Beatrice Boville and Other Stories Part 31

"I can't say I do," sneered Selina.

"You think I should _disgrace_ it? Very probably. I am not good at 'canting.'" And giving Nina his arm, the Warden being much too confused to forestall him, he whispered: "when is that atrocious saint going to take himself over the water? Couldn't we bribe his diocesan to call him before the Arches Court? Surely those long coats, so like the little wooden men in Noah's Ark, and that straightened hair, so mathematically parted down the centre, look 'perverted' enough to warrant it."

Nina shook her head. "Unhappily, he is here for six months for ill health!--the sick-leave of clergymen who wish for a holiday, and are too holy to leave their flock without an excuse to society."

Vaughan laughed, then sighed. "Six months--and you have been here four already! Eusebius hates me cordially--all my English relatives do, I believe; we do not get on together. They are too cold and conventional for me. I have some of the warm Bohemian blood, though G.o.d knows I've seen enough to chill it to ice by this time; but it is _not_ chilled--so much the worse for me," muttered Ernest "Tell me," he said, abruptly--"tell me why you took the trouble to defend me so generously this morning?"

She looked up at him with her frank, beaming regard. "Because they dare to misjudge you, and they know nothing, and are not worthy to know anything of your real self."

He pressed his lips together as if in bodily pain. "And what do you know?"

"Have you not yourself said that you talk to me as you talk to no one else?" answered Nina, impetuously; "besides--I cannot tell why, but the first day I met you I seemed to find some friend that I had lost before.

I was certain that you would never misconstrue anything I said, and I felt that I saw further into your heart and mind than any one else could do. Was it not very strange?" She stopped, and looked up at him. Ernest bent his eyes on the ground, and breathed fast.

"No, no," he said at last; "yours is only an ideal of me. If you knew me as I really am, you would cease to feel the--the interest that you say----"

He stopped abruptly; facile as he was at pretty compliments, and versed in tender scenes as he had been from his school-days, the longing to make this girl love him, and his struggle not to breathe love to her, deprived him of his customary strength and nonchalance.

"I do not fear to know you as you are," said Nina, gently. "I do not think you yourself allow all the better things that there are in you.

People have not judged you rightly, and you have been too proud to prove their error to them. You have found pleasure in running counter to the prudish and illiberal bigots who presumed to judge you; and to a world you have found heartless and false you have not cared to lift the domino and mask you wore."

Vaughan sighed from the bottom of his heart, and walked on in silence for a good five minutes. "Promise me, Nina," he said at length with an effort, "that no matter what you hear against me, you will not condemn me unheard."

"I promise," she answered, raising her eyes to his, brighter still for the color in her checks. It was the first time he had called her Nina.

"Miss Gordon," said Eusebius, hurriedly overtaking them, "pray come with me a moment: there is the most exquisite specimen of the Flamboyant style in an archway----"

"Thank you for your good intentions," said Nina, pettishly, "but really, as you might know by this time, I never can see any attractions in your prosaic and matter-of-fact-fact study."

"It might be more profitable than----"

"Than thinking of La Valliere and poor Bragelonne, and all the gay glories of the exiled Bourbons?" laughed Nina. "Very likely; but romance is more to my taste than granite. You would never have killed yourself, like Bragelonne, for the beaux yeux of Louise de la Beaume-sur-Blanc, would you?"

"I trust," said Eusebius, stiffly, "that I should have had a deeper sense of the important responsibilities of the gift of life than to throw it away because a silly girl preferred another."

"You are very impolitic," said Ernest, with a satirical smile. "No lady could feel remorse at forsaking you, if you could get over it so easily."

"He _would_ get over it easily," laughed Nina. "You would call her Delilah, and all the Scripture bad names, order Mr. Ruskin's new work, turn your desires to a deanship, marry some bishop's daughter with high ecclesiastical interest, and console yourself in the bosom of your Mother Church--eh, Mr. Ruskinstone?"

"You are cruelly unjust," sighed Eusebius. "You little know----"

"The charms of architecture? No; and I never shall," answered his tormentor, humming the "Queen of the Roses," and waltzing down the forest glade, where they were walking. "How severe you look!" she said as she waltzed back. "Is _that_ wrong, too? Miriam danced before the ark and Jephtha's daughter."

The Warden appeared not to hear. Certainly his mode of courtship was singular.

"Ernest," he said, turning to his cousin as the rest of the party came up, "I had no idea your sister was in Paris. I have not seen her since she was fourteen. I should not have known her in the least."

"Margaret is in India with her husband," answered Vaughan. "What are you dreaming of? Where have you seen her?"

"I saw her in your chambers," answered the Warden, slowly. "I pa.s.sed three times yesterday, and she was sitting in the centre window each time."

"Pshaw! You dreamt it in your sleep last night. Margaret's in Vellore, I a.s.sure you."

"I saw her," said the Warden, softly; "or, at least, I saw some lady, whom I naturally presumed to be your sister."

Ernest, who had not colored for fifteen years, and would have defied man or woman to confuse him, flushed to his very temples.

"You are mistaken," he said, decidedly. "There is no woman in my rooms."

Eusebius raised his eyebrows, bent his head, smiled and sighed. More polite disbelief was never expressed. The Miss Ruskinstones would have blushed if they could; as they could not, they drew themselves bolt upright, and put their parasols between them and the reprobate. Nina, whose hand was still in Vaughan's arm, turned white, and flashed a quick, upward look at him; then, with a glance at Eusebius, as fiery as the eternal wrath that that dear divine was accustomed to deal out so largely to other people, she led Ernest up to her father, who being providentially somewhat deaf, had not heard this by-play, and said, to her cousin's horror, "Papa, dear, Mr. Vaughan wants you to dine with him at Tortoni's to-night, to meet M. de Vendanges. You will be very happy, won't you?"

Ernest pressed her little hand against his side, and thanked her with his eyes.

Gordon was propitiated for that day; he was not likely to quarrel with a man who could introduce him to "Son Altesse Monseigneur le Duc de Vendanges."

V.

MORE MISCHIEF--AND AN END.

In a little cabinet de peinture, in a house in the Place Vendome, apart from all the other people, who having come to a dejeuner were now dispersed in the music rooms, boudoirs, and conservatories, sat Madame de Melusine, talking to Gordon, flatteringly, beguilingly, bewitchingly, as that accomplished widow could. The banker found her charming, and really, under her blandishments, began to believe, poor old fellow, that she was in love with him!

"Ah! by-the-by, cher monsieur," began madame, when she had soft-soaped him into a proper frame of mind, "I want to speak to you about that mignonne Nina. You cannot tell, you cannot imagine, what interest I take in her."

"You do her much honor, madame," replied her bourgeois gentilhomme, always stiff, however enraptured he might feel internally.

"The honor is mine," smiled Pauline. "Yes, I do feel much interest in her; there is a sympathy in our natures, I am certain, and--and, Monsieur Gordon, I cannot see that darling girl on the brink of a precipice without stretching out a hand to s.n.a.t.c.h her from the abyss."

"Precipice--abyss--Nina! Good Heavens! my dear madame, what do you mean?" cried Gordon--a fire, an elopement, and the small-pox, all presenting themselves to his mind.

"No, no," repeated madame, with increasing vehemence, "I will not permit any private feelings, I will not allow my own weakness to prevent me from saving her. It would be a crime, a cruelty, to let your innocent child be deceived, and rendered miserable for all time, because I lack the moral courage to preserve her. Monsieur, I speak to you, as I am sure I may, as one friend to another, and I am perfectly certain that you will not misjudge me. Answer me one thing; no impertinent curiosity dictates the question. Do you wish your daughter married to Mr.

Vaughan?"

"Married to Vaughan!" exclaimed the startled banker; "I'd sooner see her married to a crossing sweeper. She never thought of such a thing.

Impossible! absurd! she'll marry my friend Ruskinstone as soon as she comes of age. Marry Vaughan! a fellow without a penny----"

Pauline laid her soft, jewelled hand on his arm:

"My dear friend, _he_ thinks of it if you do not, and I am much mistaken if dear Nina is not already dazzled by his brilliant qualities. Your countryman is a charming companion, no one can gainsay that; but, alas!

he is a roue, a gambler, an adventurer, who, while winning her young girl's affections, has only in view the wealth which he hopes he will gain with her. It is painful to me to say this" (and tears stood in madame's long, velvet eyes). "We were good friends before he wanted more than friendship, while poor De Melusine was still living, and his true character was revealed to me. It would be false delicacy to allow your darling Nina to become his victim for want of a few words from me, though I know, if he were aware of my interference, the inference he would basely insinuate from it. But you," whispered madame, brushing the tears from her eyes, and giving him an angelic smile, "I need not fear that you would ever misjudge me?"

"Never, I swear, most generous of women!" said the banker, kissing the snow-white hand, very clumsily, too. "I'll tell the fellow my mind directly--an unprincipled, gambling----"

"Non, non, je vous en prie, monsieur!" cried the widow, really frightened, for this would not have suited her plans at all. "You would put me in the power of that unscrupulous man. He would destroy my reputation at once in his revenge."

"But what am I to do?" said the poor gulled banker. "Nina's a will of her own, and if she take a fancy to this confounded----"