"It is a despicable realm."

"What!--to command--to win--to bow to your worship--the greatest, and the highest, and the sternest; to own slaves in those whom men recognise as their lords! Is such a power despicable? If so, what power is to be envied?"

Lady Florence turned quickly round to Maltravers, and fixed on him her large dark eyes, as if she would read into his very heart. She turned away with a blush and a slight frown--"There is mockery on your lip,"

said she.

Before Maltravers could answer, dinner was announced, and a foreign amba.s.sador claimed the hand of Lady Florence. Maltravers saw a young lady with gold oats in her very light hair, fall to his lot, and descended to the dining-room, thinking more of Lady Florence Lascelles than he had ever done before.

He happened to sit nearly opposite to the young mistress of the house (Lord Saxingham, as the reader knows, was a widower and Lady Florence an only child); and Maltravers was that day in one of those felicitous moods in which our animal spirits search and carry up, as it were, to the surface, our intellectual gifts and acquisitions. He conversed generally and happily; but once, when he turned his eyes to appeal to Lady Florence for her opinion on some point in discussion, he caught her gaze fixed upon him with an expression that checked the current of his gaiety, and cast him into a curious and bewildered reverie. In that gaze there was earnest and cordial admiration; but it was mixed with so much mournfulness, that the admiration lost its eloquence, and he who noticed it was rather saddened than flattered.

After dinner, when Maltravers sought the drawing-rooms, he found them filled with the customary sn.o.b of good society. In one corner he discovered Castruccio Cesarini, playing on a guitar, slung across his breast with a blue riband. The Italian sang well; many young ladies were grouped round him, amongst others Florence Lascelles. Maltravers, fond as he was of music, looked upon Castruccio's performance as a disagreeable exhibition. He had a Quixotic idea of the dignity of talent; and though himself of a musical science, and a melody of voice that would have thrown the room into ecstasies, he would as soon have turned juggler or tumbler for polite amus.e.m.e.nt, as contend for the bravos of a drawing-room. It was because he was one of the proudest men in the world, that Maltravers was one of the least _vain_. He did not care a rush for applause in small things. But Cesarini would have summoned the whole world to see him play at push-pin, if he thought the played it well.

"Beautiful! divine! charming!" cried the young ladies, as Cesarini ceased; and Maltravers observed that Florence praised more earnestly than the rest, and that Cesarini's dark eye sparkled, and his pale cheek flushed with unwonted brilliancy. Florence turned to Maltravers, and the Italian, following her eyes, frowned darkly.

"You know the Signor Cesarini," said Florence, joining Maltravers. "He is an interesting and gifted person."

"Unquestionably. I grieve to see him wasting his talents upon a soil that may yield a few short-lived flowers, without one useful plant or productive fruit."

"He enjoys the pa.s.sing hour, Mr. Maltravers; and sometimes, when I see the mortifications that await sterner labour, I think he is right."

"Hush!" said Maltravers; "his eyes are on us--he is listening breathlessly for every word you utter. I fear that you have made an unconscious conquest of a poet's heart; and if so, he purchases the enjoyment of the pa.s.sing hour at a fearful price."

"Nay," said Lady Florence, indifferently, "he is one of those to whom the fancy supplies the place of the heart. And if I give him an inspiration, it will be an equal luxury to him whether his lyre be strung to hope or disappointment. The sweetness of his verses will compensate to him for any bitterness in actual life."

"There are two kinds of love," answered Maltravers,--"love and self-love; the wounds of the last are often most incurable in those who appear least vulnerable to the first. Ah, Lady Florence, were I privileged to play the monitor, I would venture on one warning, however much it might offend you."

"And that is--"

"To forbear coquetry."

Maltravers smiled as he spoke, but it was gravely--and at the same time he moved gently away. But Lady Florence laid her hand on his arm.

"Mr. Maltravers," said she, very softly, and with a kind of faltering in her tone, "am I wrong to say that I am anxious for your good opinion?

Do not judge me harshly. I am soured, discontented, unhappy. I have no sympathy with the world. These men whom I see around me--what are they? the ma.s.s of them unfeeling and silken egotists--ill-judging, ill-educated, well-dressed: the few who are called distinguished--how selfish in their ambition, how pa.s.sionless in their pursuits! Am I to be blamed if I sometimes exert a power over such as these, which rather proves my scorn of them than my own vanity?"

"I have no right to argue with you."

"Yes, argue with me, convince me, guide me--Heaven knows that, impetuous and haughty as I am, I need a guide,"--and Lady Florence's eyes swam with tears. Ernest's prejudices against her were greatly shaken: he was even somewhat dazzled by her beauty, and touched by her unexpected gentleness; but still, his heart was not a.s.sailed, and he replied almost coldly, after a short pause:

"Dear Lady Florence, look round the world--who so much to be envied as yourself? What sources of happiness and pride are open to you! Why, then, make to yourself causes of discontent?--why be scornful of those who cross not your path? Why not look with charity upon G.o.d's less endowed children, beneath you as they may seem? What consolation have you in hurting the hearts or the vanities of others? Do you raise yourself even in your own estimation? You affect to be above your s.e.x--yet what character do you despise more in women than that which you a.s.sume? Semiramis should not be a coquette. There now, I have offended you--I confess I am very rude."

"I am not offended," said Florence, almost struggling with her tears; and she added inly, "Ah, I am too happy!"--There are some lips from which even the proudest women love to hear the censure which appears to disprove indifference.

It was at this time that Lumley Ferrers, flushed with the success of his schemes and projects, entered the room; and his quick eye fell upon that corner, in which he detected what appeared to him a very alarming flirtation between his rich cousin and Ernest Maltravers. He advanced to the spot, and, with his customary frankness, extended a hand to each.

"Ah, my dear and fair cousin, give me your congratulations, and ask me for my first frank, to be bound up in a collection of autographs by distinguished senators--it will sell high one of these days. Your most obedient, Mr. Maltravers;--how we shall laugh in our sleeves at the humbug of politics, when you and I, the best friends in the world, sit _vis-a-vis_ on opposite benches. But why, Lady Florence, have you never introduced me to your pet Italian? _Allons_! I am his match in Alfieri, whom, of course, he swears by, and whose verses, by the way, seem cut out of box-wood--the hardest material for turning off that sort of machinery that invention ever hit on."

Thus saying, Ferrers contrived, as he thought, very cleverly, to divide a pair that he much feared were justly formed to meet by nature--and, to his great joy, Maltravers shortly afterwards withdrew.

Ferrers, with the happy ease that belonged to his complacent, though plotting character, soon made Cesarini at home with him; and two or three slighting expressions which the former dropped with respect to Maltravers, coupled with some outrageous compliments to the Italian, completely won the heart of the poet. The brilliant Florence was more silent and subdued than usual; and her voice was softer, though graver, when she replied to Castruccio's eloquent appeals. Castruccio was one of those men who _talk fine_. By degrees, Lumley lapsed into silence, and listened to what took place between Lady Florence and the Italian, while appearing to be deep in "The Views of the Rhine," which lay on the table.

"Ah," said the latter, in his soft native tongue, "could you know how I watch every shade of that countenance which makes my heaven! Is it clouded? night is with me!--is it radiant? I am as the Persian gazing on the sun!"

"Why do you speak thus to me? were you not a poet, I might be angry."

"You were not angry when the English poet, that cold Maltravers, spoke to you perhaps as boldly."

Lady Florence drew up her haughty head. "Signor," said she, checking, however, her first impulse, and with mildness, "Mr. Maltravers neither flatters nor--"

"Presumes, you were about to say," said Cesarini, grinding his teeth.

"But it is well--once you were less chilling to the utterance of my deep devotion."

"Never, Signor Cesarini, never--but when I thought it was but the common gallantry of your nation: let me think so still."

"No, proud woman," said Cesarini, fiercely, "no--hear the truth."

Lady Florence rose indignantly.

"Hear me," he continued. "I--I, the poor foreigner, the despised minstrel, dare to lift up my eyes to you! I love you!"

Never had Florence Lascelles been so humiliated and confounded. However she might have amused herself with the vanity of Cesarini, she had not given him, as she thought, the warrant to address her--the great Lady Florence, the prize of dukes and princes--in this hardy manner; she almost fancied him insane. But the next moment she recalled the warning of Maltravers, and felt as if her punishment had commenced.

"You will think and speak more calmly, sir, when we meet again," and so saying, she swept away.

Cesarini remained rooted to the spot, with his dark countenance expressing such pa.s.sions as are rarely seen in the aspects of civilised men.

"Where do you lodge, Signor Cesarini?" asked the bland, familiar voice of Ferrers. "Let us walk part of the way together--that is, when you are tired of these hot rooms."

Cesarini groaned. "You are ill," continued Ferrers; "the air will revive you--come." He glided from the room, and the Italian mechanically followed him. They walked together for some moments in silence, side by side, in a clear, lovely, moonlight night. At length Ferrers said, "Pardon me, my dear signor, but you may already have observed that I am a very frank, odd sort of fellow. I see you are caught by the charms of my cruel cousin. Can I serve you in any way?"

A man at all acquainted with the world in which we live would have been suspicious of such cordiality in the cousin of an heiress, towards a very unsuitable aspirant. But Cesarini, like many indifferent poets (but like few good ones), had no common sense. He thought it quite natural that a man who admired his poetry so much as Lumley had declared he did, should take a lively interest in his welfare; and he therefore replied warmly, "Oh, sir, this is indeed a crushing blow: I dreamed she loved me. She was ever flattering and gentle when she spoke to me, and in verse already I had told her of my love, and met with no rebuke."

"Did your verses really and plainly declare love, and in your own person?"

"Why, the sentiment was veiled, perhaps--put into the mouth of a fict.i.tious character, or conveyed in an allegory."

"Oh," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ferrers, thinking it very likely that the gorgeous Florence, hymned by a thousand bards, had done little more than cast a glance over the lines that had cost poor Cesarini such anxious toil, and inspired him with such daring hope. "Oh!--and to-night she was more severe--she is a terrible coquette, _la belle Florence_! But perhaps you have a rival."

"I feel it--I saw it--I know it."

"Whom do you suspect?"

"That accursed Maltravers! He crosses me in every path--my spirit quails beneath his whenever we encounter. I read my doom."

"If it be Maltravers," said Ferrers, gravely, "the danger cannot be great. Florence has seen but little of him, and he does not admire her much; but she is a great match, and he is ambitious. We must guard against this betimes, Cesarini--for know that I dislike Maltravers as much as you do, and will cheerfully aid you in any plan to blight his hopes in that quarter."

"Generous, n.o.ble friend!--yet he is richer, better-born than I."