Beatrice Boville and Other Stories Part 30

"Qui cherchez-vous, pet.i.te?"

The speaker was la Melusine, and the hearer was Nina who considerably resented the half-patronising, half mocking, yet intensely amiable manner the widow chose to a.s.sume towards her. Gordon was stricken with warm admiration of madame, and never inquired into _her_ morality, only too pleased when she condescended to talk to or invite him. They had met at a soiree at some intimate friends of Vaughan's in the Champs Elysees.

(Ernest was a favorite wherever he went, and the good-natured French people at once took up his relatives to please him.) He was not there himself, but the baronne's quick eyes soon caught and construed her restless glances through the crowded rooms.

"Je ne cherche personne, madame," said Nina, haughtily. Dressed simply in white tulle, with the most exquisite flowers to be had out of the Palais Royal in the famous golden hair, which gleamed in the gaslight like sunshine, she aroused the serpent which lay hid in the roses of madame's smiles.

Pauline laughed softly, and flirted her fan. "Nay, nay, mignonne, those soft eyes are seeking some one. Who is it? Ah! it is that mechant Monsieur Vaughan n'est-ce pas? He is very handsome, certainly, but

On dit an village Qu'Argire est volage."

"Madame's own thoughts possibly suggest the supposition of mine," said Nina, coldly.

"Comme ces Anglaises sont impolies," thought the baronne. "No, indeed,"

she said, laughing carelessly, "I know Ernest too well to let my thoughts dwell on him. He is charming to talk to, to waltz with, to flirt with, but from anything further Dieu nous garde! Lauzun himself were not more dangerous or more unstable."

"You speak as bitterly, madame, as if you had suffered from the fickleness," said Nina, with a contemptuous curl of her soft lips. Sweet temper as she was, she could thrust a spear in her enemy's side when she liked.

Madame's eyes glittered like a rattlesnake's. Nina's chance ball shot home. But madame was a woman of the world, and could mask her batteries with a skill of which Nina, with her impetuous _abandon_, was incapable.

She smiled very sweetly, as she answered, "No, pet.i.te I have unhappily seen too much of the world not to know that we must never put our trust in those charming mauvais sujets. At your age, I dare say I should not have been proof against your countryman's fascinations, but now, I know just how much his fondest vows are worth, and I have been deaf to them all, for I would not let my heart mislead me against my reason and my conscience. Ah, pet.i.te! you little guess what the traitor word 'love'

means here, in Paris. We women grow accustomed to our fate, but the lesson is hard sometimes."

"You have been reading 'Mes Confidences,' lately?" asked Nina, with a sarcastic flash of her brilliant eyes.

"How cruel! Do you suppose I can have no _emotions_ except I learn them second-hand through Lamartine or Delphine Gay? You are very satirical, Miss Gordon----How strange!" said the baronne, interrupting herself; "your bouquet is the fac-simile of mine! Look! De Kerroualle sent you that I fancy? You know he raffoles of you. I was very silly to use mine, but Mr. Vaughan sent me such a pretty note with it, that I had not the resolution to disappoint him. Poor Ernest!" And Madame sighed softly, as if bewailing in her tender heart the woes her obduracy caused. The blood flamed up in Nina's cheeks, and her hand clenched hard on Ernest's flowers: they _were_ the fac-similes of the widow's; delicate pink blossoms, mixed with white azalias. "Is he here to-night, do you know?"

madame continued. "I dare say not; he is behind the coulisses, most likely. Celine, the new danseuse from the Fenice, makes her debut to-night. Here comes poor Gaston to pet.i.tion for a valse. Be kind to him, pray."

She herself went off to the ball-room, and the effect of her exordium was to make Nina very disagreeable to poor De Kerroualle, whom she really liked, and who was _entete_ about her. Not long afterwards, Nina saw in the distance Vaughan's haughty head and powerful brow, and her silly little heart beat as quick as a pigeon's just caught in the trap: he was talking to the widow.

"Look at our young English friend," Pauline was saying, "how she is flirting with Gaston, and De Lafitolle, and De Concressault. Certainly, when your Englishwomen do coquet, they go further than any of us."

"Est-ce possible?" said Ernest, raising his eyebrows.

"Mechant!" cried madame, with a chastising blow of her fan. "But, do you know, I admire the pet.i.te very much. I believe all really beautiful women had that rare golden hair of hers--Lucrezia Borgia (I could never bear Grisi as _Lucrezia_, for that very reason). La Cenci, the d.u.c.h.ess of Portsmouth, aenone--and Helen, I am sure, netted Paris with those gold threads. Don't you think it is very lovely?"

"I do, indeed," said Vaughan, with unconscious warmth.

Madame laughed gaily, but there was a disagreeable glitter in her eye.

"What, fickle already? Ah well, I give you full leave."

"And example, madame," said Ernest, as he bowed and left her side, glad to have struck the first blow of his freedom from this handsome tyrant, who was as capricious and exacting as she was clever and captivating.

But fetters made of fairer roses were over Ernest now, and he never bethought himself of the probable vengeance of that bitterest foe, a woman who is piqued.

"Tout beau!" thought Pauline, as she saw him waltzing with Nina. "Mais je vous donnerai encore l'echec et mat, mon brave joueur."

"Did you give Madame de Melusine the bouquet she carries this evening?"

asked Nina, as he whirled her round.

"No," said Ernest, astonished. "Why do you ask?"

"Because she said you did," answered Nina, never accustomed to conceal anything; "and, besides, it is exactly like mine."

"Infernal woman!" muttered Ernest. "How could you for a moment believe that I would have so insulted you?"

"I didn't believe it," said Nina, lifting her frank eyes to his. "But how very late you are; have you been at the ballet?"

His face grew stern. "Did she tell you that?"

"Yes. But why did you go there, instead of coming to dance with me? Do you like those danseuses better than you do me? What was Celine's or anybody's debut, to you?"

Ernest smiled at the native indignation of the question. "Never think that I do not wish to be with you; but--I wanted oblivion, and one cannot shake off old habits. Did you miss me among all those other men that you have always round you?"

"How unkind that is!" whispered Nina, indignantly. "You know I always do."

He held her closer to him in the waltz, and she felt his heart beat quicker, but she got no other answer.

That night Nina stood before her toilette-table, putting her flowers in water, and some hot tears fell on the azalias.

"I will have faith in him," she cried, pa.s.sionately; "though all the world be witness against him, I will believe in him. Whatever his life may have been, his heart is warm and true; they shall never make me doubt it."

Her last thoughts were of him, and when she slept his face was in her dreams, while Ernest, with some of the wildest men of his set, smoked hard and drank deep in his chambers to drive away, if he could, the fiends of Regret and Pa.s.sion and the memory of a young, radiant, impa.s.sioned face, which lured him to an unattainable future.

"Nina dearest," said Selina Ruskinstone, affectionately, the morning after, "I hope you will not think me unkind--you know I have no wish but for your good--but _don't_ you think it would be better to be a little more--more reserved, a little less free, with Mr. Vaughan?"

"Explain yourself more clearly," said Nina, tranquilly. "Do you wish me to send to Turkey for a veil and a guard of Bashi-Bazouks, or do you mean that Mr. Vaughan is so attractive that he is better avoided, like a mantrap or a Maelstrom?"

"Don't be ridiculous," retorted Augusta; "you know well enough what we mean, and certainly you do run after him a great deal too much."

"You are so _very_ demonstrative," sighed Selina, "and it is so easily misconstrued. It is not feminine to court any man so unblushingly."

Nina's eyes flashed, and the blood colored her brow. "I am not afraid of being misconstrued by Mr. Vaughan," she said, haughtily; "gentlemen are kinder and wiser judges in those things than our s.e.x."

"I wouldn't advise you to trust to Ernest's tender mercies," sneered Augusta.

"My dear child, remember his principles," sighed Selina; "his life--his reputation----"

"Leave both him and me alone," retorted Nina, pa.s.sionately. "I will not stand calmly by to hear him slandered with your vague calumnies. You preach religion often enough; practice it now, and show more common kindness to your cousin: I do not say charity, for I am sick of the cant word, and he is above your pity. You think me utterly lost because I dance, and laugh, and enjoy my life, but, bad as _my_ principles are, I should be shocked--yes, Selina, and I should think I merited little mercy myself, were I as harsh and bitter upon any one as you are upon him. How can _you_ judge him?--how can you say what n.o.bility, and truth, and affection--that will shame your own cold pharisaism--may lie in his heart unrevealed?--how can you dare to censure _him_?"

In the door of the salon, listening to the lecture his young champion was giving these two blue, opinionated, and strongly pious ladies, stood Ernest, his face even paler than usual, and his eyes with a strange mixture of joy and pain in them. Nina colored scarlet, but went forward to meet him with undisguised pleasure, utterly regardless of the sneering lips and averted eyes of the Miss Ruskinstones. He had come to go with them to St. Germain, and, with a dexterous manoeuvre, took the very seat in the carriage opposite Nina that Eusebius had planned for himself. But the Warden was no match for the _Lion_ in such affairs, and, being exiled to the barouche with Gordon and Augusta, took from under the seat a folio of the "Stones of Venice," and read sulkily all the way.

"My dear fellow," said Vaughan, when they reached St. Germain, "don't you think you would prefer to sit in the carriage, and finish that delightful work, to coming to see some simple woods and terraces? If you would, pray don't hesitate to say so; I am sure Miss Gordon will excuse your absence."

The solicitous courtesy of Ernest's manner was boiling oil to the fire raging in the Warden's gentle breast, and Eusebius, besides, was not quick at retorts. "I am not guilty of any such bad taste," he said, stiffly, "though I do discover a charm in severe studies, which I believe you never did."

"No, never," said Ernest, laughing; "my genius does not lie that way; and I've no vacant bishopric in my mind's eye to make such studies profitable. Even you, you know, light of the Church as you are, want recreation sometimes. Confess now, the chansons a boire last night sounded pleasant after long months of Faithandgrace services!"

Eusebius looked much as I have seen a sleek tom-cat, who bears a respectable character generally, surprised in surrept.i.tiously licking out of the cream-jug. He had the night before (when he was popularly supposed to be sitting under Adolphe Monod) tasted rather too many pet.i.ts verres up at the Pre Catalan, utterly unconscious of his cousin's proximity. The pure-minded soul thus cruelly caught looked prayers of piteous entreaty to Vaughan not to damage his milk-white reputation by further revelation of this unlucky detour into the Broad Road; and Ernest, who, always kind-hearted, never hit a man when he was down, contented himself with saying:

"Ah! well, we are none of us pure alabaster, though some of the sepulchres _do_ contrive to whiten themselves up astonishingly. My father, poor man, once wished to put me in the Church. Do you think I should have graced it, Selina?"