The Coquette's Victim Part 10

Deeper and Deeper Still.

It was not possible that the queen of the ball should be allowed to sit apart from the dancers long. Many curious glances were bent on the pair who sat before the grand tier of fragrant blossoms.

"Who is that with Lady Amelie?" asked one of another.

"Mr. Carruthers of Ulverston," was the, reply; and great was the indignation felt by young ladies and their mammas.

Poor Lady Masham had five marriageable daughters, and none had as yet received even the faintest shadow of an offer. In her own mind she had thought of Mr. Carruthers as especially eligible for one of them, and had resolved, when he did go more into society, upon a decided mode of attack. Her dismay, when she saw the state of things, can be better imagined than described.

"My dear," she said to her friend and confidant, Mrs. Scrops, "look, only look! Lady Amelie has victimized Mr. Carruthers."

"She cannot do him any harm," replied Mrs. Scrops; "she is married, I am thankful to say."

"There will be no good done with him this season," said poor Lady Masham. "I would rather he had fallen in love than that she took possession of him."

But Basil was not allowed to remain very long tete-a-tete with his charming queen. The d.u.c.h.ess of Hexham, alarmed lest her most brilliant star should be eclipsed, came to the rescue. Lady Amelie was soon surrounded, and then was carried off by the archduke.

Not, however, before she had managed to turn round to Basil and say to him, sotto voce, "You must call and see me. We shall be friends, I can foretell." And he was more charmed than ever by those words. Friends with that enchanting woman, that proud, peerless queen, that radiant beauty! Be friends with her! It was more than he had dared to venture to hope. That he might worship her in the distance seemed to him honor enough.

He had dreamed of such women, but he had not thought they existed; they belonged to the heroic ages, past now and dead. Here, in the midst of the days he considered so degenerate, he had found the very ideal of his heart.

The brilliant scene before him seemed to fade away. Ah! if there was but some faint chance of distinguishing himself for her sake!--if she were but a princess in distress!--a lady for whom he could enter the lists and fight until he won! What was there in this prosaic century that he could do for her?--literally nothing but give her flowers.

"Basil! Basil! my dear boy," said a voice near him. "Pray excuse me, but what are you doing here? Dreaming in a ballroom? This will not do."

And Basil, aroused from his dream, looked up to see the face of Colonel Mostyn, wearing an expression of perfect horror.

"Do rouse up, Basil! Do, for heaven's sake, try to be like every one else! Lady Masham wishes to know you; come with me."

Basil followed, like a victim. Lady Masham received him cordially, mentioned casually that she had been to school with his mother, therefore felt called upon to take a special interest in himself, and then, very kindly, introduced him to her youngest daughter, Miss Nellie, whom she pathetically called the flower of her flock. Miss Nellie was a pretty girl, as were all the Misses Masham, or they would not have figured at her grace's ball. She wore the regulation chignon, golden brown in her case, her eyes were blue, her lips rosy and sweet, her face fair as the lilies and roses of summer. They had all been brought up after the same pattern; they all knew exactly what to say in every case and how to say it. As a matter of course, and not, it is to be feared, because he felt the least inclination, Basil asked the young lady to dance, and Miss Nellie, with the prettiest pink flush on her cheek, consented.

She talked about the rooms, the opera, the archduke, until Basil almost groaned aloud. There was his beautiful queen, with her face full of poetry and her eyes of love. Yet if he could but have had both hearts, he would have seen that pretty, simple Nellie Masham, who talked innocent little commonplaces to him, was worth a thousand of such women as Lady Amelie Lisle. But it is not given to men to see clearly; anything but that. When Basil Carruthers had finished that dance he longed to escape, lest he should be compelled to go through another.

Then came another moment of rapture for him, when, from the midst of a crowd of courtiers, Lady Amelie summoned him to take her to her carriage. Already they seemed like old friends. Basil drew the lace shawl around the white shoulders and held her flowers.

"You have told me I may call," he said; "will you tell me when?"

"I am visible any time after two," said Lady Amelie. Not for any amount of love or homage would she forego her comforts. Then it seemed to him that the world stopped until two the next day. He went back to the ballroom, but its beauty had all departed--there was no soul in the music, no fragrance in the flowers.

"Colonel," he said, "I have had quite enough of the ball. Are you ready for home?"

The colonel, who was quite satisfied with the result of the night's work, declared that he also was ready, and they went.

"A very pleasant ball," remarked the diplomatist, as they drove home.

"Was it?" said Basil dreamily. "I did not notice much--the only part of it I enjoyed was the conversation I had with Lady Lisle. Ah, colonel, if the ladies of the present day resembled her, there would be some hope for chivalry."

"G.o.d forbid," thought the colonel to himself. Aloud he replied: "Yes, she is a very beautiful and most accomplished woman."

"She is more than that; she has a touch of genius and fire and poetry. I have met no one like her."

"I can only hope," thought Colonel Mostyn, "he will not take the disease too severely. I want a difference, but I do not care to have a case of raving love and madness on my hands."

At breakfast time the next morning, Colonel Mostyn was pleased to see that, for the first time, Basil eagerly opened the papers and spoke anxiously of the evening engagements.

"Better rest at home, tonight," said the colonel; "you were out last evening, and going out much tires you, I know. What do you say to a quiet game at chess?"

"I cannot say positively. I shall not know what my evening engagements are until dinner-time."

And then the colonel felt quite relieved. "He is going to call on Lady Amelie," he thought, "and wherever she goes this evening he will follow.

I shall soon see him like other young men."

As for Basil himself, he simply lived in one longing for two o'clock. My lady was perfectly ready to receive him. She had arranged a little scene and smiled to herself as she thought how sure it was to succeed.

"He saw me all magnificence last evening; now I will play a different role."

She wore a plain dress of some white flowing material, with a knot of scarlet ribbons on her fair neck; her shining hair was drawn from her white brow and fell in luxuriant waves; in it she wore one rose half shrouded in green leaves, and never in all her gorgeous magnificence had Lady Amelie looked one-half as fair. She was seated in her own boudoir, where the white daphnes shone like stars in the rosy light. A picture that would have ravished the heart of any man that gazed upon it, and Lady Amelie knew that it was perfect, even down to the graceful att.i.tude and half sad, half languid expression of her face.

It was not much after two when he came. Her reception of him was perfect--unstudied, graceful, natural; and he looking at her, thought her more beautiful than ever.

"You were reading," he said; "have I disturbed you?"

"No; Owen Meredith is a favorite poet of mine; there is something very unworldly and beautiful about his verses."

"That is why you like them--you are so unworldly yourself."

"Perhaps so, in one sense. I have just sufficient tinge of it about me to teach me that whatever are my thoughts and opinions, if they differ much from other people's, I must keep them to myself, unless, as is the case now, I meet a congenial soul."

A view of the subject which was quite new to Basil.

"I thought originality was a sign of genius," he replied, "and that people admired it."

She smiled with an air of superiority that left him miles behind.

"My observation teaches me that there is nothing worldly people disapprove of so highly as originality," she said. "To be more clever than your neighbor is a crime they never pardon."

Basil, drinking in the beauty of that marvelous face, and the light of those lovely eyes, learned more worldly wisdom in one hour from the lovely lips of Lady Amelie than he had ever learned before.

CHAPTER XI.

How the Plot Succeeded.

Colonel Mostyn had no longer any reason to complain of his young kinsman; it was a month since he had been introduced to Lady Amelie, and he had lived in one long dream. He no longer found the time wearisome, or longed for something to do. He was in the power of a beautiful and heartless coquette, who took care that he should not lightly wear her chains.

He no longer showed any indifference to his evening engagements; to be with her was the one wish of his life; where she went, he went--to ball, opera, soiree, concert, fete, to dinners at Richmond, to water-parties; whoever saw the beautiful Lady Amelie, saw her last victim with her.