Lady Maude's Mania Part 20

Melton turned and gazed at him angrily.

"Yes," said Monsieur Hector, "it is a tender subject, but I go so much that I come to know nearly all."

"What the deuce do you mean?"

"Monsieur forgets that I dress Lady Barmouth's hair; that the Miladi Maude often goes to the opera with her beautiful fair tresses arranged in designs of my invention. But, monsieur, they talk about the dog."

Something very like an imprecation came from the young man's lips, but he restrained it.

"Monsieur may trust me," said the hairdresser. "Mademoiselle Justine is a great friend of mine. Have you not remarked her likeness to my lady of wax? She is exact. It is she--encore."

"Oh, indeed," said Melton, drily.

"Yes, monsieur; some day we shall return to la France together, to pa.s.s our days in simple happy joys."

"Look here," said Melton, bluntly, "I am an Englishman, and always speak plainly. You know all about me--about the house in Portland Place?"

"Everything, monsieur," said the hairdresser, with a smile and a bow.

"Mademoiselle Justine is _desolee_ about the course that affairs have taken; she speaks to me of Sir Wilter as the enemy. Pah! she say he is old, _bete_, he is not at all a man. We discourse of you, monsieur--we lovers--and we talk of your love. We agree ourselves that it is foolish to trust a dog."

"How the devil did you know that I trusted a dog?" said Melton furiously.

"_Ma foi_, monsieur is angry. Why so, with one who would serve him?

Justine loves you--I then love you. How do I know?"--a shrug here--"monsieur is _indiscret_. Justine could not fail to see."

"Confusion!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Melton.

"And yet it is so easy, monsieur--a note--a cake of soap--a packet of bloom--a bottle of scent--it is wrapped up--for Miladi Maude with my printed card outside--_Voila_! who could suspect?"

"Look here," said Melton, turning sharply round.

"Pardon, monsieur, I use the scissor; there is a little fresh growth here."

"What do you expect to be paid for this, if I trust you?--and perhaps I shall not, for it is confoundedly dirty work."

"Pardon, monsieur," cried the Frenchman, laying his hand upon his breast, "I am a gentleman. Pay? Noting. Have I not told you that Justine, whom I have the honour to love, adores her young mistress. She adores monsieur, and would serve him. I in my turn adore Mademoiselle Justine. I am her slave--I am yours."

"Let's see--Justine? That is her ladyship's maid?"

"True, monsieur. But this morning she say to me--'Hector, _mon enfant_, I'm _desolee_ on the subject of those two children. Help them, _mon garcon_, and I will be benefactor.'"

"It is good, I say to her, and I place myself at monsieur's disposition."

Charles Melton frowned, and Monsieur Hector went on with his shampooing, till the head between his hands was dried, polished, and finished, when the hairdresser took up a little ivory brush, and anointed it with some fragrant preparation to be applied in its turn to the patient's beard, till the fair hair glistened like gold, and Monsieur Hector fell back and looked at him in admiration.

"But monsieur is fit now for the arms of a G.o.ddess," he exclaimed.

"Does he accept my a.s.sistance?"

Melton looked at him for a moment, as he paid the fee usual upon such occasions, and then said bluntly--

"Monsieur Launay, I am obliged to you, and you mean well. Doubtless Mademoiselle Justine means well, and she has my thanks, but I cannot accept your a.s.sistance. Good mom--Ah, Joby, old fellow."

He drew back into the little room as the dog came hastily in, and placed his head against his master's leg.

"Why, Joby," exclaimed Melton, in a low excited tone, "where is your collar? Blood too! You have been fighting. Good heavens! what shall I do!--If that note is found!--Oh, my poor darling!" he muttered, and he hurried from the place.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

LA BELLE ALLIANCE.

"It's enough to drive a man to do anything," exclaimed Melton, as he dashed down the fashionable newspaper he had been reading, where in a short paragraph he had found that which he told himself would make him wretched for life. The paragraph was as follows--

"We understand that an alliance is on the _tapis_ between Sir Grantley Wilters, of Morley Hall, Shropshire, and Eaton Place, and Lady Maude Diphoos, daughter of the Earl of Barmouth."

"I seem to be crushed," exclaimed the young man, rising and walking hastily up and down the room. "Everything goes wrong with me, and I believe I am going mad. Perhaps it is fate," he said, gloomily, "and how to save that poor girl from wretchedness! Heigho! Joby, old fellow, I wish I could forget the unpleasant things, and then perhaps there would be some comfort in life.

"Now, what's to be done?" he cried, as his eyes fell again upon the newspaper. "I cannot bear this. Here's a whole month since I have heard from or seen poor little Maude, for I haven't the heart to try any more of those clandestine tricks."

He sat down and thought over the past month and its incidents, taking out and re-reading a note with Lady Barmouth's crest upon it, in which her ladyship very curtly requested that Mr Melton would refrain from calling in Portland Place, for after what had occurred she could only look upon his visits as an insult. She wrote this at the request of Lord Barmouth.

"That is a monstrous fib," said Charley Melton, angrily, "for the amiable little old man was always most friendly. But what shall I do?

I must see her; I must hear from her. They are forcing this on with the poor girl, and it is like blasting her young life.

"Tom!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, after a pause. "No; he has not answered either of my last letters. There is something wrong there."

He sat thinking again.

"Confound it all! It is so contemptible. I hate it, but what can I do?

I must send a note through that Frenchman. Pah! how I loathe this backstairs work, but what can I do? I am debarred the front stairs, which are open to that confounded _roue_ Wilters."

He stamped up and down the room again till there was a knock at the door.

"Come in," he cried, and a groom entered.

"Please, sir, master's compliments, and--and--I beg your pardon, sir, he'd be much obliged if you wouldn't stamp up and down the room so.

He's got a bad headache, and you're just over him."

"Was that the message your master sent?" exclaimed Melton, for the groom was the servant of an acquaintance who had chambers on the floor below.

"Well, sir--no, sir--not exactly, sir," said the man, suppressing an inclination to smile.

"What did he say then?"

"Please, sir, he said, 'Run up and ask Mr Melton if he's going mad,'

and he shied one of his boots at me."