The Idol of Paris Part 30

She helped her dear little friend to get up and they returned to the house as they had come. Mademoiselle Frahender was just coming out to look for them.

"Here we are, little lady, don't scold," said Esperance playfully.

The little old lady shook her head chidingly.

"You do not look well, my child. You are up too early. Six o'clock, that pert little Breton told me, when I found her fumbling in our trunks. When I told her that I was going to complain of her she said, 'Oh! don't do that, Madame, my G.o.dfather, the Duke de Morlay, would never forgive me!"

The girls looked at each other.

"I promise to say nothing, but you must watch her carefully."

They were just going in when Maurice joined them, out of breath.

"h.e.l.lo! cousin. Where do you spring from?"

"I have been looking for you for half an hour to give you the programme, edited by Jean and enlivened by your humble servant. Here you are, and here you are, naughty lady, who gives no word of warning to her lover of early morning escapades."

"Oh! Maurice, it was I who led Genevieve astray, and I am doubly repentant. She will tell you why."

Maurice grew serious.

"What means that haggard face, cousin, and the collar of your dress is all wet? Come, come, Genevieve herself seems ill at ease. I would like to know what you two have been up to."

"Well! take her into that grove, you will find a bench there, and she will tell you all about it. I am going to rest," replied Esperance.

Genevieve and Maurice sat down in the grove. After she had told him what had happened, she added, "What seems to me to make it really serious is that I believe the Duke to be in earnest."

"Love and flirtation often look alike," said the young man shrugging his shoulders.

"I don't think so," said the girl with conviction, and continued sadly, "Esperance is fighting against this infatuation with all her strength, but I am very uneasy. And if the Duke should love her enough to offer to marry her!"

"You think that likely?"

"What can resist love? Tell me that."

And her beautiful eyes, swimming with tears, looked anxiously, trustingly into the young man's face.

"I tell you what I truly believe. And that is, that Esperance loves the Duke."

The young painter meditated for a long time.

"Come on, we must go back," he said finally. "We must get ready for the rehearsal." He left the girl with exhortations to reason with his cousin.

"What the deuce is our will for if we can't exercise it?"

"Maurice, I am brave and determined, you know that. My sister and I have struggled unaided, she since she was thirteen! I since I was eight. I thought that she was enough to fill all my life, and now...."

"And now," he asked tenderly, taking her hand.

"All my life is yours! I should not tell you this, but you can judge by my doing so the impotence of will against...."

She drew away her hand hastily, ran to the staircase and disappeared.

He heard the door open and his cousin's voice saying, "How pale you are, Genevieve!"

"What are you dreaming about, Cousin Maurice?" said Albert, putting his hand gently on his shoulder.

That hand felt to Maurice as heavy as remorse.

"Let us go and see what is going on," said the young painter. "There is Jean coming to look for us now."

CHAPTER XXIV

In the great hall of the Chateau a charming theatre had been built.

Everything was ready for the rehearsal. An enormous revolving platform held three wooden squares which would serve as frames for the tableaux vivants. The mechanism had been arranged by an eminent Parisian engineer. A curtain decorated by Maurice served as background. There were eleven little dressing rooms, seven for the women, four for the men.

Maurice saw the Duke seated straddlewise on a chair, and smoking a cigarette. The three men went up to him before he was aware of their presence. At sound of Albert's voice he sprang to his feet, almost as if expecting an attack. His nostrils were dilated, his face set. In an instant he resumed his usual manner, and shook hands with the young men.

"You were asleep?" suggested the Count.

"No, I was dreaming, and I think you must have figured in my dream."

"Let us hear of the dream."

"Oh! no, dreams ought not to be told!"

And he pretended to busy himself with some orders.

The guests who were to take part in the tableaux vivants began slowly to stream in. Maurice took Jean aside and told him what had happened that morning.

"You must keep watch too. I am not going to leave the Duke."

When Esperance and Genevieve came in, Maurice caught the Duke's expression in a mirror. He saw him move away and join a distant group where he lingered chatting. Jean thought Esperance looked uneasy.

Albert came up to her and kissed her hand. She smiled sadly. She was looking for some one. The Duke had disappeared before she had seen him.

After a long discussion it was decided to have a dress rehearsal.

Esperance was not in the first picture so she would have had ample time to have dressed at leisure, but nevertheless she put her things on quite feverishly. Her costume consisted only, it is true, of a light peplum over a flesh-coloured foundation. Genevieve helped her to dress. In each dressing-room was one of Maurice's designs ill.u.s.trating just how the dress, hair, etc., were to be arranged. For Andromeda, Esperance was to have bare feet, and wear on her hair a garland of flowers.

The three first tableaux revolved before the Duke and his staff, composed of Albert, Jean, Maurice and some of the distinguished guests; and the order was given to summon the artists for the second set, which was composed of the next three pictures.

The first tableaux of the second group represented Circe with the companions of Ulysses changed into swine. The marvellous Lady Rupper was to represent Circe. She entered dramatically, half nude, her tunic open to her waist, caught at intervals by diamond clasps, her peplum held in place by a garland of bay leaves. She was very beautiful. Her husband, a wealthy American, laughed at sight of her, a coa.r.s.e laugh, the laugh of all Germans, even when Americanized.

The second picture represented Judith and Holofernes. The beautiful brunette, the Marquise de Chaussey, in a daring costume designed by Maurice, held in her hand a magnificent scimitar, the property of Morlay-La-Branche. She was to pose, raising the curtain, as in the picture of Regnault.

The third picture was the deliverance of Andromeda. When Esperance appeared, so slender, so fragile, her long hair waving in floods of pale gold almost to the floor, a murmur of almost sacred admiration rang through the hall. Lady Rupper approached her, and taking the child's hair in her hands, cried out, "Oh! my dear, it is more beautiful than the American gold."