CHAPTER XIX.

"Tu mihi, tu certe (memini), Graecine, negabas, Uno posse aliquem tempore amare duas."

When I had heard all this, I questioned Guy about his own affairs. He was not very communicative, though he seemed perfectly happy and hopeful as to the future. He said that his marriage was not to take place till the autumn, when Miss Brandon's brother (they were orphans) was expected to return from India. I could not help asking what Flora Bellasys thought of it.

Livingstone bit his lip and frowned slightly as he answered, "Well, there _was_ a scene--rather a tempestuous one, to speak the truth, but we are perfectly good friends now. I wonder if she ever really expected me to marry her? She is the most amusing person alive to flirt with, but as for serious measures--" He shrugged his shoulders expressively.

"Perhaps she _has_ something to complain of; but if she has any conscience at all, she ought to recognize the _lex talionis_."

I was not convinced or satisfied, but it was useless to pursue the subject then.

"Will you ride to-day?" Guy asked. "There are always horses for you here. I should like to introduce you to Constance. We shall be in the Park about five."

I accepted willingly, and left him soon afterward.

A little after the hour he had named I saw Livingstone's tall figure turn the corner of Kensington Gardens, riding on Miss Brandon's right; on her left was her uncle, Mr. Vavasour, her usual escort.

She was rarely lovely, certainly, as I was sure she would be, for Guy's taste in feminine beauty was undisputed. Her features were delicate, but very clearly cut; the nose and chin purely Grecian in their outline; the dark gray eyes met you with an earnest, true expression, as if they had nothing to conceal. Her broad Spanish hat suited her well, shading as it did cheeks slightly flushed by exercise, and shining tresses of that color which with us is nameless, and which across the Channel they call--_blond cendre_. Her hand was strikingly perfect, even in its gauntlet. It might have been modeled from that famous marble fragment of which the banker-poet was so proud, and which Canova kissed so often.

There is a face which always reminds me of hers, though the figure in the portrait is far more matured and developed than Constance's willowy form--the picture of Queen Joanna of Naples in the Palazzo Doria.

I have stood before it long, trying in vain to read the riddle of the haughty lineaments, and serene, untroubled eyes. Gazing at these, who could guess the story of that most guilty woman and astute conspirator--unbridled in sensuality--remorseless in statecraft--who counted her lovers by legions, and saw, unmoved, her chief favorite torn limb from limb on the rack?

But this is no singular instance. Marble and canvas are more discreet than the mask of the best trained living features. Messalina and Julia look cold and correct enough since they have been turned into stone.

Only by the magic of her smile and by the glory of her golden hair do we recognize her who, if all tales are true, might have given a tongue to the walls of the Vatican. We forget the Borgia, with her laboratory of philtres and poisons--we only think that never a duke of all his royal race brought home a lovelier bride than Alfonso of Ferrara.

Perhaps it is best so. Why should a mark be set upon those whom, it may be, history has condemned unrighteously? Let us not be more uncharitable than the painter or the sculptor, but pa.s.s on without pausing to reflect--_Desinit in piscem_.

If one had wanted to find a fault in Constance Brandon's beauty, I suppose it would have been that her forehead was too high, and her lips too thin and decided in their expression, especially when compressed under any strong feeling. But this defect it would have been hard to discover on this first occasion of our meeting. She looked so bright and joyous, and the light from her face seemed reflected on Guy's dark features, softening their stern outline, and making them radiant with a proud happiness. She received me very cordially, and I well remember the pleasant impression left on my ear by the first sound of her voice, soft and low as Cordelia's. In these two attributes it resembled that of Flora Bellasys, yet their tones were essentially different--as different as is to the taste a draft of pure sparkling water from one of strong sweet wine. We had taken two or three turns, when a large party approached us, in the centre of whom I recognized instantly Miss Bellasys. If possible, she looked handsomer than ever as she swept by at a sharp canter, sitting square and firmly, but yielding just enough to the stride of the horse--perfectly erect, but inimitably lithe and graceful.

Nothing in her demeanor betrayed the faintest shade of emotion; but I remembered the old maxim of the fencing-school--"Watch your enemy's eyes, not his blade;" and I caught Flora's, as she raised her head after returning our salutation, before she had time to discipline them thoroughly. I saw them glitter with defiant hatred as they lighted on her rival. I saw them melt with pa.s.sionate eagerness as for one brief moment they followed Guy's retreating figure and averted face. Half of Mohun's warning became superfluous after that. I was in no danger of being deceived by "Miss Bellasys taking things pleasantly."

Yet, as time wore on, the idea forced itself on me more and more that Livingstone's choice was in some respects a mistake. They were _not_ suited to each other. Constance was as unsuspicious and as free from commonplace jealousies as the merest child; but some of her lover's proceedings did not please her, and she told him so, perhaps without attending sufficiently to the "_suaviter in modo_"; for, when it was a question of duty, real or fancied, to herself and to others, she was rigid as steel. Besides this, she was a strict observer of all Church canons and rituals; and more than once, when Guy had proposed some plan, a vigil, or matins, or vespers came in the way. She did all for the best, I am certain, and judged herself far more severely than she did others, but she could not guess how any thing like an admonition or a lecture grated on the proud, self-willed nature that from childhood had been unused to the slightest control. To speak the truth, too, she was not exempt from that failing which brought ruin on the brightest of the angels, and punishment eternal on the Son of the Morning; so that pride may often have checked the evidence of the deep love she really felt, and made her manner seem constrained and cold.

I only guess all this; for neither then, nor at any future time, did I ever hear from Guy the faintest whisper of accusation or complaint.

I do not think he contradicted her often; I am quite sure it never came to a quarrel or even a dispute. They were not a couple likely to indulge in the _amantium irae_; but sometimes, after quitting her, his brow was so ominously overcast that it would have gladdened the very heart of Flora Bellasys to have seen it. Once, I remember, after sitting some time in silence, his eyes turned toward a table, where, among other letters, lay a little triangular note unopened. He broke the seal and read it through, frowning still heavily; after a few moments of what looked like hesitation, he seemed to come to a decision, and burned it slowly at the flame of his spirit-lamp. Then he rose and shook all his mighty limbs--as the Danite t.i.tan might have done before his locks were shorn--and sat down again with a long-drawn sigh, as of relief. I longed to interpose with a warning word, for in the handwriting I recognized the _griffe_ of the fatal Delilah. But I knew how dangerous it was to attempt interference with Guy; and besides, this time, I felt sure he had escaped the toils. Yet my heart sank as I thought of the seductions and temptations that the future might have in store. I could hardly keep my temper that evening when I saw at the Opera Flora Bellasys--triumphant, as if she could guess what the morning's work had been--and then thought of the single, guileless heart whose happiness she was plotting to overthrow.

She and Guy met constantly, for he still went every where, often accompanied by his _fiancee_. They seemed to be on the most ordinary footing of old acquaintances, though it was remarked that no one could be said to have succeeded to the post of grand vizier at the Bellasys court, vacated by Livingstone. I can not trace the threads of the web of Circe. She concealed them well at the time; and since--between the knowledge of them and me is drawn the veil of a terrible remorse, which I have never tried to penetrate.

I can only tell the end, which came very speedily.

CHAPTER XX.

"'Tis good to be merry and wise; 'Tis good to be honest and true; 'Tis good to be off with the old love Before you are on with the new."

There was a sound of revelry by night in Mrs. Wallace's villa at Richmond, and fair women and brave men mustered there strong. Every one liked those parties. The hostess was young and very charming, while her husband, a bald, inoffensive, elderly man, was equally eminent in his own department of the commissariat. His wines were things to dream of in after years, when, like Curran, "confined to the Port" of a remote country inn, one sacrifices one's self heroically on the altar of the landlord for the good of the house.

The crowd was not so dense as at most London parties, and the temperature consequently something below that of a vapor-bath or of the _Piombi_, but the generality of the guests were either amusing, or pretty, or otherwise eligible. To be sure, it was rather an expedition and a question of pa.s.sports to get down there, but the drive home through the cool dewy morning made you amends.

Constance Brandon was present. I never saw her look so lovely as on this, her last appearance on the world's stage. No one could have guessed that, five hours later, the light was to die in her eyes and the color in her cheeks, never to return to either again till she shall wake on the Resurrection morning.

Flora Bellasys was there too, in all the insolence of beauty, defying criticism, and challenging the admiration that was lavished on her. I should like to describe her dress; but I know how dangerous it is for the uninitiate to venture within the verge of those awful mysteries over which, as hierophants, Devy and Maradon-Carson preside. Conscious of my s.e.x, I retire. Have we not read of Actaeon?

Still I may say that I have an impression of her being surrounded by a sort of cloud of pale blue _tulle_, over which bouquets of geranium were scattered here and there; and I remember perfectly a certain serpent of scarlet velvet and diamonds flashing amid the rolls and braids of her dark shining tresses.

The evening began with private theatricals, which were most successful.

There was a _soubrette_--provoking enough to have set all the parti-colored world by the ears--who traced her descent from a vavasor of Duke William the Norman, and an attorney's clerk, who had evidently mistaken his profession when he took a commission in the Coldstreams.

Soon after the ball which followed had begun, Livingstone arrived. He had been dining at the mess of his old regiment. I never remember seeing him what is called the worse for liquor. His head was marble under the influence of wine and of yet stronger compounds; but the instant I met his eyes, I guessed from their unusual brilliancy, and from the slight additional flush on his brown cheeks, that the wa.s.sail had been deep.

He paused for a moment to say a word or two to me, and I noticed that the first person whom his glance lighted on was, not his betrothed, but Flora Bellasys. The latter was resting after her first polka, with her usual staff of admirers round her. Guy watched the circle paying their homage, and I heard him mutter to himself the formula of the Roman arena--_Morituri te salutant_. Then he pa.s.sed on; and, after retaining Constance for her first disengaged turn, he began talking to a lady, whom I have not noticed yet, but who merits to be sketched hastily.

Rose Thornton was not clever. She was no longer in her first youth, and had never been pretty or very attractive. Her figure was neat, and her face had a sort of nervous deprecating expression, that made you look at it a second time. Nevertheless, she was always deeply engaged, and generally to the best goers in the room. She was a good performer herself, but this would not account for it; ninety-nine girls out of every hundred are that, after two seasons' practice. Those who were in the secret did not wonder at her luck. She was the _ame d.a.m.nee_ of Flora Bellasys.

Whenever the latter ventured on any unusually daring escapade, she was always really accompanied by Miss Thornton, or supposed to be so. How the influence was originally acquired I know not; at the time I speak of she had no more volition left than a Russian Grenadier. She had some principles of action once, I suppose, and considered herself as an accountable being; but all such vanities her "dashing white sergeant"

had drilled out of her long ago. Poor thing! It was no wonder that the frightened look had become habitual to her face, and that she always spoke with reserve and constraint, as if to guard against the chance-betrayal of some terrible secret. It was no sinecure, her office--alternately scapegoat and _confidante_. My own idea is, that having still a little feeble remnant of a conscience remaining, she suffered agonies of remorse at times in the latter capacity. Dancing was her great--almost her only pleasure, and Flora certainly provided her regularly with partners. Indeed, some one had irreverently designated Miss Thornton as The Turnpike, inasmuch as, before securing a waltz with the beauty, it was necessary to pay toll in the shape of a duty-dance with her _protegee_. Rose's grat.i.tude was boundless. She never wearied in rendering small services to her patroness. She would write her notes for her, as La Raffe did for Richelieu, and fetch and carry like the best of retrievers; venturing every now and then on a timid caress, which was permitted rather than accepted with an imperial nonchalance.

The only subject on which she ever expanded into eloquence was the fascinations of her friend. She spent all her weak breath in blowing that laudatory trumpet, as if she expected the defenses of the best guarded heart to fall prostrate before it, like the walls of Jericho.

And yet, if all the truth were known, I think she had as much reason to complain as the dwarf in the story who swore fellowship in arms with the giant.

I was sorry to see Livingstone linger at her side, yet more sorry when, by an easy transition, he pa.s.sed on to Flora's, and the circle around her, from old habit, made room for him to pa.s.s. He did not stay there long, though--only long enough to make future arrangements, I suppose--and then, for some time, I lost sight of him.

I had been driving heavily through a quadrille in the society of a very foolish virgin, whose ideas of past, present, and future seemed bounded by the last Opera, which she had and I had not seen. A horror of great dullness had fallen upon me, and I went out to restore the tone of my depressed spirits by a libation, wherein I devoted, solemnly, my late partner to the infernal G.o.ds. When I returned they were playing "The Olga," and Flora was whirling round on Guy Livingstone's arm.

Among her many perilous fascinations, have I ever mentioned her wonderful waltzing? She was as untiring as an Alme; and when once fairly launched with a steerer who could do her justice, had a sway with her--to use an Americanism--like that of a clipper three points off the wind.

As I watched her, almost reclining in her partner's powerful grasp, her lips moving incessantly, though audibly only to him, as her head leaned against his shoulder, I thought of the old Rhineland tradition of the Wilis; then the daughter of Herodias came into my mind; and then that scarcely less murderous _danseuse_, at whose many-twinkling feet they say the second Napoleon cast his frail life down.

If, in his a.s.sault on St. Anthony, the Evil One mingled no Terpsich.o.r.ean temptation, be sure it was because the ancient man had no ear for music, I do not think that weapon was forgotten when Don Roderick, who had once been a courtly king, did battle through a long winter's night with the phantasm of fair, sinful La Cava.

The waltz was over, and I saw Guy and Flora disappear through the curtained door of the conservatory. If there was one thing Mrs. Wallace was prouder of than another, it was the arrangement of this sanctum.

Very justly so; for it had witnessed the commencement and happy termination of more flirtations than half the ball-rooms in London put together. When you got into one of those nooks, contrived in artful recesses, shaded by magnolias, camellias, and the broad, thick-leaved tropical plants, lighted dimly by lamps of many-colored gla.s.s, you felt the recitation of some chapter in "the old tale so often told" a necessity of the position, not a matter of choice. Against eyes you were tolerably safe, though not against ears; but this is of very secondary importance. The man who would not a.s.sist a woman in distress (as the stage sailor has it) by adhering to the whisper appropriate to the imparting of interesting information, deserves to be--overheard.

Flora sank down on a convenient _causeuse_, still panting slightly--not from breathlessness, but past excitement--the ground-swell after the storm.

"Ah! what a waltz!" she said, with a sigh. "And what a pity it is so nearly the last! I shall never find any one else who will understand my step and pace so well."

"Why should it be nearly the last?" Guy asked, contemplating the varying expression of her face and the somewhat careless _pose_ of her magnificent figure with more than admiration in his eyes.

"_On se range,_" Flora answered, demurely. "And the first step in the right direction will be to give up one's favorite partners."

He sat down by her with a short laugh that was rather forced.