im-
agined her anything else ; and turned towards Nina, such
a pleasing contrast, and adored her with all his might.
But into the contest with Madame da Rimini, Nina had
carried more active sentiments, growing too jealous to be-
have with her customary tact. She had reached so high a
pitch of exasperation at her impotency to counteract Circe's
spells, that she might have risked ruin of her peace by open
hostilities, had not Violet come so adroitly to her aid and
ended Carlo's thraldom by the blow to his vanity.
"I never, never can repay you, Violetta mia !" Nina
would say. "You see how effectually he is cured thanks
to you. Oh, a man was there ever anything so weak !"
Adding this latter exclamation with the sort of pitying
scorn one so often notices in women's words, and in their
treatment of the opposite sex. Violet understood her
state of mind, and only wondered that such commiserat-
ing contempt had no effect upon her tenderness for her
husband. It seemed to Violet that she should never be
able to behave as Nina did, though she acknowledged
the wisdom of such conduct. She could never conde-
scend to similar warfare to those little plots those
crafty efforts to recall the wandering masculine fancy ;
nor, when the infatuation passed, could she receive the
delinquent with such complete ignoring of his misdeeds
such entire unconsciousness that he had strayed into
forbidden paths.
Were the case her own, she should hate him ; she was
sure of that. Still, she could admit that such conduct
AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE. 165
showed real wisdom, though admitting it with a certain
disdain which would speedily have chilled her friendly feel-
ings for almost any other woman than Nina.
CHAPTER XVIII.
AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE.
HERE was a little stir of curiosity in the room,
carefully suppressed, of course, as the duchess
entered with the Greek, and attended by her
withered, weedy dame de compagtiie, whom she
always remembered to produce when desirous of
appearing intensely respectable.
" She must have picked him up somewhere, and forged
the letters from the duke," Sabakine said in a low voice to
Lady Harcourt, while Giulia was presenting her cavalier to
the hostess. " She is always deep in deviltry when she
drags out that unfortunate dme damnee."
" Who always reminds me of a squirrel set to guard a
boa-constrictor," returned Lady Harcourt in the same un-
dertone. " But listen isn't she delicious ?"
" Such a shame Carlo is gone !" sighed Sabakine, and
the genuine disappointment in his tone, and Lady Har-
court's sympathetic glance in answer, were a proof that
the absent one had been wise to beat a retreat.
" Cara marchesa," the duchess was saying, " let me pre-
sent to you a dear friend of my husband's ! I knew the
surest way of enchanting Signer Dimetri with Florence
would be to bring him at once to your house, dearest
Nina."
" Where you and your friends are so welcome, duchess ;
though the signore will soon learn how you overrate its
attractions unless he is always careful to come in your
company," returned the marchesa, bestowing a courteous
smile on the stranger, though her intimates perfectly under-
stood the reservation that last clause held, whatever might
be the case with the Greek, who bowed and answered with
sufficient readiness and ease.
166 AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE.
" Is this your first visit to Florence, Signor Dimetri ?"
Nina asked.
" My first," he replied ; " and I am already wondering
how I could have deferred it so long."
" I hope you left the duke quite well," continued Nina ;
and again Sabakine and Lady Harcourt exchanged covert
smiles, delighted by the adroitness with which the little
Russian signified to the duchess that she was no longer
afraid of defying her.
"Still suffering from that tiresome sciatica, which
forces him to keep within reach of his Paris doctor," re-
sponded Dimetri.
"How could Shakespeare declare there was nothing in
names," said Sabakine, in a fresh aside to Lady Harconrt.
" Only think what a blessing for a worn-out debauchee
like Rimini to find such a moral-sounding title to cover his
ailments ; a saint might have sciatica, you know !"
"My husband gave Signor Dimetri a letter to Carlo,"
said the duchess quickly, and she pronounced the words
" my husband " with a tender stateliness which caused
Sabakine's face to express such ecstatic delight, that Lady
Harcourt had much ado not to laugh. "So you and he
will have to share in my pleasurable duty of playing
cicerone."
"Carlo will appreciate the duke's compliment, dear
Giulia," said Nina, sweetly ; "but any efforts of his will
seem so very poor beside yours ! The marchese received
your card, Signor Dimetri. Too bad, he is out, Giulia ;
Violet Cameron carried him off only a few minutes since."
The duchess smiled and turned to speak to the assem-
bled group, but she meant to make Nina introduce the
Greek whether she would or not, and said :
"I presented the signore to Lady Harcourt at my
house" (the Greek bowed, and her ladyship returned the
salute), " so he will be quite one of us without loss of
time when you have named him to your masculine adorers."
"And will speedily discover that I have no power over
them when you are near," said Nina, perfectly concealing
her vexation at being forced by her antagonist to do what
she had a moment before resolved she would not on any
terms.
"Upon my word, Giulia's gigantic audacity deserves
the overwhelming success it meets," was Sabakine's com-
AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE. 167
ment in Lady Ilarcourt's ear, as he moved forward in
obedience to the hostess's appeal :
" Prince Sabakine, the duchess desires me to present to
you her husband's friend, Signer Dimetri."
" Quick-witted little fairy ! She has managed, after all,
to put the onus on Giulia," thought Lady Harcourt, re-
garding her with admiring eyes.
Sabakine was charmingly courteous, but very grand
seigneur, as he could be on occasion, and the Greek made
his bows and speeches to him and the others, as the
marchesa named them, with a composure which Lady liar-
court decided held an undefinable something which proved
that his ease proceeded from effrontery, not thorough
breeding.
A fresh installment of Nina's exquisite Caravan tea was
brought in for the new-comers, and her ladyship said :
" I cannot resist, though if I drink any more I shall be
near a crise de nerfs ! May I trouble you, Signer Dimetri ?"
she added to the Greek, who stood near the table on which
the smoking samovar had been set.
She moved to give him a place on the sofa beside her,
and conversed most amiably for some moments, while
laughing talk went on, and the result of her ladyship's
study was a meditation which ran in this wise :
" You are an adventurer, but your manners are good
enough, and you certainly are very handsome. You are
not a coward either a score of devils stare out of your
eyes and you are perfectly incapable of fear, moral or
physical. Giulia is certain to rush into one of her passions
for you, you broad-shouldered, passionate-eyed, cruel-
mouthed creature ! and you look capable of beating her if
she offended you and I am sure I hope you will ! Now
why did the duke send you to her? Have you got a hold
over him? did he owe you money? No, you are not that
sort of man. Did he project his soul into futurity, and
gloat over the prospect of your one day murdering Giulia,
and so freeing him from the pair of you ? or what was his
motive? Well, time will show at all events the doubt
gives something to look forward to. Perhaps now Giulia
will relinquish her designs on Aylmer. Oh no, she Avon't !
she hopes to tease Violet Cameron. Can she ? H'm ! I
am puzzled there. Ah, she has captured Aylmer, and taken
him behind the flower-stand in the window. Now she
168 AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE.
peeps to see if the Greek notices she is afraid of him !
And he sees her, though he does appear so occupied with
what he is saying to me he sees her ! He is one of those
creatures that can look in every direction at once a
faculty left from that stage of development in which he
was some sort of feline animal in a tropical jungle."
The duchess, who had strayed away to examine the
flowers, managed to catch the trimmings of her gown in a
jardiniere, and summoned Aylmer, who stood nearest, by
pointing out her mishap. While he was extricating the
lace, she said, in a voice inaudible to the others :
" Mr. Aylmer, will you do me a favor ?"
" I shall be most happy, duchess you are sure of that !"
" Ah, I don't want compliments. I mean a real favor,
though it is not a difficult one for you to grant."
" You have only to tell me what it is," he answered.
" I saw you were not prepossessed with him," making a
slight gesture of her finger towards the Greek.
" I assure you "
" Oh, I saw ! I am very quick to notice even little
things," she continued rapidly. "I want you to promise
me to be friendly with him do your best to make the
rest so."
"Any person whom you introduce, duchess, is certain
of meeting with every attention," he replied, rather
evasively.
" Promise me do promise !" she exclaimed, speaking
scarcely above her breath, but with an earnestness which
was reflected in her eyes.
"I can certainly promise to show every courtesy in my
power," he said.
" It is very important to me," she continued. " I will
tell you why I cannot here. Will you come to my house?
I am going home. Please come. Ah ! if you knew. I am
sure you would not refuse ! You at least have some
generosity, some feeling ! you are not like all those people
there, who would not lift a finger to save friend or sister
from a burning house !"
She spoke with a repressed passion and bitterness so
evidently unfeigned that, distasteful as she was to him, he
could not help a certain sensation of pity.
"Will you come?" she repeated. "Will you do me
the favor ?"
AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE, 169
"Please do not call so slight a thing a favor of course
I will come," he answered.
" Oh, thanks thanks !"
She moved away and sat down beside Nina. Lady
Ilarcourt released the Greek, and the conversation became
general. Out of sheer sympathy for any creature who ap-
peared solitary and miserable, Aylmer several times drew
Giulia's faded dame de compagnie into the talk ; but,
though her habitually anxious, startled face showed she
appreciated his kindness, she seemed nervous at the very
sound of her own voice. A lady born and bred a sensi-
tive woman with weak nerves and, originally, principles
and a sense of right and wrong forced by the exigencies
of fate to accept an anomalous position in Giulia da
Rimini's house ! It was no marvel that after living
through five years of such an existence she looked, as Lady
Harcourt expressed it, " like a mouse caught in a trap a
mouse possessing gleams of a soul instead of a tail."
" Mademoiselle de Roquefort, I think we must go if we
mean to drive to the hospital," said the duchess. " Signor
Dimetri, it would be cruel to drag you away."
But that personage was too astute to prolong his visit.
" I have an appointment with the Brazilian consul," he
said, " and must make my respectful adieus to the marchesa.' :
A couple of the other men took their leave at the same
moment.
As the duchess passed Aylmer, she shot a reminding
glance at him ; but, rapid as it was, that terrible Lady
Harcourt caught it.
"She made an appointment as they stood by the jardi-
niere," thought her ladyship. " Oh, Laurence Aylmer, is it
possible that after raising your hopes to Violet Cameron,
you can abase them ' to batten on carrion' ? But you are
only a man ! Perhaps, after all, I do you injustice ; time
will show that too."
As soon as the retiring guests were safe out of hearing,
a chorus of voices arose.
"Was ever impudence like hers?" cried Nina.
" Her new man to be one of us immediately !" said Sab-
akin e.
" He seems well enough," said Nina ; " but what an evil
mouth !"
"Very hanlsome," pronounced Lady Harcourt, "and I
8
170 AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE.
hope sufficiently wicked to have invented some new sin ;
one is so tired of the old vices."
" And to be forced in on us like this," said somebody else;
" not knowing anything ab^ut him, or where he came from !"
"He came straight from the duke," said Lady liar-
court. "I am sure it would be a comfort if one knew noth-
ing about three-quarters of the people we meet in this
blessed town."
Fresh visitors were announced, and she rose to go.
"Be grateful, marchesa, that Da Rimini's present is at
least presentable, since you have a share in him. Aurevoir.
I shall see you all at Potaski's to-night? Mr. Aylraer, be
good enough to aid my tottering steps with your arm you
look as if you were just going to take leave."
" You pretend that because you want to carry him off,"
said Nina, gayly.
" Only to the foot of the stairs I have no sheep-dog to
guard me, as dear Giulia had," laughed her ladyship
When they reached the anteroom, she said to Aylmer :
" I did not mean take leave of your senses, you know."
"Have you seen any signs?" he asked.
"I see nothing ever absolutely nothing!" she an-
swered. " That is what makes me the safest person in the
world."
" I shall remember your words when I have a secret to
confide," said he.
As she got into her carriage, she continued :
" Can I set you down anywhere ? I don't pass the
Palazzo Amaldi, but I do the Rimini."
" Thanks ; my lodgings are not in the direction of
either," he replied, laughing in spite of himself.
"I see nothing," repeated she; "not even a flower-
stand when it is near enough for me to fall over it. Good-
by, Don Melancholy at least you always look like one,
though I can't perceive that you are. You ought to wear
a cavalier's dress, you know. Don't forget my evening
and "
" I am not likely to, Lady Harcourt."
" And just remember that sometimes elaborately private
flower-stand performances are seen and watched are meant
to be, by the female wit which arranges them."
She nodded, smiled, and drove away, thinking :
" Of \yhat use would warnings be ? If fato and Giulia
AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE. 171
mean to make him trouble, they will. Besides, I never
meddle that has been the ruling principle of my life : it
is necessary to have one of some sort."
And Aylmer felt confident that she knew where he was
bound as well as if she had heard the duchess's words.
" If she were not the woman she is," he thought, " what
a dangerous creature she would be, with those lynx-eyes
and unfailing intuitions."
He walked on, wishing heartily destiny had not thrown
him in the duchess's way that morning, and thereby spared
him the present interview. He was a man so singularly
free from vanity it had never occurred to him to suspect
that Carlo's jests in regard to the lady's fancy possessed
any foundation, and even had masculine weakness prompted
him to think so, the duchess's efforts to attract his attention
would have been as much thrown away as now, from the
fact that Violet Cameron's image filled his heart and soul,
to the utter exclusion of every other member of her sex.
But he would gladly have avoided the interview ; he
had no desire to become the duchess's confidant, to have
any part whatever in her secrets. The woman was distaste-
ful to him, had been from the moment he set eyes on her,
and he vaguely mistrusted her not on account of the
aspersions cast upon her by her associates, for in Florence no
two friends ever appeared to meet without having scandal-
ous stories to relate of their mutual acquaintance, but be-
cause he felt her to be false and cruel as utterly without
principle as she was destitute of pity. Her very beauty
was in a style antipathetic to him, and he had vexed Carlo
sorely by declaring, when he first met her, that he preferred
the plainness of the most faded blonde to the voluptuous
charms of a big, black woman with fiery eyes, like the
duchess, which, even when they wore their softest aspect,
reminded him of a midday in the torrid zone.
However, there was no escape ; he must go to the
Palazzo Rimini, and he tried to find a little sympathy for
her by reflecting that her agitation and trouble had been
real ; but the wish would come back that she had chosen
her confidant elsewhere.
The duchess was at home, the porter told him would
he please to walk up stairs? The servant at the entrance
of the great gloomy antechamber, where on a dais still
stood the two faded gilt chairs in which dukes and duchesses
172 AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE.
of bygone generations used to sit in state to receive their
dependents, had evidently been given his orders. Aylmer
was ushered without delay through several dingy, cheerless
salons into a room somewhat more habitable, in which the
duchess usually spent her mornings.
She was there now, standing by a window looking down
into the narrow street where the sun never penetrated save
for a brief space towards noon, and the lofty palace oppo-
site seemed frowning at its neighbor with inimical glances.
She turned as Aylmer was announced swept forward
to meet him, her long black velvet draperies trailing over
the square of Turkey carpet spread like an oasis in the midst
of the desert of cold pavement her face appearing at its
best in the sad, troubled expression which lay like a cloud
upon if.
" Thank you very much for coming," she said, in the
sweetest tones of her indolent Southern voice, whose slight
tremulousness was the more noticeable from the contrast
to its customary slow, firm ring. She extended her hand,
then seated herself on a couch which would hold two com-
fortably ; but Aylmer took possession of an easy-chair by
the table placed in front of the sofa. " It was very kind of
you," she added.
"Pray do not use such an inapplicable word," he pleaded.
" It is the right one," she replied, shaking her graceful
head. "Do you know, even after begging you to come, I
was almost ready to bid them refuse you admittance ! But
I could not have excused my seeming rudeness, and besides
no, it is stronger than I I must speak to some one I can-
not endure my burden in silence !"
He scrutinized her narrowly ; she was not acting, he
decided ; but why, of all people, she should have selected
him to reveal the strait in which she found herself, remained
a complete puzzle.
yi do not, of course, understand what you mean ; at
least, if any trouble has come upon you, signora, you can
be sure of my profound sympathy," he answered, and won-
dered if he looked as awkward as he felt, mentally con-
gratulating himself that the speech sounded less stilted in
Italian than it would have done in English.
"I was sure of that," she said, "else I should not have
spoken to you as I did." She paused a moment ; seemed
trying to control herself, then suddenly exclaimed with in-
AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE. 173
finite passion and pathos : " Oh, Laurence Aylmer, I am
the most wretched creature alive !"
Now if a man be ready to fall on his knees or open his
arms in order to console a woman who makes a declaration
of that nature, the hearing it no doubt possesses a keen in-
terest ; but Aylmer was not prepared to do anything of the
sort, nor did he for an instant suppose the duchess desired
either of such methods of consolation. Unfeignedly aston-
ished by the outburst, he could think of nothing to say
except :
" Oh, signora, signora !"
Luckily for him, face and voice were as expressive as
can be bestowed upon a human being, and Lady Harcourt
would have vowed that he resembled a cavalier or trouba-
dour more than ever, as he leaned forward and fastened his
melancholy gaze on the duchess.
" The most wretched creature alive !" she repeated,
flinging up her hands in protest against earth and heaven.
Then, with an effort at calmness, she added : "I did not
mean to behave like this ! You will think I am acting
you Northerner ! Remember how difficult it is for us im-
pulsive Italians to be calm and composed as your icy ladies
are, no matter what comes."
"Northerner though I am, be certain I can sympathize
with suffering," said Aylmer, and wished himself on the
other side of the Alps.
The duchess's trouble was real ; her fright real too (and
she was not a woman easily frightened), but neither dis-
tress nor alarm impeded her invention or dulled her craft.
When she entered Nina's salon and saw Aylmer, the idea
flashed across her that even the dilemma in which she found
herself might be turned to use where he was concerned.
She could trust him with her secret ; she knew that, what-
ever happened, he would never give a hint of his knowledge
to any human being, and her confidence must unavoidably
effect a closer intimacy than her arts had hitherto suc-
ceeded in bringing about. What she mentally termed his
exaggerated chivalry would prevent his refusing friendly
counsels to the woman who had trusted him, as often as she
might recur to the subject, and intercourse established on
that footing so easily glides into more 'tender relations!
And now, though she would have preferred a free, expan-
sive gush of sympathy in return for that dramatic enunci-
174 AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE.
ation of misery, it was a great step gained to have touched
his generous impulse to the quick.
" I know you can," she said ; " only that knowledge
could have encouraged rae to speak when we met to-day.
Do not think me bold and unfetninine because I trans-
gress the laws which hedge us poor women in ! Ah, if
you could imagine the comfort it was when I saw you ! I
had felt so utterly alone. The trouble had fallen so sud-
denly ! I could not think could not tell how to act, and I
said to myself, at least there was one human being to whom
I could speak without fear !"
Oh, if she would come to an explanation of her woes
and be done ! He was sorry for her ; he would help her if
he could, hard as he thought it that she should have singled
him out for the task ; but he grew terribly impatient to get
to the end.
" If there is anything I can do to serve you," he said,
"only tell me it shall be done at once."
" Nobody can help rne !" she cried.
Then why the deuce did she fall upon him ? he reflected
with a sudden irritation which chilled his pity.
"Nobody can help me, and I am powerless !" added the
duchess.
" We are all apt to think so when trouble comes,"
he answered. " Surely your straits cannot be so hopeless.
I am speaking in the dark ; remember I do not know what
has happened."
" Let me try and get my poor wits back and behave
rationally," she faltered, pressing her hand to her head.
"That Greek I want you to be friendly with him, to
make the others."
"I will show him every courtesy in my power, I promise
you," he replied, still busy in subduing his irritation.
"Yes, I must tell you \vhy. I cannot throw myself on
your generosity without good reasons. Mr. Aylmer, my
husband sent him ! Wait I can make you understand
more easily if I give you the letter."
She opened a little casket that stood on the table,
tossed about its contents in an agitated way, and finally
placed the duke's epistle in his hands. Aylmer read the
page ; it held neither mystery nor menace that he could
discover. On the contrary, it appeared a production
AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE. 175
which the most devoted husband might have written to his
wife for the purpose of introducing .1 valued friend.
" There certainly is nothing here, duchess, which can
account for your alarm," he said, his impatience increasing.
"Ah, that is his craft," she answered, with a bitter
smile. " I must tell you the whole, since I have begun !
That man is sent as a spy, to watch me, to misrepresent, to
twist everything I say or do into evidence which can be
used to my hurt ! I am impulsive to an extreme I shall
always be ! I cannot weigh my words, calculate my con-
duct, and it is easy to blacken a woman who is frank, per-
haps imprudent, because, conscious of her own rectitude,
she believes her truth will be her shield."
The duchess was about as impulsive as a cobra di
capello, and her frankness of a kind that would have won
Machiavelli's admiration, but one needed to know her as
thoroughly as poor Mademoiselle do Roquefort did to dis-
cover this ; therefore small blame to Aylmer that, in spite
of his acuteness, his limited acquaintance led him to put
faith in her opening assertions, whatever his opinion might
be of her uprightness and rigid principles.
" A spy !" she repeated. "Only look in his insolent,
perfidious face ; one can see at a glance that the creative
was well chosen for his work !"
" Surely you must be mistaken, duchess !"
"No, no. Listen, Mr. Aylmer ! Though my husband'?
conduct forces me to live apart from him, nobody can say
I ever went about detailing my wrongs my worst enemy
could not nor could he deny that they have been many."
A fact, Aylmer knew. The duke was a man posi-
tively steeped in vice ; almost as shameless in his open ex-
posure thereof as the mediseval ancestors from whom he
derived the base instincts which he had fostered with per-
verse assiduity.
" The time came when I could endure no longer," she
hurried on, "but since his departure I have never opened
my lips except to speak kindly of him ! I have affected to
consider our separation the necessity of circumstances.
That the world comprehended the truth, I was aware ; his
outrages had been too public for that not to be the case.
But I would have no pity. I held my peace you know
that society, cruel as it is, admits this."
" I do," he replied ; " and supposing your separation an
176 AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE.
amicable one, I am at a loss to imagine what motive the
duke could have for such conduct as this."
" His motive it is easy to explain ! He believed that
I would live with him again he used every inducement to
make me. I could not ; if it had been possible I would ;
but, oh, there are limits to a woman's endurance!" She
stopped with a shudder, then after a moment continued
more quietly : "During the last few months lie has ceased
to urge me ceased to hope it. Now he wants his revenge ;
oh, it is too dreadful ! My life has been my safeguard, so
he devises this plot. If he could manage to entrap me as
he thinks, not only would he be relieved from paying the
greater portion of the income I have now, but he could
take my child my child ; yes, give her to that horrible
woman who is his companion in Paris who helps him on
when his man's invention fails."'
Aylmer uttered an ejaculation of wondering horror.
"It sounds incredible," she continued; "but it is the
simple truth. I knew they were at work, but was at a loss
to imagine what form their machinations would take until
the very day of this man's arrival there came information
which made it easy for me to understand his errand."
" Yet you received him "
" Good heavens, what could I do ?"
" I should have turned him out of doors," replied
Aylmer, bluntly.
" And so added personal vindictiveness to the induce-
ments which have set him to dog me like a bloodhound !
No, no ; a man might be so fearless a woman cannot. I
must temporize, act a part, odious and difficult as it is to
my nature ; I must let him visit rne be friendly. Ah,
you blame me I see it in your face."
" It seems to my view that no good "
" Remember my child my innocent little daughter !"
she interrupted. " She would be taken from me given t<i
that demon ! Oh, I almost feel that if it were not for her
I should cry out : ' Do what you like I can struggle no
longer !' I would bow my head and creep away into
obscurity, and let the world believe what he wishes
believe that I am what he tried so hard and so long to
make me."
She hid her face in her hands.
" I have said the worst now," she went on in a choked
AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE. 177
voice. " Oh, I know that it seems terrible for a woman to
speak to any man as I am doing ! but try to understand
think how suddenly this trouble has come ! I have been
strong and brave, but for the moment to-day I was at the
end of ray courage. I spoke to you before I realized what
I was doing ; after that after such a request I was bound
to explain. You will not misjudge me as one of ray own
countrymen might you will let me feel that I have one
friend who pities who would help me if it were possible ?"
" That I certainly would," he answered, though again
he wished devoutly that she had chosen her confidant else-
where, especially as she had no task to set him ; he could
aid her in nothing beyond the negative assistance of being
civil to the Greek, and he would have been that at her re-
quest without this tragic scene, as useless as it was painful.
" What can I do, what can I do?" she moaned.
Difficult to tell the lady that it behooved her to be ex-
ceedingly circumspect in her conduct, yet this counsel alone
suggested itself to his mind, causing him to feel more un-
comfortable than ever.
"Surely if this fellow has come on such an errand as
you believe, every door would be closed against him, were
it known ; any man of your acquaintance would horsewhip
him out of Florence with pleasure."
"And ruin me !" she cried. "No ; I must meet craft
with craft I must learn how to do it to feign, to dissim-
ulate ; oh, I had learned to be silent, but I never thought to
stoop so low !"
" And you hope in this way to foil his intentions ?"
" Yes ; he may be deluded into betraying himself that
would render him utterly powerless. If not, then, seeing
what my life is, he will discover that even his ingenuity
cannot distort its open candor to serve his wicked purpose,
and so he may give up the game. Think of every side
am I not right ?"
" Indeed, duchess, I am at a loss how to advise "
"Ah, you blame me most of all perhaps for speaking
for yielding to my consciousness that I could trust you !"
she exclaimed.
" I ca'i only feel honored by it," he said.
"I should have borne my burden as I had hitherto
alone if I had only had time to reflect to get my courage
back," she continued. " Do not condemn me ; do not think
8*
178 AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE.
me unwomanly ! Ol), if you knew what a relief it is to
speak, even though I feel ashamed in so doing ! Oh, these
past ten years ten years ! I was only eighteen when they
married me to him. ; they took me from a convent, as
ignorant of the world as a babe no suffering, no degrada-
tion has been spared me! Ah, I think I am mad to talk
like this ! yet I cannot have you judge me harshly. I
was wrong to say a word very wrong ; but having done
so, I must make you comprehend how desperate this new
danger has rendered me. Oh, I have self-respect enough left
to be ashamed !"
" No, no !" he said eagerly. " Pray believe that you
have my warmest, fullest sympathy only I feel so terribly
helpless."
" Give me that you can do nothing more. But sym-
pathy is a great deal to a woman so completely alone as I !"
" Rest certain you have it, duchess."
" Thanks a thousand thanks !" she cried. " And you
will try to judge leniently ? try not to think me wrong in
telling you the truth ?"
" I have no need to try," he answered truthfully ; for the
man does not live so destitute of vanity that he could very
harshly condemn a woman because she offers him her con-
fidence, however troublesome it may be to find himself the
recipient of such trust, or however much he might censure
her for bestowing it upon any other.
" Now, I want you to go. Do not think me rude in
sending you away so unceremoniously. You will not see
me like this again ! I shall endeavor to act for the best ;
but recollect we women cannot boldly attack our enemies
like you men we must outwit them. It is the penalty we
pay for our weakness for the unjust laws by which your
sex has hemmed us in. Stale old complaints, I know, but
terribly, terribly true !"
She rose and gave him her hand with a mournful smile.
Pie had never seen her look so interesting as she did at this
moment. Repressed misery, patience, regret at her own
frankness, yet a sense of comfort in having spoken all
these feelings were expressed in her face, and she dropped
slowly into one of her majestic attitudes, which would have
inspired a sculptor.
Aylmer reiterated those protestations which the position
actually forced upon him, and took his leave.
AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE. 179
The duchess was tolerably satisfied with the results of
the interview, though the gentleman certainly had not ap-
proached the verge of tenderness by so much as a word,
but, keen-sighted as she might be, Giulia da Rimini had
sufficient confidence in the power of her own charms to be-
lieve that no man could long resist them when they were
fully put forth, and she naturally supposed Aylmer's very
eloquent glances must mean something beyond mere com-
monplace commiseration. His failing to make the use of
the situation which many men would have done, only be-
came a proof that she had so thoroughly preserved her dig-
nity that he feared the utterance of warmer sympathy
might bring upon him the reproach of repaying her trust
by an insult.
It would have been difficult for most of her acquaint-
ances to credit the statement, but every syllable she had
uttered was the literal truth. Yet not only could she rejoice
over the arrival of a crisis which afforded an opportunity to
establish a bond between herself and Aylmer ; but, in spite
of her terror of the Greek, she felt no personal repulsion
towards the villain his exceeding beauty prevented it. So
far from despising the baseness which could have induced
him to undertake an errand like his, she considered his doing
so a proof of ability, and she admired the unlimited faith
in his own powers which he must possess to imagine that it
would be possible for him to out-general her.
Ah, she should have a great deal upon her hands full
occupation and excitement was always welcome. She had
by no means given up the hope of reclaiming Carlo she
had the Greek to subdue, either by turning his head or
finding some more profitable bargain to offer than the
duke's ; Laurence Aylmer to lead through the realm of
friendship into a maze from whence escape would prove an
impossibility; and \ r iolet Cameron to punish ! , Oh ! nothing
could be more imperative than that duty, and her hatred
was increased by the certainty of her intended victim's
caring for the heiress. She only wanted to be sure that
Violet's feelings were interested, then subjugation of Ayl-
mer would afford revenge upon the haughty, scornful
creature.
And Laurence went his way, not in the least softened in
his judgment of the duchess by his pity, though he gave
her that freely, and no more reflected upon the possible
180 DIOGENES 'S ADVICE.
false position into which the sentiment might force him
than any other generous, impulsive man does where a woman
is concerned.
CHAPTER XIX.
DIOGENES' s ADVICE.
O you and Miss Bronson have been doing a lit-
tle sight-seeing, Mary," Miss Cameron said
the next evening, as her cousin entered the
room where she sat awaiting the two guests
whom she had invited to dine.
" We went to the Uffizi gallery," Mary answered, " and
to San Marco."
"And you were pleased?" Violet asked, making room
for her to sit beside her on the sofa.
" Oh, yes," Mary replied, and said no more, and Violet
wondered if her relative were as unenthusiastic as she
seemed undemonstrative ; but something in Mary's face
an eager, yet satisfied, expression which brightened it
warned Miss Cameron that she might be judging hastily.
Perhaps the girl was capable of both enthusiasm and demon-
strative ness, but still felt too new and strange in her present
surroundings to betray either.
" I am glad to find that Mary has a very proper appre-
ciation of art," said Eliza Bronson, who appeared just
after Miss Danvers, from which remark Violet compre-
hended that Mary had listened patiently to the spinster's
dissertation thereon. She saw a quickly repressed smile
flit over her cousin's lips as Eliza spoke, and it struck her
that perhaps, too, the little creature possessed a sense of
humor, demure as she was. Violet hoped so ; long experi-
ence of Miss Bronson had taught her that intimate com-
panionship with a person who has none is frequently a trifle
wearing. " I think she quite enjoyed San Marco, also,"
pursued Eliza ; "and I was able to give her some details
in regard to Savonarola and Fra Angelico, and you have
not forgotten the other, Mary, my dear ?"
" Fra Bartolommeo," rejoined Mary, with the prompt
obedience of a child repeating its lesson.
DIOGENES' 8 ADVICE. 181
" Ah, I am glad you remember ! I foresee that we
shall acquire real benefit from our researches," said Eliza,
complacently. " But, my dear, we must recollect that,
gifted as they were, those men were very benighted crea-
tures after all monks, only monks !"
The spinster uttered these words with a prolonged
shiver, and again Violet saw the dimples deepen about
Mary's mouth, but the girl caught her glance and tried to
look serious, as if afraid of disapproval, and then seemed
comforted when Violet laughed outright.
"You cannot deny it, Violet," said Miss Bronson,
severely.
" I don't mean to," returned Violet, " so please do not
scold me for my weakness in regard to them. I am sure
you had a pleasanter morning than I forced to make a
quantity of visits and go to a charity concert into the bar-
gain. Oh, I hate charities !"
" Violet, Violet !" remonstrated Miss Bronson. " Recol-
lect that Mary is not yet acquainted with your rather what
shall I say ? exaggerated mode of speaking, and "
"Mary, my dear," broke in Violet, "be sure you don't
let me contaminate you ! Eliza, your example may serve
to protect her."
" Surely you know that was not what I meant to imply,"
began the spinster in horrified tones, but Violet pretended
not to hear.
" What pretty hair Mary has," she said, secretly deter-
mining as she spoke that before long she would have it
differently arranged : it looked too prim and stiff to suit
her ideas. She really must lighten the child up somewhat
that severe black raiment seemed so unsuited to her.
She rose, and went round behind the sofa, took some white
roses out of a vase, and fastened two or three in Mary's
tresses so deftly that the girl did not feel her touch : in-
deed, her mind was occupied with Violet's remark :
" I am going to introduce one of my dearest friends to
you, Mary, old Professor Schmidt, the best man in the
world."
" If he were not a a skeptic !" cried Eliza, hesitating
over the word, as if even the pronouncing it were a sin.
" He was in America once," said Mary ; " I read some
lectures he delivered they were delightful."
182 DIOGENES' 1 8 ADVICE.
" I trust at least that none of his pernicious doctrines
crept in," said Eliza, with a deep sigh.
"I don't think so. They were given at a girls' school
one was on botany, another on astronomy," Mary an-
swered ; and broke off to add, in a hesitating fashion,
" Oh, Cousin Violet, you are all in white ! Is it a party ?
I'd rather not I "
" No party at all, my dear," rejoined Violet, as Mary
paused. " Just the professor and another gentleman whom
ah, I hear their voices in the anteroom."
Antonio announced the German and Mr. Aylmer. Vio-
let, standing with her hand on Mary's shoulder, felt her
cousin start as the latter name was pronounced, and as she
moved forward to greet her visitor, she glanced at Mary's
face : it wore the same disturbed expression which had
struck Violet when on the day of her arrival the girl
caught sight of Laurence Aylmer as she entered.
" Fraulein," said the professor, seizing both her hands
in his, " I am so hungry that I shall eat you if dinner is
not served in two minutes. You look like a goddess !"'
" Some heathens beat their gods you want to devour
yours," returned Violet. " It was very good of you to
come, even if you do threaten to eat me, my dear old
Diogenes."
" Very good to myself," said the professor. " Ah, Miss
Bronson, charmed to see you. You are looking unbelief
of my having a deity of any sort."
" Professor, professor !" said Eliza, in a warning whisper
that was perfectly audible to the others, and a glance
towards Mary to emphasize her words. " Let me entreat
you to avoid certain subjects which distress me at all times,
but which, in the presence of a youthful mind "
" Ah, Miss Mary Danvers ? I'll be so discreet that if
you tell her I am a disciple of Calvin she'll believe you,"
interrupted the professor, in an intentionally loud aside.
" Fraulein," he added, unceremoniously breaking in on
Aylmer's salutations to the hostess, " leave that young man
to the neglect he deserves, and present your musty, fusty
old adorer to your cousin ! My dear, I am very glad to
welcome you ; I shall call you my dear, though I spare
my excellent Miss Bronson that in public."
"Professor!" cried Eliza, indignantly. "Mary, he
never dares at any time !"
DIOGENE&S ADVICE 183
"Mary the very name for her! Oh, Miss Bronson,
Miss Bronson, trust to ray discretion. I will not betray
our little secrets."
"Secrets!" echoed he, in mingled distress and scorn.
"Excuse me, Professor Schmidt, but really your spirits
carry you away."
"My legs carried me on a tramp of ten miles to-day,"
said he, "and that wretched Aylmer pretended an engage-
ment just to avoid a little exercise ; he is hopeless, utterly
hopeless, Fraulein ! I shall speak to our clergyman, Miss
Bronson, about bis excommunication."
" I could wish that you had a clergyman," said Eliza,
with dignity.
The other three were laughing, but all the same Violet
had leisure to notice that one of Mary's little flutters was
apparent as she received Aylmer's greeting, even in the
midst of her amusement at the skirmishing between Miss
Bronson and her persecutor. But the wonder it excited MI
Miss Cameron's mind was on this occasion divided with
another reflection. She had not before seen Mary really
laugh, and between merriment, that slight confusion and
vivid blush, she looked as pretty as an impersonation of
Spring.
Antonio announced dinner, and the professor led the
hostess into the dining-room, but gave his other arm to
Mary, saying, in a whisper, which so perfectly imitated the
audible aside wherein Eliza had a habit of indulging, that,
with the exception of the worthy lady whom he presumed
to mimic, his listeners were forced to laugh again :
" Don't intrude on them, Miss Mary ! I have a horrible
suspicion that my worshiped Miss Bronson is less faithful
to me than she pretends, but I remain blind blind. I will
not verify my doubts, though they rack my heart, yes, to its
furthest depths."
Eliza affected not to hear the unseemly jest at her
expense, and began asking Aylmer after his health, a cere-
mony she always went through as regularly as if he had
been a confirmed invalid, instead of a person with every
appearance of possessing perfect strength and vigor.
" You cannot be too cautious," she added, in response
to his assurance that he was never better.
" Indeed he cannot," cried the professor ; " I hear
every word, my Adeliza every word !"
184 DIOGENE&S ADVICE.
"After an injury like yours," pursued Eliza, steadily
ignoring the savant's impertinent interruption.
" lie will meet with a worse if this continues," said the
professor, " and so I warn him ! Beware, Adeliza, be-
ware !"
Eliza had to laugh at his comic absurdity, and the
dinner commenced gayly enough. Presently Mary Danvers
had a fresh disturbing prick ; chancing to catch sight of
herself in a mirror which hung opposite, she perceived the
flowers in her hair ; it seemed to Mary they gave her quite
a festal appearance, and she doubted if that could be right.
Then came the thought, how very good of Violet to pay
attention enough to her appearance to put them there.
!Slie had half feared her cousin too elegant and tine to think
much about a young girl ! Oh, she herself must be
inclined to ingratitude ! The bare idea that she could be
guilty of a sin so despicable was dreadful indeed ; and
Violet happening to look towards her at the instant, mar-
veled anew what the earnest gaze of the girl's eyes could
mean.
The dinner passed very pleasantly. After a time Violet
led the conversation to graver subjects, and brought out
the professor, as she had meant to do. He talked in his
most interesting fashion, and even Eliza Bronson, as she
listened, forgot all his shortcomings in admiration. He
was one of those rare people who own the faculty of con-
versing upon scientific or abstruse subjects in a manner so
clear that the most ordinary mind can comprehend. He
had wandered over the four quarters of the globe, seeing
with the eyes of a naturalist and a philosopher ; he pos-
sessed a poetical appreciation of nature, and though he
never talked for effect, never indulged in ornate periods,
when he got fairly launched, his descriptions were so elo-
quent and vivid that it seemed positively to bring the
scenes he depicted before his listeners.
It proved a blissful evening to Laurence Aylmer, though
he talked less than usual ; he felt in a mood when just to
sit in the presence of the woman he loved and study her face
unobserved was happiness.
He knew very well that any yielding to the impatience
which at times he found so difficult to control might fatally
injure his cause ; but when alone with her, his eager heart
fought for utterance, till often he could not master its emo-
DIOGENES' 8 ADVICE. 185
tions, and he recognized that it was fortunate on each oc-
casion she had either successfully prevented speech, or that
some interruption had occurred, as, for instance, on the day
of Mary Danvers's arrival.
Ah, Mary Danvers ! he saw that she was fluttered, al-
most ill at ease, in his society, and did not like to speculate
upon the cause ; he wished he could think it arose solely
from her knowledge of his having met with pecuniary losses
through her father, but once, while he and George Danvers
were friends, the gentleman had dropped a hint that he
should look favorably upon Ay liner's attentions to his
daughter. Laurence rendered it unmistakably evident
that no such idea had entered, or could enter, his mind ; he
regarded Mary as a mere child ; had scarcely taken the
trouble to become acquainted with her, though he visited
the house frequently, for Danvers could make himself very
agreeable when lie desired. And not long after that con-
versation, Danvers's manner had changed a little ; he de-
voted his powers to drawing Aylmer into those business
schemes which proved so disastrous. When the losses
came, Laurence could not help thinking that, as soon as the
man discovered there remained no hope of providing for
his child against the ruin which he knew must overtake
him in a few months, by the marriage he had contemplated,
he recklessly and ruthlessly employed his arts to obtain the
money to fling after his own into the pit of speculation.
These losses had involved the discomforts of a sudden
change from ample means to a comparatively limited in-
come, but his future would be independent of them. On
the death of a relative he must come into possession of a
large fortune bequeathed to her for life only, and she was
now an elderly woman. Laurence was the last man in the
world to calculate on such an event, but since his acquaint-
ance with Violet Cameron the recollection that a few years
would give him affluence became a pleasant thought ; he
had no necessity to hesitate or fret over the fact of her
wealth, since before long he should fully equal her in that
particular.
He was not given to talking of himself ; even to the
professor he had never mentioned that certainty as to his
future indeed, he regulated it in his own mind without such
reference, lie had come to Europe meaning to revisit
places already familiar, study the countries he had not yet
186 DIOGENES '8 ADVICE.
seen, then return to America and devote his energies to a
political career. But meeting Violet entirely changed his
projects of travel ; he could not tear himself away from
Florence, and in her eyes, as well as those of the professor,
he had a reason for remaining. He was a facile, brilliant
writer, well placed in the best reviews of England and
America, and besides occupation of that sort, busy with a
work upon certain periods in Florentine history, which,
often as the whole chronicle has been written, it seemed
to him might be presented in a new aspect.
The professor, enthusiastic over his plan, and the most
helpful assistant imaginable in researches among musty old
tomes and parchments, felt confident that the result of
Aylmer's labor must establish his reputation so thoroughly
that the young man, convinced literature was his legitimate
sphere, would relinquish the idea of rushing off into the
dreary labyrinth of American politics.
To night, as they were walking homeward together, the
professor, roused out of a reverie which had afforded Lau-
rence leisure to listen to the farewell words of Violet
Cameron, still ringing in his ears, seized Aylmer's arm,
stopped directly under a lamp-post, and glowered at him.
"Aren't you a fool?" demanded the savant, in a mild,
insinuating voice, as if offering some highly complimentary
remark.
" I dare say I am," returned Aylmer.
" And I dare to say so too," said the professor, with a
Jupiter-like nod and a tone of exceeding triumph. " I have
been watching you for weeks, and I know that you are."
" Rather a waste of your valuable powers ; doesn't
speak much either for your perspicuity, if it has taken you
so long to arrive at such a self-evident fact," retorted
Aylmer, for once wishing the dogmatical old man a
thousand leagues away.
" Don't you sneer in your fine jrentleman dandified
fashion, else the first time you fall into my hands again as
patient, I'll I'll poison you !" cried the professor. " Yes,
I've been watching you "
" So you just said !"
" And you're a fool !"
" You told me that too ; as I knew it already, there is
no necessity for repeating it."
" There is ! The human animal is so dull that you must
DIOGENES' 8 ADVICE. 187
hammer at it with a fact before you can bring conviction
to the mind in regard to the thing it knows perfectly well."
" That sounds very fine and very German, but I don't
think it means anything/' said Aylmer.
Then they both laughed, and walked on for some mo-
ments in silence.
" You don't want advice"? I never saw the human being
who did when he really stood in need of it," quoth the
professor, suddenly. " Well, well ! here we are at the
Duorno Square ; let us walk round the cathedral, and study
the effect of the moonlight, on the side where they have
bwn cleaning the walls done with vitriol, they tell me,
which will cause them to decay rapidly ; but as the beauti-
ful old edifice will last our time, we won't grumble at hav-
ing it made more beautiful."
They passed under the shadow of the vast pile, and
stopped behind Giotto's tower, which rose airy and majes-
tic a crown of stars seeming to rest upon its summit.
The moonlight fell full upon that part of the church illu-
minating one doorway which had a narrow casement on
either side. Every detail came out with wonderful distinct-
ness the figures in the window-niches, the Virgin behind
her shrine above the portal the whole a mass of such marvel-
ous and intricate carving, that it looked like some gigantic-
ivory casket wrought with black and silver.
It was late not a person in sight not a common street
sound to vex the air. Suddenly the Campanile bell that
sweetest-voiced singer in Europe slow y chanted midnight
in its soft, deep, velvety bass, ringing down from the tower's
height with such superhuman melody that it seemed to
Aylmer's dreamy fancy he must be catching strains from
the very courts of heaven counted its orison, and was
mute, leaving the echo of its sweetness on the listening air.
Presently they went along the Via Calzajoli to the
Piazza Signoria, and paused before the Palazzo Vecchio
with its lily-like tower (the only comparison, stern gray
stone though its material be), watched the yellow glory
gild Orcagoa's Loggia, brighten the bronze Perseus, man-
tle Fedi's group then, still in silence, wandered through
the statue-lined colonnades of the Uffizi, and came out up-
on the Arno. At the right, the quaint, picturesque Ponte
Vecchio shut in the view ; away to the left, San Miniato
blazed with lights ; and beyond, the outlines of the distant
188 DIOGENES' 8 ADVICE.
mountains showed like cloud-castles in the transparent
atmosphere.
"Ach, what a beautiful city, what a beautiful world !"
the professor boomed forth. Then he took a long German
pipe from the pocket of his ulster, lighted it as carefully
and lovingly as if it had been some sacred censer, the kin-
dling whereof was a religious rife, puffed a column of white
smoke into the air, and descended from philosophical medi-
tations to deliver the lecture which he had deceitfully
allowed Aylmer to think was to be spared.
" Young man, I do not wear a petticoat and I am not
perhaps exactly what one might term a beauty, but I pro-
pose to render this interview useful to your benighted
faculties, even if I cannot make it interesting."
" Heaven help me !" groaned Laurence.
" Be silent, you !" commanded the professor, looking
sternly out from a halo of smoke. " You are in love with
hei you would bean ass if you were not !" Ayhner made
a quick, indignant gesture. "Listen to the oracle," pur-
sued the savant ; " there is more behind ! She is in love
with you, though you did not know it, nor does she."
Aylmer's rising irritation vanished. He could not have
offered any confidence ; coming from another man he
would have regarded such words a gross impertinence, but
he loved and honored the professor so highly that he was
content to learn that the sage had discovered his precious
secret, and hear him plunge with brutal frankness into a
discussion thereof.
" She is growing gradually in love with you," amended
the savant, slowly and emphatically. " Don't contradict
don't deny !"
" I have no intention where I am concerned," Aylmer
replied, " but in regard to to her your wisdom is at
fault. After all, why should she care for me what man
would be worthy "
"Stuff!" broke in the professor. "Nature never is
guilty of that kind of blunder. No matter what the race
or the sex of the animal she has in hand, she always makes
a mate for it a fitting one, too."
"In this caoe, though, the word you employ "
"Come, don't fight over words! If you are offended
because I said animal, I'll substitute swan nightingale ! I
can't go so far as seraph to content you, because I am rnak-
DIO GENESIS ADVICE. 189
ing a statement of facts, and, therefore, no imaginary
creature will serve fur a comparison."
''Confound your materialistic ideas !"
" I did not dispute the existence of seraphs, but as no-
body ever saw one, touched one, why the race belongs to
the domain of faith, that's all. Come, you put me out
seraph, if you insist upon it, though no account we have of
the myth includes females."
" What a provoking old wretch you are !" cried Ayl-
mer, laughing in spite of himself.
The professor laughed too ; suddenly he checked his
merriment, laid his hand on Aylmer's arm, and said in an
altered voice a voice positively sweet and tremulous with
feeling :
" Don't think me a nuisance ! See here I have not
been so fond of any two human beings in double the years
you have lived as I am of you and her. Believe that, and
let it be my excuse."
" Dear old man ! there is no excuse needed," returned
Aylmer, grasping his hand cordially. "I don't in the least
mind your knowing what is in my heart. I am glad to talk
to you, since you are interested enough to care."
" Care !" repeated the professor. " We must care
about something something human, too. No matter how
old and ugly we get, we never live beyond that necessity.
I used to believe we could ; I have grown wiser, and I
know that existence would be more incomplete than it is
were not this as much a truth as any axiom in geometry."
Aylmer only answered by a pressure of the hand.
" Now, according to the verdict of the whole world,
there can be no greater instance of folly than a man well
on towards seventy holding such views ; so if I called you
a fool, you can console yourself by thinking it is much worse
to be one at my age than at yours," continued the professor.
" Oh, I don't mind admitting that I am a fool, but yon
must give me something else than your last declaration as
a proof of your folly before I believe in it."
"That's because it happens to be you I like. Human
vanity always stands in the way of a correct, cool judg-
ment where self comes," said the professor, dogmatically.
" Do you know what idea will disturb her when she begins
to see the truth ?"
Aylmer intuitively comprehended what his friend meant.
190 BIOGENESIS ADVICE.
He did not answer, but tbe savant went on as if he had
received a reply :
"Yes, that will belt her seniority. Now I dare say
that as a rule it may be a mistake for a man to marry a
woman older than himself but she is an exception. She is
more beautiful to-day than she was at twenty look at
her picture and no older. At forty-five she will appear
thirty an affair of physique one of those marvels Na-
ture occasionally likes to show us, like "
"Don't !" broke in Aylmer, certain that the professor,
in his turn, was about to compare her to Ninon.
" Ah, I understand. But all that feeling about De
PEnclos is stuff and prejudice. She followed natural
selection. Well, well, don't fidget leave that part. This
woman to-day is years younger in face and feeling than
you. By the time you are thirty-three you will be as gray
as a badger where you are not bald, and so grave and worn
that she will seem girlish beside you."
" All that is nothing ! If I could only believe she
cared could ever be brought to care !"
" Bosh ! nonsense ! You are as blind as a bat blinder !"
cried the professor. " And you are going to work just the
right way to lose her ! Do you hear ? to lose her !"
" I have tried every "
" A great many too many ! Leave her quiet, that is
what you have to do. Rouse her suddenly, and you'll
frighten her she will arm herself with scruples and send
you off ! Let her alone, and she'll float on unconsciously
till you will become too completely master for her even to
struggle against your supremacy. Why, just the very
name she gives you when we talk together shows me what
delusive haze she blinds herself under 'our friend Lau-
rence !' "
" Oh, friendship friendship! she is always bringing me
back to that !" Aylmer cried impatiently.
" Exactly. I am old and ugly, but I know how she is
to be managed better than you, young Adonis on a colossal
scale though you be ! I'd help you, if you would promise
to obey implicitly."
" I will promise ; I am at the end of my own re-
sources."
" But you'll forget to keep your word ; you'll hurry
go frantic upset everything at some inopportune moment.
A GIRVS TROUBLES. 191
N"OJ take your own course ; I'll not meddle take it and
lose her !"
" Come now, don't be a monster. Give me your idea."
" Simply to carry out her pet theory friendship pure,
simple, poetical, perfect friendship ! Let her think she has
convinced you that ought to be the only tie between you,
that no fancy or whim any longer disturbs your peace. Of
course you are not to adopt this line too abruptly ; work
up to it gradually."
"After all, she wouldn't be a woman if she were con-
tent, even if she never learns to love me."
" The first sensible thing you have said yet. Of course
she'll not be content, and her dissatisfaction, after trying
to believe she has reached the state of affairs she wanted,
will win you your prize."
" To wait, to be patient when one's very heart is on
fire ! I don't care if I am talking like a fool, it is such a
relief ! do literally nothing "
" That your role masterly inactivity. Always difficult
for human nature ; it wants to manage, direct like me, for
instance."
" But your idea is the right one, I am convinced of that."
" Then follow it, and in less than six months you will
have reason to thank me for giving it. Come, I am going
home to bed ; I can't lose my sleep worrying over your
affairs."
He put his arm through Aylmer's with a gentleness that
belied his brusque words, and they walked on in silence.
CHAPTER XX.
A GIEL'S TKOUBLES.
T must be admitted that the two cousins began
their intercourse with certain preconceived
opinions on either side which seemed likely to
prevent a thorough understanding or warm
friendship making rapid growth between them.
Mary was remorsefully conscious that on the day of her
192 A GIRL'S TROUBLES.
arrival she had behaved in a way which could scarcely fail
to prejudice Violet against her, and this consciousness ren-
dered her for a time troubled and embarrassed under her
relative's good-natured effort towards acquaintance.
Unfortunately, embarrassment with Mary took a form
which caused her to appear stiff and unresponsive. She
was constantly haunted by the idea that she, a grown
woman, had no right to settle down in idle content upon
the bounty of another woman. Worried, too, by fear that
she must be awkward and provincial, liable at every turn
to shock this elegant Violet, whom she saw courted by per-
sons the very mention of whose names seemed to Mary like
reading a romance. Mary did not mean the rich people or
the people with grand titles who gladly bent at Miss Cam-
eron's feet, but the authors and painters and sculptors she
had dreamed of men who had won a position in the world
by their genius to find herself in the same room with
whom caused the girl's heart to thrill in that enthusiasm
which is so charming at her age, laugh at it as cynically as
we older critics may.
And Mary had a great horror of being laughed at ; she
would not for worlds have allowed anybody to know that
a few days after her arrival in Florence she took advantage
of Violet's and Miss Bronson's absence, and while Clarice
supposed her tranquilly and correctly strolling about the
garden, she had entered a cab, given the order " Casa
Guidi " to the coachman, and driven away to worship the
dwelling rendered sacred by having been the home of Eng-
land's greatest poetess.
The coachman did not seem surprised that when they
reached the house she sat still and stared up at the win-
dows ; no doubt he had carried more than one young en-
thusiast on a similar errand. He descended from his perch
and leaned in at the carriage door, talking volubly, and
though her limited knowledge of Italian prevented her un-
derstanding all that he said, she did comprehend that he
was speaking of Elisabetta Browninga and claiming her as
"la nostra" with as much assurance as he would have done
Michel Angelo, and she felt unlimited confidence in him at
once.
That confidence was a little shaken presently. On gain-
ing the street that led into the piazza where the Arnaldi
Palace stood, she motioned him to stop ; but when she ten-
A GIRVS TROUBLES. 193
dered the legal fare he tinblushingly, though very insinua-
tingly, demanded double the sum. Mary, in spite of her ro-
mance, was a practical soul, and she had taken pains in ad-
vance to ask Miss Bronson casually the price per hour ; and
now, though frightened, she laid on the seat the correct
amount, and informed the faithless man by a very expres-
sive gesture that he could take it or leave it at his pleasure
she was not to be cheated. And he understood as plainly
as if she had spoken in pure Tuscan, and liked her the bet-
ter for her shrewdness, assisting her with elaborate courtesy
to alight, and Italian-like, sending a benediction after her
pretty face into the bargain.
Mary felt guilty, but very happy, as she hurried through
the square and entered the house, unperceived, as she fondly
hoped. She might have been, so far as the ducal-looking
porter was concerned, for he sat serenely dozing in the
depths of his retreat ; but unfortunately the Argus-eyed
Antonio, returning from his daily walk, crossed the street
just as she stopped the carriage. Antonio gave one glance
to assure himself that his wandering sight had not cheated
him, then plunged into the shadow of a porte-coch&re, and
watched to see what she would do next. Hurrying home
as fast as her feet would carry her ; but where had she
been? that was the question ! Antonio's heart sank be-
neath a virtuous pang ! He had served in too many high
and mighty families, and grown familiar with " the ways
that are dark " of too many demoiselles of lofty descent, not
to entertain certain suspicions in regard to her escapade,
and indeed the only thing which astonished him was that
he could have been sufficiently mistaken in this fawn-eyed
American girl to feel any surprise.
" But she looked so innocent she did indeed ; and to
think of my being deluded by that !" Antonio thought.
Then, a little to soften his feeling of humiliation, he added :
" After all, she is a woman ! Solomon himself was deceived
to the last !"
All day and all the evening did Antonio meditate over
his discovery, and try for means to warn Miss Cameron
that she ought to keep a sharp watch upon her cousin, with-
out at the same time exposing the young lady's delinquency;
for, in spite of the belief forced upon him by experience,
he hesitated to believe as ill of this innocent-looking crea-
ture as his reflections warned him it was his duty to do.
9
194 A O1RUS TROUBLES.
He bore his indecision and trouble with the exemplary
patience which characterized him ; attended on the ladies
at dinner ; even deprived himself of the solace of his club
in order to have ample leisure to decide upon his line of
conduct. But when his mistress came home from the opera
and paused in the anteroom to speak a pleasant word to
him, as was her wont, duty conquered. He must be just to
his lady, even though he sacrificed the demoiselle with eyes
like a fawn and tricks that would have been appropriate to
some more feline-orbed animal.
" Signora !" he sighed, as Miss Cameron moved on.
His voice sounded so doleful that Violet turned back, and
as she glanced at him the mournful expression of his face,
eloquent with sorrow and a determination to fulfill his duty
at all costs, caused her to smile, supposing, from her knowl-
edge of his character, that an infinitesimal dereliction on
his own part, or that of some other member of the house-
hold, occasioned this tragic demeanor.
" What is it?" she asked, laughing. " Have you broken
one of my china images, or has Clarice smiled at the new
footman ?"
And to excuse her lack of dignity, I must remind the
reader she had lived so long in France and Italy that she
had forgotten it was indecorous to address a servant as a
human being, even after years of such attachment as An-
tonio had shown.
" Ah, mademoiselle, it is more serious than that," re-
plied Antonio, looking ready to cry.
He told his story at last, with much circumlocution and
all sorts of kindly efforts to soften the blow, and thus ren-
dered his account enigmatical and appalling. Violet's first
impulse was to tell him a fib say that she had been aware
of the expedition. But she knew that such shallow subter-
fuge could not deceive Antonio ; on the contrary, any at-
tempt to screen the delinquent would only rouse darker
suspicions in his mind, so she said gravely :
" You were quite right to tell me, but you must not
think rny cousin had any secret to keep she probably
wanted to visit one of the galleries or churches by herself.
You know English and American girls, when they are new
to the Continent, forget that many things, perfectly correct
at home, are not permissible here."
Antonio caught eagerly at this possible excuse for the
A GIRDS TROUBLES. 195
stranger, in favor of whom lie had the prejudice any man,
whatever his degree, has for a pretty face, and after
begging mademoiselle to excuse his interference, and to
believe that he was actuated by a strict sense of duty, he
bowed himself out of the room.
Violet felt it necessary to speak to Mary, and though
she had not a shadow of doubt as to the entire innocence
of the expedition, she dreaded rendering the task of making
acquaintance with her cousin more difficult by assuming the
character of judge or inquisitor.
" She gets on better with Miss Bronson," thought
Violet ; " but if I set poor Eliza to arrange the matter, she
will blunder, and cause Mary to believe me a regular
Gorgon. Really, although I was a governess for so many
years, I am afraid nature did not mean me to be a guardian
of young ladies. I am quite at a loss what to do."
As soon as she had taken off her evening dress, and had
her heavy masses of hair freed from their confinement and
left to stray over her shoulders in a fashion which made
her perfectly bewildering in her loveliness, she sent Clarice
away, and sat down to meditate upon the wisest course of
conduct naturally, first pausing to cast a little blame on
poor Antonio.
" If he hadn't eyes all over his head, and wasn't always
in twenty places at once, he would not have seen her, and
then there would be no difficulty," she reflected impa-
tiently.
The doors which connected the rooms that comprised
her suite of private apartments stood open, according to
habit, a sense of space being one of the necessities of her
nature. She began walking up and down "prowling," as
Nina Magnoletti styled the performance, with that intimate
knowledge of English, including even slang-phrases, which
characterizes an educated Russian.
As Violet paused in her march, and stood in her bed-
chamber, she was startled by a sound like a stifled sob.
She listened, and presently heard the noise more distinctly.
Her fancy had not deceived her it was a sob, and it came
from her cousin's room.
She pushed back the thick curtains which hung over the
arch, opened the door, and entered. A night-lamp burned
dimly on a table ; by its light she could see Mary sitting
up in bed, weeping as if her heart would break.
196 A GIRVS TROUBLES.
Whatever its cause, there was a real sorrow here, and
Violet forgot everything in her desire to soothe it.
" Mary !" she said, moving quickly across the floor.
" Dear little cousin, what is the matter ? Don't think we
are strangers remember that we are relatives that I want
to love you very much ! If you have any trouble, let me
share it."
" Oh, oh !" shivered Mary, in a fright at this sudden en-
trance. But the touch of the caressing arms folded about
her subdued the alarm, and presently she was able to answer
Violet's pleadings. " It's only that I'm a fool no less. I
have been ever since I got here. There is nothing else the
matter. I am so sorry I wakened you ; I forgot that your
bedroom was next. I didn't mean to make a noise indeed
I did not."
" Then I am glad you sobbed louder than you intended,"
returned Violet, speaking playfully, in the hope of thus
restoring her composure.
" You you will hate me for disturbing you !" groaned
Mary.
" Why, what a cross old thing you must think me !"
said Violet, with good-natured raillery.
" No, no ! You are so beautiful and you seem so
young ! Why, that's part of it ! Every time I look at
you, I am so ashamed of that contemptible little speech the
day I came."
" Part of what, dear ? Come now, don't cry ! Let's
get at the bottom of the matter and understand each other,
and be good friends. I often feel the need of a sensible
little body to whom I can tell all my nonsensical feelings,"
said Violet, inspired by a great sympathy for the poor girl
as she remembered the troubles which had come so sud-
denly upon her own girlhood ; conscious, too, that she had
rather put Mary aside since her arrival, and remorseful
from a fear that the child's distress might rise out of this
very fact.
" Oh, I used to think I was sensible," replied Mary, dry-
ing her eyes with the sleeve of her night-gown, " but I
have behaved so like an idiot ever since I came, that I
begin to believe I must always have been one without
knowing it."
" The thing is not to find it out," said Violet ; " I've no
doubt I have been a goose for a great deal longer than you
A GIRDS TROUBLES. 197
are years old, but I prefer to remain innocent of the knowl-
edge."
She laughed and made Mary laugh too, though in a
somewhat tumultuous, nervous fashion.
" You are so good to me !" cried she. " And that
makes me feel all the more guilty !"
"Good heavens, child, don't say such things!" ex-
claimed Violet, a little startled by the strong term the girl
employed, even while telling herself it had no significance
proceeded merely from the exaggeration of thought and
language natural at eighteen. "Just tell me what you do
mean ! Come, dear, this is quite the hour for confidence ;
maybe you and I will not find in months so good an op-
portunity for getting really acquainted and growing fond
of each other, as we ought to be, since neither possesses
another near relative in the world."
"That is it too just another part of it !" cried Mary,
and the very assurance she appeared to have that her ex-
clamation rendered her troubles clear, left the phrase still
more mysterious and annoying.
" A part of what ?" demanded Violet, inclined to grow
exasperated, as one is when self-convicted of having been
impulsive, even "gushing," to no purpose. But she con-
trolled her impatience, and added, "Now begin at the
beginning, as the children say when they are promised a
story. I can't answer as I ought if you talk in riddles."
" Oh, I am so stupid !" replied Mary.
Violet caught herself thinking rather cynically that
doubtless some bit of girlish romantic folly lay at the bot-
tom of this agitation that really it required more patience
than she possessed to fill well her role of elder cousin if
such scenes were to occur frequently ! Yes, yes ; some
missish fancy and disappointment some elegy over a dis-
turbed dream as empty as it was poetical these were the
sorrows she must hear chanted. Could the hero be Lau-
rence Aylmer ? She stopped short in her reflection, called
herself a heartless, crabbed, envious old maid, and held
Mary tighter in her embrace, determined not only to dis-
play, but to feel sympathy, whatever the tidings which
awaited her.
"Arpartof what, childie ?" she repeated, pressing her
lips on Mary's forehead. " There ! I seldom kiss even Nina
Magnoletti ; if that does not unlock your pretty mouth I
198 A GIRDS TROUBLES.
am at the end of my resources," and was quite unaware
what absolute arrogance and complete faith in the potency
of her own fascinations the sentence implied.
"Yes," said Mary, speaking somewhat breathlessly;
" I'll tell you I'd rather tell you ; I mightn't get the cour-
age again, and I should seem so ungrateful ! But I could
not stay indeed I could not, unless unless we had it out,"
she added, taking refuge in the expressive school-girl
phrase, after trying in vain to substitute one more elegant.
" If you really do blame him, it would be so mean of me to
live on on your bounty and oh, I hate the idea, anyway !
I am grown up ; I ought to take care of myself and then
it seems more wicked than all the rest to think of that !
And oh, sometimes I wish I had been drowned coming
over, and then there would have been an end of it all !"
She pushed Violet almost harshly away, and buried her
head in the pillow ; and Violet, certain now that she had to
deal with some real sorrow, forgot her impatience, put
aside every personal sensation in her longing to comfort
this girlish sufferer, who looked like the phantom of her
own early youth, moaning in the desolation which overtook
it so unexpectedly, but which no human creature had pos-
sessed the power or even the desire to console.
Violet was too thoroughly versed in the ways of her
sex to increase Mary's agitation by petting or weeping
with her, though, as a reversion from her recent cynical
thoughts, she felt strongly inclined to lay her head down
by Mary's and sob too. For no reason, she took pains to
assure her conscience, only because ashamed of her own
hardness, and because the sight of tears always made any
woman a little hysterical. Women were always wi'etched-
ly weak creatures, she mentally added, with a misanthropy
for which she would have soundly rated Nina Magnoletti,
had she ventured to display it.
" Now you are such a sensible little body," said Violet,
calling herself to account as well as Mary, in this assurance,
" that I know you mean to sit up directly and tell me all
about it ! Why should you think of going away? My
dear, your natural home is with me. Girls must have a
home, however clever and brave they may be ; I know that
by experience."
" Why, that's the rest of it !" cried Mary, lifting her
tear-stained face.
A GIRDS TROUBLES. 199
"Good!" pronounced Violet. "Now that we have
arrived at the whole, in its entirety, as the newspapers say,
try to make me understand what it is all about."
" She said it was through papa," returned Mary,
with an ominous sob, quickly checked. "He lost your
money, and you had to go to teaching ! And oh ! if you
think ho did it on purpose if you think he wasn't honest,
let me go away ! I'd rather starve than live with anybody
who could believe ill of my father !"
" Ah, it is all clear !" exclaimed Violet, with an odd feel-
ing of relief at discovering that Mary's trouble related to
her dead parent. " Eliza Bronson has been talking to you.
My poor Eliza ! she is the best soul in the world, and
whatever she ought not to say is the very thing she always
says. My dear, you must learn not to mind her talk ; if I
did, a hundred times a day I should think myself a lost
soul, both for this world and the next."
"You want to make me laugh you want to turn it
off !" cried Mary. " I'll not let you it is not kind ! If
I am to speak out, you must also ! He did lose your money
she said so but oh, if you think he was dishonest "
" I have no harsh feeling towards your father, Mary,"
Violet interrupted ; " if I had, I should not have asked you
to live in my house. I have the letters he wrote me ; you
shall read them ; they will satisfy you ;" and she was care-
ful to put no audible emphasis on the final pronoun, though
she did internally. " My father's affairs were left in a bad
state by his sudden death ; my cousin George did what he
could ; you will see that by his letters. Now understand
that I have no harsh feeling in my mind."
" Oh, I knew nobody could blame papa who really was
acquainted with him !" said Mary, then adding quickly,
" But you went to earn your living ; you did not stop de-
pendent on him."
" Your father was at that time in difficulties himself
he told me so," Violet replied, giving that last clause a sig-
nificance to her own mind which did not reach Mary's.
"He offered me a home recollect that! Come, do not
make me say that I was headstrong and obstinate, in order
to convince you that you would be wrong to rush out to
battle with the world, when you can be guarded and taken
care of have love, too, if you will accept it."
" Indeed I will !" cried Marv. " I'm. more ashamed
200 A GIRDS TROUBLES.
than ever of myself but I am glad it has all been said !
Oh, I have been so lonesome tormented myself so !"
" My dear, perhaps I was wrong to leave you so much.
I thought you would get on better first with Eliza, as you
seemed a little shy with me. I forgot her unfortunate
genius for blundering."
" Oh, that is no matter now don't blame her !" said
Mary. "And it was my fault that you left me to her.
Oh, I have been so ashamed ; I don't know what ailed me
the day I got here. Why, I made a regular prickly pear of
myself !"
"Let us say a moss rose-bud, very imperfectly devel-
oped," laughed Violet, glad so easily to have set the girl's
mind at rest. "But you understand that I did not mean
to be selfish. As your mourning prevents your going into
society, I thought Eliza would take you about to the galle-
ries, and see after Italian lessons and music, if you
liked it."
" Oh, she is very good," sighed Mary. " I am so
wicked ! Now, I love music, but I can't bear to study the
piano, and she was so hurt when I said it. And she wants
me to write long letters to nobody, to improve my style.
And, oh, Violet, it seems sacrilege to hear her talk in the
galleries ! She won't let me admire anything unless the
fuide-book says I shall, and she drives me quite frantic !
am so bad !"
" So am I be consoled," returned Violet. " Come, you
shan't be given over to her tender mercies ! You see, you
are such a prim, proper little thing, that I never dreamed
of your showing your relationship to me by having an ill-
regulated mind."
" Oh, I shall never be like you !" said Mary. "And she
says Miss Bronson says it is immodest to draw from
casts, and that is the only thing I care for ; and I hoped
sometime, perhaps, I could be a sculptor other women
have. Oh, don't think I'm a fool ! And when she saw, by
accident, a little figure I had tried to do, she cried and
wrung her hands, and begged me never to let anybody
dream that I had any such talent ; she said it was so
unladylike."
" y good Eliza ! Well, well, I am neither good nor
ladylike, according to her ideas ! To-morrow we will look
at that figure."
A GIRDS TROUBLES. 201
"Oh, I broke it!" interrupted Mary " I did! She
thought I was penitent, but I was angry and I oughtn't
to have been. You can see how horrid I am !"
Here was her commonplace little charge turning out an
embryo artist, with aspirations and longings ; well, Violet
liked that better than the prosaic conception of her own to
which she had given the girl's name. They conversed for
a long time, and Mary had completely recovered her peace
of mind before Violet remembered Antonio's revelation,
and then it was difficult to speak, but she did, and found
relief in Mary's confession.
" I am so glad to find you are a romantic puss," said she.
"I felt quite afraid of you, you seemed so superior."
" Oh ! And I thought you would consider me an
idiot !"
"My dear, I once walked ten miles to sit on a stone
where they said Washington Irving used to sit. There, now
you perceive that where what Eliza would call folly, is con-
cerned, I can sympathize to any extent."
They might have talked on, oblivious of the lapse of
time Mary entranced, Violet feeling more and more as if
she were holding communion with that dreamy phantom of
her girlhood but they were disturbed by a sudden loud
knocking on the wall in Miss Bronson's bedroom.
" Oh, good gracious !" exclaimed Violet, " we have
wakened her ; oh, shan't we catch it ! I feel as if we were
both in a boarding-school, and had just been surprised in
flayrante delictu by the lady-abbess."
"She's coming I hear her !" whispered Mary, choking
with laughter.
The corridor-door opened, and the spinster appeared
on'the threshold, looking about ten feet high in a loose flan-
nel dressing-gown, with a row of curl-papers sticking out
like miniature horns along her forehead. She carried
a candle in her hand, which she held aloft, regarding the
pair with great severity.
" Is either of you ill?" she asked.
" No, no," said Violet ; " we got to talking and didn't
remember how late it was."
"And we are so sorry to have disturbed you !" added
Mary.
" That is of no consequence, though of course now I
must lie awake the rest of the night," returned Miss Bron-
9*
202 BEFORE THE POPE'S PORTRAIT.
son ; "but it is important to keep regular hours at Mary
Danvers's age. Violet, I am surprised at your forgetting
the fact."
" I'm a miserable sinner ; I'll never do it again please
don't scold !"
"I hope I never scold," said the spinster, in an injured
tone.
" Oh, Eliza, you do look so funny !" cried Violet, giving
way to her laughter, in which Mary joined.
Miss Bronson read them a long lecture on their present
iniquity and the general misconduct of their lives, then con-
sented to be appeased, and was made to laugh too, and forgot
to drive them to bed for a full half hour afterward.
CHAPTER XXL
BEFORE THE POPE'S POETRAIT.
0, sooner than could have been expected from
the unpromising aspect of affairs on her arrival,
Mary Danvers found her own particular niche
in her cousin's home fitted into it so perfectly
that she was at ease herself and a pleasure and
satisfaction to Violet and her household.
Miss Bronson was highly elated at the good understand-
ing between the two, and expressed her sentiments with a
delicious blunder-headedness which, in the case of many
women, would have served to alienate the two relatives for-
ever.
" I told you how sweet she was ; I begged you to have
patience and study her. I am glad that I have convinced
you at last !" she would say to Violet.
" My dear, you had only one grave fault in my eyes I
thought you did not quite quite do justice to your incom-
parable cousin !" was her reproachful plaint to Mary.
Now in order fully to appreciate the situation, it must be
understood that she uttered these remarks when both ladies
were in the room ; calling first one, then the other, under
transpai-ent pretexts of asking advice concerning her
BEFORE THE POPE'S PORTRAIT 203
worsted-work, or to read aloud some passage from a book,
and framing her jubilant sentences in a tone perfectly
audible to whichever of the pair she supposed in delightful
ignorance of her words.
Violet and Mary laughed heartily in private over her
manias, and the fact of sharing a secret subject of amuse-
ment brought them still closer together, as such confidences
always do people who have a keen sense of the ludicrous ;
and that quality Mary Danvers proved, to Violet's satis-
faction, to possess in a high state of development, in spite
of her demure ways.
And Violet, influenced by complex motives, as people
usually are in their conduct, gave a great deal of time to
her young cousin's society ; partly because she was attracted
towards the girl now that she found what an impetuous,
aspiring soul lived under that restrained exterior, partly
out of kindness, in order that the child might not again
feel lonely and desolate ; and a little from hen spoiled
princess gratification in a new plaything. But she re-
mained unconscious that this latter reason existed, and it is
only justice to her to add that she would have been heartily
ashamed of her own pettiness had she discovered the fact.
She spent a great many mornings in going about to the
galleries with her charge, refusing engagements, and deny-
ing herself to friends in order to do this, and was amply
repaid for any slight sacrifice of pleasure by Mary's enthu-
siastic delight, which, her fears once removed, she disr
played to Violet as freely as if she had been thinking aloud.
The more she became acquainted with the girl the more
genuine grew Violet's liking, and her impulsiveness that
long and uselessly-combated weakness of her nature
helped to render her admiring, because she recollected with
a somewhat exaggerated self-reproach, that at first she had
been inclined to underrate her relation.
The very discrepancies in Mary's character interested,
even pleased her. The girl had led a life of singular
repression between the two antagonistic influences her
father's and stepmother's under which she had grown up.
Violet, in her fanciful way, used secretly to compare her to
a wild flower early transplanted into a garden and taught to
grow primly and according to rule, taking so kindly to the
training that it learned to stand erect and well-regulated,
only showing here and there, if one examined closely, cer-
204 BEFORE THE POPE'S PORTRAIT.
tain tendrils beneath its leaves stretching out to the right
and left in a discursive fashion, which gave signs of the
adventurous spirit it would have possessed had it been left
free to follow the dictates of nature.
Mary would not in the least have answered for a mod-
ern girl-heroine, according to the type presented in auto-
biographical novels written by the women of our day.
These heroines are always blowsy, not to say dirty ; great
stress is laid upon the fact that their dresses are invariably
crumpled and torn, their shoes down at the heel, and their
hair in a state of disorder which defies description. These
heroines never " weep " as those of old-fashioned romances
did ; they never cry as girls do in real life they "blub-
ber;" they never laugh either they "yell;" they never
kiss their fathers, they " give the governor a resounding
smack on each side his dear old ugly face, which knocks
his bat off ;" and when the unexpected appearance of their
lovers causes them any emotion, it is not what the anti-
quated novelists would have called " a thrill of blissful
confusion," nor what we should term in ordinary parlance a
natural embarrassment, it is " a red-hot sensation from
head to foot, which makes their backs tingle as if somebody
had applied a hissing flat-iron to the tenderest spot in their
spinal marrow."
She was, in fact, a lady, a gentlewoman in thought and
action, such as we happily find numerous examples of in
real life, though, if we were to trust to the veracity of
those aforementioned modern heroines, who relate the
story of their youth in language as startling as the senti-
ments, principles, and adventures which it portrays, we
should believe the species had utterly disappeared from
among the human race.
Faults enough she certainly had the faults of her age ;
hasty temper, bursts of impatience, a yielding to impulse,
thereby cracking the fine varnish of conventional breeding
in a way which older people learn to avoid but she was a
lady.
She had not been fostered into precociously becoming
a woman in feelings and views of life ; she was exactly
what she ought to have been at her years a girl, and a
healthy, pure-minded girl, with all the charms and asperi-
ties which belong to that season.
Violet's laughing comparison was perhaps the best that
BEFORE THE POPE'S PORTRAIT. 205
could have been applied a moss rosebud a little too well
enveloped ; still, for those who had eyes to see, the tender
bloom which heralded the perfection of the flower was dis-
tinctly visible.
And Violet enjoyed her companionship, as imaginative
people past their youth do enjoy the society of what is
young and fresh, provided those people are free enough
from envy and jealousy though of course hiding their real
sentiments from themselves under reproaches directed
towards the frivolousness, ignorance and presumption of
adolescence to be able to appreciate it.
Her friends began to grumble at what they termed her
neglect of obvious duty namely, attention to themselves
since the arrival of the cousin to whom she was deter-
mined to prove that she had fallen into thoroughly sym-
pathetic guardianship and the first and loudest among
these grumblers were Nina Magnoletti and Mr. Aylmer.
" One never sees you lately," that gentleman said one
night when he met her at Lady Ilarcourt's.
" Just what I have been telling her," cried Nina. "It
is positively shameful !"
" It strikes me that I saw you both last evening twice
even once at the opera, and afterwards at the Morelli's,"
returned Violet. " My memory is better than yours. See-
ing me makes so little impression on your minds that you
forget the fact within twenty-four hours."
" Of course she would manage in some way to twist our
reproaches so as to put us in the wrong, Mr. Aylmer," said
Nina.
" And she knows very well what we meant," rejoined
he. " Her doors are hermetically sealed ! Now and then
she appears-late in the evening at somebody's reception or
ball flashes past one like a meteor, and is gone."
" I think that is blank verse," retorted Violet, " and
everybody knows that poetry is not truth."
" What an awful heresy, Miss Cameron !"
" And only uttered to avoid telling the truth herself,"
said Nina. " Now, misguided young woman, I insist on
knowing where all your mornings have been spent for the
last week ? I have called, heaven knows how many times,
at your house, and the answer was always the same out,
and nobody had an idea where ! To say the least, such
conduct is very mysterious, and Florence does not permit
206 BEFORE THE POPE'S PORTRAIT.
mysteries. People may be as wicked as they like, but they
must not make a secret of their peccadilloes."
"If either of you ever visited a picture-gallery, or any
other place improving to the mind, you might have found
me," said Violet.
" I flatter myself that my dwelling comes within that
catalogue, and you certainly have not been seen there,"
returned Nina.
" Well, if you had called it a museum of unnatural
curiosities, considering the people you and Carlo get about
you, I might have agreed with your remark," said Violet.
" And as I go there almost daily, permit me to thank
you, Miss Cameron, for my share in the compliment," cried
Aylmer.
"-She is hopelessly hardened in her sins," sighed Nina.
" It is all the fault of that wretched little new cousin I
hate her !"
" That's because she is pretty," said Violet.
" The same reason would not apply to Mr. Aylmer, since
he is a man," replied Nina, "and he hates her too."
Aylmer laughed. Was his laughter slightly con-
strained, or did Violet only fancy so ?
" Why don't you leave your Bronson to show her the
sights ?" pursued Nina. " She is a walking encyclopaedia of
knowledge, and her society might be of service to the
child, while you are as ignorant as the rest of us, and can
be of no benefit whatever to her mind ! I wish she had
stayed in her native wilds, or been drowned in crossing the
ocean, if she is to usurp your attention in this way."
So it came about that only the next day, as Violet and
Mary Avere standing in the Apollo salon of the Pitti Gallery,
Violet perceived Laurence Aylmer in one of the smaller
rooms opposite, conversing with a gentleman. She made
another discovery at the same instant it was that Mary
saw him, too, turned, and became absorbed in Raphael's
portrait of Leo X., with dark, inscrutable-eyed Cardinal
Medici standing beside the pope. But she did not move
quickly enough, for Violet caught the sudden color which
bloomed like sweetbriar blossoms into her usually rather pale
cheeks.
The two men were standing with their backs towards
the ladies. Violet's .first impulse was to turn away as
Mary had done, but she checked it. She did not
BEFORE THE POPE'S PORTRAIT. 207
choose to be flattered, raissish, silly ; she would not stir.
She had time to think this and many other things in rapid
succession ; uppermost rushed the thought born in her
mind the day of Mary's arrival the girl loved Laurence
Aylmer ! And he would love Mary. His fancy for Violet
Cameron would fade speedily, as it ought for Violet, past
her youth Violet, who had no business with dreams such
as were fitting at her cousin's age ! Why, presently she
should be ancient, wrinkled, withered old maid that she
was ! Of course Aylmer would turn to this opening bud,
which possessed the charm of promise that the already
fading rose had lost.
And Mary loved him ! Here was an additional reason
why she, Violet, should prove incapable of the preposter-
ous folly of caring for a man younger than herself. His
caprice would not last ! No man could love (no, she meant
admire lose his head over some term that expressed folly
or temporary aberration of intellect, was the most appli-
cable !) for any length of time, a woman so many years
his senior ! And Mary loved him, and Mary should have
her happiness !
No doubt, when he met the girl in America, Aylmer had
been attracted towards her, but was unaware of the im-
pression he had made. Violet would not admit the possi-
bility of his being a trifler capable of wittingly gaining
the innocent creature's heart and flinging it carelessly aside
no, no !
Circumstances had abruptly called him away before
he learned the truth ; here, in Europe, he had encountered
this Violet Cameron, and had conceived for her one of
those brief infatuations such as his sex will in similar case
the wisest and best men being weak creatures ! But
the delusion must die out rapidly, now that fate had again
flung Mary in his path. He would quickly learn the differ-
ence between illusion and reality fancy and affection !
Why once, as a compliment to the girl (long ago oh, that
first night at Nina's house !) he had said that she reminded
him of Miss Cameron. Ah, he would discover that the
compliment had been to Violet herself in suggesting that
she retained sufficient signs of youth to leave any trace of
resemblance between her and this child, whose face was
holy as dawn, with waking hopes and dreams.
But Aylmer and his companion had caught sight of the
208 BEFORE THE POPE'S PORTRAIT.
pair, and as they approached, Violet perceived that the
latter gentleman was well known to her ; a young artist
who had not been in Florence since her return a great
favorite with her, too.
Seeing him gave her a reason for greeting Aylmer rather
briefly, and hastening to welcome the new-comer.
" Why, Gilbert Warner !" she exclaimed. " What an
unexpected pleasure ! How very glad I am to see you ! I
thought you had vanished forever. Where have you been
to the Antipodes ?"
" Only to America," he answered, shaking her hand
with unfashionable fervor, excusable, since he was a painter,
not a dandy.
But while Violet poured forth a torrent of questions and
ejaculations with an animation less pardonable than his
warmth, since she ranked among the order of fine ladies,
and so ought to have been incapable of enthusiasm, she was
not so absorbed but what she could observe the meeting
between Mary and Aylmer.
" Are you so lost in admiration of that wicked pope that
one may not even say good-morning ?" he asked.
She turned and gave him her hand, but her laugh sounded
nervous ; and Violet, strong in her determination to be of
service, would not leave the girl to betray her confusion.
"Mary," she called, "let me present my friend Mr.
Warner "
" I have had the pleasure of meeting Miss Danvers,"
broke in that gentleman, quickly ; " we were fellow-pas-
sengers across the ocean. I trust she has not forgotten
me!"
He hurried up to Mary, and Violet gave her another
rapid glance, wondering if by any possibility she had been
mistaken as to the person who had caused the girl's little
agitation.
No ; it was not Gilbert Warner. Mary held out her
hand to him with exemplary composure answered his
greetings as calmly as even Eliza Bronson could have con-
sidered fitting for the manner of a young lady ; and so far
from coloring, looked almost pale again else the contrast
to that recent vivid flush made her appear so.
Then, as was her duty, Miss Cameron took the adjusting
of matters into her own control. She began to talk, and
kept the conversation general for a few minutes. They all
BEFORE THE POPE'S PORTRAIT. 209
walked on to look at the pictures in the farther rooms, and
Violet, with her woman's quickness, perceived that Mary
(involuntarily, Violet did her the justice to think,) half
turned from the artist, as if to claim Aylmer's companion-
ship.
So it should be, Violet decided, and she addressed some
remark to Warner which brought him to her side ; she de-
tained him there, as they strolled along, leaving the other
pair to follow.
When Miss Cameron announced that it was time for
her and Mary to go, the gentlemen accompanied them
down stairs.
" Remember, I shall expect to see you immediately, you
runaway !" Violet said to Warner, in that gracefully auto-
cratic fashion of hers, which men found so irresistible. " I
shall come very soon for a peep at your new sketches ; but
recollect, no pretense of work will serve as an excuse for
neglecting me !"
Warner persuaded her to set the next day for visiting
his studio with her cousin ; then Aylmer claimed her
attention, and Violet had not time to notice that the
painter looked at Mary with as much gratitude as if the
promise had come from her ; but Mary was busy extricat-
ing a bow of her cousin's dress which had caught in the
carriage-door, and did not raise her eyes.
The two men stood watching the landau as it rolled
down the descent in front of the palace, and Warner
said :
" Upon my word, Miss Cameron is more beautiful than
ever. She ought to have been Empress of all the Russias.
Yet, though she shows so plainly that she is accustomed to
have the whole world on its knees when she passes, she is
as natural and unaffected as a child."
Aylmer's first thought was that which always enters the
masculine mind when another man ventures to praise the
special object of the listener's admiration " Like your im-
pudence indeed !" and his next to feel his heart warm
suddenly towards his friend, because he had eyes and
brains to appreciate his deity's loveliness.
" I am awfully glad you have come back to Florence,
Warner," cried he, enthusiastically and irrelevantly. " I
was thinking about you the other day, and hoping you
would get here before the winter ended."
210 BEFORE THE POPE'S PORTRAIT.
And, as the carriage passed down the narrow street
towards the Ponte Vecchio, Violet said :
" Such a charming man, and so good ! You know him,
already."
" Why yes oh, yon mean Mr. Warner ?" said Mary,
coming out of a reverie with another blush, which faded
too quickly as she went on to speak of him for any proba-
bility that it or the start with which she roused herself to
answer had the slightest connection with his name. " Yes ;
he is a relative of Mrs. Forrester's. He came to see us
very often in New York before we sailed, and was very
kind and good-natured during the voyage."
" And you never remembered to speak of him, you un-
grateful puss !"
" We have had so much to talk about, I've had no time
to recollect my journey ; and you did not speak of him
either," said Mary.
The carriage had reached that quaintest of medifeval
bridges, and Mary became too busy regarding the odd little
shops to have further leisure to bestow on Mr. Warner ; as
for Laurence Aylmer, his name found no mention from
either of the ladies during their homeward drive.
They talked a great deal, however, and Mary was made
happy by a decision that she should be allowed to pursue
her inclinations. An old sculptor of Violet's acquaintance
had promised to let Mary enter his studio and have the
benefit- of his counsels ; but it was agreed between the
cousins that at present she must not allow her love for the
plastic art to interfere with other studies. She should go
to the studio a certain number of times each week, and
work a certain number of hours. As Mr. Vaughton's
atelier was on the same floor as his dwelling, and he had a
good-natured sister, who would be only too glad to play
chaperon to the young girl, there existed no necessity for
troubling Miss Bronson.
"I wash my hands of the whole business," Eliza said,
when later she heard the affair discussed ; and as she spoke
she rubbed them violently with her pocket-handkerchief, as
if the lavatory process were already finished, and she wip-
ing away any last traces of responsibility which might still
linger. "I disapprove, but I remain silent. Water colors
in moderation, if young ladies please ; though, to m'y
mind, they are sticky things, and ruinous to one's dress
BEFORE THE POPE'S PORTRAIT. 211
but sculpture ! No, Violet, I cannot help wondering at
your encouraging the child in a fancy which is positively
unnatural yes, I must say it almost depraved !"
By this time Mary knew Miss Bronson too well to feel
either frightened or hurt, and the professor, who chanced
to be present when the news of Mary's intentions was
broken to the spinster, highly enjoyed her dismay.
"You must do nothing by halves, Miss Mary," he said.
" A thing worth doing at all is worth doing thoroughly."
" And an improper thing touched ever so lightly is still
improper," cried Eliza, bridling, as she always did when
she felt that she had uttered some emphatic truth.
" Half the people who call themselves sculptors know
about as much of the human frame as as our dear friend
Miss Bronson does of those hypothetical human souls she
likes to dream of."
" Professor !" said Eliza, in mingled pain and wrath,
" at least spare that young girl those evil theories ! Do
not add to your sins by essaying to contaminate her youth-
ful spirit."
"No, no ; I had something else in my mind," return,ed
the professor, with a chuckle. " Fraulein Violet, little
Miss Mary must study anatomy. I shall give her lessons
myself, if you permit, and she will accept me as teacher."
For a moment Eliza sat speechless, staring open-
mouthed, straight befonp her, so Mary had an opportunity
to say :
" Oh, how kind you are ! Do thank him, Violet !"
" My dear, your face is doing that better than I can,"
said Violet, laughing in advance at the scene which she
knew Eliza was about to make ; which the professor him-
self awaited with gleeful impatience.
" We will begin to-morrow, Miss Mary !" cried he.
" Now the bones of the "
" One instant," gasped Eliza ; " one instant."
"Certainly," said the professor, with elaborate polite-
ness.
" I desire to ask you a single question, Violet," pursued
Eliza, in a voice at once tremulous and dignified. " Do
you mean to allow this contamination of a youthful female
mind, committed to your charge, to be carried into effect ?"
"I am afraid I must. You know how obstinate the pro-
212 A SOLD STROKE.
fessor is he always will have his way," said Violet, with
mock sadness.
" And now about the bones if I do not interrupt Miss
Bronson," continued the professor, with a profound bow
towards the outraged spinster ; " the bones of "
" Mary Danvers !" brokc-in Eliza.
" Hers, if you like," said the professor, " as good an ex-
ample as another."
" Peace !" cried Eliza. " Mary, I appeal to you ! I
urge you in the name of "
"Too 'late!" interrupted the professor, in his turn.
" The lesson has begun. Now only listen, Miss Bronson.
This is a fact which will interest you !"
" Violet, you must excuse me if I withdraw," said Eliza,
rising.
" Only just listen to this," urged the professor. " The
bones "
" Sir," exclaimed Eliza, " from this moment we are
strangers, remember that remember, too, my final words.
There is an unpardonable sin I believe you have reached
it at last. After that, we are taught that judgment comes
speedily and tarrieth not ! If you cannot tremble, at least
I trust these misguided creatures whom you are leading
astray may be granted grace enough to do so."
And Eliza swept from the room with a demeanor that
was a happy mingling of stateliness worthy Queen Kathe-
rine, and a saintly resignation which would have enabled
her to pose as a model for a picture of Alexandria's mar-
tyred virgin.
CHAPTER XXII.
A BOLD STKOKE.
HE next day, while the cousins and Miss Bronson
were seated at breakfast (one must call it so, in
accordance with continental customs, though
served at noon), Violet said :
" Mary, we promised to go to Gilbert War-
ner's studio at one o'clock. He is in the same building as
A BOLD STROKE. 213
Mr. Vaughton, so we shall ' kill two birds with one stone.'
1 beg your pardon, Eliza. I kno\v proverbs are vulgar, but
don't look so shocked."
"I was not thinking of the proverb," returned the spin-
ster mournfully, as she laid down her knife and fork with
the air of a person whose appetite has been effectually de-
stroyed by some untoward remark. "It is this scheme of
Mary's "
" My dear, that is settled, and discussion could only
make Mary uncomfortable," Violet interrupted, good-na-
turedly, but firmly. "Console yourself by remembering
that talents are gifts, not matters of choice. If Mary has
talent as a sculptor, it would be as wrong for us to attempt
to interfere with its cultivation, as for her to neglect her
powers."
" I have no more to say," Eliza answered. " I have
borne my testimony rny responsibility ends there."
The cousins had much ado not to smile, and Violet
changed the conversation ; but Miss Bronson remained
pensive and injured, refusing even to eat apricot-marma-
lade her favorite sweetmeat.
" Will you go with us, Eliza, and see Mr. Warner's
new sketches ?" Violet asked, as they rose from the
table.
"Not to-day, if you will excuse me. Your real errand
is to Mr. Vaughton ; I could not answer to my conscience
if by my presence I seemed tacitly to admit approval,"
Miss Bronson replied, and she regarded the pair with min-
gled regret and condemnation.
So the cousins drove away alone, laughing a little
between themselves at poor Eliza's scruples. They were
received by the young painter with a delight which he
took no pains to conceal. After a brief conversation, while
he showed Miss Cameron the sketches he had taken during
his absence, Mary, who knew most of them by heart,
strolled about, regarding the collection of valuable curiosi-
ties and relics with which the studio abounded, for though
not a rich man, Warner had already met with sufficient suc-
cess in his profession to be able to indulge his artistic tastes
in the furnishing of his atelier.
Presently Laurence Aylmer made his appearance, and
again Violet noticed in Mary that slight agitation which
meeting him seemed always to produce. Gilbert Warner
214 A BOLD STROKE.
observed the change also, and a cloud came over his
bright, genial face ; but it faded speedily when, a few
moments later, he got Mary to himself under the pretext of
showing her a rare old cabinet, while Violet and Aylmer
were busy with the sketches.
Then the cousins went to visit Miss Vaughton, and
arrange with her brother about the days on which Mary
was to work, and from there they drove to Janetti's bric-
d-brac shop to inquire about a present which Violt-% had
ordered from Paris for Miss Bronson, to take the place
of her much-regretted china dog with the red caudal
extremity.
Miss Cameron left Mary standing near the door looking
at a deliciously absurd porcelain mandarin squatted on a
carpet, and walked to the farther end of the shop. Pres-
ently Mary hurried up and caught her arm so quickly that
Violet looked round in surprise.
" What is the matter ?" she asked. " Why, how you
tremble !"
"That dreadful man I was frightened!" returned
Mary, still rather breathless. " He saw me and came in
oh ! there he is !"
Violet turned and saw Giulia's Greek walking towards
them ; he had been pointed out to her, and she had at once
conceived a strong aversion to his handsome, feline face.
" Do you mean him ? What is it ?" she asked.
" Oh, I didn't want to tell," said Mary, more com-
posedly, " but I had better. He was in the railway-carriage
with me from Pistoja. He eyed me so and talked so that I
was frightened, and he followed me through the station,
offering to see me to an hotel. Oh ! that was what made
me forget my trunks and behave so, you know !"
The Greek was moving forward, his insolent eyes fixed
on Mary. Violet stepped from behind a great vase that
concealed her and took Mary's arm.
" Come, my cousin," she said aloud in French, and as they
passed the Greek she looked full in his face with a menac-
ing glance which there was no mistaking.
The fellow stood dumbfoundered for an instant; he rec-
ognized Miss Cameron, and knew that by his offensive gal-
lantry to the pretty, unprotected girl in the railway-carriage,
he had jeopardized his social standing in Florence.
The cousins passed on, and he watched them with an
A SOLD STROKE. 215
evil glance. The scorn in Miss Cameron's face did not
touch him a whit, but he had been anxious to rank among
her acquaintances, having already learned how important
her favor would be ; and now there not only remained no
possibility of that, but it was very probable she might
cause her friends 1 doors to be shut against him.
He muttered a hearty curse, and to add to his wrath, some
hasty movement of his arm knocked a Viennese china cup
and saucer off the counter, for the breaking of which he
had to pay a hundred francs. He could hate with the
ferocity of any other wild animal, and a fierce desire to
avenge his mishaps upon Violet Cameron sprang up in his
mind.
As the carriage drove off, Mary told her little story :
" I was alone in the compartment ; he got in at the last
moment, else I should have changed. Oh, he was civil
enough in what he said, but he frightened me. Luckily, at
the next station but one, some ladies came in. I was
ashamed to tell you. Girls have no business to meet with
adventures. I feared you might blame me."
" You know me better now, dear."
"Yes, indeed ! But, oh, when I got out in the station,
and he kept by me, and and Well, I won't think
of it !"
" The wretched, panther-looking creature !" exclaimed
Violet. u He is fit to be Giulia da Rimini's friend ! lie
was startled enough he recognized me, and knovvs very
well that I can punish him as he deserves."
" Don't tell anybody not even MissBronson !" pleaded
Mary. " Oh, I should be ashamed ; promise, Violet !"
She was so earnest, that Miss Cameron gave her word
not to mention the occurrence.
"Perhaps you are right," she said ; "anyway, he is not
worth the trouble of punishing. I shall simply refuse to
allow him to be introduced to me, if he should venture to
attempt it."
But the Greek was careful not to expose himself to
such risk. The days went on ; he perceived by the man-
ner in which Miss Cameron's acquaintances treated him
that she had not betrayed his conduct. They met several
times at houses where the duchess had presented him, but
he kept aloof from Violet's vicinity.
Indeed, it soon became evident that the Greek would
216 A BOLD STROKE.
not be troublesome in a society-way, and that inclined the
men of Giulia's set to permit him more easily to glide into
familiar acquaintance with themselves. Since he was con-
tent with occasionally appearing at a reception or ball, they
did not mind riding and driving with him, allowing him
the entry of the club, or gaming and supping with him.
The duchess's house was the only one he visited regu-
larly. She knew that he watched her made himself cog-
nizant of her habits, her engagements, her associates but
she had recovered wholly from her fright, had matured her
plans, and enjoyed the situation.
In a short time she perceived that she had gained a
great advantage the man had fallen in love with her ; at
least the passion was what both she and the Greek would
have dignified by the name.
He displayed a strong jealousy of Laurence Aylmer,
though Giulia considered that her subjugation of the
American advanced very slowly. Could she have known
the state of his mind, her belief that at least she was mak-
ing progress would have been rudely dispelled. The
duchess had become a positive burden. She employed
most adroitly the terms upon which she had managed to
place him by her unwelcome confidence ; she waylaid him
on every possible occasion, sent for him to her house on
plausible pretexts ; and Aylmer saw more clearly each day
in what a troublesome position he was put.
He still did not suppose that she desired to fascinate
either his heart or fancy, but aside from the fact of her
being the last woman towards whom he wished to act the
part of sympathetic counselor, he feared, certain of Miss
Cameron's aversion towards her, that the appearance of
intimacy which she began to parade whenever she could
seize an opportunity, would injure him in the quarter where
a favorable opinion was of more importance in his eyes
than the verdict of the whole world.
The duchess read that cherished secret clearly, but still
without anger towards him. The struggle to gain a su-
premacy only increased her determination, and she grew
more and more confident that, besides gratifying her whim,
it would afford her revenge against Violet Cameron, upon
whom she concentrated the wrath which Aylmer's insensi-
bility aroused in her soul. If she could only subdue him,
she should have no wish to prevent his marrying Violet ;
A BOLD STROKE. 217
nay, she should be glad, and before the honeymoon ended,
the haughty creature should learn that she, Giulia, stood
between her and her husband. Naturally the duchess's
vanity assured her that, once acquired, she could keep such
hold, and her experience of men had not taught her to
think any member of the sex likely to be much fettered by
the marriage vow.
Carlo Magnoletti's conduct had at length convinced her
that her power over him was completely lost, and she hated
him almost as deeply as she did Miss Cameron. And Nina,
who, under the guise of friendliness, never met her with-
out showing in face and words that she exulted over her !
actually daring to sting with vailed allusions and honeyed
speeches she, who a few months before had been afraid to
offend, lest Giulia should punish her through Carlo !
And everything was Violet Cameron's fault ! Her re-
venge ! Oh, she would have it, and it should include the
trio ! She could wait ; she possessed the fortitude and
nerve of a red Indian ; vengeance would taste the sweeter
for this waiting and it should come.
But in spite of other occupations, she found time to
watch the Greek as narrowly as he did her. He was losing
his head she saw that ; she would foil the duke with his
own instrument a second vengeance, exciting and pleasur-
able to her soul.
At first, as Diraetri's air of gallantry grew more pro-
nounced, she feared he might be trying to fulfill his mission
by fascinating her putting her in an equivocal position
towards himself, which would afford the duke his wished-
for proofs. But she was not afraid ; even if that were his
object she could baffle him, aye, and yet yield to the caprice
which her affection for Aylmer did not prevent her in-
dulging.
But the Greek's passion was no simulated matter ; her
experienced eyes soon discovered this by signs which the
wariest and most astute man could not have feigned, and
the knowledge rendered her task much easier. True, she
never doubted that he would betray her just the same, un-
less she could make it for his interest to join her side
pecuniarily his interest, she meant ; she could imagine none
so potent and she thought she could manage to do that ;
do it without putting her hand in her own purse, a meager
one this season, from her losses at cards : and she knew only
10
218 A BOLD STROKE.
too well that she had exhausted the resources of borrowing
in every quarter open to her, under every possible pretext,
from that of wanting money for charity, to pretending that
she had been robbed of sums intrusted to her care, and if
left unaided must suffer disgrace as lasting as it would be
merited.
The Greek had been barely a fortnight in Florence be-
fore Giulia saw her way clear towards managing him, and
with his assistance to carry out her plans for punishing
Carlo and his wife, and dealing a first blow at Violet Cam-
eron through her affection for them.
She must throw off disguises to a certain extent,
but she always deceived most successfully when she was
not only in appearance but in reality frank, so far as a por-
tion of her motives went. He had hitherto treated her
with an affectation of respect which could be nothing but
mockery from a confidant of the duke's, for the duke was
one of the few people who knew her thoroughly. She had
appeared unsuspicious of the man's being Da Rimini's spy,
had refrained from a single harsh word against her husband,
and given Dimetri the footing of a friend because of the
source from whence he came. And now she learned some-
thing in regard to him which she could turn to use. A
Sicilian who had formerly been the duke's courier passed
through Florence, and came to pay his respects ; he saw the
Greek, and recognized him. They had been in San Fran-
cisco at the same time, and Massi knew that there Dimetri
had met with a misfortune. In Paris and Vienna, though
well known as a gamester, he was not suspected of being a
cheat, but in California he had once been found out. How-
ever, he shot the discoverer across the card-table.
This was all Giulia wanted, not to employ as a threat
she did not wish him to suspect her knowledge ; but now
she saw how completely she could depend upon his aid.
So many men who would stop at nothing else absolutely
refused to cheat at cards from dread of exposure, Giulia
supposed, not because there could be any vice from
which human beings would recoil. Massi only waited over
a single train, so there was no danger of his betraying
the Greek to anybody besides herself, and indeed he would
in any case have been silent at her request.
The next morning the Greek presented himself, as had
grown his daily habit, and found her seated in her dingily-
A BOLD STROKE. 219
magnificent, boudoir looking like one's ideal of a mediaoval
Boioeiess, in her black-and-gold-wrought amber draperies.
She had a fondness lor embroidery, and her skill in the art
was marvelous. As he eniered she was occupied with her
favorite work. She set the frame on the table beside her
and held out her hand, saying :
'" You have come precisely at the right moment. Please
be useful, and hold this skein of silk."
lie bent laughingly on one knee as she threw the scarlet
threads over his fingers, gazing up into her face with a
passionate light in his wicked black eyes.
'' You are to look at the silk," she said, with a smile
not coquettish, she was too stately for that word to apply
" else you will tangle it hopelessly !"
" As you have done with my heart," he answered,
boldly. It was the first time he had spoken any words be-
yond the gallantry which even idle fine ladies, who con-
eider themselves strict, regard as quite permissible. " You
certainly are the most beautiful woman in the world !
It is for me to beg you not to look ; you make me
dizzy !"
' So that is part of your plan," she said, smiling still.
" My plan ?" he echoed. " I don't understand."
" But I do," she said. " Signer Dimetri, how much did
my husband promise to give you if you got him proofs
that would obtain him a separation on his own terms ?"
The Greek started to his feet.
" You insult me, madam !" he cried ; and, though his
indignation might be acting, his astonishment to find him-
self discovered was genuine enough.
" You are tangling rny silk," she said, softly. "Please
to go down on your knees again. So now we can talk
quietly."
" Great heavens !" he exclaimed ; " how could you
speak to me like that ?"
" Because I want to know," she answered. " I may bo
able to offer a better bargain than his."
" You torture me !" he cried. " You know your power
over me, and use it oh, shame, shame, to wound me like
this ! I had not spoken if ray eyes told my story it was
not my fault and you punish me with such words ! Am,
I to blame because I could not resist your witcheries,
because I adore you "
220 A BOLD STROKE.
''You may get up now ; the skein is wound," she inter-
rupted, in an unaltered voice. Then, as he sprang to his
feet again, she continued : "So you have decided to make
love to me yourself, since you find there is no other man
whose folly or mine will help you to win your wages."
" I cannot bear this !" he exclaimed, and hurried
towards the door looked back and added, " I have been
wrong mad but oh ! if you had any heart you would
pity too much what I suffer to stab me with such a relent-
less hand !"
" Come here," she said, gently.
He complied, crying out against her cruelty in eloquent
phrases.
" I am a fool a coward to obey," he faltered. " Ah,
say you did not mean it say that you do not believe me
false and vile !"
" Falsehood and truth are only words," said the duchess.
" There is nothing so important as money ! The man is
honest who wins his salary by thoroughly doing his work."
" Again ! You call me back to outrage me anew !"
" You are only wasting your opportunities, Signor
Dimetri," said she. " I am not angry. I admire your
courage, but I am not a weak woman I mean to turn my
husband's weapons against himself ! You love me, and I
know it he should have remembered that possibility when
he sent you here."
"I do love you, but you cannot think "
" Let us leave that part. You are too shrewd not to
see that acting is useless with me."
"Yes he did beg me I own it. I refused "
"At least you will aid me instead of him, since you love
me if I can make it worth your while ?"
" Only a word, a hope, and 1 am your slave !"
" Don't get on your knees, please. Sit there, opposite
me so. Look in my face ; study it well. If I lie, you
are keen enough to discover it. You can't earn your money,
for the simple reason that I have no lover."
It was useless to peruse that inscrutable countenance,
which expressed what she desired it to do, and nothing
more. He began to speak, but stopped abruptly.
"Say it," she said calmly. " I shall not be offended."
" There is a man whom you you "
" You mean I flirt with Laurence Aylmer ? I do. I
A BOLD STROKE. 221
would drive him mad if I could ; I will tell you why. The
woman whom I hate the most of all created beings loves
him her name is Violet Cameron."
' ; The American curse her !" muttered Dimetri.
"She can know nothing of you. Are you afraid of her ?
I remember now you have never tried to be presented.
What is the reason ?"
" I met a pretty girl in the train, and frightened her by
talking a little nonsense ; she turned out that woman's
cousin," he replied, and went on to relate Violet's treatment
of him.
"I am glad of it," the duchess said quietly ; " at least,
you will be ready to help me where she is concerned."
" And you hate her, because that Aylmer "
" You had better let me explain my own motives," she
broke in ; " you can believe me or not, as you please."
" I know about her making you trouble with JVlagno-
letti," he said, devouring her with his passionate, hungry
eyes.
The duchess retained the most perfect composure ; she
knew that one thing at a time is the golden rule for doing
all things well. Just now business was the matter of mo-
ment.
" He may be vexed if he likes," she said, " but he loves
play too well not to come to my house, and he has about
three hundred thousand francs ready money ; when he has
lost that, he and his fool of a wife may go their way."
" He is very lucky at cards "
" Heavens, don't I know it !" she interrupted coldly, im-
patient as her words sounded. " But two people playing
against him two people with nerve and courage enough not
to stop for the scruples that, cowards call honesty, could
be more than a match for his luck."
She looked full in his face and smiled. He started up
and caught her hand in both his.
" You are a wonderful woman !" he exclaimed.
She drew her hand slowly away, still smiling in his eyes.
" Would half that inheritance of Carlo's overbalance
Da Rimini's offer ?" she asked.
" I will do anything consent to anything -only say
that you love me !" he cried.
She rose and stood leaning her hand on the table ; any
attitude she took always seemed the perfection of grace.
222 IN THE STUDIO.
"When Violet Cameron is punished when the Magno-
letti are reduced to such straits that Nina's jewels are in
pawn you will at least have earned the right to tell me
that you should prize such an avowal," she answered.
" Wait let me b'nish ! I have shown you my plans freely ;
I am not a coward ; I fear you as little as I do the duke !
Fight with me, and we conquer together ; fight against me
arid trust the foresight of a woman who has held her own
so far against foes, against personal inclinations, against
Fate itself you will go down among the vanquished !"
" Oh, I believe it !" he exclaimed admiringly ; she
seemed great in his eyes. " Together ah, together !"
" Then, till victory comes, you speak no such word as
you have done to-day," she said steadily ; " if you do, you
will never enter my doors again I swear it ! The duke
himself would tell you that in a case of this kind I never
break my word."
She moved towards a door which led into her dressing-
room, looking back at him over her shoulder.
" Ah, don't go 1" he cried eagerly ; " don't !"
" A rivederci a domani /" she answered ; waved her
hand with a slow, sad smile which sometimes gave a
certain pathetic expression to her rather stern face, and
passed out of his sight.
The Greek stood for a few seconds lost in thought.
" Da Rimini is an idiot a beggarly twenty thousand,
indeed ! What a woman she would beat the devil him-
self !
And he went his way.
CHAPTER XXIII.
IN THE STUDIO.
jARY DANVERS began her labors in the old
sculptor's studio with the delight of a person
who has found the work which is most con-
genial, and her success equaled her enthusiastic
industry. But she was too sensible and too
conscientious to neglect her promise to Violet of not allow-
IN THE STUDIO. 223
ing the occupation to prevent her attending to other
duties. She studied Italian under a good master, and made
rapid progress ; she was already well grounded in French,
lacking only the facility in conversation which is a matter
of practice, and which she soon attained through the oppor-
1 unities afforded her. She found time to read a great deal
also, though obliged to put by poetry and romances in
a measure, and this at her age appeared a little hard.
"Never mind," she said to Violet; "when one has a
good solid dinner every day, it would be silly to grumble
because the sweets are sometimes left out would it not ?"
Violet smiled at the homely illustration, but approved of
the resolve, and not only the liking for her cousin, but
respect for her talents, increased daily. Even Miss Bran-
son applauded the girl's industry ; she had only one reason
ior dissatisfaction Mary grudged the hours spent over the
pianoforte, and at last rebelled in her quiet fashion.
"If I meant to make music a profession," she said, "it
would be another thing, but I shall never become more than
a very mediocre player."
" Don't tell me you do not love music !" sighed Mis-?
Bronson.
" I think it is because I do love it that I am discouraged
by my own performance," returned Mary; and she appealed
to Violet.
Only that day Mr. Vaughton had come to the house full
of enthusiasm about his pupil ; he pronounced her a
genius, and vowed that anybody who tried to hinder her
devoting herself to sculpture would be doing a wicked
thing, and sacrifice not only her talents but her happiness.
The professor had been allowed to study her efforts with
his severely-critical eyes, and he came too, and added his
verdict to that of Mr. Vaughton.
Violet was in ecstasies, and Miss Bronson reduced to
silence by these proofs of the demure little maiden's having
chosen the work really fitted to employ all her powers.
So Mary was allowed to toil as assiduously as she
pleased, and soon went regularly each morning to the
studio. One only needed to look at her changed face to
see that she was happy ; and now that her shyness had
worn off, her manners were full of charm. Violet found
her a most agreeable companion ; and Mary, completely
224 IN THE STUDIO.
won by the sympathy and appreciation she met, knew no
bounds in her love and- admiration for her beautiful cousin.
Visions of a future filled with successful achievements
began to haunt the girl ; but a dream brighter than that of
fame gilded her path, though as yet she did not recognize
its potency, even while it permeated every thought, and
made the crowning brightness of her way.
it commenced with her meeting Gilbert Warner at his
relative's house in New York. Then followed the voyage,
during which the weather remained so glorious that
one almost forgot it was not Indian summer still. Some
accident occorred to shaft or wheel not serious enough to
cause alarm among the passengers only a lucky misfor-
tune, which prolonged those charmed days to twice their
allotted number ; from first to last a voyage in a fairy
bark across an enchanted sea, with the marvelous Old
World of history and tradition awaiting beyond its golden
haze. The dream continued : the journey up to London
was no prosaic railway travel to those young pilgrims ; the
land looked like a garden even in its winter dress ; in the
background, towns, towers, castles, starting up in rapid
succession, whose very names were words of romance, and
the objects themselves seemed to rise out of the depths of
the storied past and fling their shadow as an additional
poesy over the beautiful present.
There Warner decreed that his relative must rest, and
he said to Mary laughingly :
" One last opportunity to breathe a little freedom we
are still in the air where young ladies are permitted to do
that. Once across the Channel, and a prisoner in an Aus-
trian dungeon would not be more closely bound ; so let us
make use of the respite, and thank the gods therefor."
And London somber, denuded, at which a woman of
the world would have shuddered the Park an empty wild,
the Lady's Mile a desert, Kensington Gardens the confines
of the globe but all the same, a city of magical delights to
Mary.
Oh, the dismal, would-be aristocratic, and therefore so
much the more dismal, lodgings how bright they looked
to Mary, though Mrs. Forrester, seeing all objects through
another atmosphere, was made sea-sick, according to her
own account, by monstrous yellow chairs, hideous stuffed
green parrots which served as ornaments, breakfasts of liver
IN THE STUDIO. 225
and bacon, and a fiendish, red-faced landlady, who chanted
as a daily litany the self-same bit of personal biography
without ever pausing for breath :
" Which, if you'll h'excuse me, except h'out of the sea-
son, mum, as I've scarce 'ad (meanin' no disrespect to fur-
reners) h'anybody under a barrow-knight and 'is lady since I
put up my name on the door-plate Mrs. 'Arriet 'Amilton
Howens which it is Welsh as it ought to be for 'e was
from Wales and traced back by a geology as long as a
queen's train to Iladam and Hove if not further, and hoh,
it's my Constance prayer that where 'e be among the sera-
phim a playing the 'arp with 'is wings that perwented 'e is
from a moral sense of what's befalling 'is inconsolable relict
which by her this memorium was erected from his tomb-
stone in 'Ammersmith cemetery as 'e may read who paces
its solemn depths and well for us hall, mum, if we did more
frequent and thereby realized our latter hends and its con-
sequences !"
Then the trip across the Channel, away up the Scheldt,
Warner having assured his relative that it was safer far to
take that route than trust to the cockle-shells which periled
people's lives between England and France. Then Ant-
werp, with its old cathedral, its pictures ; then a vision of
Ghent of the town where they stood in the square and
recited, " In the market-place of Bruges stands a belfry
old and brown ;" then a rest in Brussels the dream wax-
ing brighter and brighter as it neared its close. Then a sud-
den break the weariness of travel the common earth
again for the two had parted.
But the knowledge that they should meet soon, and his
arrival in Florence so short a time after her own, prevented
Mary's learning her secret through the discipline of waiting
and unrest.
Man -like, Gilbert Warner had been less reticent with
his heart ; he knew that he loved this fair girl, with eyes
clear and pure as a woodland bi'ook, with her odd com-
pound of shyness and courage, common-sense so strong
that sometimes, to a careless observer, it became too practi-
cal, gleams of genius breaking through her talk and shin-
ing from her countenance in moments of emotion strong
enough to make her forget timidity, or in the society of
those with whom she was sufficiently in unison to let her real
self appear.
10*
226 IN THE STUDIO.
Like many artists, Warner was disinclined to general
society, but lie proved a frequent and welcome visitor at
Violet Cameron's house, and became almost as great a f avor-
ite witli the professor as was Laurence Aylmer. The
shrewd old German found keen interest in watching the
romances he perceived in progress about him, seeing more
clearly the real state of affairs than the actors themselves ;
but, save for that warning to Laurence, he kept his own
counsel, confident that any little mistakes would gradually
be set right, since they were all honest and true.
The hour came when Mary's little spasms of embarrass-
ment in Aylmer's presence her avoidance of him at one
time, her evident pleastu*e in his society at another struck
Warner as forcibly as those signs appealed to Miss Cameron,
and gave him food for troubled thought in his solitude ;
but the first opportunity for a pleasant talk with the girl
always caused him to forget his fears, and to settle back
upon the conviction that Aylmer had neither eyes nor ears,
except for Violet Cameron, and that Mary knew it.
One evening, when Warner was dining at the house,
Violet chanced to express a wish that she had a good por-
trait of her cousin, d propos to her disapproval of some
proofs of a photograph for which Mary had sat. She had
the style of face which protography always maligns ; it
reproduced her as a serious washed-out looking little dam-
sel, hardening the physical contours, and utterly refusing
to give a glimpse of the expression which rendered her
more than pretty.
The very next day Warner took advantage of this wish
to give himself a great pleasure. That girlish countenance,
so full of beautiful possibilities, haunted him as he sat at
the easel, busy with his historical picture, often to the
exclusion of the group of martial figures growing into life
upon the canvas. He had been for some time thinking that
if ho could only paint the face, he might be able to work
more easily ; at present his longing to do so hindered him
sadly. While tracing the bronzed lineaments of one of his
heroic Gauls, that idea of painting her would grow so
strong, that not unseldom he found himself putting Mary's
pensive smile on the bearded lips, or softening the stern
glance of the eyes with the dreamy expression which beau-
tified hers.
Here was an opportunity not to be wasted ; considering
IN THE STUDIO. 227
the reason he had to give, she could hardly refuse ; so he
went into Mary's room to try his powers of persuasion.
The house stood on a corner, and the entrance to the
sculptor's quarters was in a different street from Warner's,
but a long passage connected his studio with the chamber
assigned to Mary, on one side of which was the sculptor's
atelier, on the other his living apartments. A door led
into a salon where Miss Vaughton habitually spent her
mornings, and, to satisfy Eliza Bronson's scruples, it had
been agreed that this door was always to be left open dur-
ing Mary's working hours.
" Does she think those plaster-casts Mr. Vaughton
means to leave in my possession will contaminate me ?" she
said, laughingly, to Violet. " I am not likely to have any
visitors except herself and you."
Mary had not taken Warner's propinquity into consid-
eration ; but on that very account his coming in and out
could hardly fall under the head of visits, was the way she
settled the matter later in her mind, when his appearance
on one pretext or another proved a daily occurrence.
So this morning Warner tapped at the corridor door,
and was bidden to enter by a voice which fluttered a little
in unison with Mary's heart that familiar knock always
set it beating more rapidly.
The chamber was picturesque enough ; Violet had in-
sisted upon fitting it up according to her own ideas, and
when finished, Mary was rather horrified at the thought of
what all its elegance must have cost.
The walls were hung with tapestry ; the casts artisti-
cally arranged ; here and there stood easels supporting pic-
tures ; near the fireplace was spread a great Turkey carpet.
There were carved chairs and couches covered with rich
Eastern stuffs, marvelous cabinets filled with choice curiosi-
ties, books and ornaments in profusion, but everything in
keeping with the purpose for which the room was meant.
" It is too fine," said Mary.
" You could not work any more easily in a den," re-
turned Violet.
" It is beautiful!" cried Mary. "I used to dream of
one day having a wonderful studio, but I couldn't even im-
agine anything so perfect as this ! Oh ! you spoil me ;
you make me walk on velvet ; I shall grow too lazy and
self-indulgent to be as industrious as I ought !"
228 IN THE STUDIO.
But Violet had begun to read her character too well to
have any such fears, and Mary soon discovered that her
picturesque surroundings were a help rather than a hin-
drance.
Warner entered, and, after they had exchanged saluta-
tions, seated himself, and Mary continued her modeling ;
it was a part of their bargain that his " dropping in "
should never be allowed to interrupt her work. While
they talked he sat and watched her with the mingled ad-
miration of a lover and an artist, for she never looked
prettier than in the gray costumes, made according to Vio-
let's fancy, which she wore here instead of her ordinary
somber black.
" I couldn't sit for a likeness," Mary declared, when he
had led the conversation up to the matter which filled his
mind. " I have a horror of it portraits always look so
stiff, and mine would look stiffer than anybody else's !"
" Now that is casting a doubt on my capacities,"
said he.
" Oh, you know what I meant !"
" It would please your cousin so much," he continued.
" We would keep it a secret, and surprise her with the
picture."
" But I should lose so much time," urged Mary.
" Come, you shall neither be forced to pose nor lose
your time," continued he. " I will make a study of the
room and you at work. Ah, do consent ! remember how
delighted Miss Cameron will be."
I doubt if the artful wretch ever meant the painting to
go out of his own possession, but Mary could not know
this, and it seemed ill-natured to refuse his request, espe-
cially as it was intended as a means of gratifying Violet.
Then Warner appealed to Miss Vaughton a difficult and
noisy undertaking, owing to her excessive deafness. For
some time she thought he was telling her that Mary pro-
posed to enter a nunnery, a mistake caused by the excite-
ment of just having heard that an acquaintance had era-
braced Roman Catholicism and immured herself within the
walls of a French convent ; and she pleaded piteously with
Miss Danvers not to follow so shocking an example.
However, when Warner, after shouting until nearly
breathless, at length succeeded in making her understand
what he was talking about, she highly approved ; so did
LIKE JONAH'S GOURD. 229
her brother, who entered while the matter was under dis-
cussion, and his verdict settled the business.
Warner rushed off in search of the canvas, which he
had provided in advance, brought an easel and color-box,
and set to work at once. His rapidity of execution made
him the envy of his fellow-painters, but his progress with
this picture was very slow indeed, and he insisted on copy-
ing the hangings and adornments of the room with pre-
Raphaelite fidelity.
So the days floated on, and the sweet idyl of youth and
love grew in beauty and interest ; though there would be
nothing new in its details, if translated into words, bright
and fresh as it seemed to those young hearts.
He uttered no open avowal the time had not come for
that. Had Miss Vaughton been less deaf than she was,
her presence would have proved no restraint. But the
poem of their lives went on, each additional page a sweeter
melody, until that mediaeval room became a fairy haunt,
lifted so far above the common world that no echo of its
fret and din could reach the pair in their enchanted quiet.
CHAPTER XXIV.
LIKE JONAH'S GOUED.
ITJLIA DA RIMINI had long since perceived
that Miss Cameron's neglect of her visits sprang
from a settled resolution to limit their inter-
course to the most distant terms, but she ap-
peared unconscious of the slight, and never
failed to greet Violet with affectionate fervor when they
met .at the houses of mutual acquaintances.
Even during her previous stay in Florence, Miss
Cameron, disliking the woman from the first, had never
done more than leave an occasional card or an invitation
when she gave a general party ; but certain that this sea-
son not even so much attention would be accorded, before
Violet had announced her day for receiving, Giulia adroitly
found it out from Nina and adopted the same, and as
230 LIKE JONAH'S GOURD.
Violet gave no balls or other large entertainments this
winter, outside of her little knot of special friends, no-
body's attention was drawn to the fact that any change
had taken place in her relations with the duchess.
" Nevertheless, Violet Cameron will have to pay for
that supper," Lady Harcourt said one day to Nina and
Sabakine.
" I hope the fair Giulia may try to make her," returned
the prince. "For I have an idea the American will out-
general her completely."
Lady Harcourt shook her head.
" Good gracious !" cried Nina, " you don't mean to say
you think Giulia as clever a woman as Violet ? She is
crafty enough "
" Ah," interrupted her ladyship, "you have hit on the
very word ! Violet Cameron is as honest and truthful as
the light that is just where Giulia will gain the advan-
tage."
" For once in her life she would be puzzled to find out
a way of doing any harm," said Sabakiue ; " Miss Cam-
eron is above the reach of her malice common mortals
are not."
" And since she is, we do not need to render ourselves
unhappy," rejoined Lady Harcourt, calmly.
" Violet would never forgive any of us for venturing
to think solicitude necessary," said Nina.
" No doubt of that," replied Lady Harcourt, " so we
should be saved the exertion in any case. Well, well, it is
none of our affair ; one may like Miss Cameron and adore
Giulia, still we can't force them to rush into each other's
arms."
" That would be as unexciting to Giulia as kissing a
pane of glass," said Nina gayly, and took her departure.
"She is quite ready to regard Giulia as harmless now
that Carlo is safe out of her clutches," said Lady liar-
court.
" I am afraid she makes her exultation and security a
little too palpable to Giulia," returned Sabakine. " The
ides of March are not over !"
His words were more significant than he knew. At the
time Giulia established her confidential relations with the
Greek, she entirely changed her tactics towards Carlo.
She had on several occasions worried him with scenes
LIKE JONAH'S GOURD. 231
tender, jealous, upbraiding but neither exhibition had any
effect except to make him avoid her because he objected to
having his indolent comfort disturbed.
Had she continued those persecutions, he would speedily
have hated her ; but when her behavior convinced him that
she meant to submit with a good grace to the inevitable, he
was ready to be on pleasant terms, and rather admired the
tact with which she accepted the position. Their gambling
propensities formed a bond between them, and for some
time after their intercourse had been relegated to that
of i'amfliar acquaintanceship, Carlo's luck at cards took a
favorable turn which inspired him with a feeling of
general benevolence in which Giulia had a lion's share,
from the fact that on several occasions when they played
against each other, she was a considerable loser.
At last, one night at the club, when ho had suggested
ecarte to the Greek, that worthy regretted his inability to
remain ; he had promised to join Gherardi and a few others
at the duchess's house to indulge in a little " poker," which
had become a favorite game with them all, and into which
the Greek carried the benefit of his Californian experiences.
" Why not come too?" Dimetri asked. "It is just an
impromptu affair ; we happened to meet her this morning
at the Skating Rink ; she said then if you had been there
she would have asked you to join us. You had better go
than stop moping here."
Having nothing to do until midnight, when he was to
meet his wife at Potaski's, Carlo went to the duchess's, and
found "poker" so attractive that on Giulia's proposing a
similar party a few evenings afterwards, he consented with-
out hesitation.
" I thought you meant to quarrel with me," said she.
" I am sure you could not have thought that," he
replied. " Quarrel with you, duchess ? As well expect a
man to quarrel with the light the sun any beautiful
thing, the sight of which is necessary for happiness !"
" It would be very silly in both of us," she said with her
frankest smile. " Nothing forms so sure a bond of friend-
ship as a little sentimental folly of which two people are
cured it is odd that one could not go back if one tried?"
" Now that is very uncomplimentary I"
" Nonsense, Carlo ; you know what I mean ! Come, we
are to be good comrades ; yes, and help each other if either
232 LIKE JONAH'S GOURD.
should want help. Only don't be stand-offish nothing
would be so certain to make people gossip, after our loug
friendship."
" I never dreamed of being so," said he, a little nettled
at finding that her cure was as effectual as his own, even
while he secretly applauded her wisdom, and rejoiced that
she did not mean to make cards a bore in her society.
"Oh, I knew very well whose work it was," returned
Giulia, with stately pleasantry. " My dear Carlo, I shall
be charmed to see you soften the American icicle ; but
surely, even if Miss Cameron is too virtuous to play herself,
she need not grudge you a little relaxation."
Carlo laughed, but he knew that any disclaimers would
be wasted ; nobody was better aware than Giulia that he
would as soon have thought of flirting with a sister as with
Miss Cameron, but he reflected that if he vexed her too far,
refused to game at her house, she might invent reports
which would disturb Violet, and he was too well acquainted
with Florence to forget that the more improbable the slan-
der, the more readily it would find credence.
So he quite put his going down to a care for Miss Cam-
eron's reputation, and really felt very virtuous in being able
to shield the gratification of his master-passion under such
fine motives they would give an unanswerable reason also
to Nina, if she discovered that he had been drawn back to
the enchantress's bower. She would consider it better for
him to risk losing a little money to Giulia than, by break-
ing with her completely, rouse her anger to such a pitch
that she would revenge herself by scandals against Miss
Cameron, well knowing that she could hardly choose any
form of retaliation so painful to both husband and wife.
The duchess belonged to the order of schemers which,
though capable of inventing plots on a grand scale and pos-
sessing the generalship to carry them out, is petty and
crafty enough never to neglect the smallest cunning device
which can prove of personal use or the means of annoying
another.
One rainy day three or four ladies and as many gentle-
men were killing time by playing baccarat in her salon
old Mademoiselle de Roquefort forced to sit by and act as
duenna ; not that her presence checked either the betting
or the reckless conversation to which, accustomed as she
was, her unfortunate conscience could never grow indiffer-
LIKE JONAirs GOURD. 233
ent, but a duenna Giulia must have it was almost her sole
sacrifice to appearances, and poor mademoiselle's sufferings
rendered it a pleasure too.
Somebody mentioned Miss Cameron's name, and it
struck the duchess this was a favorable opportunity for
making it appear that she and the lady were on visiting
terms. She had taken several cards of Violet's out of the
baskets in the salons of mutual acquaintances, a couple of
the purloined bits of pasteboard lay among those left by
her own visitors, and she possessed another which she had
devoted to a special purpose.
She quitted the room on some pretext, got the card
and gave it to her footman, ordering him presently to enter
and present it as if Miss Cameron were waiting below.
" It is just to play a joke on Signor Gherardi," she said ;
" be sure you are very serious, and do your part naturally.
Wait twenty minutes or so, and then come in."
Before the time had elapsed, Lady Harcourt was an-
nounced. The duchess would rather not have had a person
so intimate with Miss Cameron a witness of the maneuver,
but she reflected that it was very doubtful if her ladyship
would pay sufficient attention to the matter ever to mention
it to the American, and in case she did, a denial on the crea-
ture's part of having come to the Palazzo Rimini would ap-
pear a palpable fib.
Any way it was too late to countermand her order ; the
new-comer had scarcely got seated before the footman ap-
peared. Giulia, occupied in dealing the hands, said aloud,
as the man presented the card :
" Who is it, Alessandro?"
Gherardi sat next her ; he unceremoniously leaned over
and read out the name before the servant could speak :
" Miss Cameron !"
" Oh, good heavens !" exclaimed the duchess ; " what
will she think to find us playing cards at this unholy hour
and the room is blue with tobacco smoke !"
" We shall all be ruined in her estimation," laughed
Gherardi.
" Oh, you may laugh, but I am really afraid she is so
strict !" cried the duchess. " What shall I do, Lady liar-
court ?"
" Let her come up, by all means," replied her ladyship,
calmly. She looked the picture of indifference, but all the
234 LIKE JONAH'S GOURD.
same she was watching. Giulia's agitation struck her as a
well-done bit of comedy, played for some secret purpose.
" I would not," added one of the other ladies a country-
woman of Miss Cameron's, to whom baccarat by daylight
was a rather stolen amusement. " What is the good of
shocking anybody who has scruples ?"
"You are right," said the duchess, looking relieved.
" Alessandro, did the porter say I was in ?"
" He said that he was not certain he would see, eccel-
lenza," returned Alessa-ndro, with true Italian readiness.
" Then say you are out !" cried Gherardi ; " gone to
vespers."
They all laughed as if the idea were a capital joke,
though in reality the duchess was very regular in her devo-
tions, and Sabakine vowed that when she had a new sin to
commit, she always went through a novena to insure
success.
" Will you all promise not to betray me ?" she asked.
" Lady Harcourt Gherardi all of you ?"
" Yes, we promise," they answered.
" Then bid the porter say I am out he did not know it
Iliad gone out through the garden, Alessandro."
" Gone to vespers, and I went with her," added Ghe-
rardi.
The servant retired, grave as a judge.
" The Anglo-Saxon race has such odd ideas !" cried
Giulia. " No better than us Latins I beg your pardon, Lady
Harcourt, but one never knows what trifle English and
Americans may be shocked at."
"Don't mind me I have no prejudices," returned her
ladyship.
" I really do admire Miss Cameron so much," added
Giulia.
"I hate her," said Gherardi, "because I know her
beauty and her money are out of my reach. But even the
fair American must not be permitted to interfere with busi-
ness."
They resumed their game, and presently Lady Har-
court took her leave. She did not happen to see Violet
Cameron until a couple of days afterwards, but she had not
forgotten the little episode.
" Have you been at dear Giulia's lately ?" she asked.
" No," Violet replied, paused an instant, then added :
LIKE JONAWS GOURD 235
" You ask me that just in the hope of teasing ! I told you
and Nina I had not been at her house this season, or invited
her to mine, and had no intention of doing so."
"I thought perhaps you had changed your mind," said
er ladyship ; "you know I told yon at the time that it is
always useless to make an exception of a person whom
everybody receives."
"I dare say it is," was all the answer Violet returned.
"Now I enjoy dear Giulia's society; I like to watch
her maneuvers. Usually they are so deep it is difficult to
find them out, and that always interests me."
" She does not happen to interest me."
" A pity, a pity," rejoined Lady Harcourt, laughing,
though her voice held a tone of warning. " But I know
you are adamant when once you have made up your mind,
so I only say a pity ! Have you seen Bellucci's new
picture ?"
She entered into a dissertation concerning the merits of
the painting, and seemed to forget the duchess as com-
pletely as Violet did, but as she was driving home, she said
to herself :
" Miss Cameron will certainly have to pay for that sup-
per ! Well, I can do nothing ! If I talked a month it
would only make her more contemptuous of Giulia's power ;
it is best to leave matters alone. Trying to guard a person
against trouble is the surest way to help it forward."
But she thought often of the matter, and her suspicions
that Giulia contemplated mischief grew stronger ; though,
well informed as she usually kept herself, even her ladyship
did not know that as time elapsed these impromptu parties
at the duchess's occurred more and more frequently.
At last, without hesitation, Giulia said to the men :
" Why shouldn't we have regular evenings? Come, it
shall be a private club ! I will furnish the rooms, and you
shall divide the expense of wine and seltz and cigars
among you then we shall all be perfectly at our ease."
In spite of her eagerness to entangle Carlo hopelessly
in this new web, the idea of going to any expense weighed
on her soul. She could stop even while counting up that
ready money of his to regret each glass of punch which she
had to pay for, and finally hit on this method, perfectly in-
different as to what any of them might think of her parsi-
mony.
236 LIKE JONAHS GOURD.
The others applauded her proposal, but Carlo hesitated
a little ; he was afraid Nina might hear of the matter and
suspect that under such excuse he had drifted back to his
old intimacy with the duchess, though his fear did not
arise so much from consideration for his wife's feelings as
from a dread of her believing him weak enough to be
deluded anew.
Giulia read his thoughts easily enough, and determined
to render refusal impossible.
" Carlo says nothing," she cried playfully ; " he has to
ask consent !"
" What an idea !" said Gherardi. " You forget,
duchess, that Carlo's matrimonial tie is a garland of
flowers, not an iron fetter !"
" I beg your pardon," returned she, with the grave dig-
nity by which, when she chose, she could control any one
of them ; " even in jest I do not like such an insinuation !
Nina Magnoletti is the dearest friend I have in the world.
Carlo might play cards the week through in this house
without scruple on her part." Then she added, with a
relapse into playfulness : " No, no ; the restriction would
come from a very different quarter, eh, Carlo ?"
Lightly as she spoke, the glance she fastened on him
warned the marchese of the direction her anger would take
in case he refused, and the eagerness with which his com-
panions called on Giulia to explain, showed how easy it
would be for her to set the ball in motion.
" No influence could count against a wish of yours,
duchess ; you know that only too well," said he.
" Bravo !" she cried. " Then it is a bargain ! And we
will keep our club a profound secret, else we shall have a
crowd is that agreed ?"
They all consented, and this removed Carlo's last
scruple, as Giulia had been sure it would do, and no one
caught the rapid glance of triumph which she flashed into
the Greek's wickedly smiling eyes.
Carlo's increasing infatuation for cards caused Nina a
great deal of une.asiness, but he had behaved so well in the
affair of the duchess that she feared this winter to attempt
any open opposition in regard to his crowning weakness
thankful to compound for a form of amusement which, if it
caused pecuniary embarrassments, was at least engrossing
enough to spare her the pain of seeing him rush into a
LIKE JONAH'S GOURD. 237
fresh flirtation. His good fortune, too, lasted for some
time, and he told her of it : so she quieted her fears by
trusting that his lucky vein would continue, and as she
believed that he usually played at the club when he had no
card parties at home, she remained quiescent.
" He must amuse himself he has a right," she said to
Violet; "and oh, my dear, I'd pawn my diamonds with
satisfaction, if it were necessary, just to reward him for the
pleasure it gives me to see how all Giulia's efforts are
wasted."
For that astute lady did not hesitate in Nina's presence
to affect pique when the marchese paid attention to some
new lady, and would say to the little wife :
" Carlo runs away from me as if I were the plague !
Violet Cameron has made him hate me ah, don't you let
her make you hate me too !"
" She never tries ; she could not if she would," returned
Nina, wondering whether Giulia was most piqued at Vio-
let's having betrayed her to Carlo, or at the difficulty she
found in winning Laurence Aylmer from his allegiance to
his beautiful countrywoman.
But as the weeks went on, though her mind continued
at rest as to her husband's cure, she felt less confident in
regard to Aylmer's ability to resist the duchess's wiles.
Giulia's infatuation only deepened, and her resolve to sub-
due Laurence waxed stronger with each fresh proof of the
slight progress she was making. She persecuted him a
great deal, and the ground on which she stationed herself
appealed so keenly to his chivalry that, though he grew
more and more impatient and heartily cursed his ill luck,
he could not refuse to listen when she poured her troubles
into his ears inventing marvelous stories, pretending fear
of her very life, declaring that she had been warned of a
plot to poison her if all other means failed to give the duke
his victory, showing letters from a faithful friend in Paris
who kept her informed of what her enemies there were
doing (letters written according to her own dictation), and
playing her part so well that he could not help feeling sorry
for her, though his distaste grew into positive aversion.
Nina saw many signs which disturbed her ; Lady Har-
court and Sabakine saw them too, and they were all gen-
uinely troubled, for they had set their hearts on Aylmer's
winning Miss Cameron.
238 LIKE JONAH'S GOURD.
" I did not think he would be such an idiot," said Nina ;
" I really believed he was a little less weak than the rest of
his sex."
" Oh, my dear, it is just because of his looking superior
and poetical," rejoined Lady Harcourt ; " he is made of the
same clay as the others, only the outside stamp is dif-
ferent."
" He can't get rid of her, that I believe is the truth,"
said Sabakiue, with a generosity marvelous in one man's
judgment of another.
" He shouldn't have put himself in a position where any
such effort would have been necessary," cried Nina.
" Come now, be merciful !" laughed Sabakine. "There
is no male animal in all history whom you women despise
as you do Joseph. You can't expect any fellow of this
generation to incur your scorn by following his example."
Nina would have liked to warn Laurence, but her two
friends advised her to leave matters alone interference
would only make them worse and, to her relief, Miss
Cameron's persistent seclusion this winter kept her from
perceiving Giulia's arts, and no hint of the rumors which
began to be whispered about were carried to her ears.
There were other rumors too, which did not reach Nina
or Aylmer any more than they did Violet that Carlo had
transferred his devotion to Miss Cameron ; but they were
very softly whispered, and even Lady Harcourt and Saba-
kine failed to trace them to their rightful source the
duchess and her ally the Greek.
Then, as time wore on, Carlo and Aylmer became less
intimate. They were perfectly friendly and cordial, but
did not see each other so often. The duchess managed
that easily enough by letting each know things of the other
which caused mutual disapprobation. Aylmer was aware
that Carlo played more and more heavily, and lost a great
deal, and Carlo wondered that Laurence could foolishly
risk his chances with Violet^ind felt, in spite of his
genuine indifference to Giulia,uiat vague jealousy a man
usually does feel towards his probable successor in a
woman's regard, however glad he may be to recover his
own freedom.
So the duchess was kept busy, and her excitement con-
tinued. Besides all the rest, she had a good deal of diffi-
culty in restraining the Greek's jealousy of Aylmer within
MARY'S RESOLVli. 2'39
bounds, and equal trouble to keep the American from dis
playing his contempt for Dimetri ; and the days flew on
with her, and her loves and her hates grew like Jonah's
gourd, though they were deeply rooted and full of vitality
as forest trees.
CHAPTER XXV.
M ART 5 8 KESOL VE.
HE bas-reliefs were cast in plaster, and just then
the Florentine artists opened an exhibition for
the benefit of some charitable scheme.
Mr. Vaughton sent Mary's productions with-
out her knowledge, and they received high en-
comiums, pleasing a connoisseur so much that he ordered
them in marble. Mary's delight at her first commission,
and her first breath of praise and success, can only be
realized by one who has known a similar moment in early
youth.
Not only the pleasurable hope of independence that
strongest longing in every noble nature but those visions
of fame which are so dazzling to the young, these were
Mary's now, and to Violet it was delightful to see and
sympathize with her happiness.
One cloud still lingered on Mary's horizon, heavy
enough sorely to dim its brightness : she could not feel at
ease in Laurence Aylmer's society, and the recollections
from which this discomfort arose sorely troubled her, in
spite of her absorbing occupations. About this time she
had now been nearly two months in her new home she
came to a resolution in regard to the matter which
weighed so heavily on her mind. She could not endure
longer, she must set herself right. The task seemed very
hard bold, unmaidenly almost, she feared but good
heavens ! anything would be better than to let this mis-
construction remain ; to have him think think Oh,
even in her solitude Mary shivered, and broke off abruptly
in her meditation. She must speak, that she determined
upon, and it so happened that the very day after she came
240 MARY'S RESOLVE.
to this resolve, an opportunity to carry it into effect was
afforded her.
Mr. Vaughton had gone out, she knew, and she had
been waiting to consult him about certain changes in her
o o
work the bust of a friend which she was making from
photographs. After a while she heard some one in the
adjoining studio, and supposing that her master had
returned, tapped on the door and opened it without wait-
ing for permission to enter. There stood Laurence
Aylmer.
" Good-morning, Miss Danvers," he said, walking
towards her. "The workmen in the outer rooms told me
Mr. Vaughton was not here, but I wanted a peep at the
new group, so I came in. May I not see what you are
working at too ! I have just come from the Exposition,
and heard a great deal of praise of your bas-reliefs ; they
are excellent."
" Pray come in," she answered, mastering, as best she
might, the trouble caused by this unexpectedly speedy
granting of her wishes.
" What a beau ideal of a studio !" he exclaimed,
following her in, and closing the door behind him. " I
have never been permitted to enter it, you remember.
Thanks for removing the embargo."
She felt herself color as she recollected that once, when
Violet had spoken in his presence of bringing him, she had
received the proposal in silence, and perceiving her cousin
look at her in surprise, had murmured an excuse about
wanting to wait until her bas-reliefs were finished before
she admitted visitors.
She said something of the same sort now, conscious of
saying it very tamely, fancying, too, that a little of her
discomposure was reflected in his manner, as she had often
in similar moments been tormented by thinking the case.
" What a charming nook it is !" he added quickly.
" My cousin's taste, you might be sure ! She is much
more genuinely artistic than any artist I know," said Mary,
glad not only to give vent to her enthusiastic admiration
of Violet, but to distract his attention from her annoying
blushes ; and she had decided long since in her own mind
that to mention Violet's name was enough to make Lau-
rence Aylmer forget everything else.
" Yes," was all he said, but Mary saw his eyes wander
MARY'S RESOLVE. 241
about the room with a positively caressing expression
She had noticed the same look in them frequently, when,
during his visits to the house, he would, thinking himself
unobserved, touch some object that belonged to her a book
she had just laid down ; a fan or glove thrown carelessly
on a table.
" As you are one of her special friends, you shall have
her particular seat," continued Mary, pointing towards a
great carved easy-chair that stood on the Turkey carpet.
He turned towards her with a quick smile she thought
an inquiring one. Then he caught sight of old Miss Vaugh-
ton, seated just beyond the arched doorway, leaning plac-
idly back, a newspaper on her knee, and her spectacles on
her nose ; but it needed only a glance to discover that she
was sound asleep.
"I won't disturb her by speaking," he said. "It would
be positively wicked ; but, oh, what a negligent duenna !"
" Pray don't tell Miss Bronson, else she will want to
come herself," replied Mary, trying to speak naturally.
"Ah, Miss Bronson would never fall asleep on the post
of duty, I am certain," he said, laughing.
" Never," said Mary, laughing too, though a little ner-
vously.
" But I think she would let me in," he continued. " I
flatter myself that she is good enough rather to like me."
"Oh, she considers you absolutely perfect, I believe,"
said Mary. " She is never tired of chanting your praises
to Violet and me."
"That must be somewhat of a trial to you both."
" We bear it," said Mary, with a demurely mischievous
manner, at which he smiled.
" We must have crosses in this world," he replied, exult-
ing in his soul to think that he was often a subject of con-
versation in Violet's house and presence.
" Yes," said Mary; and recollecting the cross which had
lain so heavily on her of late, and her determination to get
rid of it, no matter how difficult the exertion, she made no
further effort to continue that playful badinage.
Aylmer moved forward, and laid his hand on the back
of the chair which Mary had called her cousin's ; and the
girl, partlyio give him a moment to himself, partly to find
some occupation wherewith to steady her mind, turned to
her clay and began moistening it.
11
242 MAWS RESOLVE.
Aylmer had come to Vaughton's studio in the hope
Violet might be visiting her relative, so that he could enjoy
her society for awhile under the pretext of wishing to see
Miss Danvers's work. Actually he had not seen her or
six-and-thirty hours ! He had missed her on the previous
night at both receptions where he went ; had called at her
house a little while before, and been told she was out.
He fully recognized the wisdom of the professor's sug-
gestions, and meant to obey them to the letter ; but depriva-
tion of her society he felt would only render his role more
difficult when they did meet. Absence filled his heart so
full that to repress its eagerness and appear contented with
the friendship she offered must severely try all his powers
of endurance.
He was glad now that she and circumstances had com-
bined to force upon him the reticence which he knew the
time had not arrived to break ; left to himself, he should
certainly have broken it, in spite of his determination, and
perhaps have ruined his hopes utterly by forcing a decision
upon her before her heart had spoken loudly enough to
overcome her scruples and what she termed the voice of
reason. She did care for him she must ! It could not be
that this love which pervaded his whole being by its
strength, was utterly without power to move her. She
cared a thousand trifles, assured him that she cared ! If
he continued patient and prudent he should overcome her
causes for hesitation and win his prize !
He roused himself to recollect that this was neither the
time nor place to indulge in reverie. He crossed the room,
and stood beside Mary praised the bust, asked questions,
examined the photographs waiting, hoping that she might
speak of her cousin again : even to hear Violet's name men-
tioned by this sweet, pure girl who loved her was a pleasure.
And Mary endeavored to talk quietly, clutching the while
at her wits to find courage to begin the subject upon which
she wished to converse reviling her own folly, since such"
hesitation might lose her this opportune chance.
Miss Vaughton might wake ; he might take his leave
hastily, as he almost always did if by any hazard he found
her alone when he called at Violet's house, and he must not
go till she had spoken he must not ! She might have to
wait weeks before so favorable an occasion arose again, and
she was wasting the time ! This reflection nerved her into
MARY'S RESOLVE. 243
desperation, that tolerably well supplied the place of her
ordinary courage, which had so cruelly deserted her.
And he, a little preoccupied disappointed at not having
found Violet unable to tear himself away without at least
learning whether there was a hope of her yet coming, halted
in conversation almost as much as Mary. Then, growing
conscious that she would find his visit a terrible bore if he
could not be a little less dull, he caught at some topic for
talk, and unfortunately, as he thought, hit on some reminis-
cences of the days when he used to be a frequent guest at
her father's house.
" It seems a long while ago," he said, " still longer when
I look at you and see how you have changed."
He stopped suddenly. How much or how little her
father's death had let her into the secrets of his affairs he
could not tell, but she did know there had been difficulties,
between himself and George Danvers, and worse than all,
she knew something of the plan the latter at one time con-
ceived in which she was to have a share.
How idiotically stupid to remind her of that season !
What might she not think ! He glanced at her she had
become scarlet ; then, before he could remove his gaze, she
grew deathly pale.
Now she must speak ! She had been wondering how
she was ever to find words, but the consciousness of having
betrayed such agitation rendered her more frantic, and she
burst out :
"Mr. Aylmer, there is something I have wanted to say
to you ever since I came to Florence I can never be at
ease with you till I have. Maybe it is wrong for a girl to
speak " She broke off, reflected an instant, then,
though the color came back to her cheeks in a torrent, and
she trembled in every limb from nervous excitement, she
lifted her head proudly, and added in a firm voice : " No,
it cannot be wrong for a girl to set herself right ! There
*is something higher than conventional scruples womanly
dignity."
" And I never saw a girl with more, or who knew bet-
ter how to make it respected," he said, gently, though he
looked a little uncomfortable.
" I thank you," Mary answered. " I know you are
honest and good you will not misunderstand me. Wait,
244 MART'S RESOLVE.
please ; if I don't say it quickly I shan't be able to say it at
all."
She pressed her hand hard against her heart, trembling
more violently, but her tones were firm still as she went
on :
" I know what my father once talked to you about.
During his illness he told me. Oh, he thought at one
time that a a marriage between you and me would be
possible that that Oh, I can't tell you how it has
humiliated me to think you might suppose I had had
cared for you ! And when we meet now it is always in
my mind. Then I act so silly that I am afraid other peo-
ple might notice and and oh, it drives me almost wild
sometimes ! I can't endure it I can't have you think I
ever felt so much as the ghost of a girlish fancy for you !
Oh, I never dreamed of such a thing, any more than you
dreamed of considering me a grown woman !"
" I am sure of it, Miss Danvers," he answered. " When
your father honored me by suggesting that such an alliance
would not be displeasing to him, he assured me that he had
not spoken to you that he did not know if you could
entertain the idea."
" You are very good to try and spare me," she said,
"but papa told me everything when he was ill. Oh, Mr.
Aylmer, I am sure that for months and months before, his
head was affected by that dreadful disease which killed
him ! Oh, it was that made him commit so many mistakes
in business ; and he lost other people's money as well as his
own, and they thought he was wicked."
"It is very probable he suffered as you say," Aylmer
replied. " But indeed, Miss Mary, it is useless to think of
those things !"
"Yes," she sighed, "useless. I cannot right these
losses. Oh, if the time should ever come ! But I can set
myself right ! I do beg you to understand ! Why, I
couldn't have dreamed of marrying you, if you had been
the only man in the world oh, I did not think how that
sounded ! Please, please don't call me rude I like you
very much I know how clever and good you are oh, I am
only making it all worse !"
" Indeed you are not," he said, with a smile so com-
posed that he quieted her. " I am sure your very strong
asseveration was not meant to be uncomplimentary. Believe
MART ^8 RESOLVE. 245
me, I perfectly appreciate your motive in speaking ; if you
were uncomfortable, we could never get on easy, friend-
ly terms and T hope you mean to let me count myself
among your friends, Miss Mary."
" Indeed, I shall be very proud if I may !" she cried ;
and tears rose in her eyes, but they were signs of relief,
not trouble. She had got a great weight off her mind.
He believed her, and received her abrupt revelation with
such perfect tact, that her embarrassment vanished.
" Good, firm friends," he went on, " and ready to con-
gratulate one another when each finds that heart and love
which is said to await every human being somewhere
sometime !"
His smile grew soft and dreamy. Ah, he had found
the realization of his ideal Mary knew that ! She sat
down on the sofa, and he placed himself beside her. She
looked up at him with a sigh of relief, saying :
"I am so glad I have spoken I wish I had done so
before ! I wanted to tell my cousin to tell Violet. But
it all seemed so silly it was so difficult to explain to any-
body ; and I was afraid if I tried, and worked myself into
one of my excitements, I should only make it look as if I
had had cared."
" But now you have spoken, and are at rest," he said.
" Believe me, I never had could not have any thought
of you derogatory to your dignity in any respect."
" Ah, but when you saw me behave so foolishly as I
did !" cried Mary. " I acted very often as if I was
frightened sometime I talked rubbish, just out of bravado !
Plenty of men would have been stupid enough to think I
cared. Oh, I thank you a thousand times !"
"It is for me to thank you for your good opinion," he
said, with another kindly smile. "And now that every-
thing is cleared up, you will be quite at ease with me, and
begin to look on me as a friend ?"
" Yes, indeed ! And, oh, Mr. Aylmer I know you lost
money through papa try not to blame him ! You wouldn't
think he cheated ! Why, a bad man would have managed
to save his own money and he lost all his."
"Since I entered into speculations voluntarily, it is my-
self that I must blame, Miss Mary."
lie could say that, but he could say no more. Danvers
had certainly deceived him egregiously. He often won-
246 " THE END OF OUR ROMANCE,"
dered if, at the time the man sounded the ground to see
whether a marriage between Aylmer and his daughter
might be possible, lie meant in that case to spare his friend's
fortune. But even if he had, he could not have done it
his mania for speculation would have carried him away.
At this moment some one in Mr. Vaugbton's studio
knocked for admittance, and before Mary could answer,
the door opened, Violet Cameron appeared on the threshold,
and just behind her stood Warner.
The pair seated on the sofa rose quickly, but the intrud-
ers both took in the tableau which their entrance disturbed
Aylmer bending over Mary, she looking eagerly up into
his face ; beyond the arched doorway on the other side of
the room good Miss Vaughton tranquilly reposing in her
arm-chair, dreaming, doubtless, of far different things than
those duties of chaperonage which Bliza Bronson had en-
deavored to impress upon her mind.
Mary hurried forward, and Aylmer followed ; for a few
moments they all stood and talked together, but Violet was
the only one of the four who seemed at ease Violet, calm,
gracious, smiling, and all the while with a sensation at her
heart as if a hand of ice had suddenly been laid upon it,
chilling its pulses with a mortal coldness. The interview
was torture to Warner. His jealous suspicions, so long
combated, so often thrust aside, surged up in an angry
storm which he feared face and voice must betray, and he
took his departure so abruptly that poor Mary's agitation
increased, though she did not assign his displeasure to its
rightful cause.
CHAPTER XXVI.
"THE END OF OUR ROMANCE."
EN days elapsed the most restless and misera-
ble Violet Cameron had ever endured.
I have said little in reference to her feelings
towards Laurence Aylmer as the winter went
on, because it seemed wiser to set the record
all down together in the place where it rightfully belongs
" THE END OF OUR ROMANCE" 247
the time when Violet forced her unwilling soul to admit
the truth clearly, openly without pity for its shame,
without mercy for her aching heart.
She loved Laurence Aylmer. The attempt to shelter
the feeling under the guise of a fancy had speedily proved
unavailing, from the fact that reason told her fancies did
not belong to her years. Then for a season she called the
sentiment which engrossed her by the easy name of sym-
pathy. He was so superior to the ordinary men who
hovered about her, so much more elevated in intellect and
refined in tastes, with aspirations and ambitions of which
they were as incapable as butterflies of singing like night-
ingales. His enthusiasm and perseverance, his determina-
tion to carry out his aspirations, made his life a real life :
all these things had attracted her towards him, helped to
forge the tie between them.
Weak as her other pretense had been ! She loved this
man loved him with the poetical fervor which destiny
had prevented her youth from developing loved him with
the strength of her womanhood ; and those girlish dreams
which had found no object whereon to spend their riches,
which she had thought worn out, lived beyond, rose from
their quiescence, eager, importunate, and cast their glow
across the secret of her maturity.
She loved him ! Useless to argue, to say that she did
not even know him well : heart and soul gave her the lie,
smiled triumphant over common-sense, and intrenched
themselves in that overwhelming assertion. And this
strong love which had come to her out of season, belated
like a flower blooming after the first frosts of autumn
must be crushed, though she trampled her heart into atoms
in order to effect its destruction.
Since that certainty of Mary's affection had forced
itself upon her, Violet had held many a bitter, savage com-
munion with that rebellious heart which insisted so wildly
upon possessing its happiness. Was she to let a girl's
dream such a weak thing at best stand between her and
the fullness of bliss ! And from their first moment of meet-
ing, this man had loved her her Violet ! And the very
force with which her heart uttered that assurance brought
a reaction. Say that he loved her more, admit that she
was beautiful enough to win any man's love what then ?
Why this : her factitious semblance of youth, already
248 " THE END OF OUR ROMANCE."
unduly prolonged, might fade any day ; the least mischance
a passing illness, a sudden trouble might bring the
wrinkles into her forehead, the gray into her hair ; worse
still, might freeze and kill the freshness of thought which
had kept her soul young, and that soul, worn and tired,
reflect its weariness in her features, and help more speedily
to obliterate the last trace of beauty which had brought
men to her feet.
If she were to marry him and then the change should
come, after just months enough of perfect happiness to
render life unendurable if she were forced to accept any
portion of bliss which could be counted, having known hap-
piness in its immeasurable fullness!
Such a season often came into the lives of women who
married men older than themselves, but under those cir-
cumstances the sufferer could have the relief of feeling that
she and her husband were growing elderly together.
But this love which beset her Violet ! If she were to
marry this man towards whom her heart had gone out, she
must see herself age see the lines come in her face, the
gray into her hair while he, as a man, had claims to youth
still ; live perhaps to hear the world wonder what could
have induced him to such sacrifice or, worse yet, live to
know that he wondered himself. And if he were noble
enough to remain true, that would make matters worse for
him ; each time girlish charms attracted his eye he would
have to check the bitter reflection that if he had only
waited, only resisted a fancy, he might now in his prime
have taken that loveliness to his breast, have prolonged his
own youth by its possession ; whereas, through his folly, he
had rendered such happiness impossible. lie was tied
bound chained married to the worn, wrinkled, middle-
aged woman who face hung like a ghost between him and
the sun !
" No, better to give him up of her own free will than
live to endure such misery; forced absolutely to pity him,
to curse her own idiocy, as perhaps he would be too gener-
ous to do, and so, through sympathy with his pain, bear his
burden in addition to her own. Better give him up, teach
him gradually to content himself with friendship ; aye, be
the one to show him that in Mary he would find peace and
rest for both present and future.
And now it seemed that she had indeed acted her part
" THE END OF OUR ROMANCE." 249
well : she had convinced him that he could hope only for
her esteem. Had he, without aid or counsel from her,
turned for consolation towards Mary ? Had he recognized,
as Violet believed she had done, indisputable signs, unwit-
tingly betrayed, that the girl had crowned him the hero of
her dreams, and been flattered and touched thereby into
rapid recognition of the truth that his fancy for the elder
cousin was a delusion ; that here stood the realization of
his ideal '?
It looked so, Violet thought, as she recalled that scene
in the studio. She went back over the events of the past
week. Why, since Mary Danvers's arrival, she had never
once found it difficult, even in their tete-d-tetes, to keep the
conversation from the perilous ground to which several
times before he had led it forward ! More and more
patiently he had accepted the terms on which she had told
him their intercourse must remain friendship.
And, during these last ten days, Mary's manner to him
had undergone a complete change : she was never shy in
his presence now, never unnaturally gay one moment, and
moody, sometimes almost abrupt, at another ; she showed
her pleasure at his visits, and frankly took her share of his
society. Ah, she had gone beyond the region of doubts
and fears ; she was lulled into security so sweet that no
reflection came ; a repose where she just floated passively
on. Violet knew ! During that period at the villa, after
his illness, had it not been the same for a little while with
herself ? But what a triple fool she was to compare her
idyl to Mary's ! Mary a girl, with a right to dream and
she an elderly woman oh, an old maid, who might almost
have been a grandmother to-day, if fate had allowed her to
love and marry as early as most American girls.
Wanted to cry, did she? Well, there should be no
exhibition of lachrymose weakness she had borne enough
from her own folly there should be an end ! And Violet
shook her clenched hand anew at the image in the mirror.
It had grown her habit to hold bitter monologues before
her glass, and now, on this tenth night, which completed
that round of useless misery, she had come home from a
ball additionally angered with herself because aware that
she had tried to forget trouble in the pleasure of Aylmer's
society.
" You look as if you were painted," she informed the
11*
250 " TEE END OF OUR ROMANCE."
image. " As for your eyes they are disgraceful ! But
you are just as much a pretense a ludicrous, ridiculous
pretense as old Mrs. Sinclair, with her dyed hair and her
made-up brows. Keep me fretting in this way, and I'll
very soon show you yourself as wrinkled and yellow as she
would be if somebody rubbed off the red and white you
caricature of youth, you sort of original mummy that has
had color left in it by some wonderful nowaday forgot-
ten process !"
She laughed aloud, but I think a burst of tears would
have followed that tirade against the satin-robed, jewel-
crowned reflection, had she not been roused by Mary's
voice calling :
" I hear you ; may I come in ? I have been awake
ever so long, but was afraid to disturb you ; since you are
laughing, let me come and laugh too."
In sixty seconds by the clock, Violet Cameron went
through every imaginable phase of emotion, from a long-
ing to mutilate her own face till its mocking beauty should
no longer torture her by its arrogant assertion against the
years, to an insane desire to open the door suddenly, spring
on the girl waiting beyond and do her some deadly harm
then and there !
The very madness, the positive imbecility of her fancies,
brought her back to reason, as it does the rest of us in
similar crazed moments, else the chronicle of crime would
increase until scores upon scores of additional daily sheets
were all too few to contain the list.
" Come in, you naughty girl," said Violet, softly ; and
Mary appeared upon the threshold, looking like a nymph
or a dryad in her long white gown, with her wavy hair
vailing her shoulders. " What do you mean by being
awake at this hour? I would scold, only you look so
pretty I've not the heart."
" EIow the light hurts my eyes !" cried Mary, holding
up both hands to protect them. " And, oh, how beautiful
you are ! You must be like Mary Stuart or Semiramis "
" Or Helen of Troy, or some other bad woman whom
you've no business to have heard of," interrupted Violet.
" I wonder, when people want to find comparisons for me,
why they always choose the most dreadful women in all
history ?"
She was thinking of that night in the autumn oh, how
" THE END OF OUR ROMANCE" 251
far off it appeared ; how the reflection of its moonlight
seemed to scorch her brain, soft as it had appeared then ;
how every sight and sound repeated itself in a flash, with
all its sweetness turned to pain ! that night on the terrace
of the Magnoletti villa, when she had laughed at Aylrner's
unfortunate comparisons laughed without any bitterness ;
sore and angry as the recollection made her now.
" I don't believe they were bad," cried Mary ; " other
women invented the stories out of jealousy ! Oh. the light
and the dazzle of your diamonds and you still moi'e
quite blind me !"
" Go back into your room, and I'll come as soon as I
have got out of this impossible gown ; oh dear, I can't un-
fasten it, and Clarice has gone to bed."
" See what a famous waiting-maid I make," said Mary ;
" only come into my chamber I can't bear this light. I
will take in a dressing-gown here is one ! What pretty
robes-de-chambre you always have don't say I'm not be-
ginning to talk French only it must be sinful to spend so
much money on a thing just to wrap round one !"
" Bless me, mouse, whatever is the matter with you ?"
asked Violet. " You are usually the most demure of mice,
and here you are chattering as fast as a monkey."
" 1 don't know why," said Mary ; " I was gloomy
enough a little while ago, though I couldn't have given any
reason for that mood. I can for my present elated one it
is you and your beauty."
By this time they were in Mary's room, and Violet
seated in a low chair near the window, while her cousin
unlaced her dress.
" Do you never feel sad ?" continued Mary. " I have
often thought your high spirits must just be for society,
but when I heard you laughing so heartily in there all by
yourself, I knew I had been mistaken. To be sure, you
may well laugh you have everything in the world."
" Don't envy me my 'everything' too much," replied
Violet, recollecting what had caused her laughter.
"Envy you no I hope I am not capable of that!
Though, after all, I don't know ! I am forever finding out
I am so much more wicked than I dreamed possible," sighed
Mary.
" I am afraid that is what very often happens to most
of us," returned Violet, recalling the insane impulses which
252 " THE END OF OUR ROMANCE."
had flitted through her mind when Mary's sweet young
voice roused her from her bitter reverie.
Mary sighed again so dolefully that Violet, remember-
ing how at her age one is given to exaggerate any wrong
thought till in one's penitence it almost assumes the propor-
tions of a crime, added :
"Don't groan as if you had a mttrder on your soul, my
dear ! Bad thoughts may corne without any fault of ours
all we have to do is not to act upon them. I remember
reading a saying of an eccentric Wesleyan preacher who
lived early in the century in America Lorenzo Dow that
I have always considered very expressive : ' We can't hin-
der the birds flying over our heads, but we can keep them
from building nests in our hair.' "
" Oh, I must recollect that it is excellent," suid Mary.
" Is it not ? Fancy, I repeated it once to my dear old
Miss Bronson, and she begged me never to quote it again,
for it sounded really vulgar."
" I suppose if a bishop had made the remark she would
have called it sublime," said Mary.
" You have hit the truth exactly," returned Violet.
" Really, mouse, you are such a quiet little thing that you
often quite startle me by the way you read people's char-
acters."
"I didn't know I could," said Mary. "Any way, you
needn't be afraid of having yours read."
" I wish somebody could make me understand it," re-
plied Violet. " I don't suppose it amounts to much, but it
puzzles me more every day I live. Dear me, small one, it
is a great comfort to talk to you. One doesn't have to dot
every i and cross every t you comprehend at half a word."
" I'm so glad you like me !" exclaimed Mary, sitting
down on a footstool at Violet's feet, and leaning her head
against her cousin's knee. The shutters were open ; the
moon cast a soft radiance through the chamber heightened
Violet's beauty into a mysterious splendor and turned
Mary's thick-falling hair to dusky gold.
" You look like a Sibyl !" cried the girl, gazing up at
her cousin with the admiration it is so pretty to see one
woman bestow upon another.
" And I think I must have you painted as Una," returned
Violet, gayly. " And now that we have finished our mutual
compliments, tell me what was the reason you lay awake
" THE END OF OUR ROMANCE." 253
into the small hours, instead of being fast asleep like a sage
damsel ?"
" No reason, unless because I was goose enough to drink
tea after dinner that always keeps me awake."
" Oh, you practical little wretch !" cried Violet. " I
thought the moonlight would inspire you with some poetical
confession."
" I haven't any to make girls ought not to have," said
Mary, with a dash after the primness wherewith she had a
habit of hedging herself in.
" Oh, my dear, if one did only what one ought !" replied
Violet. " Well, at least tell me what you were thinking
about."
It might be a long while before another opportunity to
get at her young relative's thoughts and feelings would
offer so favorable as this. Violet wanted to do it not to
force the girl into any avowals which later she might regret,
but to crush her own folly with proofs uncontrovertible ;
and the very fact that something within her shrank from
the work rendered Violet the more determined.
" Thinking ? All sorts of things, or dreaming rather, I
suppose," said Mary. Then she was silent for a little.
Suddenly she moved her head impatiently to and fro on
Violet's knee, and continued, in a slow, reflective tone,
oddly at variance with her restless movement : " It is very
difficult to be a girl."
" My dear, it strikes me it would be more difficult to be
anything else when Nature had arranged the matter," re-
turned Violet, laughing outright.
" Oh, you know what I meant ! I never can get my
thoughts to express themselves correctly," said Mary, drum-
ming on Violet's knee with the fingers of her right hand.
" Now, what is one of the things, for instance, that you
find so difficult, mouse ?" asked Violet.
" Oh, I don't know that I could put any of them
straight, and if I did, I suppose they would sound dread-
fully silly," said Mary ; and now she beat Violet's knee
with her little clenched fist.
" But we agreed long ago that we would say as many
foolish things to each other as we pleased, just as a relief
from having always to talk wisely and decorously before
Eliza," urged Violet.
254 " THE END OF OUR ROMANCE"
"I'm sure she is very good and kind, but oh, how
awfully stilted and impossible !" cried Mary.
" She was everything to me when I sorely needed a
friend," said Violet. "I am attached even to her pecu-
liarities. I would not change her any more than one would
change an old-fashioned grandmother. Bless me ! it is
lucky she does not hear my comparison !"
" I arn sure she never even thinks in words of less than
ten syllables."
" Dreams in hexameters, I am certain," said Violet.
" But now about your nonsensical thoughts, puss, and the
difficulties you find in being a girl though I don't know
how we are to remedy that misfortune."
"Don't make me laugh, else I'll not tell you. But I
don't believe I can, even if I try."
"Just pour out the fancies pell-mell ; perhaps I can find
the heads and tails oh ! shade of Eliza, forgive me !
caput and caudal extremities," said Violet ; and then felt
vexed with her own weakness for keeping aloof from the
truth, of which she wanted to be convinced beyond the pos-
sibility of doubt. The hour of conviction had arrived
something told her this a conviction which must aid her
to carry out unflinchingly the stern resolves which she
knew were the only sensible ones in her case must make
an additional reason, in fact, for her to put by, cast out,
trample down, the foolish dreams of the past week, since
their indulgence would not only render her own future
doubly desolate when reality came, as come it must, but
would blight the heart and happiness of this girl, who had
youth and early womanhood in her reach all the dearly-
prized gifts which Violet had lost lost, too, without ever
having had the opportunity to enjoy in their fullness.
" Come, now !" she persisted. " About this hardship of
being a girl ! Well, girls are ' cribbed, cabined, and con-
fined ' there is no doubt of that."
"Just it," said Mary, in that slow, introspective, think-
ing-aloud tone. "Why, everything is improper, even to
wonder about yet it seems so natural. How is one to
help it, though one is a girl ? Now men are not troubled
in that way ! They may be fond of I mean they may like
a person, and tell themselves so at the first glance and we
only call that manly but girls !"
" THE END OF OUR ROMANCE" 255
"Yes, girls?" returned Violet, in an insinuatingly in-
quiring voice, as Mary paused.
"You know I don't mean me," Mary hastened to add,
explicit if not elegant. "I don't know what set me think-
ing about it all some book I've been reading, perhaps."
" I dare say some book well ?"
"And a girl mustn't think about liking a man, no mat-
ter how much attention he may have shown her, until he
tells her outright that that he loves her. Oh, now I know
what set me off in such a silly way !" cried Mary, in atone
of relief. " It was Eliza Bronson. She said, d propos to
some novel, that no young lady with a well-regulated mind
would permit herself to think of a man until she was be-
trothed to him ; and as for loving him, well, that she
seemed to consider would be indelicate until they were
safely married she did, upon my word !"
" I have no doubt of it," replied Violet ; "but you and
I may have our private opinions, and express thenf to each
other, even if we refrain from shocking the good Eliza by
promulgating the same. I am sure that phrase is fine
enough to content even her !"
Still with the same effort to keep the conversation upon
that footing of half-jest but now not from any shrinking
to hear the truth which she must arrive at only to prevent
Mary's suspecting the force of her own disclosures, and so
suddenly shutting her heart over her secret, like a sensitive
plant closing at the breath of a breeze which stirs its leaves
too roughly.
" I don't think it is fair !" ejaculated Mary, still pursu-
ing the train of her reflections. " And yet a girl does feel
ashamed if she finds herself thinking that a man likes her,
though he may have shown it so plainly she could not help
knowing."
"I see no reason whatever for shame," rejoined Violet,
as her cousin's speech faltered, and found no conclusion.
"Not the slightest ! No shame either, in admitting frank-
ly to her own soul that she likes him in return ! Come,
you see how bold I am ; you need not be afraid of shock-
ing me by any such thoughts I should say theories," she
added, and Mary's quick response proved that her substitu-
tion of the latter word had been a comfort.
" Yes, theories that expi-esses it ! I suppose one
ought not to read so many novels Miss Bronson says so !"
256 " THE END OF OUR ROMANCE."
" Of course ! But though she keeps ' Sismondi,' or
some other tiresomely wise book, open on her table, I have
discovered that she generally has a romance hidden in the
drawer. Our pattern Eliza is as artful in her way as the
rest of us ! Mouse, don't be troubled read your novels,
and indulge in your thoughts "
" Theories," amended Mary.
"Exactly theories! Where were we in our discus-
sion? As usual, when women try to theorize, we grow so
discursive that we lose the thread of our sermon every
other minute !"
" I haven't lost it," said Mary, eagerly, quite at ease
now, and finding great relief in putting forth her thoughts,
since Violet had found such a convenient, generalizing term
under which to class them. " I think the sort of girl who
fancies, every time any man pays her a compliment and
men are so absurd about that it vexes me do they sup-
pose we\re all idiots ?"
" Most human beings are, mouse ; but in your energy
you let your sentence evaporate in a parenthesis !"
"Yes pays her a compliment I know where I was !
Well, plenty of girls think the man must be in love. Now,
that is downright silly. I've no patience with such non-
sense !"
" Nor I ! But we are talking of sensible girls girls so
certain of their own desire to do and be right, that they are
not afraid to probe their hearts away down to the bottom.
Now, when such a girl has reason to believe a man loves
her, she is neither indelicate nor foolish in considering the
matter and asking herself point-blank if it is true that
she -"
" Likes him," put in Mary, hastening away from the
dangerous word Violet had ruthlessly employed.
" But the type of girl we are talking of wouldn't reach
that point unless the man had given her good reason."
" Just so ! And if he stops there doesn't say outright
what his looks and Oh, you know what I want to
say !"
" Of course I do ! I am always meaning to write a
novel which shall turn on that very position. I am always
meaning to do so many things that I never accomplish !"
" Oh, and you could write such a beautiful one. I never
" THE END OF OUR ROMANCE" 257
beard anybody talk like you. I am sure you're a genius,
Violet, 1 ' '
" I have not the slightest doubt of the fact, mouse !
Well, I am making a chapter of my novel now. Let me see
if your theories can't help me thoroughly to understand my
heroine. She always gets so complex that she puzzles me
hopelessly, else I should long ago have presented her to the
world in three volumes."
" Very well ! Put it that she has reason to believe the
man likes her so much reason that she knows she has a
right to believe so, though she does reproach herself for
thinking it, because he has never said it out in so many
words."
" Never revealed his passion, you mean ; don't be so
prosaic when you are helping to compose a novel, mouse !
Surely there is no shame to her for thinking for knowing?"
" Oh, but if she began to think that after all she had
made a mistake ; if he did not speak if "
" I won't contemplate that possibility for my heroine,"
interrupted Violet. "In her case, the hero is a true, honest,
earnest man ; he would be incapable of the meanness of
trifling. He might wait circumstances might force him.
Dear me, if she were very young, he might doubt if she
could know her own heart yet ! Why, he might half try
to fancy an older woman for a little " She was going
too far; she stopped; added quickly: "No, not that for
our hero, though even heroes have their weaknesses, else
they would not be men. But the sort of man we are de-
scribing "
" Imagining," suggested Mary, softly. "What does he
do, Violet ?"
" He waits to be certain, both for himself and her ;
then some day he comes to our little heroine and tells the
whole story," said Violet, and her voice was like the echo
of sweet music.
" To be certain of himself ! Then he might go !" cried
Mary, indignantly. "I would never listen if he had to
wait to be sure ; I mean our heroine shan't, in the novel !
Why, she would despise him and be ashamed of herself."
" Well, well ! There might be other reasons plenty !
He might not be sure of her feelings afraid to startle her,
not just in a position to marry at once."
" Oh, yes, that might be," said Mary, with a sudden
258 " THE END OF OUR ROMANCE."
reflection of contentment in her voice. " It would account
for any little odd changes in his manner that had seemed
like caprice sometimes !"
" And he could not be capricious, of course ! No, no ;
the fitting moment arrives at last, when everything is made
clear, and the dream becomes a blessed reality."
" Reality," echoed Mary, then became silent for a time.
And Violet knew the truth ; there remained no possi-
bility for her foolish heai't to cheat her reason by declaring
those intuitions which days and days before had warned
her, to be mere suspicious fancies the coinage of her own
restless brain. She had been determined to reach such
absolute confirmation that her weakness could no longer
plead the lack of proof she had gained it now !
Somehow the very sound of content in the girl's tones,
revealing the comfort she had derived from her cousin's
words, which showed her that her sensation of maidenly
shame was uncalled for, roused Violet to a positive frenzy
of bitterness.
Why should she sacrifice herself to this child this
baby ? Why should she not snatch the happiness within
her reach, enjoy.it to the full ? At least when it faded she
could die !
Yet all the while, as she looked covertly down into the
sweet, pure face which, unconscious of her scrutiny, had
turned towards the window, and was gazing out at the
white, resplendent moon, it seemed to Violet that she was
watching, not Mary, but the phantom of her own youth,
pleading mutely with her for its happiness.
And Mary, rousing herself from her dreams, looked up,
still letting her head, with its long vail of moonlight-tinted
hair, rest upon her cousin's knee.
" I am sure you are tired, and I have been keeping you
awake to listen to my absurd fancies theories, I mean,"
said Mary. " Why, how pale you are you are not ill ?"
"Only cold," shivered Violet ; "so cold away down
into my very soul !"
Mary brought a shawl, folded it carefully about her,
and kissed her forehead with an affectionate freedom.
Violet submitted to the caress, frightened by her own
wicked thoughts ; ashamed too, which was worse.
" Kiss me again !" she said suddenly.
" Why, you are shivering yet !" cried Mary. " You are
AGAINST FATE. 259
tired out ! Come and lie down on my bed. I shall be
worried if you shut yourself up in your room."
They lay down and both slept till the moon hung low
on th'e horizon, half hidden, so that she was a mere blade
of light ; then they woke at the same instant, and Violet's
first thought, as she felt the soft pressure of her cousin's
arms, was one of gratitude that her wicked thoughts had
fled.
" What were you dreaming ?" Mary whispered.
" The end of our romance," Violet replied, " and the
heroine was very happy at the last. Go you to sleep,
childie !"
And both slept again.
CHAPTER XXVII.
AGAINST FATE.
HE next day came her day for remaining at
home and receiving a host of tiresome visits,
Violet remembered, and felt inclined to shut
her doors against the whole would, to shut her
windows against the sun, and sit down in a
gloom in keeping with the darkness which had fallen upon
her soul.
But this feeling was worse than folly, as contemptible
as that which caused her to shrink this morning from
Mary's kiss when she entered before departing to her
work. She would not sit there idle, making present and
future more unsupportable by listening to the misanthropic
complaints of her heart, since it must be admitted it was
her heart that ached ached so bitterly. She had no time
to waste in regrets and repinings youth might afford to
do that when trouble came ; but at her age it was necessary
to be up and doing, trying to make amends for neglected
opportunities, misspent hours, before the night came, in
which no man can work. But what was she to do by way
of being useful ? She could give money she had always
done that liberally since she had the power. Tend the
260 AGAINST FATE.
sick, visit the poor common seuse told her that a paid
nurse could perform the first duty much better, and obser-
vation had shown her that the poor decidedly object to
such inspection from the rich, and gird under advice as
sorely as their finer neighbors.
Read, study, paint, practice her music ? All very well ;
but tljo.se pursuits could no more fill up life than indulging
in a spinster's legitimate outlets for affection dogs and
cockatoos rcould bring contentment. All her attempts at
usefulness, at occupation, would be just as many rnake-
believes : therefore why essay to deceive herself into hop-
ing she could find peace through these means? She was a
poor, weak, silly thing : her romance, her maudlin poetry,
as much out of keeping with the mental state befitting her
years as the physical appearance of youth, which even this
morning looked at her from the glass, untouched by sleep-
lessness and trouble, as if it were quite independent of the
mind it held in its keeping. Ah, there was Miss Bronson
knocking at the door Miss Bronson, commonplace as a
type of existence itself. So much the better : the com-
panionship might be of service in controlling her ridicu-
lous mood, and she would keep to it. Go out with Eliza,
shop a little, visit the charity-school a little, talk gossip and
religion a little, cheapen a parrot, discuss the merits of
foulards and friends in the same breath go decorously
through the decorous round of employments natural and
fitting to old maids like herself and Eliza.
She carried her mocking resolve into effect, then came
back to a tete-d-tete breakfast with her friend, for Mary
took that meal with the Vaughtons in order to save time,
and Eliza waxed jubilant over their delightful morning
they had done so much ! it was so pleasant to be together !
and her listener reflected that she might accept this
morning as a type of her future. Oh, the years ! the
years !
Finding herself moaning anew, Violet devised a new
punishment she sat down at the pianoforte and practiced
German duets with Miss Bronson ; and of all created
sounds, those were what^he loathed the most ! Altogether,
when the hour arrived for visitors to begin their intrusion,
Violet could feel thai she had inflicted about as severe a
season of pin-and-ueedle torture upon her troublesome
AGAINST FATE. 261
heart and imagination as could have been devised, or even
their weakness merited.
People came and went in constant succession, drank
chocolate, talked nothings, grinned and grimaced, and Vio-
let decided that she grinned and grimaced and uttered
platitudes as well as anybody. She joined in the excite-
ment over the news that Cica, the new ballerina, was ex-
pected, disputing vehemently whether the sylph could really
stand poised forty seconds on the great toe of her left foot
or only thirty five ; went into the depths of despair because,
after all, the municipality would give no subvention to the
Pergola. Oh, she had proved herself as accomplished a
butterfly with the soul of a grub as any of her neighbors,
and could be content.
Then, into the midst of the chocolate drinking, and the
scandahnongering, and the flirtations, and the vapidity,
floated Nina Magnoletti, and in her wake came Laurence
Aylmer, and the touch of his hand and the glance of his
eyes sent a thrill through Violet which shook her out of her
elaborately-studied inanity, and caused her such bitter
wrath that for an instant she was almost ready to visit it on
him by chilling words or covert slights.
Was she mad ? Did she want to publish her secret, her
shame, not only for his reading but for the delectation of
her fellow-grubs with butterfly wings? Who was he?
Why, the friend that had saved her life her friend Lau-
rence, to be received as he always had been, frankly, cor-
dially ! He might amuse himself with insects, but he was
neither butterfly nor grub he was a man, with aspirations,
resolutions, a career ; certain of a man's weaknesses clinging
to him, no doubt he would be superhuman else but at
least among the best specimens of his kind ; and she was
glad to see him, very glad her friend Laurence !
He, like everybody else, remarked upon her high spirits
and marveled at her heightened beauty. The women de-
cided that Miss Cameron had taken to rouge at last, and
both men and women decided in addition that the whispers
in the air must be true : she had chosen a lover Carlo
Magnoletti, of course and her sisterly cordiality with Ayl-
mer and her affectionate demonstrations to Nina were cor-
rect religious tributes to the goddess of appearances, so
well paid that nothing was left to be desired. A woman
who sacrificed so strictly at the great deity's shrine might
262 AGAINST FATE.
have twenty lovers among her lady friends' husbands behind
the altar if she saw fit ; as long as she behaved as she did
now, -her fellow-worshipers need see only the clouds of
perfume rising from the censer which she swung so grace-
fully before their eyes.
Nina and Aylmer appeared late, and gradually the other
visitors departed, and they were left alone with Miss
Cameron. Then the professor was announced, and the
three exclaimed in wonder, for receptions were his aver-
sion.
" I concluded your menagerie would have dispersed by
this time," he said ; " and I knew I should be busy to-
morrow."
" You might have come the day after," said Aylmer,
with laughing impertinence.
" There's a simpleton in this room," cried the professor,
frowning affectionately at him. "It is not old Schmidt,
and all simpletons are males "
" Don't trouble yourself to repeat such well-known
facts in natural history," broke in Violet. "How nice of
you to give me the surprise of a visit to-day ! I have not
seen you for an age. What have you been doing?"
" I'll tell you what I'm going to do," returned the pro-
fessor ; " leave your and the marchesa's perfections and
Laurence Aylmer's sins behind me for a week or ten
days."
" What a shame !" pronounced Violet. " And where
and why are you rushing off in this barbarous fashion ?"
" As for the where, to Venice and Trieste," replied he ;
" as for the why, a company wants to buy some land I own
in Austria. These are matters which must be regulated
personally between me and their president. I won't jour-
ney all the way to Vienna, and, as he is ailing, I can't
make my old friend come here ; so we compromise on Tri-
este. I wish you were going."
" I wish you owned no land, and I wish, since you do,
it was so worthless nobody would buy it," cried Violet.
" There's friendship for you !" laughed the professor
the very word sounded cold as ice to Violet. "Laurence, I
shan't ask you to go with me."
" I shouldn't if you did," said Aylmer ; and he was in-
dulging in a private reflection as it chanced, roused by that
word the professor had employed. There might easily be
AGAINST FATE. 263
such a thing as carrying a good resolution too far. Friend-
ship ! His forbearance was exhausted ; he could continue
this pretense no longer ! Before the professor's return he
would tell his story try as Violet might, she should not
avoid the hearing ; and she must care a little she could
not banish him without a hope ! Oh, how beautiful she
looked to-day ! somewhat tired now, perhaps, but, if possi-
ble, all the more lovely ; only so cairn, so composed that
irked him.
And Nina was upbraiding the professor.
" At least you might have begged me to run away with
you. I have always wanted to : ask Carlo. You have no
eyes or ears except for Violet, and I hate her !"
" You are so close in rny heart that I see and hear you
whenever it beats. Don't say I can't talk poetry !" cried
the professor.
"Nina," said Violet, "can't you and Carlo dine with
me to-morrow night?"
" I can," Nina answered ; " I may as well admit now
that I had already made up my mind to do so. Carlo is
going off to some horrid dinner where only his own species
is invited."
"Are you one of the unfortunates, Mr. Aylmer ?" Vio-
let inquired.
"No ; it is some half-political affair."
" Then, as I intend to make the professor dine here,
whether he will or not, please come too. I will ask, let me
see whom shall I ask ? We shall be four ladies ah, Gil-
bert Warner. Nina, I can't have any of your Italian
adorers. Now it is agreed, so let nobody forget. Here
comes Miss Bronson ! Eliza, prepare your pocket-hand-
kerchief the professor is going away for a week."
And then, to prove that it is natural for human beings
to persecute defenseless animals, they began to tease the
spinster, and the professor went on his knees and quoted
vc-rses, and the whole group talked a great deal of non-
sense, as even sages must and will.
The trio dt-parted ; Violet dressed, and went out to
dine, then to the last act of the opera, then to some festive
gathering, where, out of compliment to Lent, even the re-
lief of dancing was omitted ; then home and to bed among
the small hours, but not to sleep, tired as she was over-
tired, she told herself nothing else ailed her. She was
264 AGAINST FATE.
not fretting not moaning ; she just felt cold and lethar-
gic, and inexpressibly weary.
The next morning Mary received directions, when she
went to the studio, to give Violet's invitation to Gilbert
Warner, and make sure that he would come, previously en-
gaged or not. So Mary had to send one of the workmen
to ask Warner to come in to her atelier half glad to have
so good an excuse half ashamed to request a visit on any
grounds, for during these last days Warner's abrupt
changes of manner (the more noticeable in a person of his
even temperament) had troubled the girl exceedingly. He
came at once, but just to show that her message had caused
him no perturbation, he carried his palette on his thumb,
and his mahl-stick in his hand, and Mary's evil genius
prompted her to regard this as a method of hinting that
she had disturbed his labors.
" I beg your pardon for interrupting you," she said, en-
veloping herself in the quaint stiffness habitual with her
when embarrassed. " I begged Violet to write you a note,
but she said she had not time. It is only she wants you to
be sure and come and dine to-night she will take no ve-
f usal along with Mr. Aylrner and Madame Magnoletti
because the professor is going away I mean, of course he
is to be there and she wishes you all to meet him."
Having hastily enunciated this not over-clear explana-
tion, Mary began wetting her clay as eagerly as if it had
been left dry for a week, and, as it was too wet already, an
ill-advised pat she gave the bust sorely disturbed the sym-
metry of its Grecian nose. The effect was exceedingly
ludicrous ; she and Warner saw it at the instant : he was
deciding to refuse the invitation, and she wondering if he
noticed how her hands trembled. Both were excited and
nervous, and they suddenly burst out laughing, then looked
at each other, half-pouting, half-appeased, like two chil-
dren.
"Psyche with a cocked-up nose !" said Warner.
"It is your fault. I was just turning round to see
what made you so long in answering," retorted Mary.
" I think I am afraid I have an engagement," he said,
recovering his gravity at once.
" Cousin Violet will never forgive you if you leave her
with so many unsquired ladies at her dinner-table," Mary
urged.
AGAINST FATE. 265
" Oh, indeed," said he, waxing cross again ; " I am
sorry I can't make myself useful in filling up a gap."
Mary, fearful her speech had sounded rude, forgot her
irritation in penitence and regret.
" I arn sure you know how cordially Violet likes you,"
she said ; " please do not disappoint her !"
She looked at him and smiled, blushing a little ; he
could not resist that half-appealing glance ; forgot his sus-
picions forgot Laurence Aylmer for the moment.
" Will you say that you would remember to care if I did
not come ?" he asked, with a certain seriousness under his
playful manner.
"" I wish you would accept," Mary said, honestly, then
relapsed into her stiffness. lie had been so odd and
changeable of late, that she was afraid of seeming undigni-
fied or forward if she betrayed too much solicitude over a
matter which ought to be treated as a trifle.
" Then I will/' he said.
And now she smiled so cordially that the sunshine
lighted his soul. They began to talk of the bust, the
weather, no matter what ; any subject would serve, and,
who knows ? the conversation might have drifted on and
on, until Warner's heart would have overleaped bounds,
and the clouds been dispersed so effectually that any later
gathering into gloom would become impossible. But Fate
would not permit this ; she sent a messenger in the person
of old Miss Vaughton, who suddenly appeared on the
threshold of her salon with a bunch of flowers in one hand
and a head of lettuce in the other. Cook had just come
home from market, and Miss Vaughton had brought the
roses to leave as a friendly gift, and the lettuce to exhibit
as a marvel of size considering the season.
Nor would she retire in search of some household occu-
pation, as she usually did at this hour ; no indeed. She
called her woman to take the lettuce, and began to arrange
the flowers in a vase. Nor would she be taciturn and in-
offensive, according to custom. She insisted on talking.
Even her loquacity might have been endured without call-
ing down Warner's secret maledictions on her venerable
head, had she been content to remain deaf as ordinary, in
which case, whether other people talked or not during her
monologue, she would have been none the wiser ; but she
heard in that diabolical fashion deaf people will now and
12
266 AGAINST FATE.
then, and what she did not catch she would have explained
k she, always the mildest and most deprecatory creature
in existence !
She stayed and she chattered until Warner, mentally de-
claring his belief that the devil had entered her, betook him-
self to his studio in despair, and fell a-dreamiug instead of
doing his work in a sensible fashion.
During the afternoon, while he was wondering what ex-
cuse he could devise for paying a second visit, in order to
be certain that the sunshine still lasted, the professor came
in to look at his picture, and, before he had finished criti-
cising it, sent desolation to Warner's soul by exclaiming :
" I thought that dawdling Aylmer was just behind me !
I told him not to interrupt Miss Danvers's work any
longer."
Five minutes passed ; the professor criticised and
praised ; ten minutes passed ! he was talking still, and
Warner trying to listen and answer but no Aylmer
appeared. The sunshine was all gone ; the young artist
drifting down into a gloom black as night !
Presently the offender entered, but Mary accompanied
him, and she looked smiling and happy and oh, surely she
was blushing ; ay, and that Aylmer fairly whispering in
her ear to the very door !
" Since you were to be interrupted, Mr. Warner, I let
myself be persuaded to come too," said Mary, serene in the
belief that the atmosphere of the morning still continued.
" I am fortunate that such was the case," he replied, and
the very sound of his voice warned Mary that they were
back in the chill realm of discord. She felt vexed with
him, ashamed of caring, ready to disbelieve Violet's hopeful
theories, and quite forgot to examine the picture, in her in-
terest in something Aylmer was telling her about Sweden,
dpropos to a sketch of Warner's.
The painter was inclined to refuse the invitation to
dinner after all ; but that would be rude now, so he
dressed and went to the house at the appointed hour. The
marchesa was already there, having come very early, but
the two remaining guests had not arrived. The respite
proved of no service to Warner, however. The other three
ladies made him welcome, but Mary did not choose to
appear forward, and sat almost silent, never once looking
iu his direction after she had returned his salutations.
AGAINST FATE. 267
At length the professor's voice sounded in the anteroom,
deep and agitated, like the notes of a bass drum.
"Potztausendf That pamphlet I put in my pocket for
the Fraulein. I had it when I got out of the hack ! Run,
run, you blessed Antonio, and see if it is on the stairs !
Laurence, you needn't wait, announce yourself while I get
out of this confounded great-coat, the builder of which
ought to be consigned to the rack the rack !"
The ladies' laughter from the salon replied. Laurence
pushed back the curtains and entered, laughing also.
"Mr. Aylmer," he announced. "Miss Cameron, if I
do your footman's u N y I shall expect to be paid accord-
ingly."
Ah, Mary could brighten now Warner saw that. She
could receive and answer this new-comer's greetings with
evident pleasure. Violet saw it too, and thought how rap-
idly this change had come about from the old shyness in
the presence of ah, yes her friend Laurence !
Then, the professor having freed himself from the great-
coat, made his entrance, dropped his handkerchief before
he reached the center of the salon, and, in stooping to pick
it up, turned his back to the group, and was astounded by
hearing a second burst of laughter, in which all the specta-
tors joined. Neither ill-humor nor the demands of courtesy
could have hindered any human creature from yielding to
merriment. The professor was dressed in correct evening
costume, even to the flower in his button-hole, but one of
the s\vallow-tails of his coat was wanting had been cut off
close up to the body of the garment, presenting an effect
indescribably ludicrous.
The professor raised himself, turned a wondering face
on the group, and cried :
" Have you all been taking laughing-gas?"
They tried to check their mirth, but found it impossible ;
so Violet hurried forward, seized the savant by the shoulder,
and stationed him so that he could see his own image in a
mirror.
" What have you been doing ?" she demanded.
The sage was betrayed into one brief expression of sur-
pn'se, then he stood and stared at his own reflection, stoical
as an old Roman.
" After all," said he, slowly, " it is an improvement. A
coat with swallow-tails is a ridiculous thing when you
268 AGAINST FATE.
cut off half the caudal extremity it can only be half so ri-
diculous."
As the laughter gradually died away, he condescended
to explain. He had been busy with some chemical experi-
ment, and wanting a piece of cloth at a critical moment, ran
into his bedroom, scissors in hand, to cut a bit off an old
coat he had left hanging on the bed-post. The woman, in
arranging the chamber, had hung his festive costume over
the ancient garment, and in the gloom, the professor ruth-
lessly snipped off the left tail and went back to his task,
becoming so absorbed therein that it grew late before he
recollected his engagement. He dressed in a great hurry,
his mind still occupied with his work, and put himself into
the coat without noticing its disfigurement.
" I shall not go home unless you send me, Fraulein," he
declared, perfectly unabashed, as he finished his explanation.
"I would try the resources of Antonio's wardrobe, but he
is smaller than I, and I suppose my paletot would be as
objectionable as my present plight ? Come, decide ; will
you have a mutilated swallow, or shall he fly off and hide
his shame and misery in his desolate nest ?"
"If you forgive our lack of generosity in laughing, we
can easily forgive your lack of caudal appendage," said she.
By this time Warner had remembered his sense of
injury, and Eliza Bronson to be a little shocked at such an
accident, but the general hilarity soon seized them again.
Of course they all sat down at table in a most nonsensical
mood, and Violet did her best to keep the conversation at
that pitch as long as she could the more trivial the sub-
ject the better, in her frame of mind.
It was a gay evening, but, with the exception of Nina
and the professor, the gayety required an effort. Eliza
Bronson felt twinges in her neck which warned her that she
had taken cold, and should probably have an attack of neu-
ralgia, and the others were troubled by twinges sharper
than her physical reminders.
Aylmer found Miss Cameron's friendliness too composed
and frank to be satisfactory. She could have no feeling
whatever for him. If his love had touched her heart, she
would find it impossible to preserve this sisterly calm with-
out a break. It was a new dread, and all the more stinging
on that account. As for Violet, she had placed Aylmer
between Nina and Mary, and a dozen times during dinner,
AGAINST FATE. 269
perceived fresh evidence of the intimacy which had grown
up between her cousin and Laurence, and the open pleas-
ure which the young girl showed in his conversation. Gil-
bert Warner saw these signs as plainly as Miss Cameron,
and reviled his own folly in having come to be tortured in
this fashion. He chafed and fretted till he felt as if con-
sumed by fever, and condemned all dinners as hollow
mockeries, and their present feast the most hollow of all.
Late in the evening, while Eliza Bronson gratified the
professor with selections of Wagner's music, Mary and
Warner seized the opportunity to bring new clouds between
themselves by a little disagreement about an article of Lau-
rence Aylmer's in a late review : Warner, with elaborate
candor, admiring the style, but condemning the sentiments
with polished ferocity ; and Mary, taking the opposite side,
partly from irritation, partly because she hated injustice,
and Warner was unjust. Laurence sat at a distance talking
with Violet and Nina, and Violet received her warning
proof that her careful, pei'sistent efforts to restrain their
intercourse to the safe grounds of friendship had done its
work !
Nina was telling a story of a marriage which had lately
taken place between two of her acquaintances. The en-
gagement had been a long one the man away in Japan for
several years. Time and absence, perhaps, undermined his
affection : at all events, he fell in love with the daughter of
one of the foreign consuls at Yokohama. He behaved well
according to his lights : sailed for Europe, the preparations
for the wedding were made, and it was only at the last
moment, through the stupidity or malice of a connection
lately returned from Japan, that the lady learned the truth.
She taxed her lover with his unfaithfulness, and he told
her the whole tale, announcing his readiness to fulfill his
promise and she married him.
" One would like to have her walled-up alive !" cried
impetuous Nina, as she ended her narrative.
" I blame the man as much as I do her," said Violet,
firmly.
" And you, Mr. Aylmer ? Now for a masculine view,"
added Nina.
" I cannot blame him," he answered slowly, rather hesi-
tatingly, in reality wondering a little over Miss Cameron's
remark. " Under such circumstances an honorable man
270 AGAINST FATE.
must feel himself guilty base ! No be could not speak
he must fulfill bis vow keep silence utterly !
" I cannot imagine a greater wrong," said Violet. " To
a true woman there could be no cruelty like that. His duty
was to tell her the plain facts, to ask for his freedom. Do
human beings love or unlove at pleasure? He was not to
blame for the weakness of his heart, but he was to blame
for sacrificing his own future, bringing a sharper unhappi-
ness on her than the truth, bad as it might have been,
could have brought if told in time."
" Well, I never expected to hear Miss Cameron uphold
infidelity, eh, Mr. Aylmer y" Nina exclaimed.
" No," he said constrainedly.
"I do not," Violet replied. "But people make mis-
takes even good, honorable, yes, resolute people. Such
blunders are not always a proof of weakness either."
"It is certain," said Aylmer, "that even people who
know their own minds as a rule do err in affairs of the
heart. It is so difficult often to decide what is love, what
fancy. But if a man mistakes a caprice for a real senti-
ment, he ought to abide by the consequences."
"The woman must be blind indeed who could not per-
ceive it, mad or cruel if she did not free him willingly,"
said Violet.
" That would be easy enough if she had only taken
him on probation," observed Nina, laughing. " Men's
vanity will not let them believe it, bat half the time we
women are drawn into engagements just because an adorer
is importunate one pities him, tries to believe that sym-
pathy is affection and so yields."
" Very true," rejoined Violet. " And often, often she
would gladly find an excuse to draw back ! How thank-
ful she must be if his heart does speak, and show him, that
what he thought love was only a fancy ! All he has to do
is to be honest. Why, he could have no surer, more devoted
friend in the world than that woman !"
"I think he would pass a good many uncomfortable
hours," said Aylmer. "I suppose, if she showed him that
she saw the truth and was content, his part would be easy
enough ; that is, in the case you mention, marchesa, where
she had only been trying to learn to care for him."
" Yes, perhaps," Nina replied.
"He would be put out of all difficulty at once," said
AGAINST FATE. 271
Violet. "She would not, if a true woman, leave him an
hour in doubt after she knew the facts. She would speak,
or so plainly show him that she saw be his tacit assistance
in the quarter where he really loved that he could either
tell his story or be certain that he might look upon matters
as already settled."
" There may be truth in the often-repeated assertion
that men are fickle," said Aylmer ; " that special weakness
being such a sore spot for a man to contemplate in his own
nature, is perhaps a proof."
"No man nee 1 be ashamed of making a mistake," said
Violet ; " he need only be ashamed of the weakness of not
acknowledging it."
"Very harsh doctrines, if modern women had hearts
like the heroines in old-fashioned novels," laughed Nina.
" A right doctrine," said Violet.
Just then Warner came up to take his leave, and the
conversation ended. In a few moments the guests were
gone, and Violet went at once to her room.
She understood everything now. Aylmer had recog-
nized the difference between fancy and love he had feared
to appear weak or false in her eyes, and so had sought to
guard his heart against Mary's smiles.
" It is all clear," Violet said to her image as she rose
and stood before the glass, after a long meditation. " Are
those tears? Come, I did not know you had been crying !
I'll not scold you a little nonsense might be admissible as
long as there was a doubt. But you know the truth now,
you see your way, and you mean to walk steadily therein.
Fears he may look weak ! No, no we knew it was only a
fancy, knew it from the first ! I told you so wanted it so
you are quite at rest, quite satisfied and he is my friend
Laurence !"
And when the dawn appeared she woke from a mocking
vision in which he stood beside her, told her that she erred
he loved her !
" I will cry !" she moaned ; " I have a right not for
him, not for my silly dream ! But Fate was cruel to send
me da-earns so late, and it is against Fate, not my heart,
that I battle !"
372
"SHE SAID GOOD-BY"
CHAPTER XXVIII.
"SHE SAID GOOD-BY.
WO days went by, which, busy as she kept her-
self, gave Violet ample leisure for reflection.
She comprehended that neither anger nor self-
contempt would help her case. She must admit
as a truth that the experience, without which
she had always said no woman's life could be complete,
while believing it would never come lo her, had set its in-
effaceable seal upon the present and future.
And almost as soon as she had learned that it was Love
who stood beside her, she had been forced to see that the
garland in his hand was withered already. Well, faded
flowers were appropriate, typical of her age ! Ah ! she
was trying again to be mocking and severe why should
she ? Surely she might show a little tenderness to her
heart yield a little to the pity she felt for herself. Re-
nunciation sacrifice -those were the lessons she must
learn now ; bitterness and wrath would only render the
task more difficult.
How interminable these last eight-ancl-forty hours ap-
peared as she looked back over them ; how this present
day dragged ; how tired she was ; how ashamed of the
petty irritability which beset her the desire to turn away
from Mary's morning welcome with stinging words, to be
sharp and abrupt with anybody who approached ! It
seemed, too, as if every human being near deliberately
chose that time to be as annoying as possible : to do what-
ever ought to be left undone and say everything that ought
to be left unsaid, from worthy Miss Bronson down to
Clarice.
" My dear," said Eliza, " how pretty Mary grows.
Really she begins to look very like you when you were
young I mean, when you were her age."
" Which comes to the same thing," returned Violet.
" I don't know if you have noticed but I have oh, I
have been certain of it for some time," pursued Eliza.
"However limited the range of my mental faculties may
be, at least I possess the ability of observation of seeing
" SHE SAW GOOD-BY." 273
things clearly. You will own that I can say so much with-
out betraying undue vanity."
"No doubt," said Violet, and longed to add that she
had a wonderful faculty for seeing everything wrong, and
felt more ashamed than ever at this impulse to turn upon a
creature so defenseless.
"She likes him," sighed Eliza, "but has only lately dis-
covered the state of her heart. You -may not have observed
but I can enlighten you now, for I am sure he likes her
perfectly sure ! So suitable in every way, is it not ? I am
so pleased ; you will be too, I know, when you think it over.
You are surprised admit it ! Oh, I have kept their little
secret."
" Has one been confided to you ?" Violet asked.
"No, no, not a word ; it was not necessary. Why, I
saw from the first how it would be. I hinted it to you in
the beginning. Oh, you must recollect now, don't you
recollect ?"
" I dare say you did."
" Just reflect ; you must remember."
"Oh, perfectly," said Violet, desperately plunging into
the falsehood to get rid of further importunity.
" Ah, I thought you would. Yes, yes ! What does
Moore say ?" Eliza maundered on, " ' There's nothing half
so sweet in life ' How does it run, Violet ?"
"I am eighteen years too old to remember," said Violet.
" ' Nothing half so sweet ' Is it sweet, or bright ?
as as 'Nothing half so ' Dear me, how very odd
that I can't recall it."
" I think I shall go out," said Violet.
"I'll go with you if you don't mind. 'There's noth-
ing ' how vexatious! 'A peri stood at the garden
gate ' Oh, mercy, no !"
"Please, Eliza," broke in Violet, "do go to the library
and hunt up Moore if you are in the mood for his sugary-
inanities."
Enter Clarice.
" Oh, mademoiselle, I am desolated. I beg mademoi-
selle's pardon, I so seldom forget, and the letter mademoi-
selle g.ive me yesterday quite went out of my mind."
Business letters, of great importance too. And on Clar-
ice's heels appeared Antonio.
12*
274 "SHE SAID GOOD-BY."
"lam very sorry to tell mademoiselle " Then a
long story about the necessity of discharging a gardener.
" 'There's nothing half so sweet in life as love's young
dream !' " sang Eliza, triumphantly, putting her head in at
the door just after Violet had got rid of the other importu-
nates. " Pretty, is it riot ?"
Fate is never satisfied without thrusting an under-cur-
rent of broad farce into our tragedies. Any human being
who has suffered knows this knows, too, how it grates
and jars, denuding suffering even of the dignity which
might give a certain support.
Violet ordered the carriage in desperation, but go with
her Miss Bronson would, and chattered like a magpie all
the time. They were passing the Palazzo Rimini when she
uttered a sudden exclamation :
" I am surprised that he visits her I really am !
But he just went in; did you see him, Violet? Mr.
Aylmer "
"Certainly has a right to visit where he pleases," in-
terrupted Violet, and fell to wondering if, after all, Lau-
rence were less frank and honest than she had thought
him. But this fancy was only in keeping with her other
pettiness. She was in a mood to suspect any and every-
body to be harsh and unjust. Oh, how contemptible to
let trouble affect her in this fashion !
They drove to the Cascine, Eliza recurring to the com-
pliments on her own perspicacity, and relating the growth
of her discovery with " damnable iteration," till Violet felt
she must spring out of the carriage to escape the sound of
her voice.
" I have never said a word until this morning. I did
not mention Mr. Aylmer's name, you may be sure but oh,
if yon had seen how she colored up, and ran away "
" Home, Gregorio !" called Violet to the coachman,
unable to bear these gnat-stings any longer.
"It is early yet. I think I will stop at Mrs. Eaton's,"
said Eliza ; " I have not been there for so long."
" I would, by all means," cried Violet, almost enthusi-
astically. " Stop at the Hotel de Russie, Gregorio."
"On the whole, I think I will wait till to-morrow," said
Eliza. " Aren't you a little pale, my dear? Have you got
a headache ? Oh, my love, here comes Colonel Falkland !
Now you can ask him about taking that package to Eng-
11 SHE SAID GOOD-BY." 275
land for his sister. Gregorio, stop at the corner. Ah,
Violet, at least I remember things at the right moment.
I'll tell you about Mary when we get home here comes the
colonel she did look so prelty in her blushes. Oh dear !
have I lost my handkerchief ?"
The worthy spinster had selected this morning of all
others to torment poor Mary as much as she had been wor-
rying Violet during the last hour. To increase the sting
of her words, Mary thought she was alluding to Gilbert
Wavner, and departed for the studio with a fresh arrow in
her heart. Not only had she deceived herself in regard to
his feelings, but she had kept her own secret so poorly that
even Eliza Bronson suspected its existence.
Mary's solitude in her studio was as hard to bear as the
inflictions Violet had undergone ; and just as she had
reached a pitch of desperation Gilbert Warner's evil genius
prompted him to present himself. He came, after swearing
over and over to his soul that he would stop away came
in a miserable, resentful, injured mood, when he was ready
to say everything he ought not, and misconstrue every re-
mark of hers, and found Mary in a humor to return his
errors in kind.
A lately-printed lecture of Ruskin's that lay on the table
formed a capital subject of difference. No two people ever
did discuss Mr. Raskin without quarreling. In less than
five minutes the demigod produced his usual effect, enabling
them to display the deliciously obstinate determination of
widening " the rift within the lute," which is a character-
istic of humanity to be blind and deaf to the truth just
at the moment when such conduct might entail consequences
fatal to their whole future. Had they quarreled outright,
there would have been a hope of some good result but
they did not. They bickered, and were sarcastic and indif-
ferent ; and though any looker-on even a mole could
have seen the real state of affairs, and set them right in a
flash, they went on as recklessly as two perverse, fascinated
children playing with fire ; but in their case, pain and
jealousy made it a grave contest, in which neither would
stop, though conscious of getting severely burned, until
satisfied of having at least scorched the other.
When they had exhausted Mr. Ruskin's capacities for
creating difficulties, they dragged in Victor Hugo by his
gray hair, and after that employed the sacred memories of
276 " SHE SAID GOOD-BY."
Raphael and Michel Angelo as shuttlecocks, and by tbo
time they had finished were exasperated enough to utter
certain personalities very thinly disguised in the garments
of polite words.
Puerile silly ! No doubt ; but three-quarters of the
misery we suffer comes about from as slight causes, and
the pertinacity with which we all at untoward moments
trifle with our happiness or fling it away see white black,
and misunderstand those who love us is a sight to make
angels cease weeping, and decide that a race so vacuous
must be as incapable of real joy or grief as it is of using its
boasted reason.
" We seem fated to disagree to-day," said Warner.
" At least I trust that I have been neither cross nor un-
civil," Mary said, with a slight emphasis on the personal
pronoun.
" And that means I have ?" returned he, in an inquiring
tone.
"Pray do not dignify my words by assigning them
occult meanings," said Mary, conscious that the speech
sounded worthy of Miss Bronson, and rendered more angry
by the thought that her stateliness held a touch of
absurdity.
"I only adopted the signification which was obvious
even to my dullness," Warner replied, waxing a little
Grandisonian.
Perhaps now, had they been left alone, one or the other
might have pronounced words so sharp that penitence
would have brought about a better understanding, but an
interruption came at this moment deferred, one would
almost be ready to say, by some malicious imp, until it
could do harm instead of good.
Some person in Mr. Vaughton's studio knocked on the
door it proved to be the sculptor's head workman, bring-
ing a note.
" Is there an answer ?" Mary asked.
The messenger was waiting to know.
" Will you excuse me, Mr. Warner ?"
Warner bowed. As Mary tore off the envelope it
fluttered to his feet ; glancing involuntarily down at it, he
recognized Laurence Aylmer's writing. He looked back at
Mary. She was reading eagerly oh, her color changed !
he was sure of that her very fingers trembled ! She had
" SHE SAID GOOD-B7." 277
been changing color rapidly and trembling for some
moments before, but he had not noticed it.
As she looked up their eyes met ; he thought she
seemed amazed at his scrutiny, afraid, perhaps, that she
might have betrayed her pleasure in perusing the page.
" Yes and my best thanks tell the man to say," was
Mary's observation to the workman, who bowed and de-
parted.
Warner stooped for the envelope, and handed it to her.
She accepted it with a gesture of thanks, and put the
note back therein. At another time she would very likely
have shown him the missive .1 cheerful little billet, in-
closing an address of some mutual friend, which she had
asked him for on the previous evening.
"I am glad to see something pleasant has happened to
you," said Warner, determined that she should have no
doubt as to whether he had perceived her agitated manner
while reading the page. "One never can fail to recognize
that peculiar writing pray don't think I picked up the en-
velope for the purpose of looking at it."
"I do think you are rude 1" cried Mary, indignantly.
" You have no right to suppose me mean enough to harbor
such a suspicion."
" I beg your pardon again. Really I am so unfortunate
in my remarks that I think I had better bid you good-day."
" Good-day," echoed Mary.
"I will leave you with Mr. Aylmer's letter" affecting
to laugh " that will be agreeable, like its writer."
" Mr. Aylmer is always good-natured," said Mary.
" Oh, a preux chevalier."
" Good, honest, noble. I thought he was your friend."
" He is ; and he is all that you say," replied Warner ;
then, with another pretended laugh, he added : " The
woman who marries him will be fortunate, however great
her own deserts, and " still laughing " I fancy I know
who that woman is."
Mary had turned towards the pedestal which supported
her clay. She looked back, and momentarily forgot anger
in a desire to warn him not to open his lips to anybody
else, supposing that he referred to her cousin Violet.
" Please don't say it ; oh, he has never I mean "
Her eagerness resembled embarrassment. He grew
fairly sick and blind. He had been answered indeed.
278 A MORNING RIDE.
" I beg a thousand pardons," he interrupted, caught his
breath, and gasped : " Don't fear my speaking !"
Oh, he must get away, the room reeled ! He snatched
at his watch, stammered something,heard Alary ask thehour.
" Four o'clock," he said ; " I I had forgotten an en-
gagement on business. Good-morning, Miss Danvers."
" Good-by," replied Mary, not by any means appeased,
and hastily resumed her work.
He hurried across the room, paused and gazed at her
for an instant, then went out and closed the door.
He reached his studio, flung himself into a chair, but
not a moment's space for recovery from his agitation was
given. The servant entered with a letter. He opened it,
hardly knowing what he was about : took in the meaning
enough to understand that it contained a proposal to go to
Greece. An immediate answer was requisite.
" She said good-by," he muttered: "it shall be good-
by ! I have learned the truth at last ; there is nothing to
keep me here any longer."
CHAPTER XXIX.
A MORNING RIDE.
HE next morning was so bright and beautiful
that Violet felt sorely irritated by her inability
to get away from her gloomy misanthropic
fancies. She tried divers employments, from
music to needlework ; but piano and harp only
seemed to give out mocking voices under her touch
voices cognizant of her folly and full of unpitying re-
proaches therefor. When she sat down to some complicated
piece of lace embroidery, which she kept on hand as a kind
of penance, she could no more count the stitches correctly
than if she had never studied an addition-table in her life,
and discovered after a few minutes that she had wrought
such eccentric variations in her pattern that the gossamer
web looked like a preposterous Chinese puzzle invented by
some Celestial laboring under temporary aberration of
mind.
A MORNING RIDE. 279
She flung aside her needlework, ordered her horse, and
was as impatient over the time it took to get into her habit
as if she had been late in starting on some momentous
journey.
A narrow, unfrequented street led directly from her
house to the broad viale which encircles the city. She
took this route, gained the suspension-bridge that crosses
the river at the entrance of theOascine, and galloped away
down the road beyond the Porta Romana.
The March day might have strayed up from Sicily, it
was so warm and bright, only with an exhilarating fresh-
ness in the air peculiar to the climate of Tuscany. The
sky seemed a vast turquoise sea, with great shallops of
white clouds moored here and there in its azure depths ;
the atmosphere so clear that objects miles distant were dis-
tinctly visible. The groves of olive trees cast long gray
shadows over the hill-sides ; the mountains in the back-
ground were crowned with wide bands of amber light ;
the whole scene lovely and picturesque beyond descrip-
tion, only possessing a sense of peace and tranquillity
in every sight and sound which fretted Violet from its con-
trast with her mood.
She reached the gates of the old Certosa ; decided to
dismount and go in. She liked to stray about the echoing
corridors and neglected garden, tenanted by the dozen or
more white-robed monks whom the march of progress has
left as the sole remnant of the flock that once held posses-
sion, and this remnant only permitted to remain because
the famous green and yellow liqueur manufactured within
the walls gives a practical, commercial reason for the reten-
tion.
Violet waited till her groom rode up, slipped out of her
saddle, and passed in at the gateway, to receive a cordial
welcome from the old monk who met her at the door of the
church ; for she had often visited the place, and always
left such substantial evidence of her coming that naturally
the brethren waxed jubilant at sight of her.
And, wandering about in the garden, she came upon
Gilbert Warner, his usually cheerful, animated face looking
as if he had been tempted into a long ramble by fancies
almost as misanthropic and unfitting the day as those which
had driven Miss Cameron out of doors.
It was a relief to see by his countenance, when she
280 A MORNING RIDE.
suddenly appeared, that he wished her anywhere else. To
have met a person who showed satisfaction and tried for
compliments over the unexpected pleasure of this encounter
she felt would have exasperated her beyond endurance.
She greeted him with her customary cordiality, a little
amused to think that she, the spoiled princess, could at any
time or in any place stumble upon a specimen of male
humanity who failed to beam with delight at her approach :
" I did not dream of finding any other visitor at this early
hour," she said ; " much less so industrious a person as you.
Are you going to make a sketch of the garden and the old
monk in the corner (who pretends to be absorbed in medi-
tation, but is not), for a picture ?"
" No," Warner replied ; " I had an errand out here ;
besides, I wanted a long walk a chance to think something
over."
" Ah, a subject for a new picture, of course !"
" Who would have expected you to be so matinal !" he
said, without noticing her remark. " The last person I
should have anticipated the pleasure "
" Don't finish !" interrupted Violet, laughing. " It is no
pleasure to meet Miss Cameron, or anybody else ! I am
sure you came for the same reason that brought me
because you thought you would not see a human creature
except the monks ; and they are such movable wooden
images they don't count."
" I should not have supposed you ever had moods like
those," he said.
" I see no reason why I should be exempt from the chief
of human privileges that of being morose and out of
sorts," returned Violet. " And can you find any good and
sufficient cause why you should have any more right than I
to such enjoyment?"
"I don't think I am morose," he answered. " I was
tired I have that excuse I have been hard at work for a
fortnight."
" And I oh, you need not laugh ! Pray, what can be
harder work than having to crowd every moment of one's
waking hours with what is called amusement ?"
"Yes, I can understand that. I only wonder why peo-
ple do it."
" So do the victims wonder, you may be sure."
She was studying his face now. She had not seen him
A MORNING RIDE. 281
since the night he dined at her house. He did look tired ;
not so much physically weary, as if some shadow had come
between his blithe spirit* and the sun. Violet heartily liked
tho young fellow, with his earnestness and his determina-
tion. It occurred to her that perhaps some of the evils so
common to his estate an artist in the outset of his career
had overtaken him. The expected installment of his
income might have failed to arrive in due season. He
might find himself in a foreign country menaced by that
most unendurable of petty ills a lack of money. She
would not do what she had meant to when they met speak
a few pleasant words and turn away ; she would make him.
talk discover by some means if her suspicion were correct.
" Have you ever made a sketch of the garden ?" she
asked.
" I began one the last time I was here, but did not
finish it," he replied.
" I wish you would," she urged, seeing her way easily
to be of assistance in case pecuniary difficulties stood in his
path. " I have always meant to get somebody to paint me
a picture with my pet monk, Giuseppe, in the foreground
leaning on the picturesque old well, for instance. Then I
should like a companion sketch say of Why, what
are you shaking your head for?"
" I should, of course, be very much honored by a com-
mission from Miss Cameron," he answered, " but I fear it
must wait."
" Ah, well, if you are too busy now, promise to undertake
it as soon as you have time."
" Or when I find myself in Florence again."
" You are not thinking of going away ? I thought you
intended to remain several years in Italy."
" Yes, I did. I told you I came out here this morning
to think matters over."
" About going, you mean ?"
" Last night I believed my mind made up," he said ;
" but men are such silly creatures !"
" I am so sorry you think of leaving !"
" Oh, I shall come back some time. I have had an offer
to go to Greece. I have never been, you know."
" Naturally, the opportunity is not one to neglect," she
said, satisfied now that his trouble had a different source
from that which she had supposed, but confident still that
282 A MORNING RIDE.
the trouble existed, and, with her usual desire to lighten
care or distress, her heart softened more and more towards
the young man who looked so weary and sad-eyed, so un-
like the happy, self-reliant youth she had hitherto known.
" It' you do go, I hope you will not stay long," she said ;
" but perhaps, after all, you will decide to postpone your
journey, since you were only thinking about it."
" My decision must be made at once. If I go, I shall
start to-night."
" To-night ?"
" Yes. I cannot put off my departure, because I am to
meet some people at Brindisi for the next steamer, and I
must first go up to Verona. I have business there."
She stood thoughtfully regarding him.
" This is very sudden," she said. " When did you re-
ceive the proposal '?"
" Yesterday," he replied, his mouth working a little, as
pronouncing the word reminded him of the circumstance
under which the news had come. '' But but several
times lately I have been thinking of going away : it would
be better than to stay here and feel what an idiot "
He broke off abruptly, coloring scarlet to the roots of his
hair. " I have not the least idea what I meant to say," he
cried ; " or rather, why I said it in that silly fashion ! I
mean I have an idle fit on me, and cannot work ; change
of scene may cure it."
Violet laid her hand upon his arm as frankly as if he
had been a younger brother.
"Come, walk up and down," she said. "Tell me all
about it, Gilbert ! My friends always tell me everything
I shall fancy that you are not really my friend unless you
do."
She spoke truly ; even the most reticent people found
themselves revealing their secrets to Violet Cameron with a
candor at which they might afterwards wonder, though no
person ever had reason to regret such frankness.
To go away had proved so difficult that though on the
previous evening Warner, as he said, had believed his mind
made up, he wanted still time to reflect. That speech of
Mary's, which had carried such sudden desolation to his
soul, presented itself in a new aspect as he turned it over
and over during the long watches of the night. Was it so
certain she had referred to herself would she so openly
A MORNING RIDE. 283
have spoken ? Or, reading his secret clearly, did her desire
to save him further self-deception impel her to betray a
truth in regard to her feelings whose utterance must have
cost her dearly indeed. He would talk frankly with Miss
Cameron if his suspicions were well founded (a little while
before he had called them certainties), if Mary loved Lau-
rence Aylrner, she would know it.
" What is at the bottom of this resolution ?" Violet
asked in her soft, confidence-impelling voice. "You know
it is not curiosity that impels me to ask, Gilbert. I am
sure something troubles you."
" Yes," he said.
"Then tell me what it is," she urged. "Remember
how often we women discover a way out that escapes you
men."
" You are very good only too good !" he said.
" Hush ! don't say that ; it sounds like putting me off
a polite way of telling me I am meddlesome and intrusive."
" You know I could not think that."
"I shall believe you do unless you are frank ! Come ;
I am a sort of grave elder sister ; this is just the place for
a confession. Don't make me afraid you have ceased to
like me : you used to tell me everything ; at least you said
you did. Don't cast me off because you are not a boy any
longer."
" No, no !" he said, in a rather tremulous voice. " I I
had a mind to tell you the other night at Lady Harcourt's,
only it seemed so silly."
"Silly to have faith in a friend? oh, that is very
wicked !"
" To trouble you with my nonsense, of course I mean."
" Nothing that troubles a person I like can seem non-
sense," Violet answered. " You ^know me well enough, I
hope, to be certain of that."
" Indeed I do !" he exclaimed, grasping her hand with
such fervor that it hurt ; his blue eyes fixed upon her in
warm friendship and admiration, though they were still
misty from the cloud which overshadowed his soul.
" Now let go my hand ; what will the monks think if
they see you ! My old friend (riuseppe will withdraw the
light of his countenance, certain that my visit was only an
excuse to meet a young man," said she, speaking playfully,
just to keep him from ai^over-sirained expression of feel-
284 A MORNING HIDE.
ing which he might afterwards regret. Her varied experi-
ence in playing confidante had taught her that if people
only make their revelations with a certain degree of com-
posure, they are not half so much disturbed in thinking the
matter over as they are if excitement lias led them into
a display of emotion, such as a man in his cooler moments
terms " making a fool of himself,'' and a woman styles
" doing theatricals."
They walked along the path for a little while in silence.
A sudden light broke upon Violet she knew what War-
ner's trouble was ! How did it happen that she had been
so blind as not to think of it before? Why, he had
revealed his secret that first day they met in the gallery
after his return ; revealed it each time he glanced towards
Mary. And she, Violet, had been so engrossed with watch-
ing the girl and Aylmer, that she had not even a thought
for what poor Warner's face said, though in this rapid
instant of recollection its expression recurred so vividly
that she could feel an additional sting of shame at having
been so full of herself and her miserable weaknesses that
the truth, patent as it was, had escaped her. This boy had
given his heart to Mary, and she had her heart too
completely occupied with other dreams to heed the offering.
Ah, just another of those dismally-laughable catastrophes
which Fate in her hardness likes bringing about ! It was
right that Mary should love Aylmer ; she was worthy his
affection, and, rating him above all other men, Violet felt
it fitting that he should have the first chance at "the best
and highest of Fortune's favors. Still it seemed cruel
of Destiny to make this warm-hearted, affectionate, true-
soul ed Warner suffer.
" What was it you had a mind to speak about the other
night?" she asked. "Tell me, Gilbert."
It was difficult to resist Violet Cameron when she
looked and spoke as she did now. Fortunately, in her
case, Nature had not bestowed, as she so often does, that
gift of fascination which impels men, even against their
judgments and wills, to yield to the spell, upon a woman
who employed her singular influence for evil instead of
good.
" Tell me," she repeated.
"I believe I meant to ask you something instead," he
said. " Still it seems cowardly. *I ought to go direct and
A MORNING RIDE. 285
ask her bnt it is so difficult for her sake, I mean. If
if oh, yesterday I thought I had been answered but the
more I reflect the less sure I feel and to go away without
being certain perhaps, when too late, find 1 had made a
mistake oh ! " He broke off suddenly, then ex-
claimed : " What an idiot I am ! I have just been think-
ing alond instead of uttering a single intelligible sentence."
"I think I understand," Violet said, in a low tone.
He stopped short in the path and confronted her : he
was pale to his lips, but very quiet.
" You mean that I am too late. I was not mistaken
I am too late," he said slowly, dropping the words out one
by one with painful diotinctness.
Left to himself half an hour longer, his meditations
would have resulted in his returning home, seeking Mary,
and boldly asking her the real significance of that speech
which seemed to him the more doubtful the longer he pon-
dered upon it. The matter would have been so easily
cleared up the last cloud between the young pair ban-
ished ; and now Violet thrust herself in between them and
the truth.
She must answer, she must tell him. Oh, every species
of hard duty came upon her but she must speak !
"I will not deceive you," she said; "it could do no
good. Oh, Gilbert, I must not even tell you how grieved
I am "
lie checked her by a quick gesture.
" \ r es, I know," she said ; " it would only sound like
mockery. My dear Gilbert ray poor boy !"
" Too late," he replied. " I was sure of it the first time
1 saw her with him perfectly sure ; but I tried to deceive
myself I was such a weak fool !"
How his words cut across Violet's heart like the echo
of her own personal reflections ! She too had been certain
th.it very day she too for a little had tried to deceive her-
self weak fool that she was !
" I don't see why that man should have everything in
the world," Gilbert exclaimed suddenly. " Ah well ! per-
haps he deserves it all yes, I believe he does. I won't bo
contemptible just because he has come across my path
only his shadow has taken away all my sunlight. Ah, ray
God, how I loved her !"
28(J A MORNING RIDE.
He turned abruptly away and hurried up and down the
garden -path.
Violet stood looking sadly after him. His pain, though
different from hers, found such a response in her heart,
through her great sympathy for him, that it seemed fairly
a part of her own burden a new bitterness forced upon
her soul.
It would be useless nay, wicked to follow her first
impulse to tell him that she might be mistaken that he
should persevere. Mary's face as she looked that night
when they talked in the moonlight rose before her ; Mary's
quivering voice rang in her ear ! She had made no mis-
take. Better this poor boy should know the truth now
every day of hope against hope, of attempted self-decep-
tion, would only increase his suffering. Ah, why could not
the girl have given her heart to this young fellow, so good,
so clever, so suited to her in every way ? Then Violet
grew ashamed when she caught herself thinking this,
afraid that she thought it because such consummation
would have left Aylmer free and free or not, it was all
the same to Violet ! Mary had nothing to do with her de-
cision ; an impossible barrier loomed between 'her and him
her age her age !
Presently, Warner came back to her side again.
" I told you I had not quite decided on my plans," he
said. " My mind is made up now ; I am going to Greece."
" But not at once "
" I start for Verona to-night," he interrupted. " The
sooner the better ! So this is good-by I shall not see
you again."
" Gilbert !"
" Yes, I know don't try to tell me I know ! You are
very kind to care. God bless you good-by !"
He hui'ried from her and disappeared before she could
speak again. Violet sat down and meditated gloomily
enough for a time ; then she too went her way, having con-
trived in her efforts to do right to commit as much mischief
as the most evil-disposed person living could well have
managed to crowd into one morning.
TWO NOTES. 287
CHAPTER XXX.
TWO NOTES.
S Violet was dismounting from her horse, Ma-
dame Magnoletti's carriage entered the court.
"Have I really caught you?" exclaimed
Nina, as they exchanged greetings at the foot
of the staircase. " I fully expected you would
be out, but I had made up my mind to wait, even if you
did not come home until dark. I should be pleased to
know what you have been doing with yourself. I have not
seen you since the night before last, and you promised to
come to me yesterday."
" I could not "
" Now don't tell fibs for civility's sake ! You did not
want to come ! You were in one of your unsociable
moods, when you did not wish to see a human creature. I
know you !"
" I am so glad you do ; it saves me a world of trouble,"
said Violet, teasingly.
" I should like to shake you !" exclaimed Nina, and
could say no more, because they were within reach of
Antonio's ears, as he stood bowing his respectful welcome
on the threshold.
"You must cither come into my dressing-room, else
excuse me while I take off my habit," Violet said.
" I'll go into your dressing-room. If I don't keep
watch you are quite capable of disappearing by some secret
door," grumbled Nina.
" Miss Bronson is out "
" I hate Miss Bronson !"
"My pretty little cousin is at the studio "
" She is not pretty, and I hate her too !"
" Else I would leave them to entertain you while I
change my dress," pursued Violet.
" If you did I'd do them both a mischief !" cried
Nina.
They entered the chamber where Clarice was waiting.
Nina flung herself into a low arm-chair, and sat silent.
Violet imitated her example, glad to have the relief of even
288 TWO NOTES.
a few moments' taciturnity on the marchesa's part ; for,
fond of her as she was, she wished that caprice had led the
little woman anywhere else this morning.
" I wonder you did not keep Clarice all day !" Nina
exclaimed, as the door closed behind the discreet waiting-
maid.
" If you display too much ill-temper I can call her back.
Pray what ails you, that you should turn so acid ? You
are like a bottle of small beer that has had the cork left
out."
" ' Flat, stale, and unprofitable,' " quoted Nina, in Eng-
lish, and began to laugh. " It is such an absurd world ;
everything goes wrong so does everybody you among
the number."
" Oh, my dear, I never posed as a model for correct
conduct."
" We have made a blunder, and it is more your fault
than mine ; so you must help me to remedy it," cried Nina,
irrelevantly.
" Sorry I should in any way have added to your faults,
my child ; they are numerous enough when you are left to
yourself," said Violet, mockingly.
" Horrid creature ! What a pity it is unladylike to
break things as the men do in a passion. If it were not,
I'd tumble over that great cinque-cento vase just to punish
you."
" For what reason ? Tell me my crime before you
sacrifice my most deliciously ugly ornament. Only look at
that delightful little baby in swaddling clothes reaching
with precocious eagerness after that preposterous apple,
and be softened towards the vase at least."
" It is improper for an unmarried woman to talk about
babies," said Nina. " I have been in America, so I know
that."
"Especially when one's married female friends give
them no occasion," returned Violet.
" Oh, you malicious wretch ! I suppose I might have
a baby as well as another, if I saw fit."
" Can't say, really ! I am a practical woman, and never
assert a thing as a fact until I have proofs before me."
Then they both began to laugh, though Violet felt she
would rather cry, and was very suspicious that Nina's
mood had reached a pitch as unreasonable as her own.
TWO NOTES. 289
" Don't laugh !" the visitor exclaimed, " I am very-
unhappy. Everybody disappoints me you first "
" Leave me till the last. Get to something more pure-
ly personal, and which will offer a better excuse for un-
happiness. What has that tiresome Carlo been doing now
to vex you ?"
" Nothing everything ! My dear, I'm not such a fool
as to care about his endless flirtations. They mean as little
as mine do. Carlo loves me as much as he is capable of lov-
ing anybody as much as I deserve ! We are both true
specimens of the half-made-up people of this blessed nine-
teenth century. Sometimes I indulge vague visions of
being something better, and making him so mere visions.
I'm only fit for the life I lead, and I like it I shan't deny
that. But I am worried just now I tell you we have
blundered."
"Now, see here, Nina ! I am not in a mood this morn-
ing to be found fault with ; I should quarrel with my
guardian-angel if he paid me a visit for that purpose.
What do you mean by our blundering? Carlo has been
losing, I suppose : if it is not your heart, it must be money
excuse my coarseness. But I cannot see how I am to
blame. At least, you know if there is any difficulty in
which I can aid you, I shall be ready, though I own frankly
that if he had to suffer for his folly I should not pity him."
" No, no ! Things are not so bad as that yet," returned
Nina ; " though heaven only knows when they may be if
we cannot foil her again. Of course Giulia da Rimini is at
the bottom of my trouble !"
" Why, Carlo cares no more about her than I do for my
slipper you can't think it ! Giulia might as well try to
tempt him to eat a ragout rechauffe as bring him back to a
flirtation grown cold. Now, don't be a goose, whatever
you are, when you can be so sensible if you choose."
" She knows that ; so do I. She means to revenge her-
self on me on us she is sure you would be hurt, too, for
my sake by tempting him to play. I only found out yes-
terday what is going on. Gherardi betrayed it, in his
blundering fashion, without meaning to. And she can do
more harm than ever with the help of her Greek, whom she
has forced down people's throats at the point of the
bayonet. I cannot understand why Florentine society will
submit to anything that woman chooses to do. It knows
13
290 TWO NOTES.
her thoroughly says of her what she deserves but she
goes audaciously on, and rules all the same."
" But about Carlo ?"
" For some reason the Greek hates you ; I have discov-
ered that. I suppose you have snubbed him."
" He has never been presented never shall be !"
" And I am sure Giulia blames me for everything : your
not visiting her, and all."
" I'll tell her my reasons if you like."
"Don't, in the name of all the saints ! though, bless me,
why one should invoke them I don't know, since they are
always blind and deaf when one needs their aid."
" Come, come, don't speak disrespectfully of them !
They mayn't be much good, but we might be worse off
without them ! About Giulia ?"
" Oh, yes ! Only fancy ! yesterday, speaking of your
supper last week, she said to me, with that dreadful smile
of hers, ' I see Miss Cameron has forgotten me this winter.
I have a better memory for my friends. I don't forget her,
any more than I could you, my darling little Nina.' A
threat for both of us. Wait ! I know you don't care, but
I do. She can't attract Carlo by her smiles, but she can by
cards. Oh, they've organized a club ! It meets two nights
a week at her house just the worst of the lot and Carlo
goes ; Gherardi told me so. And she and the Greek cheat ;
I'll stake my life on it !"
"That would do no good, unless you could prove it."
" Prove it !" broke in Nina. " How can I, when you
will not help ?"
" Oh, Nina," said Violet, thoroughly exasperated by
these incoherent attempts at an explanation which only
rendered her meaning the more confused, " if you can't
talk intelligibly do let me alone."
For the first time in all these years of warm friendship,
the pair were on the brink of a quarrel over nothing, too ;
for that very reason likely to be the more disastrous if it
came. Without being aware of the fact, both were in a
state of such intense nervous excitement, that for the
moment a duel of words, which must leave wounds diih'cult,
to heal, would have been more in unison with their feelings
than any rational attempt to come to a clear comprehension
of matters.
Nina rose, gathered her wraps about her, and said : " I
TWO NOTES. 291
will leave you alone ; I'll never trouble you again either
about any affairs of mine you may be sure of that."
Violet was in a mood so perverse that she might abso-
lutely have let her go in silence had she not caught sight in
a mirror of the face Nina kept so resolutely turned away.
The tears were streaming down the little woman's cheeks :
her pretty mouth quivering like a hurt child's in her efforts
to repress an audible sob.
Violet started up, hurried forward a few steps, and
flung her arms round her friend's waist.
" I do think we are both out of our senses !" cried she ;
" and I am more to blame than you. I don't know what
ails me ; I believe I am possessed, like those unfortunates
in old days not by one demon only, but at least a score.
Sit down, you poor darling, and try to tell me. I'll do
whatever you want ; I promise that in advance."
" It was all my fault," returned Nina, soothed and
penitent ; "I dare say I did not in the least explain."
" Well, my dear, I must admit that your explanation
failed in lucidity ; still that was no excuse for ray being so
impatient. Come, commence all over again ; I'll be patient
enough this time, to atone for my rudeness."
" Oh, rude you could not be !"
"And nothing could really interfere with our love for
each other," said Violet, kissing her, and drawing her
towards a sofa. "Now sit down, and I'll sit by you."
" How absurd that we should have come near a quarrel !"
cried Nina, beginning, with her usual inconsequence, to
laugh, while the tears still stood on her cheeks. " The first
time such a thing ever happened to us."
"A warning ! In friendship as in other things, ce rfest
que le premier pas qui co&te."
"Bah! I don't believe in proverbs; they wouldn't be
repeated so often if they had any truth in them," said Nina,
her good-humor so fully restored that her spirits began to
rise, and she could snatch hastily at more cheerful views of
life.
" Don't stop to be either witty or misanthropic, else we
may quarrel yet," returned Violet. " Let us get at an un-
derstanding !"
" I don't in the least know where I was you put me
out completely !" said Nina, with another baby moue, and a
sudden disposition to have her cry out after all.
292 TWO NOTES.
Violet felt that a fit of weeping on her friend's part
would completely upset her resolve to be penitent and pa-
tient, so she hastened to fling Giulia da Rimini's name into
the conversation, in the hope that it would .move Nina to
anger sufficient to check her lachrymose tendencies a
weakness which it must be said the little woman seldom
exhibited for the benefit of any looker-on, even Violet
never for Carlo's ; she was much too wise, even in her
dreariest moments, to render any matrimonial crisis more
desperate by such show of feminine feebleness.
"I don't remember what I was saying," continued
Nina.
" You were freely slandering the Rimini and her Athe-
nian ; accusing them of being Greeks in the modern slang
acceptation of the term," replied Violet.
"And it is true !" exclaimed Nina. "I have not the
slightest reason to think so, but I know it is true."
"And I am quite ready to put implicit faith in your in-
tuitions," said Violet, "but what can I do?"
"Ah, just the thing you refuse to let me go to her
house the nights their odious club meet !"
" Now, Nina, with the best intentions on my part, that
assertion is a little too strong for endurance ! I never tried
to hinder you or anybody else from visiting the woman.
I don't go to see her, and I don't invite her, but "
" Ah, that's just it," interrupted Nina, triumphantly ;
" now we come to the gist of the matter at once ! I tell
you they cheat ; I could watch if I were there but she
won't have me without you, and you won't go !"
" I can scarcely suppose that her insolence would carry
her to that pitch why, Carlo would never stand it."
" Oh, Mary, Catherine, Barbara, and all the rest !"
groaned Nina, giving herself a petulant shake. "You
don't half fathom Giulia yet, clever as you are ! My dear,
she did it so neatly it was like a bit out of a play and
made Carlo side with her and be so stupid that he didn't
even see her drift ! Though I need not blame him, poor
fellow, since he is only a man, when you, the brightest
woman I ever knew, are just as blind !"
"More digressions!" said Violet, struggling hard to
retain possession of her recently-recovered patience. But
Nina's sudden gesture, as if imploring those lately-
appealed-to saints to aid in bearing her friend's unparal-
TWO NOTES. 293
leled obtuseness, restored Violet's determination, though
the gesture might have failed in its effect had it not been
accompanied by that previous threatening tremulousness
about the marchesa's pretty mouth. " Now, how did Giulia
hinder you from seeing what goes on ?"
" Easily enough ! She said, ' So sorry no women are
admitted ; that was the bargain those dreadful men insisted
on ! I cannot make an exception in your favor, because
that would be insulting would look as if I supposed you
wanted to watch your husband !' Then Carlo burst out
laughing, and ran off (we had all met by accident at Lady
Harcourt's)."
" Well ?"
" Then Giulia said : ' If our fascinating Miss Cameron
had not given me the cold shoulder I could have broken
my word and introduced her she might have brought you
without leave as her chaperon !' And she looked me full
in the eyes with that awful smile. She knew she had set-
tled me she was certain that you would not set foot
within her doors."
" Was she !" cried Violet. " My dear, even in the
interests of your Carlo I can't turn my salons into gam-
bling-rooms.
" No ; but if you would only go to see her."
" She would rather I invited her to my house. Let me
think hadn't I promised you and Lady Harcourt and
Sabakine that you might come here to-night after the
opera ?"
" Certainly, and we mean to keep you to your word."
" Good ! And you think the duchess would like to
come ?"
" My dear, she knows as well as we, ce n'est que le pre-
mier pas (jtti cotite in all things ! She is afraid of you. If
yon set the example of cutting her, somebody may follow
suit then she is lost."
" Heaven forbid that I should aid Fate and the duchess's
instincts in the work they are sure to bring about," said
Violet. She sat down at her writing-table and indited a
note, which Nina read over her shoulder. " Beautiful !
Read it aloud let us be sure it is perfect," cried the mar-
chesa.
" She has the audacity to doubt," said Violet, laughing.
294 TWO NOTES.
11 Only listen you have no idea how well it sounds,"
returned Nina, and began reading the page aloud :
" ' It seems an age since I have had the pleasure of re-
ceiving Madame da Rimini ; yet last winter she was good
enough to accord me that favor now and then, and I weakly
thought the force of habit might bring her occasionally this
season also.
" ' Better to know one's fate, however disappointing.
Half-a-dozen friends have promised to come to me to-night
after the opera will the duchess be so hard-hearted as to
make me admit that even in the case of a carefully-arranged
impromptu gathering I am unable to afford them the hap-
piness of meeting her ?' ' :
" I should as soon have expected to be guillotined as
live to write a billet like that to Giulia da Rimini !" Violet
exclaimed, involuntarily trying to seize the epistle.
" Never repent a good action," rejoined Nina, folding
the sheet and putting it in an envelope. "Now the address,
and the thing is done. Ge n'est que I spare you the
rest."
" Besides, I never did invite her, except to large parties."
" She will be all the more flattered by your appearing to
think she used to come when you were en petit comite," said
Nina, holding fast to one corner of the letter while Violet
wrote the superscription, snatching it away as soon as fin-
ished, and hastily ringing the bell, afraid that if given time
to reflect, Miss Cameron might even yet refuse to appease
the angry woman. The note safe in Antonio's keeping,
and gone beyond recall, the little lady fully recovered her
spirits. " You are a darling !" she cried. " We shall have
an answer presently. The creature is sure to be at home
at this hour."
" She will know it is your doing."
" If she does, she won't allow herself to believe it
human vanity will prevent that. She will decide that you
found you had made a mistake discovered she was not a
person to treat cavalierly."
" At all events, it is done. Don't say another word
about her. Let me forget for a little that she exists," said
Violet, feeling that she had been weak to allow even Nina's
troubles to force her into an action so contrary to her sense
of dignity and right.
For half an hour the marchesa talked incessantly in her
TWO NOTES. 295
brightest strain, and Violet made a decent pretense of
listening, laughing, and replying, though all the while re-
flecting in a misanthropic fashion that friendship, like
everything else in this hard old world, was a plant which
produced more thorns than roses.
At length Antonio's modest tap sounded on the door,
and in her eagerness Nina forgot she was not in her own
house, and cried out :
" Come in do !" Then, " Oh, Violet, I beg your
pardon !"
" No need," replied Miss Cameron ; " it is your errand
quite right you should conduct matters."
The Swiss entered, bringing the expected missive on a
salver, which he presented to his mistress.
" Give it to Madame la Marquise," said Violet, unable
to bring herself to touch the perfumed billet.
Antonio obeyed and retired, wondering a little at the
oddities of the female sex. Why should his lady wish an
epistle bearing her address handed over to another ?
" Shall I read it ?" Nina asked.
" I have a suspicion that if you do not it will remain
unread," Violet replied, laughing, but quite in earnest.
"Ugh, that odious perfume !" shivered Nina, breaking
the seal. She unfolded the sheet, and began, " ' My beauti-
ful queen of flowers'" stopped, glanced down the page,
and cried out, " Heavens, I believe she has the best of it !"
" Nina !" exclaimed Violet, in anger and dismay ;
" read it read !"
" Just listen ! < Beautiful ' "
" Skip that," interrupted Violet.
" Oh yes 'flowers!' Hear this : 'So happy to learn
that invitations to the Palazzo Amaldi are, like other blos-
soms of paradise, perennial. I knew its mistress was in as
perfect bloom as ever, but I thought the charming informal
reunions had failed to put out a second crop. I shall be
delighted to renew our pleasant evenings. Unfortunately,
J had invited to dinner a friend of my dear husband's, to
whom the duke has begged me to show every attention ;
so I must trespass on your good-nature so far as to bring
him, lest in my desire to accede to your kind wishes I
should be guilty of a rudeness to Signor Dimetri.' >:
" No I'll not endure that," cried Violet ; " not even
for you, Nina I will not ! That man shall never cross
296 TWO NOTES.
my threshold. I have avoided having him presented. I
will not receive him !"
" He was there he dictated it. I am sure he did. She
never would have had the wit," groaned Nina, underrating,
as she had always done, the duchess's abilities.
" Then his wit fails," said Violet. " I shall write and
tell her it is one of my nights for not receiving strangers."
" Oh, my dear !"
" Not a word it is useless. Come, don't be afraid of
the odious creature. We will defeat her yet."
"Oh ! but this will make her furious ! Don't write yet.
Let me think !" cried Nina, beginning to pace the room, as
Violet seated herself determinedly at her desk.
"Think; but the fact remains! Giulia da Rimini
shall not force that adventurer on me !" said Violet, firmly.
Nina made no answer. Her course had brought her
near a window, which commanded the court ; she saw Lau-
rence Aylmer entering.
"I have it!" she exclaimed. "Leave it to me; she
shall not bring the man ; I can hinder her only promise
not to write !"
" I can't trust to any chance, Nina. There must be no
loophole left no doubt."
" You shall have a letter from her in less than an hour,
saying that she has decided it was better to send an apology
to Signer Dimeti'i. Good-bye I can't wait only trust
me. I will arrange this matter to your complete satisfac-
tion you'll wait ?"
" Of course ; be very careful !"
" A whole flock of doves and an entire family of ser-
pents combined," returned Nina, and ran gayly oat of the
room.
AN UNPLEASANT MISSION. 297
CHAPTER XXXI.
AN UNPLEASANT MISSION.
HEN the marchesa reached the staircase, as she
had anticipated, she saw Laurence Aylmer com-
ing up.
" llis unpardonable masculine recklessness
shall be made of a little use," thought Nina.
" I would not have believed he could be goose enough to
risk offending Violet by dangling about that painted
sepulcher, but since he has done it, and fascinated Giulia
by his dreamy eyes and his poetical talk, I'll employ her
weakness to aid in the plot against herself ! Oh, will she
never get to the"end of her invention never leave me any
peace ! Only let me save Carlo from her talons this time,
and I beKeve I shall have done with her it is only the play
that attracts him. If I can make her admit me those
nights, at least my presence will be a little restraint, even if
I don't succeed in convincing him of her real motives."
Aylraer interrupted her reflections by calling merrily :
" It is quite natural that angelic visitants should appear
to one from above !"
"Equally so that demons should appear from below,"
retorted she.
He hurried on to meet her, and they shook hands cor-
dially.
" I had been wishing to see you," said he.
"A pity that doing so did not rank among forbidden
things, then you would not have restrained the wish so
carefully, and I might have the pleasure of receiving an
occasional visit ; as it is, I never set eyes on you unless I
deliberately hunt you up in other people's houses."
" I have been twice at your house without finding you.
I believe you are never at home !"
" Didn't I say I had to go abroad in search of you ?"
"Very likely, when you run away from a place just as
I enter !"
" You can't enter here," she replied, with her most in-
genuous smile. "Let me spare you a useless mountain
climb ; Miss Cameron cannot and will not receive you."
13*
298 AN UNPLEASANT MISSION.
" The porter said she was at home," rejoined he, his
keen disappointment at her information so plainly visible
in his face that Nina felt inclined to forgive him the sin of
yielding a little to the duchess's spells.
"Alter all," she thought, "as Sabakine says, the poor
fellow really cannot imitate Joseph beyond certain limits."
" You merely want to tease me," he continued. "The
porter would not make the mistake "
" He could not help making mistakes, you mean, since
he is a man," she interrupted. " Miss Cameron is ill
absent dead ! Don't be too wretched, however ; she will
return to life this evening, after the opera, and you are in-
vited to join a few worthless people like yourself in her
abode of all delights. Does that content you?"
" Perfectly, if "
" I have warrant for saying so ? I ought to punish
your impertinent doubts by not allowing you to come."
"Since I did not dream of expressing any. I only
meant "
" Something you ought not to mean, no doubt. But be
easy in your mind ; I am to bring you. Don't fail to ap-
pear in my box before the end of the fourth act nobody
ever stops for the fifth why did Groselli write it ?"
" From that unfortunate masculine proneness to blun-
ders upon which you are always so severe."
" Very likely. But my wonder causes me to forget
"business. You have something to do."
" It must be something pleasant, since the news comes
from you."
" More than pleasant. I am surprised you do not divine
at once."
" When you are so well acquainted with my hopeless
stupidity ? It would be useless for me to waste your time
in guesses. Pray tell me what it is."
" You are going with me to visit the Duchess da
Rimini."
" Oh !" he exclaimed, the little monosyllable expressing
such a depth of weariness and annoyance that Nina rushed
at the conviction that her fears for him had been unneces-
sary : he never would become Giulia's willing or passive
victim.
" You are quite confounded by the thought of so much
happiness," said she, with a laugh of genuine enjoyment ;
AN UNPLEASANT MISSION. 299
" but try and merit the boon, for it is to be yours. Now,
listen to me. You are to put on all your fascinations ;
have eyes solely for her. If any other men are there, I will
attend to them."
" And the aim of this "
"Wait ! You will ask the duchess if you are to have
the bliss of meeting her to-night at Miss Cameron's."
" A sure means of putting her in a frightful rage,
because she will be obliged to answer no."
" Which will delight her, because she can answer yes !"
" Why, I thought I fancied "
" No matter what ; your part is to obey, not question.
Now pay strict attention, and try to learn your lesson cor-
rectly. You will entrap her into admitting that she means
to bring her Greek with her "
"I really cannot be silent! Miss Cameron will not
receive the fellow, of that I am certain."
" Oh, second Solon, Daniel, or whatever ! Now will
you gratify me and Violet ?"
" Of course !" he exclaimed, with the prompt acquies-
cence which she had been confident her unwarranted drag-
ging Miss Cameron into her plot would occasion. " I will
do anything you require."
" Then you will open your fullest batteries on the
duchess ; you will be tender and exigeant, impatient and
romantic rise to the heights of melodrama, if necessary
but you will declare your determination not to appear at
the Palazzo Amaldi if Dimetri accompanies her adored, be-
witching self."
" As if such behavior would have any effect."
" You will make her promise not to bring him," pur-
sued Nina, regardless of his expostulation. " That is the
mission confided to you to persuade the duchess volun-
tarily to withdraw her proposal of presenting him, and so
avoid the necessity of a refusal on Miss Cameron's part."
" But mavchesa, marchesa !"
"One would think you were summoning 'spirits from
the vasty deep !' ''
" I should need their aid to succeed in "
" Don't trouble yourself to finish ! You and I both
know that you can manage the affair without the slightest
assistance or difficulty."
300 AN UNPLEASANT MISSION.
" Indeed, you sadly overrate my abilities, and I have no
influence which could induce the lady "
"Oh, don't waste precious time in fibs so utterly
useless ! Tell me at once if you mean to do what I what
we wish !"
It was difficult to refuse her request, yet he foresaw that
to grant it would make another bond between himself and
the duchess. He must pay the penalty of a demand which
only intimate friendship could warrant, by conduct in
accordance with the rules governing that relation. The
lady would be able more freely than ever to unfold her
woes and insist upon sympathy.
" I can only do my best ; you must riot blame me if I
fail," he said, in a rather annoyed tone.
" Don't put me out of temper by such affected
modesty."
" And the reasons seem "
" I believe a man would stop to argue about reasons
before trying to save our lives, if we were all shut up in a
burning house !" cried Nina sharply, his hesitation rousing
a feverish impatience in her mind.
Aylmer glanced at her, surprised by the tone of her
voice ; the signs of real trouble which he read in her face
checked any further efforts to avoid the unpleasant task set
him.
" I will do whatever you wish," he said. "I only hope
the duchess will "
" Consent to anything you ask. Now take me down
stairs, and talk of something else during our drive. Of
course Giulia is a delightful subject for conversation, but
mine is a frivolous mind, and it fatigues me to contemplate
her virtues long at a time."
She talked gayly upon any trivial matter that suggested
itself, and Aylmer seconded her to the best of his ability,
though his thoughts were sorely disturbed by the duty
which awaited him. He wished that at least he might tell
Nina exactly how his apparent intimacy with Madame
da Rimini had come about, but that of course was impos-
sible ; not only should he appear a conceited fop, but it
would be positively dishonorable to confess that the lady had
elected him the confidant of her troubles, much against his
own inclinations, which rebelled more and more as her ex-
actions increased and they did increase so rapidly. Why,
AN UNPLEASANT MISSION. 301
only the day before he had been forced to go to her house,
in answer to an appealing summons, and she had detained
him two mortal hours, and prevented any possibility of his
visiting Violet.
Could he have known the displeasure and vague doubts
roused in Miss Cameron's mind by seeing him enter the
duchess's doors, his annoyance would have been even greater
than it was now.
Madame da Rimini received Nina with her customary
warmth and exaggerated expressions of delight.
"My dearest, darling child ! How good of you to
come ; I was thinking of you a little while ago longing to
see you."
"It was a mutual longing, you perceive," returned the
Russian, allowing herself to be embraced with a composure
and sweetness as perfect as if the very touch of her enemy's
hand did not give her a thrill of disgust.
" Good-morning, Mr. Aylmer," continued the duchess,
turning towards him with that melancholy smile and air of
repressed sorrow which she often displayed for his benefit.
" I overtook this graceless wretch at the corner of the
street ; no doubt on his way here," said Nina. " I made
him get into the carriage just to have an opportunity of
uttering desperate reproaches he has not been near me in
an age."
Aylmer found it difficult to hide the irritation caused by
Nina's superfluous fib.
"As I had done myself the honor of calling yesterday,"
he said, " I should owe an apology, did not the responsi-
bility of this morning's appearance rest solely with Madame
Magnoletti."
" One's friends deserve thanks for frequent visits," the
duchess answered.
" But you cannot flatter his vanity as you did mine, by
declaring that you had been thinking of him," said Nina.
" Oh yes, I may," Giulia replied. " I made Mr. Ayl-
mer's acquaintance through you, so it is natural I should
sometimes think of him when I do of you ; and you know,
I am sure, how often that is."
" Then I owe to you a double debt of gratitude," said
Aylmer ; " even to give me a thought would be more than
amiable, but to connect me in your mind with a friend
302 AN UNPLEASANT MISSION.
whom you value so much as the marchesa is the height of
kindness."
"I cannot help being enthusiastic over the people I
like it is part of my impulsive nature," sighed the
duchess.
She fondled Nina's hand again, and gave Aylrner a
tender glance, and Nina pressed the taper fingers which
held hers, and thought :
" Impulsive ! Oh, you boa-constrictor ! I must repeat
that to Sabakine how he will enjoy it."
And Giulia was thinking :
" I have frightened you out of your little insolent ways,
you small cat forced your icicle of a Miss Cameron into
civility too for your sake oh, I've not done with you yet
this is only the beginning."
And Aylmer reflected in this fashion :
" I wonder which of us three ought to receive the palm
for lying? But my masculine efforts look very poor beside
theirs how easily they do it."
A couple of gentlemen were announced, and after a few
moments of general conversation, Nina took possession of
the pair, and left Aylmer to entertain the hostess, saying
presently :
"Giulia, I am going to break my heart by making sure
that your orchids are finer than mine Signor Landini vows
they are. Please come with us, Signor Generale, and be
umpire," she added, addressing the elderly military man,
whose black and gold uniform gave him the appeai*ance of
a gigantic wasp, though he looked too mild and amiable to
sting under any provocation whatever.
The conservatory opened out of the drawing-room, and
was a very fine one ; the marchesa prolonged her examina-
tion of the plants to give Aylmer full opportunity to enact
his little comedy, keeping her cavaliers so well amused by
her sprightly sallies that they had no leisure to be remorse-
ful over their lengthened neglect of the lady they had come
to visit.
The duchess afforded Aylmer an opening for what ho
wanted to say or rather, what he did not want to, and was
half inclined to neglect, in spite of the appealing glance the
marchesa had cast at him as she passed, and his desire to do
anything that Violet asked.
AN UNPLEASANT MISSION. 303
" Shall I see you at Miss Cameron's to-night ?" Giulia
inquired.
" Madame Magnoletti was good enough to say she ex-
pected me to escort her there," lie answered.
" Then we shall meet. I did not mean to go out to-
night I have taken a violent cold, but la belle Violette
wrote me such a pressing note that I could not refuse."
How it vexed Aylmer to hear her speak of his idol in
that familiar fashion perfectly unwarranted, he knew. At
the same time he was wondering how best he could plunge
into the task confided to him ; but the duchess continued :
" Besides, I have promised to present Signor Dimetri to
her. This will be a favorable opportunity, since I need an
escort as much as Nina."
" Ah, what an unfortunate wretch I am not to be able
to offer my services !" he exclaimed, having the grace to
feel ashamed of the falsehood as he uttered it.
" I will own I should have liked it better," she replied ;
"though it is saying very little after all, since you know
my sentiments towards that person."
" Then excuse me but I wonder at your afflicting
yourself unnecessarily," cried he. " You need not take
the man unless you choose."
The duchess sighed deeply and shook her head.
" I am bound in the toils," she whispered ; " I cannot
offend him. I dare not. Oh, remember what hangs over
me, and be merciful in your judgments !"
She thought Aylmer's impatient gesture expressive of
anger and distress at the painfulness of her position : it
was only a means of relieving his annoyance at the decep-
tion circumstances forced him to practice.
" After all," said he, " I fear I shall not have the pleas-
ure of seeing you to-night. I shall be best off at home, so
I will stop there."
His abrupt tone and words certainly betrayed pique :
the idea gratified his listener.
" What has caused this sudden resolution ?" she asked
with a smile.
" I think you must know. After what you have told
me, do you suppose if if I have any friendly feeling for
you, I can bear to see that man in your society ?"
" Ah, my friend my good, generous friend," she
sighed.
304 AN UNPLEASANT MISSION.
11 1 have never asked a favor of you," he hurried on ;
"you might grant me one so slight. Tell him it is impos-
sible to keep your promise to-night ; that you had for-
gotten it is Thursday, and Miss Cameron only receives
intimate friends oh, any excuse, but don't let him go."
"Have you really the matter so much at heart?"
demanded she, with a still softer smile.
" I swear I have !" he cried, growing energetic from
sheer delight at being able to say something literally true.
" Uo promise do ! Ah, so little a thing as that you might
accord !"
" Perhaps," she said ; " at all events I will think
about it."
Her mind Avas already made up, but she wanted
to hear him plead see him grow more earnest and excited.
In reality, she had not yet informed the Greek of what she
had written to Miss Cameron, and she knew that she could
not easily persuade him to go ; but it would be such a
crowning insolence in her triumph over this hated woman
to force her to receive the man, that the duchess disliked
to relinquish the satisfaction.
"If there is any doubt I must stay away," said Aylmer.
" I can't meet him to-night I really cannot ! I I think I
will bid you good-day, duchess !"
"Why, what will the marchesa think?"
" It doesn't matter that I am a bear. And so you
refuse me ? Well, well, of course, it was an impertinence
on my part pray forgive it. Be sure I will not offend
again in the same way."
"Mauvaise tete" she said, but her eyes spoke a lan-
guage which contradicted her playful words. "And you
really care ?"
"Can you doubt it ? You do not you "
" Hush, hush ! here they come !" she murmured rapidly,
as the voices of the other visitors sounded near the con-
servatory doors, and she felt furious at their inopportune
return.
"Do I go or not?" Aylmer asked, relieved by the inter-
ruption. " Ah, I thought it would be such a pleasant
evening, but nothing ever happens that one wishes !"
" There shall for once," the duchess said. " Come to-
night I shall go alone. You will tell me then why it is
you care so much to have me do so."
GONE! 305
The trio were in the room, and Aylmer spared the
necessity of a reply. A slight movement of his head
assured Nina that her scheme had succeeded.
The duchess exulted in the depths of her soul. Oh,
she was beginning to wind in her carefully-arranged threads
very rapidly now. She had forced Violet Cameron to
invite her ; she had turned Aylmer's head till his long-
preserved pretense of composure had yielded ; she should
triumph in every way.
Violet still sat at her desk when Antonio appeared with
a second letter. She opened it and glanced at the com-
mencement :
" I have deferred giving my husband's friend the pleas-
ure of coming to your house until another night. I had
forgotten that Thursday evening was always reserved for
your intimates, but Mr. Aylmer reminded me of the fact
when he came in to call a short time since."
Violet read no further. She flung the note aside, and
left the room : the odious perfume which the woman always
employed made the air suffocating.
CHAPTER XXXII.
GONE!
IOLET and Miss Bronson went to the opera that
evening. Violet fully determined to increase
the number of her already-invited guests from
among the crowd of male visitors certain to in-
vade her loge, and the female acquaintances
who would be in their boxes, glad of an opportunity to go
anywhere, at any hour of day or night, on the most
frivolous pretext for amusement. Giulia da Rimini should
distinctly perceive she had been mistaken in supposing her-
self included in the charmed circle of Miss Cameron's
" intimates."
" It seems a petty thing to do ; since I have asked her I
might as well let the matter alone but then this wretched
806 GONE!
sort of existence makes one ' petty,' " thought Violet. " I
declare this shall be rny last season in what people stupidly
call the ' world.' I am sure any place outside it would
hold more attractions. So Mr. Aylmer had the kindness
to remind the duchess this was not a night to present a
stranger. I think Mr. Aylmer took a liberty in knowing
anything about my private wishes. It is not very long
since he gave me the impression that he did not visit the
lady : I wonder if any man can tell the truth ? Sometimes
I half fear he is not so honest and straightforward as I
believed him. Fickle he certainly is, else his fancy would
not have wandered away from Mary as soon as she was out
of sight wandered away to an elderly thing like me ! Ah
well, it went back quickly enough, and the little girl loves
him. After all, he is better than most men ; at least, too
noble to trifle with her happiness, and he must know now
that it depends on him. My poor Gilbert ! it seems such a
pity good, generous heart ! Heigho, what a goose I am !
One of them had to be disappointed, since Mary could not
well like both. Only to think of this shy little puss having
so many chances, when girls who live in society and rush
wildly about from season to season in search of a parti,
can't find even one adorer !"
In the meantime, the object of her reflections sat alone
in her room, busy with a new novel, and deeply enough
engrossed therein to forget reality in the companionship of
the characters conjured up by the romancer's skill.
Somebody knocked at the door. Mary's faculties were
so absorbed that though the sound vaguely reached her
ear, it did not rouse any sense of necessity for answering.
A second tap followed, sufficiently loud to bring her back
from dreamland in great haste, and she called :
"Come in!"
But as soon as she had spoken, she recollected that it
was useless to do so in English, indulged in a little wonder
how people who did not by nature think in that tongue
could ever contrive to think at all, and then repeated her
permission in the soft southern accents she was acquiring
with the facility of her age.
But when the door opened, Mary perceived that still
another language must be brought into exercise for the
benefit of that special member of the polyglot household
who appeared no less a personage than Mademoiselle
GONE 307
Clarice, and naturally she, in her character of Parisian,
scorned to speak or understand anything save French.
" Pardon ! I regret to disturb mademoiselle."
" Not in the least, Clarice. What is it ?"
" A little packet, which came just after dinner for
mademoiselle, and was forgotten by that very careless
Assunta," returned Clarice. " I was afraid mademoiselle
might already be preparing for bed I know she goes very
early sometimes when she is tired so I would not permit
any one else to intrude."
" Thanks ; you are very good," said Mary, still rather
absent.
" It is mademoiselle who is good the true cousin of
my lady," responded Clarice, with her stateliest courtesy.
" I lay the packet on the table see ! only some sketches, I
think."
" Some photographs I bought to-day," replied Mary.
Clarice again demanded pardon for the interruption,
and went her way. Mary sat holding the book, but the
spell was broken. After a little, she rose and took up the
package. It struck her that it did not resemble her pur-
chase in size or shape, and she began to examine the ad-
dress, thinking the shop-people might have committed
some blunder. As she caught sight of the firm, clear
writing, she gave a start and a little cry of pleased sur-
prise.
The parcel was so carefully sealed and the paper so
thick, that opening it proved a work of some seconds.
While Mary's eager fingers tore at the envelope, her smile
growing sweeter and her eyes softer, her rapid reflections
ran in this wise :
"From Gil from Mr. Warner. The Vaughtons call
him Gilbert so often before me that I forget. I can't im-
agine what he has sent me ! He hasn't been in the studio
since we nearly quarreled yesterday. All my fault, I dare
say. I am so bad-tempered. lie went away vexed. Oh !
I thought he did not care, but if so, he wouldn't take the
trouble to send. Ah, who knows? perhaps this may be
to tell the whole. Violet said no girl need feel ashamed of
a liking for an honest man. I am not ashamed. I am
pi-oud of being able to appreciate him !"
As she reached this point in her meditations she suc-
ceeded in pulling off the wrapper. Two or three notes
308 GONE!
and a withered flower fell upon the table in her hand she
held a couple of crayon sketches and a letter. A moment's
hesitation, in which a terrible fear shot across her soul as
abruptly as a storm rushes over a tropical sky, then she
unfolded the sheet and stared at the opening line :
" DEAR Miss DANVEBS,
"The suddenness of my departure "
This first clause turned her so dizzy that she sank back
in her chair ; her eyes fastened on the phrase and refused
to go further. Presently she heard herself repeating in a
bewildered tone :
" 'The suddenness of rny departure ' "
The sound of her own voice nerved her as if some
stranger watching had made his presence known, thereby
reminding her of the necessity for composure. She began
the page again :
" The suddenness of my departure prevents my having
the honor of making my adieux in person. I leave Flor-
ence in an hour. When this reaches you, I shall have
started on my journey.
" These little mementoes I return. I could not destroy
them ; yet, under the changed circumstances of your life,
they ought either to be destroyed or placed in your own
hands, unimportant though they may be, save from the
value I attached to them. That they are of value to me,
is only a reason the more why I should not guard them
longer.
" They are all here only three notes and a withered
rose.
"I am going away. Long before we meet again,
you "
But here a pen had been dashed heavily across the page,
blotting out the line. This was what followed :
" However extended the period of my absence may
prove however far my wanderings may lead me I beg
you to believe (if you care to accept the assurance) that
sincerest wishes for your happiness will go with me, and
the belief that such is your portion will always cast a ray
GONE! 309
of sunlight across my life, however colorless and dull from
the lack of personal joys and interests.
" I have finished the two drawings which you were good
enough to prefer among the sketches I made during our
pleasant voyage, and I beg you to accept them from
" Your friend,
" GILBERT WARNER."
Gone ! Mary read the letter twice before she could be-
lieve that she was reading aright. Gone with no other
farewell than these brief cold lines ! When her mind took
in the truth, it brought a swift, overpowering sense of
shame. The hypothetical case she had proposed to Violet
became a personal question : Was it not disgraceful for a
girl to give her heart unasked ? And she had done this :
he had never cared for her never ; she had deceived her-
self from first to last ! Even the dictates of ordinary
friendship would have prevented a departure so cruelly
abrupt without so much as taking the trouble to traverse
the corridor which led to her studio, where, during the
whole of that long day, each time she heard a sound, her
heart had leaped up with an eager hope that it was his step
the moment of reconciliation over their foolish quarrel
arrived at length each time the disappointment bringing
a sharper pang and dread.
It seemed to Mary this dreadful feeling of humiliation
must kill her ; she could not live beneath its crushing
weight. After a while the relief of tears was granted ;
then followed a long hour of stormy meditation, at the
close of which her lacerated pride struggled for some means
of defense against its burden. Could she throw the whole
blame upon her own vanity and weakness ? A thousand
incidents connected with the past months came up each
recollection a fresh torture, but offering a firmer conviction
which at least possessed a gleam of comfort for her wounded
self-respect.
He had helped her own heart to deceive her : no man
could have given plainer assurances of interest nay, affec-
tion than he had done. If he had never cared for her, he
was a trifler that meanest of God's creatures, a male co-
quette to grieve for whom would be degradation indeed !
The very harshness of her thoughts brought a reaction in
his favor made her as eager to find excuses for him as she
310 GONE!
had been to seek them in behalf of her own dignity. He
vain, false, capable of playing at devotion, of trying to win
a woman's heart to amuse an idle hour, and flinging the gift
aside as carelessly as he might a broken ornament when his
pleasure in the game ended ?
No a thousand times, no ! If he were false, neither
earth nor heaven held aught of truth in all their round.
He was noble and good, a king among men. She flung the
assertion at her soul with passionate defiance ; it seemed to
her almost as if she were taking his part against some
enemy who had basely slandered him.
She caught up the letter and read it anew, slowly, weigh-
ing each sentence, each word. She would be calm ; she
would exercise her reason ; behave as she might if some
suffering girl had come to her for counsel. What did that
letter mean ? It was the farewell of a man who went away
because he deemed himself unappreciated, uncared for.
That was what it meant : she should feel and say it, had
the epistle been addressed to another ; she would say it
now.
She studied the page again and again ; pored over the
blotted lines with eyes so eager that they seemed to acquire
a kind of mici'oscopic power, which gradually made out a
word here and there till at last the entire sentence became
legible. What did it read ? At first she hardly dared to
credit the evidence of her own sight, but each new exami-
nation rendered the phrases and their significance clearer,
more decisive, waking joy and thankfulness in her soul.
She whispered the sentence to herself ; she gained cour-
age to repeat it aloud :
" You will have become so serenely content in your new
happiness that my heart will not even dare to beat too
quickly in your presence."
What did that mean ? Why, he loved her he loved
her and had believed her heart given to another. The
joy of this assurance was succeeded by fears as terrible in
their way as her humiliation had been. He had gone, and
she could send no warning of his error after him. Years
might elapse ere they met, and she must sit passive, help-
less, amid the long night of separation ; her hands bound ;
her will fettered. She was a woman, and could not speak ;
a woman, and so must let her heart and his moan on in the
dark, and leave unuttered the single word which would
GONE! 311
end their pain be the wand-touch of the fairy that should
break the spell of the cruel magician Fate.
The thought was insupportable. Who could tell how
long before destiny would permit him to come again
within her reach ? He might die and never learn the
truth. Oil, she would think no more ; she should certainly
lose her senses under the horror of those possibilities.
She started up ; she must get away from herself ; she
could endure solitude no longer. There were to be guests
at the house that night ; Violet had told her so. She
would for once break her rule of seclusion, and beg her
cousin's permission to join the party. Oh, no matter what
anybody thought ! The need of human companionship,
distraction for her mind, was so strong that it completely
conquered the overstrained ideas of decorum and propriety
wherewith she hedged io her girlish impulsiveness at ordi-
nary seasons.
She ran into her bedroom, carefully bathed her eyes,
rearranged her hair, stood before the glass, studying to
give her features an expression of composure, with an
earnestness which would have been ludicrous, except for
the motive that influenced her the necessity of guarding
her trouble even from Violet's lovingly watchful regard.
Presently a knock sounded on the door of her boudoir ;
she had known that her cousin would come to say good-
night before going to receive her guests. She hurried back
into the adjoining chamber, and saw Violet standing on the
threshold. What comparison would serve for her loveli-
ness ? W T ell as Mary knew the face, its beauty struck her
so forcibly that, even amid her preoccupation, she began to
search for similitudes.
" Ah, mouse, I felt sure you would be up still ! Naughty
mouse, do you know it is almost midnight?" called Violet,
" And yet here comes the sunrise that is it!" exclaimed
Mary, moving forward with wide-open eyes of admiration.
" She is daft, this mouse," returned Violet ; pushed her
laughingly back, and entered. " What sort of ridiculous
dream did I rouse you out of that you begin talking in
Eastern metaphors ?"
" I meant you ; I was trying for a comparison," said
Mary. " Oh, good gracious ! do you know how beautiful
you are ?"
312 GONE!
Violet gave her an odd glance, went up to a mirror, and
regarded her own reflection for a few seconds in silence.
I have tried vainly to give you an idea of the woman's
beauty, to make you feel it ; so any attempt to describe her
as she looked to-night, with her ordinary loveliness height-
ened tenfold, is worse than useless.
Violet had suffered agonies during the entire evening
from that struggle which now seemed so familiar, so old,
between her troublesome heart and her relentless will, and
the poor tired heart had cried out bitterly against the
cruel'ty of its tyrant.
Her box had been crowded ; never perhaps in the whole
course of those ten years had men in every look and word
rendered her power over them so evident. And among the
troop of admirers Aylmer came, and Violet said to herself :
" I could make the dream of those brief weeks a reality ;
I could make him love me."
" Make !" oh, that word ! it brought back a realization
of what would inevitably happen if she stooped to such
baseness. These graces which were so potent must fade,
oh, so soon ! and then ? No ; let her at least preserve her
feminine dignity. And Mary, Mary ! Ah, there stood his
destiny ; this pure, gentle-eyed maiden, with the promise
of beauty in her face. An honest woman might have the
right to sacrifice herself, but she must not allow the man
she loved to throw away his future ; nay, must prove that
she was a woman, not a fiend, by preventing her factitious
charms from casting a single shadow across the happiness
of this girl who had a whole life before her a whole life
while she, Violet, was at the end of hers, since at the end of
her youth.
On reaching home she had hurried to Mary's room, to
strengthen her resolve by the sight of that sweet counte-
nance the sound of that loving voice for a score of devils
seemed trying to rouse her hatred against the child who
had unwittingly helped to render her humiliation complete.
Mary stood at the other end of the chamber and watched
her, wondering why all precious gifts should have been
lavished upon this one woman ; then in her turn felt hope-
lessly wicked because she could for an instant grudge aught
to this radiant creature, whose noble qualities of mind and
heart exceeded even her beauty.
She suddenly recollected the open letter. Ah, if she
GONE! 313
had left it where it lay, allowed Violet to see it, to ques-
tion, discover the truth, how different might have been the
result of later events ! But it was not to be.
" Have your belongings got the thousandth part of
a fraction out of place, Miss Prim ?" Violet asked, as she
turned away from the mirror.
" I'll burn them all if they don't keep in order !" cried
Mary, burying the note under a mausoleum of heavy books.
"It is time for me to go," sighed Violet ; "the people
must have begun to arrive. I wish they would not be
foolish enough to accept one's foolish invitations. I want
to stop here. It is a comfort to have a glimpse of such an
image of peace Hypatia in early girlhood ; Lady Jane
Grey at her studies ; whatever grave sweet heroine you
like best. You see I can manage compliments as well as
yourself. Any way, you are a darling, and I love you."
" I am nothing of the sort !" exclaimed Mary. " I'm a
nasty discontented silly thing but oh, do love me all the
same !"
" Useless, I suppose, to beg you to go down stairs ?"
"I was about to ask you if I might."
" Ask me if you might \ Don't be an exasperating
mouse ! Haven't I exhausted my powers of rhetoric, time
and again, in trying to persuade you not to stay shut up
here ? I would not, of course, urge you to go out ; but it
is nonsense to hide yourself when we have guests. People
will begin to think I keep you a prisoner from jealousy of
your pretty face."
" Oh, that is highly probable !"
"Anything monstrous is always probable in this ridicu-
lous old town. But come into the salon to-night, just for
once."
" My dress "
" Won't answer, my little recluse. Put on that white
gown you scolded me for sending home the other day.
Quick ! no need to call Clarice ; I'll help you. If I leave
you to reflect, you'll not follow. I know your tricks and
ways, you artful pigeon, you !"
" But you will be late "
" Suppose I arn ? The women won't notice my absence,
and the men will be the more pleased to see me because
they have been kept waiting."
14
314 GONE!
" Miss Bronson would scold you well for instilling such
sentiments into ray youthful mind," cried Mary.
" Heavens, yes ! she would declare that nay conscience
had become ossified, my heart petrified, my better feelings
acidulated, my modesty carbonized, and my soul oh, that
she gave up long ago, and could not find a new anathema
to heap upon it ! But hurry, hurry we are wasting pre-
cious time !"
In a few minutes Mary had exchanged her somber
black attire for a gossamer robe of some Indian fabric,
cunningly wrought with wreaths of white flowers ; here
and there a scarlet poppy, emblem of mourning, inter-
spersed among the leaves.
" I want a ribbon for your hair ; oh, here is one.
We'll leave it down your back. What a mass of waves !
Oh, you pretty creature, just look at yourself. Would you
recognize Miss Mouse ?" cried Violet.
All girls who will one day be beautiful have instants
when a forecast of womanhood's perfection brightens them
immaturely. Such a moment had come to Mary ; she was
positively lovely. Laurence Aylmer would see her. Violet
remembered that remembered it with a spasm of pain
which did not hinder her feeling glad. Yes, glad ! He
would be more thoroughly convinced than ever, now,
whither his heart and his happiness really pointed ; no
further possibility of doubt ; no added hesitations to help
her own silly heart to plead against the truth.
" Come," she said, in a feverish haste which Mary was
too excited to notice ; " come !"
" May I talk ? may' I be gay ? You won't think it
wrong ?" the girl demanded, her cheeks like roses, her eyes
sparkling with an unaccustomed brilliancy.
Violet stopped short, pushed her back, and stared at
her.
" Good heavens, the child looks like me !" she fairly
groaned ; then laughed aloud. " Envy, my dear. I was
afraid of your making me seem old."
" Old !" repeated Mary, and echoed her cousin's laugh
in a tremulous way, with an expression in her face which
made Violet think :
" She has been jealous. That was what ailed her. Oh,
my poor child, don't be afraid ! I'll not put my shadow
between you and the light between him and the future."
GONE! 315
Then aloud :
" Don't you let my dangerous foreigners get possession
of you. I'd as soon permit some black insect to touch one
of my white rosebuds. I shall tell Mr. Aylrner to take
charge of you."
And the hand she held quivered. Mary was thinking
that all the promise of her girlhood could not give her what
Violet had in her prime the positive certainty of being
loved.
" I wish Warner was here. He should make a sketch of
you," continued Violet, her vagrant fancy calling up the
young man's countenance as she had that morning seen it
worn and weary with pain.
The opportunity Mary wanted.
" Oh, didn't you know ?" she cried. " He has gone to
Greece set off so suddenly he had no time for farewell
visits. He sent me two such lovely sketches as a good-by
present !"
And Violet thought :
" Sent his broken heart, and she could not even find a
spare corner to hide the fragments !"
" It is too bad he has gone ; but I suppose he has work
to do," continued Mary.
" Work enough !" said Violet. " Well, come along.
Les absents ont toujours tort he must share the ordinary
fate."
And now they were at the salon-doors, and Eliza Bron-
son hurried forward, saying :
" There is no order in this house none ! Violet, crowds
troops of people are here, and what excuse could I make
for you ? Why, Mary Danvers, I thought you were in bed !
Oh, very well ! You both know what you mean, I sup-
pose. For my own part, I do not in the least."
And she stood aside with a resigned air to let them pass,
suddenly remembering that in her desire to overwhelm the
paii- she had terribly exaggerated the number of guests ;
but, after all, that was the fault, too, of those misguided
creatures !
316 CHRISTENED CIRCE.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHRISTENED CIKCE.
jT least a score of guests were gathered in the
salons when Violet and her cousin entered
quite a throng, it seemed to Mary, and so few
persons known to her that she began to feel a
little shy and almost wish she had remained in
her own room, until the recollection of what reason she had
for the first time to fear solitude brought back her courage.
Engrossed as the hostess was from the moment of her
appearance, she did not forget to introduce several agreeable
people to her charge, and established her under the wing
of an elderly lady, certain that if confided to Miss Bronson's
chaperonage, the spinster in her present mood would, with
the best possible intentions, torment the girl nearly to
death in a very brief space of time.
Madame Magnoletti came in, leaning on Laurence Ayl-
mer's arm. That gentleman paid his respects to Violet,
stood for a few instants among the little group which sur-
rounded her, then hurried away to where Mary sat. Violet
watched him go, and told herself it was well. The pretty
child would have her happiness. This seeking her the in-
stant his duty to his hostess permitted, showed very clearly
his state of mind. At the same moment the Duchess da
Rimini was announced, but Violet failed to observe that
Aylmer hastened towards her cousin like a man in search
of some haven of refuge as Giulia appeared, resplendent in
a costume of amber satin and black, which set off her dark
beauty to the greatest advantage.
" My dearest Violet," she said, as Miss Cameron ad-
vanced to meet her, " nobody except you could have per-
suaded me out to-night ; but I could not refuse your en-
treaties."
And Violet was in her own house could neither resent
the familiarity nor refute the possibility of having entreated
Giulia da Rimini to grace her rooms ! She had to endure
the enthusiastic greetings, the utterance of her Christian
name (hearing which for the first time from those lips made
her feel she would hate the sound of it henceforth), the
CHRISTENED CIRCE. 317
pretense of an intimacy which had never existed ; for Giu-
]ia was too astute to lose this opportunity of assuring all
beholders that she and the courted heiress were as affection-
ately frank in their mutual attachment as two sisters could
have been.
" O Mercury, god of craft !" Lady Harcourt whispered
in Nina Magnoletti's ear. "Giulia is tremendous! We
have never appreciated that woman ; she is more than a
match for ns all."
"Don't insult the sex by giving her the title !" returned
Nina. " Some Frenchman said the wife Cain found in the
land of Nod was a wild animal with a woman's face. My
dear, Giulia is her lineal descendant."
" Or the original article, who has escaped the Deluge,
and has lived down to our days," said her ladyship. " But
we need not be severe upon her ; it is amusing to watch
her maneuvers, since, as you said the other day, she can-
not interfere with any of us."
Could she not ? Nina's own boast struck her like an
evil omen. And there was Carlo now, greeting the creature
in his indolent, graceful fashion, and Giulia holding him
fast, while she kept her place beside Miss Cameron, and
continued those araical demonstrations which caused their
recipient's blood to boil.
There had been signs this season in the social atmos-
phere which warned the duchess (keen as other savage
creatures to scent danger) that her position was less secure
than of old. She could no longer venture, in spite of her
audacity, to despise the verdict of a person so important as
Miss Cameron ; and Violet should give her the support she
needed. She should, even if it were necessary to come to
some open bargain, tell the American that Carlo and Nina
should suffer if she did not consent. Still the duchess
hoped to avoid this extreme measure, which, though it
were to prove a temporary triumph, would be a burning of
her vessels that Violet might turn to her disadvantage later,
for Giulia's acutencss prevented her committing the blunder
ordinary humanity makes, of underrating an enemy's
abilities. Too wise to push her victory beyond safe limits,
the signora moved away before Miss Cameron's powers of
endurance were entirely exhausted, but that they had been
tried to the furthest point Nina's knowledge of her friend
enabled her to see, well as that lady disguised her emotions.
318 CHRISTENED CIRCE.
" I know what you are thinking," she whispered, going
up to Violet and making a pretense of adjusting the orna-
ments in her hair. " Oh, don't lose patience ; you are
behaving like an angel."
" I confess that if I could have the satisfaction of box-
ing Carlo's ears it would be a great relief," returned Miss
Cameron, unable to resist laughing, exasperated as she was.
" You will have a little respite," said Nina ; " he has to
go to Perugia for a couple of days. I am going with him.
we start in the morning. His agent is dead, and he must
attend to matters on the estate."
" Perhaps you can find some means of restoring his
reason when you get him to yourself for awhile," rejoined
Violet.
" I I hope so ; I am not sure. Oh, I think I have
a little secret," Nina whispered. " Don't ask me any ques-
tions yet."
Violet was clasping one of her bracelets, and did not
notice the vivid blush which accompanied the words.
" Ii you have," said she, " I really think you might
have tried its efficacy instead of forcing me to endure that
woman's unparalleled insolence to-night. Oh, Nina, I can-
not do it again !"
" I couldn't I'm not certain I "
Violet did look at her now as she uttered these broken
ejaculations.
" What ails you ?" she asked. " You told me to-day
you were humbled, and here you look as blooming and
happy as if neither cards nor Giulia da Rimini even
existed."
" I'll tell you when we come back, if there is anything
to tell. Oh, Violet, I should be the happiest woman
alive !"
Miss Cameron gazed at her in wonder.
" Whatever can you mean ?" she began, but Nina inter-
rupted her.
" Hush ! here comes Carlo. Oh, if everything else
fails, you might turn his head if you would only take the
trouble," she said, beginning to laugh, just to hide the
pleasurable agitation that reference to her new, blissful
mystery had occasioned.
" What a charming proposal !" returned Violet.
" I don't care ; he couldn't resist if you really tried.
QHEI8TENED CIRCE. 319
Oh, I do not exaggerate ; that woman means to have
revenge. Carlo has told me everything at last he has lost
fearfully since they got up that club. You will not desert
me?"
" Of course I will not. Why, Nina, there is nothing I
would not do for your sake ; surely you know it !"
" Of course I do, bless you ! Only only don't be
hard on Carlo : he is so goodindeed he is."
" I can forgive him a great deal while you say that,
Nina ; but indeed this growing insanity for gaming must
be stopped."
" Yes ; we must find some means ! Ah, Giulia has cap-
tured him again ; she'll carry him off to the card-table."
"But they both know that high play will not be
tolerated in my house : I have so often openly declared
that the person who tried it would not be invited a second
time."
" Oh, it is so easy to arrange that ; each hundred francs
in reality stands for thousands. Do watch him to-night !
It seems to me that if we can only tide over these next few
weeks we can save him. I have a dread of something
terrible ; it has haunted me for days. What a fool I am
to get excited ! Only call him away from her do ! Oh,
tease him, coax him, flirt with him anything, but don't let
him suspect I have told you of his losses."
Miss Cameron made a little sign with her fan to Carlo ;
he took advantage of some person's addressing the duchess
to escape.
" He would as soon think of flirting with his sister,"
continued Violet.
" Well, he would and he wouldn't. He admires you so
immensely, that you could turn his head if you chose."
" Nina, we should both regret it if we were to employ
any unworthy means, even for the end we have in view."
" As if any other would answer with men !" groaned
the marchesa. " Oh, if he should lose a]l that legacy, we
must go and stop heaven knows where perhaps in
Russia ! I looked to that money to get us out of all diffi-
culties. I did not think he would be mad enough to risk it.
It was to have been invested weeks ago."
" What are you two plotting ?" asked Carlo, as he
sauntered up to them.
320 CHRISTENED CIRCE.
" Nina has just been telling me you propose eloping with
her," said Violet. "I think it very shabby of you."
"It is rather infra dig. to run off with one's own wife,"
returned he, smiling at that lady. " But, upon my word,
the small fairy looks so pretty to-night, I may think myself
an enviable fellow."
Nina's perfect serenity under the avowal of his losses
had roused his gratitude, and disposed him to be admiring
and tender ; and she was so "bewitching with the bright
flush still on her cheeks, and the half-startled expression
still in her eyes, that he inwardly vowed no man ever pos-
sessed a treasure of equal worth.
"I cannot ruin my reputation by talking in public to
my legal tyrant, even if he does soothe my vanity by such
very complimentary fibs !" cried Nina, and went laughing
away.
" She really is adorable," said Carlo, looking after her.
" If only she belonged to somebody else ! But be good
enough not to irritate me by praising another woman
even her. I am in an exacting mood, and can allow noth-
ing to interfere with your entire devotion to me," said
Violet, playfully.
" Ah, you want to make use of me for some purpose !
Well, I am always at your service only you might tell me
the motive of such sudden amiability."
" You rudest of creatures ! Is this my reward for
showing that your fascinations move me ?"
" I am a huge goose, no doubt ; but not a big enough
one to believe that. Who is the man you want to punish ?"
" Oh, you infidel !"
" Tell me, and I'll help in any way : make love to you,
if you like."
"Thanks, you are too good."
" Well, appear to do so, to any extent only confess."
" I confess nothing ; but you are my captive for this
evening."
" The most willing one woman ever found," said he.
But this style of badinage with a married man the
husband of her friend this slight show of following
Nina's counsels was too distasteful to Violet ; she could
not continue it. Nothing but unpleasantness could come
from any disturbing of the brotherly and sisterly terms on
'which they had always been, by any approach to coquetry
CHRISTENED CIRCE. 321
on her part, even though Carlo perfectly understood that it
was a pretense.
"There is no reason why I should not tell you my real
motive," she said more gravely. "I do not like gaming in
my house. I know, if you refuse to play, the others will
refrain too, in spite of the Duchess da Rimini, who is
never happy without cards in her hand. Nina told me
only a few days ago you had been very wise this winter,
so you will not mind leaving baccarat alone this evening to
gratify me."
" Of course I will," Carlo replied, laughing consciously
a little ashamed to recollect what proofs of wisdom he
had given, but relieved from a momentary fear that Nina
had betrayed his folly to their friend. " By the way, it is
the first time this winter I have met the fascinating duchess
here."
" Oh, we never did more than exchange civilities at
rare intervals," Violet replied carelessly, afraid that he
might suspect something in regard to her reason for invit-
ing the woman. " I do not like her, and she returns the
compliment with interest."
" She adores you, she says."
" It is kind of her even to say it. Adore her and save
me the trouble if you will, only don't let her make my
rooms a gaming salon, please."
" Oh, she is better employed," said Carlo. "I notice
she rather avoids cards before Aylmer he has a prejudice
against women's gambling."
The marchese was sorry as soon as he had uttered the
heedless speech ; although irritated with Laurence for his
apparent intimacy with the duchess, he felt most anxious
to keep Miss Cameron from sharing his suspicions, and up-
braided his own stupidity for speaking.
Violet followed the direction of his glance, and saw
Aylmer standing beside Giulia da Rimini. She was talk-
ing eagerly, and he listening with every appearance of in-
terest. The words in the duchess's note flashed across
Violet's mind, and the displeasure, the sensation of doubt
in regard to him which they had caused her, came back
with redoubled force as she noted his deferential attitude.
She changed the conversation, and Carlo followed her
lead, yet he felt certain that she was annoyed by the very
14*
322 CHRISTENED CIRCE.
apparent state of matters, and now he reviled Aylmer's
stupidity more heavily than he had done his own.
But gallant as Aylmer's behavior appeared to lookers-
on, it proved far from satisfactory to the duchess. She
had come hither exulting in the hopes which his words and
conduct had roused, and to her astonishment he showed no
disposition to follow up the advantage offered by her con-
cession of the morning. This return to his old obduracy
roused her to wrath so hot that she comprehended it would
not be difficult for him to change her love to virulent
hatred, although, paradoxical as it sounds, the conscious-
ness only deepened the spell he had unwittingly cast over
her fancy. She saw how difficult he found it to confine his
attention to the recital of some fresh wrongs she had be-
gun pouring into his ear ; saw how his eyes involuntarily
wandered towards Violet Cameron, eloquent with a ten-
derness which shallow observers might deem the effect of
her own presence. But the duchess was not to be de-
ceived, and she set her teeth hard together behind the
smile which softened her lips, mentally vowing in some
way to bring matters to a crisis before the evening ended.
" What a convenience friendship is !" she exclaimed a
little vent for her anger she must have. " Oh, you need
not try to look inquiringly ; you know what I mean ! La
belle Cameron may be intimate with Carlo to any extent
only another form of showing her affection for Nina !"
The duchess had never before spoken a slighting word
against Violet in Aylmer's hearing. He was furious at her
suggestion, yet in a mood to be troubled : only this very
day some vague hint of the rumors so artfully spread by
Giulia and the Greek had reached his ears. Though he
would not have insulted Miss Cameron by admitting it to
his own thoughts, his loathing for this woman by his side
gave him, when in her society, harsh opinions of her whole
sex. Could Violet stoop even to the most distant appear-
ance of a flirtation with a married man ?
He stopped short in the question shocked with him-
self so angered against the duchess that he could not resist
saying :
"I beg your pardon. I know you are jesting ; but they
are both old friends. One never can tell what harm an idle
speech like that might do."
The man lived who dared to read a lesson to her Giu-
CHRISTENED CIRCE. 323
lia ! Her fingers positively quivered with eagerness to
smite him full in the mouth with the fan they held. She
could not speak for an instant ; he stood silent, unable to
regret his words. She had tormented him so much of late
that he wished she might take sufficient offense at his auda-
city to end their acquaintance on the spot-
But the duchess restrained her rage, put up her fan to
hide any tell-tale revelations in her face, and said :
" Thanks for reproving me ! Ah, you are a real friend !"
" Pray do not suppose I could be guilty of the imperti-
nence," returned he, forced into offering excuses by the
way she received his speech.
" It was a favor intentional or not," she said. " It is
not like me to say such things. I am nervous, irritable to-
night. Ah, I suffer try to pity instead of blaming me."
" Certainly I should not take that liberty," he exclaimed.
" It is a privilege of friendship," she replied, in her soft-
est tones, " and you promised to be my friend. You do not
regret that promise you do not mean to recall it ?"
What could he answer except to give such polite assur-
ance as his unwilling lips were able to frame ?
" Oh, I know you did not," she continued. " You are
too good and kind to leave me utterly alone in the dark.
How should I have lived during these past weeks but for
your sympathy ? My whole heart goes out in gratitude
oh, believe that ; tell me you believe it !"
He felt the situation as absurd as it was unpleasant ; but
he could not escape could only try to turn the matter off
with a jesting compliment.
" Gratitude for so little ; oh, duchess, what a huge word
to apply !"
" Do not laugh," she said, " do not seek to stifle your
real feelings or mine under an attempt at persiflage. I can-
not bear it to-night ; I am too excited, too suffering."
Their real feelings ! great heavens, what did she mean ?
Nothing, of course ; merely an exaggerated Southern figure
of speech.
" This room is oppressive, I can't breathe," she added.
" Take me out in search of a little air. Let me have a mo-
ment to recover myself ; talking of these fresh troubles has
unnerved me."
Nothing remained for him but to offer his arm, and lead
her away. Lady Harcourt and her great ally Sabakiuo
324 IN THE SORCERESS'S TOILS.
watched them go, as they had been for some moments
watching their tete-d-tete.
When the pair disappeared, the Russian said : " The
spell works works bravely. Surely you cannot deny it
any longer."
" Man cher, I gave up denying anything when I ceased
believing anything ages ago," her ladyship replied.
" It is so great a satisfaction to find myself right," he
said, laughing out of the recklessness which was so strong
an element in his character, that the most solemn or the
most tragic events of human life struck him from their lu-
dicrous aspect, even when matters which really affected his
feelings. " I am as proud of having christened her Circe
as if my choice of the title had bestowed her sorceress's
gifts upon her."
" Oh, they might be very slight, and still serve to turn
the men of this generation into swine. Giulia must work
harder and stranger transformations than that to prove
her right to the name," reforted Lady Harcourt, more bit-
terly than she often spoke ; or, to be correct, with an
earnestness which she seldom put into her calmly-cynical
remarks upon humanity.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
IN THE SORCERESS'S TOILS.
HE duchess showed no inclination to cease her
wanderings ; they passe'd through several
salons, and reached the great ball-room, which
was not thrown open to-night. Here Aylmer
had to obey the motion of her hand upon his
arm ; they traversed the corridor, and entered a suite of
rooms scarcely likely to be used on the occasion of so small
a party, though lights were burning therein.
In the second of these chambers the duchess sat down
upon a sofa, and motioned Aylmer to place himself beside
her.
" Now make me your explanation," she said, abruptly.
IN THE SORCERESS'S TOILS. 325
" My explanation ?" he repeated.
"Yes ; I had no time to ask for it this morning. Admit
that I was very good-natured to grant your request without
your giving any real reason for one so extraordinary."
" Did I give none ?" he asked, wondering what possible
motive he could assign, since of course he could not tell the
facts.
" Those were not reasons," she replied. " You declared
in the most rebellious fashion that you would not come if
Signer Dimetri did ; so I sacrificed the unfortunate feliow,
who is dying to present his homage to the fascinating
heiress. Come, was it jealousy where she was concerned
which made you so determined I should not bring
him ?"
He must say something ; he could not appear an ass ;
but oh, how he hated the woman at this juncture, and ana-
thematized his own soft-hearted ness for ever having felt a
moment's sympathy with her troubles !
" You are well aware that no man is likely to remember
any other woman when in your society," he said.
" Am I to believe th*at ?" she asked, in a low voice, in
which a sudden tremulousness became perceptible.
There are positions which absolutely force a man to
talk nonsense, else get up and run away a virtuous pro-
ceeding which, it must be confessed, even the authority of
patriarchal example does not render easy, so Aylmer now
could do no less than murmur :
" Can you doubt it ?"
For once, too, his manner, which women found so
charming, proved a downright misfortune. He really
could not, with his pale face and mournful eyes, bend
towards a lady to ask her if she would have a cup of tea,
without unconsciously looking so that any bystander, not
hearing his words, would have sworn he must be whisper-
ing a speech that went at least to the very verge of a
declaration.
So now, though in his secret soul wishing the duchess in
Jericho, his " Can you doubt it ?" was accompanied by a
glance which, while he feared it would express his bore-
dom, seemed only sad ; and the duchess, believing that the
time of her triumph had arrived, was not the woman to let
it pass unemployed from any foolish feminine delicacy or
shame.
32G ZZV THE SORCERESS'S TOILS.
11 Yes," she said, " I do believe it ; at least, you see, I
am not offended."
" Would to God you were !" thought Aylmer.
The duchess held out her hand. There was nothing
possible on his part except to take it to bow over the
fingers, too all the while with a secret shiver of dread, a
premonition that an ill-natured destiny would lead Violet
Cameron within sight ; and I fear that he cursed the Italian
in his heart as his moustache brushed her hand, instead of
his lips fastening on its whiteness with the feverish energy
which would have been (at least, according to the lady's
ideas) befitting the occasion.
But he did not speak, therefore she must.
" Aylmer," she said, " I thought we were friends."
" I trust we are," he replied.
" You would -be more frank if you considered me your
friend," she said. "You are reserved mysterious !"
"Mysterious I?"
A sudden perception of the absurd side of the predica-
ment made him long to laugh again.
" Yes ! You have some weight on your mind some
trouble. I have seen it for weeks."
Pier witch's eyes had penetrated his secret : she was
going to speak of Violet. He could not bear that he
really could not. His reticence and delicacy went far be-
yond that of ordinary men, who seem ready to pour out
their love-stories to the first comer with a frankness as in-
compatible with deep feeling as it is with manly dignity.
Except in the case of the professor, to whom he was bound
by ties which rendered their relations like those of father
ar^d son rather than of common friendship, Aylmer had
never bestowed a word of confidence upon the people with
whom he was most intimate Nina and Carlo ; and they
displaying a tact which one could wish less rare, had re-
frained from any allusion to his secret, whether gravely or
with the misplaced jests one's allies are apt to indulge un-
der such circumstances.
" You will not speak you will not trust me ?" she
asked, bending on him the softest luster of her eyes, to
whose very open revelations the hurry of his thoughts left
him still utterly blind.
He could not let her go further ; in his present irritated
IN THE SORCERESS'S TOILS. 327
mood it would have seemed a positive profanation to allow
her to take that dear name upon her lips.
"There are things of which a man cannot speak," he
said quickly, his voice tremulous with emotion.
The duchess caught the tremor, but naturally misinter-
preted its cause.
lie had forgotten wisdom and Miss Cameron's wealth :
brain and fancy were so dizzied by her spells that he could
no longer restrain his feelings ; it needed now but a word
of encouragement from her, and he would pour out the tale
of his passion and its struggles.
" There is nothing he need keep back from a real
friend," she answered, " if that friend be a woman. Have
I not said ? Even though it be .a secret which she knows
ought not to reach her ears, her sympathy her her tender-
ness will prevent displeasure. Tell me your trouble,
Aylmer."
She positively would not comprehend even so plain a
refusal as that which he had given. Then he would tell
her outright that he had a secret, but it was too precious
to name ; she could only do him one favor never to allude
to it again.
"Silent?" she continued. "Ah, but when a knight
wears a lady's favor he must obey her behests ! See this
compels obedience."
She took a flower from her hair, and, with quivering
fingers, adjusted it in the button-hole of his coat ; her
other hand dropped upon his ; her head bent so low that
to any person standing near it would have seemed actually
resting on his shoulder.
On the instant, before Aylmer had even leisure to take
in the new thought which the woman's utter abandon,
roused in his mind, there was a sound at the end of the
room behind a mass of plants, like the flutter of a covey of
Yirds suddenly disturbed, and Mary Danvers appeared,
white with an excitement made up of indignation and
horror.
" I couldn't help seeing you !" she cried, her French
sounding broken and difficult in her passion. " I didn't
hear what you said oh, I am sure I didn't want to watch !
I I-
She broke down, gasping for breath, regarding Aylmer
with eyes of tiery contempt. The duchess drew back the
328 IN THE SORCERESS'S TOILS.
hand that lay on his, lifted her head, and hid her face be-
hind her handkerchief in pretended trouble, but there was
triumph in her heart : at least she had robbed her hated
rival ! If he had never told his love to Violet he could
not explain this scene ; if he had, she would not believe
his attempts at exculpation. For the moment, in the
savage joy of the thought, she forgot the risk of exposure
she ran in case this girl and Miss Cameron did not guard
her secret between them.
Aylmer sat quite still. He comprehended what mean-
ing this scene must have, even to those inexperienced
eyes. He was positively stunned by the swift-rushing con-
sciousness that every hope was over. The duchess had
wrecked his life.
And Mary had got her breath back, and was exclaiming :
"It's it's no good for me to make excuses. I didn't
stop there to listen. I I thought every moment you
would leave the room ; and and, I didn't want you to
know to know "
" Go away !" the duchess interrupted in a low tone to
Aylmer. "Let me speak to this foolish child. Go !"
He rose mechanically ; but Mary cried out, transfixing
him with another glance of wrath and horror, which came
like a fresh warning of his doom :
" I understand Italian enough to know what she said !
You needn't go, Mr. Aylmer, I am going myself. Oh, I
wish I had been anywhere else ! and I think oh, I think
you ought to be ashamed to look me in the face," she
added, unconsciously bursting into English.
vJShe turned, and was running away. The duchess
started up, and caught her arm.
"Let me alone !" cried Mary, so nearly out of her
senses now that she did not know what she said or did ; as
she spoke, struggling wildly to free herself, but the
duchess's lithe fingers clasped her wrist like a ring of iron.
" Go, Aylmer, go !" she commanded.
A dramatic scene was more than the wretched man
could endure. He hurried out of the room, regardless of
Mary's frantic appeal :
" Make her let me loose, Mr. Aylmer ! Oh, I won't be
held like this I won't, I say !"
" Child, child !" the duchess exclaimed in French,
assuming a tragic mien of mingled pain and fright,
IN THE SORCERESS'S TOILS. 329
"standstill! Listen! Do you want to be my ruin ? Oh,
let me explain !"
"I don't want any explanations," cried Mary. "It's
none of my business, I suppose only only oh, let me
go!"
The duchess held her fast, put her disengaged hand
before her face and pretended to weep.
" Have pity," she moaned, " have pity ! I was wrong
to let him move me as he did. I I Ah, I wish I might
trust you, dear child ! you look so good so kind !"
" I don't wish to be trusted," retorted Mary, bluntly.
" I only want to get away."
" I have suffered so," the duchess hurried on. " Ah,
you are too young yet to know how women can suffer !
Do not be hard on me ! Child, child ! somewhere in your
own life a recollection of this hour may rise to haunt you
like a ghost, if you do not show me mercy. Remember,
* Such measure as ye mete shall be meted to you again.' "
To hear this woman dare to quote Scripture at this
moment sounded a horrible blasphemy in Mary's ears. It
destroyed her last shred of self-possession. She cried out
in horror, making an insane effort to stop both ears at once
with the fingers that were free.
"You will not be hard on me I know you will not,"
pursued the duchess, in artistically broken tones. "Think
what my life has been ! Married to a man I loathe a man
whose fiendish cruelty "
"I've nothing to do with your secrets," broke in Mary.
"I admit that Mr. Aylmer was wrong," pursued the
duchess, regardless alike of the girl's disclaimers and her
efforts to escape. " It was only a moment of madness.
His heart overpowered his reason."
" Oh, if you dorft let me go !"
" I cannot oh, my God, girl, I cannot !" the duchess
moaned, with an accent as full of despair as a shriek could
have been, though careful to keep her voice scarcely above
a whisper. "You must hear in order to pity in order to
uornprehend that I merit sympathy more than blame ! Oh,
he is wrong to love me, but human hearts are stronger than
human reason. You will learn that one day !"
Each word increased Mary's disgust, forced her to
harsher judgment ; for indeed, when she rushed out from
her post of unwilling observation, her interpretation of the
330 ZZV THE SORCERESSES TOILS.
scene was not founded upon such evil grounds as Giulia
supposed. It centered almost wholly upon the fact that
Aylmer was disloyal to Violet. But every syllable which
fell from the woman's lips opened her listener's mind more
and more to the signification which would have been patent
to an oFder person at a glance.
" I should think a married woman would be ashamed to
talk in that way !" exclaimed. Mary, as the duchess paused
to execute a sob of the most pathetic description. " At
least I am ashamed of you. Let me go !"
" So young, yet so hard," sighed the signora.
" A flint Couldn't be harder'!" Mary almost shouted, and
shocked the duchess, not by her assertions as to her hard-
ness, but her allowing nature to subdue conventionality far
enough to speak so loud, even when half-crazed by emo-
tion. " No, it couldn't !" added Mary, with fiercer energy,
because she felt herself on the verge of tears.
" So, so !" returned the duchess, in an altered tone and
she looked full in the girl's face with an undisguised sneer.
" After all, what does the matter amount to ? It speaks ill
for your rearing for your habits of mind, mademoiselle,
that you are so ready to think evil !"
" Oh, I can endure you better when you talk like that
than when you sob I am sure it is more your real self
speaks !" retorted Mary, anger mastering her desire to
weep.
The duchess perceived that even in her distress the girl
was too resolute to be brow-beaten ; she hastily took refuge
in a compromise between indignation and terror.
" Do you mean to betray me ?" she exclaimed. " Do
you mean to tell your garbled story to the world ?"
" I never garble anything." said Mary. " What have I
to do with telling the facts except to my cousin "
"Oh, I am lost !" broke in the duchess. "Violet Cam-
eron hates me she will never rest till everything is known."
Mary ceased her struggles.
" Violet Cimeron would not take so much trouble on
your account," said she. " My cousin will no more betray
.your secrets than I shall !"
" You promise you swear ?"
"I'll promise nothing," answered Mary, and finding her
quiet had caused the duchess's grasp to relax, she snatched
IN THE SORCERESS'S TOILS. 331
her wrist loose and was starting off, but the woman caught
her gown, moaning :
" Promise, promise !"
" If you don't let me go I'll scream till I bring all the
people in I will !" cried Mary, lifting her voice till Giulia,
perceiving she meant to carry out her threat, let her hand
drop to her side.
Mary fled with the rapidity of a lapwing, the signora
sending after her one long, low, harrowing groan, which
might have touched the girl except for the momentary
throwing off her disguise in which the lady had indulged.
Mary's keen wits told her in that instant she had had a
glimpse of the real woman the sentiment, the despair, did
not go below the surface.
Hurrying through one of the smaller salons, Mary met
Laurence Aylmer ; he had stopped there automatically
stood dull and stupefied under his misery. The girl uttered
a little cry, half of terror, half of disgust, and would have
continued her flight, but he moved directly in front of her.
He hardly knew what he meant to say, since he could
offer no explanation without putting the blame where it
belonged, and the fact that the culprit was a woman for-
bade this ; yet a wild idea crossed his mind of trying by
some means to soften Mary's indignation, and prevent her
telling Miss Cameron what she had seen.
" Miss Danvers," he said, " just one moment !"
"Let me pass !" cried she. "How dare you stop me !
I wonder even your assurance can go so far !"
" If you would take time to reflect if I might at least
ask you to be silent "
"And now you want promises," Mary broke in. "I
have none to make you, any more than I had to her."
"Only listen an instant," he said in a slow, choked
voice. " You might grant me so much. Remember, it is
not long since you promised that we should be friends."
But his very attempts to subdue his agitation seemed
acting to Mary a copying of the duchess's role an addi-
tional insult.
"I'll not hear a word !" she said. " I should think, if
you have any decency, you would leave this house, and
never attempt to set foot in it again. Shame on you
shame !"
Expostulations, entreaties, were useless ; he stepped
332 IN THE SORCERESS'S TOILS.
aside in silence. Mary rushed on with a fresh sob. Lau-
rence Aylmer heard the rustle of female garments near the
door ; before he looked, he knew who stood there. The
duchess had ruined his life, and his tongue must remain
tied, because she was a woman.
"Mary, Mary!" Miss Cameron called, stopping short
in astonishment and alarm ; then as the girl darted for-
ward, saw Giulia da Rimini peer in from the adjoining
room, and quickly vanish.
Believing that she understood everything her vague
doubts of the past hours made certainties by the unmis-
takable significance of this scene Violet turned with swift
wrath upon Laurence Aylmer, standing aloof, pale and
dumb.
His eyes met her fiery glance unfalteringly ; the face of
a marble statue could not have been more immovable than
his.
Mary flung herself into her cousin's arms ; her strength
was exhausted ; she burst into a passion of tears, sobbing,
" Tell him to go. I I am acting like a fool, but I can't
help it. Oh, I shall die if he stays a moment longer ;
make him go !"
" May I ask you to leave me with my cousin ?" Violet
said, in a cold, ceremonious tone, which only deepened the
effect of her anger. At the instant she again caught sight
of the duchess peering in at the door, and Violet's wrath
rose to such a height that she could not keep back the
words which sprang to her lips they uttered themselves
before she knew she was speaking : "I will bid you good-
night, Mr. Aylmer."
He gave one start, then stood motionless ; his eyes on
her face still ; a wondering incredulity in his countenance,
such as a man might wear when receiving an insult so
deadly that at first his mind refused to accept its reality.
Violet comprehended what she had done absolutely
turned him out of her house ; but a half-born, frightened
penitence died beneath the convulsive clasp of Mary's
arms the agony of Mary's voice as it moaned in her ear :
" Make him go make him go !"
Laurence Aylmer straightened himself like a person
struggling against the effect of a powerful physical blow ;
he stepped forward ; his eyes burned into Violet's with a
fire which surpassed that in hers ; as he passed hei-, he
EACH BLUNDERS. 333
bowed his head, saying, "Good-night, Miss Cameron," and
was gone. He walked through the corridor as if treading
the deck of a ship in a storm ; the floor seemed to heave
beneath his feet, the walls to waver to and fro ; a roar like
the surge of billows de^cned his ears ; an icy perspira-
tion, like the spray from wintry waves, bedewed his fore-
head. He reached the antechamber, a servant handed him
his coat and hat.
" Please give me your arm down stairs ; I can scarcely
stand," said the duchess's voice, close behind him.
He looked at her, and a dreadful wrath shook his soul }
a mad impulse to throttle her, as any wild animal with
cruel instincts ought to be slain, to prevent its working
further harm.
" Laurence, Laurence, give me your arm !" she repeated,
grasping it as she spoke, as if unable to support herself.
At the instant, several men came out together from the
salons, joined them, talked gayly, and, to Aylmer's relief,
hovered about the duchess as they went down stairs, even
stood beside the carnage after she had entered it.
But she found an opportunity to whisper : " To-morrow,
Laurence, to-morrow !"
He stepped back without the slightest sign of having
caught her words.
CHAPTER XXXV.
EACH BLTTNDEBS.
IOLET had no time to spend in consoling Mary,
or to reflect upon her dismissal of Aybner
she must return to her guests.
"You had better go to your room, dear,"
she said kindly ; " I will come to you as soou
as these tiresome people are gone."
" Oh, I wish I had stayed there !" said Mary. " I know
you must be vexed with me ! If I hadn't been tired and
upset I should not have behaved so like an idiot but
but
334 EACH BLUNDERS.
A sob checked her utterance in spite of all her efforts
to restrain her emotion.
" Vexed with you?" said Violet, kissing her. "Don't
think me capable of it ! Now go, dear ; somebody might
come in."
Mary hurried away, and Vioret went back to her duties.
Miss Bronson met her with a mien of sorrowful severity.
" Some of your visitors are gone without being able to
bid you adieu," she said. " This may be in keeping with
continental customs, but I own such negligence on your
part surprises me beyond expression."
"Perhaps the rest will kindly follow suit very soon,"
Violet answered, trying to laugh. " Who has been consid-
erate enough to set the example ?"
" Mr. Aylmer has just given Madame da Rimini his arm
down stairs several gentlemen "
Violet did not pause to hear the close of the sentence ;
Miss Bronson looked after her with saintly, pitying indig-
nation, and shivered in dread under a prophetic conviction
that unless she could persuade her friend to exchange that
heathen land for the refuge of Protestant climes, the mis-
guided creature's soul would be lost beyond a peradven-
ture.
It seemed an almost endless period to Violet before she
regained her liberty, but the latest loiterers departed at
length she said good-night to Eliza, and hastened towards
her own rooms. Suddenly the impatience with which she
had awaited the breaking up of the party was succeeded by
a regret that the people had not remained and so deferred
a little longer the explanation she must listen to from
Mary. The scene she had interrupted left little chance of
doubt that the suspicions in regard to Aylmer and tho
duchess for which she had so bitterly reproached herself as
a gross injustice to him, were to be verified, and worso
than all the rest was the thought of Mary's trouble. Tho
poor girl had not only to endure the ache of her wounded
heart, but the way in which her dream had been dispelled
must make the pain still harder to bear.
After Clarice had ended her ministrations and dis-
appeared, Violet sat still, hoping that Mary might have
fallen asleep, which would afford a respite until the morrow,
and give them both an opportunity to reach at least an
appearance of composure. But as she was thinking this
EACH BLUNDERS. 335
the door of the adjoining room opened, and her cousin
called, in an appealing tone :
" Do come, Violet do !"
Miss Cameron obeyed the summons without an instant's
hesitation, rendered desperate rather than courageous by a
sudden intolerable pain away down in her soul a pain
separate from her sympathy for Mary, her hot indignation
towards Aylmer so purely personal that it roused her to
rage and scorn against herself.
" I thought perhaps you were asleep, and so would not
disturb you," she said, as she entered the chamber.
"Oh, I feel as if I should never sleep again," cried
Mary, pushing her hair back from her forehead with quick,
impatient hands. She had turned the lamp low, but the
shadows falling on her face only deepened the traces left
by excitement and tears. " Sit down, Violet, please. I've
been thinking thinking. I almost made up my mind not
to tell you but I ought it would be wicked not to. "
" Tell me," said Violet, seating herself with her back to
the light.
" 1 feel oh, I don't know to express it !" exclaimed
Mary. " I feel soiled to discover that such wickedness
really exists ! I have read in books, of course I am not a
baby but actually to know that a married woman can let
a man make love to her "
She broke off with a shudder ; Violet shuddered too,
with the same overpowering sense of abasement which
any pure woman must endure when brought face to face
with sins whose existence has hitherto belonged to the rec-
ord of personally unproven facts.
"And and," continued Mary, "when one has re-
spected the man thought him so good oh, it is dread-
ful !"
Dreadful indeed ! True, the discovery that the hero to
whom her young heart had gone out was unworthy the gift,
might help the sooner to bring a cure of her sufferings, bnt
at first it would make the sharpest sting in their pangs.
Mary's words showed, however, that she did not mean to
behave like a weak, ordinary girl ; she had no mind to
pour out love-sick confessions and appeals for sympathy.
Violet felt an increased respect for a nature which, even in
this earliest, supreme agitation, retained pride and dignity
enough to hold fast to its secrets, and reflected that on her
336 EACH BLUNDERS.
own part great care must be taken to avoid any sign of
suspecting that other emotions than outraged modesty and
grief at discovering the worthlessness of a valued friend
had a share in Mary's agitation.
" I am sorry oh, so sorry !" she faltered, forced to
speak lest her silence should appear strange, but able as yet
to find no fitter speech than these commonplace ejacula-
tions of regret.
" Oh, I am sorry too ; but that doesn't mend matters
it only makes them worse !" cried Mary, almost sharply.
" If one didn't care, it would be easy enough to put it all by ;
just let them both alone for always, and never think of
them."
" And is that what must be done in any case ?" Violet
asked, with a certain maidenly hesitation which Mary
appreciated.
" Oh, I know what your voice means !" she said. " You
feel that you ought to hear, and you can't bear to listen.
Indeed, indeed, I wouldn't tell if I could help it. If it was
only what I saw, I'd try to think I was coarse suspicious
wicked only, only how could I? Oh, Violet, she had her
head on his shoulder !"
Mary put her hand before her eyes for a moment ; Violet
turned sick and cold, and sat trembling from head to foot.
"After that," she said presently, "there could be no
possibility of your accusing yourself of unjust suspicions."
The firm ring of her voice gave Mary courage ; she had
told the whole story in one abrupt speech, after trying
gradually to break her news ; she had told, and Violet had
been able to listen with perfect composure. But the blow
had gone home, Mary could not doubt ; her shrewd percep-
tion had weeks before taught her that this man was more
to her beautiful cousin than any other of his sex, and in her
quiet, reasoning fashion she had followed the line of Vio-
let's scruples and arguments against the folly of affection
(of course never dreaming she herself counted in Miss
Cameron's determined abnegation) with a perspicuity which
many women of double her age and experience would not
have shown.
The strongest tide of sympathy which Mary's eminently
just but somewhat circumscribed mind and heart had
ever felt, rushed over her in this monjent. She was the
most undemonstrative of creatures partly from shyness,
EACH BLUNDERS. 337
partly from an idea that protestations were silly and girl-
ish but the impulse which made her pause when she had
half risen with outstretched arms, eager to enfold and shel-
ter Violet, did not spring from either motive. She recol-
lected that such behavior might cause Violet the humiliation
of dreading that any human being could suppose she
required comfort ; and Mary knew the proud woman would
bear her pain unflinchingly if only she might believe it
unsuspected by others. So the girl dropped back into her
seat, and Violet thought she had been upon the point of
breaking down completely, but had checked herself in
season to restrain a confession which, however much its
utterance might relieve her for the moment, would always
afterwards remain the bitterest memory of this bitter woe.
Mary's emotions of horror and sympathetic grief sud-
denly changed to a burst of anger against the woman
through whose assistance such pain had come to Violet.
" She ought to be burned alive ! Oh, at least you will
never let her enter your house again !"
" I cannot exclude her and receive him," Miss Cameron
replied slowly, wondering a little if the girl, like so many
of her sex, was ready to seek excuses for the man by throw-
ing the onus of blame upon the sharer of his evil conduct.
"I know, Mary, that many people -even good people act
as if there was one law for men and another for women,
but I cannot do this I will not !"
"No !" cried Mary. " Oh, I hope I shall never see his
face again ! And he was a coward, too he skulked off !
And to think of her daring to hold me fast and begging
for sympathy ! She actually did ! She was so wretched,
and his tenderness had gone straight to her heart, and
and oh, I tell you, Violet, I feel soiled, degraded !"
And Mary burst into tears again.
" No wonder, dear child, no wonder !"
" When I got away from her and her dreadful confes-
sions, he met me ! I suppose he had had time to think
what to say. He was less reckless than she, and wanted
me to believe it all meant nothing but she had made that
impossible," Mary hurried on, eager to finish the revolting
details, though urged by a sense of duty to render every-
thing clear. " He said oh, never mind his words I don't
remember them !"
Her abrupt pause, her horrified face, were proofs to
15
338 EACH BLUNDERS.
Violet that the man had chosen that moment of all others
to declare his love, believing in his arrogant vanity that he
could by such avowal effectually blind the girl.
" What he said is of no consequence," Violet answered.
"No, no! But he wanted me to keep it from you
then I flamed out then you came that is all !"
" That is all !" Violet involuntarily repeated, with such
bitter significance in her tone that Mary's sobs increased.
"Oh, if I had not seen it !" she exclaimed. "Not that
he might have gone on deceiving us, but if somebody else
had gone there instead of me !"
"My dear, perhaps we should have been inclined to
doubt we cannot now. It is hard to have one's eyes
opened, but in such a case the sooner the better you feel
this?"
" Yes, if you do I mean, of course !" returned Mary
tacking on the last clause with great energy while she dried
her eyes.
" Then there is no more to be said just now," observed
Violet.
"Oh, it is no good to talk and talk nothing ever comes
of it !" cried Mary, comprehending that Violet longed to
be alone. " I am sure we ought both to be in bed it i8
fearfully late."
Violet thought the girl afraid of prolonging the conver-
sation lest she should yet betray herself, and rose at once.
The two cousins kissed each other quietly and separated.
Mary crept to her pillow, and lay there with head and
heart in a whirl of misery which made all past trouble look
small as childish griefs. It seemed actually as if an earth-
quake had desolated the world, leaving utter chaos in its
wake. Warner gone ; Aylmer treacherous ; Violet wretched
the whole combination of horrors so complete, so unex-
pected, it appeared like a dreadful dream all except the
pain that was real enough ; but it spoke volumes for
Mary's unselfishness that even in these first hours, sympathy
for her cousin was so strong that it claimed an equal place
with the personal grief which had smitten her so recently.
No tumult disturbed Violet's mind ; no feverish agita-
tion quickened her pulses ; a deathly coldness enveloped
her soul, amid which her thoughts fluttered like birds gone
astray into the depths of an Arctic winter, and freezing
slowly amid its awful chill.
EACH BLUNDERS. 339
It would have been very different to relinquish Aylmer
to Mary, believing such renunciation for their mutual hap-
piness, from losing him through the conviction of his
worthlessness. In the former case she would at least have
kept him a place in memory as her ideal of manly perfec-
tion ; but now now ! And worst of all, her weak heart
lifted its voice and moaned bitterly over its fallen idol. It
had been comparatively easy to stifle its rebellious com-
plaints while she deemed him worthy of Mary considered
it plainly a duty, for his sake, to cure that passing fancy
towards herself, and foster, by every means in her power,
his affection for this good, pure girl but it was different
now. Her ideal did not exist. The man to whom she had
given its likeness ranked among the false and vicious of his
sex ! And she had loved, him ! yes, loved him still ! She
could not deny this truth ; and so stood abased in her own
sight.
Violet did not fall asleep until after daylight ; but
though her dull, heavy slumber lasted for hours, it brought
no repose : she woke oppressed by the same sense of in-
tense physical and mental fatigue which had been her last
conscious sensation.
She rang for Clarice, who speedily appeared with the
tea-tray, and the information that the clock had struck
eleven. Violet saw a note lying on her plate. Her first
thought was that Aylmer had ventured to write with some
audacious hope of redeeming himself, even yet, in her
estimation. But Clarice said :
" Miss Mary bade me bring that letter to mademoiselle ;
she could not wait any longer."
" Has she gone out ?" Violet asked, marveling at the
girl's energy.
" Two hours ago ; in such haste to get to her work !
Truly, truly, I never saw so active a demoiselle^ she is al-
ways busy," said Clarice, shaking her head, perhaps to ex-
press doubt whether such great industry was exactly deco-
rous in a young lady.
Violet motioned the woman to leave her, and hastily
opened the billet.
" I shall not speak of what has happened unless you do,"
Mary wrote. " I am sorry I let myself betray so much ex-
citement ; but I know I did right in telling you. Please
forgive me, and be sure I love you dearly, and am very
840 HER LAST EFFORT.
grateful to you, though I have so little ability to express
what I feel, that if you were not the best and most gener-
ous woman in the world, you would very often doubt both
my affection and my gratitude."
Brief as the note was, its composition cost Mary a great
deal of trouble. She wanted to make Violet feel at ease in
her society ; certain of not being irritated and hurt by
open speech or galling allusions ; yet to leave her undis-
turbed by any suspicion of the motive which caused such
reticence.
Violet read, and thought : " The brave girl ; she goes
the right way to work to cure herself, and she will do it.
All, she is young ! They can live past everything, those
young people."
The proud woman shed a few tears in her solitude, but
they were an additional pang instead of a relief ; it was
disgraceful for her to sit and cry like some miss in her teens.
She felt harder towards Laurence Aylmer with each burn-
ing drop that fell from her eyes. This should be the end ;
she would receive neither him nor the woman again ; if
necessary, in order to avoid comments and questions, she
would leave Florence very soon. After all, perhaps this
might be her best course. A change would benefit Mary |
she could pursue her art studies in Rome or Paris, and
might find life easier when set free from the associations
which haunt a spot where one has known bitter grief, be-
coming daily and hourly reminders which help sorrow to
retain its tyrannical sway.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
HER LAST EFFORT.
]HEN Laurence Aylmer hurried away from Miss
Cameron's house, the uppermost sensation in
the chaotic whirl of his mind was a fierce indig-
nation against her ; a wondering horror mingled
therewith, if it could be really true that so dire
an insult had been heaped upon him. Absolutely turned
HER LAST EFFORT. 341
out of doors ; dismissed with cold sternness, like an imper-
tinent lackey ! It was so incredible, so unlike any slight
or injury which a gentleman could imagine ever befalling
him, that it appeared fairly a delusion. Aylrner almost
expected to wake suddenly, find himself in his own rooms,
and discover that the events of the evening existed only in
his troubled fancy.
lie wandered about the streets for hours, not re-
turning to his lodgings until chill gleams of light
warned him that day was at hand. He slept for awhile,
and dreamed of sitting beside Violet, and telling the story
of his love. Not the faintest shadow separated their souls
not a recollection of the past month's unrest, or the
night's bitter trouble, disturbed the course of that beatific
vision. Of course, when the mocking dream faded, its
contrast to the truth rendered reality more odious ; but his
first excitement had died, his anger was gone. No wonder
Miss Cameron had dealt him that verbal blow. She must
have caught Mary Danvers's passionate outbreak must
have seen the duchess peer in at the door. He had, even
amid the confusion of his faculties, likened her to some
devil incarnate, pausing to exult over its evil work.
The ruin was irremediable. Mary would describe the
whole scene to her cousin ; the incoherent appeal he had
attempted must only appear an additional proof of his
guilt. Yes, the duchess had ruined his every hope. To
tell the truth would only cover him with deeper infamy ;
Miss Cameron's verdict, and every other person's, would be
that a man capable of intimating a woman had made love
to him, was so mean, that even though he could prove his
assertion, he deserved a greater measure of contempt than
if he bore in silence the most sweeping circumstantial evi-
dence against himself.
The day passed ; he could not bear to go out to meet
people to be fretted by idle talk. He began several let-
ters to Miss Cameron, and tore them up in turn ; each
seemed more insane than its predecessor in its vague de-
mands for her merciful judgment upon an occurrence con-
cerning which he had no explanation to offer. Sometimes
he passionately upbraided her in his thoughts, and anathe-
matized his own folly for supposing that she could ever be
brought to care fur him. Had she felt the slightest tender-
ness she must have been less hasty and absolute in her con-
342 HER LAST EFFORT,
demnation. Then his mood would change, and he ad-
mitted that she was right to behave as she had ; no pure-
minded woman could have acted otherwise. Had he been
her betrothed husband, her affection might well have
stopped short of the possibility of faith in his blameless-
ness.
Late in the afternoon he rode out ; made a pretense of
dining at a little osteria miles away from Florence, and re-
turned late in the evening, having had at least the comfort
of escaping the sight of a familiar face.
A note lay on his writing-table. It was from the Signora
da Rimini. He felt inclined to tear the billet up unread ;
but that would be silly ; so he opened it, sickened by its
perfume, angry at the illegibility of the chirograph y, which
rendered much close attention necessary in order to de-
cipher the page.
" Have you forgotten that I told you I should expect
to see you to-day, dear friend? I have waited in vain, and
your failure to keep your promise seems unkind although
I will not wrong you by so harsh a word, even in my
thoughts, since you must know how great need I have of
your advice.
" Heaven only can imagine the tales that idiotic girl
may invent ! I trust to your friendship, whatever hap-
pens, since it was through my friendship for you that the
trouble arose. I need not say that I forgive you : this note
is of itself a proof."
Go near her ! Not he ! Let her say and do what she
pleased : she was powerless to harm him further. She had
ruined his life ; let her rest content with her work, and
leave him alone !
The next day, a commission which he had received from
the professor took him into the street where the odious
woman lived. He was hurrying past the gloomy old palace
without even a glance, but, as he reached the entrance, a
carriage drove up. He raised his eyes, and saw the duchess.
She leaned forward, and said : "I am back just in time to
receive your visit. Thanks for coming. I thought I should
find you on my return."
She gave him one of her sweetest smiles, but a quick
fancy crossed his mind that the great black eyes held a cer-
tain menace in their slumberous depths. He stood for a
second irresolute whether he should go in or walk on, re-
HER LAST EFFORT. 843
gardless of her speech ; saw her look back ; took a sudden
resolution and followed the landau into the courtyard. So
much the better if she were angry, and showed it by bitter
or upbraiding words ; in that case her conduct might afford
him the relief of frank, honest avowals.
By the time he traversed the quadrangle the footman
had opened the carriage-door ; the duchess was waiting.
He could do no less than offer his arm for her to descend,
and she kept her hand upon it as they mounted the stairs,
talking pleasantly the while about indifferent matters, but
with an audible tremor in her voice, intended to impress
upon him the fact that her idle remarks were only for the
benefit of the servant who followed with her wraps.
They reached her favorite salon ; the instant the door
closed behind the domestic, the duchess flung herself
into a seat, and put both hands before her face, exclaim-
ing :
" Oh, Aylmer, Aylmer, how could you leave me all this
dreary time without a word of consolation or advice !"
She had made up her mind what to do ; if any encour-
agement on her part would lead him into an exhibition of
tenderness, such encouragement should not be wanting ;
whatever his real feelings, she would take him away from
Violet Cameron if it were possible.
" Without a word," she repeated. " Oh, it was cruel,
cruel !"
Each syllable she uttered only added to his exaspera-
tion ; the very grace of her attitude only made him think
of a snake, and increased his loathing.
" I could not suppose that my coming was of the slight-
est importance, or my advice either, if I had any to offer
upon any subject," he answered, in a voice elaborately
courteous, but hard as iron.
The duchess peeped at him through her fingers ; the
face she saw was hard as the voice which had warned her
that so far her burst of emotion produced no visible effect.
"Both were of vital consequence," she said. "Think
of the position in which I am placed ; my reputation at the
mercy of that girl and her cousin ; a garbled story likely
to reach my husband's ears and I am afraid of him ; yes,
afraid !"
She still kept her hands raised, and sobbed and choked
in the most artistic manner ; but Laurence would have
344 HER LAST EFFORT.
appeared deaf and utterly indifferent, had it not been for
the obstinate expression which showed in every feature.
" Aylmer, Aylmer !" she exclaimed, piteously, as he
remained silent under her appeals.
" I can assure you of one thing," he said, slowly, " you
have no need to disquiet yourself where those ladies are
concerned."
She let her hands drop ; her eyes flashed as she asked :
"They talked with you; what did they say ? I insist
upon knowing ; I have the right, "
" Oh, it is very easy to tell," he interrupted, with a
bitter little laugh. " Miss Cameron asked me to leave her
house ; our interview began and ended with that request."
" Dio mio /" groaned the diu-hess, and hid her face
again, but this time to conceal the exultation she knew it
must betray. " Was that all ? what did you do ?"
" I found it quite enough," he replied ; " I obeyed, of
course ! I think I met you and gave you my arm down
stairs."
The duchess had found leisure to school her counte-
nance anew. She rose suddenly, hesitated for a second,
then hurried towards him, holding out both hands.
"Don't mind," she said, her voice trembling with an
eagerness which was unfeigned. " If my friendship can be
of the slightest comfort, be sure you have it ! Oh, I was
selfish ; see, I don't care ! No matter what comes, I am
your friend ; no matter at what cost, I am ready to
prove it."
Aylmer did not offer to take the extended hands ; he
looked full at her, and said with a cold smile :
" Madame da Rimini does me too much honor. Our
brief acquaintance could afford me no claim to accept a
sacrifice of any sort from her goodness."
"It would be none !" she exclaimed, laying her clasped
hands on his shoulder. " Oh, Aylmer, don't you under-
stand ?"
He did not stir not a line of his face changed.
" I ought perhaps to be able to thank you for your
offered friendship," he said, in the same chill, monotonous
tone, " but I am a dull man ; at present I can only think of
the one thing which is of any moment in my life."
" What do you mean ?" she asked, removing her hands
HER LAST EFFORT. 345
from his shoulder and retreating a few steps, the better to
look at him with her angry eyes.
" I mean that I have lost the last hope of winning the
one woman I ever loved, or ever shall love," he answered.
Certainly, when he entered the room he had no thought
of making the confession, but her words and manner
goaded him into such wrath that it was a relief to fling the
avowal at her, for the meekest man alive could not have
helped admitting to himself that the lady meant him to be
tender and adoring.
"You love Violet Cameron ?" the duchess fairly gasped.
"With all my heart and soul !" he replied steadily.
The woman turned livid through her rouge ; her eyes
blazed ; her hands involuntarily clenched themselves, as she
hissed out :
" You tell me that to my face you dare !"
" I thought such frankness the best proof I could give
of how thoroughly I appreciate the offer of friendship you
just made," returned he ; and now a faint tone of mockery
was audible in his slow, passionless speech.
The duchess retreated still farther ; one hand caught at
the ruff which encircled her throat her eyes were posi-
tively terrible as they glanced towards a dagger lying upon
the table by her side and the fingers of the other hand
worked convulsively, as if ready to seize it. Her Sicilian
blood was roused to its hottest fury ; the animal instinct to
kill destroy seized her with its fullest might.
In another instant she dropped into a chair, and pointed
to the door.
" Go out !" she said, in a voice so choked that, except
for the gesture, her words would have been unintelligible.
" Go this instant !"
" Good-morning, madame," Aylmer said, as calmly as if
ending the most commonplace interview.
He bowed as he spoke, and walked away. Before he
had taken a dozen steps he heard her call imperiously :
" Stop !"
He turned slowly ; the duchess moved forward till she
stood within a few paces of him ; her face was actually dis-
torted wilh rage, and her eyes glared like a panther's.
" You have insulted me," she said, in a breathless way.
" In my country we avenge insults, do you know ?"
15*
346 HER LAST EFFORT.
" In what manner have I erred, madame ?" he asked,
composedly.
" So you wanted to marry Violet Cameron !" she har-
ried on. " Well, you shall never do it remember that !"
" I had just informed you, madame, that any such hope
had been killed in my heart," he answered.
" Your heart !" she repeated. " You have none. You
wanted her money everybody knows that don't try to
deceive me !"
Aylmer started as if she had struck him ; checked the
words which sprang to his lips ; bowed again, and walked
on. The duchess rushed past, and stood between him and
the door.
" Wait till I have finished !" she ordered ; " even a bar-
barian from America should have knowledge enough of
civilized usages to show as much decency as that !"
" I am listening, madame."
It was well the duchess had not the dagger within reach
at this instant ; she certainly would have stabbed him be-
fore getting her senses back sufficiently to reflect She
shut her eyes for a little ; her head reeled, and she saw
every object through a sort of red haze, from the force with
which the blood mounted to her brain.
"You lie when you say you have given up hope!"
she cried. "You think to make your peace by sacrificing
me ! You will say that I made love to you ; why, you are
such a dolt that perhaps you thought I meant to thought
I cared for you ! Come, I'll tell you the truth that shall
be the beginning of my revenge !"
Her breath failed her again she was obliged to pause.
He stood waiting till she should be pleased to continue.
" I hated Violet Cameron," she went on presently. " I
knew it would fret her to see any man devoted to me
not that she cared for you, or ever would have done. And
I had another reason for wanting your attentions ; because,
if I seemed to tolerate them, it would tease another man
a man I love. Do you hear ?"
" Shall I leave you now, madame?" asked Aylmer.
" And if she had been fool enough to love you," pursued
the duchess, "you should not have her ! If there were a
hope of your making your peace, I'd ruin it, if I had to
swear that you had been my lover yes, I would ! Let me
tell you the person she loves as much as she is capable of lov-
HER LAST EFFORT. 347
ing Carlo Magnoletti ; and he wanted her to marry you
because that would make matters easier for him he told
me so "
Before she could end her sentence, Aylmer was gone.
He hurried out of the house. A fiacre was passing as he
reached the street ; he hailed it, jumped in, and bade the
coachman drive to the Porta Rotnana, and then take the
Straka dei Colli the pictureesque road which winds np
the hill qf San Miniato, on whose summit frowns the old.
convent That Michel Angelo once fortified. Near by stands
the cypress-guarded little church which the great sculptor
called his " country maid ;" and just below stretches the
piazza bearing his name, with a bronze statue of the David
lifting his inspired front to the blue sky.
Ay liner dismissed the carriage at the top of the ascent,
and wandered about ; saw the sun set over the beautiful
city nestled in the valley beneath ; saw the twilight shadows
gather over Monte Morello and the long range of purple
hills ; watched the moon rise and glorify every object with
its radiance ; and felt, as we all do in moments of keen
suffering, that every sight and sound of beauty and peace
became an additional pang.
At last he descended the zigzag paths and flights of
steps which lead directly down to the Porta San Niccolo,
crossed the Ponte alle Grazie (or rather, the modern
structure which the mania for improving and destroying
has given us in place of the old bridge, with its storied
dwellings where sanctified nuns dwelt in other days), and
returned to his lodgings.
The porter told him that his German friend had called
during his absence " the fierce signore with the beard."
So the professor had come back sooner than he intended ;
but Aylmer could not feel sorry at having missed him.
The keen-eyed savant would quickly have discovered that
something was amiss, and been troubled by Laurence's
inability to explain, though no doubt he would have taken
great pains to hide his disquietude under an affectation of
extreme crustiness.
Aylmer found several letters lying on his table, and he
opened them one after another, more to occupy his thoughts
for a few minutes than because he cared to learn their
contents.
Among them was an epistle from America, bringing
848 HER LAST EFFORT.
news of the death of the relative after whom he inherited
the large fortune which had been hers for life a distant
cousin of his father's whom he had seen but twice, so that
no regret for her loss could mingle with his reflections.
There was also unlooked-for tidings in regard to those
speculations he had been drawn into by George Danvers.
One of the mines had resumed work, a new drift having
been discovered, so valuable that stockholders might soon
expect to receive dividends ; and the prosperous state of
affairs was considered so certain by competent judges, that
the shares had already gone up enough in the market to
render their sale a profitable affair to any person who
^wished to be rid of his portion.
And the good tidings came, as it so often does to
mortals, at the very moment when it seemed an added
mockery on the part of fate, after snatching away the only
gift which could bring happiness.
Aylmer flung the letters upon the table, and buried his
face in his hands. For the time even his courage, his power
of endurance, had deserted him ; his burden seemed
harder than he could bear.
And the duchess ?
A few seconds after Aylmer's departure, the door of an
inner salon opened. Madame da Rimini looked up, and
saw Giorgio Dimetri standing upon the threshold, intently
regarding her, with a smile upon his handsome, evil face.
"What are you doing there?" she called.
"The servant informed me that you had a visitor. Like
a well-bred creature I waited in the next room till he took
his departure," replied the Greek. " Of course I was
bound to wait, because you had appointed this time for
another little trial, to be certain that you are perfect in the
art of dealing cards at baccarat."
The duchess looked at him fixedly.
" You could hear every word," she said. " That door
does not latch. How long were you in the other room ?"
" Only a few minutes," he answered. " I heard you
tell the American your reasons for wanting his attentions."
" Dimetri !" cried the duchess, " you say you love me
you say you are jealous of that man yet you let him
live you, the best swordsman in Italy you, that are one
of the few men living who know the secret of Lachasse's
thrust !"
STILL HER WORK. 349
She spoke very quietly an awful smile on her lips.
" I love you," he replied ; and though his voice was as
low as hers, it held a ring of repressed passion, accentuated
by the eager light in his eyes. " lie lives because you told
me that if I quarreled with him I should never see your
face again. 1 have been very patient, and I am not a
patient man "
" You have the proof that I told you the truth when I
said I was playing a game where he was concerned," she
interrupted.
"I have proof, at least, that you hate him now and
after ?"
"Ah," exclaimed the duchess, with an indescribable
emphasis of ferocity, " the rest is in your hands ! Go
away I am in no mood for baccarat go !"
" And when shall I come back?"
" When you have done your work," she answered.
For a moment they stood gazing full into each other's
eyes with glances of terrible significance. Then the
duchess waved her hand in dismissal, and he went silently
out of the room.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
STILL HER WORK.
|ARY DANVERS stood in one of the library-
windows, looking out through the twilight
across the shadowy garden. During these two
days no allusion had been made by Violet or
herself to that evening whose events gave so
much occupation to the minds of both. Mary knew that
her cousin suffered terribly, little sign as she gave. Violet
marveled at the courage with which the girl supported the
blow that had befallen her, but, fearful of inflicting fresh
wounds, abstained from sympathy either in look or word ;
and Mary, animated by similar feelings, was equally care-
ful in her turn.
Could Violet have known the truth in regard to her
young relative, she might have admired her courage even
350 STILL HER WORK.
more, for Mary was bearing that heaviest of human bur-
dens suspense ; bearing it too with the consciousness that
these were only the birth-throes of a pain which might
last an indefinite time months years oh, perhaps never
to be stilled in this world.
But her dread of exaggeration her method of rigidly
inspecting all matters to be certain what was real, what
fancy (a habit not growing out of any lack of imagination,
only the result of guarding against the encroachments of
that faculty upon the judgment), stood her in good stead
now, and prevented the unmeasured grief which most per-
sons of her age would have indulged.
Gilbert Warner had gone away loving her common-
sense assured her there was every evidence of this, and
therefore she could not think-their separation lasting,' dol-
orous as the circumstances rendered it.
Impossible for her to make any sign so long as he re-
mained silent the bare chance that her first fears might
have held some truth must hinder her but she could wait !
And there were things in her favor ; he would communi-
cate with his friends, learn at length that his suspicions of
her caring for another were unfounded, and the knowledge
might of itself open his eyes.
The proofs which brought her so great comfort grew
in number and strength as she reviewed the course of their
acquaintance. Why, the very keeping the portrait he
had painted for Violet was enough to show that he had
not been indifferent. And he had kept it, she knew it
was to follow him on his journey Miss Vaughton had told
her so the morning after his departure. When Mary
reached the studio, she found the venerable lady in a state
of great wonderment and regret, declaring over and over,
according to the habit of women of her type when sur-
prised by unexpected tidings, that anybody might have
knocked her down with a feather on the reception of the
news.
" Why, you had been gone but a little while when he
came bustling in so hurried lie had hardly time to say
good-by and no wonder, with his trunks to pack yet, and
forty other things to do. I'm sure he must have forgotten
half he wanted to take not an under-shirt with him, I'll
warrant young men are so careless !"
Mary, busy with her own reflections, lost the thread of
STILL HER WORK. 351
the old lady's discourse, and the benefit of a harrowing tale
of what had once befallen a youthful relative of Miss
Vaughton's, from forgetfulness of those useful garments.
When she could listen again, the prophetess was chant-
ing slowly :
" But, as he said, if he had got here too late he could go
to the house and see you. Yes, indeed ; of course you
were surprised I don't need to be told that," she added,
as defiantly as if Mary had cast a slight upon her by pro-
testations of astonishment. " And one box to be sent after
him James offered to attend to it the pictures couldn't
be packed in time. Oh, I was not to mention about
that "
" Mention what ?" Mary asked, as the old lady paused
and stared in a helpless way.
" Yes, to be sure ! Or was it the studio man's trying to
cheat I was not to speak of ?" pursued Miss Vaughton.
" Really, with so much put on one's mind all at once, no
wonder one gets confused now is it?"
" Certainly not ! But there can be no secret connected
with his Mr. Warner's pictures," said Mary.
" Ah, one never knows what there may be secrets about
in a young man's life !" cried Miss Vaughton, with an air
of profound wisdom. " Not but what Gilbert is a model
no danger of his secrets being wrong no, no don't tell
me that nobody nobody need tell me that !"
" So the pictures are to be packed and sent after him,"
continued Mary, regai'dless of this energetic outburst, in
her desire to learn if the thought which sprang up in her
mind was well founded.
" Oh yes now if that was the secret, or whether it was
about Miss Lane oh no, it was Leonard Gowan who was
engaged to her ! Dear me, so many young men and their
affairs and always the same though Gilbert's worry was
over his pictures too ; but worry as he might, they couldn't
be packed in time and he put yours in because he said he
wanted to work on it more. Oh, I wasn't to mention it ;
but no matter, it is your cousin he wants to surprise with
it, and you are not her, though, Mary, as good a girl as ever
lived, I know ; and what is beauty skin deep not to say
you are plain and may equal her yet, though James says she
really is a marvel, and enough to drive a sculptor or painter
mad ; though, as I told him, good gracious, that's not the
852 STILL HER WORE.
sort of thing to say of any lady, married or not ; and,
Mary, it really is odd, with all her admirers "
But luckily her old tyrant of a servant summoned her
at the instant, and left Mary free to reflect on that one
clause in her rambling account so pregnant with meaning.
News she had this day received from America helped to
render hopefulness easier. If matters went on as they had
begun, her father's debts could be paid, and his memory
freed from any aspersion. Ah ! in the presence of such
probability she would be utterly wicked to sit down and
moan over her own private woes ; then, too, the fact that a
change so unexpected, so cheering, could come in regard to
things which had seemed irrevocably settled, was a good
omen for Fate's kindness in other particulars, however dark
the present might look.
Mary's meditations were interrupted by her cousin's
entrance.
" Have we kept you waiting for dinner until you are
famished ?" Violet asked, as she approached the window.
" Oh no, I had pleasant company," Mary answered,
holding up her book ; then her troublesome conscience
smote her, as it always did at the slightest approach to pre-
varication ; but Miss Bronson appeared at the instant and
made herself involuntarily the aid of conscience, as it was
natural so virtuous a woman always should.
"My dear, I hope you were not trying to read by this
dim light," she said ; " there is nothing so bad for the
eyes."
"No ; I shut my book sometime since," returned Mary.
"I was glad you did not go with us," continued Miss
Cameron ; " the tramontana is blowing, and it would have
been bad for your throat."
" I think you ought to tie something round your neck,
Mary," added Miss Bronson.
"It is so warm here !" pleaded she.
" And one is so hideous muffled up ; I'd rather have a
sore throat, I am sure," cried Miss Cameron.
" What a sentiment ! what an example to set Mary if
she were to believe you in earnest !" ejaculated Eliza.
But her expostulations were checked by a servant's an-
nouncing Professor Schmidt.
" He wanted to make sure you were visible," called the
savant, " but I would not wait ; I came on purpose to get
STILL HER WORK 353
my dinner, and I must have it ! How do you all do? You
look like the three Fates in this gloom," lie continued, for
the professor had a horror of sitting in the twilight.
"I think you might find a more poetical comparison to
greet us with, after your cruel absence," said Violet, hurry-
ing forward to meet him with outstretched hands. "I am
delighted to see you back ! We did not venture to hope
for that pleasure before to-morrow ; and how nice of you
to think of coming to dine with us."
" I always like to gratify my worthy friend Adolf
Schmidt when I can," replied the professor. "Besides,
when I got home I found the tailor had sent me a new
dress-coat, and I wanted you all to admire it."
Even Miss Bronson laughed heartily at the recollections
aroused by his words, and the old savant released Violet's
hands from his sturdy grasp, and passed on to seize the
spinster's with the energy which he put into every action.
" My dear Miss Bronson, I am glad to find that you have
survived my absence ! I have been greatly troubled was
on the point of turning back before I reached Bologna. I
had such terrible fears that my departure really might be
more than your sensitive nature could endure ; but you
seem to have borne it better than I dared to hope."
"I consoled myself by looking forward to your return,"
replied the spinster, with an appreciation she seldom vouch-
safed his humorously-teasing speeches.
" And how is my American sweetbriar ?" continued the
professor, addressing Mary. "It is so dark, I can't see any
of your faces. Of all unaccountable fancies, this sitting in
Cimmerian blackness is the most outrageous."
" Luckily, here comes Antonio to announce dinner,"
said Violet ; " so give me your arm, professor, and you shall
be taken in search of a little light."
They were scarcely seated at table before the savant
asked :
" And how is Laurence Aylmer ? I drove to his rooms
on my way from the station, but the wretched fellow was
out,""
It chanced that Violet and Mary were glancing towards
each other as the professor spoke, and both averted their
eyes with a sort of guilty consciousness.
" Quite well, I fancy," Miss Cameron said indifferently.
" Why, Violet," exclaimed Miss Bronson, " he has uot
354 STILL HER WORK.
been here for two days not since your reception and he
went away so suddenly that I thought it odd !"
"Two days what an immense period !" said Violet,
laughing. " Yon see, professor, that Miss Bronson is as
accurate as ever."
"Yes, yes, I see," returned the professor, his quick ear
struck by an undefinable something in Violet's tone, care-
lessly as she spoke ; but she began asking questions about
his little excursion to Verona, and he followed the lead she
gave the conversation.
In a few minutes, however, he again made mention of
Aylmer. He noticed that it was Miss Bronson who
replied ; and this time Mary began- talking of something
else as soon as the spinster gave her an opportunity.
Before the dinner had half ended, the professor felt
confident that something had happened to offend Miss
Cameron, and that Mary Danvers shared in the secret ; but
what his beloved Laurence could have done to annoy her
was more than he could conceive, and he could not at
present relieve his mind by any inquiries.
The professor's spectacled eyes could see very clearly
if he had special motives therefor ; and when Violet
avoided hearing some mention he made of Madame da
Rimini, he could have sworn that the woman was at the
bottom of whatever disturbance or misconception had
arisen. He had many times warned his two favorites, and
the Magnoletti also, that if they continued to tolerate the
duchess she would work mischief in some fashion, though
he had expected Carlo's gambling propensities to cause the
trouble i-ather than any ability on her part to aleniate Miss
Cameron and Aylmer.
However, the dinner passed off gayly enough, and
Violet seemed in her usual spirits. While they were
taking coffee, she said :
"Professor, you must do me a favor. I am going to
Lady Harcourt's. You have never been, in spite of all her
invitations. Now, be amiable, and accompany me. There
will only be a few people people you know, too."
" Ugh !" said the professor, with a grimace.
" You must !" persisted Violet. " Miss Bronson has
another engagement, and you cannot possibly leave a
timid, tender young creature like myself to enter a salon
STILL HER WOUK. 355
cliaperonless and unprotected ; besides, you want an oppor-
tunity to display your new coat."
" That is an irresistible inducement I'll go," said the
professor.
He knew that in all probability Aylmer would be there,
and the prospect of a speedy explanation of the mystery he
had discovered if Laurence could give any was enough
to dispose the savant to compliance with Violet's request.
Mary remained with the professor while the other two
ladies went to Miss Bronson's room, the spinster at the last
moment being undecided between the merits of a couple of
head-dresses, and pathetically begging Violet's judgment
thereupon.
"So you are working hard, my little girl," said the pro-
fessor, when they were left alone. " Too hard, I am afraid.
You look somewhat tired."
" I ? Oh no "
" None of that !" interrupted the savant, savagely.
" I'll send you a dose of the bitterest medicine ever con-
cocted if you attempt to fib."
" I never do, and you know it," said Mary, who was
warmly attached to the gruff old man.
" There's something wrong with both of you !" cried
the professor. "I ask no questions ; I shall find out ; you
can't deceive me with your little feminine artifices."
" We don't want to," said Mary.
" H'm !" quoth the professor. " Well, you are impossi-
ble creatures, you women. Why in the deuce did you
send Gilbert Warner away with a sore heart, I should like
to know ? I saw him at Verona a pretty state of mind he
was in ! Not a word would he say but I knew ! Polz-
tausend ! The idea of nature ai-ranging matters so that an
absurd young insect like you has the power to sting the
heart of a big, strong, noble fellow like that !"
Before Mary had time to answei', even had she possessed
the power, Antonio entered in search of the coffee-tray, and
directly after Miss Cameron and Eliza returned.
" Miss Bronson will drop us at Lady Harcourt's on her
way to Mrs. Mainwaring's," said Violet, and destroyed a
hope the professor had indulged that he might have an op-
portunity of asking her a few inquisitorial questions during
the drive.
As the carriage rolled out of the court, Laurence Ayl-
356 STILL HER WORK.
mer passed along the street and caught sight of Miss Cam-
eron. He knew where she was going ; lie had received a
note from Lady Harcourt, telling him that if he failed to
come to her that night he need never expect forgiveness :
promising that, as a reward for good behavior, he should
have tli happiness of hearing Miss Cameron sing a favor
she sometimes vouchsafed her intimate friends when they
were en petit, comite.
Having no mind to expose himself to unnecessary tor-
ture, Aylmer had decided not to go. He dined in his own
rooms or made a pretense of doing so and until towards
ten o'clock remained there alone, the prey of his bitter re-
flections. His solitude became unsupportable ; he dressed
hurriedly and left the house with the intention of going to
Mrs. Mainwaring's. Why, to reach her residence, he took
a route so roundabout as to pass through the piazza where
the Amaldi Palace stood, was a question he refrained from
asking until the sight of Miss Cameron's carriage suddenly
roused him to fierce invectives against his own folly.
He could not get quickly enough away from the spot :
he jumped into a cab and drove to the club, forgetting until
he reached it that he had started from home meaning more
hopelessly to addle his brains by spending an hour at his
literary countrywoman's esthetic conversazione. But it
was no matter the society he should find at the club would
answer his purpose just as well. Anything, anybody to
take his thoughts away for a little from the persistent med-
itations of the last two days, was all he wanted.
As he got out of the cab, Alexis Sabakine came down
the club-house steps and seized upon him at once.
" Where, in heaven's name, have you been hiding ?" he
asked. " I have called on you twice never in Carlo away
at Perugia Landini ill. I was getting disgusted, and half
inclined to cut Florence without delay. But you can't
escape now. I promised to look in at Stanhope's rooms :
after that will go to La Harcourt's, or anywhere you
please."
His coupe was waiting, and he fairly dragged Aylmer
into it, talking so fast in his satisfaction Ht having found
congenial companionship that Laurence had little to do but
listen and reply in monosyllables.
As they entered Stanhope's salon, that gentleman
appeared from an inner room, and before he dropped the
STILL HER WORK. 357
curtain which hung over the doorway, the new-comers
caught a glimpse of three men seated at a table playing
cards.
" Hallo, Sabakine, I thought you'd forgotten your
promise !" cried the Englishman, in his loud, ringing voice.
" Why, Aylmer, is that you or your ghost? Delighted to
see you, old man ! Sabakine, you hardened sinner "
" I have received the papers ; don't say I'm not punc-
tual," interrupted the Russian, taking an envelope from his
pocket and laying it on the table.
" That's a good fellow !" returned the other. " Just let
me run my eye over them, and then I shall be ready to do
the civil. You must both stop we shall be just enough
for a rubber, and leave Gherardi and you, Sabakine, to your
favorite ecarte."
"Who else is in there?" asked the Russian, pointing
towards the door of the second room.
" Pandolfini and Dimetri "
" That fellow !" interrupted Sabakine, in a low tone,
with a gesture of disgust. " I wonder why we tolerate him."
" Oh, I dare say he is no worse than the rest of us," replied
the easy-going Stanhope ; and added in a louder tone :
"Aylmer, amuse yourself for a few minutes there are
weeds and bottles while Sabakine explains these docu-
ments. Goodness knows when I may catch him again."
Aylmer went to the farthest end of the salon, to be be-
yond earshot of their conversation. He was standing near
the curtain, partially drawn back so that he could see into
the other chamber be seen perfectly also by the Greek ;
for, though Dimetri had his back that way, a large mirror
hung opposite his chair, and, as Aylmer looked, he saw
the r two images reflected therein. Dimetri had evidently
just finished speaking ; his companions held their cards in
iheir hands and stared at him, but his fierce black eyes
were fixed on the mirror.
" Pr-r-r, Dimetri, that is rather strong gossip, even for
Florence !" exclaimed Gherardi.
" I'll wager what you please it will be more than gossip
in less than a month," returned the Greek, looking at Lau-
rence Aylmer's reflection with an insulting smile.
" Come, come !" added Pandolfini. " La belle Arneri-
caine is too wise-headed a woman for such nonsense ; it's
too bad to talk of her in that way."
358 STILL HER WORK.
" You are wonderfully scrupulous !" sneered Dimetri.
" I see no reason for being more chary of her reputation
than of any other woman's ! Since Violet Cameron lias a
married "nan for a lover "
Before he could finish his sentence, Laurence Aylmer
flung the curtain back and dashed into the room. The
Greek saw him coming, sprang out of his chair, and con-
fronted him ; but Aylmer was too quick. As Dimetri
raised his hand, Laurence dealt him a blow full in the face,
so sudden, so heavy, that he barely saved himself from fall-
ing by seizing hold of the table.
The other men started up with broken exclamations,
and rushed between the two. The noise roused the pair in
the outer salon, and they hurried in.
Aylraer stood still. The Greek wiped the blood from
his mouth with his handkerchief, such triumphant satisfac-
tion in the regard he fastened upon Laurence, that Saba-
kine, noticing it, decided at once that the insult, whatever
it might be, which Aylmer had so promptly punished, had
been premeditated, and the results exactly what Dimetri
desired.
" Stanhope," the Greek said composedly, " with your
permission I'll go into your bedroom and wash my face.
Please come with me, Gherardi. I shall expect you to act
for me. I suppose you will do me the favor ?"
As Gherardi owed the fellow a large sum of money, he
could not easily refuse. Indeed, whatever reports might
be in circulation against the Greek, his hold on respectabil-
ity was strong enough to give him a right to demand from
any acquaintance the service which the present exigency
required.
The two passed out ; the others gathered about Aylmer.
There was very little to be said. Pandolfini gave a rapid
explanation : Sabakine took Aylmer's hand, saying :
" I am your oldest friend here. You will not refuse me
a friend's privilege ?"
" I thank you," Aylmer answered ; then turned towards
the host. " I am very sorry any trouble should have hap-
pened here, Stanhope. I'll bid you good-night."
"You need not be in the least sorry," returned the
other, bluntly. " I hope you broke the rascal's jaw ! As
for going away, what's the use? Just stop till matters are
arranged."
STILL HER WORK. 35&
They shook hands ; then Sabakine drew Aylmer aside.
" The fellow will not eat his lie," he said. "To do him
justice, he is no coward ; you must meet him."
" The sooner the better," ret. irned Laurence ; "to-mor-
row, if possible."
Gherardi appeared in the doorway ; Sabakine stepped
forward, and said with g'vavc courtesy :
"Mr. Aylmer has empowered tne to act for him ; I am
quite at your service, monsieur."
As the door closed behind them, Laurence began speak-
ing of some indifferent matter, and the two gentlemen
seconded him, though they were much less calm than he.
The conference in the adjoining room only lasted a
short time ; Gherardi came back, and Sabakine beckoned
Aylmer out.
" It is all settled," he said, " to-morrow morning at sun-
rise in the Cascine. As I expected, the rascal would not
hear of making an apology. Now let us bid these fellows
good-night ; you will be glad to get away, and so shall I."
Hurried words had been exchanged between the trio,
and the result of them was this speech from Stanhope
when the two gentlemen returned.
" Aylmer," he said, " we wish to assure you that from
neither of us will the cause of this difficulty be known."
"Let me add," said Gherardi, "that before Signor
Dimetri went away, it was distinctly understood that I
only agreed to act for him on condition that he gave me
his word to be equally reticent."
"I owe you all my best thanks," returned Aylmer,
made his adieus, and departed, accompanied by the Rus-
sian.
"I suppose it won't be long first " began Pandolfini,
but Stanhope checked him.
" Gherardi would not tell, and we do not want to
know," he said. ' Aylmer is a capital swordsman ; I only
hope he will kill the fellow."
" H'm !" said Pandolfini, recalling various stories he
had heard of the Greek's dueling prowess ; every one of
the histories credited him with having killed his man.
The Russian and Aylmer drove to the latter's lodgings ;
and Sabakine went in with him, and remained for half an
hour.
" I'd stop longer if you wanted me," he said, "but I
860 STILL HER WORK.
can see you would rather be alone." He was pale and agi-
tated, in spite of his attempt to appear composed. Aylmer
had a singular faculty of winning the warm regard of
those with whom he came much in contact, and he and the
Russian had grown quite intimate. " It is of no use to
tell you how sorry I am," continued Sabakine, rapidly ;
" but it will all end well : not only are you a skillful fencer,
but if there is any justice, a cause like yours must be suc-
cessful."
When Aylmer was left alone he sat down at his writ-
ing-table : up to this moment he had literally felt nothing
after the spasm of wrath which passed with the blow he
had dealt the Greek upon his lying mouth.
Something told him now tnat for him the end of earthly
things was at hand. No man could be less inclined to
superstitious fancies, but this presentiment fastened itself
upon his soul as firmly as if some supernatural power had
taken visible shape and uttered it. Yet the certainty
caused him no excitement ; he wondered a little at his own
dull calmness, as he might have done at that of a stranger.
An uncontrollable longing to see Violet Cameron arose in
his mind. Who could tell if the whole sweep of eternity
would ever bring her within his reach after this night ! He
must see her ; then he needed only to write the letters he
desired to leave behind him, and all he had to do would be
accomplished. He looked at his watch ; it was still early
enough to go to Lady Harcourt's. He should find her
there ; he could not die till he had gazed once more in the
face of the woman whom he loved with an affection so
deep that he knew even in the life beyond this it must re-
main the ruling power of his soul.
He paused before the glass, and adjusted his hair and
dress ; through the wild impatience which fired his veins,
came the thought, how strange it seemed that he should
never stand there again ! He wondered anew at his own
inability to care ; then recollected that he was losing
precious instants ; she might be gone before he reached the
house. He caught up his hat and outer coat, and rushed
down the stairs, startling himself by the audible repetition
of her name.
FOR WHOM HE WAS TO DIE. 361
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
FOE WHOM HE WAS TO DIE.
HE old professor's appearance with Miss Cam-
eron created quite a sensation among the group
seated in Lady Harcourt's salon.
" I am so glad to see you, Violet," cried the
hostess. "Ursa Major, as I live! There is
nobody who can bore us. I was determined to have a
pleasant evening for once in my life. And how nice of
you to have persuaded the Great Bear to come ! Profes-
sor, I am delighted overpowered don't know how to ex-
press my gratitude !"
" I suppose a new species of beast is always a welcome
addition to a menagerie," retorted the professor, and
kissed her hand as gallantly as if he had been an old beau.
" This really is too much !" laughed she. " I shall ex-
pect a tender declaration presently."
" The megalosaurus subjugated," said the professor.
Violet left them to talk nonsense, and passed on to
greet her friends Nina and Carlo among them.
" We only got back just in time for dinner, else I
should have gone to your house," said the former.
" What has happened to you ?" asked Violet. " You
look as radiant as if you had just returned from a honey-
moon trip !"
" I'll tell you presently," whispered Nina, and as soon as
she could get her friend to herself for a few minutes, she
unfolded her good news. " Carlo has promised to play
cards only once more for six months so he will go to
Giulia da Rimini's next evening, but that will be the last
time."
" I am so very, very glad !" returned Violet.
"And fancy Giulia's rage when she hears "
" Madame la Duchesse da Rimini," announced the
French major-domo before Nina could finish, and she felt
Violet's fingers, close over her arm with a pressure which
fairly hurt. She looked up in surprise. Miss Cameron had
turned very pale, and her eyes were black with excitement.
They were standing near enough to hear what the new-
16
362 FOR WHOM HE WAS TO DIE.
comer said, as the hostess moved forward to greet her, with
a surprise in her face which she took no pains to hide.
" My dear Lady Harcourt, I expected to find you alone
had no idea you meant to receive to-night and I have
just had news from Paris that I knew you would be glad
to hear," the duchess was saying, her usual slow grace not
in the slightest degree disturbed.
" You are certain of always being la Men venue in my
house," returned her ladyship, " and you shall tell me the
news latev."
The duchess spoke to the people close by caught sight
of Violet and Nina, and approached them with stately
ease.
" My darling Nina, what an unexpected pleasure !"
she said, holding out her hand. " Miss Cameron, I am
delighted !"
She was about to extend the same greeting she had
bestowed upon the marchesa, but, apparently unconscious
of her intention, Violet bowed, and said :
" Madame la duchesse !"
She said only that ; and though her lips wore a smile,
there was an undisguised expression of scorn and menace
in her eyes which sent a thrill through the Sicilian's nerves,
strong as they were.
At this instant Lady Harcourt hastened up.
" My dear Violet, you promised me a song," she said ;
"I shall not let you off. I mean to accompany you myself
if you are not grateful you are less than human."
" I am quite at your service," returned Violet.
As they walked away, Lady Harcourt whispered : " It is
too bad ! I did not think even her assurance was equal to
coming here to-night."
" We have no one but ourselves to blame for the
manner in which she ventures to treat us all," Violet
answered.
" Oh, I am ready to follow suit if anybody will take the
initiative," said Lady Harcourt.
" Only wait !" responded Violet, thinking of Carlo's
promise to his wife if he broke it, so much the worse.
Even for Nina's sake she would keep no further terms with
the duchess. Since the woman had forced herself on Lady
Harcourt to-night, Carlo would have his opportunity, then
he could find no excuse for going near Giulia.
FOR WHOM HE WAS TO DIE. 363
" I am sorry, because I can't keep her and Carlo from
high play, as you manage to do in your house," continued
L:uly Harcourt, "and I know how it distresses you and
Nina."
" This evening, you need not be troubled on her account
or mine," said Violet ; "let them both alone."
"You will tell me your reason sometime? I am sure you
mean mischief, and I am glad ! If anybody can prove
more than a match for Giulia, it will be you but take
care ! M
A knot of men came up ; Violet could only respond to
the warning by a smile, but it was so bitter that Lady Har-
court fell to wondering what it meant.
"I have done more than my duty," Miss Cameron said,
as she finished her second song and was besieged for
another. " Lady Harcourt, you must play the harp for us
it was only on that condition I agreed to sing."
"And I am ready to show myself a woman of my
word," replied her ladyship, gayly.
The last air Violet sang had been a favorite melody
of Laurence Aylrner's. When Nina chose it, her first
impulse was to refuse ; then she felt indignant to find
that anything associated with the man could move her.
After Lady Harcourt had played, two people seated
themselves at the piano to perform a duet. Violet left
the music-room ; a suffocating sensation had oppressed her
ever since she ended her song ; she wanted a breath of air,
a few moments of solitude.
Lady Harcourt inhabited a villa in one of the modern
quarters of the town. The ground-floor was occupied by a
library, dining-room, a snuggery in which she usually spent
her mornings, and attached thereto a large studio, for
among her numerous talents and accomplishments she pos-
sessed no mean artistic ability.
As Miss Cameron reached the entrance-hall, the outer
bell rang the servant ushered some person in. She hurried
on to escape companionship, crossed the library and gained
the snuggery beyond, lighted only by candles placed so as
to display a new painting to advantage ; the rest of the
chamber lay in a soft gloom, very grateful to her tired eyes.
She sat down in an arm-chair, forgetting already the
purpose which had brought her thither.
The heavy Persian curtains of the door rustled softly
364 FOR WHOM HE WAS TO DIE.
and were flung back. Violet glanced in that direction, and
saw Laurence Aylmer.
She had believed that he would not come to-night ; of
course they must unavoidably meet, but she persuaded her-
self that a little time would elapse before he gained audacity
enough to accept invitations to houses where he ran the
risk of encountering her.
As soon as she perceived the intruder, she turned away
and appeared absorbed in contemplation of the picture.
She heard him cross the room knew that he was standing
beside her but she did not stir or take the slightest notice.
" Miss Cameron !" he said, after a brief silence. " Miss
Cameron !"
She looked round now, regarding him with icy surprise,
as she might have done a stranger who ventured to address
her under circumstances which rendered the act an imperti-
nence.
"I saw you come in I followed you," he continued, in
a slow, difficult voice.
The surprise in her face deepened, her lips moved
seemed to repeat his words in wonder at his presumption
but emitted no sound.
"An hour ago I did not think anything would induce
me to enter your presence," he said, " but I I "
He paused, and rested his hand heavily on a table which
stood near her chair. He was deathly pale, she could see ;
his eyes were hollow and ringed by dark circles which made
them appear unnaturally large. But the recollection of the
man's utter falsity checked Violet's quick impulse of sym-
pathy, and the thought that he hoped still to deceive her
increased the anger roused by her own weakness.
" I could not keep away," he went on ; " it was stronger
than ray will that impulse so I came."
She would waste neither resentment nor scorn ; he
deserved nothing but utter indifference, and should receive
his lesson.
" Mr. Aylmer," she said, " when we meet in the society
of mutual acquaintances I may recognize you in order to
avoid remark ; under other circumstances we remain stran-
gers. You will, of course, be courteous enough never to
force me to repeat this declaration."
" You will have no necessity," he answered, his lips
quivering with a troubled smile.
FOR WHOM HE WAS TO DIE. 365
She slightly bowed her head ; the movement was not
only an acquiescence but a gesture of dismissal, and again
her eyes went back to the picture.
After a pause he spoke again:
" Since I promise you that "
" Promises are uncalled-for between strangers," she
interrupted ; and now she waved her hand towards the
door.
He did not move.
She waited for a few seconds her hand still extended
but he kept his position. Then she rose without deigning
him a second glance.
" Don',, go !" he exclaimed.
She walked on he stepped quickly before her, repeat-
ing :
" Don't go !"
" I will not, if your leaving me prevents the necessity,"
she answered.
" In a few moments. Give me a little time," he said.
Again she attempted to pass ; he put out his arm ; he
was .so close that he would have touched her if she had not
retreated a step. Such disdainful haughtiness suddenly
steeled her face, that a person seeing it for the first time
would not have believed the countenance could ever wear a
gentle expression.
" Not even the outward courtesy of a conventional gen-
tleman," she said slowly; " ah, well ! I need not be sur-
prised."
" You must let me speak," he hurried on, regardless of
her contempt. "Yes, I think I am desperate enough to
stop you, if you refuse."
Violet returned to her chair and sat down.
" Since to call for assistance would be absurd, I must
admit myself a prisoner," she said.
" It is only this ! I have not come to ask your pardon
to explain.. The friendship which will not stand any and
every test is not worth possessing."
A painful constriction in his throat made him pause ;
Violet sat stone-deaf to his voice, blind to his presence
her eyes fixed on the picture, her features as unchangeable
as if they had frozen with that intolerable scorn upon
them.
" You are too proud !" he cried, with an indescribable
366 FOR WHOM HE WAS TO DIE.
peevish pathos in his tone, "Take care God punishes
pride ! Remember what I say, for we shall never meet
again !"
Never again and he must go into the next world and
take with him the recollection of her fade as it looked now !
Oh, if he could only find means to soften it for an instant
just one !
" Violet ! Violet !" he called, in an uncontrollable
paroxysm of agony that thrilled her very soul.
" What do you want ?" she asked, forced to look at
him, forced to speak, in spite of her will.
She could hear her voice tremble, knew that her face
had lost its mask, but for a moment she could not resist his
sway.
" Ah !" he cried, in a tone of wild exultation, " at least
I shall carry this memory with me at least this ! Only a
minute more, then you may go it is forever, forever !
Remember always that in thought, word, and deed, I have
been true to the deity I set up in my soul remember ! I
loved you I shall love you still death itself could not
alter that !"
Violet uttered a little gasping cry put out her hands
as if a positive physical insult had been offered her tried
to rise, but sank back so sick and faint with anger and dis-
gust that she was powerless.
"You know it," he continued. "However much you
loathe me now, you know it you will remember remem-
ber it more and more !"
" Is the play ended ?" she asked, finding voice at length.
" Oh, I thank you after all I did not dream when you
stopped me here in that ruffianly fashion that I should have
cause but I thank you. I might have grieved somewhat
for the man I had believed you for the friend I had lost.
I might have tried perhaps to make for you the excuses
that many women hold good where men are concerned ;
you have destroyed the possibility you have shown me
you are so vile, there is no room for regret. I thank you."
"1 love you," he repeated.
The repetition of the words which seemed so terrible
an outrage, roused her to wrath such as she had never felt
in her whole life.
" Oh, now I understand everything !" she exclaimed.
" And you really fancied me weak enough even yet to be
FOR WHOM HE WAS TO DIE. 367
deceived by your arts ? Trust me, sir, you have failed in
every way. Do not flatter yourself that the girlish heart
you tried, two nights ago, to fill with the story of your
affection, hoping thus to close her lips, was touched : my
cousin despises you as heartily as a pure creature can a man
like you."
" Your cousin !" he echoed.
" Oh, if you needed money so sorely, I'd have given
you half rny fortune, if you had only invented some reason
for wanting it, rather than bear the shame of remembering
that I ever called so base a pretender my friend !"
He stood perfectly impassive under her fiery tirade, his
eyes, so full of yearning anguish, fastened upon her.
" I never thought of that," he said slowly. "Surely I
might have supposed other people would recollect your
money ; I did not ; I wouldn't have believed you could
even now. No, no ; I had no need of it less than ever
now. I am rich again ; but it is all no matter."
"None," she said, " none ! Is my imprisonment ended
can I go without risk of new insolence?"
" I said the whole in saying I love you," he answered,
moving aside. "God bless you, Violet ! remember they
were my last words. God bless you farewell !"
She was gone. He stood still for a few seconds, trying to
catch the echo of her tread ; then he turned towards the
chair in which she had sat stooped and kissed the carved
arms over which her hands had clenched themselves, warm
still from that nervous pressure.
" The woman I am going to die for," he said half aloud ;
" surely I have a right to love her. If she should ever
learn the truth and be sorry, I wonder if they would let
me come back and tell her not to grieve I wonder."
Once more he kissed the polished wood, and left the
room in his turn. The servants had deserted the entrance-
hall. He found his hat and coat, opened the door, and
passed out into the night.
368 ONCE TOO OFTEN.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
ONCE TOO OFTEN.
IOLET dared not immediately return to the com-
pany ; she must have a few moments to subdue
the excitement which shook her, body and
mind, caused by so many varying emotions
that she could not have told what feeling was
uppermost.
She ascended the stairs and passed through the ante-
chamber where the ladies had left their wraps empty
now, luckily. She walked to and fro paused before a
vase of flowers, and began counting the roses the silk
balls that decorated the table-fringe trying to concentrate
her faculties upon some trivial employment, till the pulses
which beat like tiny hammers in either temple should relax
their force enough to let her see and bear clearly, for the
physical sensation was as if a sudden blow had first
stunned, and then fevered her brain.
At length she heard a step. The thought of being seen
nerved her. She turned to the door met Lady Harcourt's
maid stopped to ask the woman kindly if she were en-
tirely recovered from an illness she had had glanced at
herself in a mirror, and went on, satisfied that beyond an
unusual pallor and an odd, strained look in her eyes, there
was nothing peculiar in her appearance, and the people
would all be too full of themselves to notice such slight
signs of agitation.
From the farther salon still came the sounds of the
piano. Violet wanted no more music, and walked in the
opposite direction found herself surrounded by a knot of
gentlemen talked was talked to all the while feeling as
if she were in a dream a dream which held vague horrors
that chilled her blood. Somebody said something about
play going on in the card-room ; she heard herself saying
she wanted to watch the game. Somebody offered his arm
she took it, and was led away.
A party of whist-players occupied one of the tables ;
farther on, she saw the duchess and Carlo absorbed in
bcarte ; near them, Lady Harcourt and Nina, with a knot
ONCE TOO OFTEN. 309
of men hovering about. The hostess called Violet, and
made her sit on the sofa between the marchesa and herself.
That mercurial personage was in her most brilliant
mood, pouring out bon mots, relating amusing anecdotes,
and generally riveting attention upon herself, so that Nina
had an opportunity to whisper to Violet :
" Do you see Giulia ? I never saw her look so utterly
fiendish as she does to-night, and she has been so sweet and
insolent to me oh, I wish the game was over !"
" Patience !" returned Violet. " It is the last time."
She had a sudden odd sensation as she spoke that her
words meant more than she herself comprehended knew
that she must have uttered them oddly too, for Nina was
quite staring at her with wide-open eyes.
" What do you mean ?" the marchesa asked.
"Since Carlo promised you not to play after this eve-
ning for six whole months," said Violet.
"Oh !" exclaimed Nina, in a disappointed tone. "You
said it in such a strange way I hoped I don't know what
goose that I am !"
And now Violet found a plan which rendered the words
she had spoken significant enough. This should be the
last time that the duchess tempted Carlo through his
peculiar weakness. If there was no other way to prevent
it, she would tell the woman in plain language that the
secret shared by herself and cousin would only remain a
secret on those conditions. She could frighten the crea-
ture. She, Violet Cameron, was a power in the social
world which even Giulia would not venture to defy. What
an idiot not to have thought of this before ! At least some
good might come out of that miserable man's treachery
good to her friend, whoever else suffered.
" Aren't you well ? I think you are pale, or is it this
light ?" Nina was saying.
" It is your fancy," returned Violet.
" I am tired I wish I was at home !" continued Nina.
" I wonder why Laurence Aylmer is not here. You have
seen him, of course, since I went away?"
Lady Harcourt relieved Violet from the necessity of
replying.
" Nina, stop whispering in Violet Cameron's pretty ear
and listen to my story !" she cried. " It is a new tale,
16*
370 ONCE TOO OFTEN.
and I want to rehearse it to a small and discriminating
audience."
They were all still laughing at the absurd history, when
the duchess flung down her cards, and said aloud :
" What amuses you so much over yonder ? If you held
such hands as mine, you would not laugh so heartily."
" Not in vein to-night, Giulia ?" asked Lady Harcourt.
"No," replied the duchess, rising as she spoke. "The
marchese and I want to play baccarat : ecarte is too stupid
too what is that expressive English word, Miss Cam-
eron ? ah, slow."
" The very word," replied Violet..
" What wonderful progress you are making in our
harsh tongue !" laughed Lady Harcourt.
" Ah, when one has a good teacher !" said Carlo.
" Go you, marchese, and bring some Christian souls who
appreciate baccarat, and leave me and my teachers alone,"
retorted the duchess, with a sneer.
" Wouldn't disturb you for the world not even when
you put them in the plural," said Carlo. "Baccarat, eh?
Well, since this is my last chance for six months, I may as
well take advantage of it."
" What do you mean ?" she asked.
" I am not to touch a card for six whole months," said
Carlo.
Everybody laughed except Nina and Violet, but Magno-
letti persisted, till all perceived that he was in earnest.
" Whom did you promise ?" asked the duchess, as the
chorus of wondering ejaculations ceased.
" I swore it on my guardian angel's crucifix," replied
Carlo, gayly.
" Upon my word, Miss Cameron, we may well call you
the all-powerful !" cried the duchess.
Violet did not heed the speech, so no one would have
ventured to notice it, only Carlo knew that it would enrage
the duchess more to discover he had yielded to his own
wife's influence than to that of Miss Cameron.
" The crucifix happened to be Russian," said he, and as
he spoke he playfully raised Nina's hand to his lips.
The duchess laughed in reply, and turned to take her
fan from the table, but Violet caught sight of her face its
expression of malignity was positively startling and Miss
Cameron exulted anew over the power which she possessed
ONCE TOO OFTEN. 371
to counteract the plots she felt assured the woman already
meditated.
The duchess looked round with her sweetest smile, and
said :
"It would be a pity to endanger your wise resolves,
Carlo there shall be no baccarat ! Let us rest a little, and
go back to ecarte: I believe I shall follow your good exam-
ple so far as to abjure all other games."
" To think of rny brightening into a shining light to
guide people into safe paths !" cried Carlo.
"This is a world of surprises," returned the duchess,
glancing at Miss Cameron with an expression lost upon
that lady, though the marchese perfectly understood its
meaning, and he inwardly vowed to tell Nina, before he
slept, of the malicious hints Giulia had several times
thrown out in regard to himself and their friend.
Her last chance this had been the duchess's thought
when Carlo announced his determination to give up cards
she would make good use of it ! Oh, if Dimetri were
only there ! There might be danger for her in attempting
to cheat at baccarat unaided, but at ecarte she could do it
with impunity in case fortune favored Magnoletti : before
they rose from the table the thousands which remained
from Carlo's late inheritance should change hands !
Giulia and Carlo stood watching the whist-players ; the
others joined the people in the outer salons- Violet pausing
to whisper some hopeful assurance in Nina's ear as they
went.
" Am I expected to wait for you, Fraulein ?" asked the
professor, stalking up to Miss Cameron.
" Of course you are," said Lady Harcourt, who over-
heard the question, "and she is not going for these two
hours ! You dreadful man, you drove us out of the music-
room by persuading Madame do Hatsfeldt to play that ter-
rible Wagner music ! But you cannot escape ; come and
tell me all sorts of wise things, so that I can repeat them
later as original, and get a reputation for learning on easy
terms "
Violet would gladly have gone home, but she knew that
her hostess would not permit her to leave, and besides,
weary as she was, something impelled her to remain, and
she could not resist the conviction that before the evening
ended she should leurn the reason fiud it a potent one top.
372 ONCE TOO OFTEN.
Presently, other men were announced Sabakine and
Gherardi amongst them. Nearly another hour passed,
then the supper-room was thrown open.
" Sabakine," said Lady Harcourt, " play maUre d'hotel,
and go warn those people in the other room that eatables
and champagne are to be had if they choose to leave their
cards."
When he came back, Lady Harconrt and Violet were
still in the salon, detained by a diatribe of the professor's
against the madness of human creatures exasperating their
interiors by eating trash at that hour of the night.
" None of them can think of their stomachs," said
Sabakine. " Gherardi has persuaded the whist-players to
change to poker ! The duchess wants a lemonade." Then
he added in Violet's ear: "Carlo is losing fearfully ! Dear
Miss Cameron perhaps I ought not to say it but try to
stop his playing so much with the duchess. If she were a
man I would tell you the reason."
Violet knew that he shared her suspicions, but nothing
could be done at present ; she took his arm and followed
Lady Harcourt, who was not only forcing the professor
into the supper-room, but threatening to make him devour
both game and sweets as a punishment for his lecture.
Violet could not eat ; her throat felt parched and burn-
ing, and she took an ice in order to obtain momentary
.relief.
" I will have no standing about no nibbling," Lady
Harcourt announced ; " you are all to sit down at a tabfe
like Christians, and not only eat, but be as witty as if we
were back in the days of the gay, delightful Philippe,
instead of this dull nineteenth century."
It seemed to Violet that the party would never break
up ; she could endure it no longer ; she must go back to
the card-room she must !
" Do come," she whispered at last to the professor, who
was seated beside her.
" Where are you going?' called Lady Harcourt. "I'll
not have you ruin a pleasant hour, Violet."
" I'll come back," she replied ; "my head aches. The
professor is too devoted to you I am jealous, and must
have him to myself for a few minutes."
The savant gave her his arm, and they strayed into
the empty salon beyond.
ONCE TOO OFTEN. 373
"What aila you, Friiulein ?" he asked. "I knew at
dinner that something was wrong."
" I am anxious about the marchese," she answered.
"Professor, that woman's look haunts me;" and she told
rapidly of Carlo's promise to abstain from cards. "If she
could ruin him she would she is desperate."
"You can't do any good," returned the professor ; "the
marchese is crazy when he gets those devil's pictures in his
hands."
"I believe she cheats ; I believe the whispers are
true "
"Never take the trouble to believe anything which you
cannot prove," interrupted the professor calmly. " My
dear, it is distracting to think of the variety of reptiles
and wild beasts the life-principle in that woman must have
passed through before it entered her present shape."
"Come with me," pleaded Violet. "Perhaps I can
give him a warning ; sometimes he will pay attention to
what I say."
The professor shrugged his broad shoulders. " If this
is Carlo's last chance for six months, warnings will be thrown
away," oaid he ; " but come, Fraulein, and don't look so mis-
erable."
" And watch her do !" urged Violet. " Your eyes are
as quick as those of a lynx ; who knows "
In her impatience she hurried him forward without
waiting to finish her sentence. The professor paused in
the doorway, and let her pass.
The table at which the four men sat was at the farther
end of the room ; the players too deeply engrossed to no-
tice anything that went on about them. Carlo and the
dunhess were seated so that the professor could look
directly into the lady's hand ; her back towards him. She
was shuffling the cards relating some anecdote while thus
employed ; Carlo laughing at her words. He was pale, but
scarcely more so than usual ; a few tiny beads of perspira-
tion which broke out on his forehead afresh each time that
he wiped them away, alone betrayed his keen excitement.
Violet passed round the table and leaned over him.
" What luck ?" she whispered.
"Not precisely brilliant," he replied carelessly, "but
perhaps it will change."
The duchess looked up ; Miss Cameron was regarding
374 ONCE TOO OFTEN.
her fixedly, bat though the woman perfectly understood
the meaning in her glance, she returned it with a scorn-
fully indifferent smile.
"Sol" said Violet, half aloud, and made a rapid sign
with her fan, first towards her own head, then towards
Carlo's shoulder. Giulia attempted to look defiant, but her
gaze wavered ; she phut her mouth hard to hide a sudden
quiver of the lips.
" Did you speak, belle Violette ?" asked Carlo.
" The other night at my house," began Violet softly,
her eyes still fastened on the woman, "the other
night "
" Marchese, suppose we stop," broke in the duchess,
quickly. " Ah, pardon, I interrupted Miss Cameron !"
" Well, the other night ?" questioned Carlo.
"You were less unlucky," said Violet.
" No high play permitted," rejoined he, laughing. " Did
you say stop, duchess ? Heavens, what an idea ! This is
my last dissipation for six months, remember !"
The duchess gave Violet a quick glance, which said as
plainly as words could have done : " I am not to blame,"
and began dealing the cards. "You would go on playing
if I retired, Carlo, so I may as well take my chances," she
observed presently.
Violet turned away ; as she did so she saw the duchess's
eyes follow her that awful glare was in their depths
again ; her lips wreathed with the malignant smile which
had startled Violet once before. For the moment, Miss
Cameron couJd do no more the woman had won the right
to a truce. Violet sat down at some distance from the
table ; the professor kept his stand. The game continued;
Carlo's losses were terrible. The duchess was dealing
again ; her brain working busily. If she could put Mag-
uoletti so much in her debt that, added to his previous
losses at her house, the present disaster would cramp him
in a desperate manner, she could buy Violet's silence by
proposing easy terms of payment to Carlo. Not only a
hold gained on Miss Cameron, but the money the money
which she loved in the very depths of her soul, where the
instincts of a usurer and a spendthrift fought incessantly
for supremacy.
"lam tired, marchese," she said. "What say you
double or quits ?"
ONCE TOO OFTEN. 375
Carlo snatched at the chance with the recklessness of
the true gambler.
" As you like," he answered.
Whatever else he might know her capable of, Magno-
letti had never suspected her of cheating ; while she dealt,
he turned his head and addressed some trivial remark to
Miss Cameron.
With an expertness worthy a conjurer, the duchess
slipped a king from the bottom of the pack instead of
tin-owing down the top card. Victory in every way ; not
only Carlo's money won, but Violet Cameron conquered a
second time victory !
Quick as her movement was, before she could play the
king, a grip of iron seized her two hands just across the
knuckles, and shut them so tight that she could not drop
the evidence of her guilt could not stir a finger.
Discovered ruined !
The terrible consequences flashed upon the woman and
paralyzed body and mind. She groaned aloud. Carlo
looked back and uttered an exclamation of horror. The
men at the other table started from their seats and hurried
forward. The professor cried :
" Look for yourselves, gentlemen. The trick has been
neatly done."
lie lifted the duchess's hands so that the spectators
could see all the cards the position of the tell-tale thumb
and finger. Nobody spoke the whole group was abso-
lutely struck dumb. Then the professor's guttural voice
broke the silence :
"Perhaps you do not punish lady sharpers publicly, but
at least I suppose you decline to play with them."
Violet sat motionless her first thought one of rejoicing
that Carlo was saved ; then she caught sight of the crimi-
nal's white face, and a shudder of pity mingled with her
fright and disgust.
The professor held the woman fast ; she did not
attempt to struggle ; her black eyes wandered slowly about
the circle, then settled on Violet Cameron, and a fierce, im-
potent wrath mingled with the terror that glazed their
fires.
At the instant, Lady Harcourt and Nina appeared on
the threshold. Nina was looking back over her shoulder
at Subakine: her merry laugh rang out, sending a cold
376 ONCE TOO OFTEN.
thrill through the listeners died abruptly on her lips as a
low ejaculation from hev companion caused her to turn her
head.
Lady Harcourt mechanically stepped forward, drawing
the raarchesa with her. Sahakine followed, closing the
door behind him. lie had taken in the full significance of
the scene at a glance.
" At last," he said calmly.
" At last," echoed the professor. "She cheated you out
of ten thousand francs about a month since, Sabakine."
" I thought no one knew it, so I held my peace," returned
the Russian ; " but I was sure this must happen sooner or
later."
" I saw the trick the night she tried it with you," re-
joined the professor. "I was not quick enough then to
catch her ; we have been more succ^ssfu! this time every-
body has seen."
He dropped the woman's hands the cards rustled
slowly to the floor. She cowered down in her chair, sat
quiet for a moment, then struggled to her feet. They could
hear her panting breath ; her lips were drawn back spas-
modically, showing the white teeth ; her eyes again wan-
dered about the group.
" What do you mean to do ?" she hissed ; and her gaze
once more settled on Violet. " That Cameron woman is
satisfied now. Well, what do you mean to do?"
"I am sure that I can speak for everybody here no one
will tell !" cried Carlo.
"Provided the duchess promises to leave Floi'ence for
two years," added Sabakine, in his most indifferent tones.
The other men did not speak. They were all Italians,
and had often suffered from what they had considered
Giulia's wonderful luck ; to know that their losses had no
doubt been caused by trickery, filled them with anger too
hot for any merciful recollection of her sex to soften their
judgment.
The duchess uttered an inarticulate cry of rage started
forward made a step towards Violet. Her arms were
stretched out ; her face so perfectly demoniac that Nina
shrieked. Sabakine moved in front of the woman ; the
professor's hand fell heavily upon her shoulder.
The duchess's frenzied eyes roved from Violet to Carlo ;
ONCE TOO OFTEN. 377
she laughed aloud. At least she could deal one final blow,
defeated, disgraced as she was.
She began to utter the vile slander which the Greek had
spoken, but the professor stopped her at the first words,
which reached no ears save his and Sabakine's.
" If you finish, madame," he exclaimed, " I will expose
you myself in the morning papers."
" Good God, professor !" cried Carlo.
" Hush !" said Sabakine, sternly. " If the professor did
not, I would ; mercy is wasted here."
The duchess's fingers tore like claws at the lace upon
her dress, but she remained silent.
Lady Harcourt had by this time recovered her presence
of mind. She crossed the salon and opened a door hidden
in the oak wainscoting.
" That passage leads directly to the dressing-room," she
said. " Madame da Rimini can leave my house without
encountering those guests who have not witnessed this
scene."
The woman turned, shook her clenched hand at Violet
Cameron, uttered another inarticulate cry like the snarl of
a wild animal, and fled, closing the door behind her.
She gained the dressing-room, found her wraps, and
hurried down stairs. Her carriage drove up, and as she
was entering it a hand touched hers.
" Permit me, du"hess !" said Dimetri, softly. " I was
waiting till you came out ; I had something to tell you !"
" What ?" she demanded, turning fiercely on him.
" Do you remember what, you said to-day ? Well, to-
morrow morning at daylight !"
She grasped his arm with both hands, and began to
laugh.
" Get into the carriage," she whispered, as soon as she
could check that terrible paroxysm of laughter. " Tell me
about it ! You are sure to kill him sure ?"
" I was Lachasse's favorite pupil," he answered, with a
smile.
378 THE STORY TOLD.
CHAPTER XL.
THE STOEY TOLD.
OR a few instants after the door closed behind
the woman, nobody among the group stirred or
spoke. Nina had caught her husband's hand
and held it fast ; Lady Harcourt leaned on
Violet's shoulder to support herself ; the men
stood like statues of astonishment, with the exception of
Sabakine and the professor ; the Russian was calmly
adjusting a flower in his button-hole, and the savant
regarding the party with a smile worthy a Sphinx.
" Professor," said Sabakine, breaking the silence with
his cold, polished voice, " they all seem turned to stone ;
can't you perform some sort of incantation that will restore
their vitality ?"
The professor pointed a long, bony figure at the table
strewn with cards, and replied sententiously :
" They have banished the devil, but they'll not give
up his works."
Everybody started, and a chorus of ejaculations rose.
Violet sat down on the sofa near, and Nina hurried up,
drawing Carlo with her.
" And only last week she took a cool three thousand
out of my pocket at piquet !" exclaimed Gherardi. " Carlo
mio, set up a statue of Fortune at once in your oratory, and
let it wear the professor's face."
"I should make a beautiful goddess, but it would be a
pity to leave out my legs," quoth the savant.
Lady Harcourt laughed hysterically.
" I could forgive Giulia her dishonesty," said she, " but
I can't pardon her bad taste in choosing my house to dis-
play it."
" And we always talked about her wonderful luck,"
cried Gherardi. " By heavens, we ought to publish her in
every newspaper in Italy !" and all his compatriots, with
the exception of Magnoletti, echoed his angry threat.
" Oh no, no !" exclaimed Violet. " Keep her secret
she will go away at once ! Nina Lady Harcourt make
them promise not to tell."
THE STOUT TOLD. 379
"Of course they'll not tell we shan't, any of us ; yet it
will leak out somehow," returned her ladyship philosophi-
cally, rather annoyed with herself for having been betrayed
into either surprise or horror even by an incident so start-
ling. " In the meantime, Sabakine, open the doors ; what
will the other people think to find us shut up like so many
conspirators ?"
" In an opera bouffe" added Carlo, speaking for the
first time since the duchess's departure.
Nina laughed, then put up her fan to hide the tears
which rushed to her eyes.
" Happy tears," she whispered, as Violet pressed her
hand in silent sympathy. " There never was but one real
cloud on my horizon it is gone forever/'
" A great deal to be thankful for," Violet thought ; then
that mournful line of the great master's flashed through her
mind : " It is hard to look at happiness through other
men's eyes !" There came another reflection : If she had
wronged Laurence Aylmer after all ! But no ; even though
she could believe that the duchess had put him in an
equivocal position without fault on his part, his words this
night damned him with deeper treachery ! Only two even-
ings before be had poured forth tender declarations to
Mary Danvers, in the hope of securing her silence to-night
he had dared to tell her, Violet, that she alone reigned in
his heart.
" I must go home," she said, rising quickly.
" Oh, not yet !" urged Lady Harcourt, overhearing the
words.
" And I too," added Nina ; " come, Carlo, I am so
tired."
" Civil to your hostess," retorted her ladyship. " I
believe I am tired too there's a return compliment."
As Nina passed the professor, she stopped short.
" I should like to kiss you !" cried she, laughing, yet
ready to cry.
" You may," said he.
" I will," she replied, and stood on tiptoe to do it, as he
bent his grizzly head towards her with comic gravity.
Now, do you know it really is not unpleasant," said the
professor, looking about in a meditative fashion, whereat
they all laughed immoderately.
380 THE STORY TOLD.
" Impossible to decide, except by a personal trial," said
Sabakine.
"Come home, small woman," cried Carlo. "1 can't
fight a duel with every man in the room on your account."
The word duel carried Sabakine's thoughts back to the
subject he had tried to forget. He was ready now also to
take his leave.
The other guests came trooping out of the supper-room,
and met the party on their way through the salons.
" Going already ?" cried somebody.
" I provide board, but no beds," said Lady Harcourt.
" Go home, everybody. I am a lone widow, with only my
reputation as a shield against a sinful world. You need not
look wicked, Sabakine. I don't want to lose my character,
bad as it is : you might discover my real one, and then I
should be worse off than I am now."
" You would always be the pearl of women, whatever
role you assumed," said the Russian, bowing over her
extended fingers.
" My dear, I am forty years past compliments," returned
she, tapping his cheek with a hand white and shapely as in
the days when she reigned supreme by her beauty ; nor had
she lost her sovereignty even at sixty-five her cleverness
and wit took the place of youthful charms.
" I shall come and see you to-morrow, Violet," said
Nina, as they descended the stairs.
" Who has seen Laurence Aylmer to-day ?" demanded
Carlo.
" Yes, Nina, come to-morrow," said Violet.
" To-morrow !" mentally repeated Sabakine, on whose
arm Miss Cameron was leaning. " God knows what that
may bring her," for the reticent, secretive Russian had ob-
tained a clearer insight to Violet's feelings than most of
her acquaintances.
Her carriage had come for her after taking Miss Bron-
son home, and the professor declared that, as he brought
her, he ought to return with her, meaning to take this op-
portunity of discovering if his fears that trouble had arisen
between her and his favorite possessed any foundation.
But Violet did not want to be alone with him she was
afraid he might speak of the man, so she jestingly quoted
Lady Harcourt's speech :
THE STOUT TOLD. 381
"And I am not even anybody's widow, poor lone spin-
ster that I am !" she added.
" Would you like to be mine ?" asked Sabakine.
" Alas, crape is not becoming to me," she replied ; and
as their glances met, each perceived that for some reason
the other found jesting difficult, so Sabakine naturally hur-
ried Violet on, and put her in the carriage.
" At least, always remember that you can rank me
among the truest of your friends," he said, with sudden
gravity. " Good-night, Miss Cameron sleep well."
" Sans adieu,' 1 ' 1 she answered ; " we are certain to meet
to-morrow."
Ah, what that morrow might bring her ! was his
thought, as he got into his coupe and drove away.
Clarice had been suffering from neuralgia in her face
during the last two days, and Miss Cameron had bidden
her go to bed early arid get a thorough rest. Violet, deter-
mined not to be beguiled into reverie, began to undress as
soon as she entered her room, and had nearly finished the
operation when she fancied that she heard a sound from
Mary's chamber.
Very possibly the poor child, unable to sleep, was sitting
in solitary communion with her troubled heart ; and in
spite of her own sufferings, of the fact that the peculiar
circumstances rendered it very hard that the task of consol-
ing Mary should fall upon her, she was too unselfish to
think of seeking her pillow without having at least tried by
affectionate caresses, to remind the girl that she was not
deserted and uncared-for in her pain.
Miss Cameron opened the door softly, so as not to dis-
turb her cousin in case she slept, and looked into the cham-
ber. Her fancy had not deceived her ; Mary sat by the win-
dow, from which she had pushed back the shutter, and was
gazing out at the starlit sky, so absorbed in her reverie
that she did not notice Violet's entrance.
Miss Cameron would have marveled could she have
known how quickly these solitary hours had passed with
the young watcher. The words which the professor spoke
to her after dinner sent Mary away to her room with every
pulse beating high in relief and hope.
The professor was not a man to have said so much as he
had without a warrant beyond his own fancies or intuitions
382 THE STORY TOLD.
nothing but assurances from Warner's own lips would
have induced him to speak.
The last cloud was gone ; even the fear that a long
dreary period of .waiting, of misapprehension, might spread
between them, and imbitter this separation, faded in its
turn.
She was no longer bound by the scruples which had
rendered it impossible for her to make any sign all the
circumstances of the case were changed. She could answer
his letter now without fear of appearing forward or un-
maidenly ; nay, to pass it by unnoticed would be unfriendly
uncourteous even, since she owed him her thanks for the
beautiful sketches he had so kindly remembered amid the
hurry of preparations for his journey.
She read over and over his farewell note read too,
divers little billets which on one pretext or another he had
managed to write her. They all told the same story she
could decipher it clearly enough now. Of course it was
natural and fitting that without delay she should forward
a few kind, frank lines, telling him how sorry all his ac-
quaintances were at his unexpected departure how warm-
ly they hoped soon to welcome him back and he might
believe that no one would be more glad to do so than his
sincere friend Mary Danvers.
She must have spent two good hours meditating that
epistle, brief as she proposed to make it, but she had it
clearly arranged in her mind at last. She heard Violet re-
turn, and meant to go to bed so quietly that her cousin
would not suspect her late watch, but some new fancy car-
ried her off on its sunny wings, and she forgot her i-esolve.
" You bad child, to be up at this hour !" called Violet.
Mary started, and said rather confusedly :
"You you have got -back ! Is it so very late?"
" Past two o'clock," returned Miss Cameron.
" It is you who ought to be in bed how tired your
voice sound's !" said Mary.
" Does it ? I believe I am tired," replied Violet.
" What have you been doing all the evening ?"
"Oh, reading, a part of the time," Mary explained, and
felt her cheeks grow hot.
"What?" asked Violet, at once fulfilling Mary's fear
that the confession would place her in the difficulty of hav-
ing to answer this question ; but, as usual, that over-
TUE STORY TOLD. 383
scrupulous conscience of hers would never permit her to
indulge in the slightest prevarication.
"Only letters," she said, and the slight quiver in her
voice roused a new suspicion in Violet's mind. Aylmer
had been in the habit of secretly writing to her ; it was
his letters the poor child had been torturing her wounded
heart by perusing ; each tender word now becoming only
a fresh confirmation of his falsity.
Better that Mary should have every additional proof
possible without delay of the man's utter worthlessness.
She was too sensible, too proud, to mourn long for so
mean a deceiver, and so young, Violet again reflected with
a bitter pang, that the loss of this affection need not make
an arid desert of her life, encumbered by the ruined altars
of a shattered faith.
" Mary," she said quickly, " you asked me the other
night what I meant to do you know what I mean that
night when
" Yes, yes !" Mary interrupted, her heart giving a great
throb of sympathy for her cousin. " And and you have
decided ?"
" I have decided," Violet answered ; " I have acted on
my resolution."
" Oh ! ' Mary gasped. For the moment she could not
add a syllable, afraid of betraying some consciousness
which would lacerate Violet's pride beyond the power of
healing.
" I must tell you," Violet went on, sitting wearily down
in a chair. " It is better you should know the whole."
She paused, and her listener wondered if it were possi-
ble that she was so utterly beaten down and conquered
that she must have sympathy in her woe. Mary rose sud-
denly ; her first impulse was to fling her arms about Violet,
and assure her that at least one heart would never fail her.
But even yet she did not dare go so far ; she must wait till
her cousin proved by absolute words that she was humbled
enough, so that such protestations could comfort instead of
wounding her.
Mary crossed the room, seated herself on a stool, rest-
ing her head on Violet's knee, after a habit she had taken
when they talked confidentially.
"Tell me," she said softly ; " you know you can !"
" Yes," Violet replied, smoothing her hair ; " you are
384 THE STOUT TOLD.
such a brave girl ; such a heart of gold ! Mary, I can't
soften the blow ; I must tell it all out. I have seen him
to-night "
" Oh !" Mary gasped again. " And it was of no use ?
He had nothing to say ! How could he ! Yet I had hoped
yes, I had "
She could not finish. Violet put out her arm and drew
her closer sorrow for the girl's suffering a strange bit-
terness against fate that the task of reporting Aylmer's
despicable conduct should fall upon her of all people in the
world, that consolation for the youthful heart he had in-
jured should be her portion hers, whose hurt was so much
deeper, so much more fatal making confusion in her mind,
above which presently another thought dominated ; to
pause now would be as cruel as for a surgeon to hesitate
after his knife had probed his patient's wound.
" There is no hope," she said, " none ! Mary, we must
make up our minds to that. See, he could think of no other
way of adding to the fullness of his infamy, so to-night he
actually told me that he he loved me !"
" Violet !" Mary exclaimed.
" Yes, I know," Miss Cameron hurried on; "it seems
incredible that his audacity could go so far, but it did !
There, you have heard the worst now ! He wanted my
money, perhaps ; else believed that my vanity was so inor-
dinate he could actually by a declaration of his love his
love ! make me believe him blameless where that woman
was concerned ; his treachery to you a mere amusement
on his part, which he had not dreamed you would take
seriously "
Mary interrupted by pushing away her arm and sitting
upright, staring into her cousin's face with wide-opened eyes.
" Treachery to me ?" she repeated. " To me ?"
" Don't be hurt at my knowing ; trust me, dear !" cried
Violet, putting out her arms again, and folding the girl to
her bosom, adding with a sudden burst of impatience against
fate, life, all things: "Oh, Mary, Mary, why couldn't
you have cared for the good man who loved you at least
have set one matter straight in this wicked world !"
Mary struggled to free herself, exclaiming passionately :
"Let me go, let me go !" As Violet released her, she rose
and stood looking at her in wonder. " What do you mean ?"
she cried. " Laurence Aylmer treacherous to me ? Why,
TEE STORY TOLD. 385
Violet, you are mad, or I am ! In heaven's name, what do
you mean ?"'
Did the child hope even yet to deny the secret which
her broken words and agitation would have revealed with-
out the other proofs which Violet possessed ? If so, she must
humor her ; but how to go on and not betray her knowl-
edge was a task so difficult that for a little she sat speech-
less.
"You think I care for Mr. Aylmer?" demanded Mary,
with that passionate wonder growing stronger in her voice.
" You believe that that "
"I am thankful that at least his arts did not succeed,"
Violet said hurriedly, as she paused. "I could not tell.
You are very young. Many girls would have been touched
he could seem so earnest, so true !"
"Violet, stop !" cried Mary. "You certainly will drive
me out of my senses ! Answer my question I insist !
You think Laurence Aylmer flirted with me?"
"Yes. Ah, don't be vexed, Mary; don't think I am
curious, intrusive. I love you, dear! See, I will believe
what you tell me about your own feelings "
" Oh, if you don't stop I shall become a gibbering idiot !"
burst in Mary, so excited by the sudden light thrown upon
matters that she scarcely knew what she said, in her eager-
ness to enlighten her cousin. " He was like a brother to
me never a word or look that was not kindness itself
that, and nothing more!"
" Mary ! Mary !"
" I swear it, Violet ! Oh, do believe me !"
" I think one of us must be mad !" Violet exclaimed, so
worn out that for the instant a kind of fretful exaspera-
tion was uppermost in her bewildered faculties.
" Oh, we must make everything clear now," returned
Mary. " I tell you I never thought of him except as a
friend. He never dreamed of flirting with me."
" Mary, when you told me of his conduct after that
woman went away "
"Because he did not want me to tell you," interrupted
Marj'. " Great heavens, Violet, did you think I meant ho
made love to me ?"
" Yes. What else could I think ?"
" What else ? I must speak even if you are angry, I
must. I was furious on your account. I thought you
17
380 THE STORY TOLD.
cared for him. There, it is all said now ! I thought you
cared, and it may me so happy and to find him dishonor-
able ! Oh, Violet, Violet mayn't all the rest be some
drear! fill mistake too?"
Violet pressed her hands hard against her throbbing
temples, and stared at her cousin. She could not credit her
own ears. The girl must be trying to screen her secret at
any cost, whether of truth or care for her listener's delicacy
and pride.
"Before you went down stairs that night when we were
talking here, you were unhappy. You had seen him' dur-
ing the day. You cannot deny that you were unhappy "
" I was, but not about him," Mary desperately broke in
upon the hesitating sentences. " What did you mean when
you wondered I couldn't have cared for the good man who
who loved me ? Nobody has made love to me, Violet."
"But you knew Gilbert Warner loved you you must
have known that !" cried Violet, still in the depths of be-
wilderment.
"He never told me so," faltered Mary, turning away
her head.
"But he told me!"
Mary shrank a little farther off and put up one hand.
The movement was a revelation to Violet. She sprang to
her feut and seized her cousin's shoulder.
" What have I done !" she cried. " He thought you
cared for Aylmer. He talked with me, and and I "
"You told him I did!" groaned Mary. "Oh, you
might have ruined my whole life ! No, no, I did not mean
that ! Oh, Violet, Violet !" and she flung her arms about
her cousin, so overpowered between joy at this fresh con-
firmation of her own happiness and sympathy for Violet,
that she burst into tears and sobbed uncontrollably for a
few moinents, which was probably the best thing she could
have done on both their accounts.
" He loves you ! He loves you !" repeated Violet,
straining her close to her heart. " Oh, at least you will be
happy ; I thank God for it, my darling heartily. Oh,
the thought of your suffering was more than I could
bear !"
" How could you be so blind but never mind me !"
returned Mary, wiping away her tears. " Sit down, Violet,"
and she forced her cousin gently back into her chair,
THE STORY TOLD. 387
resuming her own place on the footstool. "Don't let us
judge Mi 1 . Aylmer ! Oh ! the more I reflected, the more
certain I felt that he was not to blame. I don't try to
put it all on her just because she is a woman but she is
such a dreadful creature ! I have so often seen him avoid
her. Oh, I behaved like a fool that night ! And he couldn't
have told he is a man he couldn't betray her ! But I
believe him when he said he loved you. Yes I do ! The
professor knew it ; he thought oh, you won't be vexed?"
Violet only answered by a pressure of her hand.
"He thought you were unwilling to let yourself care
about anybody but that it would all end well and oh, he
is so fond of Aylmer ; and he is a man, and must know
him as we cannot ! Violet, I tell you that woman did the
whole ! Maybe she saw me, and thought at least she could
ruin him in your esteem !"
Violet rose again, and began to pace the room in terrible
agitation, while her cousin hurried on with every argument
she could think of in Laurence's favor.
" I'll tell you what she did to-night. Of course, the
story is safe with you," Violet said at length, and she re-
lated the exposure which had befallen the duchess at the
card-table.
"Isn't a woman like that capable of anything?" shud-
dered Mary. "Oh, Violet, don't let us believe anything
against Mr. Aylmer on her account at least give him an
opportunity to explain. No, perhaps he could not but be-
lieve him ! I shall," she added, careful in her delicacy not
to put her pleadings in a fashion which could render her
sympathy troublesome. " See, one does not renounce a
friend without good reason ! We have always found him
honorable and true ; we are bound to credit his word.
Why, what is friendship worth that cannot stand any and
every test !"
"His very words," answered Violet, pausing in her
march. " Oh, Mary, if I have wronged him, I think he
never can forgive me ! I was so hard I must have said
horrible things to him."
"One pardons everything to a friend to the person
one loves," amended Mary. " Yes, I may speak out. I
don't pretend to know anything about your feelings, but I
am certain he loves you ! Oh, if I had not been such an
388 THE STORY TOLD.
idiot, you need have heard nothing at least I could have
waited to be sure !"
" I was ready for a moment to exonerate him, after
what happened about her cheating at cards," said Violet.
" Then I remembered "
" That you thought him treacherous to nv>. I under-
stand. My dearest dear, he liked to talk to me because I
talked about you ! Oh, Violet, it would be wicked to con-
demn him unheard ! I shall tell the professor what hap-
pened : you can't stop me, I warn you ! Mr. Aylmer shall
have every chance possible and I for one will believe his
word ! Oh, the more I have thought, the more I felt sure
I was wrong ! He didn't stir it was she put her head oh,
I can't go over it !"
" No, no !" cried Violet, beginning to pace the room
again.
" I was quite beside myself any way, that night," pur-
sued Mary. " I I "
" Ah, you were wondering why poor Gilbert had gone,"
interrupted Violet, hurrying up to her, and embracing her
again. " That was my fault too, blind simpleton ! Well,
that is all clear enough now ! Be happy he loves you
he told me so do you hear ?"
"I don't want to hear till he is sensible enough to come
and tell me himself," said Mary, with a laugh and a sob.
" I am not thinking of myself ! Oh, Violet, try to believe
in poor Laurence !"
"My dear," said Violet, with more composure, " I shall
not lose my friend if I can help it. Since I wronged him
in one respect, I may easily have done so in another. The
only question is, if I have, whether he can pardon me."
" When he loves you !"
" Hush ! Laurence Aylmer was my friend, and he
would never have been more," said Violet.
" Oh, he is the only man I ever saw that seemed worthy
of you !" cried Mary, impatiently. " How could you help
liking him ?"
" To marry him would have been very different from
that," replied Violet. " A woman may have for friend a
man six years younger than herself not a husband ! At
my age "
" Your age ! When you look like a girl anybody
WEEN DAWN BROKE. 389
would give him five years moi*e than you ! In ordinary
cases I don't say you are not right but for you /"
" My dear, there is no question of marriage if I may
keep my friend I shall be glad ! Go you to bed good-
night !" and with a kiss upon Mary's cheek she went quickly
out of the room.
CHAPTER XLI.
WHEN DAWN BROKE.
HE gray dawn broke over Florence deepened
and broadened smote the casements of Lau-
rence Ayhner's chamber, and roused him from
sleep.
He had passed the greater portion of the
night writing such letters as would be necessary in case he
never returned from that expedition upon which he was to
go forth in the early morning ; then he lay down and speed-
ily fell into a deep slumber, some pleasant memory of Vio-
let brightening his dreams.
The premonition, so strong it became a certainty in his
mind, that the encounter would end fatally for him, re-
mained unshaken ; it had been his last conscious reflection
before he slept it was his first thought when he woke
solemn, awe-inspiring, but free from fear.
He rose in obedience to the summons which the light
brought as it quivered like some spirit-touch across his
eyelids, remembering that it was the last time it would
ever arouse his soul while clothed in those habiliments of
clay. He performed his toilet slowly, leisurely he had
never in his life felt more calm. Even his agonized heart
had ceased its struggles against the cruelty of fate ; the
time for such weakness had passed ; it belonged to men
who still had a part in this world and this world's miseries
he had done with them.
As he finished dressing, some one knocked at the door.
He knew who it was the man that took charge of his
apartment, bringing the coffee he had ordered for this nour.
" Come in, Giacoino," he said, and the old servant en-
390 WHEN DAWN BROKE.
tered with profuse Italian greetings, which not only com-
prehended wishes that his padrone's sleep had been pleas-
ant, but that all the other nights of his life should bring
rest as sweet, and this day and aH coming days and might
they be many filled with the choicest blessings that ever
descended upon mortal.
Often as he had heard the same utterances, they struck
Aylmer oddly now. He smiled, spoke pleasantly to the
old man, who was quite devoted to him, not more from the
numerous acts of kindness he had received than from sub-
mission to the powerful sovereignty which youth and hand-
some looks possess over most minds.
" The signore starts early on his expedition," Giacomo
said, as he placed the tray upon the table.
"Rather early," Aylmer answered, and again he smiled.
When the old man had gone, he drank his coffee, and
looked about to see that he had forgotten nothing. He
took the letters he had written and laid them in his desk,
where they would easily be found when wanted. He stood
for a moment looking at the envelope which bore Violet
Cameron's name.
"She will believe me when she reads this," he thought.
"Men do not lie with death staring them in the face. She
will believe me ah, if only she never learns why I fought
this man ! I think she never will. Sabakine promised for
himself and Gherardi ; the Greek cannot remain here, so
there is little danger."
He laid the letter beside the others, and closed the desk.
The clock struck the hour for his rendezvous with Saba-
kine had arrived, it having been decided that it would be
better for the latter not to come in search of him.
He took up his hat and walked to the door paused to
take one parting glance about the familiar room. Then he
drew a photograph from his breast-pocket, and stood gaz-
ing at it with his whole soul in his eyes, till a sudden rush
of memories momentarily shook his composure, and he cried
aloud in anguish " Violet, Violet !"
In that portion of the gloomy old palace which she had
chosen for her private apartments, Giulia da Rimini was
already astir, arraying herself hurriedly pale and stern
enough to have represented Nemesis, save for the lurid
gleam in her eyes and the triumphant smile 011 her mouth,
WHEN DAWN BROKE. 391
which deprived the face of the passionless calm it should
have worn to suit the comparison.
Exposed ruined foi-ced to go forth from Florence,
where life suited her so well; the duchess was furious at
this necessity, not overcome by shame. And the entire
catastrophe had been caused by Violet Cameron : she
brought the old man she set him to watch.
Oh, amid all her disappointments \\a\~ cruel misfor-
tunes, for which, during the long hours of the night, the
duchess had so often cursed the saints whom perhaps a
moment before she had begged to help her at least one
consolation awaited her revenge revenge upon that
haughty, insolent woman.
Laurence Aylmer was to die this morning ; had Fate
appeared in person to announce his doom, it could not be
more certain. If Dimetri essayed the foul, underhand
thrust, failure was impossible ; and he had sworn not to
spare he would keep his oath. Ay, she could trust him
he would have sacrificed a hecatomb of human creatures in
his cruel remorselessness to win his guerdon ! Oh, if the
wretch who had scorned her were only possessed of a score
of lives, that she might have them all !
Revenge revenge ! She was ahungered and athirst
for the sight of blood. She meant to witness the duel ;
Dimetri had no idea of her intention, but see it she would ;
her vengeance would be deprived of half its savor if she
could not watch her enemy's last gasp.
After that, she would by some means force her way into
Violet Cameron's presence, be the one to tell her that Ayl-
mer was dead dead for her whom he had loved. Since
the knowledge could increase her misery, the creature
should learn the full might of his devotion, extending even
unto death to death the very repetition of the word was
music !
Easy enough for the duchess to carry out her plan with-
out fear ; no one would come to her rooms until she rang
for that matter, she was past caring even if her absence
were discovered and indeed, her personal attendants had
been too long in her service to indulge surprise at any
vagary on the part of their mistress. Her apartments com-
municated with a private staircase which led directly down
into the neglected stretch of shrubberies, more like a wood
than a garden, having a door that gave on a narrow street
392 WHEN DAWN BROKE.
at the back of the palace, and the keys were always in her
own possession.
To see the man die watch his blood flow gloat from
her place of concealment over his latest groans that was
what she wanted.
I know how exaggerated this description sounds ; but
there are no words, however wild, which would be strong
enough to picture the state of her mind her demoniac
hatred of Violet Cameron her murderous wrath against
the man who had disdained her charms after months of
crafty patience and unwearied pursuit on her part.
Ah, the world was not wide enough for him and her,
so lie must die die ! She uttered the word aloud with the
ferocity wherewith very possibly one of her own ances-
tresses had cried it out when the fallen gladiator lay
stretched on the arena sands, and his victor waited to hear
the verdict, and the voices of vestals and noble matrons
checked with fierce imprecations the sign which some
emperor seized with sudden pity would have made.
And amid the luxurious gloom of her chamber, Violet
Cameron slept on after the break of day after th/e man
going forth to death for her sake, and the woman eager for
his murder, were both astir.
On leaving Mary she had sat down in her own room and
lost herself in dreary meditation ; then some recollection
of the girl warned her that at least she could aid where the
future of two human beings was concerned, whatever befell
her and the man who had given her his love the man she
had so deeply wronged.
She wrote a long letter to Gilbert Warner careful to
give no hint which could compromise Mary only telling
him that she had discovered his and her own mistake,
advising him frankly if his happiness were so vitally con-
cerned as he had told her, to postpone his departure for
Greece until he had taken time to return to Florence and
learn his fate from Mary's own lips.
"He will understand," she thought; "he will come
back at once ah, they shall be happy !"
She inclosed the letter to the professor, requesting him
to forward it without delay, as she did not know Mr. War-
ner's address, and placed the missive where Clarice would
find it when she entei'ed in the morning.
She went to bed then, and at length fell asleep. She
WHEN DAWN BROKE. 3S3
dreamed that she was wandering through a beautiful gar-
den with Laurence Aylmer. Every cloud had been swept
aside lie knew that she loved him no doubt or scruple left
in her own mind and this haunt where they roved as far
removed from the common world as if some enchanted
sphere had opened to admit them and their happiness.
He left her side to pluck a flower she asked for he did
not return. She looked about he had disappeared. By
the tree where he had been standing she saw a serpent
coiled upright, and as she stared in fascinated horror, she
perceived that the monster wore a woman's face Giulia da
Rimini's and was regarding her with that wicked smile
she knew so well.
She tried to fly, but could not to call Aylmer's name,
but her lips refused to utter a sound. The serpent glided
upright down the flowery paths, still looking back at her
with Gmlia's smile, and she was forced to follow its lead.
The way no longer led through a garden, but a dirk
morass filled with slimy water, where hideous creeping
things clogged her feet, and human skulls grinned at her,
and ghost-like figures circled about in a spectral dance ;
and she had to go on on in the serpent's wake till sud-
denly she heard a rush and whiz, and through the din,
Aylmer's voice calling her name in desperate agony :
" Violet, Violet !"
She woke the vision so real that she could still hear
those accents of mortal anguish.
Whether by some strange chance, whether in obedience
to some mysterious power held by our souls, I do not
pretend to judge, but at the instant she woke, Laurence
Aylmer, ready to leave his rooms, paused to look once more
at her portrait, and as he regarded it a sudden spasm of
despair at the thought that perhaps neither here nor here-
after throughout the sweep of eternity should he ever look
upon her face again, wrung from his lips a cry of which the
tones that roused her from sleep were like an echo :
"Violet, Violet!"
She sprang out of bed before she knew what she was
doing, crossed the room to Mary's door, in the blind,
instinctive search for human companionship in her terrible
fear. Then she got her senses back retraced her steps
reached the bed lay down for a little so faint and weak
that she could not stir.
17*
394 WHEN DAWN BROKE.
Gradually her strength returned. She tried to argue
with herself. It was perfectly useless. She could not com-
pose her mind. Could not lie there alone she was afraid.
She rose again, opened the shutters, and let the day
stream into the chamber. She seated herself, holding her
head between her hands. That voice echoed in her ears
still ; when she shut her eyes, she beheld anew the hideous
shape which had haunted her dream the serpent wearing
Giulia's smile.
She should certainly go mad if she did not get away
from that close room out into the free air. She sought
hastily for garments to put on so blind with pain that she
groped about like a person trying to find his way through a
heavy mist. Her fingers seemed turned to lead, and re-
fused to do her bidding. Every movement she made caused
a noise which she fancied might waken Mary, and now she
shrank from companionship, ardently as she had longed for
it a few moments since.
Oh, she should never be ready she almost thought she
had wasted hours in the task and each moment was pre-
cious. She must go go something was awaiting her
some duty to be performed what where ? She knew
not but she must go !
She was dressed at length had found a hat and cloak
stared at herself in the mirror, fretted by a dreadful idea
that she was crazy, that if she were not very cautious some
disorder in attire or manner would attract attention from
the people she might meet, and she be seized, held fast,
hindered from achieving her task what task? Oh, this
fancy was more insane than all the rest, but she could not
subdue it she must go forth and learn what errand fate
had for her to do.
As she opened the door and stepped out into the cor-
ridor, a certain composure came over her : she could reflect
argue. She had been in a frenzy, but it had passed
only the effect of her terrible dream. At least she would
keep on her way the air would do her good. She should
find Antonio stirring somewhere he waa always the first
up in the house.
She met him on the stairs : he stared in wonder at her
appearance at such an hour alarmed too by her pallor.
" Antonio," she said, "I am nearly frantic with nervous
headache I must go out."
WHEN DAWN BROKE. 395
" Into the garden, mademoiselle ?"
" No, no it is too close ! Come with me can we find
a carriage? I will drive to the Cascine, and walk there."
She had no thought of giving the direction till she heard
the words on her lips. This utterance without conscious
volition brought back that awful dread some duty awaited
her. Oh, she was mad, mad !
Antonio only bowed in response, and followed her down
to the entrance-hall. The sleepy porter, in his shirt-sleeves,
was just opening the outer doors : he caught sight of his
mistress, and fled in search of a jacket, too much occupied
with the fact of having been surprised by his lady in a garb
so unorthodox, even to marvel what could have roused her
at this unholy hour. But Antonio, always prudent, would
leave no loophole for astonishment or possible gossip.
"The signora has a headache," he said softly, as the
porter returned and began fumbling at the locks. " The
doctor orders early walks when she suffers so she is going
out."
The doors swing back Violet drew her vail over her
face, and passed into the street. The cabs were just taking
their station on the stand at the corner : Antonio helped
her into a covered hack, mounted the box, and they drove
away.
The guardian seated at the carriage entrance of the Cas-
cine had already seen two vehicles go by. Had the early
hour roused any suspicion in his mind that it was his duty
to inquire into the matter, or give information to the
mounted patrol when those officials should make their tardy
appearance, the doubt would have been dispelled by the
fact that in this carriage, as well as the second of the for-
mer ones, a lady sat. The guardian might have his own
ideas that a fancy for such early driving on the part of two
gentlemen and a brace of ladies was, to say the least, a
singular coincidence, but of course no business of his.
To avoid all possibility of attracting undue attention
from this personage, it had been arranged that Sabakine
and Aylmer, carrying the necessary weapons with them,
should enter the Cascine by this route, while Gherardi and
his principal, accompanied by the surgeon, made their way
into the wood across the suspension bridge higher up, and
beyond the view of the guard at the gates.
When the cab reached the open space where the great
396 WHEN DAWN BROKE.
cafe stands, Violet could no longer bear the restraint of in-
action. She pulled down the glass, and ordered the coach-
man to stop.
" Wait for me here," she said to Antonio, as he assisted
her to alight ; " I will walk through the meadow. I shall
not meet a creature so early as this."
Again Antonio bowed in acquiescence. He saw that she
was suffering terribly from some cause. It might be physi-
cal, as she had declared, though of that the shrewd Swiss
had his doubts, and out of the profundity of his unerring
tact forbore to annoy her even by the sound of his voice.
Violet crossed the square, and entered the pretty green
field which stretches for a considerable distance along the
middle of the Cascine. To the right, the shining sweep of
blue hills was visible above the trees ; at the left spread a
wide, dense thicket, beyond which wound the road and the
river, whereof she caught occasional glimpses as she passed
paths cut through the dense shrubberies.
She hurried on, consumed by the same wild impatience
the feeling that something called her, that she must attain
some goal : each moment more important than hours, days
of ordinary life delay fraught with peril, though to whom
she knew not and utterly unable to combat the sensation
by any argument.
She reached the end of the meadow, and gained a nar-
row alley so shut in among the trees and bushes that she
seemed in the heart of a great forest. It was gloomy and
dark here. Not a sound broke the stillness, not even the
singing of an early bird. The hush became oppressive.
She would make her way through the thicket, and come
out on the bank of the Arno ; at least she should have
broad daylight there, and the voice of the water to break
this terrible silence.
She turned aside into the bosquet, too impatient to wait
till she arrived at one of the paths which crossed it. The
bushes and long vines trailing down from the trees caught
at her dress, reminding her of the horror of her dream.
The ground grew damp and sodden, like the morass she
had journeyed over in that fearful vision. Once a tiny
snake started up just at her feet, and glided away with a
sharp hiss into its covert.
The horror of her nightmare came back with such force
that she groaned aloud, for an instant frightened by her
WHEN DAWN BROKE. 397
own voice, thinking it another's. She plunged recklessly
on. The brambles tore her hands and her garments.
They seemed trying to hold her back. With every step
tlie likeness to her journey in her dream grew stronger.
Oh, if it lasted only a few minutes longer she should go
wholly mad !
She was coming out. She caught glimpses of a little
cleared space through the branches. At the same moment
a sound struck her ear. O God, what was it? The click
of steel striking against steel !
She halted. It must be a delusion. Sho was mad
mad! Some living creature was near. She heard a quick,
gasping breath. Before she could turn her head, she felt
two arms close round her like an iron band. Then a hand
forced both her hands behind her back, furious fingers
clutched at her throat, dragged her head upward. Giulia
da Rimini's eyes were blazing into hers, that awful smile
oh, the exact smile the serpent had worn ! parting her
bloodless lips.
For a few seconds Violet struggled wildly in her cap-
tor's hold, almost suffocated by the pressure upon her
throat.
" Do you mean to murder me?" she gasped in a hoarse
whisper, articulating with great difficulty even in that
strangled tone.
The duchess stooped to bring her mouth close to Vio-
let's ear, and hissed slowly out oh, the very hiss of the
serpent in her dream !
" Better than that. I mean you to see him killed ! Do
you hear ? to see him killed !"
Completely unnerved before in mind and body, Violet
grew so sick and faint that she was utterly powerless in the
woman's hold. At no time would she have been a match
for her tormentor, but now she could not even struggle in
that boa-like grasp ; and the relentless fingers clutched still
tighter at her throat, rendering speech impossible.
The woman dragged her on a few paces, pushed her
yhead forward, and hissed again :
" Look ! look !"
Through a red haze Violet saw two men standing at the
farther end of the cleared space, a sword in the hand of
each flashing, waving, thrusting, like tongues of flame
before her eyes, the click and ring of the metal smiting her
3J8 WHEN DAWN BROKE.
ears like a bell. She beheld the faces of the pair ; she was
watching Laurence Aylmer and the Greek in their deadly
contest.
She could not have cried out now ev?n if the pressure
on her throat had relaxed sufficiently to permit ; her head
sank back against the woman's shoulder ; again she felt
that burning breath fan her cheek ; again she heard that
dreadful voice oh, always the serpent's hiss, though
endowed with human speech !
" He loved you ; you shall see him die ! Wait only a
little ; it will come. Dimetri has a secret that never fails !
This is my revenge ; he dies, you must live ; and you love
him you love him !"
The purgatorial agony of her soul roused a spasm of
physical vitality in Violet ; she fought fiercely to free her-
self, to cry out in vain. She was helpless as if the pres-
ent torture of body and mind had been a part of that terri-
ble dream.
Always the flash of the swords blinding her eyes ; their
scrape and rattle cutting her ears, and the duchess's voice
muttering maledictions to that accompaniment.
" Accursed ! I know what will hurt you most !" the
woman chanted, staring eagerly out at the combat while
she spoke. " He loved you ! he told me so do you hear,
devil ? he loved you ! I'd let another woman think he
loved me, but the truth will hurt you most : he loved you,
he loved you !"
Clash scrape rattle : the lightning-like thrusts given
and parried before her eyes, and that voice in her ear.
" I tried to win him ; no use ! I got to hate him ; then
he told me of his love for you you ; that was his death-
warrant ! You hear, you see, you suffer, and I am glad
glad ! Ah, at last ; no, not yet ! Oh, Dimetri, quick,
quick ! I am tired of waiting !"
And, as if in obedience to her whispered words, the
Greek stepped back ; Ayhner advanced a pace, parried a
feigned thrust, and on the instant his antagonist's blade
entered his chest, high up to the right.
Aylmer wavered back and forth thrice, tottered slowly
forward, and remained motionless for the briefest possible
space of a second. Then rapidly body and limbs huddled
together, and he lay in a heap on the ground, his left arm
WHEN DAWN BROKE. 399
falling slightly outward, so that his head rested upon it,
his face turned towards Violet as she stood.
" Dead !" she heard a voice exclaim ; it was Sabakine's.
"Dead !" the duchess echoed in her ear. "You killed
him, remember ! He fought on your account ; he died be-
lieving you Carlo's mistress ! I have my revenge every
way ; he is dead, and you are his murderess !"
She released her hold with such suddenness that Violet
fell backward, and rushed away through the wood. In an-
other instant, almost as soon as Sabakine and the surgeon
could reach the prostrate form, they were startled by a
rush like the wings of a great bird, and Violet Cameron
swept between them, sank upon the earth, and lifted Ayl-
mer's head to her knees, muttering : " He is dead, and' I
killed him !"
Not a word was spoken by the by-standers ; Sabakine
made a warning sign to the surgeon, then knelt behind
Violet, and put his arm about her waist to support her as
she crouched holding that ghastly head.
Even in his haste, the Greek, while putting on coat and
hat, could not resist glancing at Violet's face ; its rigid
horror struck a chill even through his veins. He whispered
a few syllables to Gherardi, who replied by a nod, and hur-
ried off in accordance with the programme laid down in ad-
vance for the survivor, because seconds as well as princi-
pals had understood when they set out upon their morning's
work, that both men would not leave the place alive.
The surgeon opened the shirt, through which a small
stream of blood oozed, staining Violet's hands and garments
as it fell. He performed his task in silence, waited a little,
and said : " He breathes still."
Nobody answered.
Sabakine drew a dog-whistle from his pocket, and
handed it to Gherardi, motioning him to blow it ; he obeyed,
and in answer to the shrill summons, Sabakine's carriage
drove up ; two Russian servants whom he could trust seat-
ed upon the box.
Only when they were lifting the body did Violet speak.
" To my house," she said ; " to rny house."
Sabakine was about to attempt some expostulation ; she
raised herself and turned towards him ; the words died on
his lips when he looked in her face. She followed as the
men carried their burden to the carriage.
400 AFTER ALL.
" Let me go with him ; I will go !" slie said.
They helped her in ; the surgeon got in too. They laid
the body down as best they could. Once more Laurence's
head rested on Violet's shoulder, as it had done during that
first drive, when he had dared death for her sake. Even in
this moment the recollection shot through her mind. Ah,
this journey would have a different ending the grave was
its goal.
"The swords!" whispered Gherardi.
Sabakine picked them up, and hid them under a seat
of the carriage. The vehicle drove off ; for a few seconds
the two men left behind stood staring at each other with
horrified eyes, then silently began the work which re-
mained : covered the blood with sand carefully removed
every trace of footsteps scattered twigs and leaves
about then hurried away, silent still.
As they passed through the meadow, they met Antonio,
who, disquieted by his mistress's long absence, had sent the
carriage up the road, and come in search of her.
" Miss Cameron has gone home in my carriage," Saba-
kine explained. "There has been an accident. Mr. Ayl-
mer is hurt. Not a word to anybody at present you know
how to hold your tongue. Where is the hack ?"
Antonio pointed to the road.
" I saw the Duchess da Rimini and the Greek drive off
together," was all he said.
" My God !" the two men muttered simultaneously.
Once the surgeon saw Violet's lips move ; he thought
she was trying to ask some question, and bent his head to
listen, but she was only whispering :
" He is dead ! arid I killed him !"
CHAPTER XLII.
AFTER ALL.
OR three days Laurence Aylmer lay speechless,
almost motionless, on his bed in the very room
where so few months previous he had fought
his way back to life : now, as then, Violet Cam-
eron told herself over and over, brought face
to face with death through her agency.
AFTER ALL. 401
No matter that, nearly frantic as she was, reason re-
fused to admit the possibility of considering her share in
either catastrophe other than her misfortune ; the fact re-
mained that she had been the cause of both.
This time there was no hope ; even when the professor
himself told her that life still lingered, that perhaps for
several days no human power could predict as to the final
results, her faculties stayed shut against the contemplation
of any possible chance as completely as in that first moment
of horror when she knelt by what she believed his dead
body.
No one not Miss Bronson herself dreamed of ques-
tioning or expostulating, whatever Violet might do.
Everybody about, beginning with the professor, obeyed her
slightest wish unhesitatingly. He had warned the house-
hold that he could not answer for the consequences if she
were thwarted in any way.
She looked like a dead woman, save for the maddened
misery of her eyes, where life showed its strength in the
unutterable agony they revealed. She scarcely left the
bedside either day or night. Whenever she moved,
Aylmer's glance would follow her, while across the haze
that dulled it crept an expression of trouble ; and though
deaf to every other sound, her voice never failed to reach
his ear ; beyond this, for hours and hours, he evinced
scarcely any sign of vitality, save in the labored, irregular
breathing even that grew so faint sometimes they had to
listen attentively to catch it.
The professor explained that the wound had occasioned
pneumonia of course, much more perilous than if the
inflammation of the lung had been produced by the
ordinary cause, a cold or sudden chill.
He said this, and he said no more ; but the other
physician deemed it his duty to reply frankly to Violet's
questions : he could hold out no hope humanly speaking,
there was none. The professor did not chide his colleague,
and this tacit concurrence in his verdict crushed the little
group of attendant friends so utterly that they were power-
less to try by word or look to comfort or encourage
Violet.
Carlo and Nina were there ; Sabakine scarcely quitted
the houso, though there was little for anybody to do
except watch watch count the hours, remembering that
402 AFTER ALL.
each brought the end nearer. Sometimes there was one
duty to perform ; when the sufferer's pillows had to be
raised a little and supported by some person seated on the
bed. Violet was obliged to relinquish this task to the
others. Aylmer lay always with his eyes fastened on her
face ; usually they betrayed no sign of recognition, but if
she stirred they wandered in troubled search of her
presence.
On the afternoon of the third day, Carlo and Sabakine
went to Aylmer's lodgings to pack up and bring away his
possessions ; it would be easier now than later, when when
it was all over.
They knew that the wildest rumors were afloat in Flor-
ence, but the facts concerning the duel were not known.
It was declared by many that Giuliada Rimini had tried to
murder Aylmer that he had shot himself in despair caused
by losses at cards and his failure to secure Miss Cameron's
fortune that the Greek had assassinated him and eloped
with the duchess. Of course each tale was contradicted in
turn, and some new one invented to take its place.
Fortunately for Madame da Rimini, it became certain
that the duke was very ill in Paris, so the letters she had
written to several friends before her departure, announcing
that she had been called to his bedside, received a share of
credence ; though that something very dreadful had hap-
pened at Lady Harcourt's house was already established,
and so many tales in regard to borrowed moneys, defrauded
tradesmen, and the like, speedily followed, that the duchess's
ostracism was almost as complete as if the truth had been
openly declared.
While Sabakine and the marchese were performing
their mournful duty, with the aid of poor old Giacomo,
they opened a writing-desk to lay in some papers, and found
the letters Aylmer had written on the night before the duel.
Among these epistles was one for the professor, and another
which bore Miss Cameron's name.
There was no opportunity to place these letters in the
professor's hands until evening. A change had taken place
in Aylmer's condition he was conscious able to speak a
little. The doctors said that by the next day he would be
perfectly clear in his mind able, indeed, to answer ques-
tions concerning his affairs, and transact any business, such
as the making of a will, which might seem necessary. Sab-
AFTER ALL. 403
akine had demanded if tins would be the case, as he knew
from his last conversation with Aylmer that he regretted
not having leisure to alter the testament which he had ex-
ecuted before leaving America.
During the night, while Aylmer slept and Violet sat by
his side, the professor, who shared her vigil, read the letter
addressed to himself, and at length, after a good deal of re-
flection, he handed Violet hers, telling her in a few words
where it had been found.
"It was better to give it to you now, my dear," he said,
laying his hand softly on her head as he might have
caressed a child, while his rugged features worked with
emotion. " He may make some allusion to its contents,
whatever they are, and it would fret him if you failed
to understand. I will sit by the bed while you read it.
You need not be afraid he is sound asleep, and will not
wake for some time yet."
Violet moved to the other end of the room, and, sat
down close to the shaded lamp which cast a faint glow
through the chamber. She opened the letter ; it was like
reading a message from the dead. Once she glanced at the
face upon the pillows its death-like stillness only increased
the feeling.
" You will believe me when you read this in thought,
word and deed I have been true. I loved you from the first
moment of our meeting; I shall go into eternity with that
love in my soul, eternal as the soul itself.
" Never grieve for me ! If you love me I shall know it.
Think of me as near you always. My darling, my one
love, farewell !"
Presently, looking across the dimness of the chamber,
the professor saw Violet sink slowly upon her knees ; he
bowed his head reverently, and turned his eyes away.
Perhaps half an hour afterwards, Violet was roused
from her wordless prayer by the professor's whispering :
" He is waking, my child."
She started up and hastened towards the bed. Aylmer
opened his eyes, looked eagerly about, and cried :
"Violet, Violet!"
" I am here," she answered ; "Laurence, I am hore."
The professor rose and placed her gently in the chair,
saying in her ear :
404 AFTER ALL.
"Soothe him quiet him whatever he asks or says.
He will be perfectly clear in his mind now."
Then he stole softly away into the adjoining room, and
left the pair together.
" Violet, Violet !" Aylmer repeated.
"Yes, Laurence," she said, steadily.
He opened his eyes and looked at her with a beautiful
smile.
" I knew you were here," he murmured ; " even when I
seemed quite unconscious, I always knew it."
" Yes, Laurence," she said again.
" My head is. quite clear now," he continued ; " oh, I
wanted so much to tell you awhile ago, but I could not. I
thought I should have to go out of the world without even
being able to speak your name again Violet, my Violet !
Ah, I know you must understand you must believe me
now ! I wrote I remember writing they will give you
my letter later."
" I have read it," she said. " Do you hear can you
listen ?"
He put out his hand feebly : she bent her forehead up-
on it as it rested on the edge of the bed.
" I love you," she said, in a slow, clear voice ; " I have
loved you all the time can you believe me ?"
He gazed up into her face with eyes fairly superhuman
in their tenderness.
"Say it once more," he whispered.
" I love you, Laurence I love you !"
He drew a long, deep breath, and his head, which he
had partially lifted, sank back on the pillow his eyes
closed.
" Kiss me," he murmured.
She pressed her lips on his in a long, fervent caress.
Then there was silence between them for a few moments ;
when she saw that he was looking at her again, that trans-
cendent peace and happiness glorifying his eyes still, she
said softly :
"I only thought of you, Laurence try to believe that.
I was older than you I feared to yield to the dictates of
my heart afraid it would be a wrong to you ! That was
the only reason why I hesitated. For myself, I should
have been prouder to hear you call me wife than to have
been crowned queen of the whole world !"
AFTER ALL. 405
"Is it too late ?" he asked. " Ah, yes too late for this
world and yet and yet ! Oh, my darling, if you could !"
He stretched out his hands feebly clasped them about
her neck, and her cheek rested on his bosom.
" Is it wrong to ask it V" he questioned. "Would it
make it all harder for you ? Ah, love, I could go away not
venturing to murmur, if only I might call you my wife
once here. I could wait for you then I could be patient."
" Ask me anything," she answered, in a voice that was
like a strain of heavenly music, so free from agitation did
it sound. In this moment her soul was lifted too far above
earth for any human weakness to disturb it. " Ask me
anything I will not refuse."
lie uttered a low, inarticulate cry, so full of joy that it
sounded like the utterance of some seraphic tongue already
grown his own.
" My wife," he said presently ; " you will be my wife?"
" I thank you for the wish," she murmured ; " your
wife, Laurence your wife !"
And again their lips met again that eloquent silence
followed. Then she said suddenly : " You have for-
given "
" Hush !" he interrupted ; " between you and me, love,
there could be nothing to forgive."
A wave from the sea of her mortal trouble which had
been for a moment swept back, cast its bitter stretch across
her soul.
" Oh, my heart, that I could doubt you !" she moaned.
" Under all you never did !" he answered. " forget
that it was only a painful dream we are awake now !
Oh, my darling, happiness has nothing to do with time !
Give me heaven here on my death-bed my wife my
wife !"
" Your wife !" she echoed.
" To-morrow ? Oh, remember, every hour is precious !"
" To-morrow," she whispered ; "if the doctor consents,
to-morrow."
" Where is he ?" Aylmer asked.
Violet called his name. The professor appeared at the
summons, came up to the bed, and stood over them.
" This is my wife," Aylmer said, drawing VioletV !iead
closer to his breast. " You will not oppose a dying man
to-morrow, dear old friend ?"
406 AFTER ALL.
" To-morrow," the professor responded, and would have
added other words, but his voice broke. He hurried back
into the adjoining chamber, and cried like a child amid its
solitude.
" This is worth years and years of ordinary life, love,"
Aylmer said. " Hold my hand lay your dear face on the
pillow let me sleep now."
He slept again. After a time the professor looked into
the room ; worn out with fatigue, Violet slept too, her
head resting close to her lover's even in slumber their
faces turned towards one another.
The next day came. Aylmer's strength held out ; his
mind remained as clear as at the most healthful moment of
his life.
When the little group of friends were collected that
morning, waiting till the professor or Violet should appear
to give them news of the past night, the door opened, and
Violet entered.
There was something so solemn, so holy in her face,
that not one of those eager watchers could speak. The
same thought struck each simultaneously she had come
to tell them there was no Laurence Aylmer any longer in
the world. But as she drew near, she paused and said
calmly :
" We are to be married at noon I came to tell you."
The reaction in their minds was so sudden that nobody
was able to answer. They kissed her one after another, and
let her go away in silence. When the door closed, the
three women began to weep softly. Sabakine sat with his
face hidden in his hands Carlo was sobbing without any
effort to hide his tears.
Noon came. They gathered in the room where the
wounded man lay : a temporary altar and odorous flowers
made it like a chapel. Then the professor led Violet in :
she was dressed in white from head to foot ; so pale, so
composed, so beautiful, that she looked rather like a spirit
sent to summon the sufferer than an earthly bride.
The ceremony was performed ; after a little they all
stole out and left the husband and wife together.
" I can bear even the parting now," Laurence whispered ;
" God has been so good to me that I dare not murmur."
The day passed evening drew on.
A change came over Aylmer ; his temporary strength
AFTER ALL. 407
failed ; a coldness and faintness like the chill of death
seized his faculties. As long as he could articulate, words
of comfort and tenderness kept Violet's soul anchored and
still.
" Lift me up," he called suddenly ; " wife, wife !"
The words died on his lips his breathing grew fainter
his head drooped upon her bosom. Then a merciful in-
sensibility seized Violet, and she knew no more.
When she woke to consciousness, she comprehended
that her mind had for days and days been struggling amid
the delirium of fever. Memory came abruptly back she
recollected everything.
" If his soul might only send me some sign !" she mur-
mured, half aloud.
She heard his voice call in answer :
'' Violet, Violet my wife !"
She lifted her eyes, and saw him seated by her bed.
" Am I dead too ?" she whispered.
Then she heard his voice again :
"Not death, but life, love. God has given us our
heaven here."
*******
A gorgeous September morning lighted one of the most
beautiful passes in the Apennines brightened a picturesque
villa, embowered in forest trees, and commanding a view
for miles and miles of the valleys below oh, lovely almost,
one would think, as the blessed land that Moses's prophet-
vision watched from the height of Pisgah !
The old chapel attached to the dwelling was gay with
flowers ; the little knot of friends whom I have so fre-
quently described together were collected there ; and, amid
the beauty of the morning, Mary Danvers and Gilbert
Warner were made husband and wife.
"Miss Bronson," said the professor, as the carriage
which held the young pair drove away, "this day decides
me. I am ready to become your legal victim whenever you
choose."
And the spinster was in a mood so joyous that, instead
of resenting his irreverent jest, she laughed as heartily as
the others.
" Carlo looks as if it was rather nice to be a victim,"
said Sabakine.
408 AFTER ALL.
The marchese only answered by drawing his little wife
closer, as she stood with her hand upon his arm. These
past weeks had brought such a world of new hopes and
aims, that life for both had drifted into a sunshine higher
and purer than that which had lighted the old paths.
" Sabakine," said Lady Harcourt, " the sight of all this
bliss is oertain before long to tempt you into matrimony
also ! Really, I think nothing remains for an old fairy like
me but to pronounce a general benediction, and disappear
in an ivory chariot drawn by winged lions. I must wait
though, for I see that Violet and her Laurence have already
vanished."
They talked merry nonsense for awhile ; then Lady
Harcourt, who had halted at the villa on her journey back
from Paris, began giving the details of a tragic story which
the friends had seen briefly chronicled in the journals of
the day.
Giulia da Rimini, betrayed to her husband by Dimetri,
had been publicly expelled from his house. The Greek had
robbed her of her last resources in money and jewels, and
she was forced to take refuge in some dismal lodgings kept
by a former servant, who possessed humanity enough to
grant her an asylum.
She was found dead in her room the morning after her
arrival a bottle of laudanum by her side the pathetic
smile which in life sometimes softened her stern beauty still
mantling her lips.
And while the visitors sat together, the husband and
wife were wandering, arm-in-arm, along the garden paths.
" You are sure, sure ?" Violet asked, looking up into
Aylmer's face with eyes which answered her own question,
for their radiant happiness proved that now and then
heaven's choicest boon perfect peace and rest is granted
to mortals on earth.
"My love my own !" he whispered. " Our souls have
been away down to the gates of death together here and
hereafter they are one."
THE END.