He looked at her with eyes that were dazed--that saw nothing; the eyes of a man more than half mad.

"And now look," she said. "Why, Lance, La Vanira is looking at me. What eyes she has. They stir my very heart and trouble me. They are saying something to me."

"Marion, hush! What are you talking about?" he cried.

"La Vanira's eyes--she is looking at me, Lance."

"Nonsense!" he said, and the one word was so abruptly p.r.o.nounced that Lady Chandos felt sure it was nonsense and said no more.

But after that evening he said no more about going to the opera. If he felt any wish to go, he would go; it would be quite easy for him to make some excuse to her.

And those evenings grew more and more frequent. He did not dare to disobey Leone; he did not dare to go to her house, or to offer to see her in the opera house. He tried hard to meet her accidentally, but that happy accident never occurred; yet he could not rest, he must see her; something that was stronger than himself drew him near her.

He was weak of purpose; he never resolutely took himself in hand and said:

"I am married now. I have a wife at home. Leone's beauty, Leone's talents, are all less than nothing to me. I will be true to my wife."

He never said that; he never braced his will, or his energies to the task of forgetting her; he dallied with the temptation as he had done before; he allowed himself to be tempted as he had done before; the result was that he fell as he had fallen before.

Every day his first thought was how he could possibly get away that evening without drawing particular attention to his movements; and he went so often that people began to laugh and to tease him and to wonder why he was always there.

Leone always saw him. If any one had been shrewd and quick enough to follow her, they would have seen that she played to one person; that her eyes turned to him continually; that the gestures of her white arms seemed to woo him. She never smiled at him, but there were times, when she was singing some lingering, pathetic notes, it seemed as though she were almost waiting for him to answer her.

He did not dare to go behind the scenes, to linger near the door, to wait for her carriage, but his life was consumed with the one eager desire to see her. He went night after night to the box; he sat in the same place; he leaned his arms on the same spot, watching her with eyes that seemed to flash fire as they rested on her.

People remarked it at last, and began to wonder if it could be possible that Lord Chandos, with that beautiful wife, the queen of blondes, was beginning to care for La Vanira; he never missed one night of her acting, and he saw nothing but her when she was on the stage.

Again one evening Lady Chandos said to him:

"Lance, have you noticed how seldom you spend an evening--that is, the whole of an evening--with me? If you go to a ball with me, it seems to me that you are always absent for an hour or two."

"You have a vivid imagination, my dear wife," he replied.

And yet he knew it was on the night Leone played; he could no more have kept from going to see her than he could have flown; it was stronger than himself, the impulse that led him there.

Then his nights became all fever; his days all unrest; his whole heart and soul craved with pa.s.sionate longing for one half hour with her, and yet he dared not seek it. Even then, had he striven to conquer his love, and have resolutely thought of his duty, his good faith and his loyalty, he would have conquered, as any strong man can conquer when he likes; he never tried. When the impulse led him, he went; when the temptation came to him to think of her, he thought of her, when the temptation came to him to love her, he gave way to it and never once set his will against it.

Then, when the fever of his longing consumed him, and his life had grown intolerable to him, he wrote a note to her; it said simply:

"DEAR LEONE,--Life is very sad. Do let us be friends--why should we not? Life is so short. Let us be friends. I am very miserable; seeing you sometimes would make me happy. Let us be friends, Leone.

Why refuse me? I will never speak of love--the word shall never be mentioned. You shall be to me like my dearest, best-beloved sister.

I will be your brother, your servant, and your friend; only give me, for G.o.d's dear sake, the comfort of seeing you. Leone, be friends."

It was one evening when she was tired that this letter was brought to her. She read it with weeping eyes; life was hard; she found it so. She loved her art, she lived in it, but she was only a woman, and she wanted the comfort of a human love and friendship.

Wearily enough she repeated the words to herself:

"Let us be friends. As he says, 'life is short.' The comfort will be small enough, Heaven knows, but it will be better than nothing. Yes, we will be friends."

So she answered the letter in a few words, telling him if he really wished what he said, she would discuss the prudence of such a friendship with him.

This letter of hers fell into the hands of Lady Marion. She looked at the fine, beautiful, clear handwriting.

"Lance, this is from a lady," she said.

When he took it from her his face flushed, for he knew the hand.

"It is from a lady," she repeated.

"It is on business," he replied, coldly, putting the envelope aside; and, to his intense delight, Lady Marion forgot it.

He was to go and see her. It was wrong to be so pleased, he knew, but he did not even try to hide his delight over it.

When should he go? He should count the hours--he could not wait longer than to-morrow. Would she be willing; or would she not? How long the hours seemed, yet they pa.s.sed, and once more he was at the Cedars.

CHAPTER XLII.

BECOMING SUSPICIOUS.

So they made the second great mistake of their lives. These two, who had been married lovers, fancied they could be friends. If it had not been so sad and so pitiful, it would have been amusing to have heard the conditions of that friendship--they were as numerous as the preliminaries of an article of peace. They made all arrangements; their friendship was to be of the purest and most platonic nature; there was to be nothing said which would remind them of the past; he was to shake hands with her when he came and when he went; he might pay her a visit twice or three times a week; if they met, they were to be on friendly terms; they would discuss art, literature, and music--anything and everything except their own story; they were to take an interest in each other's lives and fortunes.

"I shall take such a pride in your career, Leone," said Lord Chandos, in all good faith; "it will be the dearest part of my life."

She held up one white finger with a smile; that was trespa.s.sing on forbidden ground. He must not break the new code of friendship by saying such things.

"We are friends, not lovers, Lord Chandos," she said, gently; "you will annoy me if you forget that. The dearer part of your life is at home."

He apologized for the words.

"I mean," he said, "that I shall take the keenest interest in your career, and watch it with pride."

"That is right, as I shall yours, Lord Chandos. I am proud of you, I am proud when I read your speeches; it seems to me no other man ever spoke so well. I am proud when I read that the rising man of the day is Lord Chandos, that England looks to Lord Chandos as a great power and a promising statesman. Ah, yes, I am proud of you when I read those things. Your face, your eager, hopeful eyes rise before me, and I say to myself, 'Ah, yes, he is a genius, and the world knows it.' It is pleasant to have true friends, such as we shall be to each other."

"Yes," he had answered her, with a sigh; "we should have been foolish indeed, Leone, to have deprived ourselves of this, the only consolation left in life for either of us. We shall be more happy as friends, Leone; it would have been too horrible to have been always apart."

They hedged themselves round with precautions; they were to be so prudent; they were not to address each other as Lance and Leone; they were never to sing old songs together; he was not to go behind the scenes in the theater, he was not to wait for her in the evening. She said to him laughingly, that they ought to have these conditions of friendship written down as they write down the articles of war or the preliminaries of peace.

"We ought to have parchment strong as parchment can be; but, Lord Chandos, we must keep to our rules, no matter what happens."

So they intended, and neither of them had the faintest idea of ever deviating from the rules laid down. It was better than nothing, spending a few hours with her each week was refreshing as an oasis in a desert; he eagerly looked forward to those days on which he was permitted to call, and before long these visits became chiefly the event of his life--he thought of little else.

So it gradually came about that the stronger nature gained the ascendency, the stronger soul gained the upper hand in his life. The love of Leone had always been by far the strongest element in his life; it had been set aside by a series of clever maneuvers, but now it resumed its sway. He did not intend it; he was weak enough and foolish enough to think that the prudent friendship could replace mad love, and he was not very long before he found out his mistake. But at first all went well--her praise stimulated him, he gave loose to the fiery eloquence that was natural to him. Knowing that she would read and criticise every word, he took more pride and pleasure in his public life than he had ever done before; he liked to hear her criticisms on his opinions and actions; he was delighted with the interest she took in his works.

At times the visits he paid were all occupied with the discussion of these details. He would tell her of some great oration or speech that he intended to make on some important measure, she would talk it over to him, and her marvelous intelligence, her bright wit and originality always threw some new light on the matter, some more picturesque view.

In this she differed from Lady Marion, who was more timid and retiring, who looked upon everything connected with public life as a dreadful ordeal, who, fond as she was of literature, could not read a newspaper, who, dearly as she loved her husband, could not interest herself in his career.