UNIVERSITY OF 
 ILLINOIS Lib'K'ARY 
 AT URBAN. ./''^.^Q^ 
 
 BOOK ^'^^
 
 STKATHMOEE 
 
 % ^omantt 
 
 By OUIDA. 
 
 Oblivion cannot be hired.-Sm Thomas Browne's « Urn Burial " ^^"^''^=- 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 YOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1865. 
 
 IThe rifjht of Translation is reserved.']
 
 LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 AT URBANA-CHAMPAICN 
 
 823 
 D374sr 
 V. 1 
 
 LONDON : 
 PRINTED BY C. WHITING, BEAITFOKT HOUSE, STEAND.
 
 / I 
 
 us 
 
 J)37fM^ 
 V.l 
 
 TO THE READEPw 
 
 A PREFACE too often provokes the reader to ex- 
 claim against it, what Cowley's silver pen wrote 
 against the little word "but;" — that "it is cerugo 
 mera, a rust that spoils the metal it grows upon." 
 Nevertheless, as "but" may sometimes be the pre- 
 cursor of a clearer exposition of an * argument, so a 
 preface may perhaps be, here and there, the herald 
 to a clearer understanding between a writer and his 
 public. I have but a few words with which to pre- 
 lude these volumes ; and I do not entreat any critic 
 to forbear divulging the plot in his remarks upon 
 them. It is but a poor work which depends, like a 
 conundrum, on the concealment of its catchword and 
 secret, for the maintenance of its interest : whatever 
 attraction may lie in this romance, I have preferred 
 V seeking to centre in the sketching of character, the
 
 IV TO THE EEADEE. 
 
 development of temperament, and the issue of action. 
 If it allure any reader, I would hope that such allure- 
 ment will rest, not on the skeleton of its outline, but 
 in the manner in which that outline is filled in and 
 coloured. 
 
 I have given Strathmore purposely for what he is ; 
 a deeply erring man. I trust this will be remembered, 
 and that people will not, therefore, express a supreme 
 astonishment that he acts in consonance with such a 
 character. If I wrote of a blind man, I could scarcely 
 make him walk unerringly by the clear light of day ; 
 yet the public sometimes seem to look for such an 
 anomaly, and expect a guilty man to act in all things 
 like a demi-god. I have dra^vn in Strathmore one 
 who, trusting in his own strength, fell by his own 
 passions. I have screened nothing, excused nothing, 
 palliated nothing. I have not softened the dark sha- 
 dows that lie on a dark path. I have simply endea- 
 voured to depict the insecurity of a haughty pride which 
 held itself sufficient shield against all temptation ; the 
 inevitable steps by which one sin always leads onward 
 to another ; and the retribution, unseen of men, which 
 rose out of the wilful guilt of a self-sustained and 
 too arrogant life. 
 
 If it be objected that in the woman who occupies a 
 considerable place in these pages, crime wears too
 
 TO THE EEADEE. V 
 
 poetic and graceful a mask, I would answer that it is 
 precisely this disguise in which it steals fatally into 
 natures that otherwise would not succumb to it. 
 Crime in its naked viciousness and coarseness has its 
 least danger, and its open warning ; I have sought to 
 show that its darkest depths may underlie a bright 
 seductive surface, as the volcanic line of the earth- 
 quake runs under a laughing and flowering land- 
 scape. The cruelty and the vices of Theodora did not 
 prevent the loveliness of her face, nor the sway for 
 nigh thirty years of her fascinations over Justinian. 
 Women, perhaps, may resent the portrayal of Ma- 
 rion Vavasour ; I regret that their sex has too often 
 shown the truth of it. For the rest, I have no more 
 to add ; if there be any f avom- 1 would be inclined to 
 ask of my reviewer, or my reader, it would be, not to 
 judge of the work by any scattered fragments, but 
 only as a whole ; having followed it to the end,, and 
 having brought to its perusal the remembrance that 
 human life is no flower of paradise, but a warped tree 
 earth-stained in its growth, of which, as I have 
 written later on, in the old well-known words : 
 
 sed quantum vertice ad axiras 
 iEtherias, tantum radice in Tartara tendit. 
 
 London, May, 1865 .
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 White Ladies 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Under the Shadow or the Elms 22 
 
 . CHAPTER III. 
 The Vigil op St. John 42 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 A Titian Pictuee seen by Sunset-light . . » . 52 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Bonne-Aventure told under the Lindens . . 66 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The White Domino powdered with Golden Bees . . 86 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Two Night Pictures— by Waxlight, and by Moonlight 113 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Kismet that was written on a Millefleurs- 
 scented Note 123 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The Warning of the Scarlet Camellias . . . . 138
 
 Vlli CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 La Belle v. La Belle 156 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 The Daughter oe Eve in the Garden of Roses . . 172 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 In Royal Brocellinde 183 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 The Weaving or the Golden Shuttle . . . . 200 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Eeathery Seeds that were freighted with Eruit of 
 the euture 217 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 The Charm of the Rose 227 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 " At her Feet he bowed and fell" .... 245 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 The Axe laid to the Root 264 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 Guenevere and Elaine 274 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The Silver Shield and the Charmed Lance . . . 278 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Bella Demonia con Angelico Riso .... 296 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 The Brooding of the Storm 311
 
 STRATHMORE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 WHITE LADIES. 
 
 White Ladies did not mean snowdrops, by their 
 pretty old English name, ghosts in white cere-clothes, 
 or belles in white tarlatan. It was only an old 
 densely-wooded estate down in one of those counties 
 that give Creswick his cool chequered shade and wild 
 forest streams, his shallow sunny brooks, and pic- 
 turesque roadsides ; but which, I am told by superior 
 taste, are terribly insipid and miserably tame, with 
 many other epithets I do not care to repeat, having 
 a lingering weakness myself for the old bridle-paths 
 with the boughs meeting above head, the hawthorn 
 hedges powdered with their snowy blossom, and the 
 rich meadow lands with their tall grasses, and clover, 
 and cowslips, where cattle stand up to their hocks in 
 fresh wild thyme, and shadows lengthen slowly and 
 lazily through long summer days. 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 Z STEATHMOEE. 
 
 White Ladies was an ancient and stately abbey, the 
 last relic of lands once wide and numerous as Wax- 
 wick's ere he fell at Gladsmoor Heath ; a single pos- 
 session — though that lordly enough — where it had 
 been but one among a crowded beadroll of estates 
 which had stretched over counties before they were 
 parcelled out and divided, some amongst the hungry 
 courtiers who fattened upon abbey lands ; some among 
 the Hanoverian rabble, who scrambled for the goodly 
 spoils of loyal gentlemen ; some, later on, among the 
 vampires of Israel, who, like their forefather and first 
 usurer, Jacob, know well how to treat with the 
 famished, and sell us our mess of pottage at no smaller 
 price than our birthright. 
 
 In the days of Monkery and of Holy Church, 
 White Ladies had been a great Dominican monas- 
 tery, rich in its wealth and famous in its sanctity; 
 though since then the great Gothic pile had been 
 blasted with petronels, burned with flame, and rid- 
 dled with the bullets of the Ironsides. Yet, when 
 the western sun slanted in flecks of gold through 
 the boughs of the wych-elms, and fell on the panes 
 of the blazoned mndows, or the moonlight streaming 
 across the sward, gleamed through the pointed arches 
 and aisles, and down the ivy-covered cloisters, the 
 abbey had still a stately and solemn beauty, given to 
 it in ancient times by the cunning hand of master 
 masons, when men built for art and not for greed, and 
 lavished love in lieu of lusting gold, when they 
 worked for a long lifetime to leave some imperishable
 
 WHITE LADIES. 3 
 
 record of their toil, and were grandly heedless how 
 their names might perish and be forgot. It stood 
 down in deep secluded western valleys on the borders 
 of the sea, shut in by dense forest lands which covered 
 hill and dale for miles about it, and sheltered in 
 their recesses the dun deer in their coverts and the 
 grey herons by their pools ; a silent, solitarj-, royal 
 place, where the axe never sounded among the cente- 
 narian trees, and the sylvan glory was never touched 
 by the Vandal of time and the Goth of steam, that 
 elsewhere are swiftly sapping what Tudor iconoclasts 
 spared, and destroying what Puritan petards left 
 free. 
 
 Through the elm-boughs that swayed against the 
 carvings with which Norman builders had enriched 
 the pile; through the tangled ivy that hid where 
 Cromwell's breach had blasted, and where Henry's 
 troops had sacked; through the heraldic blazonries 
 upon the panes, where the arms of the Strathmores 
 with their fierce motto, " Slai/j and spare not I " were 
 stained, the summer sun shone into one of the cham- 
 bers at White Ladies. 
 
 In olden days, and turn by turn as time went on 
 and fortunes changed, the chamber had been the 
 audience-place of the Lord Abbot, where he had re- 
 ceived high nobles who sought the sanctuary because 
 the price of blood was on their heads, or thriftless 
 kings of Plantagenet who came to pray the aid of 
 Mother Church for largesse to their troops ere they 
 b2
 
 4: STRATHMORE. 
 
 set sail for Palestine. It had been the bower-room 
 of a captive queen, where Mary had sat over her 
 tapestry thinking of the years so long gone by, when 
 on her soft childish brow, fair with the beauty of 
 Stuart and Guise, the astrologer had seen the taint of 
 foreshadowed woe and the presage of death under the 
 soft golden curls. It had been the favourite haunt 
 of Coui't beauties where they had read the last paper 
 of Spec, and pondered over new pulvillios, and rejoiced 
 that the peace had been made at Utrecht, to bring 
 them the French mode and Paris chocolate, and 
 thought in their secretly-disaffected hearts of the 
 rising that was fomenting among the gallant gentle- 
 men of the North, and of the cypher letter lying 
 under the lace in their bosoms from one brave to 
 rashness, and thrice well-beloved because in danger 
 for the Cause, who was travelling secretly and swiftly 
 to St. Germain. 
 
 Now the Plantagenets had died out, root and 
 branch, the tapestry woven by Mary was faded and 
 motheaten, the Court beauties were laid in the chapel 
 vault, and the oriel-chamber was scented with La- 
 takia, Manillas, Burgundies, and liqueurs, while three 
 or four men sat at breakfast with a group of retrievers 
 on the hearth. The sun falling through the case- 
 ments, shone on the brass andirons, the oak carvings, 
 the purple silk of the hangings, and on the game and 
 fruits, coffee and Rhenish, that were crowded in pro- 
 fusion on the table, at which the host and the guests 
 of White Ladies lounged ; smoking and looking over
 
 WHITE LADIES. 5 
 
 the contents of the letter-bag, peeling an apricot, or 
 cutting into a foie gras, silent, lazy, and inert, for 
 there was nothing to tempt them out but the rab- 
 bits, and the morning was warm, and the shaded room 
 pleasant. 
 
 At the head of his table the host sat in shadow, where 
 the light of the outer day did not reach, but left the 
 purple hangings of the wall with the dead gold of their 
 embroideries in gloom behind him. He was a man then 
 of nine-and-twenty or thirty, but who looked some- 
 thing older than he was ; he was tall and slightly 
 made, and wore a black velvet morning coat. His 
 face was singularly striking and impressive, more by 
 expression than by feature — it was such a counte- 
 nance, as you see in old Italian portraits, and in some 
 Vandykes, bearing in them power strangely blended 
 with passion, and repose with recklessness ; his hair, 
 moustaches, and beard were of a dark chesnut hue ; 
 his mouth was very beautifully formed, with the smile 
 generous, but rare ; the eyebrows were dark, straight, 
 and finely pencilled; the eyes grey. And it was in these, 
 when they lightened to steel-like brilliance, or darkened 
 black as night with instantaneous and pitiless anger, 
 that an acute physiognomist would have inferred for 
 him danger, and evil to himself and to others, which 
 would arise from a spring as yet, perhaps^ unknown 
 and unsealed ; and that an artist studying his face, in 
 which his art would have found no flaw, would have 
 said that this man would be relentless, and might 
 have predicted, as the Southern sculptor prophesied
 
 6 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 of Charles Stuart, "Something evil will befal him. 
 He carries misfortune on his face." 
 
 He lay back in his chair, turning over his letters, 
 looking idly one by one at them, not opening some, 
 and not reading wholly through any ; many of them 
 had feminine superscriptions, and scarlet or azure 
 ehiffres at the seal, as delicately scented as though 
 they had been brought by some court page, rather 
 than by the rougli route of the mail-bag. They 
 afforded him a certain amusement that summer's 
 morning, and Strathmore of Wliite Ladies — this 
 man with the eyes of a Catiline and the face of a 
 Strafford — ^liad no care greater on his mind for either 
 the present or the future just then than that his 
 keepers had told him the broods were very scanty, 
 and the young birds had died off shockingly in the 
 early parts of the spring ; that he was summoned to 
 go on a diplomatic mission to Bulgaria to confer with 
 a crabbed Prince Michel, before he cared to leave 
 England; and that one of his fair correspondents, 
 Nina Montolieu, a Free Companion, whose motto 
 blazoned on her pretty fluttering pennon, was a very 
 rapacious " tout prendre I " might be a little more 
 troublesome than was agreeable, and give him a 
 taste of the tenacious griffes now that he had tired 
 of playing with the pattes de velours. He had 
 nothing graver or darker to trouble him, as he 
 leant back in the shade where the sunlight did not 
 come, glancing out now and then to the masses of 
 forest, and the grey cloisters, ivy -hung and crumbling
 
 WHITE LADIES. 7 
 
 to ruins, that were given to view through the opened 
 windows of his chamber. His face was the face of a 
 State-conspirator of Velasquez, of a doomed Noble of 
 Vandyke ; but his life was the easy, nonchalant, un- 
 troubled, unchequered life of an English gentleman 
 of our days ; and his thoughts were the thoughts that 
 are natural to, and that run in couple with, such a 
 life. " Born to calamit/' would have been as little 
 applicable then to Cecil Strathmore as it seemed to 
 Charles of England, when he and Villiers looked into 
 the long eyes of the Spanish donnas and drank to the 
 loveliness of Henriette de Bourbon. But in those 
 joyous, brilliant days of Madrid and Paris, the shadow 
 of the future had not fallen across the threshold of 
 Whitehall, — neither as yet had it fallen here, across 
 the threshold of White Ladies. 
 
 He looked up and turned a little in his chair as the 
 door opened, and the smile that was the more brilliant 
 and the more attractive because extremely rare, lighted 
 his face. 
 
 " You incorrigible fellow ! the coffee is cold, and 
 the claret is corked, and the omelettes are overdone, 
 but it's no more than you deserve. Won't you ever 
 be punctual % We were going down to Hurst Warren 
 at nine, and it's now eleven. You are the most idle 
 dog, Erroll, under heaven ! " 
 
 "You were only down yourself six minutes ago 
 (I asked Craven), so don't you talk, my good fel- 
 low. You have been reading the first volume of 
 the ^ Amours d'une Femme,' and sending the rabbits
 
 8 STEATHMORE. 
 
 to the deuce ; and I've been reading the second, and 
 consigning them to the devil, so we're quits. A 
 summer morning's made for a French novel in bed, 
 with the window open and the birds singing outside ; 
 pastorals and pruriencies go uncommonly nicely to- 
 gether, rather like lemons and rum, you know. Con- 
 trasts are always cAz'c/" 
 
 With which enunciation of doctrine the new comer 
 sat down, rolled his chair up to the table, and began 
 an inspection of some lobster cutlets a la Marechale, 
 taking a cup of creamy chocolate from the servant 
 behind him, while Strathmore looked at him with a 
 smile still on his lips, and a cordial look in his eyes, 
 as if the mere sound of the other's voice were pleasant 
 to him. The belated guest was a man of his own 
 age, or some few years older ; in frame and sinew he 
 was superb; in style he was rather like a dashing 
 Free Lance, a gallant debonnair captain of Bourbon's 
 Reiters, with his magnificent muscle and reckless 
 brilliance, though he was as gentle as a woman and as 
 lazy as a Circassian girl. He called himself the 
 handsomest man in the Service, and had the palm 
 given him undisputingly ; for the frank, clear, azure 
 eyes that grew so soft in love, so trustful in friend- 
 ship, the long fair hair sweeping off a forehead white 
 as the most delicate blonde's, the handsome features 
 with their sunny candour and their gay sensuous 
 smile, made his face almost as attractive to men as to 
 women. As for the latter, indeed, they strewed his 
 path with the conqueror's myrtle-leaves. His loves
 
 WHITE LADIES. 9 
 
 were as innumerable as the stars, and by no means so 
 eternal ; and if now and then the beau sexe had the 
 best of the warfare, it was only because they are 
 never compassionate on those who surrender to them 
 at once, and whom they can bind and lead captive at 
 their will, which the least experienced could do at 
 one stroke with Bertie Erroll, as he freely and la- 
 mentingly confessed. The Beau Sabreur, as he had 
 been nicknamed, a la Murat, was soft as silk in the 
 hands of a beauty, and impressionable as wax when 
 fauy fingers were at work. He had never in his 
 life resisted a woman, and avowed himself utterly 
 unable to do so. Have you ever known the science 
 that brought Laomedon to grief of any avail against 
 the Lydian Queen ? 
 
 "Letters ! Why will they write them?" he said, 
 as he glanced at the small heap of feminine corre- 
 spondence piled beside his plate. " It's such a pity ! 
 — it only makes us feel bearish, bored, and miserably 
 ungrateful ; wastes an hour to get through them re- 
 ligiously, or hangs a millstone of unperformed duty 
 and unexpiated debt about our necks for the livelong 
 day, till post-time comes round again and makes bad 
 worse!" 
 
 " Why will they write them?" echoed Strathmore, 
 giving a contemptuous push of his elbow to Nina 
 Montolieu's envelope, a souvenir of the past season, 
 with which he could very well have dispensed. " Our 
 Brinvilliers poison us with patchouli paper, and stab 
 us with a crowquill. One might like to ' die of a rose
 
 10 STEATHMORE. 
 
 in aromatic pain/ but I would ratlier not die of three 
 scented sheets crossed ! Correspondence is cruel — 
 with women. If you dorCt answer them, you feel 
 sinful and discourteous ; if you do answer them, you 
 only supply them with ammunition to fire on to 
 you afresh with fifty more rounds of grape and 
 canister. They love to spend then' whole mornings 
 skimming over a thousand lines, and miiding up with 
 ' Toujours a toi !' They love to write honey to you 
 with one pen, and gall about you with another ; they 
 love to address their dearest friends on a rose-tinted 
 sheet, and fold it to damn them on a cream-coloured 
 one. Writing is women's metier; but it is deucedly 
 hard that they mil inflict the results upon us !" 
 
 '^ It's an odd psychological fact that women will 
 write on for a twelvemonth unanswered, as religiously 
 as they wipe their pens, omit then' dates, and believe 
 in the acceleration of postal speed by an ' Immediate' 
 on the envelope," put in Phil Danvers from the 
 bottom of the table, helping himself to some Stras- 
 bourg pate. " Some of them write delightfully, 
 though — Tricksey Bellevoix does. Her notes are the 
 most delicious olla podrida of news, mots, historiettes, 
 and little tit-bits of confidence imaginable ; she always 
 tells you, too, mischievous things of the people you 
 don't like, instead of scandalising people you do, after 
 the ordinary fashion. Her letters are not bad fun at 
 all when you're smoking, and want something to look 
 at for ten minutes." 
 
 " I'll tell her how you rate them ! She's going to
 
 WHITE LADIES. 11 
 
 Cliarlemont next week. See if you get any more 
 letters, Phil!" cried Erroll. 
 
 " My dear fellow, if we turned king's evidence on 
 one another, I don't think we should get any more 
 feminine favours at all !" laughed Strathmore. " Very 
 few of them would relish the chit-chat about them if 
 they'd correct reports from the club windows and 
 short-hand notes from the smoking-rooms. Would 
 you be let in again to the violet boudoir in Brtrton- 
 street if Lady Fitz knew you'd told me last night that 
 she had the very devil's own temper ? and would Dan 
 be called ^ami choisi de mon coeur,' if Madame la 
 Baronne knew that when he gets her notes he says, 
 ^ Deuce take the woman ! — how she bothers,' audibly 
 in White's ? Try that grilse, Langton — it was in the 
 river yesterday." 
 
 " And is prime. It would have been worth Georgie's 
 trolling." 
 
 " Georoie lost all her rings last week in the Dee — 
 two thousand pounds' worth in diamonds and sapphires 
 — serve her perfectly right ! What business has she 
 with March browns and dun governors?" said the 
 host of White Ladies, drawing a plate of peaches to 
 him. "I cannot conceive what women ai'e about 
 when they take up that line of thing. How can they 
 imagine an ill-done replica of ourselves can attract us ! 
 A fast woman is an anomaly, and all anomalies are 
 jarring and bizarre. To kiss lips that smell of smoke 
 — ^to hear one's belle amie welcome one with 'AH 
 serene!' — to see her 'bugle eyeball and her cheek of
 
 12 STRATHMOEE. 
 
 cream' only sparkle and flush for a tan gallop and a 
 Kawcliffe yearling — to have her boudoir as horsy as 
 the Comer, and her walk a cross between a swing and 
 a strut ! Pah ! give me women as soft, and as deli- 
 cate, and as velvet as my peaches !" 
 
 "Peaches?" put in ErroU. "Ominous simile! 
 Your soft women will have an uncommonly hard 
 stone at their core, and a kernel that's poison under 
 the velvet skin, mon cher Cis !" 
 
 '^Soit! I only brush the bloom, and taste the 
 sweetness!" yawned Strathmore. "A wise man 
 never lingers long enough over the same to have 
 time to come to the core. With peaches and women, 
 it's only the side next the sun that's tempting ; if you 
 find acid in either, leave them for the downy blush of 
 another ! How poetic we grow ! Is it the Ehefiish ? 
 That rich, old, amber, mellow wine always has a 
 flavour of Hoffmann's fancies and Jean Paul's verse 
 about it ; it smells of the Rheingau ! I don't wonder 
 Schiller took his inspirations from it. I say, Erroll, 
 I heard from Eokeby this morning. He doesn't say 
 a word about the Sartory betting, nor yet of the 
 White Duchess scandal. He is only full of two 
 things : La Pucelle's chances of the Prix de Rastatt 
 at Baden, and of this beauty he's raving of, something 
 superb, according to him, a Creole, I think he says — 
 Lady Vavasour ! Really one's bored to death with 
 ecstasies about that woman ! Have you heard the 
 name ? / have lots of times, but I've always missed 
 her."
 
 WHITE LADIES. 13 
 
 "Vavasour? Vavasour? The deuce, I have — 
 rather!" said Erroll, thrown into a beatific vision by 
 the mere name of the lady under discussion, while he 
 stirred some more cream into his chocolate. 
 
 "Who was she?" asked Langton, of the 16th 
 Lancers, who was only just back from service in 
 Bengal. 
 
 " More than I can tell you, my boy. I believe it's 
 more than anybody knows. She sprang into society 
 like Aphrodite from the sea-foam. One may as well 
 be graceful in metaphor, eh? You mean a Creole, 
 Strathmore, made a tremendous row at St. Petersburg 
 — came nobody knew precisely whence — ^hadn't been 
 seen till she appeared as Lady Vavasour and Vaux 
 tooling a six-in-hand pony-trap, with pages of honour 
 in lapis-lazuli Kveries, that created a furore in Long- 
 champs, and made the Pre Catalan crowded to get a 
 glimpse of her. Ever since then all Europe's been 
 at her feet!" 
 
 "That's the woman!" broke in Danvers. "Oh, 
 she's divine, they say. Everybody goes mad after 
 her, and can't help himself. Scrope Waverley raved 
 of her ; he saw her at Biarritz, and swears she's quite 
 matchless. She's the most capricious coquette, too, 
 that ever broke hearts with a fan-handle!" 
 
 "Hearts! Faugh!" sneered Strathmore; and, 
 when he did so, his face was very cold — a coldness 
 strangely at variance with the swift, dark passions 
 that slumbered in his eyes. " My good fellow, don't 
 give us a rechauffe of Scrope Waverle/s sentimental
 
 14 STEATHMORE. 
 
 nonsense! The man must be weaker than the fan- 
 handle if he be ruled by it." 
 
 Erroll lifted his eyebrows, and sighed : 
 
 " May be ! But the little ivory sticks play the 
 deuce with us when they're well managed." 
 
 " Speak for yourself ! Don't make your confes- 
 sions in the plural, that their folly may sound general, 
 pray!" 
 
 " Oh, yoii — you're a confounded cold fellow ! 
 Wear chained armour, wrap yourself in asbestos, 
 and all that sort of thing, ^ larva kisses' wouldn't 
 melt you, and Helen wouldn't move you unless you 
 chose ! " 
 
 Strathmore laughed a little. 
 
 " Wliy should they ? It is only fools who go in 
 fetters. I can not comprehend that madness about a 
 woman — to lie at her feet and come at her call, and 
 take her caresses one minute and her neglect the 
 next, as if you were her spaniel, with nothing better 
 to do than to live in her bondage! It is miserably 
 contemptible ! What is weakness if that isn't one, eh ? " 
 
 Erroll flung the envelope with the scarlet chiffre, 
 lying on the table within reach of his hand, at his 
 host and friend, as proof and reproof of the nullity of 
 his doctrines. 
 
 " Most noble lord ! you have the cheek to talk 
 coldly and disdainfully like that, while you know 
 you are in the net of the MontoHeu, and Heaven 
 knows how many others besides !" 
 
 Strathmore laughed again as the envelope fluttered
 
 WHITE LADIES. 15 
 
 down on the ground, falling short of him where he lay 
 back in his f auteuil : 
 
 " Becasse ! that is a very different affair. Nina is 
 a dashing little lawless lady, and knows how to pillage 
 with both hands ; one must pay if one dallies with 
 the Free Companions. You don't suppose she ever 
 held me in her bondage, or flattered herself she did 
 for an hour, do you ? No one was ever in love with 
 that sort of women after t\^^ty; one makes love to 
 them in parenthesis as it were, of course, but that's 
 quite another thing. It is how you lose your hearts 
 how you hang on a smile, how you let yourselves be 
 marked and hit and brought down like the silHest 
 noddy-bird that ever sat to be shot at, how you go 
 mad after one woman, and that one woman with, nine 
 times out of ten,, nothing worth worshipping about 
 her — it is that which I can't understand." 
 
 " Thank your stars I" said Erroll, softly, and with 
 a profound sigh of envy. "Go about with your 
 noli me tangere shield, and be piously thankful you've 
 got it then. Only the ^haughty in their strength,' 
 et csetera, you know — what's the rest of the scriptural 
 warning? — unbelievers do come to grief sometimes 
 for their hardened heterodoxy! This superb Vava- 
 som', I want dreadfully to see her. They say she is 
 the best thing we have had for a long time, since the 
 Duchesse d'lvore was in her first prime." 
 
 " She must be the same I heard so much about in 
 Paris last winter; she was passing the season in 
 Rome, so I missed seeing her. She has the most
 
 16 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 wayward caprices, tliey say, of any living woman," 
 said Danvers, turning over the leaves of the morn- 
 ing papers ; " but the caprices d^une belle femme are 
 always bewitching and always permissible. A great 
 beauty has no sins ; she may do what she likes, and 
 we forgive her, even with the leopard claws in our 
 skin. The pretty panther ! it looks so handsome and 
 so soft ; its very crimes are only mischief." 
 
 " You haven't been in^ Scinde, Phil," said Langton, 
 with the grim smile of a campaigner who hears 
 those who have never suffered jest at scars; while 
 their host, rather tired of this breakfast-chat about 
 women, turned to his unopened correspondence, till 
 his guests, having thrown their letters away, to be 
 answered at any distant and hazardous future, having 
 yawned over the papers, casually remarking that that 
 poor devil Allington's divorce case was put off till 
 next session?, or that there was an awful row in South 
 Mexico, rose by general consent, and began to think 
 of the rabbits. 
 
 White Ladies was one of the pleasantest places to 
 visit at in England. A long beadroU might have 
 been cited of houses that eclipsed it in every point, 
 but the Abbey had a charm, as it had a beauty, of its 
 own. In the deep recesses of its vast forest-lands 
 there were drives of deer that gave more royals in 
 one day's sport than were ever found south of the 
 Cheviots. In the dark pools, some of them well-nigh 
 inaccessible, where they lay between gorse-covered 
 hills or down in wooded valleys, the wild fowl flocked
 
 WHITE LADIES. 17 
 
 by legions. The river, that ran in and out, of which 
 you just caught glimpses from the west windows, 
 flashing between the boughs in the distance, was 
 famed for its salmon, and had in olden days given 
 char and trout to the tables of the monastery, whose 
 celebrity had reached to royal Windsor and princely 
 Sheen, and made the Tudor covetous for the land 
 and water that yielded such good fare. Sport was to 
 be had in perfection among the brakes and woods at 
 White Ladies ; and within, even in the very bachelor 
 dens overlooking the cloisters, there were luxury and 
 comfort; while fair women used to come down to 
 White Ladies, sufficiently lovely to rouse the sleeping 
 Dominicans from their graves, as they swept through 
 the aisles of the chapel ; and laughter would ring out 
 from the smoking-room, when the men had their feet 
 in the papooshes and their pipes in their mouths, loud 
 enough to wake all the echoes of the abbey, and make 
 the dead monks, lying under the sward, turn in their 
 tombs and cross themselves, at the profanity of their 
 successors and supplanters. 
 
 White Ladies was a grand old place, and Strath- 
 more was envied by most of his friends and acquaint- 
 ance for its possession. It had come to him by the 
 listaff side, from his mother's father, who, failing 
 leirs male in the direct line, had left it to him 
 >n condition that he assumed his name. Strath- 
 lore bore a close resemblance to his mother's family, 
 whose name he had taken ; he had nothing either 
 in feature or in character in common with the easy, 
 VOL. I.
 
 18 STEATHMORE. 
 
 inert, sensual, placable, Saxon Castlemeres, with 
 their Teuton good humour and their Teuton phlegm, 
 but he inherited in every point the type of the 
 Strathmores, that courtly, silent, Norman race, swift 
 and fierce in passion, dark and implacable in hate, 
 keen to avenge, slow to forgive, imperious in love^ 
 and cold in hate ; and with the features might go the 
 character. 
 
 Others do not know, we do not know om-selves, 
 all that lies latent in us, until the seeds of good 
 or evil that are hidden and unknown, germinate 
 to deed and blossom into action, and make us reap for 
 weal or woe the harvest we have sown. If with the 
 countenance, he inherited the character, of those who 
 had ruled before him at White Ladies, there had 
 been little in his life to develop the unroused nature. 
 The darker traits might have died out with the darker 
 times, as the mailed surcoat of steel had been replaced 
 by a velvet morning coat, as the iron portcullis had 
 been put away by a gold-fringed portiere, as the cul- 
 verin above the gateway had been removed for the 
 soft, silken folds of a flag. Lions long kept in a tame 
 life lose their desert instinct and their thirst for 
 blood, so the Strathmores in long centuries of com! 
 life might have outworn and lost wdiat had been evil 
 and dangerous in them in the days of Plantagenet, of 
 Lancaster, and of York. Or, if the nature were not 
 dead, but only sleeping, there was nothing to arouse 
 it ; things went smoothly and well with Strathmore ;
 
 WHITE LADIES. 19 
 
 he had birth, fortune, talents of a high order ; lie Avas 
 courted by women, partly because he was very x:old to 
 them, chiefly, doubtless, because he was youngei^^son 
 of the Marquis of Castlemere and master of White 
 Ladies. In a diplomatic career he had a wide field for 
 the ambitions that attracted him — the ambition not of 
 place, wealth, or title, but of Power, the deep, subtle 
 state power that had in all ages fascinated the Strath- 
 mores, and been melded by them successfully and 
 skilfully. Life lay clear, brilliant, unruffled behind 
 him and before him. If there ran in his blood the 
 old spirit of the Strathmores, that had often worked 
 their oi^ai doom and been their own scourge, that 
 gleamed from their eyes in the old portraits by 
 Antonio More, and Jameson, and Vandyke, hang- 
 ing in the vaulted picture-gallery at the Abbey, and 
 that made those who looked on them understand 
 how those coui'tly, elegant, suave gentlemen had been 
 swift to steel, and pitiless in pursuit, and imperious in 
 ire, — if this spirit still ran in his blood it was dormant, 
 and had never been wakened to its strength. Oppor- 
 tunity is the forcing-house that gives birth to all 
 things ; without it, seeds will never ripen into fruit ; 
 with it, much that might otherwise have died out in- 
 nocuous expands to baneful force. Man works half 
 his own doom, and circumstance works the other 
 half. Yet, because we have not been tempted, we 
 therefore believe we can stand ; because we have not 
 yet been brought nigh the furnace, we therefore hold 
 02
 
 20 STBATHMOEE. 
 
 ourselves to be fire-proof ! Mes freres, the best of us 
 are fools, I fear ! The steel is not proven till it has 
 passed through the flames. 
 
 Sooner or later — ^though they may lie to it long, half 
 a lifetime, perhaps — ^I believe that men and women 
 are all true to their physiognomies ; that they prove, 
 sooner or later, that the index Nature has writ (though 
 written in crabbed, uncertain characters which few 
 can read altogether aright) upon their features is not a 
 wrong nor a false one. Men lie, but Nature does not. 
 They dissemble, but she speaks out. They conceal, 
 but she tells the truth. What is carved on the features, 
 will develop, some time or other, in the career. When 
 Bernini made the prophecy that foretold ill for the 
 heir of England, could any prediction seem more 
 absurd? Yet Charles Stuart wrought his own fate, 
 and the fruit of the past, whose seed had been sown 
 by his own hands, was bitter between his teeth when 
 the foretold calamity fell, black and ghastly, betwixt 
 the People and the Throne. Strathmore's life, cold, 
 clear, cloudless as the air of a glittering, still, winter's 
 noon, was utterly at variance with his physiognomy — 
 the physiognomy which had the eyes of a Catiline and 
 the face of a Strafford ! Yet, as time went on, and 
 he passed of his own will into a path which a man 
 stronger in one sense, and weaker in another, would 
 have never entered, the spirit that was latent in him 
 awoke, and wrought his own fate and wove his own 
 scourge more darkly and more erringly, because more 
 consciously and more resolutely, than Charles Stuart ;
 
 WHITE LADIES. 21 
 
 making him eat of the fruit of his own sowing to the 
 full as bitterly as he of England, who might never 
 have bowed his head to the axe that chill January^ 
 morning, when a king fell, amidst the silence of an 
 assembled multitude, if the first obstinate error which 
 had seemed sweet to him had been put aside, and the 
 first wilful turn out of the right path been avoided : 
 the turn — so slight ! — that led on to the headsman 
 and the scaffold !
 
 22 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE ELMS. 
 
 The rabbits were tame in comparison with the 
 drives for which the forests of White Ladies were 
 famed, and with the bouquets of pheasants that the 
 battues afforded later on in the year ; still they were 
 better than nothing, and were peppered faute de mieux 
 that day. But the chief thing done by the whole 
 quartette, was to lie under the trees and drink the iced 
 champagne-cup and Badminton, brought there, with 
 a cold luncheon, on an Exmoor pony by the under- 
 keepers about two o'clock; which was, however, as 
 pleasant occupation for idleness on a sultry summer's 
 day as anything that could be suggested, while the 
 smoke curled up through the leafy roofing above head, 
 and the dogs lay about on the moss with their tongues 
 out, hot, tired, and excited, and the mavises and black- 
 birds sang in the boughs. 
 
 "Where the deuce is the Sabreur?" asked Phil
 
 UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE ELMS. 23 
 
 Danvers, when the rabbits had been slain by the 
 score, and the chimes of the Abbey, ringing seven 
 o'clock with the slow, musical chant of the " Adeste 
 Fideles," came over the woods, and warned them that 
 the dressing-bell must be going, and that it was time 
 to think about dinner. 
 
 " By George ! I don't know," said Strathmore. " I 
 haven't seen him for the last hour. Didn't he say 
 something about the Euston Coppice ? I dare say he 
 is gone there after the rabbits ; we must have missed 
 him somewhere." 
 
 " It's easy to lose oneself in these woods of yours, 
 Strathmore," said Langton, striking a fresh fusee. 
 " The timber^s so tremendously thick, and there are 
 no paths to speak of ; you never have the wood cut 
 doA^Qi, do you ? " 
 
 " Cut down ! Certainly not ! My good fellow, do 
 you think the woods of White Ladies go for building 
 pui-poses? I wonder Bertie is gone off like that. 
 Pritchard, have you seen Major ErroU ? " 
 
 " I see the Major a going toward the coppice, my 
 lord, about an hour ago, when we was beatmg of the 
 Near Acre — a going down that ere path, my lord," re- 
 sponded Pritchard, the under-keeper. 
 
 " Queer fellow ! " said Strathmore, as he gave his 
 gun to one of the boys, and lighted a weed. " What 
 did he go off for, I wonder ? He must have missed 
 us, somehow." 
 
 " Perhaps he's taken a wrong cut, and will wander 
 miserably till the soup's cold and the fish overdone,"
 
 24 STEATHMORE. 
 
 suggested Danvers. " Lady Millicent is coming to- 
 night, ain't she, with the Harewood people ? He'll 
 hang himself if he isn't in in time to take her in to 
 dinner ; he swears by her just now, you know. The 
 Sabreur's eternally in love ! Who isn't, though ? " 
 
 '^ i'm not," said Strathmore, with perfect veracity. 
 It was somewhat his pride that he had never lost his 
 head for any woman in his life. 
 
 " Because you're panoplied with protocols, and 
 sworn to the State I You're a cursed cold fellow^, 
 Cis — always were!" interrupted Danvers, with a 
 mixture of impatience and envy. "Bertie has lost 
 himself, I bet you. I was benighted once, don't 
 you remember? If he miss Lady Millicent, he'll 
 hang himself, to a certainty ! We must ask her for 
 one of her rose ribbons to made the suicide effective !" 
 
 " I'll go round by the coppice home, and look for 
 him," said Strathmore. " There are two hours before 
 the people come. I shall be back in plenty of time. 
 Au revoirl^you and Phil want longer for your 
 toilettes than I do, because you'll dress for the Hare- 
 wood women ! " 
 
 It was a splendid evening — clear, sultry, with an 
 amber light falling through the aisles of the trees, and 
 long shadows deepening across the sward, while the 
 wild fowl went to roost beside the pools, and the 
 herons dipped their beaks into the dark cool waters 
 that lay deep and still, with broad-leaved lilies and 
 tangled river plants floating languidly on their surface. 
 Strathmore left his guests to take the shorter cut that
 
 UNDEE THE SHADOW OP THE ELMS. 25 
 
 led direct to the side-door of the bachelors' wing, and 
 strolled himself through Euston Coppice, a wild, 
 solitary, intricate bit of the park, that had more of 
 the luxuriant forest-growth of parts of Lower Brittany 
 than of the tamer, more cultivated look of English 
 woodlands. Some volcanic convulsion long ages ago 
 had rent and split the earth in this part into a fantastic 
 surface, the gaps so filled up by furze, hazel, and 
 yellow heath, and the rugged sides so covered that 
 the right track might very easily be lost. He walked 
 onward, looking about him ; for he thought it possible 
 that Erroll might have missed the right path, and 
 that he might fall in with him as he passed home- 
 wards. 
 
 Bertie was the solitary person whom Strathmore 
 could ever have been said to have loved. His attach-' 
 ment was very difficult to rouse ; in the world, people, 
 specially pretty coquettes, called him without any heart, 
 perhaps without any feeling. It was true that he had 
 never lost his head after any of them ; his indifference 
 was no affectation, and his vaunted panoply no pretence; 
 the Strathmores had always better liked state plot and 
 subtle power than the women whose odorous tresses 
 had swept over their Milan corslets, and whose golden 
 heads had been pillowed on their breasts. To Erroll, 
 Strathmore bore, however, a much deeper attachment 
 than beauty had ever won from him — the attachment 
 of a nature that gives both love and friendship very 
 rarely; but when it gives either gives instantly, 
 blindly, and trustingly ; the nature that had always
 
 26 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 been characteristic of the " swift, silent, Strathmores," 
 as the alhteration of cradle chronicles and provincial 
 legends nicknamed the race which had reigned at Wliite 
 Ladies since Hastings. The friendship between them 
 was the friendship closer than brotherhood of dead 
 Greece and old Judaea — the bright truthfulness, the 
 soft laziness, the candour, the dash, the verve, the 
 hundred attractive, attachable qualities of Erroll's 
 character, endeared him to Strathmore by that strange 
 force of contrast which has so odd a spell sometimes in 
 friendship as in love ; and the bond between them was 
 as close and firmly riven as a clasp of steel. They 
 never spoke of their friendship ; it was not the way of 
 either of them; it is only yom' loving ladies who 
 lavish eternal vows, and press soft kisses on each 
 other's cheeks, and sw^ear they cannot live apart over 
 their pre-prandial Souchong, to — slander each other 
 suavely behind their fans an hour afterwards, and 
 sigh away their bosom-darling's reputation with a 
 whisper! They rarely spoke of it; but they had a 
 friendship for one another passing the love of women, 
 and they relied on it as men rely on their own honour, 
 as silently and as securely. 
 
 Once, when they w^ere together in Scinde, having 
 both gone thither on a hunting trip to the big- 
 game districts for a change one autumn, to bring 
 home panther-skins and try pig-stickmg, a tigress 
 sprang out on them as they strolled alone through 
 the jmigle — sprang out to alight, with grip and
 
 UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE ELMS. 27 
 
 fang, upon Stratlimore, who neither heard nor saw 
 her, as it chanced. But before she could be upon 
 her victim, ErroU threw himself before him, and 
 catching the beast by her throat as she rose in the air 
 to her leap, held her off at arm's length, and fell with 
 her, holding her down by main force, while she tore 
 and gored him in the struggle — a struggle that lasted 
 till Strathmore had time to take aim, and send a 
 ball through her brain ; a long time, let me tell you, 
 though but a few short seconds in actual duration, to 
 hold down, and to wrestle in the grip of a tigress of 
 Scinde. " You would have done the same for me, my 
 dear old fellow," said ErroU, quietly and lazily, as his 
 eyes closed, and he fainted away from the loss of 
 blood. And that was all he would ever vouchsafe to 
 say or hear said about the matter. He had risked his 
 life to save Strathmore's ; he knew Strathmore would 
 have acted precisely so for him. It was a type of the 
 quality and of the character of their friendship. 
 
 The evening shadows were slanting across the 
 sward, while the squirrels ran from branch to branch, 
 and the cheshuts lying on the mass turned to gold in 
 the western sun, as Strathmore walked along with a 
 couple of beagles following in his track. See Erroll 
 he did not, and he wondered where the deuce he had 
 gone ; if he had been absolutely after the rabbits he 
 would have taken some of the men, or the dogs at the 
 least, with him; and it was odd he had chosen that 
 night in especial to be belated, as among the people
 
 28 STEATHMOBE. 
 
 coming to dine at White Ladies in an hour's time 
 was Lady Milhcent Clinton, a beautiful blonde, tan- 
 talising, imperious, and bewitching to the highest 
 degree, whom ErroU had watched for at Flirta- 
 tion Corner, left the coulisses for at the opera, 
 bought guinea cups of tea for at bazaars, and de- 
 dicated himself to generally, throughout the past 
 season. He walked onwards, flushing the phea- 
 sants with his step, and startling the herons as he 
 passed the pools, till they rose at the bark of the dogs, 
 and sailed majestically away in the sunny silent air. 
 At last, as he went along the confines of the deer- 
 park, towards the entrance of a long elm-walk, half 
 lane, half avenue, that led round towards the Abbey, 
 he saw, leaning over a gate against which his gun 
 was resting, and talking to a woman, Bertie — in quest 
 of other game than the rabbits. 
 
 He was at some distance, almost at the other end of 
 the avenue; across which broad lines of yellow light fell 
 through the trunks of the trees, while the elm-boughs 
 meeting above head, thick with luxuriant leaf, threw 
 chequered shadows on the turf below. He was stand- 
 ing by the stile which led into a bridle-path that 
 wound up to the church a mile or so beyond, and 
 was talking earnestly to his companion, who stood on 
 the other side, and who, even at that distance, made 
 a charming picture ; much such a one as Aline, when 
 Boufflers toyed with her at the woodland brook under 
 the forests of Lorraine, with the butterflies fluttering 
 
 i
 
 UNDEE THE SHADOW OF THE ELMS. 29 
 
 above her head, and the wild flowers hanging in her 
 childish hands. She stood on the lower step of the 
 stile, so that as she reached upwards one of her arms 
 was wound about his neck, her face, soft, youthful, 
 and fair, was lifted to his own, as his hand lingered 
 on her brow, pushing back from it the shining waves 
 of hair, while she nestled closely to him as a bird to 
 the one who caresses it, as a spaniel to the master it 
 follows ! It was a scene to be interpreted at a glance, 
 that golden sunset hour under the shadow of the 
 elms; — and in those hours who remembers that the 
 sun will set, leaving the dank dews of night to brood 
 where its beams have fallen ; that the foliage above 
 us will drop off sere and withered like the " dark 
 brown years" of Ossian, into which we must enter 
 and dwell ; that in the grasses the asp is curling, that 
 in the west the clouds are brooding? None remem- 
 ber, mes amis ! neither did those who lingered then 
 beneath the elms before the sun went down. 
 
 " That's his game ! By George ! I thought it was 
 odd if the rabbits alone made him too late for dinner ! 
 I wonder how many he has shot in the coppice. Poor 
 Lady Millicent ! she would die of mortification and 
 pique," thought Strathmore, as he looked up the elm- 
 walk at its crossed light and shade, with a smile in 
 which there was a dash of contempt. He had been 
 loved by women who might well have claimed to 
 haunt his memory; proud, peerless beauties, who 
 might well have looked to rouse the swift imperious
 
 30 STEATHMOKE. 
 
 passion which, wlwi they loved — that unloving race ! 
 — the love of the Strathmores had ever been ; but he 
 had cared for none of them, and this wasting of 
 hours, this ceaseless adoration of women, this worship- 
 ping of a mistress's eyebrow, was incomprehensible 
 and somewhat contemptible in his sight. He never 
 was so nearly losing patience with Erroll as when he 
 came in evidence with the perpetual gallantries, the 
 never-ending, ever-changing grandes passions y as easily 
 lit as cigars and as quickly thrown aside, that were 
 characteristic of the Sabreur, and his best beloved 
 pursuit. Strathmore would as soon have understood 
 consuming his time in constantly blowing soap- 
 bubbles ! — he looked now with a certain disdainful 
 amusement at them where they stood ; then, unseen 
 himself, he turned, and making the dogs quiet with 
 a sign, crossed the avenue, and went along beside the 
 sunken fence of the deer-park by another route home- 
 ward, so that he should neither spy upon nor inter- 
 rupt them. 
 
 Such game was ErrolFs especial sport, if he found 
 it on the lands of White Ladies he was fully wel- 
 come to the preserves undisputed. Strathmore did 
 not envy him either the small amusement of slaying, 
 or the inevitable trouble of the game when slain ! A 
 quarter of an hour later on, as he crossed the lawns 
 that lay in front of the Abbey, while the chimes of 
 the bells were still ringing the curfew with low 
 mellow chants and carillons, he heard a step behind
 
 UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE ELMS. 31 
 
 him, and as lie turned faced tlie Sabreur, who came 
 along smoking, blandly unconscious that he had been 
 seen in his tete-a-tete under the elms. 
 
 " Had good sport in the coppice, mon cher ? What 
 did you mean by giving us the slip like this ? " said 
 Strathmore, as he swung round and waited for him. 
 
 " Pretty good ; rabbits were rather shy," answered 
 En'oU, with the meerschaum between his lips, and 
 the most tranquil air of innocence that the human 
 countenance ever wore. 
 
 "But la belle wasnt! — you seemed veiy good 
 friends; is she an old acquaintance or a new? Is 
 the game in the bag or only marked ; hit or only just 
 flushed ? I expect the whole story in the smoking- 
 room to-night ! " 
 
 A certain dash of annoyance and discomfiture went 
 over Erroll's face for the moment, but he laughed : 
 
 " Hang you ! where did you see me ? " 
 
 " Where you were very plainly to be seen ! If 
 you make open-air rendezvous, Bertie, you must 
 be prepared for spectators. Who is she? If the 
 game's been found on my lands, I think it is fair I 
 should have an account of it. Is she an old love or 
 a new ? " 
 
 " Not new," laughed the Sabreur, pulling his Glen- 
 garry over his forehead, to keep the sunset glare out 
 of his eyes. 
 
 " Not new ! I thought you gave no more thought 
 to old loves than to old gloves — the gloss off both,
 
 32 STEATHMOKE. 
 
 both go to the devil ! I suppose you found her up 
 last autumn, when you were down here in my place ? 
 I was in the East, so I am not responsible for what 
 happened ! You might have told me, my dear fellow ; 
 I shouldn't have rivalled you ; pretty peasants never 
 had any attraction for me ; I like the tourneure of the 
 world, not the odour of the dairy. Give me grace 
 and wit, not rosy cheeks and fingers fresh from the 
 churn and the hencoop ; the perfume of frangipane, 
 not of the farm-yard. Petrarch might adore a miller's 
 wife — it is not my line — and I think the flour must 
 have made Laura's ^ cJiiome (Toro' look dusty : I 
 never took a mistress from my tenantry! Who is 
 she, Errolir' 
 
 ErroU sent a puff of smoke into the air, and turned 
 to Strathmore with his gay insouciant laugh, clear as 
 a bell and sweet as a girl's, that had so much youth 
 in it: 
 
 "I'll tell you some other time. Old story, you 
 know, nothing new in it. We're all fools about 
 women, and she beats any of those we shall have to- 
 night hollow. Lady Millicent and all of 'em !" 
 
 Strathmore raised his eyebrows : 
 
 " An old love ! and you're as enthusiastic as that ? 
 What must you have been in the beginning ! Thank 
 Heaven I was not here. Poor Lady Millicent ! sal 
 volatile by the gallon would never restore her if she 
 knew a young provincial, smelling of the hayfield, 
 with a set of cherry ribbons for a Sunday, and a week- 
 day aroma of the cowshed (if not the pigsty), was
 
 UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE ELMS. 33 
 
 said by the difficile Sabreur to beat her hollow ! — and 
 she a Court beauty and a Lady in Waiting ! So much 
 for taste!" 
 
 "Pigsty? Cowshed? You didn't see her just 
 now, Cecil; you couldn't!" broke in Bertie, dis- 
 gusted. 
 
 "I saw a woman, my dear Erroll; she was your 
 property, and I noticed no more." 
 
 "For God's sake don't suppose me such a Goth 
 that I should fall in love with a dairymaid. Strath!" 
 said Erroll, plaintively. " She's nothing of that sort 
 — nothing, I give you my honour ! Let me clear my 
 character, pray. Should I love a ^ PhiUis in a hazel- 
 bower?' I hate cobwebs, dew, and earwigs; and I 
 can't bear a coarse colour for a woman ! I say, don't 
 let out anything about it, though, will you ? Don't 
 tell the other fellows ; there's no object, and they'd 
 only " 
 
 "Chaff you? Exactly!" 
 
 " No ! I don't care a straw for chaff," said Erroll, 
 meditatively. "It's only boys who mind chaff, we 
 don't. But they might get hunting her out, you see 
 — would, I dare say, / should in then- place — and I 
 don't want that. I wish to keep the thing quiet. I 
 have managed to do it hitherto ; and she would cut up 
 as rough at insult as Lady Millicent herself ; you un- 
 derstand?" 
 
 "Not very clearly; but it doesn't matter; one 
 doesn't look for perspicuity in love intrigues — nor for 
 reason." 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 • STEATHMOEE. 
 
 " Hang you ! you know what I mean," miu'mured 
 the Sabreur, lazily. 
 
 "You mean, you don't want me to tell of your 
 tete-a-tete, and set the men on to badger you about it 
 when the women are gone ? Yery well ! I'm silent 
 as the dead !" laughed Strathmore, "What a wicked 
 dog^ you are, Bertie, on my word, though. Country 
 air ought to purify your morals ; one naturally sins in 
 cities, but " 
 
 " Inevitably sins in villages ! Just so, one's nothing 
 else to do ! In town, one sins from sociability ; in 
 the country, from solitariness — a safe indication that 
 the soft sins are the natural concomitants of one's 
 existence everywhere, and shouldn't be resisted !" 
 
 "Admirable theory! — developed in practice, too, 
 by its preacher, which can't be said o.f all precepts. 
 Arcadia and the Eue Breda have more in common 
 than one generally fancied then ; but I shouldn't have 
 thought youdi. have taken to provincial amourettes, 
 Sabreur ! However, failing hot-house fruits, I sup- 
 pose you take a turn at blackberries ? What an odd 
 state oif existence it must be, not to be able to live 
 twenty-four hours without finding some woman's eyes 
 to look into !" 
 
 " Yery natural, I think ! — when women's eyes are 
 the pleasantest mirrors there are, and framed on 
 purpose for us. You were never in love in your life, 
 Strath." 
 
 " I was never the fool of a woman, if you mean 
 that."
 
 UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE ELMS. 35 
 
 " You've brougiit over a prima donna, because, in 
 a cold sort of way, you thought her a handsome 
 Roman," went on Erroll, disdaining the interruption 
 — "or you've taken up the Montolieu, because she 
 made a dead set at you ; and because one has a Mon- 
 toHeu as naturally as one has a cigar-case or a pair of 
 slippers — or you've made love to some grande dame 
 because it answered a political purpose, and advanced 
 a finesse to be in her boudoir when everybody else was 
 shut out of it; but as for love — you know nothing 
 about it!" 
 
 Strathmore laughed: 
 
 " I know as much as any wise man knows. I know 
 just as much as flavours life — any more disturbs it. 
 I like a woman for her beauty, but I should be par- 
 ticularly sorry to sup in raptures oif a single smile, to 
 tie my hands with a golden hair, and to go mad after 
 the shape of an ankle, as you do with a dozen divinities 
 in as many months. A week or two ' ago you were 
 wild about the Clinton, who is worth looking at, I 
 grant you, and now, I dare say, you've lost your head 
 just as completely for little Phillis yonder, with her 
 hands in the butter ! My dear Bertie, it's positively 
 inexplicable to me ; I can fancy your kissing the lips, 
 if they're pretty ones, of all those goddesses, but I 
 can't possibly understand your caring about the god- 
 desses themselves !" 
 
 " Hold your tongue ! — and, for Heaven's sake, don't 
 suppose I'm in love with a human churn ! Hands in 
 D 2
 
 36 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 the butter; what an idea!" murmured the Sabreur, 
 disgusted. 
 
 " Well ! it must be a cabbage-rose this time, con- 
 servatory ones don't grow about the home farms. Or 
 if it isn't " 
 
 Strathmore stopped, struck with a sudden thought, 
 and swung round, as they walked under the cloisters, 
 his face as he turned to Erroll softening with that 
 smile which took from it all that was cold, dark, and 
 dangerous in its physiognomy, and gave to it an almost 
 tender warmth — a warmth that as yet no woman had 
 had the magic to waken there. He laid his hand on 
 Erroll's shoulder with the old familiar gesture of their 
 Eton days, as they came out of the aisles of the 
 cloisters on to the lawn that stretched smooth and 
 sunny before an antique grey terrace, with broad 
 flights of steps hung with ivy, looking down on to 
 thick avenues and long glades of trees, like the terrace 
 at Haddon, where Dorothy Yernon fled in the summer 
 moonlight to the love of John Manners. 
 
 "Erroll, I say, it is no entanglement, no annoy- 
 ance, is it, this affair of yours ? " 
 
 Erroll threw his cigar away, shook his head, and 
 laughed : 
 
 " Not in the least ; except — that my conscience 
 smites me a little for it sometimes. That's all ! " 
 
 Strathmore's hand rested still on his shoulder, lying J 
 there in the safe, cordial grasp of a friendship warm 
 as the friendship of David for Jonathan. 
 
 A
 
 UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE ELMS. 37 
 
 " Conscience ! How exceptional you are ! The 
 word's out of all modern dictionaries, and rococo from 
 use. But what I meant was, if you had any diffi- 
 culty of any kind — if you need to shake yourself free 
 from any embarrassments — you would keep to your 
 promise and let me serve you in all ways ? Remem- 
 ber, old fellow, you gave me your word ? " 
 
 He meant that Erroll would let him assist him 
 more substantially than by advice. The Sabreur was 
 a man about town, with little more to float him than 
 a good name and a fashionable reputation, lucky 
 Baden "coups" and dashed-off magazine articles; 
 his debts were heavy sometimes, his embarrassments 
 not a few, though on his gay sunny nature they 
 never weighed long ; he was, very literally, a " beg- 
 gared gentleman," though his beggary was as joyous 
 and insouciant a Bohemianism as might be; and 
 Strathmore, who was generous to an extreme, and 
 ascetically indifferent to riches, had always pressed 
 him, and sometimes, though generally with the ut- 
 most difficulty, compelled him to accept his aid; 
 without bond or payment. 
 
 His hand lay on Erroll's shoulder where they stood 
 at the foot of the terrace steps, and the light from the 
 west fell full upon his face as Strathmore looked at 
 him — it was so frank, so glad, with a smile as bright 
 as a girl's upon it, that many years afterwards Strath- 
 more saw it in memory fresh as though beheld but 
 yesterday.
 
 38 STEATHMORE. 
 
 " Dear old fellow ! I know you would ! If I 
 needed, I would ask you as freely as though you 
 were my brother ;" and ErrolFs voice was rich and 
 full as he spoke, like the voice of a woman when she 
 speaks of, or to, that which she loves : then he laughed 
 with the gay carelessness of his temper. " But there's 
 no need here ; /'m not the sufferer. They are not 
 panther griffes, like your Montolieu's or La Julia's, 
 confound her ! I play the tiger part if there be one 
 in the duo. I say, Strathmore, what a confounded 
 bore your going off to Servia — Bosnia, Bulgaria, 
 where is it ? Won't Prince Michel wait ? " 
 
 " Prince Michel would willingly wait till doomsday 
 rather than see me, but the F. O. won't. It is a 
 bore ; I didn't want to leave till over the First ; how- 
 ever, diplomatie oblige I and there'll be a good deal of 
 finesse wanted. It is an errand quite to my taste." 
 
 "Perhaps you'll see this adorable Vavasour and 
 Vaux beauty on the Continent. Do tiy ! " 
 
 "And report her to you, as game worth your 
 coming over to mark or not, as the case may be? 
 You paysanne w^on't hold her ground long against the 
 Peeress, if she's only a tithe of what Hokeby says. I 
 will make note for you accurately if I see her ; and 
 I may come back through Paris in the spring. The 
 deuce ! it's getting very late. Those people will all 
 be here before we are dressed for dinner," said Strath- 
 more, as he crossed the terrace, entered the house, and 
 went up to his dressing-room that looked out across 
 the pleasaunce and the deer-park that lay beyond.
 
 UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE ELMS. 39 
 
 Lady Millicent came, haughty, lovely, and be- 
 witching, with the Harewood people and several 
 others, to dinner that night at White Ladies, in the 
 great dining-hall that had been the refectory of the 
 old Dominicans. Where travel-worn pilgrims and 
 serge-clothed palmers, footsore and bronzed by Eastern 
 suns, had sat and supped, telling of miracles of Lo- 
 retto or persecutions from the Moslem to the listen- 
 ing brethren, pretty women with diamonds glancing 
 in tlieir hair, and smiles brightening in their languid, 
 lustrous eyes, sat at the table, covered with gold 
 plate, and Bohemian glass and delicate Sevres, with 
 rich fruits and brilliant exotics, and Parian figures, 
 holding up baskets odorous with summer blossom, 
 while the wines sparkled pink and golden in their 
 carafes, and flushed to warm, ruby tints in the silver 
 claret-jugs. Where the white robes of the Domini- 
 cans had swept, the perfumed laces and silks of their 
 trailing dresses as noiselessly moved ; where the Latin 
 chant of the Salutaris Hostia had risen and swelled, 
 the low laugh of. their musical voices echoed ; where 
 the incense had floated in purple clouds, the bouquet 
 of Burgundies and the perfume of Millefleurs scented 
 the air ; where the silent monks had sat and broken 
 black bread in the monarchical gloom of their wood- 
 land Abbey, Lady Millicent and her sisters flirted 
 and smiled, and brushed the bloom off a hothouse 
 grape, and trifled with the wing of an ortolan, while 
 the light flashed azure-bright in thek sapphires, and 
 the opals gleamed in their bosom. Le Eoi est mort.
 
 40 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 Vive le Roi ! So To-day succeeds to Yesterday, and 
 the dead are supplanted and the past is forgot ! 
 Where the ^daticum last night was administered to 
 the dying, the laugh of the living echoes gaily this 
 morning, and in its turn the laugh will die off the 
 air, and the chant of the tomb will come round again. 
 Such is life and such is death, and the two are ever 
 fused together and twisted in one inseparable cord, 
 the white line running with the black, side by side, 
 crossed and recrossed, following each other as the 
 night the day ! 
 
 "You incorrigible fellow, what would your wood- 
 nymph have said to you if she'd seen you making 
 such desperate love to Lady Millicent to-night ? " 
 said Strathmore, as he and Erroll passed down the 
 corridor to the smoking-room, as the last roll of the 
 carriages echoed down the avenue. 
 
 "The deuce!" laughed Erroll. "If they had a 
 lorgnon long enough to let them see any of us when 
 we're away from them, the tamest Griseldis would 
 have little to say to us when we went back to her ! 
 Those poor women ! they're shockingly cheated." 
 
 "They have their revenge, mon cher. If we're 
 their first instructors in mischief, they take to the 
 lesson very kindly, and improve on it fast enough ! " 
 laughed Strathmore. " If M. son Mari deceive 
 Lucretia, Lucretia soon turns the tables, and dupes 
 her lord. They are quits with us, and don't want 
 any pity. I wish your luckless wood-nymph had 
 seen you go on with the Clinton to-night ! I am
 
 TJNDEE THE SHADOW OF THE ELMS. 41 
 
 curious really to know liow you get up the steam fresh 
 every time; now with a duchess, and now with a 
 dairymaid, now with a blonde, and now with a brune ! " 
 
 " Afin de varier les couleurs !" 
 
 quoted Erroll, appropriately, wrapping about him his 
 seed-pearl broidered and sable-lined dressing-gown, 
 dainty and costly enough for Lady Millicent's wear. 
 
 " Caramba ! " broke in Strathmore. " I have a good 
 mind to punish your inconstancy by betraying your 
 incognita. Such a monopoly of the wild game and 
 the tame birds at once isn't fair. I'll tell Danvers the 
 whereabouts of your preserves." 
 
 "No, no! Don't! there's a good fellow," inter- 
 rupted Erroll, quickly. "You see — it would only 
 bother one — and " 
 
 Strathmore laughed as he opened the door of the 
 smoking-room, and the flood of warm light streamed 
 out from within : 
 
 "We don't like poaching in neglected preserves 
 even ! I understand, my dear fellow. Bag your big 
 game and your small, make love to your Court belle 
 and your country girl both at once, and just as you 
 like ! / won't set the beaters after either. Have I 
 not said I'll be silent as death ? Entrez ! Bah ! there 
 is Phil smoking those wretched musk-scented cigarettes 
 again ; they are only fit for Lady Georgie or Eulalie 
 Papellori. What taste, when there are my Havannahs 
 and cheroots ! "
 
 42 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE VIGIL OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 It was the Vigil of St. Joliii in Prague. 
 
 The stars were coming out one by one m the clear 
 violet skies, that were still yellow in the west with the 
 beams of a setting sun ; and the dews of the evening 
 were moist upon the thick foliage of the Lorenziberg 
 and the vineyards of the Anlagen, encircling the city 
 with their fresh green zone. The lights, already lit 
 upon the bridges, were mirrored in the waters of the 
 Moldau, or the Yeltava, as it is called by its softer 
 Czeschen name, that ran like a broad smooth silver 
 band beneath their arches; and the glare from the 
 western skies fell on the gilt crosses of the Teyn 
 church, making them blaze and sparkle with fiery 
 brilliance, while the mosque-like spires of a thousand 
 towers stood out clear and delicate as fairy handiwork 
 in the warm golden haze, as the measured chant of 
 litanies, sung by gathered multitudes, rose and fell 
 with slow sonorous rhythm on the hush of the coming
 
 THE VIGIL OF ST. JOHN. 43 
 
 niglit. For many nights and days before, tlie hum of 
 collecting people and the weary tramp of tired feet 
 had been heard throughout the city, as devotees 
 of every stock and province had flocked far and 
 near, from wild Silesian forests, from remote Ba- 
 varian mountains, from Saxon hamlets buried in their 
 pine-woods, and charcoal-burners' chalets in Molda- 
 vian wilds, and Czeschen homesteads nestled in their 
 cherry orchards, to tlie great Festival of Holy Jo- 
 hannes of Nepomiik, at whose most sainted martyr- 
 dom, as Legend and Church record, five stars arose 
 and glittered in the waters where the Saint sank, a 
 thousand years ago, and gleamed in golden radiance? 
 heaven-sent witnesses to innocence. 
 
 At the Cathedral and in the Platz, before the 
 stars and statue on the bridge, and arou.nd the 
 bronze ring in St. Wenzel's Chapel, at every smaller 
 shrine and lesser altar through the city, the dense 
 crowd of pilgrims knelt, all their heads bowed 
 down in prayer, as the numberless ears of wheat 
 in a corn-field bend with one accord before the 
 sweep of a summer breeze. There is something 
 oddly touching, pathetic, majestic, almost sacred in 
 the sight of a surging sea of human life I What is it 
 that is grand and impressive in a dense silent crowd, 
 collected together, no matter whether that crowd be a 
 mass of troops in the Champ de Mars, the gathering 
 of the people upon Epsom Downs, or a countless as- 
 sembling of peasants in Prague on a Holy day ? What 
 is it ? Taken individually, the units of each are un-
 
 44 STRATHMOEE. 
 
 impressive, grotesque, common-place ; a French chas- 
 seur, an English touter, a Sclavonian glass engraver, 
 have no sublimity about them taken singly. But in 
 their aggregate, there is that same strange, nameless, 
 mournful solemnity which brought hot, unbidden tears 
 to the eyes of the man who, while the Magi offered 
 libations to the manes of the Homeric heroes, sat on 
 the white throne at Abydos, looking down on the 
 crowded Hellespont, and the countless thousands that 
 were gathered by the shores of Scamander, beneath 
 the shadow of Mount Ida, while the sunlight glittered 
 on the golden pomegranates of the Immortal Guard, 
 and the gorgeous robes of the Thracians fluttered in 
 the winds. Perhaps with him, we vaguely, unwit- 
 tingly, involuntarily compassionate these vast multi- 
 tudes, of which in a century there will not be one who 
 has not been gathered to his tomb ; and the depth of 
 the sadness lends a sanctity to these crowds, whose 
 goal is the grave, which the chill and shallow philoso- 
 phies of an Artabanus cannot whisper away : for we 
 too are wending thither in their company, we too must 
 turn our steps from golden Abydos, and lay us down 
 to die at Salamis ! 
 
 It was the Yigil of St. John. Pyramids of gas-jets 
 flared up to the skies, the Five Stars commemorative 
 of the Saint of Nepomiik glittered on the parapet in 
 the evening air : there was no sound but the swelling 
 melodious cadence of the Latin litanies, chanted by a 
 million voices in solemn and regular rhythm, filling 
 the night with music, full, rich, mournful as the
 
 THE VIGIL OF ST. JOHN. 45 
 
 glorious harmonies that peal from cathedral c^ioirs 
 at a midnight mass. And an Englishman strolling 
 through the city on foot (for no carriages are per- 
 mitted in the Platz and Bridge at tlie Vigil and Fes- 
 tival of St. John), looked dowii on the kneeling 
 multitudes with a smile on his lips, a smile that had 
 perhaps a little of the sadness of the Persian as he 
 gazed down on the ^gean, and more of natural dis- 
 dain for these superstitions before him, which were 
 but type of the bigotries of a wider world, where 
 difference from him is your neighbour's measure of 
 your difference from Deity, and where we are bidden 
 to accept our creed, as in the time of the Molinistes 
 they were bidden to accept the Pouvoir Prochain, by 
 no better rule than that " il f aut prononcer le mot des 
 levres de peur d'etre heretique de nom ! " 
 
 As he strolled down Wenzel's Platz, in the centre 
 of which sprang a tree of gas, with a myriad of 
 burning luminous leaves, that threw their glare 
 on the kneeling devotees as they bowed in adora- 
 tion before the holy shrines, a carriage that had 
 come into the square against all rule — for the best 
 reason, that the horses had broken away, frightened 
 at the music, the lights, the crowds, and had taken 
 their own way thither, beyond their driver's power to 
 pull them in — dashed down the Platz at a headlong 
 gallop. The crowd of pilgrims w^ere too densely packed 
 to have power to move to save themselves by separa- 
 tion or by flight ; they fell pele-mele one on another, 
 the stronger crushing the weaker, according to custom
 
 46 STPtATHMOEE. 
 
 in every conflict, calling on Jesns and the Mother of 
 God and Holy Johannes to preserve them from their 
 fate, shrieking, praying, sobbing, swearing ; while the 
 horses, maddened by the tnmnlt and the gas glare, 
 tore across the square, dragging their carriage after 
 them like a wicker toy. Nothing less than a heavenly 
 interposition, miraculously great as the Five Stars of 
 Holy Johannes, could save the people in tlieir path 
 from death and destruction ; the carriage rocked and 
 swayed, its occupant clasping her hands and crying 
 piteously for help ; the horses dashed through the 
 kneeling multitude, knocking down aged men and 
 sobbing children and shrieking women in their head- 
 long course ; the oaths and prayers and screams rose 
 loud and shrill, half drowned in the rich sonorous 
 chant of the litanies from priests and pilgrims beyond, 
 that swelled out uninterrupted from every lighted 
 shrine and blazing altar. 
 
 Death was imminent for many — death in the hour 
 of prayer, death on the eve of glad festivity ; — the 
 horses, snorting, plunging, flinging the white foam 
 from their nostrils, trampled out a merciless path 
 through the close-packed crowd, and trod down be- 
 neath their hoofs Avhat they could not scatter from 
 their road. The blaze of gas, the loud swell of the 
 chants, the glitter of the altar lights, the wild tumult 
 and uproar about them, terrified and maddened them. 
 Death was in their van, and in their wake, for all the 
 multitude kneeling there in prayer; but — as they 
 neared the spot where the Enghshman was, who had
 
 THE VIGIL OF ST. JOHN. 47 
 
 not moved a yard, and calmly waited tlieir approach, 
 he stood firmly planted, as though made of granite, 
 in their path, and catching them, with a sudden 
 spring, by their ribbons close to the curb, checked 
 them in full flight with a force that sent them back 
 upon their haunches. It needed what he had, an 
 iron strength and perfect coolness ; even with these 
 to aid him it was a dangerous risk to run, for if they 
 shook themselves free, the infuriated beasts would 
 trample him to death. 
 
 They reared and plunged wildly, flinging the 
 foam, tinged with blood, over their chests and 
 flanks, and into his eyes, till it blinded him with 
 the spray ; they lifted him three times up off the 
 ground by his wrists with a jerk suflicient to 
 wrench his arms out of their sockets, with a strain 
 enough to make every fibre and muscle break and 
 snap. Still he held on ; they had met their master, 
 and had to give in at last ; they were powerless to 
 shake off his grip ; and, tired out at last "vvith the 
 contest, they stood quiet ; panting, trembling, passive, 
 fairly broken in, their heads drooping, their limbs 
 quivering, blood where the curbs had sawn their 
 mouths, mixed with the snowy foam that covered 
 them from their loins to their pasterns. He let go 
 his hold ; his face was pale, and calm, as though he 
 had lounged out of a ball-room ; but his eyes glittered 
 and gleamed dark with a swift, dangerous passion — a 
 passion that was evil. He stretched his hand up, 
 without speaking, to the coachman for his whip ; the
 
 48 STEATHMOKE. 
 
 man stooped down and gave it to him ; and, clearing the 
 crowd wide with a sign, he lashed the horses, pitilessly, 
 fiercely — ^lashed them till the poor brutes, spiritless, 
 powerless, and trembling, stood shaking like culprits 
 before their judge. That merciless punishing done, 
 his passion had spent itself ; the horses were broken 
 down to the quietness of lambs, and might have been 
 guided by a young child ; letting go his hold on them 
 again, he approached the carriage window, and lifted 
 his hat as carelessly and indifferently as though he 
 were bowing to some acquaintance in the Ride or the 
 Pre Catalan. 
 
 " Madame, you must be very much terrified, but I 
 trust you have not been hurt ? " he said, in German, 
 to the single occupant of the carriage, who, lean- 
 ing out, eagerly, and with grateful empressement, 
 stretched to him two delicate, ungloved, jewelled 
 hands. 
 
 ^'Monsieur! Mon Dieu! how brave you have 
 been ! You have saved my life — and at the risk of 
 your own ! What can I say to you ? How can I 
 thank you?" 
 
 As the glare from the gas-pyramid near and the 
 lights burning on the shrine fell upon her face, he 
 saw that it was one of rare and exceeding loveliness, 
 and smiled slightly as her warm white hands touched 
 his own, that were aching and throbbing with pain : 
 
 "Madame, I am thanked already — par un regard 
 de vous ! Is there any way in which I can have the 
 honour to assist you ? "
 
 THE VIGIL OF ST. JOHN. 49 
 
 Before she could reply, the carriage moved. The 
 driver, a rough, ill-mannered Czec, who wasted no 
 words and no time, started off his trembling horses 
 afresh; he was impatient to be out of the crowd, 
 who, recovering from their terror, were swearing bit- 
 terly at him in a hundred guttural dialects, and 
 screaming vociferous indignant wrath ; and he was 
 afraid, moreover, of the arrival and the fury of 
 police officials. Without awaiting orders, he started 
 off back again through the square, and the carriage 
 rolled away down the Platz, bearing its occupant out 
 of sight ; a broidered handkerchief she had dropped, 
 as her hand met her deliverer's, was the only relic 
 left of her, where it lay on the stones at his feet. 
 The pilgrims, closing over the vacant spot as the 
 vehicle rolled away, crowded round the English- 
 man who had saved two-thirds of them from im- 
 minent death, with impetuous, demonstrative, en- 
 thusiastic gratitude, the vivacious Sclavonians call- 
 ing on the Mother of God and Holy Johannes 
 to bless and reward him, showering down on him 
 a thousand valedictions in harsh Saxon and ve- 
 hement Czeschen; the women holding up their 
 children to look at him, and remember his face, and 
 pray for him for ever ; the terrified peasants kissing 
 his clothes in frantic adoration, canonising him then 
 and there, and calling down upon his head the 
 blessing of the whole heavenly roll of saints and 
 angels; while through the multitude ran a breath- 
 less whisper, that their deliverer was none other than 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 St. John of Nepomiik himself, descended on earth in 
 human form to save and champion his faithful 
 people, keeping watch and prayer at his Vigil in 
 Prague ! 
 
 To be canonised was very far from his taste, and 
 the vehement gratitude lavished upon him was an in- 
 finite bore. The vociferous worship of the crowds 
 could very well have been dispensed with, and signing 
 them off to leave him a clear path, he pushed them 
 away, and breaking free from their eager clamour 
 mth some difficulty, he walked down the Platz, 
 striking a fusee and lighting a cigar as he went — an 
 act that slightly disturbed the pilgrims who had ca- 
 nonised him, and shook their faith as to his saintship : 
 Holy Johannes would never have smoked ! 
 
 As he moved from the spot, he saw the handkerchief 
 lying at his feet, and stooped and raised it ; it was of 
 gossamer texture, bordered with delicate lace ; it was 
 subtilely perfumed, and in the corner, broidered with 
 fantastic device, was a coronet and an interlaced 
 chiffre, whose initials were too intricately interwoven 
 for him to be at the pains to decipher them. It was 
 a woman's pretty toy ; some men would have kept it 
 in souvenir of this Vigil of St. John when a face so 
 marvellously lovely had beamed upon them ; he was 
 not one of those ; it was not his way. For a moment 
 he took it up to thrust it in the breast of his waist- 
 coat, more without thought than from any motive in 
 the action ; but as he did so he was passing a pretty 
 Bohemian glass-engraver, whose bright black eyes
 
 THE VIGIL OF ST. JOHN. 51 
 
 sparkled with eager longing as lier pretty brunette's 
 face looked out from lier yellow hood, and she saw 
 the dainty scented handkerchief in his hand. He 
 threw it to her, dropping the little gossamer toy, with 
 its broidered coronet, into her bosom. 
 
 " It will please you better than me, little beauty," he 
 said cai'elessly, as he went on through the thickly- 
 packed crowd, sriioking, and not taking in return the 
 caress she would willingly have allowed; as the pilgrims 
 returned to their prayers, closing over the vacant spot, 
 and the chanted orisons, broken off for a while, rose 
 again in slow-measured harmonies, the litanies ring- 
 ing out into the silent air, the lights bm-ning on the 
 blazing altars, and the dense crowds bowing do^vii 
 before the shrines throughout the city, while the 
 golden cross of the Teyn church glittered in the 
 light of the stars, and the hushed skies brooded in the 
 twihght of the coming night over the towers and the 
 palaces, the river and the vineyards, the lighted altars, 
 and the frowning fortresses of antique and historic 
 Prague. 
 
 e2
 
 52 STKATHMOKE. 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 A TITIAN PICTUEE SEEN BY SUNSET-LIGHT. 
 
 "MoUTON qui reve, are you thinking of Prague 
 and of me ? " 
 
 A cumbersome Czeschen boat was dropping down 
 the Moldau, its sails idly flapping in the sultry June 
 night, in which not a breath of wind was stirring, 
 while the mournful music of some of the national lays 
 broke on the air from a little band of musicians play- 
 ing in the aft of the vessel, wild, sweet, and har- 
 monious, as though they were the melodies of le- 
 gendary Rubezahl and his Spirit Band. The boat 
 was chiefly filled with peasantry going by water to a 
 fair at Auzig, and bright-eyed glass-engravers, with 
 yellow or scarlet kerchiefs on their black-haired heads, 
 were laughing merrily with each other, and casting 
 mischievous glances at the sailors as they passed 
 them. It was such a summer night as you may see 
 any year in Bohemia ; the lazy, silent hour when the
 
 A TITIAN PICTUEE. 53 
 
 hot, toilsome, blazing day is sinking into the warm, 
 still, tranquil night; when the peasantry leave their 
 field-work, chanting fragments of the Niebelungen- 
 lied, or some other Sclavonic song ; when the en- 
 gravers put aside their little graving-wheels, and lean 
 out for a breath of air from their single window 
 under the eaves; when the cattle wind homeward 
 down the hill-side paths, and in the doorways of the 
 Gasthof, under the cherry-trees, the gossipers drink 
 their good-night draughts of Lager and Bayerisches. 
 The orchards, white with blossom, bowered gaily- 
 painted homesteads; the dark red roofs peeped out 
 of chalets half hidden under hollyhocks ; the poppy 
 grounds glowed scarlet, catching the last gleam of the 
 setting sun ; and over the rye-fields a low western 
 breeze was blowing from the fir-covered hills as the 
 vessel floated down the stream, passing green wooded 
 creeks, and pine-woods growing between the clefts of 
 riven rocks, and golden glimpses of hazy distance 
 from the banks through which the Moldau wound its 
 way. 
 
 "Mouton qui reve, are you thinking of Prague 
 and of me, mon ami?" 
 
 The voice was low, and sweet, and rich — that most 
 excellent thing in woman ; and the speaker was 
 worthy the voice, where she sat leaning amongst a 
 pile of shawls and cushions with which her servant 
 had covered the rough bench of the boat, as an 
 Odalisque might have leaned amongst the couches 
 of the Oda, with as much Eastern grace and as much
 
 54 STRATHMOEE. 
 
 Eastern languor. A Monde aux yeux oiows, her eyes 
 were long and dark and lustrous, with a dangerous 
 droop of their thick curling lashes, but her skin was 
 dazzlingly fair, with a delicate bloom in her cheeks ; 
 the hair was not golden, nor auburn, nor blond 
 cendre, but what I have only seen once in my 
 life, the "yellow hair" of the poets, of Edith the 
 Swan-necked, and of Laura of Avignon ; the lips 
 were beautiful — a trifle too full and too sensual, femi- 
 nine detractors would have objected, but Beranger 
 would have sung of them : 
 
 pour ma l^vre qui les presse, 
 C'est un def aut bien attrayant ! 
 
 and it was a mouth that surely smiled destruction ! 
 It was a face, brilliant, tender, marvellously lovely 
 like a face of Titian or of Greuze, as she leant 
 among her cushions, with a black veil over her hair, 
 thrown there with the grace of a Spanish mantilla ; 
 and her white hands lying on the rough wooden edge 
 of the vessel, with their rings gleaming in the su.nset 
 glare. Her eyes were dwelling on the face of a man 
 who leant over the boat-side within a few yards of 
 her, and who was looking down into the water, a 
 cigar in his mouth, and his profile turned towards 
 her; — dwelling with curiosity, admiration, satisfac- 
 tion. A woman appreciated better than a man the 
 peculiar and varied meanings of that physiognomy ; 
 women will not often see widely, but they always see 
 microscopically ; they cannot analyse, but they have 
 invariably rapid intuition. 
 
 I
 
 A TITIAN PICTURE. 55 
 
 " It is a face of Vandyke ! so much repose, with 
 so much passion. I hke it. It tells a story, but a 
 story whose leaves are uncut," she thought to herself, 
 as she leaned foi'wards, touched his arm with a branch 
 of cherry-blossoms she held, and challenged him with 
 her laughing words, "Mouton qui reve !" 
 
 He turned ; he had not seen her there before, though 
 both had been on board some half hour ; and as the 
 light blow of the cherry-blossoms struck his arm, scat- 
 tering their snowy petals, and her low, soft laugh fell 
 on his ear, he recognised the face that he had seen 
 a few days before in the gas glare of the Vigil of St. 
 John, whose broidered handkerchief he had dropped 
 into the bosom of a Bohemian peasant girl, instead of 
 treasuring it in recollection of one so fair. Such a 
 woman would have won courteous welcome and re- 
 cognition from a Stagyrite or a nonogenarian ; and 
 he took the hand she extended to him soft, warm, and 
 small, with sapphu'es and pearls gleaming on its un 
 gloved fingers, lifting his hat to her with answering 
 words of gratified acknowledgments. He had not 
 been thinking of her, but Diogenes himself would 
 not have had discourtesy enough to have told her so ; 
 and on a summer's evening, dropping down a river in 
 a slow, tedious passage, such a rencontre to while 
 away the time could not choose but be acceptable to 
 any man. 
 
 <^ Ah, monsieur ! " she said, softly, as he drew near 
 to her, " how brave you were that night. To dare to 
 stop those horses in full flight ! — it was marvellous ; it
 
 56 STRATHMORE. 
 
 was heroic ! You saved my life ; how can I ever 
 thank you well enough? — ever show you half my 
 gratitude?" 
 
 " Hush, madame, I entreat you ! " he said, with a 
 smile, that was rather the calm conventional smile of 
 courtesy than the warmer one she was used to see 
 lighten at her glance. " You have thanked me abun- 
 dantly ; if you do more, you will make me ashamed 
 of having served you so little. Few men would not 
 envy me so rich a recompense as lies in having won 
 the smallest title to your gratitude !" 
 
 La blonde aux yeux noirs looked up at him search- 
 ingly through her silky lashes, and laughed a pretty, 
 mocking, airy laugh. 
 
 " Graceful words ! but are they meant V^ 
 
 " Ah, madame ! " he answered, laughing, as he 
 seated himself beside the fair stranger, into whose 
 path accident had thrown him so agreeably. " Per- 
 haps that is a question that it is always wisest never 
 to ask of any words at all ! " 
 
 "What an odd man!" thought the lovely Oda- 
 lisque of the Moldau, letting her eyes rest on the 
 countenance that had for her, as it had for most 
 women, a peculiar fascination, while she laughed 
 again. " Very true ! Some women will tell you, 
 monsieur, they do not like compliments — never be- 
 lieve them ; it is only that the grapes are sour. / 
 like flattery. I live on it as children live on bon- 
 bons; if it be not sincere, it is nothing to me, the 
 blame lies on the bad taste of the flatterers. I must
 
 A TITIAN PICTUEE. 57 
 
 have my dragees, and, as long as they are sweet, what 
 matter whether they are real sugar or only French 
 chalk?" 
 
 "All offered to you must be genuine — ^you need 
 have no fear !" he answered her — and he meant it. 
 As he looked down on the dazzling incognita, whose 
 insouciant freedom had yet all the grace and charm 
 taught by the breeding of courts and beaux mondes, 
 though critical and very difficult to please, he con- 
 fessed to himself that he had never seen anything 
 more lovely out of the pastelles of La Tour, or the 
 dreams of Titian, than this young and brilliant crea- 
 tm-e found thus strangely out of place, and alone, in 
 a Bohemian boat that was carrying a load of peasant 
 passengers to Auzig Fair ! 
 
 Who could she be ? — a lady of rank, laissez f aire • 
 and untrammelled, amusing herself with the romances 
 and caprices of a momentary incognita; a Princess 
 of the Tuileries, or of the Quartier Breda ; a Serene 
 Highness of some Sesquipedalian-Strelitz, sans state 
 and sans suite; or a Comtesse sans Chateaux (save 
 en Espagne), with a face and a grace more fatal to 
 her prey than her vin mosseux and her skilful ecarte ? 
 As yet it was impossible to tell, and with a lovely 
 woman so ungracious an interrogation can never be 
 put as the insolent question, " Wlio are you?" 
 
 She looked up and met his eyes bent on her, as the 
 light of the sun setting behind the pine-woods lit up 
 her face and form, as she leaned among her cushions, 
 into Reuben-like richness, with a bright touch of
 
 58 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 Fra Angelo and Carlo Dolce softness about the 
 tableau. 
 
 " How strangely we meet, monsieur, on tliis clumsy 
 little Czeschen boat ! I came by water, because the 
 night was so warm ; and you came from the same 
 reason ? Ah ! Cest le destiny monsieur I We were 
 fated to meet again." 
 
 " If fate will always serve me as kindly I will be- 
 come a predestinarian to-morrow, and go in leading- 
 strings with blind contentment I" 
 
 God help us ! — how rashly we say things in this 
 world. Long years afterwards we remember those 
 idle, careless, unmeant words gaily uttered, and they 
 come back to us like the distant mocking laughs of 
 devils ! — devils who tempted us, and now riot in their 
 work. 
 
 " Cest le destin !" she said, smiling, her fair face, 
 with its luminous eyes, looking the lovelier for that 
 beaming coquettish smile. "But, monsieur, you 
 have been my deliverer, may I not ask to know, 
 who is it I have to thank for so daring a rescue as 
 I owed to you in Prague ? " 
 
 ^' Assuredly. My name is Strathmore — Cecil 
 Strathmore." 
 
 "Strathmore!" she repeated, musingly. "It is a 
 very pretty name, and a good one. Then you are 
 English, monsieur ? And if so, you are thinking, of 
 course, what a strange incorrect whim of mine it is 
 for me to be travelling alone with only my maid in a
 
 A TITIAN PIOTUEE. 59 
 
 little Czeschen boat in the evening? You English 
 are so raides, so prudish !" 
 
 Strathmore laughed, as he wound the shawls about 
 her that had dropped aside. 
 
 "The English are (though I am neither of the 
 two, believe me), but they generally verify Swift's 
 aphorism, that ' a nice man is a man of nasty ideas ;' 
 the chill icing is only to conceal dirty water, and 
 they freeze — to hide what lies below ! But may not I 
 claim similar confidence, and entreat to know by name 
 one for whom no name is needed, it is tnie, to make 
 one remember her ? " 
 
 She laughed, and shook her head in denial so 
 charming that it w^as worth fifty assents. 
 
 " No, I am travelling incognita. I cannot reveal 
 that secret. I like Romance and Caprice, monsieur, 
 they are feminine .privileges, and following them I 
 have found far more amusement than if I had gone 
 in one beaten track between two blank walls of 
 Custom and Prudence. It may have made me 
 enemies ; but, bah ! who goes through life without 
 them?" 
 
 " None ! and never those who awaken envy. Dul- 
 ness and mediocrity may live unmolested and un- 
 attacked, but people never tire of finding spots on a 
 sun whose brilliance blinds them." 
 
 " Never !" she answered, with a naive and amusing 
 personal appropriation of his words. " If I had been 
 born plain like some poor women, I should not have
 
 60 . STEATHMOEE. 
 
 had so many siffleurs ; but then, on the other hand, 
 my claque woukl not have been so loud nor so strong ; 
 and the cheers always drown the hisses." 
 
 " You have had siffleurs ? They must have bandaged 
 their eyes, then, before taking so ungracious a role ! 
 Surely society hissed tJiem for such atrocity ? " said 
 Strathmore, noticing the dazzling fairness of her skin 
 and the exquisite contour of her form, and thinking to 
 himself, " The deuce ! she makes me talk as absurd 
 nonsense as the Sabreur ! " 
 
 " Of course it did, but siffleurs hiss on through all 
 opposition, you know, monsieur " 
 
 " Because it pays them ! " 
 
 "No doubt. But, what do a few hisses matter, 
 more or less, as long as one enjoys oneself in one's 
 youth — one's delicious, irrecoverable youth ? I sup- 
 pose if I live long enough my hair will be white and 
 my skin yellow, but I do not spoil my present by 
 looking into the future. If it must come, let it take 
 care of itself. It may never come — why mourn about 
 it? Those people are becasses, who work, and toil, 
 and wear away all their good looks, and live hardly 
 and joylessly only to hoard money to buy tisane, and 
 nurses, and crutches, when all the zest of existence is 
 gone from them, and given to a new generation that 
 has pushed them out of their places ? Doesn't Balzac 
 say, that whether one sweeps the streets with a broom 
 or the Tuileries with a velvet robe, it comes to much 
 the same thing when one is old ; the salt is equally out
 
 A TITIAN PICTUEE. 61 
 
 of the soup whether it is eaten in a Maison Dieu or in 
 a ducal chateau ! " 
 
 "Almost thou persuadest me to be an Epicurean !" 
 smiled Strathmore, as he thought to himself, "Who 
 on earth can she be ? " and gazed down into her soft, 
 laughing, lustrous eyes, languid yet coquettish, like 
 the eyes of the women of Seville. " But / do not hold 
 with you there, ma belle inconnue ; to me it seems that 
 with years alone can be gained what is worth gaining 
 — power. The butterfly pleasure of youth can very 
 well be spared for the ambitions that can only be 
 reaped with maturity. A man has only become of 
 real value, and able to grasp real sway, when he is 
 near his grave ? " 
 
 " Ah, for your sex that is all very well, your youth 
 lasts to your tomb, but with us — nous autres femmes ! 
 — with our beauty flies our sceptre. How can we 
 reign after youth, without youth ? You will not care 
 for a mistress who is wrinkled!" cried the belle 
 blonde, impatiently, the impatience of a lovely 
 coquette incensed to be contradicted. " So, you 
 think power the only thing worth having? Then 
 you do not care for love, monsieur, I presume ? " 
 
 " Well ! — I must confess, not much." 
 
 It was rank heresy in the presence of so fair a 
 priestess of the soft religion, it was a fatal challenge 
 to the one who heard it, though Strathmore spoke the 
 cold, careless, simple truth, and did not heed whether 
 he offended or piqued a chance acquaintance of the 
 hour by it.
 
 62 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 " And yet that man will love, fiercely, imperiously, 
 bitterly one day ! " thought the Neriad of the Moldau, 
 who, a stranger to him, as he to her, read his character 
 by a woman of the world's clairvoyante perception, 
 as he failed to read hers by a man of the world's 
 trained penetration. " For shame ! " she said, aloud, 
 striking him a fragrant blow with her sprigs of cherry- 
 blossom. "If you are heretical enough to feel so, 
 mon ami, you should not be unchivalric enough to say 
 so ! Your bay wreaths will be very barren and 
 withered if you don't weave some roses with them. 
 Caesar knew that. So you admire age because it will 
 give you power ; and I loathe it because it will rob 
 me of beauty — what a difference! I wonder how 
 we shall both meet it ! But, bah ! why talk of these 
 things'? The wind will be chilly, and the green 
 leaves brown, and the ground frost-bound in six 
 months' time ; but the butterflies playing there above 
 our heads are too wise to spoil the sunshine by re- 
 membering the snows. They are Epicureans ; let us 
 be so too ! " 
 
 To such a doctrine, expounded by such lips, it was 
 impossible to dissent. The sunset faded, the purple 
 mists stole on down the slopes of the hills, the west 
 wind rose, bringing a rich odour from the pine forests ; 
 the Bohemian musicians, for a few coins, sang au's 
 sweet enough to have been played by the legendary 
 music-demons of a land where Mozart rules; the 
 boat dropped slowly down the stream in the evening 
 twilight, and Strathmore leant over the vessel's side,
 
 A TITIAN PICTURE. 63 
 
 talking on to his chance acquaintance, and looking 
 down on to the exquisite Titian-like picture that she 
 made, reclining on her pile of cushions, with the black 
 mantilla of lace thrown on her yellow hau', and her 
 dark lustrous eyes gleaming softly and dreamily in 
 the light of the summer stars. He was singularly 
 critical of the beauty of women, and coldly careless of 
 their wiles and charms; yet even he felt a vague 
 dreamy pleasure in floating down the river in the 
 sultry moonlit night thus, with the echo of this sweet 
 silvery voice in his ear, and a face on which he looked 
 in the gloaming, soft as the music that lingered on the 
 silent air. He would not altogether have found the 
 voyage wearisome though it had lasted till the da^^^i ; 
 but — pardieu, mes freres ! one never drops long down 
 any river, real or allegorical, w^ith a smooth current 
 and Arcadian landscapes, under the shade of pleasant 
 woodlands, beneath which we would w^illingiy linger 
 till sunrise, but that we are safe to be soon startled by 
 the rough grate of the keel on the sand, that breaks 
 the spell for evermore ! 
 
 It was so now ; the boat ground in a shallow bit of 
 the water where red sunken rocks made the na\dga- 
 tion troublesome for a vessel so cumbersome, and 
 boatmen so clumsy, as were those who now steered it 
 down the Moldau's com'se. No harm was done that 
 could be of serious account, but the boat was stuck 
 hopelessly fast between the rocks, and could not pro- 
 ceed to Auzig that night, at all events ; while its pas- 
 sengers had no choice but to remain where they were
 
 64 STKATHMORE. 
 
 till the sunrise, or to disembark at a landing-place 
 which was luckily easily to be reached by a plank be- 
 tween the vessel and the shore, where, buried in the 
 favourite cherry orchards of Bohemia, with a gaudy 
 sign swinging under its dark red roof, half hidden in 
 a profusion of giant hollyhocks, with linden-trees in 
 full flower before the door, and the pine-covered 
 hills stretching behind it, stood a little river-side 
 Gasthof. The unknown, into whose society and in 
 whose protection he was thus in a manner forced, 
 laughed brightly, and made light of the contretemps 
 when Strathmore explained it to her. "We must 
 wait here? — very well ! I like the smallest soup9on 
 of an adventure. I will dine under those limes. I 
 suppose they can find something to give us ; but I 
 must go on to-night if there be a vehicle procurable," 
 she said, gaily and good humom^edly enough, without 
 any feminine repining, as she gave him her hand to 
 be assisted across the plank. 
 
 She was not altogether sorry to be able to retain 
 as a detenu an English aristocrat, with a face like 
 the Vandyke pictures ; who was coldly indifferent to 
 the soft creeds of which she was a head-priestess, and 
 was a renegade and disbeliever in their faith. " Des- 
 tiny throws us together, monsieur ! We must be good 
 friends. Dieu le veut!" she laughed, as Strathmore 
 lifted her from the plank on to the landing-place, 
 while the white soft hands lay in his, and the delicate 
 fragrance of the perfumed hair floated across him, as 
 the lace of her mantilla brushed his shoulder.
 
 A TITIAN PICTURE. 65 
 
 " I am the debtor of destiny, then ! " he whispered, 
 in answer, noting as she stood by him in the starlight 
 the sweet grace and luxurious outline of her perfect 
 form, that even the dark di'apery of her travelling- 
 dress, wrapped about in long voluminous folds, could 
 not avail to hide. 
 
 Brothers mine! — it is well for us that we are no 
 seers ! Were we cursed with prevision, could we 
 know how, when the idle trifle of the present hour 
 shall have been forged into a link of the past, it will 
 stretch out and bind captive the wdiole future in its 
 bonds, we should be paralysed, hopeless, powerless, 
 old ere ever we were young ! It is well for us that we 
 are no seers. Were we cursed with second sight, we 
 should see the white shroud breast-high about the 
 living man, the phosphor light of death gleaming on 
 the youthful radiant face, the feathery seed lightly 
 sown bearing in it the germ of the upas-tree, the idle 
 careless word gaily uttered carrying in its womb the 
 future bane of a lifetime ; we should see these things 
 till we sickened, and reeled, and grew blind with pain 
 before the ghastly face of the Future, as men in 
 ancient days before the loathsome visage of the 
 Medusa ! 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 QQ 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE BONNE-AVENTURE TOLD UNDER THE LINDENS. 
 
 Contretemps generally have some saving crumbs 
 of consolation for tliose who laugh at fate, and look 
 good humouredly for them ; life's only evil to him 
 who wears it awkwardly, and philosophic resignation, 
 works as many miracles as Harlequin ; grumble, and 
 you go to the dogs in a TVTetched style ; make mots on 
 your own misery, and you've no idea how pleasant a 
 trajet even drifting " to the bad " may become. So 
 when the Czeschen boat grated on the land and stuck 
 there, coming to grief generally and hopelessly, for- 
 tune was so propitiated by the radiant smile with 
 which its own scurvy trick was received by the love- 
 liest of all the balked travellers, that what would, 
 under any other circumstances, have been the most 
 provoking bore, became a little episode picturesque 
 and romantic, and took a couleur de Q^ose at once under 
 the resistless magic of her sunny smile. It was a
 
 THE BONNE-A VENTURE. 67 
 
 beautiful night, starry, still, and sultry ; tlie river-side 
 inn stood like a picture of Ostade, hidden in its blos- 
 somed limes; the pine-woods stretched above and 
 around, with the ruddy gleam of gipsy fires flashing 
 between the boughs ; and with such a companion as 
 hazard had given him, Strathmore could hardly com- 
 plain of the accident, though he was a man who found 
 the gleam of women's eyes in a cabinet particulier of 
 a cafe, or a cabinet de toilette of a palace, far better 
 than in all the uncomfortably-romantic situations in 
 the world, and held that a little gallantry was in- 
 finitely more agreeable and rational in a rose-tendre- 
 hung chamber than a la belle ttoile in a damp mid- 
 night under the finest violet skies that ever enraptured 
 a poet. 
 
 The little hostelry was already full of travellers. 
 Some English en route to the waters of the Sprudel, 
 some Moravians and Bohemians on their way to or 
 from Bucharest or Auzig ; and the arrivals from the 
 boat filled it to overflowing, for its accommodation was 
 scant, and its attractions solely confined to its gaily- 
 painted and blossom-buried exterior. There was but 
 one common sitting-room, but one common supper- 
 table, and the guests, whether graffins or glass en- 
 gravers, were treated without distinction ; a Bohemian 
 Gasthof is about the only place upon earth where you 
 see the doctrine of equality in absolute and positive 
 practice. The Sclavonians, accustomed to it, took it 
 unmurmuringly ; the English tourists grumbled un- 
 ceasingly; preserved (the ladies in especial) a dead 
 f2
 
 6S STRATHMOEE. 
 
 silence to companions for whose respectability they 
 had no voucher ; scorned the sausage, the baked pie, 
 the cucumber-soup, and the rest of the national menu, 
 and solaced themselves with gloomy consumption of 
 hard biscuits from their travelling-bags ; while with- 
 out, under the lindens, on the sward before the door, 
 Strathmore's Albanian servant making a raid upon 
 the Gasthof larder with the celerity of long continental 
 experience, spread on a little table the best fried trout, 
 Toplitz and other fare that the inn afforded for the 
 refreshment of the fair traveller with the Titian face, 
 who, refusing to enter the hostelry, sat on a bench 
 under the limes, leaning against the rough bark as 
 gracefully as amongst velvet cushions, looking upward 
 at Strathmore with her soft Orientalesque eyes, while 
 the leaves and flowers of the boughs swayed against 
 her yellow hair. 
 
 She gave a Tokay flavour to the Lager, a 
 Yatel delicacy to the trout, a strange but charm- 
 ing spice of petits soupers to this primitive sup- 
 per under the limes ; an unsuitable but delicious 
 aroma of Paris to the solitary river-side hostelry in 
 Bohemian pine-woods. "Who could she be?" he 
 wondered in vain ; for on that head, under the most 
 adroit cross-questioning, she never betrayed herself. 
 She talked gaily, lightly, charmingly, with some little 
 wit, and a little goes a long way when uttered by such 
 lips. With something, too, of soft graceful romance, 
 probably natural to her, perhaps only learned second- 
 hand from Raphael, and Indiana, and Les Nuits 
 
 A
 
 THE BONNE-AVENTUKE. 69 
 
 cCOctobre; and Strathmore, though the light gal- 
 lantries of a Lauzun had little charm for him, and 
 the only passion that could ever have stirred him from 
 his coldness would have been the deep, voluptuous 
 delight, fierce and keen as pain, that swayed Sulla 
 and Cimon, could not refuse his admiration of a pic- 
 ture so perfect as she sat in the light of the mid- 
 summer stars, leaning her head on her small jewelled 
 hand, the lime-boughs drooping above her, and the 
 dark, dimly-lit room within forming a Kembrantesque 
 background, while the river below broke against the 
 rocks, and the heavy odour of the lindens and pines 
 filled the air. 
 
 "How cold he looks, this handsome Strathmore, 
 does he dare to defy me ?" she thought, as she glanced 
 upwards at him where he leaned against the trunk of 
 the linden when the supper was finished, and while 
 she herself still lingered under the limes as the stars 
 grew larger and clearer in the May skies, and the 
 purple haze of night deepened over the hills. He 
 was the only man who had not bowed down at her 
 feet at her first smile, and his calm courtesies piqued 
 her. 
 
 "Do you like music, monsieur?" she asked him, 
 with that suddenness which had in it nothing abrupt, 
 but was rather the suddenness of a fawn's or an an- 
 telope's swift graces. Then, without awaiting a reply, 
 without apology or prelude, inspired by that caprice 
 which rules all women more or less, and ruled this one 
 at every moment and in every mood, she began to sing
 
 70 STRATHMOEE. 
 
 one of the sweet, gay, familiar canzone of Figaro, 
 with a voice at which the nightingales in the linden- 
 leaves might have broken their little throats in envy- 
 ing despair. Then, without pause, she passed on to 
 the sublime harmonies of the Stabat Mater — now 
 wailing like the sigh of a vesper hymn from convent 
 walls at even-song, now bursting into passionate prayer 
 like the swell of a Te Deum from cathedi-al altar. 
 She sang on without effort, without pause, blending 
 the most incongruous harmonies into one strange, 
 bizarre, weird-like yet entrancing whole, changing the 
 Preghiero from Masaniello for one of Verdi's gayest 
 arias, mingling Kllken's Slumber Song with some 
 reckless Venetian barcarolle, breaking off the solemn 
 cadence of the Pro Peccatis with some mischievous 
 chansonette out of the Quartier Latin, and welding 
 the loftiest melodies of Plandel's Israel with the 
 laughing refrain of Louis Abadie's ballads. 
 
 Out on the still night air rose the matchless music of 
 voice, rich, clear, thrilling, a very intoxication of sound; 
 mingling with the ebb and flow of the waters, the 
 tremulous sigh of the leaves, and the rival song of the 
 birds in the boughs. Those sitting within in the 
 darkened chamber listened spell-bound ; the pea- 
 santry, laughing and chatting under the low roof of 
 the hostelry, hushed their gossip in enchanted awe; 
 the boatmen in the vessel moored in the shadow below 
 looked up and left off their toil ; and — as suddenly as 
 it had rung out on the summer air, the exquisite 
 melody ceased, and died away like the notes of a beP
 
 THE BONNE-A VENTURE. 71 
 
 off the silence of the night. She looked up at Strath- 
 more, the starlight shining in the dreamy, smiling 
 depths of her eyes, and saw that he listened eagerly, 
 breathlessly, wonderingly, subdued and intoxicated 
 even despite himself by the marvellous magic, the 
 delicious intricacies, the luxurious richness of this 
 voluptuous charm of song, with a spell which — the 
 moment it ceased — was broken. 
 
 " You. like music ? " she asked him, softly ; " ah, 
 yes, I see it in your face. You Englishmen, if you 
 be as cold as they call you, have very eloquent eyes 
 sometimes. Are you not thinking what an odd 
 caprice it is for me to sing to you — a stranger — at 
 ten o'clock at night, under lime-trees ? " 
 
 " Indeed, no ; I am far too grateful for the caprice. 
 Pasta herself never equalled your voice ; it is exqui- 
 site, marvellous ! " 
 
 She laughed softly. 
 
 " Do you think so ? And yet, I imagine, you are 
 very difficult to please ? When I sing some of those 
 airs, the Inflammatus or the Agnus Dei, they make 
 me think of the old days in my convent at Valla- 
 darra ; how I used to beat my wings and hate my 
 cage, and long to escape over the purple mountains. 
 Why is it, I wonder, that a gloomy past often looks 
 brighter than a brilliant present? — what is there in 
 the charm of Distance to give such a golden chiaro- 
 'scuro?" 
 
 " Yalladarra ? Are you a Spaniard, madame ? " he 
 asked her, catching at any clue that might enlighten
 
 72 STEATHMOKE. 
 
 him as to the whence and the whither of the bewitch- 
 ing creature. 
 
 " A Spaniard ? What makes you think so ? " 
 " Because it is usually said, belle amie, that a 
 Spanish blonde is the greatest marvel of beauty 
 that the world ever sees," said Strathmore, with a 
 smile. 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " Je vous remercie ! Well, perhaps I am Spanish. 
 You would like to know ? Ah, bah ! what a slander 
 on my sex it is to say that Eve monopolised all 
 curiosity ! " 
 
 " Curiosity ! " repeated Strathmore. " There may, 
 surely, be a deeper interest that bears a better name, 
 madame ? When one lights on a matchless gem, or 
 on a rarely lovely foreign flower, it is not unnatural 
 that one may seek to know where it has come from, 
 and where we may see it again." 
 
 " You are a courtier, M. Strathmore, and turn 
 your phrases very prettily," said this most p7woquante 
 of all women, with the slightest possible shrug of her 
 shoulders. " But it is curiosity, for all that ; and, 
 by all the rights of womanhood, I claim my title to 
 the first indulgence of the privilege. Your name is 
 Strathmore, and your servant calls you ^My lord/ 
 and if asked about your country, you would answer, 
 ' Civis Romanus sum,' with true Britannic bombast, 
 I dare say. Well ! England is figuratively rather 
 like Rome, for it slays its Senecas, gorges its Vitel-
 
 THE BONNE-A VENTURE. 73 
 
 liuses, and is often garrisoned by ganders ! But 
 one more thing remains to know. What are you ? " 
 
 Leaning her arms on the table, her chin on her 
 hands, and resting her eyes upon him, she asked the 
 point-blank question with the most charming insou- 
 ciance and assurance of command ; and Strathmore 
 could not fail to satisfy her demand, though he was 
 not fond of talking of himself ; his egotism was of a 
 much loftier sort. 
 
 " Ah ! a diplomatist ! " she said, raising her eye- 
 brows. " Mon ami, I know your order : but you 
 will not content yourself with settling internecine 
 squabbles, and writing Cretan labyrinths of words, 
 and being ^ sent home,' like an expelled schoolboy, if 
 your two countries quarrel for a split hair, will you ? 
 You will want the triumph of the monstrari digito, 
 and the guidance of the helm through stormy waters, 
 and you will pine for the old Medici and Strozzi 
 days, when a stealthy arm could stretch and strike far 
 away in a distant land, and a subtle brain could com- 
 pass the supreme rule, and wield it, troubled by no 
 scruples." 
 
 " Madame," said Strathmore, with a slight laugh, 
 his laugh was usually cold, "if you draw such a 
 sketch of me at first sight — though I don't really 
 deny its accuracy — I fear I cannot have impressed 
 you very favourably ? " 
 
 " Why so ? You are ambitious, by your own con- 
 fession that you covet age for the sake of power;
 
 74 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 and ambitious men are all alike. If you had your 
 own will, you amhitieux would check at no flights ; 
 and if we don't have the Medici and Strozzi secret 
 murders in our day, I am afraid the virtue that 
 refrains from them is nothing very much better than 
 fear of the analytical chemists." 
 
 As she spoke, with a certain smile on her rose lijDS, 
 and in the mocking light of her gazelle eyes, some- 
 thing in this brilhant and witching creature struck 
 upon Strathmore as dangerous — almost as repulsive — 
 and made him think of those women who gleam out 
 from the pages of Guicciardini and Galluzzi, who 
 dazzled all men who looked on them with the shine of 
 their t7''esse cVoro, or the languor of their Southern 
 eyes, yet whose white hands shook the philtre into 
 the loving-cup, and whose title was '' Opra d'incanti 
 e di malie fattura." But the momentary impression 
 passed off as she looked up laughing. 
 
 " Bah, M. Strathmore ! Ambition is a weary work 
 at its ripest ; epicurean enjoyment is far better : 
 ' gather your rosebuds while you may.' Old Herrick 
 is the true philosopher ! " 
 
 " Spoken by such lips, his theories are iri'esistible," 
 smiled Strathmore ; " only if one has the bad taste 
 not to care much about the roses, how then ? There 
 can be nothing for it but to entreat some fair priestess 
 of the creed to take one's conversion in hand." 
 
 " But converts have to pass through fiery ordeals ; 
 if you are wise you would not brave them. You
 
 THE BONNE-AVENTUEE. 75 
 
 despise love, mon ami ; it will be the worse for you 
 some day." 
 
 " I shall have ^no fear for the future ; if I escape 
 to-night untouched, I must, indeed, be clad in proof," 
 smiled Strathmore. But the smile, like the compli- 
 ment, did not please her ; its flattery was contemp- 
 tuous and derisive of her power. With quick intui- 
 tion she saw that Strathmore had never been in love 
 in his life, and would have defied any woman to 
 make him so ; and she smiled as she leant her head 
 upon her arm, silent for once, playing with one of the 
 lime-blossoms, and knowing that the moonlight was 
 shining on a perfect picture which could not be im- 
 proved, which might be broken by, speech. Strath- 
 more was silent too ; busied in restless, vague con- 
 jecture as to who and what this brilliant, capricious, 
 dazzling, graceful creature could be, here thus alone, 
 at night, travelling through Bohemia. While his 
 eyes rested on her where she sat in the starlight, 
 her beauty well befitting the sultry night, that was 
 odorous with the fragrance of the limes and musical 
 with the murmurs of the waters, breaking below 
 against the rocks, the voice of a Zingara broke on 
 his reverie and hers, as a gipsy-girl — one of a party 
 camped among the pine-woods at the back of the 
 Gasthof — drew near the group of lindens in the 
 moonhght ; a wild, dark, handsome Bohemian, with 
 a scarlet hood over her jetty hair, and her glittering 
 eyes fixed longingly on the jewels that sparkled on
 
 76 STRATHMORE. 
 
 the hands of the fair inconnue, as she said, in a com- 
 pound of Czeschen and Romany, 
 
 " Will you hear your fortune, fair lady ? Let the 
 Gitana tell you your future." 
 
 The blonde aux yeux noirs, whose head was resting 
 thoughtfully upon her hand, started, and looked up 
 in surprise as the handsome black-browed Arab, who 
 might have sat to Murillo or Salvator, approached her 
 in the moonlight from the wooded shadows of the 
 pine-forests behind them. 
 
 " Let me prophesy for you, fair lady ! I can look 
 on the palm of your hand and foretel you all things 
 that will come to you ; the predictions of Kedempta, 
 daughter of Phara, can never fail," chanted the Zin- 
 gara, in a wild, monotonous recitative, that sounded 
 hoarse and sad in the still summer night as she drew 
 nearer, her eyes glistening longingly on the sapphire 
 rings. 
 
 " Non, merci ! " laughed the bright incognita, look- 
 ing upward at the strange picturesque form of the 
 Gitana, standing out in the starlight against the dark 
 woods behind. " I know my past and my present — 
 it is plenty ! I do not trouble myself a moment for 
 the future ! " 
 
 " But in the past and the present lie the seed to bear 
 fruit in the future ! " 
 
 The words spoken in Czeschen sounded ominous 
 and mournful, falling from the lips of the Gitana like 
 an augury of ill; and the other shuddered a little 
 as she heard, though without comprehending, them.
 
 THE BONNE-AVENTURE. 77 
 
 " What does she say ? " she asked of Strathmore. 
 He translated them to her, and spoke to the gipsy-girl 
 in her own tongue, bidding her move away ; but the 
 capricious songstress, whom the fancy of the moment 
 swayed as completely as it sways a kitten or a child, 
 laid her hand on his arm as he stood beside her. 
 
 "No, no! don't send her away! She is like a 
 picture of Murillo. Let us hear some of her pro- 
 phecies first. What would she say to you, I wonder ? 
 I have a great curiosity to know your fate, my lord ; 
 the fate of a man who desires age and despises love ! 
 It must be an odd one ! Come ! cross her hand, and 
 let her tell yom' honne-aventure. Obey me at once ! 
 It is my whim and my pleasure, monsiem\ Give her 
 some silver, and ask her your destiny ! " 
 
 A lovely woman is never to be disobeyed without 
 discourtesy, and pretty caprices are commands. With 
 the white jewelled fingers lying on his arm, with the 
 perfumy hair shining in the starlight, with the fair 
 dazzling face upraised in the shadow of the linden- 
 boughs, the sternest stoic could not have refused to 
 chime in with her fancy, and please this charming 
 tyrant in her most any nonsense. Strathmore laughed, 
 dropped a gold coin into the Gitana's brown hand, and, 
 leaning against the trunk, stood awaiting his destiny 
 from the coral lips of the handsome Arab in the silence 
 of the summer night, while the distant lights of the 
 gipsy fires gleamed fitfully through the dark pine- 
 woods. The Zingara looked not at his hand, but up 
 at his face, as the white, clear rays of the moon fell
 
 78 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 on it — on the aquiline outline of tlie features and the 
 varied meanings of the physiognomy, on the proud 
 and generous sweetness of the mouth, contradicted by 
 the dark passions in the eyes and the cold straight line 
 of the brows. She looked at him long and fixedly in 
 silence, with a dreamy, vague stare in her own fathom- 
 less eyes, while her hands moved over the beads of a 
 string of Egyptian berries : 
 
 " There will be love, and of the love sin, and of the 
 sin crime, and of the crime a curse. And the curse 
 will pursue with a pitiless bitterness and an unslack- 
 ened speed, and when atonement is sought and made, 
 lo ! it may turn to ashes and to gall. The innocent 
 may taste thereof, and share the doom they have not 
 woven. Your woe will be wrought by your own hand, 
 and you will eat of the fruit of your own past, and 
 through you will come death. Redempta, the daughter 
 of Phara, has spoken ! " 
 
 The words fell slowly and sadly on the silence of 
 the night, while the river-waves beat against the rocks 
 with monotonous murmur, and the sough of the wind 
 arose in the pine-forest, sweeping with a sudden chill 
 through the sultry air ; and as he heard them, a mo- 
 mentary shudder ran through Strathmore's veins at 
 the destiny that the Gitana vaguely shadowed forth ; 
 an irrepressible coldness, like that which comes from 
 the touch of a corpse, passed over him where he stood. 
 And the incognita clung closer to him, her white hand 
 closing on his arm, and her laughing lips turning 
 pale :
 
 THE BONNE-AVENTUEE. 79 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! wliat a terrible fate ! Send lier away. 
 She makes me tremble ! " 
 
 Strathmore laughed, the impression of the ominous 
 prophecy passing off as soon as it was made ; and he 
 threw another gold dollar to the Zingara : 
 
 " My handsome Arab I you might have been more 
 courteous, certainly. If you wish your predictions to 
 be popular, you must make them a little more lively. 
 Be off with you! Go and frighten the peasants 
 yonder ! " 
 
 " Kedempta can say only that which she sees," mur- 
 mured the Gitana, sadly and proudly, as she stooped 
 for the gold where it shone on the turf, and tmnied 
 slowly away, till her form was lost in the dense gloom 
 cast by the shadow in the Avoode. 
 
 "What a horrible destiny!" said his companion 
 again, not able so quickly to shake off the vague 
 terror with which the sing-song chanting recitative of 
 the Zingara had haunted her. 
 
 " She has terrified you ? " laughed Strathmore. " I 
 am sorry for that, madame; you shouldn't have 
 tempted prophecy in my behalf. All seers from the 
 religious world to the gipsy camp must make their 
 predictions ominous, or they would carry»no weight ; 
 and evil is so generally predominant in this life, that 
 to croak is pretty sure to be on the right side." 
 
 " All, mon Dieu ! do not jest ! " cried the belle in- 
 connue, with a little shiver of pretty terror. " It is 
 no laughing matter, such a horrible future." 
 
 "But it is a laughing matter, such a horrible bo?i7ie-
 
 80 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 aventure" said Stratlimore, smiling, and thinking how 
 lovely she looked as she shivered with pretty pre- 
 tended fear, and clasped her hands, on which he 
 noticed a mass of brilliant rings that might have 
 belonged to an empress's toilette-boxes, but which 
 didn't tell him much, since paste is very glittering, 
 and defies detection by moonlight. " She deals in 
 the Terrible — prophets always do, or what sway would 
 they have over their dupes ? You should have let 
 her have told yours, madame ; she would have given 
 something better to the lines in so beautiful a hand." 
 
 " Ah, bah ! " cried the incognita, shaking off her 
 superstition with a sweet silvery laugh. " I know my 
 future ! I shall triumph by my beauty till that goes, 
 and then I shall triumph by my intellect, which won't 
 go. I shall tread my way on roses, and rule as Venus 
 Victrix till grey hairs come and I have to take to 
 enamelling ; and then I shall change my sceptre, and 
 begin e carte, embroglie, prudence, and politics. But 
 I don't count on the change ; I am not like you, and 
 do not court Age " 
 
 " Because you are not like me, and need not wait 
 for Age to bring you Power ; your power lies in a 
 glance of the eyes and in all the ^ purpureal light of 
 youth' ! " laughed Stratlimore. " I fancy our ambi- 
 tion centres alike in ruling men, but — with a differ- 
 ence ! " 
 
 " You are very secure in your future, despite all 
 the Gitana's fortelling?" she asked him, with a 
 curious glance, half-malicious, half-interested.
 
 THE BONNE-AVENTUEE. 81 
 
 " Surely ! We can make of our future what we like. 
 Life is clay, to be moulded just at our will ; it is a 
 fool, or an unskilful workman, indeed, who lets it fall 
 of itself into a shape he does not like, or lets it break 
 in his hands." 
 
 " But one flaw may crack the whole ! " said the 
 fair stranger, as Strathmore's valet drew near them 
 to announce the immediate departure of a clumsy 
 vehicle, the only one the Gasthof could furnish, that 
 had been engaged before their arrival by English tra- 
 vellers, and in which, at her urgent instance, Strath- 
 more had taken the sole remaining places for herself 
 and her maid. " Are they starting f I am ready ! 
 My lord, I owe you more gratitude still ; how deeply 
 I grow in your debt ! But I forgot ; if I take these 
 two places, you must remain under that miserable 
 little red roof till to-morrow. I ought not to have 
 doiie it ; Tuais — je suis egoiste moi ! " 
 
 " No matter ! I am most happy to relinquish any- 
 thing in your service," said Strathmore, as he took 
 the hand held out to him within his own. He did not 
 care about women, but this one was specially lovely 
 and specially captivating, and thrown as she was on 
 his courtesy, he could not refuse it her. " I shall 
 sleep under the pines ; it will not be the first time I 
 have camped out, but, I confess, I was tempted to 
 make you a prisoner, madame, perforce to-night, by 
 bidding Diaz let the car go without you. Give me 
 some praise for my self-abnegation ! " 
 
 His voice was very melodious, and had a softness 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 STRATHMOEE. 
 
 wlien he was quite guiltless of intending it, while his 
 features, with their cold, proud Velasquez type, on 
 which the passions that had never been roused still 
 threw their shadow, had always a fascination for 
 women, who, by the instinct of contradiction ever 
 dominant in their sex, always seek to chain a man 
 from whose hands their fetters slip. Her bright, soft, 
 dazzling eyes looked up to his almost tenderly in the 
 light of the midsummer stars : 
 
 " I will thank you when we meet again ! " 
 " WJien I But what gage do you give me that we 
 may ever do so ? You refuse me any name, any 
 address, any single clue ; you oblige me to part from 
 
 you in ignorance even of " 
 
 " Wlio I am ! The first question you Englishmen 
 ask before you give your hand in friendship, or speak 
 to your neighbour at a table d'hote," interrupted the 
 bright capricieuse, with a low, ringing laugh. " No ! 
 I will not give you even a clue. It \vill be a Chinese 
 puzzle for your ingenuity. When we meet (and we 
 shall ; we are both in the world ; we are cards of the 
 same pack, and shall some time or other be shuffled 
 together !), I will thank you for all your courtesy and 
 chivalry, and pay my debt — comme vous voudrez ! 
 Till then, you must submit to mystery. I may be a 
 prima donna, a dame d'industrie, a princess incognita, 
 a dangerous Greek — you may think me whatever you 
 like. You will remember me better if you are left in 
 perplexity ; your sex always covet the unattainable,
 
 THE BONNE-A VENTURE. 83 
 
 and there is a golden charm in mystery that shall veil 
 me — till we meet ! " 
 
 "But ! — what a cruel caprice ! what an indefinite 
 probation ! " 
 
 " Do you good, mon ami ! Perhaps you have 
 never had to wait before ; I fancy so ! There ! they 
 are waiting, and we must part, monsieur. Adieu and 
 ail revoir ! " 
 
 Tantalising, obstinate, capricious, wilful, wayward, 
 but bewitching ; all the more bewitching for that very 
 quintette of faults — she let her hand linger in his 
 where they stood in the shadow, with the moon 
 shining on her upraised face, and the lime-blossoms 
 swaying against her hair, delicately scented as the 
 fragrance of their flowers, as he stooped towards her 
 in farewell: a soft, subtle, amber-scented perfume, 
 such as the tresses of Lesbia might have borne as she 
 came from her odorous bath, or wound the roses 
 amongst them at the banquet — a perfume that as he 
 cauMit it had somethinoj of the same soft intoxication 
 as her voice had carried with it in her song. 
 
 Another moment, and the hand that had lain in 
 his, soft and warm as a bird, had unloosened its clasp, 
 and the clumsy covered cart of the Gasthof, laden 
 with its passengers, had rolled slowly from the door 
 beneath the roofing of the lime-boughs, la blonde aiuv 
 yeux noirs leaning out from its heavy tarpaulin, and 
 looking at him with a gay farewell smile — leaving 
 according to her vow, with the golden veil of mystery 
 g2
 
 84 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 flung over her lovely, dazzling face, soft with Eastern 
 languor, and bright with the brilliance of youth, that 
 disappeared from his sight as the car, creaking slowly 
 over the moss, was lost in the shadows of the pine- 
 woods as it turned a bend in the hills, and left him 
 behind — alone. 
 
 " Who the deuce can she be ? Something very 
 out of the common, talking to one at first sight about 
 love, and singing to the nightingales, au clair de la 
 lune ! I never saw a lovelier creature in my life, nor 
 a more nonchalante one; and yet she isn't exactly 
 Quartier Breda style ; she has more the look of a 
 court than a casino. Who the deuce can she be ? " 
 wondered Strathmore, as he threw himself down on 
 the moss under the limes, smoking and throwing 
 stones idly into the river that flowed below. He knew 
 most courts and most cities ; he lived chiefly abroad, 
 and thought he knew every beauty in monde or demi- 
 monde, sovereigns of the left hand as of the right. 
 The numberless anomalies in this dazzling inconnue 
 piqued his curiosity — the first of her sex who had ever 
 so far excited him. Strathmore thought romance 
 simply insanity, and had lived at too thorough a pace 
 to care to twist a chance into an adventure, and make 
 poetic material out of a rencontre with a stranger, as 
 other men might have done. But he thought of 
 her, and of little save her, where he lay smoking, 
 while the river broke against its overhanging banks, 
 and the hea^y odours of the pines rolled down from 
 the hills above. And as he mused over the bright
 
 THE BONNE-A VENTURE. 85 
 
 capricious mystery that had come and gone suddenly 
 as a swallow comes and goes through the air, and lis- 
 tened to the distant chimes of churches and monas- 
 teries, tolling out the shorts ummer hours as the night 
 wore away, to the villages sleeping below, he only 
 thought once, as he caught the gleam of the camp- 
 fires flashing fitfully in the darkness from the gloom 
 of the pine-woods, with the dark lurid glare of a 
 Rembrandt scene, while their flames leapt up through 
 the fan-like boughs of the firs, of the destiny the 
 Zingara girl had foretold him ; and then he smiled as 
 he remembered the prophecy the Gitana had made.
 
 SQ 
 
 CHAPTEE YI. 
 
 THE WHITE DOMINO POWDEEED WITH GOLDEN 
 BEES. 
 
 "Not seen La Vavasour! — mon clier you have 
 yet to live !" yawned Artlins cle Belkis, Vicomte and 
 Chambellan du Roi. 
 
 Cards and gold lay on the table in confusion in 
 Stratlimore's room at Menrice's ; four or five men 
 had been dining with him, and had been playing 
 baccarat for the last hour or two, as more piquant 
 than the olives and more tasteful than the Burgundies 
 they had trifled with and left. 
 
 It was about twelve months since his run down the 
 Moldau ; affairs threatening to the peace of the Prin- 
 cipalities had kept him much longer than he had ima- 
 gined, and this was the first night of his arrival in 
 Paris, free for a little time after his negotiations 
 with Prince Michel, though he meant to leave again
 
 THE WHITE DOMINO. 8 7 
 
 as soon as the races were run at Cliantilly, where 
 his own chesnut, Marechalej stood a good second for 
 the French Derby. 
 
 " Yet to liveT' he said, lying back in his arm-chair 
 and curling a leaf round his cigarette. "My life 
 don't hang in women's eyes, thank Heaven ! I can 
 exist very comfortably without seeing your divine 
 Vavasour for the next twenty years, if that's all, and 
 by that time I suspect nobody will care much about 
 seeing her ; your superb Helen will be like most 
 other Helens of a certain age then ; decoUetee to a 
 disadvantage, ruddled with rouge, jealous of her 
 daughters, and fat (or scraggy), ^ fairs fremirr 
 
 " Blasphemer, hold your tongue !" cried Bellus. 
 "What a futiu^e for La Vavasour! She would 
 poison herself with a bonbon, or die of a bouquet 
 of heliotrope, before she'd exist for such a degrada- 
 tion !" 
 
 " Tres cher, she may be a spoiled beauty, but she 
 can't change the lavrs of nature. Briedenbach and 
 Bulli haven't the Breuvage de Ninon in their treasury, 
 and to be steeled against and disenchanted with the 
 loveliest mistress, one has only to remember — ivhat she 
 will be r 
 
 " Or — to see what she is, sometimes, even will 
 do," laughed the Vicomte. " Full dress, what lovely 
 figures they have ! but the' embonpoint is dreadfully 
 fictitious with certain divinities we know !" 
 
 " And so is the bloom ! However, so as they look
 
 88 STEATHMORE. 
 
 well that's all they think about," laughed Strathmore. 
 "I always make up my mind, though, to enamel, 
 &c. ; I should die of a mistress who was hete, and 
 their wit's rarely worth much till they've come to 
 their first touch of rouge." 
 
 " The Lady Vavasour is alone an exception ; her 
 bloom is her own — as yet ; but her mots are perfec- 
 tion. You must see her, Strathmore; she'll make 
 you recant that heterodoxy." 
 
 " I don't the least think she will," said Strathmore, 
 giving a spin to one of the gold pieces. " My dear 
 Arthus, I have seen so many of those divine beauties, 
 those dames du monde, those Helens ala mode. I admire 
 them ; they |are delightfully bred ; they are perfectly 
 ganttesj chausseesy coiffees, tirees a quatre epingles ; they 
 are charming to talk to in their own boudoirs, where the 
 light is half veiled, and your eyes are the same ; they 
 are admirable when you want a little love a discretion, 
 with Cupid delicately scented with bouquet, and with 
 pleasant platonics as elastic as india-rubber. I ad- 
 mire them ; but I have seen so many ; there can be 
 nothing so very new in the salons ! Your exquisite 
 Marchioness may be the best of the kind, but then — 
 one knows the kind so well ! Who was she, by-the- 
 by?" 
 
 " Well ! nobody knows exactly," said Lyster Gage, 
 of the British Legation, reluctant to admit such a 
 flaw in this idol as that she had not a pedigree to 
 flutter in the face of the world, blazoned with bezants
 
 THE WHITE DOMINO. 89 
 
 of gold, and rich in heraldic quarterings. "When 
 she appeared at St. Petersburg, you know slie was 
 already Marchioness of Vavasour ; it was said that 
 the Marquis had married her in the Mauritius when 
 she was fifteen — those Creoles are women so early. I 
 never heard anything more definite, but his sixteen 
 quarterings are quite wide enough to cover any defi- 
 ciences, and her divine beauty did the rest ; she be- 
 came the fashion at once, and she has reigned the 
 queen of pleasures, caprices, and the salons exer since, 
 here. Her circle is as exclusive as the Princesse de 
 Lurine's ; it is only plain women who dare to hint her 
 as ' adventuress.' " 
 
 " Adventuress ! — adventurer ! That is the name 
 the world gives any man or woman who dares to be 
 clever, brilliant, or successful out of the old routine ! 
 The world must have its revenge ! Society falls 
 down before the Juggernaut of a Triumph, but, en 
 revanche, it always throws stones behind it. I detest 
 Creoles — those black-browed, lazy, inert women, who 
 have fattened on sugar-canes, and learned to scold 
 slaves instead of to spell ! I shall not admire your 
 matchless Peeress." 
 
 " Peste ! " said the Chambellan du Roi, settling the 
 diamond stud in his wristband. " If you do7ity you'll 
 be the first man in Europe who's braved her. The 
 utmost any of them can do is to only let their eyes be 
 dazzled, and not lose their heads. As Tilly said of 
 Gustavus, ^ c'est un joueur contre qui de rien perdre
 
 90 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 est de beaiTcoup gagner.' It is lucky Lord Vavasour 
 is no Georges Dandin ! " 
 
 " Bah ! So he gave her his rank, and gets rewarded 
 with, dishonour ! It's always the way ! That's the 
 common coin in which wives pay their gratitude," 
 laughed Strathmore, with a dash of disgust. 
 
 "Dishonoui-? Fie, fie, Strathmore!" cried the 
 Earl of Lechmere, a good-natured fellow, in the 
 Coldstreams. " Nobody uses those coarse, ugly 
 dictionary words now^-a-days, except when one wants 
 to get up a duel. Vavasour's a wise man. They 
 sign a mutual Roving Commission, and don't trouble 
 each other to know where the cruise extends. Besides, 
 madame's amities ma^/ be only friendship ; some say 
 so, and swear she's so heartless, that her pretty, dainty 
 brodequins dance fireproof over red-hot ploughshares 
 that would sear tenderer feet to the bone." 
 
 " I don't believe in miracles, thank you ! " said 
 Chateau-Ren ard, of the Guides. "She must get 
 scorched en j)<^ssant, at any rate. You'll see her to- 
 night, Strathmore, I expect, but if she don't un- 
 mask ^" 
 
 '' The sun will stay behind a cloud. Very well ! I 
 shall endure it. I never exist on that sort of rays 
 at any time. I'm getting tired, too, of Mondes 
 one confounds so easily with Demi-Monde, and 
 Aristocrates that are so near allied to Anonyma. 
 I should rather have liked those old times when 
 dishonour got a taste of cold steel. Now^ your
 
 THE WHITE DOMINO. 91 
 
 husband is as obliging as Galba to Mecoenas ! " 
 yawned Stratlimore. " The lady goes to Baden ' till 
 the gossip's blown over,' and her lord is discreetly 
 silent, and doesn't trouble himself to notice what goes 
 on before his eyes. Unless, indeed, he thinks he can 
 turn the scratch on his scutcheon to pecuniary ac- 
 count, and make out of the crim. con. a neat little sum 
 to stop the hole in his exchequer, or cover his Good- 
 wood debts ; then he becomes as anxious as his counsel 
 to prove his own dishonom*, and takes the co-re- 
 spondent's money with a chuckling compassion for 
 the poor de^dl that's bought the damaged article and 
 doesn't know very well what to do with it ! That's 
 the style in England, and these Vavasours are ^of 
 us.' " 
 
 " Que le diahle teprenne, Strathmore ! " cried Bellus. 
 '' Don't be so bitter ! YoiiVQ much more fit for the 
 Middle Ages than you are for the present day." 
 
 " I think I am. Things were called by their right 
 names then ; men sharpened their steel, and struck a 
 straight, swift blow ; now they sharpen their pen, and 
 wound in the back, sheltered under a shield of 
 anonymity. Then they had ' honour,' and held it at 
 the sword's point ; now they've mock ' morality,' have 
 lawyers to defend it (which is something like giving 
 an artificial lily to a sweep to keep unsoiled), and 
 trade in their shame, and ask for ^costs' for every 
 stain, from a blackened eye to a blasted name ! 
 Caramba ! this claret is corked ! "
 
 92 ST ATHMOEE. 
 
 " Uncommonly inconvenient times ; your favourite 
 ones, tliongli, old fellow/' said Lechmere. " One 
 would be in perpetual liot water. Fancy an inch of 
 cold steel waiting for us at the bottom of every escalier 
 derohSy and an iron gauntlet dashed on our lips every 
 time we laughed away a lady's reputation. Where 
 should we all be ? It would be horribly troublesome." 
 " No doubt ! We're much wiser now. We chat 
 amicably in the clubs with the husband after leaving 
 madame's dressing-room. I don't dispute our ex- 
 pediency ; it's a quality in the highest cultivation in 
 the age; even Aspasia now-a-days takes the Com- 
 munion to wash away her sins in Sacramental Tent. 
 A prop OS of Aspasia, Vernon-Caderousse is fettered 
 hand and foot by Viola Ve ; she boasts that she will 
 ruin a Peer of France every irimestre. Take care of 
 yourself, Bellus ! " 
 
 " Yes, for she'll keep her boast, the little demon ! " 
 laughed the Vicomte. " She might begin with a more 
 profitable speculation than the ^ Duca senza Ducati/ 
 as La Marillia calls him ; Caderousse is all but ' gone.' 
 I wish he would smash quite ; I should bid for that 
 Petitot snuff-box of his, the Ariadne a Naxos." 
 
 " So much for friendship ! Take a pinch out of 
 my snuff-box to-day, and bid for it to-morrow ; sup 
 with me on Monday, and speculate on my sales on 
 Tuesday. I think you'll have your wish, Arthus. Ve 
 would ruin a millionnaire, and will make very short 
 work of Caderousse. She should net Tchemeidoff; 
 Russians are the best prey ; the Rosieres revel in their
 
 THE WHITE DOMINO. 93 
 
 roubles, and the lords of the serfs are the slaves of the 
 serail," said Strathmore, as his guests rose to leave and 
 dress for a bal masque in the Faubourg St. Germain, 
 at the Duchesse de Luilhier's, an inauguratrix of a 
 thousand modes that passed the time for her own 
 thorough-bred set, and served for talk for half Paris. 
 " What are you all going for ? It's so early yet — only 
 twelve." 
 
 " Horrid bore ! " yawned Lechmere ; " but one's on 
 the treadmill, and one must tramp along with it, that's 
 the worst. Everybody goes to the Luilhiers." 
 
 " Stay and play, Lechmere," said Strathmore. 
 "You're all off, I do believe, for the sake of this 
 Vavasour. For shame, Bellus; et tu Brute! I did 
 think better of you, on my life. I never dreamt that 
 sort of thing survived in anybody after twenty." 
 
 " You haven't seen her," said the Vicomte, pettishly. 
 " Bah ! she does what she likes with one." 
 
 " A very self-evident fact, tres cher ! If you like 
 to be slaves of a domineering, lazy Creole, he \t\ I 
 don't understand your taste, that's all; but then I 
 suppose I'm exceptional altogether ; I don't like olives, 
 and I don't care about women." 
 
 " Quite right," swore the Earl, under his moustaches ; 
 " both of 'em make you buy the nice rose flavour with 
 too salt a bitterness." 
 
 " I don't know anything about the bitterness, thank 
 God ; I never travelled to that stage," laughed Strath- 
 more ; " but olives tempt one to drink, and women 
 tempt one to weakness, and when either the love or
 
 94 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 the brandy's taken too strong, we lose our heads and 
 tell our secrets ; and, on the whole, I think two bottles 
 less detrimental than one woman ! Wine steals our 
 wits, but Dalilah does worse ; — because she's a tongue 
 to ask questions." 
 
 " Devil take your philosophy." 
 "Much obliged. I don't wish any devil to take 
 it, male or female, Belphegor or Melusine. ^ My mind 
 to me a kingdom is.' I should be specially sorry for 
 any raids to be made on it." 
 
 " I bet you fifty to one. Strath, you adore la Vava- 
 sour when you see her." 
 
 « /? This Vavasour tyrant. I bet you a thousand 
 to one I don't even admire her." 
 
 " In Naps ? — done ! It's a heavy bet, mon ami," 
 said Chateau-Renard, entering the wager in a little 
 dainty jewelled book, a gift of S. A. R. the volage, 
 and somewhat indiscreet Princesse de Lurine. 
 
 "And a very safe one for me," said Strathmore, 
 with a slight yawn. " If you don't make your wagers 
 more discreetly, Armand, it's not much to be won- 
 dered at that you come to grief at Sartory and Chan- 
 tilly as you do. Au revoir, if you will go. We meet 
 again at Philippi, I suppose, in an hour?" 
 
 " I promised the Sabreur to give him correct notes 
 of the Vavasour. I must notice her if she comes 
 here to-night," thought Strathmore, as he lay back in 
 a dormeuse before the fire, when he was left alone, 
 finishing his cigarette, while the firelight danced on 
 the marble bronze and ormolu of the mantelpiece, and
 
 THE WHITE DOMINO. 95 
 
 the gas slione on the gokl lymg on the table, and on 
 the wines that stood in a dozen decanters on the con- 
 sole. " I can picture her perfectly — a tawny, large, 
 black-browed, voluptuous woman, silent, sensual, 
 handsome, heavy, with a brow of Egypt, a Juno 
 figure, and a West Indian languor. She tahes because 
 of her luxurious outline and her Creole indolence, 
 and because she's a new style, and has done two 
 clever strokes of diplomacy, by persuading an Eng- 
 lish Peer to marry her, and a thorough-bred set to 
 make her Queen of the Ton. She must have been 
 very adroit — ^these silent, still-life women often cover 
 matchless finesses ; nobody suspects them of the manu- 
 facture till the web is woven. What could the Mar- 
 quis be about ? However, he was three parts a fool, 
 they used to say, I think, and women make idiots of 
 wiser men if once they're allowed to have their own 
 way. I dare say his yacht anchored off Martinique, 
 and one day, when he was very hot and very languid, 
 intensely bored, and had drunk a good deal of brandy, 
 this woman had him alone in a verandah, where she 
 lay fanning herself amidst a pile of flowers, with the 
 air scented with pastelles, and everything planned to 
 take him in a moment of weakness, and looked so 
 handsome that she did what she liked with him, and 
 made him say what he couldn't unsay. So much is 
 done in that sort of way ; there would be no mar- 
 riages at all if men kept their heads cool always, but 
 they're taken at a disadvantage, just after dinner, 
 when they're lazy, and would consent to anything
 
 96 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 or after the cliampagne at supper, when they talk 
 nonsense they'd never have committed themselves to 
 at noon ; or in the whirl of a waltz, when the turns of 
 the dance turn their heads ! If we were always what 
 we are between breakfast and luncheon, we should 
 never love at all. We're cold after our matutinal 
 mocha, but we're easily fooled after our dinner coffee. 
 What we defy in the morning light, we yield to in the 
 moonlight. Women know that ; this Lady Vavasour, 
 I dare say, lured her lord into his declaration when 
 the stars were shining on the mango-groves and on 
 the green sea-vines, or perhaps — more likely — she was 
 a nouvelle riche, and brought him money. Men barter 
 their good blood now-a-days ; soiling the scutcheon 
 don't matter if they gild over the dirt ; we don't sell 
 our souls to the Devil in this age, we're too Christian, 
 we sell them to the Dollar !" 
 
 With which satirical reflection on his times, and his 
 order, drifting through his mind, Strathmore's thoughts 
 floated onward to a piece of statecraft then numbered 
 among the delicate diplomacies and intricate embroglie 
 of Europe, whose moves absorbed him as the finesses 
 of a problem absorb a skilful chess-player ; and from 
 thence stretched onwards to his future, in which he 
 lived like all men of dominant ambition far more than 
 he lived in his present. It was a future brilliant, 
 secure, brightening in its lustre and strengthening in 
 its power with each successive year ; a future which 
 was not to him as to most wTapped in a chiaro'scuro 
 with on]y points of luminance gleaming through the
 
 THE WHITE DOMINO. 97 
 
 mist, but in whose cold glimmering light he seemed 
 to see clear and distinct, as we see each object of the 
 far-off landscape stand out in the air of a winter's 
 noon, every thread that he should gather up, every 
 distant point to which he should pass onward ; a future 
 singular and characteristic, in which state-power w^as 
 the single ambition marked out, from which the love 
 of women was banished, in which pleasure and wealth 
 were as little regarded as in Lacedaemon, in which 
 age would be courted not dreaded, since with it alone 
 would come added dominion over the minds of men, 
 and in which, as it stretched out before him, failure^ 
 and alteration were alike impossible. What, if he- 
 lived, could destroy a future that would be solely de- 
 pendent on, solely ruled by, himself? By his own 
 hand alone would his future be fashioned, — would he 
 hew out any shape save the idol that pleased him ? 
 When we hold the chisel ourselves, are we not secure 
 to have no error in the work ? Is it likely that our 
 hand will slip, that the marble we select will be dark- 
 veined, and brittle, and impure, that the blows of the 
 mallet will shiver our handiwork, and that when w^e 
 plan a Milo, god of strength, we shall but mould and 
 sculpture out a Laocoon of torture ? Scarcely ! and 
 Strathmore held the chisel, and, certain of his own 
 skill, was as sure of what he should make of life as 
 Benvenuto, when he bade the molten metal pour into 
 the shape that he, master-craftsman, had fashioned, 
 and give to the sight of the world the Winged Per- 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 STEATHMORE. 
 
 seus. But Stratlimore did not remember wliat Cel- 
 lini did — tliat one flaw might mar the whole ! 
 
 The rooms were filled when he ascended the stair- 
 case and entered the first of that suite of superb salons 
 where Madame de Luilhiers gathered about her her 
 own particular and exclusive set, and reigned supreme. 
 Her ball was a replica of a hal de V opera, with a dash 
 of the brilliance of the Regency, a time the Duchesse 
 loved to resuscitate; scandal, indeed, said that she 
 loved it so well that she enacted the role of the Mar- 
 quise de Parabere with a descendant of Monseigneur 
 d' Orleans ; but — taisons nous! — scandal is ever indis- 
 creet, and never true, we know, save here and there, 
 when it hits the defenceless, or besmears the fallen, or 
 so delicately stabs our bosom friend that we haven't 
 heart to forswear it ! The low hum of many voices, 
 that sound which, subdued and harmless as the musical 
 hum of gnats, yet buzzes away the peace of entire 
 lives, and murmurs death-blows to a myriad of repu- 
 tations, filled the rooms as he moved slowly through 
 the throng of glittering dominoes, broidered with 
 gold or studded with jewels, while brilliant eyes 
 smiled recognition on him through their masks, and 
 witty badinage was whispered to him by fair in- 
 'cognite. 
 
 " Deucedly like life, mon cher — eh f Peoj)le take 
 advantage of disguise to slander at their ease, and 
 under a mask the dastard grows daring and whispers 
 a scandal, or — what's as bad — a truth ! Very like, 
 life ! Under the domino how suavely they stab their] 
 foes, and unrecognised in the vicinity of his dear
 
 THE WHITE DOMINO. 99 
 
 friends how secure a man is to overhear them 
 damning his name !" laughed Strathmore to Chatean- 
 Renard as he passed him in the vestibule, and went 
 on to chat with the Comtesse de Chantal, a bewitch- 
 ing little brune, who had confided to him the colour 
 of her adorable rose domino, and would quickly have 
 been recognised without any other guide than her 
 bright marmoset eyes. 
 
 " The domino gives one the privilege of laissez' 
 faire and laissez-jyarler ; it would be very pleasant if 
 the world were one long bal masque," said Madame 
 la Comtesse, letting the eyes in question rest on him 
 with coquette brilliance, for Strathmore was much 
 courted by the sex he contemned. 
 
 " Madame ! I think it is one. Who is there in it 
 without a disguise ? " he answered her, laughing, as 
 they moved on to the ball-room through the crowd of 
 titled maskers, while the music echoed from the dis- 
 tance, and the lights gleamed on the gorgeous dresses 
 of those bidden to the Duchesse's fete a la Regence. 
 
 " Who, indeed ! Not even Lord Cecil Strathmore, 
 since he disdains women, yet he flh'ts with one ! " 
 mmiuured a whisper at his side. 
 
 " Who spoke, Cecil ? " said the Comtesse, slightly 
 disgusted with the style of the attack. 
 
 " Some one of yom' court jealous of my distinction, 
 madame," laughed Strathmore, as he thought to him- 
 self, " I would swear the voice was a woman's," and 
 turned to see who had recognised him with his mask 
 on. Among the crowd of dominoes near, the one 
 closest to him was white, powdered with golden bees. 
 h2
 
 100 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 " Fi done I it was a woman : a man would have 
 attacked me^ not you," said Madame de Chantal, 
 giving him a blow of her fan, a little jealous of the 
 domino that Strathmore's eyes were tracking ; more 
 jealous still, when dexterously disentangling himself 
 from her, he left her with Bellus, and followed the 
 white domino in its swift passage through the crowd, 
 that would have been a crush in any other salons 
 than those of the Hotel Luilhiers : followed on an 
 impulse vague and irresistible, as he had never 
 before followed the voice of a woman. With what- 
 ever swiftness and dexterity he traced her, she per- 
 petually eluded him ; though she never turned her 
 head, he would have sworn she knew he was pur- 
 suing her (women, like flies, know all that goes on 
 behind them), and she seemed to take a perverse de- 
 light in winding in and out interminable mazes, and 
 in letting him approach her only to escape him ; the 
 white folds of the domino, with its glittering golden 
 bees fluttering in the light, ever within tantalising 
 reach, and ever at provoking distance. At last, 
 when he was tired of the chase, and on the point of 
 giving it up, her own passage was obstructed ; he 
 pushed hastily forward and overtook her in the 
 Pavilion de Flore, a winter garden, where Louise de 
 Luilhiers had the tropics reproduced under glass in 
 all their Oriental heat and Oriental fragrance, and 
 in which the maskers were moving, amidst the broad 
 leaves and glowing creepers of the East, while the 
 falling waters of innumerable fountains cooled the 
 
 i
 
 THE WHITE DOMINO. 101 
 
 air, and subdued lights gleamed through the dark 
 tropical foliage, like fire-flies in a palm grove. 
 
 " If I disdain all women, I have followed one. 
 Belle dame, whoever you be, I may trust your re- 
 proof to me shows some sign of interest in him you 
 condemned," whispered Strathmore in her ear. 
 
 Though she had penetrated his disguise, he could 
 not penetrate hers ; shrouded in her domino she de- 
 fied detection, and by her voice he could not recog- 
 nise her in the least. He only saw, as she turned 
 her head, that her eyes laughed, shining brightly as 
 stars, and that the lovely mouth below her mask had 
 the bloom of youth on its lips, like the soft bloom on 
 an untouched peach. 
 
 " Not at all ! You are far too presumptuous, and 
 if you disdain all women, you cannot care what one 
 of them thinks of you. You have only pursued me 
 because I eluded you ; we beat you best ' en fuyant 
 comme les Scythes.^ Montaigne is perfectly right." 
 
 Her voice had a sound in it familiar to him, but 
 not familiar enough to be recognisable in her dis- 
 guise. She baffled all detection, provocative as were 
 the luminous eyes shining on him through her mask, 
 and the laughing lips, like two roses d'amour, which' 
 were all that the envious masquerade gave to view. 
 
 " I have pursued you to learn who honours me, by 
 forbidding me to flirt. Presumption or not, belle 
 inconnue, I shall construe its interdict as it flatters me 
 most. You recognised me even in domino; there 
 must be some elective affinity between us ! "
 
 102 STEATHMOKE. 
 
 " None whatever. I knew you by your eyes, Lord 
 Cecil, What does your legend say ? — 
 
 Swift, silent, Strathmore's eyes 
 Are fathomless and darkly wise ; 
 No wife nor leman sees them smile, 
 Save at bright steel and statecraft wile; 
 And when they lighten, foes are ware, 
 The shrive is short, the shroud, is there !" 
 
 The words startled him, spoken by the lips of the 
 fair mask in the gay salons of the Hotel Luilhier ; 
 they were the burden of a rhyming chronicle, old as 
 Piers the Ploivman — a wild, dark legend, still among 
 the cradle-songs of his county, and the chronicles of 
 his own household. It was strange to hear here, in 
 Paris, in the gay revelry of the fete a la Begence, 
 words which he thought had never travelled beyond 
 the woods of White Ladies, which he had never 
 remembered since the days of his boyhood ! Who 
 could she be who knew him so well ? 
 
 " Belle amie," he said, bending his head to her as 
 they passed under the fragrant aisles of the winter 
 garden, " you flatter me more and more ! I must, at 
 least, have some interest for you, since you know by 
 heart my family legends and the look of my eyes ! 
 We cannot possibly be strangers " 
 
 " Perhaps we are enemies ! " interrupted the mask, 
 the sapphires gleaming here and there on her domino, 
 flashing their azure beams in the light. " The instinct 
 of enmity is quicker than that of friendship or of love, 
 you know, all the world through. How did you bend 
 Prince Michel to your mil a few months ago 1 — by
 
 THE WHITE DOMINO. 103 
 
 playing on the subtlest and surest of human passions 
 — revenge ! " 
 
 "The deuce! is she a witch or a clairvoyante ! '' 
 thought Strathmore, fairly astounded. The policy he 
 had pursued had been closely kept, if ever the tactics 
 of diplomacy had been so. "\Ylio had betrayed them to 
 this Domino Blanc? Who was this Domino Blanc 
 that she knew them? Tfte only woman who could 
 have penetrated their intricacies was that modern De 
 Longueville, the Princesse de Lurine ; but the Prin- 
 cess was a brune, an olive-cheeked daughter of Sar- 
 dinia, and the delicate chin of the mask, which (save 
 the rose lips) was all he could see of his clairvoyante 
 unknown, was white as the skin of the f aii'est blonde. 
 
 " Did you think your state secrets were unknown, 
 Lord Cecil ? " she whispered rapidly, her bright eyes 
 dancing with malicious amusement. "Bah! even a 
 swift, silent Strathmore cannot defy a woman, you 
 see. If we are not good for very much in this world, 
 we are good for meddling and for espionage. We are 
 the best detectives in the world, only we can't hold our 
 tongues — we can't keep the secrets when we have 
 learned them. We are so proud of our stolen nuts 
 that we crack them eii plein jour, instead of keeping 
 them to enjoy in the darkness of night, as you wise 
 men do ! " 
 
 "Caramba, madame!" laughed Strathmore, look- 
 ing down into her glittering eyes. " I think it is a 
 popular error that your sex cannot keep a secret ; you 
 guard your own most admirably for a lifetime, if you
 
 104 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 deem it politic ; it is only the secrets of others that you 
 betray ! " 
 
 He had no under-meaning, no hidden innuendo in 
 the satire on her sex, but, for an instant, the bright 
 eyes of the White Domino were clouded and angrily 
 troubled. Perhaps he had struck, without knowing 
 it, on some jarring chord; perhaps she was startled 
 for the moment lest she^ should have encountered 
 clairvoyance, en revanche. Then — she laughed, a gay, 
 fantastic chime of mellow laughter. 
 
 " Those who are wise trust us ; those who are un- 
 wise pique us by drawn veils and forbidden fruits. A 
 woman is never so exasperated as when she is refused 
 — of course it spurs her to her mettle, and into what 
 is bolted and barred from her she will enter by a 
 chink, coute que coute. Seal a letter, and we look 
 into it by a corner ; shut a door, and we pass through 
 it by the keyhole ; tell us a thing is poison, and we 
 taste it, as if it were elixir. No book is so eagerly 
 read as one you forbid us; no secret is so quickly 
 found out as one you taboo to us. If you do not wish 
 me to learn all about the Yoltura embroglio, you will 
 tell me, with a good grace, what private instructions 
 D'Arrelio received from Turin; you were Avith him 
 this morning ! " 
 
 She whispered it very softly, where they stood beside 
 one of the fountains, falling with measured murmur 
 into its marble basin, and casting its silvery spray high 
 up amongst the scarlet blossoms and the luxuriant 
 foliage of the Eastern creepers. The Voltura em-
 
 THE WHITE DOMINO. 105 
 
 broglio ! that intricate knot of Anglo-Franco-Italian 
 intrigue, whose slightest threads -had never been 
 dropped save in the privacy of the most secret 
 bureaux! Who the deuce could she be, and how 
 could she come by that? Witch, clairvoyante, poli- 
 tical intrigante, whatever she might be, he would 
 have defied her to have probed that most secret of 
 diplomatic secresies, and to know of a visit paid to the 
 envoy of Turin by a side-door and an escalier derohe ! 
 This mystic magicienne baffled him utterly ! She knew 
 his own movements — she knew his own thoughts — she 
 even knew the secret moves of the great chess-players, 
 who had Europe for their chess-board! Strathmore 
 was piqued, excited, provoked ; he had never been so 
 impatient in his life ; he could almost have forsworn 
 all the courtesies of masquerade, and have torn off by 
 force the envious black mask which hid from his sight 
 the face of his mysterious clairvoyante, and which 
 shrouded every feature, save the sweet, sensuous, 
 mutine mouth, that only made concealment the more 
 cruel ! 
 
 " The sure way to win whatever you wish, and hear 
 whatever you seek, ma belle, would be to promise re- 
 moval of your cruel mask as a recompense; none 
 could resist such a bribe, let their probity be what it 
 would ! " he whispered her, eagerly. 
 
 He by no means intended to confess to the accuracy 
 of her Voltura knowledge ; it might be but the clever 
 guesswork of a feminine politician, flung out to entrap 
 him hap-hazard.
 
 106 STRATHMOEE. 
 
 " How rash you are ! " cried the Domino Blanc, in- 
 terrupting him mischievously. " I may be wrinkled, 
 haggard, and enamelled, for anything you can tell ; I 
 may be a Ninon of seventy, a Du Deffand coquetting 
 in my eightieth year, a female Mirabeau pitted with 
 small-pox and yellow with dyspepsia. Unmasked, I 
 should have lost the charm that only goes with the 
 Unseen. Thank you ! I am too wise to part with it ! " 
 
 " I am anything but rash, and you are anything but 
 wise," persisted Strathmore. " One guesses the per- 
 fection of the statue by the little that is unveiled ; the 
 beauty of the volume by the grace of the vignette that 
 peeps through the uncut leaves ! Enamel, madame^ 
 could no more have given the bloom to your lips than 
 their bloom to those blossoms, and those eyes would 
 not be so dangerously eloquent unless they were 
 washed with the morning dew of their dawn ! " 
 
 " Charming compliments ! " laughed the mask, 
 striking him on the arm with the jewelled sticl^ 
 of her fan. " But you only flatter my beauty to have 
 your curiosity gratified. It is not to see my face, 
 Lord Cecil, but to find out who whispers to you of 
 your tete-a-tete with Arrelio that you would like my 
 mask off. M. mon diplomat^ I take your flattery at 
 its worth ! " 
 
 "Then you do injustice to yourself and to me," 
 whispered Strathmore, urgently, tantalised and pro- 
 voked to the last degree by a woman who knew so 
 much of himself and would let him know nothing of 
 her. " Your hand alone is insignia and type of what
 
 THE WHITE DOMINO. 107 
 
 the tout ensemble would be were it only unmasked. 
 Those Titania-like fingers must have face and form to 
 match with them. Do you not think your mask is as 
 cruel as the closest veil of the Odalisque, since, like 
 that, it only shows us enough to make us wistfully 
 dream of all we are denied ? " 
 
 "Gracefully turned! were it only sincere!" an- 
 swered the White Domino, her low, musical, mocking 
 laugh echoing softly where they stood by the fountain, 
 where the light of the lamps was shaded by the fan- 
 tastic ferns and fan-like leaves of the profuse Oriental 
 foliage that drooped around. " But with Lord Cecil 
 Strathmore it is only flattery, adroit and diplomatic, 
 to find out who has the clue to his secret inteiwiew 
 with Arrelio! Neither the mask nor the veil are 
 cruelties to you; you care nothing for what they 
 shroud; and as for dreaming of what is denied to 
 you, you would disdain so poetical a weakness, unless 
 the denial involved a state secret; then, indeed, it 
 might haunt your sleep a little ! Listen, Lord Cecil ! 
 I know your diplomacies, see if I know you personally. 
 You are ambitious, but with a singular and lofty am- 
 bition, in which wealth has no share. You disdain 
 gold as the dieu du rotiire^ and seek power alone. 
 You are cold, and proud of your coldness, as of the 
 polish of steel that has never been dimmed. You prize 
 friendship, but disdain love as the plaything of fools 
 and the dalliance of dotards. You look on life as the 
 clay, and on men as the plaster through whom you, 
 master-craftsman, will fashion the shape that pleases
 
 108 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 you without a flaw, ductile and plastic to every turn 
 of your hand. You love finesse, sway, dominance; 
 you are independent of sympathy ; you are perfectly 
 and presumptuously self-reliant; you have the pro- 
 found subtle intellect of the old Italian statesmen; 
 perhaps you have their swift, dark, relentless passion 
 too ; but, if so, it slumbers — as yet, as it slumbered 
 with them till it was time to strike. You are like the 
 Strathmores of White Ladies, line by line, feature for 
 feature, and vnth their physiognomy inherit their cha- 
 racter. Now, am I clairvoyante or not? Tell me ! " 
 She spoke in a low, sweet whisper, bending towards 
 him with her luminous eyes shining on him through 
 her mask, while the sapphires flashed their azure rays 
 in the light, and the mystical, monotonous music of 
 the fountain murmured on and on, and the scarlet 
 flowers of the Eastern creepers swung against the 
 glittering, snowy folds of her domino. With some- 
 thing of the strange, startled wonder with which 
 Surrey saw his love shadowed out on the Mirour of 
 Gramarye, Strathmore heard his character drawn in 
 the unerring words of the mysterious mask. A 
 moment before he would have sworn that no living 
 creature, save, perhaps, Bertie ErroU, could have 
 known him so well ; and the portraiture, exact to 
 the life in every line, startled him as we may have 
 Keen startled coming suddenly upon an unseen mirror 
 that gives us back our own reflexion in every trait and 
 in a strong light. He stretched out his hand to her, 
 his grasp involuntarily closing on the folds of the 
 domino.
 
 THE WHITE DOMINO. 109 
 
 " Clairvoyante or not, you are an enchantress ! and 
 I must know who has studied me so miraculously 
 before we part. Unmask, ma belle. I cannot let 
 you go unknown. I will not ! " 
 
 She laughed the laugh sweet as music, that had 
 something menacing and mocking in its soft, subdued 
 carillon. 
 
 "But you musty by the rules of all masquerades. 
 I am like Eros, I must be adored unseen ; bring light 
 to unveil me, and I shall take wing ! Will you 
 lament as sincerely as Psyche ? Adieu ! " 
 
 With a swift, sudden movement, ere he could 
 detain her, the white folds slid from his hand, and 
 she had fluttered away, as though she literally took 
 wing like the Eros she spoke of, floating off under 
 the tropical foliage like some rich-plumaged bird, the 
 gold-flowered domino brushing through the dark 
 glossy leaves as she passed. As swiftly Strathmore 
 pursued ; but before it was possible to overtake her, 
 a group of dominoes had surrounded her, and on the 
 aim of one of them she had passed so rapidly out of 
 the Pavilion de Flore, that ere he could follow she 
 was lost in the throng. 
 
 Who could she be ? Who could know him so well 
 while she was unknown to him ? Her air, her voice, 
 her eyes were half familiar while yet strange, and the 
 mask might have effectually disguised his best-known 
 friend. Yet, as he recalled those who alone could 
 have spoken thus to him, he rejected them all; this 
 mysterious clairvoyante could be none of them. The 
 lost White Domino piqued him. Soft voices chal-
 
 110 STRATHMOKE. 
 
 lenged him with witty mots, fair maskers kept him 
 talking to them that hght, brilHant badinage that 
 women Hve on, as humming-birds on farina, and bees 
 upon honey; eyes dazzling as hers wooed him ten- 
 derly through their masks ; but Strathmore was 
 haimted by one woman, to the exclusion of all the 
 rest; he sought her unceasingly through the Luil- 
 hiers' salons, but always in vain. The sweet, sensuous 
 mouth, the luminous eyes, the thrilling, musical voice 
 and laugh, which would have had magic in others, 
 were not what piqued him ; it was the strange know- 
 ledge that she had of himself, the unerring fidelity 
 with which she had sketched traits in his character 
 that he himself even had known but in indistinct 
 shadow till the light of her words had streamed in 
 upon them. Had he believed in clau'voyance he 
 would have sworn to it now ! 
 
 He sought the White Domino persistently, cease- 
 lessly, through the crowds that filled the rooms for 
 the Duchesse's fete a la Regence — sought her always 
 in vain. At last, giving up in provoked despair his 
 bootless chase of the azure sapphires and golden bees, 
 that only flashed on his sight in the distance to per- 
 petually elude his approach, he leant against the door- 
 way of one of the conservatories, where a breeze 
 reached him, cooling the air that was hot with the 
 blaze of the myriad lights, and heavy with the odour 
 of perfumes and flowers ; and stood there looking 
 down the long suite of salons, glittering with the 
 moving throng of dominoes, and holding his mask in 
 his hand, so that the light fell full upon the peculiar
 
 THE WHITE DOMINO. Ill 
 
 Vancljke-like character of his head, rendered the 
 more striking by the dark violet of his masquerade 
 dress and the diamonds that studded it. He was pro- 
 voked, impatient, interested more than ever he had 
 been in his whole life — save once— ^and he was an- 
 noyed with himself that he had so mismanaged the 
 affair as to let the Domino Blanc slip from his hands. 
 He was annoyed with himself, and not less so when, 
 as he stood there, snowy folds swept past him, the 
 jewelled handle of a fan struck his arm, and a soft 
 voice was in his ear : 
 
 "Reveur! you look like a portrait of the Old 
 Masters ! Are you thinking of the Yoltura affair, or 
 of me ? You will be foiled with both ; Arrelio will 
 not sign, and I shall not unmask! Good night, 
 Strathmore ! Perhaps I shall haunt your sleep this 
 morning, as I know a state secret ! " 
 
 The words were scarce whispered before she had 
 passed him ! Again she eluded his detention ; again, 
 swift as lightning, he pursued her, this all-mysterious 
 and all-tantalising mask ; but destiny was against 
 him. The throng parted them, an Austrian Baroness 
 detained him, the trailing folds of a rose domino en- 
 tangled him ; she was perpetually at a distance as he 
 followed her through the salons, which she was then 
 leaving on the arm of a black domino to go to her 
 carriage, the golden bees glittering, the snowy dress 
 fluttering, just far enough off to be provokingly near 
 and provokingly distant, as, detained now by this, 
 now by that, he threaded his way through the inter- 
 minable length of the salons, ante-chambers, cabinets
 
 112 STEATHMOKE. 
 
 de peinture, and reception-rooms in her wake, and 
 passed out into the staircase at the very moment that 
 she was descending its last step ! She had a crowd 
 about her, following her as courtiers follow their 
 Queen, and her sapphires were gleaming and her 
 white domino glittering as she crossed in a blaze of 
 light the marble parquet of the magnificent hall of 
 the Hotel Luilhiers. 
 
 " A white domino, powdered with gold bees ! — can 
 you tell me whose that is, Arthus?" asked Strath- 
 more, eagerly, where he stretched over the balustrade 
 as Bellus came out of the vestibule, while below, 
 with her masked court about her, she passed on to 
 her carriage. 
 
 " A white domino with golden bees ! " cried the 
 Vicomte. " Pardieu ! you have seen her, then ? " 
 
 " Seen her I Seen whom % " 
 
 " Did she take off her mask ? " went on Bellus, not 
 heeding the counter-question. " Did you see her 
 face? Did you look at her well? What do you 
 think of her?" 
 
 " Her ! Whom f I ask you who the white domino 
 is. Look — quick ! you will catch her before she has 
 passed out of the hall. Whose domino is that ? " 
 
 " That ? Nom de Dieu ! that is heks ? " 
 
 " Hers ? Curse your pronouns ! She must have 
 a name ! Whose ? " 
 
 " Peste ! Lady Vavasour. You have seen her, 
 then, at last ! " 
 
 I
 
 113 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 MOONLIGHT. 
 
 Marion Lady Vavasour and Vaux sat before her 
 dressing-room fire (which she had lighted in summer 
 or winter), watching the embers play, nestled in the 
 cozy depths of her luxurious chair, with a novel open 
 in her lap, and her long shining tresses unbound and 
 hanging in as loose, rippled luxuriance as the hair of 
 the Venus a la Coquille. No toilette was so becoming 
 as the azure neglige of softest Indian texture, with 
 its profusion of gossamer lace about the arms and 
 bosom, that she wore ; no chaussure more bewitching 
 than the slipper, fantastically broidered with gold 
 and pearls, into which the foot she held out to the 
 fire to warm was slipped ; no sanctuary for that belle 
 des belles fitter and more enticing than the dressing- 
 room, with its rose tendre hangings, its silver swinging , 
 lamps, its toilette-table shrouded in lace, its mirrors 
 
 VOL. I, 1
 
 114 STRATHMORE. 
 
 framed in Dresden, its jaspar tazze filled with jewels, 
 its gemmed vases full of flowers, its crystal carafes of 
 perfmnes and bouquets, its thousand things of luxury 
 and grace. Here, perhaps, Marion Lady Vavasour, 
 who had rarest loveliness at all hours, looked her 
 loveliest of all ; and here she sat now, thinking, while 
 the firelight shone on the dazzling whiteness of her 
 skin, on the luminous depths of her eyes, on the 
 shining unbound tresses of her hair, and on the 
 diamond-studded circlet on her fair left hand that 
 was the badge of her allegiance to one lord, and the 
 signet of her title to reign, a Queen of Society and a 
 Marchioness of Vavasour and Vaux. Her thoughts 
 might well be sunny ones ; she was in the years of 
 her youth and the height of her beauty ; she had not 
 a caprice she could not carry out, nor a wish she could 
 not gratify. Her world, delirious with her fascina- 
 tion and ductile to her magic, let her place her foot 
 on its neck and rule it as she would ; she was censed 
 with the purple incense of worship wherever she 
 moved, and gave out life and death with her smile 
 and her frown, with a soft whispered word, or a 
 moue boudeuse. From a station of comparative ob- 
 scurity, when her existence had threatened to pass 
 away in insular monotony and colonial obscurity, her 
 beauty had lifted her to a dazzling rank, and her tact 
 had taught her to grace it, so that none could carp at, 
 but all bowed before her ; so that in a thorough-bred 
 exclusive set she gave the law and made the fashion.
 
 TWO NIGHT PICTURES. 115 
 
 and conquests unnumbered strewed her patli " thick 
 as the leaves in Vallambrosa." 
 
 On her first appearance as Lady Vavasour and 
 Vaux, which had been made some six years before 
 this at St. Petersburg, women had muimured at, and 
 society been shy to receive, this exquisite creature, 
 come none knew whence, born from no one knew 
 whom, with whom the world in general conceived 
 that my lord Marquis had made a wretche.d mes- 
 alliance; the Marquis being a man sans reprocJie as 
 far as " blood " went, if upon some other score he was 
 not quite so stainless as might have been. But the 
 world in veiy brief time gave way before her : with 
 the sceptre of a matchless loveliness, and the skill of 
 a born tactician, she cleared all obstacles, overruled 
 all opponents, bore down all hesitations, silenced all 
 sneers. She created a furore, she became the mode ; 
 women might slander her as they would, they could 
 do nothing against her ; and in brief time, from her 
 debut by finesse, by witchery, by the double right of 
 her own resistless fascination, and the dignity of her 
 lord's name, Marion Marchioness of Vavasour and 
 Vaux was a Power in the world of fashion, and an 
 acknowledged leader in her own spheres of ton, plea- 
 sure, and coquetry. " Woman's wit" can do anjrthing 
 if it be given free run and free scope, and with that 
 indescribable yet priceless quality of her sex she was 
 richly endowed. How richly, you will conceive 
 when I say that, she had so effectually silenced and 
 i2
 
 116 STEATHMORE. 
 
 bewitched society, that in society (save here and 
 there, where two or three very malicious grandes 
 dames, whom she had outrivalled, were gathered to- 
 gether for spleen, slander, and Souchong) the ques- 
 tion of her Origin was never now mooted. It would, 
 indeed, have been as presumptuous to have debated 
 such a question with her, as for the Hours to have 
 asked Aphrodite of her birth when the amber-drop- 
 ping golden tresses and the snowy shoulders rose up 
 from the white sea-foam. Lady Vavasour was Her- 
 self, and was all-sufficient for herself. Her delicate 
 azure veins were her sangre azul, her fair white 
 hands were her seize quartiers, her shining tresses 
 were her bezants d'or, and her luminous eyes her 
 blazonry. Garter King-at-Arms himself, looking on 
 her, w^ould have forgotten heraldry, flung the bare, 
 lifeless skeleton of pedigree to the winds before the 
 living beauty, and allowed that Venus needs no Pur- 
 suivant's marshalling. 
 
 She sat looking into the dressing-room fire, while 
 the gleam of the wax-lights was warm on her brow, 
 and played in the depths of her dazzling eyes; a 
 pleased smile lingered about her lovely lips, and her 
 fingers idly played with the leaves of her novel — her 
 thoughts were more amusing than its pages. She 
 was thinking over the triumphs of the past night and 
 day ; of how she had wooed from the Marquis 
 d'Arrelio, for pure insouciant curiosity, state secrets 
 that honour and prudence alike bade him withhold, 
 but which he was powerless to deny before her magi- 
 
 1
 
 TWO NIGHT PIOTUEES. 117 
 
 cal witcliery; of how Constantine of Lanaris liacl 
 followed her from Athens, to lay at her feet the 
 sworn homage of a Prince, and be rewarded with a 
 tap of a fan painted by Watteau ; of the imperial 
 sables Duke Nicholas Tchemidoff had flung down 
 a la Raleigh on a damp spot on the Terrace des 
 Feuillans, where, otherwise, her dainty brodequins 
 would have been set on some moist fallen leaves, as 
 they had strolled there together; of the pieces of 
 Henri Deux and Rose Berri ware, dearer to him 
 than his life, which that king of connoisseurs. Lord 
 Weiverden, had presented to her, sacrificing his 
 Faience for the sake of a smile ; of the words which 
 men had whispered to her in the perfumed demie- 
 lumiere of her violet-hung boudoir, while her eyes 
 laughed and lured them softly and resistlessly to 
 their doom ; of all the triumphs of the past twelve 
 hours, since the doors of her hotel in the Place 
 Vendome had first been opened at two o'clock in the 
 day to her crowding court, to now, when she had 
 quitted the bal masque of her friend Louise de 
 Luilhier, and was inhaling again in memory the 
 incense on which she lived. For the belle Marquise 
 was a finished coquette, never sated with conquest ; 
 and it was said, in certain circles antagonistic to her 
 own, that neither her coquetries nor her conquests 
 were wholly harmless. But every flower, even the 
 fairest, has its shadow beneath it as it swings in the 
 sunlight ! 
 
 " He did not remember me ! " thought the Venus
 
 118 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 Aphrodite of the rose-hung 'dressing-room, looking 
 with a smile into the flames of the fire, which it was 
 her whim to have even in so warm a night as was this 
 one. " My voice should have told him ; it is a terribly- 
 bad compliment ! However, he shall pay for it ! A 
 woman who knows her power can always tax any 
 negligence to her as heavily as she likes. How in- 
 comprehensibly silly those women must be who be- 
 come their lovers' slaves, who hang on their words and 
 seek their tenderness, and make themselves miserable 
 at their infidelities. 1 cannot understand it ; if there 
 be a thing in the world easier to manage than another, 
 it is a MAN ! Weak, obstinate, vain, wayward, loving 
 what they cannot get, slighting what they hold in 
 their hand, adoring what they have only on an insecure 
 tenure, trampling on anything that lies at their mercy, 
 always capricious to a constant mistress and constant 
 to a capricious — men are all alike ; there is nothing 
 easier to keep in leading-strings when once you know 
 their foibles ! Those swift, silent Strathmores, they 
 are very cold, they say, and love very rarely ; but 
 when they love, it must be imperiously, passionately, 
 madly, tout ou rien. I should like to see him roused. 
 Shall I rouse him ? Perhaps ! He could not resist 
 me if I chose to wind him round my fingers. I should 
 like to supplant his ambition, to break down his pride, 
 to shatter his coldness, to bow him down to what he 
 defies. Those facile conquests are no honour ; those 
 men who sigh at the first sight of one's eyebrow, and 
 lose their heads at the shadow of a smile ; I am tired
 
 TWO NIGHT PICTUEES. 119 
 
 of them— sick of tliem! Tou jours perdrix! And 
 the bhds so easily shot ! Shall I choose ? Yes ! No 
 man living could defy me — not even Lord Cecil 
 Strathmore ! " 
 
 And as she thought this last vainglorious but fully- 
 warranted thought, Marion Lady Vavasour, lying 
 back in her f auteuil, with her head resting negligently 
 on her arm, that in its turn rested on the satin 
 cushions, with that grace which was her peculiar 
 charm, as the firelight shone on her loosened hair and 
 the rose-leaf flush of her delicate cheeks, glanced at 
 her own refle:^ion in a mirror standing near, on whose 
 sui'face the whole matchless tableau was reproduced 
 with its dainty and brilliant colouring, and smiled — a 
 smile of calm security, of superb triumph. Could 
 she not vanquish, whom and when and where she 
 would ? 
 
 That night, far across the sea, under the shadow of 
 English woodlands that lay dark and fresh, and still 
 beneath the brooding summer skies, a w^oman stood 
 within the shelter of a cottage-porch, looking down 
 the forest-lane that stretched into the distance, with 
 the moonbeams falling across its moss-grown road be- 
 tween the boles of the trees, and the silent countiy 
 lying far beyond hushed, and dim, and shrouded in a 
 white mist. She was young, and she had the light of 
 youth — love — in her eyes as she gazed wistfully into 
 the gloom, vainly seeking to pierce through the dense 
 foliage of the boughs and the darkness of the night,
 
 120 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 and listened, thirstily and breathlessly, for a step 
 beloved to break the undistui'bed silence. The scarlet 
 folds of a cloak fell off her shoulders, her head was 
 uncovered, and the moon bathed her in its radiance 
 where she stood; the branches above her, as the wind 
 stirred amongst them, shaking silver drops of dew 
 from their moistened leaves on her brow and into her 
 bosom. She loved, and listened for that which she 
 loved ; listened patiently, yet eagerly and long, while 
 the faint summer clouds swept over the dark azure 
 heavens, the stars shining through their mist, and the 
 distant chimes of a church clock from an old grey 
 tower bosomed in the woods tolled out the quarters, 
 one by one, as the hours of the night stole onward. 
 
 Suddenly she heard that for which she longed — 
 heard ere other ears could have caught it — a step 
 falling on the moss that covered the forest road, and 
 coming towards her ; then — she sprang forward in the 
 darkness, the dew shaking from her hair, and the tears 
 of a great gladness glancing in her eyes, as she twined 
 her arms close about him whom she met, and clung to 
 him as though no earthly power should sever them. 
 
 " You are come at last ! Ah, if you knew how 
 bitter your absence is, if you knew how I grudge 
 you to the cruel world that robs me so long, so often 
 of you ^" 
 
 Erroll looked down fondly on her. 
 
 " Lucille ! I am not worth your worship, still less 
 worth the consecration of your life, when I repay it 
 so little, recompense it so ill." 
 
 She laid her hand upon his lips and gazed up into
 
 TWO NIGHT PICTUEES. 121 
 
 his eyes, clinging but the more closely to him, and 
 laughing and weeping in her joy : 
 
 " Hush, hush ! Pay it ill ? Have I not the highest, 
 best, most precious payment in your love ? / care for 
 no other, you know that so well." 
 
 He stroked her hair caressingly, perhaps repentantly 
 (few men can meet the eyes of a wife who loves 
 them purely and faithfully, after a long absence, 
 without some pangs of conscience, without some con- 
 trast of the quality of her fidelity and their own), and 
 kissed the lips uplifted to his own ; the love that he 
 read in her eyes, and that trembled in her voice, 
 saddened him, he could not have told why, even whilst 
 he recognised it as something unpurchasable in the 
 world he had quitted, where its strength and its 
 fidelity would have been but words of an unknown 
 tongue, subjects of a jeer, objects of a jest. 
 
 " And you have seen none who have supplanted me 
 since we parted ; none of whom I need have jealousy 
 or fear?" she whispered to him, with a certain 
 tremulous, wistful anxiety — he was her all, she could 
 not be robbed of him ! — yet with a fond, sunny smile 
 upon her face as it was raised to his in the faint sheen 
 of the starlight, the smile of a love too deeply true, too 
 truly trustful to harbour a dread that were doubt, a 
 doubt that were disloyalty to the faith it received as 
 to the faith it gave. 
 
 He looked down into her eyes, and pressed closer 
 against his own the heart that he knew beat purely, 
 wholly for himself. 
 
 "My precious one! you need be jealous of no
 
 122 STRATHMOKE. 
 
 living thing witli me. None have twined themselves 
 abont my heart, none have rooted themselves into my 
 life as you have done. Have no cbead! No rival 
 shall ever supplant you, I swear before God ! " 
 
 He spoke the oath in all sincerity, in all faith, in all 
 fervour, speaking it as many men have so spoken 
 before him, not dreaming what the day -will bring 
 forth, not knowing how fate will make them unwitting 
 perjurers, unconscious renegades to the bond of their 
 word, as they are lured onwards, and driven down- 
 wards, powerless, almost one would say blameless, in 
 the hands of chance. 
 
 And the woman that nestled in his arms and gazed 
 up into his eyes sighed a low, long sigh of gladness. 
 He was her world; she knew of and needed no 
 other. 
 
 Then he loosened her from his embrace, and led her 
 under the drooping branches of the trees that hung 
 stirless in the warm air, into the house hidden in the 
 profuse and tangled foliage. Their steps ceased to 
 fall on the moss, their shadows to slant across the 
 starlit path, their whispered words to stir the silence ; 
 the woodland country lay beyond calm and still in 
 the shade of the night, the fleecy clouds drifted slowly 
 now and then across the bright radiance of the moon, 
 the winds moved gently amongst the leaves ; in the 
 lattice casements shrouded in the trees the lio^hts died 
 out, and the church chimes struck faintly in the dis- 
 tance their hours one by one. On the hushed earth 
 three angels brooded — Night, and Sleep, and Peace.
 
 1^3 
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 THE KISMET THAT WAS WEITTEN ON A 
 MILLEFLEUKS-SCENTED NOTE. 
 
 " Meurice's, Paris. 
 
 " My DEAR Erroll, — To keep faith with you, I 
 must tell you that I have seen Lady Vavasour! 
 Rather, to speak more properly, have heard her, for 
 she was masked, and I saw nothing except, what I 
 freely confess to be, as lovely a mouth and chin as 
 the devil ever gave his special aides-de-camp, the 
 daughters of Eve, for a weapon of slaughter and a 
 tool of perdition. I met her at Madame de Luilhier's 
 bal masque, and she has her full share of Eve's curi- 
 osity ; for though, to my certain knowledge, I have 
 never seen her before, nor she me, she informed me 
 of everything about myself, and a Httle more besides ! 
 She repeated one of the old White Ladies chronicles 
 — ^where could she get hold of it ? — and was up to 
 some diplomatic tricks, whose juggling we all thought
 
 124 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 had been done strictly in petto. I suppose tlie Naza- 
 renes, who lie in the lap of the titled Dalilah, let her 
 coax their secrets out of them. The ass that Samson 
 in all ages ought to smite is Himself ! You will think 
 her divine, I dare say ; fascinating I can very well 
 believe that she is, by the wiles she tried upon me to- 
 night ; and she's gifted with the sex's true genius for 
 tantalising. I like nothing I have heard of her, and 
 I should say it is particularly lucky the Marquis is of 
 elastic conjugal principles ! I never remember seeing 
 him, do you ? I don't envy him his wife, though I 
 admit she is half a sorceress, and has a very pretty 
 mouth; but it is a mouth that would whisper too 
 many infidelities to please me, were I he ! What the 
 deuce are you doing with yourself ? Carlton tells me 
 you said ^you were going out of town — cttait tout^ 
 Out of town in the middle of the season ! You surely 
 are not turning pastoral, and getting entete of provin- 
 ciality ? The Beau Sabreur a Strephon ! What a 
 vision ! I dare say a woman's at the bottom of it ; 
 but Aspasia was always your game, not Phillis, except, 
 indeed, with that mysterious White Ladies inamorata, 
 whom you wouldn't be chaffed about. But it can't 
 be she, because that love's twelve months' old now to 
 my knowledge, and must have been rococo long ago. 
 I will pique Lady Millicent till she badgers you out 
 of your secret. Good night, old fellow. I shall be 
 heartily glad to see you again. When will it be? 
 Can't you run over here ? I expect I shall get the 
 French Derby, though Lawton's confounded love of
 
 THE KISMET. 125 
 
 a close finish lost me the English one. The betting's 
 quite steady here on Marechale, always five to one. I 
 shall start him for the St. Leger, and send him over 
 to Maldon to train through August and September. 
 Nesselrode's a good second. They don't offer freely 
 at all on Tambour, and I half think he'll be scratched. 
 The Abbey's at your service, of course, as it always 
 is, to fill as you like for the First. You will oblige 
 me very much by keeping the old place open, and 
 knocking over the birds, whether I come or not. 
 " Yours as ever, 
 
 " Cecil Stkathmore." 
 
 Strathmore, having written those last words as the 
 morning sun streamed in through the persiennes of 
 his bedchamber, addressed his letter to Major Erroll, 
 19a, Albeijnarle-street, London (where that debt- 
 laden Sabreur had a suite of rooms, dainty and luxu- 
 rious enough to domicile Lady Millicent), and lying 
 back in his chair, stirred the chocolate Diaz had 
 placed at his elbow, and sat smoking, while the 
 smooth Albanian moved noiselessly about, laying out 
 the clothes that might be needed through the day, 
 polishing an eye-glass, rubbing up a diamond, refill- 
 ing a bouquet-bottle, or performing some other office 
 of valetdom. Carelessly and cavalierly as he had 
 dismissed the Domino Blanc in the letter he had just 
 been writing, the tantalising mystery of the night 
 before was not so easily to be dismissed from his 
 memory.
 
 126 STRATHMOEE. 
 
 Lady Vavasour ! 
 
 For once Strathmore's keen penetration and diplo- 
 matist acumen were baffled and at fault ; lie could 
 fathom neither the means nor the motive of the 
 dazzling Peeress's interest in, and attack upon him. 
 How could a woman, whom he had perpetually missed, 
 and never met during the seven years that she had 
 sparkled through society, know him, as he would 
 have taken his oath his eldest friend could not do, 
 and photograph his character with a realistic accuracy 
 that he himself, limning it from analysis, could barely 
 have attained? 
 
 The belle Marquise lying back in her fauteuil, 
 gazing (keamily and nonchalantly at herself in the 
 mirror, with her shining hair falling over her arm, 
 and a smile of superb consciousness on her rich curl- 
 ing lips, might have exercised a mesmeric power of 
 will the night before, so persistently had she haunted 
 him from the time that he saw the last flutter of the 
 snowy folds of her domino. Is there any electro- 
 biology so potent as beauty ? 
 
 A vague prejudice had associated Lady Vavasom' 
 in his eyes with a dangerous and disagreeable aroma ; 
 he had mistrusted, without knowing her, this woman 
 who fooled fools at her will ; she had been a mes- 
 alliance, and he abhorred mesalliances ; she was a 
 Creole, and he detested Creoles ; she was a coquette, 
 and he was always impatient of coquettes. If Strath- 
 more had ever wasted his hom'S in imagining an ideal 
 mistress (which he most assuredly never did), his
 
 THE KISMET. ^ 127 
 
 ideal would have, probably, clothed itself in some 
 form, pure, stainless, lofty, of a soilless honour, and 
 a grave and glorious grace, such as Hypatia, when 
 the sunlight of Hellas fell on her white Ionic robes, 
 and her proud eyes glanced over the assembled mul- 
 titudes. This malicious mask, this tantalising clair- 
 voyante, was certainly of an order its direct anti- 
 podes ! But despite all that, perhaps because of it. 
 Lady Yavasour, seen yet unseen, unknown yet know- 
 ing so much, haunted him, piqued him, usm'ped his 
 thoughts; and when a woman does that, what use is it 
 for any man to send her to the deuce, to consign her to 
 the devil ? Heaven knows, not one whit ! Anathema 
 Maranatha only incenses the sorceress, and the more 
 she is exorcised the more she persists. 
 
 To dismiss her troublesome memory, he took up 
 one out of a pile of letters Diaz had placed on a 
 salver beside him. It was a delicate cream-coloured 
 Millefleurs-scented billet, fragrant with the odour of 
 the boudoir, breathing of a buhl writing-case, and a 
 gemmed penholder, and white jewelled fingers ; it 
 was only a note of invitation, pressingly worded, and 
 signed Blanche de Ruelle-Courances, asking him to 
 join the party gathered at her chateau of Vernon- 
 9eaux, now that Paris was growing empty and detes- 
 table, and the country and the vine-shadows were a 
 la mode. The Comtesse de Kuelle was a charming 
 leader of his own set, English by birth and tint, 
 Parisienne by marriage and habit ; there was no more 
 agreeable place in Europe to visit at than Yernon-
 
 128 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 ^eaux, and she always had about her as amusing and 
 as chic a chicle as the fashion of the two nations 
 afforded. He read the note ; not incHned to accept 
 the invitation, but intending to go across the Kohl, in 
 common with most other European Dips and decores, 
 to the pet Bad of ministers and martingales', con- 
 gresses and coups de honheuvy Chevaliers of the order 
 of honour and Chevaliers of the order of industry, 
 king-like Greeks and Greek-like kings. His weigh- 
 ing of the merits of Baden v. Vernon9eaux, and fifty 
 other places open to him, was interrupted by Diaz 
 approaching him from the ante-room : 
 
 " M. le Comte de Valdor demande si milord est 
 visible?" 
 
 Strathmore looked up, setting down his chocolate : 
 
 " To him — ^oh yes ! Show M. le Comte up here, 
 if he have no objection." 
 
 The Albanian withdrew (Diaz was soft, sleek, 
 noiseless as a panther, and obeyed implicity — four 
 inestimable qualities in a valet, a wife, or a spy!), 
 and, in a few minutes, ushered Yaldor in ; a very 
 young man, not more than four or five-and-twenty, 
 slight, graceful, animated, delicately made, the beau- 
 ideal, as he was the descendant, of those who turned 
 back their scented ruffles, and shook the powder from 
 their perfumed locks, as they went out with a mot 
 on their lips to the fatal charette while the tocsin 
 sounded. 
 
 " Yaldor, tres cher, forgive my receiving you en 
 ntgligcj^ laughed Strathmore. '' We don't stand on
 
 THE KISMET. 129 
 
 ceremony with one another. I'm later than usual, 
 and you are earlier. It isn't twelve, is it ? " 
 
 Yaldor looked at his little jewelled watch, the size 
 of a fifty-centieme, and answered a trifle a tort et a 
 travers as he sank into a dormeuse, and played with 
 Galignani, 
 
 " If you come out at noon like this, Valdor, you'll 
 soon lose your reputation ; you'll tan your skin, dis- 
 enchant your lady worshippers, and sink among the 
 ordinary herd, who are deep in business before we've 
 had our coffee, and trade in their coupons before 
 we've thought of our valets," laughed Strathmore, 
 noticing his unusual absence of manner, for Yaldor 
 was generally the most insouciant of hlondins, and 
 boasted that he never reflected but on two subjects — 
 the fit of his gloves, and the temperature of his eau- 
 de-Cologne bath. 
 
 Yaldor laughed too, and stroked his moustaches 
 with a hand as small and as delicate as that which the 
 White Domino could boast. 
 
 " It is horribly early ; friends are great bores in 
 the morning ; nobody's mot's good till the luncheon 
 wine has washed it ; indeed, I don't think a decent 
 thing's ever said before dinner. I'm sure Horace 
 himself was prosy before he had sat down to the 
 coena ; wit must have starved of famine on a date ! 
 I owe you fifty excuses, Strathmore, for intruding so 
 soon, but — I wanted to see you alone." 
 
 " I am most happy to see you, my dear fellow. If 
 you are going to be unamusing, it's the prerogative 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 of friendship to prose, as of marriage to bore one you 
 know ; every virtuous thing is dull ; a preacher and 
 a prig from time immemorial !" said Strathmore, play- 
 ing with the dainty Millefleurs-scented note. " What's 
 the matter, Yaldor — anything? Are you ruining 
 yourself for Viola Ve, like Caderousse? Has Nessel- 
 rode gone lame? Has some hrave du roture been 
 copying your liveries, or has some ugly Serene 
 Princess fallen in love with you, and left you vacil- 
 lating between the horrors and the honours of the 
 liaison? What is it, eh?" 
 
 " Only this — once for all, I'm ashamed to say I 
 must keep in your debt a little longer ^" 
 
 " That all !" cried Strathmore, stopping him before 
 he could finish the sentence. " My dear fellow ! 
 never trouble your head about such a trifle ; I had 
 forgotten it, I assure you ; oblige me by doing the 
 same." 
 
 Yaldor shook his head, the colour in his face deep- 
 ening, as he tossed the Galignani w^ith the nervous 
 gesture of a man embarrassed and mortified : 
 
 " I can't forget so easily ; I would not if I could. 
 You are too generous, Strathmore; you lend to 
 men who have nothing. I never dreamt I should 
 be unable to pay you ; I made sure that by this time 
 — but Lascases refuses to renew my bill ; I cannot 
 get money anywhere just yet, and " 
 
 Strathmore stopped him with a gesture, and 
 stretched out his hand ; he liked young Yaldor, and
 
 THE KISMET. 131 
 
 his own wealth, as I have said, he hekl in superb dis- 
 dain, save in so far as it conduced to Power. He 
 gave freely and royally; evil there might be in his 
 nature, but not a touch of meanness ; at that time he 
 would have succoured his darkest foe from his purse ; 
 the virtues, as the errors of this man, were all na- 
 turally in extreme; petty thmgs were not alone 
 beneath him, but impossible to him. 
 
 " You would get into Lascases's debt to get out of 
 mine ? For shame ! Trust your friend rather than 
 that beggarly Jew, surely ! You will repay it when 
 you can, that I am certain of; meantime, give me 
 your honour you will never renew the subject unless 
 I do. It was a trifling affair, and you were most 
 welcome to it!" 
 
 As he spoke, the generous smile, which gave much 
 of sweetness to his face, came on it, softening what 
 was dark, relaxing what was cold ; and Valdor, as his 
 hand closed on Strathmore's, saw all that was best, all 
 that was most attractive, in a nature that was an 
 enigma in much even to itself. He spoke a few 
 hurried words of thanks ; he, a bel esprit of the salons 
 and the circles, was now at a loss for speech — now 
 that he felt ; and Strathmore stopped him once more. 
 
 " Not a syllable more about it ! If ever the time 
 come that I have to ask you to do anything, I know 
 you will do it for me — dest assez. Are you going to 
 Vernon^eaux this year, Valdor ? " 
 
 He spoke carelessly, laughingly, to cover whatever 
 k2
 
 132 STRATHMOEE. 
 
 embarrassment the other might feel in accepting his 
 generosity ; he Httle foresaw what the service would 
 be that he would call on his debtor to render him. 
 
 " You are ? Well ! there isn't a more charming 
 chatelaine than Blanche anywhere. She invites me, 
 but I shall go to Baden after the race week," went on 
 Strathmore, brushing a fly off the rose Cashmere 
 sleeve of his dressing-gown. " I shall meet Arrelio 
 there, and you get a man's meaning out of him in 
 chit-chat as you never do in a conference. If con- 
 gresses were held en petit comite, with a supper worthy 
 Careme, they might come to something, instead of 
 ending, as they always do now, in cobwebs and in 
 moonshine. Why do the English always get cheated 
 and fooled in a European congress, I wonder ? Not 
 because they cai'^t lie, it is the national trade. Because 
 they lie too much and too barefacedly, I think ; and 
 no gohemouche is ever tricked into even suspecting 
 them of — the truth ! A wise man never lies ; I don't 
 mean because he's moral, but because he's judicious : 
 ' On pent etre plus fin qu'un autre, mais pas plus fin 
 que tons les autres.' Somebody always finds out a 
 falsehood, and, once found out, your credit's gone ! 
 I say, Valdor, do you know my compatriote. Lady 
 Vavasour ? " 
 
 " Lady Vavasour ? Bon Dieu ! I think I do ! 
 What a cold-blooded question to ask anybody in 
 that indifferent way ! Who doesn't know her, 
 rather?" 
 
 " / don't. What sort of woman is she ?"
 
 THE KISMET. 133 
 
 " Peste, mon clier, you ask a folio. I couldn't tell 
 you. She is divine ! " 
 
 " Divine ? Well ! ^ a woman is a dish for the gods 
 if the devil dress her not/ Shakspeare says; but I 
 think the devil generally has the dressing, and serves 
 up sauce with it so very piquante that it's all but 
 poison ; it's a dish like mushrooms, dainty but dan- 
 gerous ; with the beau sexe as with the fungi, it's fifty 
 to ten one lights on a false one, and pays penalty for 
 one's appetite ! Is she a malicious woman, your di- 
 vinity?" 
 
 " Malicious ? No ! Malice is for pass^es women, 
 pinched, sallow, and hungrily jealous ; for dowagers 
 who nod their wigs over whist and their neighbours' 
 character; for vielles filles who vacillate between 
 sacraments and scandals ! Malice is a vinegar thing 
 that belongs to a ^ certain age !' — it has nothing to do 
 with her. She's a little tantalising, if you like ^" 
 
 " Distinction without a difference ! I thought she 
 was! And a coquette?" 
 
 "To the last extent!" 
 
 Strathmore laughed : 
 
 " To the last ! I dare say ! — when women once pass 
 the boundary line they generally clear the ramparts. 
 I suppose the Marquis gives the latitude he takes — 
 just, at any rate. We're not often so on those points ; 
 we take an ell, but we don't give an inch. That's the 
 beauty of vesting our honour in our wives ; it's so 
 much easier to forbid and dragonise another than our- 
 selves ! What a droll thing, by the way, it is, that
 
 134 STEATHMORE. 
 
 an Englishwoman piques herself on being THOUGHT 
 faithful to her husband, and a Frenchwoman on being 
 thought i6>2faithful ; their theory's different, but their 
 practice comes to much the same thing ! " 
 
 " They're like schismatics in the Churches, they 
 split in semblance and on a straw's point, but, sous les 
 cartes, agree to persecute and agree to dupe ! As for 
 Lord Yavasour, he's a detestable gourmand, invents 
 sauces, bores you horribly, and has but one virtue — 
 a great conjugal one ! — he never interferes with his 
 wife ! He's a semi-sovereign with a lot of parasites, 
 a mauvais sujet with a ton de garnison, and just 
 brains enough to be vicious without enough to be 
 entertaining." 
 
 " A very general case, my dear fellow ! Vice is 
 very common, and wit is very scarce; fifty men 
 make mischief to one that makes mots. We can 
 fill our cells with convicts, but not our clubs with 
 causeurs. I wonder governments don't tax good talk ; 
 it's quite a luxury, and they might add de luxe, since 
 so many go without it all their lives, in blessed igno- 
 rance of even what it is ! Where does your belle 
 Marquise go this year ? I suppose you know all her 
 movements ? She must be leaving now." 
 
 " Peste ! don't you know % I thought you were 
 asked to Vernon ^eaux ? " 
 
 " Well ! if I be, what has that " 
 
 "To do with it? She is going there too. She 
 leaves Paris to-day." 
 
 " There ?" The word had a dash of eagerness in
 
 THE KISMET. 135 
 
 it, different to tlie uninterested, careless tone with 
 which Strathmore had asked all his other questions. 
 
 "Yes. She and Madame de Ruelle are sworn 
 allies ; they are constantly together. Go there and 
 you'll see her. Do, Strathmore; parole d'honneur 
 she is worth the trouble. She is exquisite, and for 
 you, you icicle, she can't be dangerous." 
 
 " Dangerous ! " said Strathmore, with his most 
 contemptuous sneer. " Thank God, no woman was 
 ever yet dangerous to me; a man must be a fool 
 indeed who is snared by the ready-made wiles of a 
 coquette." 
 
 " Antony was no fool." 
 
 " No, but he was a madman, and that comes to the 
 same thing ; besides, Antony must have liad very 
 extraordinary tastes altogether, to be in love with a 
 woman forty years old, and as brown as a berry." 
 
 "Yes," said Yaldor, pathetically, "I do wish, for 
 his credit, Cleopatra had been half her years, and a 
 shade or two faker. Actium vrould have been very 
 poetic then." 
 
 " Poetic ? Pitiable, if you like, as it is now. I 
 say, Yaldor — to go to a better theme — those steel- 
 greys of Lee Yivian's w^ent for nothing at the sale 
 yesterday; they were splendid animals, and the 
 pigeon-blue Arab mare was knocked down for five 
 thousand francs ! The wines will be worth bidding 
 for, too ; he had some of the best comet-hock in 
 Paris. Poor fellow ! one drinks his wines at his 
 table one month, and discusses them in a catalogue
 
 136 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 the next. Ars longa, vita brevis ! — one's connoisseur- 
 ship survives one's friendship ; Orestes must die, and 
 lolaiis must dine ! Damon must go to the dogs, and 
 Pythias must season his dishes ! Because our brother^s 
 in the Cemetery, that's no reason why we should 
 neglect our Cayenne ! " 
 
 With which remark upon friendship, which was 
 with him as much serious as satirical (since Strath- 
 more was an egotist by principle and profession, 
 habit and nature, and had never had any death 
 touch him as he had never had any life wound round 
 him), he began to discuss the news of the day with 
 his guest, and it was not till Yaldor had left that he 
 took up the letter from Vernon9eaux again, and drew 
 a sheet of paper to him to answer it now, — ^by an 
 acceptance. 
 
 In the little Millefleurs-scented billet lay, unknown 
 to its writer as to him, the turning-point of his life. 
 God help us ! what avail are experience, prescience, pru- 
 dence, wisdom, in this w^orld, when at every chance step 
 the silliest trifle, the most common-place meeting, an 
 invitation to dinner, a turn dow^i the wrong street, the 
 dropping of a glove, the delay of a train, the intro- 
 duction to an unnoticed stranger, will fling down 
 every precaution, and build a fate for us of which 
 we never dream ? Of what avail for us to erect 
 our sand-castle when every chance blast of air may 
 blow it into nothing, and drift another into form that 
 we have no power to move? Life hinges upon 
 hazard, and at every turn wisdom is mocked by it,
 
 THE KISMET. 137 
 
 and energy swept aside by it, as the battled dykes 
 are worn away, and the granite walls beaten down, 
 by the fickle ocean waves, which, never two hours 
 together alike, never two instants without restless 
 motion, are yet as changeless as they are capricious, 
 as omnipotent as they are fickle, as cruel as they are 
 countless ! Men and mariners may build their bul- 
 warks, but hazard and the sea will overthrow and 
 wear away both alike at their will — their wild and 
 unreined will, which no foresight can foresee, no 
 strength can bridle. 
 
 Was it not the mere choice between the saddle and 
 the barouche that day when Ferdinand d' Orleans 
 flung down on second thoughts his riding-whip upon 
 the console at the Tuileries, and ordered his carriage 
 instead of his horse, that cost himself his life, his son 
 a throne, the Bourbon blood their royalty, and 
 France for long years her progress and her peace ? 
 Had he taken up the whip instead of laying it aside, 
 he might be living to-day with the sceptre in his 
 hand, and the Bee, crushed beneath his foot, power- 
 less to sting to the core of the Lily. Of all strange 
 things in human life, there is none stranger than the 
 dominance of Chance.
 
 138 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE WARNINa OF THE SCARLET CAMELLIAS. 
 
 Where the grey pointed towers of tlie Chateau of 
 Vernon9eaux rose above the woods among the vine- 
 shadows of Lorraine, the air seemed still perfumed 
 with the amber, still echoing with the madrigals of 
 Gentil-Bernard, still rustling with the sweep of robes 
 a la Pompadour, still filled with the mots of ahhts 
 galants, and the laughter of pretty pagans of a 
 century ago. For Yernon9eaux was near to Luneville 
 — the Luneville of Stanislas, of Voltaire, of la belle 
 Boufflers, the replica of Versailles, the pleasant exile 
 of forbidden wit, the Luneville of a myi^iad me- 
 mories ! 
 
 Vernon9eaux stood as secluded in its forest as the 
 castle of the Sleeping Beauty — so tranquil and so 
 shaded, that the gay sinners of Luneville might have 
 been chained there in enchanted slumber, like the
 
 THE WARNING. 139 
 
 Moorish court under the marble pavements of the 
 Alhambra ; but if, without, there was a sylvan soli- 
 tude, broken but by the song of the vintagers or the 
 creak of the oxen-drawn waggon, within, when the 
 Comtesse de Ruelle went there for the summer 
 months with a choice selection from her ultra-exclu- 
 sive Paris set, there were as much luxury, wit, and 
 refined revelry as ever the ^larquise de Boufflers, a 
 hundred years before, had presided over at the little 
 palace of Luneville. 
 
 No sound broke the silence, save the ring of his 
 horse's feet, as Strathmore drove the mail phaeton 
 that had been sent to meet him through the park to 
 Yernon^eaux, on his way to the visit for which he 
 had abandoned Baden. There was not a thing in 
 sight but the rich country beyond and the dense 
 forest-growth about him, until, as a break in the 
 wood brought into view the grey facade of the build- 
 ing, a riding party rode into the com't-yard by oppo- 
 site gates to those by which he would enter, looking 
 like some court cavalcade of Watteau, some hunting 
 group of Wouverman's, and breaking suddenly in 
 with life, and colouring, and motion on the solitude 
 of the landscape, as they were thrown out in strong 
 relief against the ivy-hung walls of the chateau. 
 " I'm in time for dinner," he thought, noticing how 
 well one of the women rode who was teazing her 
 horse with sharp strokes of her whip, and making 
 him rear and swerve, before she sprang from the 
 saddle : the distance was too far for him to make out
 
 140 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 who she was, and, as he dropped his eye-glass, he 
 wished for a lorgnon. 
 
 The saddle-horses were being led off by their 
 grooms, and the first dressing-bell had just rung 
 when he drove into the court-yard. At the moment 
 of his arrival all the world was dressing, and Strath- 
 more, as he went straight to his room, passing along 
 the Galerie des Dames, consecrated from time imme- 
 morial to the repose of the beau sexe, heard a hand- 
 some hrune coming out of one of the rooms say 
 to another lady's-maid, apparently her sub-lieute- 
 nant in office, " Va vite chercher les camellias roses, 
 dans les serres chaudes. Madame desire des fleurs 
 naturelles, c'est sa whim comme disent les Anglais. 
 Ah ma foi! — qu'elle a des caprices, Miladi Vava- 
 sour ! " 
 
 This name was the first he heard at Vernon9eaux ! 
 ^s he heard it, Strathmore, the last man in the world 
 who was ever troubled by regrets or haunted by fore- 
 bodings, who ever descended to the weakness of 
 vacillation, or paid himself so ill a compliment as to 
 imagine any step he took, however great, however 
 trivial, could by any possibility be ?iwwisely taken, 
 wished for the moment, on an impulse he could not 
 have explained, that he had gone to Baden instead, 
 and left the Mask unmasked, the White Domino un- 
 known. It was the first time a woman had ever 
 influenced him, and he resented the influence. His 
 prejudice against Lady Vavasour came back in full 
 force as he heard her maid order the fresh scarlet 
 
 I
 
 THE WAENING. 141 
 
 camellias I The flowers were harmless, surely, and 
 yet (perhaps it was association with La Dame aux 
 Camellias !) with them she reassumed a dangerous 
 aspect, as of a sorceress unscrupulous in her spells, a 
 coquette merciless in her wiles, a woman who lived 
 upon vanity and adored but herself, a creature like 
 the Japan lilac, lovely to look on, but to those who 
 lingered near, who touched or who played with her, 
 certain destruction. By what force of argument he 
 could not have told — trifles play the deuce with us, 
 oddly sometimes, but by some iiTepressible instinct, 
 all his old dislike and mistrust of Lady Vavasour 
 came back with that innocent and luckless hothouse 
 order. 
 
 " Who are here, Diaz — do you know ? " he asked 
 the Albanian, as he dressed after his bath and a cup 
 of coffee. 
 
 The inimitable modus operandi of that priceless 
 person had mastered the whole visiting-list of Yer- 
 non9eaux, though he had, on the whole, but about 
 three minutes to himself for the process. 
 
 "Marquis and Marchioness of Vavasour, please 
 your lordship," began Diaz. 
 
 " A stupid pigeon and a clever snarer ! " thought 
 Strathmore, as he held out his wrist to have his 
 sleeve-links fastened. 
 
 " Lady George Dashwood and her sister " 
 
 " Pretty precisians, naughty as Messalina, who go 
 to church, like Marguerite, to meditate on Faust ! " re- 
 flected Strathmore.
 
 142 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 ^* My Lord Viscount Blocquehedd and M. de 
 Croquis." 
 
 '' One a fool, who writes slangy, burlesqued travels, 
 that sell because huncbeds in coroneted carriages 
 drive up to his publisher's doors to get a copy in 
 public and enjoy a laugh in private ; and the other, a 
 magnificent fellow, who'd have been fit company for 
 Scipio at Liternum, but who can't send a sheet of 
 copy to press without a ^ caution ' and a chance of 
 Cayenne," thought Strathmore, perfuming his beard. 
 
 " Lady Fitzeden, my lord," pursued Diaz. 
 
 " Who gives ball-vouchers for other people's ' un- 
 impeachability,' but couldn't on oath give one for her 
 own ! " reflected his master. 
 
 " Monsignore Villaflor and M. I'Abbe de Ver- 
 dreuil." 
 
 "A brace of priests, who have intrigues and absolu- 
 tions in their hands, make penitents and shrive them, 
 hide the roue under the rochet, and Cupid in the 
 confessional. I know the race," thought Strath- 
 more. 
 
 "M. le Vicomte de Clermont, Lord Arthur Le- 
 gard. Colonel Dormer, and M. de la Eennecourt," 
 pursued Diaz, in profound ignorance of his master's 
 mental commentary. 
 
 " Very good fellows all of them ; dress better than 
 they talk, shoot with truer aim than they think, bore 
 one rather at everything but billiards, and bestow 
 more on their hair than on the brains underneath it, 
 coimne il faut but common-place," said Strathmore to
 
 THE WARNING. 143 
 
 himself, with the contempt of a clever man for men 
 who are only educated, of an ambitions man for men 
 who are only a la mode, of a man who but makes 
 society his stepping-stone for men who never see or 
 soar beyond it. 
 
 "Madame de Saint-Claire, H.S.H. Helene of 
 Mechlin, and Lord and Lady Beaudesert, are here 
 too, my lord," added the Albanian, closing the list. 
 " I think that is all — all I have heard of at present, at 
 least." 
 
 " A bas-bleu as mathematical and material as 
 Madame du Chatelet, a babyish blonde with a mush- 
 room royalty and a nursery lisp ; a dashing brunette 
 who smokes cigarettes and has led the Pytchley. 
 Well, there will be change, at any rate. Blanche 
 hasn't sorted her guests as she sorts her embroidery 
 silks, in shades that suit; however, good contrasts 
 are effective sometimes. There's nobody I don't 
 know, except the priests and the Vavasours. That's 
 a bore ; new acquaintances are much pleasanter than 
 f an^liar ones ; the varnish is fresh, and the gilding is 
 bright, and the polish is smooth, and you only just 
 touch the surface with friends an hour old. Nothing 
 wears so badly, and stands the microscope so ill as 
 Humanity. I suppose because we are all sham to 
 one another, and les liommes se haisent naturellement ; 
 so the electro comes off, and the hatred comes out, 
 when we've been some time together," thought 
 Strathmore, as he left his room to go to the drawing- 
 rooms. No one was vet down when he was ushered
 
 144 STRATHMOEE. 
 
 into the salons, and he threw himself on a clormense 
 with his back to a window opening on the terrace, 
 plajdng idly with the snowy curls of a little lion-dog, 
 who, recognising him, leapt on his knee, shaking its 
 silver bells in a joyous welcome. Strathmore did not 
 care about animals ; in truth, I don't think he cared 
 much about anything except — ^himself ! Not that he 
 was an egotist in any petty sense of the word; he 
 would have shrouded no man's light, profited at no 
 man's cost, taken no man's right, but he was self- 
 sustained and self-absorbed ; keen personal ambitions 
 were dominant in him, pure personal interests alone 
 occupied him, and the instincts and weaknesses — 
 kindlier if you like, but more general and less viril 
 of most men — ^had no part in him. He was kind to a 
 dog, for instance, because it was helpless, and he 
 would have disdained to be otherwise ; but to care for 
 a dog's fidelity, to regret a dog's death as he had 
 known Erroll do, were utterly incomprehensible 
 to him. 
 
 He sat there some few moments listlessly twisting 
 the ear of the Maltese, while the clock on the console 
 near gently ticked away the time, and pointed to a 
 quarter to nine ; he did not hear a step approach 
 towards the back of his chair from the terrace behind, 
 he did not turn and see a figure that stood just 
 within the window betwixt him and the faint evening 
 light. 
 
 " Bon jour. Lord Cecil ! Are you meditating on 
 the Gitana prophecy, or on the Domino Blanc —
 
 THE WARNING. 145 
 
 whicli ? Or is the Voltura affair absorbing you, pray, 
 to the utter exclusion of both ? " 
 
 That hght, mecliante voice that had mocked him 
 from the mask struck on his ear like the gay, sudden 
 chime of some silvery bell, and for once in his life 
 Strathmore started! As he rose and swung round, 
 the night under the Czeschen limes came back swiftly 
 and vividly to his memory; — ^how had that voice 
 failed to recal it before ? 
 
 With the scarlet coronal of flowers on her lovely 
 amber hair, and the light of a sunny laughter beam- 
 ing in her eyes ; framed between the gossamer lace 
 and broidered azure silk of the curtain draperies; a 
 form bright and brilliant and richly coloured as any 
 picture of Watteau's, thrown out against the purple 
 haze of the air, and the dark shadows of evening that 
 were veiling the landscape beyond ; there stood the 
 blonde aux yeux noirs of the Vigil of St. John, the 
 White Domino of the fete a la Regence — Marion 
 Marchioness of Vavasour! Strangely enough, he 
 had never even by a random thought connected the 
 two as one. Involuntarily, unwittingly, he stood a 
 moment dazzled and surprised, looking at the delicate 
 and glittering picture that was before him, painted in 
 all its dainty colouring on the sombre canvas of the 
 night; and she laughed softly to herself, — for one 
 brief instant she had startled him from his self- 
 possession. She guessed rightly, that no woman 
 before her had ever boasted so much. 
 
 Then Strathmore bent to her with the soft and 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 14G STEATHMOIIE. 
 
 stately coui'tesy for wliicli his race of steel had ever 
 been famed — the velvet glove that they habitually 
 wore over their gauntlets of mail. 
 
 "I merit a worse fate than the Gitana predicted 
 me, for my blindness in not recognising the veiled 
 pictm'e by its eyes, in not knowing no two voices 
 could have a music so rare ! May I ask to be forgiven, 
 though I can never forgive myself ? " 
 She smiled as she gave him her hand : 
 " You may. You rendered me too daring and too 
 generous a service, Lord Cecil, for me not to forgive 
 you weightier offences than that. I am your debtor 
 for a heavy debt — the debt of my life saved ! Believe 
 me, I am very grateful." 
 
 The words were few and simple ; a young girl out 
 of her convent could not have spoken more earnestly 
 and touchingly than the woman of the world ; where 
 more florid, profuse, eloquently-studied words would 
 have been set aside by him as the conventional utter- 
 ances of necessity, these charmed and won him, these 
 rang on his ear with the accent of truth. 
 
 " To secure so high a price as your gratitude most 
 men would have perilled much more than I did," he 
 answered her. "But I had not then the incentive 
 that would tempt the world to any madness at Lady 
 Vavasoui''s bidding. I had not seen what I rescued, 
 I did not know whom I served ! " 
 
 She looked up at him from under her black silken 
 lashes as she sank into the chair he wheeled to her, 
 and smiled.
 
 THE WARNING. 147 
 
 " You compliment cliarmiagly, Lord Cecil (you 
 remember^ I suppose, tliat I said I liked bon-bons), 
 but then, how much is true? You are a diplo- 
 matist; it is your habit to speak suavely and mean 
 nothing, it is the specicdite that will get you the Garter 
 and give you an Earldom." 
 
 " Lady Vavasour — ^by everything I have heard of 
 her — can sm'cly never mistrust her own power to 
 convert the most sceptical, and do with all men what 
 she would?" 
 
 Her attitude, as she sank do^^al into the chair, had 
 all the soft Odalisque-lilve grace with which he had 
 first seen her lying amongst her cushions on the 
 bench of the Bohemian boat ; and he confessed to 
 liimself that this matchless and dazzling beauty, at 
 once poetic and voluptuous, at once gifted w^ith the 
 loveliness of the serail, and the tournure of the salons, 
 might well play Avith men, and make their madness at 
 its will. 
 
 "Ah!" she laughed — her airy, silvery laugh! — 
 " but I do not profess to deal with people who desire 
 age and despise love ; they are not in my experience, 
 or my category. I shall be a long wdiile before I 
 credit any compliment from you, mon ami. Did I 
 not show you how well I knew your character at the 
 hal masque ? Was it not sketched, now, as accurately, 
 as any one of La Bruyere's ? " 
 
 "It was, though it was not drawn altogether en 
 beau. Is was so accm-ate that it flattered me even by 
 its unflattering points, since it showed that I must 
 l2
 
 148 STRATHMORE. 
 
 have been a subject of interest and of study to my 
 unerring clairvoyante." 
 
 A momentary blush tinged her cheek, making her 
 loveliness lovelier, and not escaping Strathmore, 
 though he knew how grandes dames can blush, as 
 they can weep at their will, when they need it to em- 
 bellish their beauty, too well to be much honoured by 
 it. She looked at him with the same glance that had 
 flashed through her mask. 
 
 " Not at all ! You are much too vain ! I only 
 wanted to puzzle you. If my shafts hit home, it was 
 chance, not effort. Hearsay and penetration made 
 my clairvoyance, as they make all. You were no 
 stranger to me by name. I have heard plenty of 
 you from others, though we had never happened to 
 meet till that night in Bohemia. Come ! tell me the 
 truth. Do you not think it a terrible escapade to 
 have travelled alone, at night, in that inconsequent 
 manner, with only my maid ? " 
 
 " I think it a ' caprice d^une belle dame,^ which 
 became her far better than the common-place and 
 the conventional, which have nothing in common 
 with her," smiled Strathmore. And for once he 
 paid a compliment that was sincerely meant ! " But 
 why did you so cruelly refuse me your name, and 
 condemn me to pursue ^ un ombre, un reve, un rien^ 
 in seeking to see again the phantom which had 
 flashed on me, when, had I but known luliom I 
 sought, all Europe Avould have guided me to its 
 idol?"
 
 THE WARNING. 149 
 
 '^ Very gracefully asked, indeed ! " said Lady Va- 
 vasour, with a sign of her fan, made eloquent in her 
 hand, as in the hand of a Gaditana of Cadiz. " But, 
 first of all, you never pursued the phantom at all, 
 mon ami. You don't do those things ! I wasn't a 
 state secret, and I didn't carry despatches : seguitur, 
 you were courteous to me while we were together 
 because you were well bred, and I was a woman; 
 but you never thought twice about me after we 
 parted, except just that night, when I left you behind 
 to smoke and sleep mider the pines, when, perhaps, 
 you said to yourself, 'Blonde with dark eyes — un- 
 usual ! Travelling alone, too — very odd ! ' and then 
 dismissed me to think of Prince Michel ! Secondly, 
 I refused you my name, because it was my whim to 
 travel incognita; and down the river I dispensed 
 with even my courier. I am as capricious as the 
 winds, you know, and, like the winds, never change 
 my caprices for any one's will ! " 
 
 Before he could answer her the door of the 
 salon was thrown open, and several people entered — 
 his hostess among others, with that com'tly, velvet- 
 shod churchman, Monsignore Villaflor. Strathmore 
 had to rise, and his place was taken by the priest, 
 who was a courtier, a connoisseur, and a coureur des 
 ruelles. The rooms filled; dinner was announced 
 and served as the little chimes of the clock rang nine, 
 and to Strathmore's lot fell Lady George Dashwood, 
 whose soft platitudes had never seemed more weari- 
 some to him than to-night, when they discoursed of
 
 150 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 chamber-music, old china, Maltese dogs, new fashions, 
 Elzevir editions, and altar-screens, in the same un- 
 varying and perfectly-bred monotone, which had 
 much the same effect as if a humble-bee had been 
 perpetually humming in the flowers of the epergne 
 before him. At some distance from him — too gi^eat 
 for any conversation mth her — sat Lady Yavasour ; 
 and while keeping up his recitative with Lady George, 
 Strathmore could not choose but look at her, could 
 not choose but think of her — this woman who had 
 been first so strangely thrown in his way, against 
 whom he still felt an unconquerably stubborn preju- 
 dice, yet who exercised over him, when he was with 
 her, a necromancy of air, of glance, of tone, that 
 surprised him, incensed him, and yet beguiled him. 
 Had he foreseen his future, he would have flung 
 aside every thought of this bright, brilliant beauty, 
 as he had flung aside her broidered handkerchief 
 into the bosom of the Czeschen peasant girl in 
 Prague-; but — could we foresee one step before 
 another, would the lives of any one of us be blasted, 
 blundered, full of bitterness, and of evil, as they 
 are? Is not the misery of every life due to the 
 band that is bound fast on our eyes, which the 
 wisest can do little to lift, which makes us feel our 
 way blindly, uncertainly, erringly, stumbling at every 
 step ; which is never lifted, save when our faces are 
 turned backwards, and we are bidden to look behind 
 us at the land that we have quitted, which is sown
 
 THE WAENING. ' 151 
 
 thick with graves ; and at the gates that are closed 
 upon usj on which is written " Too Late " ? 
 
 Amidst the hum of conversation, the bouquet of 
 the wines, the fragrance of the exotics, the number- 
 less murmurs of " Sauterne, monsieur ? " — " Chateau 
 Yquemf'—" Supreme de Yolaille ? "— " Macedoine 
 d' Abricots ? "— " Beignets d' Annanas ? " Strathmore 
 throughout dinner let his thoughts be usurped by the 
 dazzling face, with its amber hair drawn slightly 
 back from the delicate temples, in masses and ripples 
 of yellow gold, which was but tantalisingly visible to 
 him through the clusters of gorgeous flowers, and 
 behind the form of an alabaster Anadne that inter- 
 vened between her and himself. Is there any sepa- 
 ration more exasperating than the length of a dinner- 
 table? I don't believe the Hellespont was half so 
 provoking ! Leander could cross that if Hero didn't 
 mind receiving him au naturelle; but what man, 
 pray, can move from his place at a dinner-party? 
 He must say with Claude Frollo, " Anaktlie I " sub- 
 mit, and sit where he's put ! 
 
 Strathmore found the dinner an interminable bore, 
 and felt his prejudice giving way; his judgment in 
 no way swerved from his settled conviction that 
 Lady Vavasour was vain, spoiled, dangerous, and a 
 consummate coquette, bent upon conquest, and not 
 over-careful of her character — a glance told him that ; 
 but the rich, glad, luxuriant music that he had heard 
 from her lips under the lindens by the river-side, now
 
 152 STRATHMORE. 
 
 sweet as a bird's carol, now sad as a miserere, seemed 
 to ring in his ear again, and he caught himself think- 
 ing a poetic sentimentalism worthy of the Sabrenr — 
 that she must have some of that music in her soul! 
 Against the White Domino, the malicious Mask, he 
 would have been prepared and steeled; the bright 
 Odalisque of the Moldau, the songstress of the Spring 
 night, took him unawares, and disarmed him. 
 
 As the women rose at length and swept out of 
 the great banqueting-hall, where Guises had feasted 
 Valois, she had to pass his chair, the lace of her dress 
 brushing his shoulder, the subtle fragrance of her 
 hair wafted to him like the odour of some hothouse 
 flower. As she did so, a bracelet of cameo dropped 
 from her arm (ideally di'opped, she was too highly 
 finished a coquette to need any such vulgar and 
 common-place ruses) ; and as Strathmore bent for it 
 and fastened it again on her arm, he noticed how 
 snow-white and polished the skin was, like the skin of 
 the unguent-loving and delicate Greeks, and con- 
 fessed to himself that the smile on those sweet, 
 laughing lips was the loveliest a woman ever had at 
 command. 
 
 "Merci! We leave you, a I' Anglais, to olives 
 and repose, politics and cigarettes, solitude and 
 slander. How you will pick our beauty to pieces 
 and legislate for the nations 1 Adieu ! " she whispered, 
 as she passed onward. 
 
 " By George ! they did not overrate her ; and 
 that fool is her husband ! Faugh ! it is Caliban
 
 THE WAKNING. 153 
 
 wedded to Miranda!" thouglit Stratlimore, as he 
 poured some Johannisberg into his glass, looking 
 across at the Marquis of Yavasoui'. The epithet and 
 the comparison were both somewhat overstrained, 
 it must be admitted ; but there are very few men, I 
 think, who, admiring a beautiful woman, are not 
 disposed to think her lord and master a contemptible 
 fellow, and feel very much towards him as you may 
 have felt on a still grey day in September, lounging 
 along by the sunken fence of some splendid preserves 
 of which you have not the entree^ looking at the 
 cover and hearing the whirr of the bu'ds, towards the 
 owner, whoever he be, for whom the game's set apart. 
 And when M. le Mari is a muff, or the owner no 
 shot, your sense of injury is very naturally redoubled 
 in both cases, and your animus increased. Envy is 
 a quick match, easily lighted, and needs no spirit 
 added to the wick to make it strike fire and flare into 
 flame. 
 
 The Marquis was not a Caliban, and not a fool, 
 though Strathmore, from the eminence of an acute, 
 subtle, and brilliant intellect, chose to call him so. He 
 was a short, plain, grey-haired little man, with small 
 dark eyes, that leered and twinkled viciously ; a very 
 sensual mouth, a good deal of Wickedness in the upper 
 part of his face, and a good deal of weakness in the 
 lower ; a man specially to enjoy taking the world in 
 neatly and slyly, yet a man not diflicult to govern by 
 any one who knew his weak points. He had not 
 very many brains, and those he had had been spent
 
 154 STEATI-IMOEE. 
 
 chiefly in tlie study of Brillat-Savarin, and the eluci- 
 dation in theory of new plats and sauces. He had 
 taken no share whatever in public life, had lived 
 chiefly abroad, was principally noted for his dinners, 
 was considered rather an insignificant person by those 
 who stripped him of his strawberry-leaves ; but being 
 a very great Personage to the world in general, had 
 the kow-tow performed to him to any amount, threw 
 his ermine over his emptiness, covered all cancans 
 with his coronet, and hushed all whispers with his 
 wealth. He was the Marquis of Yavasour — had 
 livings for which the ecclesiastical saints scrambled 
 and truckled, granting him easy absolution for such 
 superior adowsons, and presenting him with a brevet 
 to heaven, as only a decent retm^n for his rich pre- 
 sentations ; he had a considerable amount of family 
 patronage, the eighth cardinal virtue, for which a 
 man will get loved more than for all the other seven 
 put together ; he had a title of the highest rank and 
 longest date ; therefore, though chiefly remarkable 
 for gourmandise and a certain monkeyish malice, this 
 inert, obstinate, sly, and rather demoralised gourmet 
 gave the law, had the pas, and was held in high 
 honour and distinction by all, save, indeed, by Strath- 
 more, who thought again, as he looked at his lordship 
 " Faugh ! it is Caliban wedded to Miranda ! " It was 
 the first time that Strathmore had ever thought a 
 woman thrown away upon a man in marriage — ordi- 
 narily his opinion was precisely the reverse ! But the 
 Marquis icas a provocative owner of anything half so
 
 TPIE WARNING. 155 
 
 lovely as Marion Lady Yavasonr, though it must be 
 confessed he was an easy one ; the liberty he took he 
 gave, he never crossed her caprices, and there were 
 invariably between them that polite hon accord^ that 
 cool don't-carish, very-happy-to-see-you never-inter- 
 fere-with-you sort of friendship which is the popular 
 hue of " marriage in liigh life," and is decidedly the 
 best and least troublesome it can wear. If you have 
 to look long on one colour, let it be a well-wearing, 
 never-dazzling nuance ; if you have to run in leash, 
 don't pull at the collar, it won't keep your companion 
 from going her pace, and will only gall your own 
 throat for nothing. That discreet, tranquil " friend- 
 ship" of the Vavasours is an admirable thing; it's 
 like a well-bred monotone, or a well-bred man that 
 smooths over all things and never makes a row. 
 Galba, who shuts his eyes and shakes hands with 
 Maecenas, is the wise fellow. Menelaus, who raves, 
 can't rouse his friends in our day; he'll only get a 
 sneering chuckle from them all, from Nestor in at 
 Boodle's, to Amphimachus in at Pratt's, run the risk of 
 a Times leader, which is our modem substitute for 
 the pillory, and in lieu of Troy will only obtain — a 
 " Decree Nisi, \Ai\\ costs ! "
 
 156 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LA BELLE V. LA BELLE. 
 
 When they entered the drawing-room, half an hour 
 after, the first thing that met Strathmore's eyes was 
 the woman who, more or less, had haunted his memory 
 and excited his curiosity since the May night under 
 the hndens, in the solitudes of Bohemia. Lady Vava- 
 sour was lying back in a dormeuse, glancing through 
 George Sand's last novel; the full light from a 
 chandelier above fell upon her, making the snowy 
 camei dazzling, and the scarlet flowers glow; she 
 looked like some rare and exquisite Sevres figure as 
 she sat there, with her cheek resting on her hand, and 
 the lashes drooped over her eyes, the form perfect as 
 a statuette of Coysvox, the colouring rich and delicate 
 as an enamel of Fragonard. And yet — those cursed 
 camellias! Was it the strange grouping of those 
 scarlet flowers circling the dead gold of her hair that 
 gave to her something startling with all her seductive-
 
 LA BELLE V. LA BELLE. 157 
 
 ness, bizarre -with all her beauty, dangerous with all 
 her delicacy ; something that made him involuntarily 
 think of Lucretia Borgia, Catherina Medici, Clytem- 
 nestra, Fredegonde, Olympia Mancini, Gunilda, in a 
 pele-mele chaos of every divine demoniac, every fatal 
 facinatress that the world had seen since the world 
 began ; something which struck him with nothing less 
 than aversion for the first moment that the glowing 
 coronal on the amber hair met his eyes again ; but 
 which then forced him against himself into a dizzy, 
 blind, breathless, admiration, such as no woman had 
 ever wrung from him. 
 
 " That ever such beauty as this should belong to a 
 creature good for nothing but to criticise sauces, smell 
 the bouquets of wines, and gluttonise over green 
 fat!" thought Strathmore, who held all gourmands 
 in contemptuous disdain, and this one especial gour- 
 mand in particular, as he drew near her, and sank 
 down in a low chair by her couch, regardless that 
 Lady George looked chagrined, and that Lady Beau- 
 desert had signalled him with her fan. The bright 
 beauties of his set rather resented his sudden and im- 
 mediate desertion to another standard. 
 
 " Lady Vavasour, may I not trust to hear to-night 
 the voice whose music drove the nightingales to de- 
 spair under the limes ? " said Strathmore, to the 
 chagrin of Monsignore Villafldr and a host of baser 
 rivals. 
 
 She glanced at him under her silky lashes, and that 
 under-glance was the most dangerous in the world.
 
 158 STRATHMORE. 
 
 " No ! I sing to nightingales, but not to order, 
 like a prima donna. The birds can appreciate me, the 
 bores can't!" And her ladyship included, in a dis- 
 dainful sign of her fan, the men whom Strathmore 
 in his pride had classified as " comme il faut, but 
 common-place" — a classification, by-the-by, which 
 would fit, I fear, most of the members of "good 
 society." 
 
 " But you sang to me, and you will sing to me 
 again ! " said Strathmore, with the calm, appropria^ 
 tive, Brummellian nonchalance of tone that women 
 always like. Women love an autocratic ruler ; even 
 your imperious coquettes, believe me, feel the charm, 
 though they won't, I dare say, often OAvn to it ! 
 
 " Do not be so sure of that ! I am not Mali- 
 bran, whom you can hear any night for five guineas, 
 and I did not sing to you under the limes ; you are 
 infinitely too vain ! I sang pour m^amuser, and to 
 scandalise those English women who grumbled at the 
 cucumber-soup, and thought me ^evidently not a 
 proper person ! ' The English are born-travellers. 
 I wonder why they think it necessary to make one 
 of the specialites du voyage, a compound of ice and 
 acid for every stranger they meet % " 
 
 "Because suspicion and reserve are to us what 
 their shells are to cocoa-nuts ; they make a little 
 kernel look big, and if there's emptiness inside, con- 
 ceal it," laughed Strathmore. "But you are very 
 cruel to charge me with vanity. If I be vain, have 
 I not food for it in knowing that I am such a subject
 
 LA BELLE V. LA BELLE. 159 
 
 of interest to one whose tap from her fan is one of 
 the cordons dlionneur of Europe, that she honoured 
 me with studying my character, learning my prefer- 
 ences, and even making researches among my family 
 legends'? Lady Vavasour must not send me to 
 Coventry when I remember the Domino Blanc ! " 
 Her eyes laughed with malicious amusement. 
 " The Domino Blanc seems to have made a great 
 impression on you, Lord Cecil ! but only because she 
 knew of the Yoltui-a affair^ and you are curious to 
 know how she knew it. No woman ever makes you 
 vain. What you are vain of are things like yom' 
 conduct of the Murat entanglement, when your 
 chiefs a propos brain attack so obligingly left you 
 alone to steer through the troubled waters. Now, 
 confess me the truth, were you not glad when Lord 
 Templetown had congestion just at that juncture ? " 
 
 " I believe I was ! If a military man's friend dies 
 who had the step above him, his first thought is 
 ' Promotion ! — deucedly lucky for me ! ' His next, 
 ' Poor-fellow ! — what a pity ! ' always comes two 
 seconds after. I understand Voltaire. If your com- 
 panion's existence at table makes you have a dish 
 dressed as you don't like it, you are naturally relieved 
 if an apoplectic fit empties his chair, and sets you free 
 to say, ' Point de sauce blanche ! ' All men are 
 egotists ; they only persuade themselves they are 
 not selfish by swearing so so often, that at last they 
 believe what they say. No motive under the sun 
 will stand the microscope: human nature, like a
 
 160 STEATHMOKE. 
 
 faded beauty, must only have a demi-lumi^re ; draw 
 the blinds up, and the blotches come out, the wrinkles 
 show, and the paint peels off. The beauty scolds the 
 servants — men hiss the satirists — who dare to let in 
 daylight ! " 
 
 She listened, and laughed her low, silver laugh. 
 This was not the conversation with which her courtiers 
 usually entertained her, but, if only as a novelty, she 
 rather liked it. 
 
 " Quite true ! It is only here and there a beauty 
 like myself who can brave the noontide, and a man 
 who, like yourself, can stand the satire, who dare to 
 admit it as true. I don't want rouge yet, and you 
 don't want ruses yet ; but I dare say we shall both 
 come to them, and then we shan't like the blinds up 
 better than any one else." 
 
 " Lady Vavasour needing rouge ! — it is an impos- 
 sible stretch of imagination. One cannot realise the 
 doom of mortality thoroughly enough to picture that 
 cheek of child-like bloom ever condescending to the 
 aid of the dressing-box ! " smiled Strathmore, his eyes 
 dwelling on the bloom in question, that was softly 
 faint, yet warmly bright, as the flush on a sea-shell. 
 
 " But a diplomatist needing ruses is not so difficult ! 
 You must condescend to the blaiic de perle of the 
 bureau — White Lies — or you will forsake your metier, 
 or your metier you. If I can defy enamel, you won't 
 be able to defy expediency, mon ami ! " 
 
 Strathmore laughed : 
 
 " Enamelling is as much in favour in the cabinets
 
 LA BELLE V. LA BELLE. 161 
 
 as in the cabinets de toilettes, I admit, and is very 
 useful in both. Nations suffer for the cost in the 
 one, and husbands for the cost in the other! But, 
 for myself, I don't think I shall ever use the hlanc de 
 perle you predict. I am of Talleyrand's way of 
 thinking, that the able man disdains so clumsy a tool 
 as falsehood. It is the weapon of the bungler, not of 
 the master. Take refuge in falsehood, and you have 
 dealt a trump into your enemy's hand that he can 
 play against you whenever he likes. The most adroit 
 falsehood is but thin ice that may break any day. 
 The true art is to know how to hold truth, and — ^how 
 to withhold it ; but never to deal with anything else." 
 
 " Then you can never humour men, and never 
 flatter them ! How can power be obtained without ?" 
 
 " By using them and ruling them. Men are the 
 wise man's tools, to be commanded, not his mutinous 
 crew to be bribed and pampered ! " 
 
 She looked at him as he spoke, and saw on his face 
 the look of pitiless power, of imperious passion, of 
 merciless will, that the Gitana had seen as she studied 
 it under the Bohemian stars — that all saw who looked 
 at the portraits of the Norman Strathmores, when 
 the western sun shone on them through the stained 
 windows at Wliite Ladies — and, while she was fasci- 
 nated by it, thought to herself how she would soften 
 it, subdue it, break it down beneath her hands, chain 
 it there beneath her feet. Women delight to ponder 
 how " the dove will peck the estridge ; " and the 
 keener and fiercer the hawk which is their quarry, 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 STKATHMOKE. 
 
 the more tliey glory in blinding liim "vvitli the dazzle 
 of their silvery wings, and in disabling him with the 
 music of their soft wood-notes ! Shakspeare knew 
 that women justified his metaphor, though falconer's 
 lore might not ! 
 
 " You are very secure of your future," she laughed, 
 while the brilliant light above her head shone down 
 on the waves of her amber hair, and the scarlet 
 coronal that wound round them, in so startling and 
 strong a contrast of colour — a contrast that no beauty 
 less perfect, less delicate, less exquisitely tinted, could 
 ever have borne. " Doesn't the Bohemian's prophecy 
 make you tremble ? How horrible it was ! " 
 
 Strathmo;'e laughed too, looking into the lustrous 
 eyes flashing on him sweetly and softly as an 
 Oriental's : 
 
 " Yes ! she gave me plenty of melodrame for my 
 money, but I don't see very well how it can come to 
 pass. I'm not a hero of romance, with a mysterious 
 parentage or a hidden murder ; I shan't make a 
 double marriage, discover a family secret, or take any- 
 body's life in hot or cold blood ! All my actions are 
 patent to the world ; I fear I shall never do anything 
 to merit Redempta's romantic prediction ! But that 
 reminds me, when you talked to me that night, you 
 talked only in French, Lady Vavasom^ ? I thought 
 you were a Parisienne 1 " 
 
 " Of course you did. I would not give you a clue 
 even to my country." 
 
 "Which was very cruel, madame! But though
 
 LA BELLE Y. LA BELLE. 163 
 
 you gave me no clue, you gave me a promise, and I 
 must claim its fulfilment." 
 
 " I gave you one ? Indeed ! I have forgotten it, 
 then. A year ago is an eternity to be called on to re- 
 member. Don't you like those Maltese dogs ? I 
 think they are such pretty snowy things." 
 
 " But / remember it," said Strathmore (indisposed 
 to turn the conversation from himself to the lion- 
 pups), with a smile that piqued his companion because 
 she could not translate it. " It was, that when we 
 met again you would thank me for my chivalry, as 
 you honoured me by terming it, and would pay your 
 debt — comme je voudrais! I am tempted to be an 
 inexorable creditor !" 
 
 The lovely mouth made a moue boudeuse, but she 
 gave him the look that she had given him under the 
 lime in Bohemia — soft with all its coquetry, tender 
 with all its dazzling brilliance. 
 
 " I dare say ! Well ! what would content you 1 " 
 she laughed, softly stirring her fan, while its motion 
 floated the subtle fragrance of her hair to him when 
 he leant towards her. 
 
 It was a dangerous question for such lips to put to 
 any man ! He could scarce have but one answer rise 
 to his tongue within sight and touch of that tempting 
 loveliness — an answer that could not be uttered in the 
 salons of Vemon^eaux, to the wife of a Peer, to Marion 
 Lady Vavasour ! Strathmore bent down towards her 
 till his voice could reach her ear alone, his eyes darken- 
 ing with that swift, instantaneous light which showed 
 M 2
 
 164 STEATHMORE. 
 
 —to any woman — that the passions he disdained. did 
 but sleep, and might yet wake, Hke "giants refreshed 
 from their slumber." 
 
 " Some day, perhaps, I may dare to tell you— not 
 here, not yet ! " 
 
 The words escaped him before he knew it. As the 
 perfume of her hair reached him, as he met the glance 
 of her eyes, as he looked on her delicate dazzling face 
 where the light from the chandelier shone upon it, this 
 woman's beauty captivated him against his will, and 
 made the blood course quicker through his veins, as 
 though he had drunk in the rich bouquet and the 
 subtle strength of some rare ruby wine, warm from 
 the purple clusters of the South. The faint rose- 
 blush, that was the most dangerous of all Lady 
 Vavasour's charms, since it was the one which flattered 
 most, and most surely counterfeited nature, came on 
 her cheek, and her eyes met his with a languid sweet- 
 ness. It was the first whisper of the syren's sea-song, 
 that was to lead by music unto wreck and death ; it 
 was the first beckoning of the white arms of Circe, 
 that were to wreathe, and twine, and cling, till they 
 should draw down their prey beneath the salt waves 
 flowing over the fathomless abyss whence there is no 
 return. 
 
 Then with one of her rapid, coquettish mutations, 
 one of those tantalising houtades that were her most 
 cruel and certain witcheries, she signed him away with 
 a blow from her fan, and laughed lightly : 
 
 " Lord Cecil, I have talked to you alone for full ten 
 
 i
 
 LA BELLE V. LA BELLE. 165 
 
 minutes. I never give any one a longer monopoly. 
 Surrender your place to, Monsignore Yillaflorj and let 
 the world in to our conversation." 
 
 Stratlimore leant back, and nestled himself more 
 closely in among his cushions with calm nonchalance : 
 
 " Pardon^ madame ! Monsignore can seat himself, 
 and a signal of your pretty toy will summon the 
 world without my moving. I am very comfortable 
 just now ! " 
 
 She glanced at him with a sparkle of malicious 
 amusement. 
 
 " You are piqued, mon ami, already /" she thought, 
 with gratified triumph, as she arched her delicate eye- 
 brows with provoking indifference, and signed Yilla- 
 flor towards her. Dormer, Legard, and Reiniecourt 
 gathered about her dormeuse the instant the signal 
 permitted them ; and for any evidence she gave of 
 remembering his presence, or even his existence, 
 Stratlimore might have utterly faded from her me- 
 mory as she dispensed the mischievous mots, the mo- 
 queur smile, the silent dangerous glances that were 
 the war-weapons of the arch coquette whom Lord 
 Vavasour had taken to himself. 
 
 She knew that no possible mode of action could 
 have better impressed her on Strathmore's thoughts, 
 the very annoyance it awoke in him with himself, re- 
 tained her in his mind; the momentary tenderness 
 that had gleamed in her eyes, succeeded by the tanta- 
 lising indifference of her dismissal, he knew them well 
 enough, they were the tactics of a coquette, and he
 
 166 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 hated coquettes, " women who live on the censing of 
 fools, and spend their time in fooling wise men ! " he 
 thought, contemptuously, while, without moving so as 
 to give up his place to Yillaflor, or any one else, he 
 began to play ecarte with the Vicomte de Clermont, 
 at a table that stood at his elbow. Strathmore was 
 specially fond of that little witching French game ; 
 he was one of the best players in Europe ; he liked its 
 tranquil, subtle finesses that were to be enjoyed with- 
 out stirring from his dormeuse ; he liked its keen ex- 
 citement bought for a few Naps a side, and he was 
 tenacious of his reputation in it. Clermont was 
 almost the only member of the Paris Jockey Club 
 who claimed to equal him, and their ecarte was 
 always a sharp contest of skill. Another time he 
 would have gone farther out of reach of the babble of 
 conversation round Lady Vavasour's sofa; now, 
 Strathmore did not choose to let her think she could 
 be any disturbing element at all. It was a dangerous 
 neighbourhood for ecarte, or any game that hung on 
 skill, thought, and finesse, where every word of the 
 silvery mocking voice was to be heard, where every 
 echo of the airy laughter rang on his ear, where the 
 fluttering motion of the fan, the gleam of her amber 
 tresses, the glitter of the camei on an arm as white as 
 they, caught his eye every moment. But Strath- 
 more invariably risked danger in little things as in 
 great ; he never avoided it, he always disdainfully 
 and self-reliantly lingered in it ; it was his strength or 
 his weakness, whichever you like.
 
 LA BELLE V. LA BELLE. 167 
 
 He played eight games as scientifically as though 
 he had been in a card-room, with not another face to 
 distract him from that of the king's he marked ; and 
 Lady Vavasom', glancing at him, began to doubt her 
 own power. Strathmore leant back, his eyes fixed on 
 the cards he held, his interest centred in the game he 
 played, and she might have been fifty leagues away 
 for any sign she could discover that she disturbed 
 him ; the Voltura affair she might endure as a rival, 
 states and princes were involved in that, but to be 
 rivalled by ecarte, by painted pieces of pasteboard 
 and a few Naps a side ! — never ! She felt her cha- 
 racter at stake — her vanity loas. (There are plenty 
 of people in this world, my good sirs, besides coquettes, 
 who take the one thing for the other, and when they 
 cry out their reputation's attacked, are in truth only 
 snarling from their wounded conceit !) The eight 
 games had been evenly won and lost, they were four 
 all, and they began la belle; the Strathmores of 
 White Ladies had never borne patiently to lose in 
 anything, they were a race that dearly loved domi- 
 nance, and took it, coute que coute, like imperious, un- 
 yielding Normans as they were ; he did not choose 
 that Clermont should beat him ; this evening, in espe- 
 cial, defeat would have annoyed him unspeakably. 
 
 The luck of the cards had always been with the 
 Vicomte, but Strathmore' s play had more than ba- 
 lanced that ; it was evident to all those who gathered 
 near the ecarte table that the game was in his hands. 
 His hostess from a distance watched him over the top
 
 168 ' STRATHMOEE. 
 
 of her fan, while discoursing of turquoise celadon 
 with H.S.H. of Mechlin ; her name had some years 
 before been entangled with his own in that gossip 
 which is rife in those hotbeds of scandal, club-rooms 
 and salons ; the gossip had long given place to newer 
 slander, yet the woman of the world could not wholly 
 lose the tenderness that still clung about her heart for 
 one whom she knew had never loved her — could not 
 wholly keep down a sigh that rose to the lips, against 
 which the gold-powdered down of her fan was pressed. 
 The Marquis, lying half asleep, pondering on a new 
 flavour for a salmi of woodcocks that he should have 
 tried by his chef the first day of the season, looked 
 through his shut lids at him wath snarling envy. The 
 Marquis always thought '^ plus beau que moi — cest un 
 tort quHl me fait l^"* and the Norman physique of 
 Strathmore specially attracted his attention. " That 
 man's like a Velasquez picture, but he'll do something 
 very bad some day," muttered Lord Vavasour, com- 
 forting: himself with the detrimental rider with which 
 we alw^ays qualify an admiration extorted from our 
 envy. Most people in the room w^atched him as la belle 
 began, catching the contagion of a skilfully-contested 
 game, and the excitement of a chance so evenly poised 
 that a single card would turn the scale. 
 
 Strathmore himself was entirely absorbed in it, 
 entirely intent on it, keenly, eagerly, resolutely bent 
 on winning. He would have lost fifty times the 
 amount staked on it rather than have lost that 
 game at ecarte ! He played indifferent cards with
 
 LA BELLE V. LA BELLE. 169 
 
 such superb skill, such matchless finesse, that la 
 belle was all but won, when, — from where she 
 sat near, on her dormeuse. Lady Vavasour leant 
 towards him to look over his hand, to watch his 
 triumph, the fragrance of her hair crossing him like 
 the perfume of some exotic, her lovely lips, whose 
 charm even he had admitted, so near his own that 
 their breath fanned his cheek. He looked up and 
 met her eyes ; the dazzling beauty of this woman ran 
 through his veins like subtle fire, and threw him off 
 his guard, as though the air had been suddenly filled 
 with the dreamy intoxicating odour of narcotic fumes, 
 that bewilder the reason and charm while they weaken 
 the senses. He played inadvertently — the wrong 
 card. The false step was not to be retrieved (what 
 false step is ?) ; it gave the game into Clermont's 
 hands, and for the first time for years Strathmore lost 
 at ecarte. 
 
 ^? For the instant, trifle though it was, he hated the 
 woman who had unnerved him and fooled him, as 
 passionately, as bitterly, as though the wrong card 
 had been some stain on his honour, the lost game 
 some indelible shame on his name ! The bad play he 
 had been betrayed into incensed him enough, but 
 that she should have had this power over him incensed 
 him far more. 
 
 " I compliment you on your skill, Clermont. You 
 played admirably. You have beaten one I They 
 won't believe it at the Jockey Club !" he said, laugh- 
 ing, as he leant back again among his cushions. His
 
 170 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 annoyance only sliowed itself in liis eyes, that dark- 
 ened with the swift anger of his pitiless race, though 
 the rest of his face never chano;ed. 
 
 " When I came to look on at your victory, it was 
 very uncomplimentary to entertain me with a defeat. 
 I thought you were the best ecarte player in Europe," 
 said Lady Vavasour, maliciously, with a slight shrug 
 of her snowy shoulders, and as much tranquil uncon- 
 cern as though she were innocent and ignorant of 
 having done all the mischief. 
 
 " Lady Vavasour, from Paradise downwards femi- 
 nine interference was never productive but of a losing 
 game for man!" said Strathmore, in the tranquil 
 trainante tones in which he always spoke his rudest 
 things. 
 
 She laughed softly ; it amused her ; he had lost 
 his game and she had won hers. 
 
 '' L\me helle te perdait Tautre^ tres clier^^ said Ren- 
 necourt to Strathmore, as they went to the smoking- 
 room that night, when the women had deserted the 
 drawing-rooms and gone to their chambers and their 
 novels and their charming negligees in the Galerie 
 des Dames. 
 
 Strathmore suppressed an impatient oath to himself ; 
 the libel, like most libels, was unpalatable because it 
 was true. He hated the woman whose mere touch 
 had so fooled him, and whose SAvay and whose spells, 
 as he had seen her that night, he had been forced to 
 confess the wildest rumours had not overdrawn. But 
 for all that, though he owed her his defeat at ecarte.
 
 LA BELLE V. LA BELLE. 171 
 
 and loatliecl her sudden and subtle power over liim, 
 as He lay on the couch of the smoking-room that 
 night, while Baden favourites, new caprices of reign- 
 ing lionnes, the hushed-up affair of the marked cards 
 at Flora Dohla's, in which well-known names were 
 involved, the dernier dehauclie of a Russian Prince, 
 who was startling even Paris, were chatted over with 
 the freedom that's only attained when the papooshes 
 are on and the ladies are off, and is enjoyed like 
 the ease of the dressing-gown after the restraint of 
 the grande tenue, Strathmore felt a keener detesta- 
 tion still for his lordship of Vavasour and Vaux, as 
 he glanced at the Marquis (who, wrapped in his 
 luxurious Cashmere robes, looked something like an 
 over-fed monkey, grizzled with age and pampered 
 with eating, as his eyes leered and twinkled at a 
 grivois tale), and thought as he glanced, ^'' Faugh! 
 
 that Caliban to !" 
 
 It was an envy and an impatience that many before 
 him had smarted under, looking at her lord and mas- 
 ter, so made and termed by marital right, and thinking 
 of Marion Lady Vavasour.
 
 172 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF EVE IN THE GARDEN OF ROSES. 
 
 Strathmore very rarely got up early ; usually 
 lie had his chocolate brought to him, glanced through 
 new novels, read his letters, had his first cigar before 
 he rose, and then lounged down among the latest to 
 breakfast. He was accustomed to say, that your best 
 causeur is dull over his coffee ; with his cutlets, a man 
 thinks of consols and coupons, and with his anchovy 
 only finds relish for telegrams ; in the oil of his sar- 
 dines his satire is swamped, and as he breaks his 
 plover's eggs he's only good for reading and speaking 
 political platitudes ; his head's admirably clear, but 
 his wit isn't ripe. Therefore Strathmore's rule always 
 was, '^ Do your own business before noon ; but don't \ 
 be bored by your friends till after. In the morning 
 we're all cautious, not convivial : so breakfast and 
 write to your lawyer in solitude ; congregate at lun- 
 cheon, and take croustades and conversation together !"
 
 THE GAKDEN OF EOSES. 173 
 
 It was a very good rule, I think ; letters written in 
 the morning never compromise jou ; mots made in 
 the morning never amuse you : and it was one he 
 seldom broke. 
 
 But the morning after his arrival at Vernonceaux, 
 when Diaz entered his chamber to fill his bath, the 
 breeze as it blew in from the windows, which had 
 been partially left open through the hot night, came 
 so pleasantly laden with the fragrance of the rose- 
 gardens, the pine-woods, and the vine-covered hills, 
 that it seemed for once more tempting than his yel- 
 low-papered roman and his chocolat a la Vanille, 
 which had both a strong flavour of Paris ; a flavour 
 than which ordinarily on ne pent mieux ; but Paris, 
 like partridges, may want change sometimes, and 
 pall — as what doesn't, from women to wine ? — under 
 the ruinous test of " Toujoursf^ For once Strath- 
 more felt tempted to get up early; and he rose, 
 dressed, and sauntered out by an escalier that led, 
 without passing through any part of the building, 
 from his wing of the chateau down into the gardens 
 below. 
 
 "A device of some dainty chatelaine, some dame 
 des beaux cousins, for her lover to pass up to her 
 chamber without waking the seneschal, or risking his 
 limbs by climbing," thought Strathmore, as he stood 
 on the grey stone steps looking over at the gardens that 
 lay before him. " Well ! we have escaliers derobes still ! 
 Licence may have gone out of the language, but it 
 hasn't gone out of the manners ; we've learnt to be
 
 174 STEATHMOKE. 
 
 hypocrites, but we haven't altered our tastes. To ad- 
 vance m CiviHsation is, after all, only to perfect Cant. 
 The nude figure remains the same delight to the pre- 
 cisian as the profligate ; but he drapes her discreetly 
 in public, while he gloats over her wwdraped in petto. 
 Men don't change their natures, only their faces !" 
 
 With which, Strathmore sauntered down the steps, 
 and took any way that hazard led him, which was 
 through the bronze trellis-work gates that opened into 
 his hostess's rose-gardens, mazes of blossom, where 
 the birds sang under the roses, and the air was full of 
 the rich fragrance of clusters of crimson bloom, as 
 he strolled slowly along, profaning these sacred pre- 
 cincts, that were as consecrated to ladies as the gar- 
 dens of Odalisques, with the scent and the smoke of 
 his Manilla. There is something in the freshness, 
 the stillness, the sunny calm of early morning, that has 
 its charm, even when we are least inclined to give way 
 to these things, and most inclined to sneer at them. 
 Strathmore — essentially a man " of the world, worldly" 
 — who lived in courts, clubs, and salons, who had 
 never got up and come on deck to see the sun rise 
 any day that his yacht was at anchor in the Bos- 
 phorus ; whose manual was Rochefoucauld, and bre. 
 viary Bruyere ; whose life had been spent in an at- 
 mosphere scented with perfumes and pastilles, where 
 daylight was never needed and never remembered, 
 and a purer air would have lacked in excitement ; 
 even Strathmore, though nature was not much more 
 to him than to Talleyrand or Grammont, felt the
 
 THE GAEDEN OF EOSES. 175 
 
 freshness, the tranquillity, the peacefulness of the hour. 
 It was perfectly still and solitary round him, there 
 was not a sound but of the wood-pigeons cooing from 
 afar off, and the wind gently stealing through the fra- 
 grant aisles of the rose arcades, while the sun fell on the 
 eastern side of the silent chateau, and on the terrace, 
 with its grey balustrade covered by gorgeous creepers, 
 that looked like the background of some Louis Quinze 
 picture. He knew no one would have risen except 
 the household at that early hour, and as he walked 
 on, just under the terrace, that was at some consider- 
 able elevation above him, a voice startled him as it 
 fell on the air : 
 
 " Since when have you become pastoral ? I should 
 not have fancied you had had sylvan tastes, mon ami !" 
 
 She stood immediately above him, leaning over the 
 stone balustrade ; behind her was the ivy-hung facade 
 of the chateau, with its peaked tourelles and its long 
 range of Gothic windows ; beneath her sloped the ivy 
 wall of the terrace, covered with the broad leaves of 
 creepers and the profuse blossoms of the twining roses ; 
 the whole scene was like a landscape of Greuze or 
 Lancret, and she who completed it added to its colour- 
 ing of the Beau Siecle where she leaned on the parapet, 
 looking down with a smile on lips that rivalled the 
 half-opened roses. As he glanced upward, her love- 
 liness swept over him like the intoxication of some 
 dreamy perfume, now in the cooler judgment of morn- 
 ing, as at midnight, a few hours before, when the 
 light of the chandeliers glanced on the scarlet ca-
 
 176 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 mellias. Away from lier lie could criticise, condemn, 
 displace, defy lier ; in lier presence, with her eyes 
 smiling down into his, with her voice vibrating on the 
 air, he might resent, but he could not resist her. She 
 enthralled him by the senses, so subtilely, so seduc- 
 tively, that she drew him within the charmed circle of 
 her power, even while he hated her for her dominance 
 over him. 
 
 " Sylvan tastes or not, would not any one, from an 
 idler to an anchorite, be irresistibly drawn where the 
 early morning proffers such a reward to all those w^ho 
 rise early ? " said Strathmore, as he ascended the ter- - 
 race steps to her side. 
 
 He had not seen her, until her greeting made him 
 look upwards. But what man can tell the precise 
 truth to a beautiful woman ? She smiled as she gave 
 him her hand, white, small, soft, with the jewels of 
 an Empress upon it ; a hand to close gently but surely 
 on the life of a man, and make it its own ; a hand to 
 be raved of by poets, and hold sages in thraldom ; to 
 be modelled by sculptors, and coveted by courtiers. 
 
 "Last night you were quoting from Genesis to 
 show the mischief done by a woman ! How can you 
 be so inconsistent as to seek one in Eve's special pro- 
 vince of mischief — a garden ? A diplomatist tasting 
 the dew of the dawn, and sunning himself among 
 roses ! — you are an anomaly, mon ami. Is it your 
 lost ecarte which has dwelt on your mind, that you 
 are wandering at such an unearthly hour ? " 
 
 " It is more likely to be remembrance of the one
 
 THE GARDEN OF ROSES. 177 
 
 wlio lost me the ecarte !" said Strathmore, bending 
 towards her. 
 
 His voice had an unusual softness, his eyes darkened 
 and dwelt on her, fascinated by the voluptuous charm 
 of her beauty, and the confession broke from him 
 unawares. She arched her delicate eyebrows, and 
 looked at him with mischievous amusement, where 
 she leaned against the rose-wreathed parapet. 
 
 " Of M. de Clermont ! You must be very deep 
 in his debt for him to haunt you ! — or perhaps you 
 were meditating some sure, silent revenge on him? — 
 that would be more a la Strathmore !" 
 
 " I thank you for the hint and the reminder, belle 
 amie ; I ivill revenge myself for the game that I lost 
 on the tactician who threw me off my guard ! But 
 the revenge, like the payment I spoke of last night, 
 must wait ; it would be too great rashness to risk 
 taking either as yet " 
 
 He spoke softly, and with meaning ; her power was 
 winding itself about him, his senses were yielding 
 themselves to the languid charm, the subtle spell of 
 lier beauty ; Strathmore, who denied that any woman 
 could be dangerous to him, might have known, then, 
 how dangerous one might be ! She blushed slightly, 
 softly, and played with one of the rings of her left 
 hand — the diamond-studded circlet that was the badge 
 of her marriage — was it by hazard, or as a warning ? 
 Be it which it might, it served to recal to him that 
 the woman he looked on was Marion Lady Yavasour, 
 the arch coquette of Europe. 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 STEATHMOKE. 
 
 "I was unaware your tastes were a la Phyllis, 
 Lady Vavasour," he went on, with the smile, slight, 
 cold, half a sneer, which piqued her more than any- 
 thing, since it perplexed her as to its meaning, and 
 only gave her a vague idea that her game was fore- 
 seen, and — defied. " What charm can the early morn- 
 ing have for you? Your preferences, surely, are 
 no more sylvan than mine, and there is nothing to be 
 captivated but the bees and the birds ! I have read 
 in some old Trouvere song of a hreuvage for perpetual 
 youth and beauty, to be gathered from the first dew 
 of roses — can that be your mission ? If so, we must 
 pity, as under De I'Enclos, generations unborn, who 
 will suffer like us !" ' 
 
 " Don't use the first person ! — you never suffer," 
 she answered him, toying with the hanging sprays of 
 the roses. " The charnt that guided me was what 
 rules me always — the caprice of the hour: I admit 
 no other law ! In Paris one never thinks the day is 
 aired till two ; but in the country — cest toute autre cliose 
 — I heard the birds singing, the scent of the roses 
 
 came through my windows, and Ah, Lord Cecil, 
 
 though we live in the world till we forget it, there are 
 things better than pleasure, there is an air purer than 
 the air of the salons ! I am young, I am flattered, I 
 reign, I love my sovereignty — who does not that has a 
 sceptre to grasp ? — and still, sometimes I wish that I 
 were a peasant-child, playing with the brown chesnuts 
 under the trees, and catching the butterflies in the 
 sunshine ! "
 
 THE GAEDEN OF ROSES. 179 
 
 I have said that she had now and then a tendressey 
 a mournf ulness, real or assumed ; and at such mo- 
 ments, while the lids drooped softly over the black 
 gazelle eyes, and a shadow of sadness stole the bril- 
 liance from her face, she was yet more resistless than 
 in her most dazzling coquetry. Even Strathmore felt 
 its charm, though, now, with the gestm-e that had 
 recalled to him her title and her ownership, he had 
 steeled himself afresh against her. 
 
 "Indeed!" he answered her, with the smile she 
 mistrusted. " The world would scarcely credit you. 
 Lady Vavasour ; to play with men's lives must be 
 more amusing than with fallen chesnuts, and to 
 catch Princes and Peers in your net must be more 
 exciting than the child's yellow butterflies ! Who 
 shall hope to be content if the envied of all wishes to 
 alter her lot ! " 
 
 " Ah ! mon ami, those who envy us do not always 
 know us. Among all rose-leaves there is one 
 crumpled ! " Her voice was saddened, the lustre of 
 her eyes grew languid and softened, and her fingers 
 unconsciously played with the diamond wedding-ring 
 upon her finger, as it sparkled among the roses. 
 Again the action spoke more eloquently than words. 
 Besides her fascination, she tried now- a charm more 
 dangerous for him — she claimed his pity ! " Look ! " 
 she went on, as she took one of the flowers and 
 opened its fresh crimson leaves. " Look ! as the rose 
 swings in the sunhght, how lovely it is — the Queen 
 of flowers ! And yet, at its core lies a canker ! " 
 n2
 
 180 STEATHMOKE. 
 
 " Is it SO witli 0U7' Queen of Flowers ? " 
 
 He asked it involuntarily, bending lower towards 
 her, till lie saw the faint sigh with which her bosom 
 heaved, under the gossamer lace that shrouded it. 
 
 " Hush ! " she said softly, with a light blow of the 
 rose spray on his arm. " You must not ask. I wear 
 the badge of servitude and — silence ! " 
 
 And silence fell between them ; such silence as 
 fell between Launcelot and Guenevere, when the 
 first subtle poison ran through the veins of the man 
 whom Arthur loved. 
 
 With a light laugh the silence was broken, as she 
 flung the gathered spray off on the sunny air, and 
 let her white hands wander afresh among the twining 
 blossoms : 
 
 " I like roses, don't you ? They are the flowers of 
 poetry. I don't wonder Cleopatra had her couch of 
 them, and the Epicureans loved them showered down 
 as they sat at banquet, and strewn upon the floors 
 ankle-deep ! They are the flowers of silence, of 
 revel, of love ; the flowers of the Greek poets and 
 the Provence Trouveres ; of the chaplets of Catullus 
 and the lays of Chastelar. Eoses are for all time — 
 while they bloom afresh with every summer, how can 
 the earth fail to guard its eternal youth ? " 
 
 While she spoke, she drew out one of the roses 
 from the rest, crimson, and fresh, and fragrant, with 
 the dew glittering still in its odorous core ; and 
 broke it off with its unopened buds and dark shining 
 leaves.
 
 THE GAEDEN OF KOSES. 181 
 
 " Is it not worthy Cleopatra ? " she laughed, hold- 
 ing it up in the light before her eyes and his — his 
 that followed her as she fastened the rose in her 
 bosom with negligent grace, where it nestled half 
 hidden, half seen, lying against the white skin that 
 the tracery of the lace covered without wholly con- 
 cealing, and contrasting its snowy beauty with its 
 deep crimson petals. " Come ! we have been talking 
 mournfully, and I meant to teach you epicureanism 
 — ^you who trample aside the roses of life, and covet 
 only the withered yellow laurels of Age and Power. 
 Adieu ! I must leave you to finish your, solitary 
 promenades ; I am going in to my chocolate ! " 
 
 His eyes dwelt on her, on the rose, where it lay 
 half hidden on her heart, on the hair lit to gold by 
 the sunshine, on the antelope eyes that glanced at 
 him through their black lashes, on the exquisite and 
 voluptuous grace of her form. Though it had 
 fastened fetters on him which had made him this 
 woman's slave for life, he could not have resisted his 
 impulse to follow her then; she fascinated him by 
 the senses, and it was a fascination to which he chose 
 to yield. What evil could lie in it for him ? He 
 was strong in his own strength, secure in his own 
 coldness ; he believed he could handle fire without 
 feeling its flame ; he believed he could let the whirl- 
 wind sweep over him, without being stirred by its 
 breath; he believed he could meet the sirocco, and 
 not be blinded, nor staggered, nor scorched by it. 
 Actually, he would have called the man a lunatic
 
 182 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 who did these thmgs: metaphorically, and quite as 
 dangerously, he did them all. A scornful self-confi- 
 dence made at once the grandeur and the weakness 
 of Strathmore's nature. 
 
 As Lady Vavasour turned from the parapet and 
 swept over the grey pavement of the rose-terrace to 
 re-enter the chateau, the snowy folds of her dress 
 gathering up the fallen crimson leaves, and her head 
 slightly turned over her shoulder in adieu to him, he 
 followed her, bending to her with a few low words : 
 
 ^' Who would not learn epicureanism or any other 
 creed from such a teacher? You have given that 
 senseless rose so fair a lodging ; do not banish me 
 utterly! I am going to my chocolate, too; must I 
 take it in solitude ? For the remembrance of our 
 tete-a-tete meal under the limes, let us breakfast 
 tete-a-tete this morning ! " 
 
 The daughter of Eve had tempted him in the 
 garden of roses, and while yet he might have turned 
 away, he chose to follow and to linger with his 
 temptress.
 
 183 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 IN ROYAL BROCELIANDE. 
 
 In the breakfast-room every dejeuner delicacy was 
 waiting, ready for such of the English guests at Yer- 
 non9eaux as it might pleasure to come down stairs 
 early. None had so pleased that morning save them- 
 selves, and this breakfast ivas tete-a-tete. He was 
 alone with her, and in that solitude she ceased to be 
 Lady Yavasour, whom he prejudged and mistrusted ; 
 she was the songstress, the incognita, the witching 
 waif and stray of the Bohemian lindens. Almost too 
 dazzling at night, with its exquisite tint, and its 
 singular contrast of eyes and of hair, her loveliness, 
 losing none of its brilliance, gained much in softness 
 with the morning light. Moreover, you saw then 
 how real was this youth, how wholly from nature this 
 marvellous colouring ; for, stream down on her as the 
 sun would, its strongest rays could never show a flaw 
 or a blemish.
 
 184 STRATHMOKE. 
 
 Used to the women of Courts, no woman would 
 have had charm for Strathmore who had not had wit on 
 her hps and a finished grace in her coquetteries, and 
 that nameless air which the world alone gives; the 
 fairest hourgeoise beauty he would have passed un- 
 noticed, and rustic loveliness was no loveliness in his 
 sight. 
 
 Condemned to love, he would have made his con- 
 dition like Louis Quatorze, " qiion niaime mais avec 
 de l'^ esprit !^^ Therefore, Marion Vavasour had her 
 subtlest charm for him, in that exquisite grace which 
 empresses had envied her; in that sparkling play 
 which, if it were not wit, sufficed for it from such 
 lips ; in that very worldliness which might have 
 chilled as heartlessness men less petri with the world 
 themselves than Strathmore was. What had struck 
 him the night before as startling and bizarre, what 
 even in his momentary breathless admiration of her 
 had repelled him, and made him think of Clytemnestra 
 and La Borgia, had gone, — perhaps, with the scarlet 
 camellias ! 
 
 She was dressed simply, in snowy gossamer folds of 
 muslin, with floating azure ribbons here and there, 
 and the richness of her yellow hair, gathered back in 
 its natm'al waves and ripples, looked but one soft mass 
 of dead gold now it was unmixed with any colour. 
 There was nothing to mar the spells of her beauty, 
 and those spells she wove to her uttermost witchery 
 as she sat daintily brushing the bloom off a grape, or 
 toying with her strawberries, adding the cream to her
 
 IN EOYAL BROCELIANDE. 185 
 
 chocolate, or touching the tiny wing of some deHcate 
 bird. 
 
 With all her caprices, her coquetteries, her rapid 
 wayward mutations, she was ever essentially feminine ; 
 too skilful not to know that the surest charm which a 
 woman wields over men is the charm of difference — 
 the charm of sex ; and that half this charm is flown 
 when Christina of Sweden wears her hessians and 
 cracks her whip ; when her imitators of to-day chatter 
 slang with weeds in their mouths, and swing through 
 the stable-yards, talking in loud rauque voices of dogs 
 with a "good strain !" 
 
 They were full an hour alone, and in that hour she 
 led him far on a dangerous road ; none the less dan- 
 gerous because he knew her tactics and deemed him- 
 self secure to defy them. She was a coquette, there- 
 fore he was armed against her ; she was a woman of 
 the world, therefore he could trifle with her with 
 impunity; she was Lady Vavasour, therefore he 
 knew the worth of every smile, the value of every 
 
 fiance, which were but golden hooks flung out by 
 skill to catch and fasten the unwary : so Strathmore 
 
 jasoned — he who was a man of the world, and would 
 lose his head for no woman ! — and in his security lay 
 his risk. For he felt that she had already a certain 
 power over him — the power for which he hated her 
 when he threw down his losing cards at ecarte — the 
 power with which her beauty had swept over him 
 as he had come suddenly upon her in the sunlight of 
 the rose-garden ; but to have feared it would have
 
 186 STBATHMOEE. 
 
 been to confess tliat he might yield to it, and Strath- 
 more held that he could evoke a storm and then arrest 
 it with "Thus far shalt thou go and no farther;" 
 he held that he could let poison flow into his veins 
 and then eject it with " I do not choose to receive 
 thee!" 
 
 The disdainful strength of the Strathmores had 
 ever, I say, been their weakness ; and the ruin that 
 had come to them had ever been wrought by their 
 own hand ; the graven steel of their unyielding race 
 ever the reed that bent beneath them. 
 
 The tete-a-tete breakfast was as seductive as any 
 meal ever has been since She of the Golden Shuttle 
 entertained the wanderer at Ogygia. Through the 
 shaded windows the rose-scented air stole fragrantly 
 in, while stray rays of sunlight streamed upon the 
 amber grapes touched by her delicate fingers, ,and on 
 the crimson rose lying hid in its snowy nest. Her 
 moods were as variable as summer clouds, and her 
 mood that morning was soft, subdued, gentle with all 
 its gaiety, triste with all its coquettishness, and — it 
 was the most bewitching of all. 
 
 " What is your White Ladies like — they say it is 
 such a superb old place ? " she said, when her mis- 
 chievous witticisms ceased, as though tired with their 
 own play and sparkle. " Charlie St. Albans — who 
 told me your family legend, by the way, one day at 
 Biarritz — raves about its beauty. It was an abbey,
 
 IN ROYAL BROOELIANDE. 187 
 
 "An old Dominican monastery — ^yes. It has a 
 beauty of its own, the beauty of that past when men 
 sought rest as we now seek reputation, and found in 
 soHtude what loe find in strife. May I not hope you 
 will some day honour it with a visit, Lady Vavasour, 
 and judge of it yourself ? " he answered her, stroking 
 her greyhound ; his prejudice against her was quickly 
 fading since he invited her to White Ladies — the 
 daughter of Eve to the ancient Monastery ! 
 
 She smiled the dazzling smile that had intoxicated 
 wise men to worse than the madness of the opium- 
 eater. 
 
 " Perhaps. Some day — some day. All, what may 
 we all do ^some day!' You and I may be foes a 
 outrance some day — who knows ? " 
 
 "Foes? Nay, surely not. Did you not tell me 
 ' destiny threw us together, that we must be friends ? ' 
 Dieu le veut!^^ 
 
 "" Dieu vent ce que femme veut, mon ami!" said the 
 Marchioness, arching her eyebrows. " You know 
 that ; and on a man who disdains the love of all my 
 sex I am not at all inclined to waste my own friend- 
 ship !" 
 
 " T\^iy, you had better rather cure me of my heresy 
 in both. What teacher could convert me to her soft 
 doctrines with such success ? what rebuke could be at 
 once more merciful and more convincing to me ? " 
 
 A sadness, almost tenderness, shaded the dark 
 gazelle eyes for a moment as they met his, and she
 
 188 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 was silent. Lady Vavasour knew the charm of 
 silence when the eyes may be trusted to speak. A 
 moment after she laughed coquettishly : 
 
 " Merciful ? Perhaps not, monsieur, if I did take 
 your conversion in hand." 
 
 " True. Perhaps the denial of your friendship is 
 more merciful than its donation would be. Never- 
 theless, at all risks, I will seek it." 
 
 " You love risks ? " she said, looking at him with a 
 dash of tantalising malice. Strathmore laughed 
 slightly — a laugh that sounded to her like contempt 
 of her power. 
 
 " Well, I confess I do not fear many." 
 
 " Nor did Ragnar Ladbrog, mon ami, the northern 
 Scalds tell us ; sheathed in his armour of ice, what 
 could attack him ? How scathless he went for so 
 long ! And yet he came at last to his Hella, and he 
 languished to death in the cave of the serpents. 
 Take warning ! " 
 
 Strathmore smiled. 
 
 " I aan not quite so quixotic as the Bersaker, and 
 before I handle serpents I take out their stings ! 
 Grasped rightly, no serpent can bite. But surely, 
 belle amie, you do not pay yourself so ill a compli- 
 ment as to compare the gift of your friendship with 
 the fang of an asp ? Though perhaps you are right — 
 it may be as dangerous ! " 
 
 " But a danger you smile at ! Well, take it if 
 you will. Shall we be friends, then. Lord Cecil f 
 
 Her eyes were resistless in their witching softness,
 
 IN EOYAL BKOCELIANDE. 189 
 
 and a certain tremulous smile that seemed half born 
 of a sigh was on her lip, as she held out in playfulness, 
 yet in earnest, her white jewelled hand, as she leant 
 slightly towards him. What man could have rejected 
 the haiid or the friendship ? 
 
 Strathmore bent forward and accepted both : as he 
 took the warm fingers within his own and met the 
 glance that dwelt on him as they sat there alone in the 
 shaded light, his pulses quickened, and his own eyes 
 gleamed with something of the swift dark brilliance 
 that she had sworn to lighten there — the dawn of the 
 passion she had vowed to awaken in the nature that, 
 by character imperious and unyielding, deemed itself 
 by a fatal error to be also cold and calm. He released 
 her hand suddenly, and threw himself back in his 
 chair ; the doors opened, and with Beaudesert and 
 Clermont there entered Lord Vavasour and Vaux. 
 
 "Bon jour, messieurs," said the Marchioness, in- 
 cluding her lord in her negligent, graceful salutation. 
 " I suppose you have all been wasting the hom^s over 
 cheroots and novelettes that I have been mvino; to the 
 roses. Ah, if you were all to see the sun rise once 
 in a way, what a deal of good it would do you ! I 
 will have a Trianon, and then, perhaps, you will learn 
 to be pastoral. M. de Clermont, will you milk the 
 cow like the Comte d'Artois ? Vavasour, did I ever 
 tell you that it was to Lord Cecil Strathmore I 
 owed my escape that dreadful night at Prague? 
 No ? I ought to have done ; then you have never 
 thanked him?"
 
 190 STRATHMOEE. 
 
 Her husband, tlms apostropliisedj turned to Stratli- 
 more, and addressed his thanks to him, comphmenting 
 him with as gracious a courtesy as that pampered, 
 gouty gourmet, whose general manner was guilty of 
 Valdor's impeachment, a " ton de garnison" could as- 
 sume for any mortal. " Singularly striking-looking 
 man — quite Vandyke !" thought the Marquis, while 
 he uttered his gratitude for his wife's rescue ; " but I 
 am sure he will do something bad some day — come 
 to a violent death, perhaps. That jjliysique — ^very 
 much so !" Which possibly was a complacent source 
 of gratification to his lordship, as he had just come 
 in on a tete-a-tete. 
 
 Strathmore received his thanks with that cold 
 negligence which had the effect of making him cor- 
 dially disliked out of his own immediate set, and lay 
 back in his chair, playing' with the greyhound, and 
 joining now and then in the conversation. He knew 
 that this woman's beauty stole on him despite him- 
 self; when her magic was off him he hated her for 
 the food that she had made him give her vanity ; but 
 a seductive sensuousness allured him in her glorious 
 loveliness, which, though he rated it lightly, should 
 have made him place distance betwixt him and its 
 subtle temptation — betwixt him and the wife of Lord 
 Vavasour. 
 
 A weak man might have done this, and been strong ; 
 Strathmore, a; strong man, stayed, contemptuous and 
 defiant of the weakness. A man less cool, less keen, 
 less nonchalant of all danger, might have taken warn-
 
 k 
 
 IN KOYAL BKOCELIANDE. 191 
 
 ing ; lie saw no danger possible in it. One careless, 
 over-confident turn of the hand ma;)^ mar the whole 
 of the statue which the sculptor deems plastic as clay 
 to his will, obedient to every stroke of his chisel ! 
 
 The statue that Strathmore at once moulded and 
 marred was his Life : the statue which we all, as Ave 
 sketch it, endow with the strength of the Milo, the 
 glory of the Belvedere, the winged brilliance of the 
 Perseus ! — ^which ever lies at its best, when the chisel 
 has dropped from our hands, as they grow powerless 
 and paralysed with death, like the mutilated Torso, a 
 fragment unfinished and brokenj" food for the ants and 
 worms, buried in sands that will quickly suck it down 
 from sight or memory, with but touches of glory and 
 of value left here and there, only faintly serving to 
 show what might have heeuy had we had time, had we 
 had wisdom ! 
 
 " Well, wasn't I right; isn't she divine, eh?'" said 
 Valdor to him that day, as they were playing bil- 
 liards. 
 
 " She — who ? My dear fellow, there are half a 
 dozen divinities here who wear the cestus of Yenus, 
 •r claim it at the least ! Be a little more definite ! " 
 
 " The deuce ! Who should I mean ? Nobody can 
 hold a candle to her. Vavasour's in luck to have a 
 wife that everybody envies him." 
 
 " Dubious luck ! " said Strathmore, sticking his 
 penknife through his cabana. " A wife of the first 
 water, like a diamond of the first water, is rather a 
 perilous possession. It's apt to be disputed by too
 
 192 STRATHMOKE. 
 
 many owners! You can't ever be sure the wards 
 haven't been picked and the casket been rifled ! " 
 
 " Exactly," said Legard. " Marriage is a disagree- 
 able legal necessity for men with titles and entails, 
 and the best colour for a wife's discreet plainness. 
 No Bramah can protect you so effectually as an ugly 
 choice ; besides, I shouldn't think it's bad for yourself 
 upon principle ; if Lucretia's unlovely you must relish 
 Lais and her graces all the more. One never enjoys 
 a good omelette at Yef our's so much as after an ill- 
 done one in the Grisons." 
 
 " There's something in that," said Valdor, reflec- 
 tively. " But then — twelve hours with an ugly 
 woman would kill one ! Why are any of them ugly? 
 I wonder % They were created on purpose for us. 
 What's the good of giving us five out of six, as we 
 don't like them % If they were all such as the Va- 
 vasour, now " And Valdor paused, in mute con- 
 templation of the delicious universal seraglio that 
 might then be commanded. 
 
 " The Vavasour's something that comes once in a 
 century. The deuce ! how that woman does flirt ! " 
 interrupted Dormer, in the tone, half disgusted, half 
 admiring, with which a man might say of some mag- 
 nificent drunkard, like Piron, " How that fellow does 
 drink!" 
 
 Strathmore sent his ball to make a ricocliet with a 
 certain impetus, as if the conversation annoyed him, 
 and did not join in it. 
 
 " If fifty naughty stories ain't rife about her before
 
 IN KOYAL BROOELIANDE. 193 
 
 next season, Til bet you a thousand to one," went on 
 Dormer, offering his wager generally, but nobody, it 
 seemed, having sufficient confidence in her ladyship 
 to be chivalrous enough to take it up ! " They do 
 say it's only flirtation — as yet ; and I believe she's as 
 heartless as ice; but she does horrible mischief, if 
 she's never absolutely ^ compromised,' and I think 
 tlm£s open to doubt ! At Biarritz, last year, she played 
 the very deuce with Marc Lennartson ; you remember 
 him, don't you, Strathmore — Austrian Cuirassiers, 
 you know ? She drew him on and on, made him follow 
 her about like a greyhound, fooled him before every- 
 body, and then turned him off coolly for the Prince 
 de Vorhn, and laughed at him with a blow of her fan. 
 Lennartson had lost his head about her, and he shot 
 himself through the brain ! I know that for a fact ; no- 
 thing but that woman at the bottom of it ; and the 
 very night she heard of his death she went to a fancy 
 ball, fluttering about in her diamonds. By Jove ! it 
 was too bad, wasn't it ? " 
 
 Strathmore made a hap-hazard cannon, with his 
 coldest sneer upon his face : the story angered him. 
 
 " My dear Dormer ! if a man's such a fool as to 
 ^follow a woman about like a lapdog,' whether he 
 goes out of the world or stays in it doesn't matter very- 
 much, I think. Yours is a romantic story ; it would 
 charm the women, but, pour moi I I must fancy there 
 were some heavy debts hanging over Lennartson'$ 
 head, or some more rational reason for your senti- 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 STEATHMOBE. 
 
 mental finale. I don't credit those things quite so 
 easily." 
 
 " It was true, whether you like to believe it or 
 not." 
 
 Strathmore lifted his eyebrows and dropped the 
 subject ; he would have said it did not interest him ! 
 
 " What a voice of lamentation there was in Ramah 
 when Yavasour married her," said Beaudesert, who 
 was betting on the game. " The women had made 
 such hard running on him all over Europe ; when 
 the regular troops had always missed fire, it was a 
 horrid blow to have an outside skirmisher knock him 
 
 over 
 
 !» 
 
 " Of course ! Virtuous women love to take in 
 hand the conversion of a sinner when the penitent 
 can give them a coronet ; they are very happy to be 
 taken, hke soda-water after a debauch, if the de- 
 bauchee excuses his past orgies with a page in Burke, 
 There wasn't a pr^cieitse in England that wouldn't 
 have sold her pure soul to the devil and the Marquis^ 
 for his settlements. The morals of monde, and demi- 
 monde, don't differ very much, after all, only the 
 inferior goods are content with Kue de la Paix 
 jewellery, and Lady Yavasour et C'^ don't let them- 
 selves go under anything less than the family dia- 
 monds ! " said Strathmore, with his coldest sneer. It 
 gratified him to fling the sarcasm at that marriage of 
 convenience where Helen of the antelope eyes had 
 bartered herself for the gold and the titles of gour- 
 mand Menelaus ; the flash and sparkle of the diamond
 
 IN ROYAL BEOCELIANDE. 195 
 
 circlet he had seen among the roses, added, by its 
 memory, point to his irony. 
 
 " Quite right ! " laughed Beaudesert. " And when 
 we have to pay such a much heavier price to monde, 
 and get so much better amused by demi-monde, how 
 the deuce can they wonder we prefer ease to imprison- 
 ment, and laissez-faire to il faut faire ? " 
 
 " Perhaps they don^t wonder, my good fellow, and 
 in that lies the essence of their pique and the root of 
 their philippics. If the debatable land's so agreeable, 
 they know very well the time may come when the 
 legitimate kingdoms will be left altogether," laughed 
 Strathmore, as he went back to his game, and. Lady 
 Vavasour not being there to spoil it, won it, as he 
 piqued himself on winning most things that he tried 
 for in life, from billiards upwards. 
 
 As he finished it, a servant entered to tell him that 
 the horses were coming round ; he had promised to 
 make one of a riding-party at four o'clock, and left 
 the billiard-room with Dormer to obey the summons. 
 
 "The pretty panther, how handsome she looks! 
 She has merciless griffes^ though, and her graceful 
 play's death to those who play with her," said Dormer, 
 under his moustaches, memories of Biarritz rising 
 savagely within him as they passed out of the long 
 gallery leading from the billiard-room into the great 
 hall. 
 
 The " pretty panther," as he called her, was just 
 at that moment standing on the grand staircase with 
 some men about her, holding her jewelled whip in 
 o2
 
 19G STEATHMORE. 
 
 one hand, and the violet folds of her habit in the 
 other, the light from the long range of stained windows 
 falling on her, and on the tapestried arras, the da- 
 mascened armour, and the dark oak carvings of the 
 wall behind her. Strathmore glanced at her, and gave 
 Dormer his coldest laugh. 
 
 " Fearfully poetic you are to-day. Will ! Have 
 you been scratched yourself ? " 
 
 " No ; but you're about to be." 
 
 " / ? You don't know me much, my good fellow." 
 
 " But I know HER, and I bet you five to one that 
 she is trying to play the deuce with you, Strathmore.'' 
 
 " Let her try ! I have one bet pending already on 
 that event, but I'm quite willing to take yours too." 
 
 " Glad to hear it; but forewarned' s forearmed, you 
 know." 
 
 " Thank you," said Strathmore, with that negligent 
 coldness which was as chilly as ice, " but when I 
 need counsel I ask for it, my dear Dormer. It is a 
 dish I am not very fond of having offered me." 
 
 His eyes had lightened to the swift dark anger of 
 his race ; and Dormer, a good-natured, easy, indolent 
 fellow, accustomed to be put down by him, and to be 
 silenced by his sneer, held his peace with an obedience, 
 the relic of their old Eton days; while Strathmore 
 joined the group on the staircase, and, by a non- 
 chalant finesse, displaced the others, who had a prior 
 claim as before him in the field, and leading her out 
 into the court, assisted Lady Vavasour to mount 
 the spirited Spanish mare that he had admired as it
 
 IN ROYAL BKOCELIANDE. 197 
 
 had reared with her, when he had seen the riding- 
 party from the distance the previous day. Assistance, 
 indeed, she needed little; an inimitable rider, she 
 sprang, lightly as a bird to a bough, to her saddle ; 
 but to have the foot beautiful as Pompadour's placed 
 on his hand, the light weight leant upon him for an 
 instant, the perfumed hair brush near him, the hand 
 touch his as he put the reins within it, the lips softly 
 thank him, — these made a service bitterly envied to 
 Strathmore. As she dashed out of the great gates 
 of the court, the mare rearing and plunging with the 
 fire of its Spanish blood. Lady Vavasour had never 
 looked, perhaps, lovelier, with her delicate cheeks 
 flushed from the exertion of her strength, her light, 
 defiant laugh ringing out, her eyes flashing with im- 
 patient will. Yet for one moment as he saw her 
 teeth clench tightly, her eyes gather a sinister light, 
 her whip cut the mare with sharp, stinging strokes, it 
 crossed Strathmore's mind that the real instinct, the 
 true 'pleasure of this soft, dazzling woman might be, 
 after all. Cruelty — the cruelty of the young cat that 
 loves to see the wounded bird flutter and shriek and 
 struggle for its liberty with the blood dabbling the 
 broken v^dng, and to let it go for one fleet mocking 
 moment, and then to seize on it afresh, till the death- 
 cry rings sharp and clear upon the air, and its own 
 white teeth tear asunder the quivering flesh. 
 
 The fancy crossed him, and the aversion, amount- 
 ing to almost the strength of hatred, which, mingled 
 with the fascination that Marion Vavasour had for
 
 198 STRATHMORE. 
 
 him, flamed up in all its bitterness. " She danced in 
 her diamonds the night that poor devil shot himself!'* 
 he thought; "I dare say. What fools men are to 
 let a woman play with them." 
 
 But twenty minutes after, Lady Vavasour turned 
 her head towards him with her brightest smile. 
 " Lord Cecil, you are our cicerone ; which way leads 
 to the Breche du Gaston ? " And as he spurred his 
 horse to overtake her, and cantered on by her side, 
 the wiser thought was forgot, the danger that was in 
 this woman served but to give piquance to her beauty, 
 as the thorns of the rose which pique those who 
 admire to gather it ; and as though she had divined 
 the verdict that his reason was given against her, she 
 chained him to her side during the ride, and had all 
 that softness of manner which, when she chose to 
 assume it, would have made the testimony of men and 
 angels weigh nothing against Marion Lady Vavasoin* ! 
 
 "So, if I come to England this year, as Lady 
 Beaudesert tries to persuade me, you will be pre- 
 pared to do me the honours of Wliite Ladies ? " she 
 said, laughing, to him an hour afterwards, as, having 
 outstripped the rest of the party, they rode through a 
 waggon-way that ran under the shelter of the hills, 
 with the wild vine clustering in rich luxuriance from 
 bough to bough, and the glowing lights slanting in, 
 to turn the moss into gold, and burnish the ripening 
 grapes into bloom. 
 
 " But too gladly ! Since the Reine Blanche was 
 received there the Abbey will never have sheltered 
 so fair a guest. But Mary Stuart came to us as a 
 
 I
 
 IN EOYAL BROOELIANDE. 199 
 
 captive ; you will come as a captor omnipotent ! 
 Your sceptre rests on a sway that men cannot break, 
 and your kingdom lies in a power more potent than 
 mailed might ! " 
 
 "Ah!" she said, softly and mournfully, "but don't 
 you know the Reine Blanche had my sceptre and my 
 kingdom too, and yet — her hair whitened and her 
 head was bent to the block ! She was a captive at 
 White Ladies ? and I dare say my lord of Strath- 
 more was a courtly but a pitiless gaoler, had many a 
 courtier phrase upon his tongue, but never relented to 
 mercy! What a triste souvenir! I shall be afraid 
 to come there ; perhaps you will imprison me ! " 
 
 Strathmore bent down in his saddle and looked into 
 her eyes, while his own grew dark and brilliant, and 
 the coldness of his face softened. Was it the warmth 
 flung on it from above by the amber sunlight that 
 was streaming through the vine-leaves and the 
 purpling grapes ? 
 
 " That I shall be tempted, I would not deny ! Who 
 could, who spoke truth ? " 
 
 The reins drooped on their horses' necks, they 
 paced slowly over the yielding mosses, their speed 
 slackening, their voices softening, imder the leafy 
 boughs and the tangled tendrils of the drooping 
 vines ; the warm sun fell between the stems of the 
 trees, the leaves were stirless in the sultry air, the 
 birds sang with subdued music in the woodland 
 shadow — and they rode onwards, as in the days of 
 the past, Launcelot and Guenevere rode through the 
 silent aisles and forest shades of Royal Broceliande.
 
 200 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE WEAVING OF THE GOLDEN SHUTTLE. 
 
 Bertie Erroll sat at the head of the dinner- 
 table at White Ladies with other spirits like himself, 
 keeping the house open, as he had been bidden to do 
 by his absent host in the first week of September. 
 Dinner was just over, and the Sabreur lay back in 
 his chair, lazily peeling a nectarine, recommending 
 the Marcobrunn to Langley of the Twelfth, vowing 
 it was deucedly warm, and lamenting / pathetically 
 that Strathmore would prefer the click of the 
 roulette-ball to the glories of the open, the pleasures 
 of pair et passe to those of the stubble, and forsake 
 White Ladies thus perpetually for the Continent. 
 
 Some half-dozen men were down with him for the 
 shooting ; Strathmore had always bade him look on 
 White Ladies as though it were his ov^ti home, to 
 open to whom he would ; and they were chatting 
 over their grapes, peaches, and comet wines this
 
 THE WEAVING OF THE GOLDEN SHUTTLE. 201 
 
 warm, mellow September evening, while the last 
 rajs of the setting sun fell across Erroll's fair frank 
 face as they slanted through the painted windows of 
 the dining-hall, where the scutcheon of the Strath- 
 mores was blazoned, with their merciless motto, 
 " ^lag ! anlr spare not ! *^ radiant in gold and gules. 
 
 "We don't want women in September," Rockingham 
 of the Guards was observing, with more truth, perhaps, 
 than politeness. " They're delightful in their season, 
 but when we're shooting we're better without 'em. 
 Paullet took Valerie Brown and that lot down to 
 Market Harborough last season, and we were posi- 
 tively ruined by 'em ! Champagne suppers at two 
 in the morning, and all the rest of it, put us shock- 
 ingly out of condition; we were hardly in at a 
 death, any one of us, all thanks to those confounded 
 women " 
 
 "Ph}Tne V. the Pytchley! St. John's Wood 
 morals spoiling Northamptonshire runs ! You should 
 write a ' Tract for the Times ' on it ; a ^ Warning to 
 the Pink not to trifle with the Rouge, ' " laughed the 
 Sabreur, pouring himself out some Rhenish. ^' Well, 
 thank God, I'd suffer deterioration any day from 
 that quarter. A bright-eyed brune is better than 
 a brush any day, and two good things can't spoil 
 one another. I say, Phil, did you see in the papers 
 that Jack Temple's run away with Ferrar's wife ? " 
 
 "Never read the papers, my good fellow," said 
 Danvers. " Froth in the leaders, gall in the debates, 
 acid in the on dits, and flummery in the court news,
 
 202 STEATHMORE. 
 
 make an olla podrida that don't suit my digestion. 
 Poor Jack! what could he be thinking of? She 
 weighs nine stone, and is shockingly sallow in the 
 dayhght ^" 
 
 Danvers stopped, the dogs gave tongue, the man 
 handing the coffee round paused in his duty, Waverley 
 looked up from his olives, Rockingham dropped half 
 a dozen almond soufflees on to a terrier's nose, ErroU 
 sprang from his chair : " My dear fellow ! By Jove ! 
 how glorious ! " And, as the groom of the chambers 
 flung the door wide open, Strathmore entered his own 
 dining-hall, unannounced and unexpected. 
 
 " Keep your seat, old fellow ! You or I, what 
 does it matter which ? " he laughed, as he shook the 
 Sabreur's hand, and forced him back into the chair 
 at the head of the table, looking on his old Eton 
 chum with a warmer glance than women had ever 
 won from him, as the other men gathered round to 
 greet him. " How are you all 1 Who's shockingly 
 sallow by the daylight, Phil ? Nobody you've brought 
 down here, I hope, is it ? Sit where you are, Bertie. 
 I'm your guest to-night, sil vous plait !^^ 
 
 With which Strathmore, refusing to take the head 
 of his table, and looking with eyes of love upon Erroll, 
 sank into an empty chair, told the servants to bring 
 him some soup, and sat down at White Ladies as 
 though he had never left it. He had arrived only 
 some half -hour before, but had gone straight up to 
 his own room, forbidding the groom of the chambers 
 to disturb the dinner-party by announcing his arrival.
 
 THE WEAVING OF THE GOLDEN SHUTTLE. 203 
 
 ^^ My dear old fellow, this is prime ! How are you, 
 Cis?" said Erroll, lying back to look at Stratlimore 
 with an unutterable satisfaction, fully content to give 
 up his pro tempo ownership of White Ladies to see 
 his friend back again. 
 
 " All right, old boy. You're astonished to see me 
 to-night, Bertie?" 
 
 " By Jove I am ! I thought you were at Baden ? " 
 
 "I ivas at Baden. I only left on Tuesday, and 
 shouldn't have left then but I had asked some people 
 here, and given them caj^te blanche to fix their own 
 time, and they fixed it at such a short notice, that I 
 had only just days enough to come over to receive 
 them. It wasn't worth while to write, as I should 
 have come with the mail-bag." 
 
 "Are there any women coming?" asked Rocking- 
 ham, with prophetic pitie de soi-meme, 
 
 "Some. Why?" 
 
 "Nothing, only I hate the sex in September," 
 muttered the unlucky victim to Valerie Brown and 
 " that lot " in the shires. " So your Jack of Trumps 
 colt didn't win the Prix du Foret Noir?" 
 
 "No; only came a good third. I rode Starlight 
 myself for the Rastatt; we did the distance very 
 nicely." 
 
 "By Jove you did, and gave Ninette a dress of 
 your colours, I saw in the Post How's the pretty 
 houquetiere?" 
 
 " Handsome as ever. She asked for you, Erroll ; 
 I don't think there's one of the Jockey Club who cuts
 
 204 STRATHMORE. 
 
 you out with her. She looked very charming in the 
 scarlet and white. A poor devil of an Englishman 
 shot himself on Monday night, after losing his last 
 Nap, but all Baden was too occupied with Prin- 
 cesse Marie Volgarouski's desperate engouement of 
 a young Tuscan composer to pay much attention. 
 It's quite Pauline Bonaparte and Blangini over again. 
 She's a striking looking woman, but I don't care for 
 those Petersburg beauties, they're too olive." 
 
 " Ah, by George, Strath ! you put me in mind," 
 interrupted Erroll, with all the eagerness of a retriever 
 scenting a wild duck — "you said you saw Lady 
 Vavasour in Paris ?" 
 
 "So I did." 
 
 "Well! What's she like? Have you seen her 
 again?" 
 
 " Oh yes. She's been staying at Vernon9eaux." 
 
 " The deuce she has ! and you never said so f 
 What do you think of her — how do you Hke her — 
 what style ?" 
 
 "My dear fellow, don't ask me to describe a 
 woman !" interrupted Strathmore, indifferently. 
 "They are like kaleidoscopes, and have a thousand 
 phases, all pretty for the time, but never to be caught, 
 and always changed when a new eye's on them." 
 
 "Hang you!" swore Erroll. "You wrote just 
 enough to intriguer one about her, and now shove one 
 off with an epigram ! Come, is she the atrocious 
 coquette they all say?"
 
 THE WEAVING OF THE GOLDEN SHUTTLE. 205 
 
 " All women are coquettes, except plain ones, who 
 make a virtue of a renunciation that's de rigueur, and 
 hate their virtue (like most other people) while they 
 brag of it!" 
 
 " Confound you ! I don't ask about all women, 
 only about one. You set out with a dreadful preju- 
 dice against her ; you'd seen her at one masked ball, 
 and wrote me word on the strength of it that you 
 thought it particularly lucky that the Marquis was of 
 elastic principles, and that you didn't envy him his 
 wife, because her mouth, though perfection, would 
 whisper too many infidelities to please you !" 
 
 A dark shadow of impatient, intolerant annoyance 
 passed over Strathmore's face, and glanced into his 
 eyes for an instant as the sun fell on it, slanting 
 through the ** ^h^ ! mti Spart not !'* of the motto 
 blazoned on the painted panes; but there was no 
 trace left of anger as he looked up and laughed 
 slightly. 
 
 "I dare say it is particularly lucky the Marquis 
 has elastic conjugal principles; it's lucky for any 
 husband who has a handsome wife, and yet likes to 
 live in peace with his brethren. Lady Vavasour is a 
 very exquisite beauty, there's no disputing that; you'll 
 rave of her, Bertie ; at the same time, I never heard 
 beauty reckoned as the best guarantee for marital 
 fidelity!" 
 
 "The devil — not exactly!" said Scrope Waverley. 
 "The Vavasour's the most abominable coquette —
 
 206 STRATHMOBE. 
 
 shocking, on my honour, isn't she, Strathmore ? Be 
 warm as the tropics on you one minute, and cold as 
 the poles the next." 
 
 Strathmore looked at him with his chilliest con- 
 tempt : 
 
 " Perhaps you have suffered ! Acrimony generally 
 bespeaks adversity. Not having been the subject of 
 her ladyship's caprices, I cannot compare notes with 
 you, Scrope, nor yet back your experience, though — 
 in your case — I don't doubt any part of them, except 
 that you ever basked much in the tropics !" 
 
 Waverley looked sulky as he picked over his olives, 
 not quite certain how to take the shot that had told 
 in a very sore spot ; while Erroll, ever good natured, 
 and who could no more take pleasure in making a 
 man smart than a dog wince, turned the subject, and 
 postponing his own curiosity, asked Strathmore who 
 the people were that were coming ? 
 
 " Who ? Oh, some of the Vernon^eaux set," an- 
 swered Strathmore, taking a Manilla out of the little 
 silver waggon. "The De Ruelles, the Beaudeserts, 
 Madame de Cevillac, your old friend Lady Camelot, 
 and — Lady Yavasour." 
 
 He paused a moment before he added her name, 
 but then spoke it indifferently enough. 
 
 "The Yavasour!" echoed Erroll and all the other 
 men with him. "By Jove ! Strath, you don't mean it ! " 
 " Why should I not mean it ? " 
 "The Yavasom'? By Heaven!" ejaculated the
 
 THE WEAVING OF THE GOLDEN SHUTTLE. 207 
 
 Sabreur, stroking his moustache in beatified astonish- 
 ment. " I thought you didn't like her, Cis ?" 
 
 " 1 don*t think I ever said so 1 De plus, she in- 
 vited herself, and reigning beauties are like reigning 
 fashions — one must obey them." 
 
 " Does the Marquis come too ? " 
 
 " God forbid ! At least, he comes for a day or 
 two, but only en route to the Sprudel to cure his 
 dyspepsia. Like the Roman, he goes to a bath that 
 he may come back for a banquet." 
 
 "And leaves his wife a droit de chasse in his 
 absence ? " laughed Erroll. " But the idea of keep- 
 ing that to yoiu'self all this time, letting us talk of 
 her and never telling us ! What an odd fellow you 
 are ! You called her a sorceress, and said she tried 
 her wiles on you at the Luilhiers's ball. Has she 
 bewitched even you, old fellow ? " 
 
 " Not exactly ! " said Strathmore — his tone was 
 more contemptuously cold than he had ever used to 
 Erroll — " but I hke beauty as I like a good Titian, a 
 good claret, a good opera, a good racer. Who 
 doesn't ? To hear you, Bertie, one would certainly 
 thuik no woman had ever been entertained at White 
 Ladies since Mary Stuart! If Lady Vavasoui* 
 wished to come here with Beatrix Beaudesert, could 
 I say I wouldn't have her ? Besides, 1 had no wish 
 to say so ; she is very charming. By-the-by, Phil, 
 who was that you were talking about when I came 
 in? Who's sallow in the daylight? — most blondes 
 are that, though, after twenty."
 
 208 STKATHMOEE. 
 
 He spoke so carelessly, as he lay back in his chair, 
 that not a man present guessed that the name of 
 Marion Vavasour was anything more to him than 
 the names of fifty fair women, who had been, season 
 after season, recipients of the stately hospitalities of 
 White Ladies : except, indee<l, Erroll, who looked at 
 him with a puzzled look clouding his clear azure 
 eyes, and drank his coffee in silence. He, the sworn 
 Squire of Dames, who worshipped everything feminine 
 that crossed his path, felt a vague dislike rise up in 
 him against this witching beauty, whom Strathmore 
 denied had had charm for him, and yet who was 
 bidden beneath the roof of White Ladies. 
 
 That night, when they had left the smoking-room, 
 Strathmore, sitting alone in his own room, thought- 
 ful yet listless, with a restless indifference which had 
 grown on him of late, and which he had vainly 
 doctored with very heavy betting at Baden, and 
 dangerous coups de hasard at roulette, threw open 
 his despatch-box and took out a little note — a note 
 which was not very many lines, which placed his 
 title before his name, and which was chiefly gay, 
 mischievous badinage and pretty command, with 
 but here and there touches of something deeper, and 
 these only deepened to friendship. Yet this letter 
 had sufficed to bring him from Baden at its bidding ; 
 it had been looked at many times, where no other 
 note addressed to him had ever served for any other 
 purpose than to light his cigar, and it had a fascina- 
 tion for him which no words written by a woman's
 
 THE WEAVING OF THE GOLDEN SHUTTLE. 209 
 
 hand had ever claimed, for it was signed — " Marion 
 Vavasour and Vaux." Letters have a strange gla- 
 mour ! — with this, the sweet mocking voice echoed 
 in his ear, the smile of the dark antelope eyes laughed 
 into his, the fragrance of the amber hair floated past 
 him, and he flung the note back into its resting-place 
 with a fierce oath — he hated the senseless paper ! 
 For he hated the hot, insidious passion that was 
 creeping into his blood, and that, in night and soli- 
 tude, wreathed round him as the serpent folds round 
 the Liiocoon, sapping his strength, and only twisting 
 closer and closer with each effort to thrust it aside ; 
 the passion that would make him the slave of a 
 woman, the vassal of a smile, the bond-servant of a 
 kiss! 
 
 In the simplest trifles Strathmore was remarkable 
 for an unswerving tenacity to truth, too proud a man 
 not to hold his word his bond even in ordinary collo- 
 quial intercourse; yet that night, when denying to 
 Erroll that she had any sway over him, he had for 
 the only time in his life lied. It was the first trivial 
 unnoticed step of the downward course that he was 
 even now commencing, as the first unperceived 
 loosening of the snow is the signal for the down- 
 ward sweep of the avalanche. 
 
 Marion Vavasour had a power over him such as no 
 woman had ever gained before her ; the strange force 
 with which absolute hatred of her mingled with the 
 charm her beauty had for him, served only to heighten 
 it and give it a sting which excited and enthralled a 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 STEATHMORE. 
 
 man whom a tamer or wiser love would never have 
 governed. Strathmore had stayed on at Vernon- 
 ^eaux, voluntarily remaining in the danger, which a 
 weaker man would, or might, at least, have fled from 
 while there was yet time ; finding in this new beguile- 
 ment, this woman's intoxicating loveliness, a spell, 
 subtle and resistless, the same dazzling, sensuous delight 
 as lies in a soft Bacchante of Coustou's golden chisel, 
 or a voluptuous reveuse warm with the rich varied 
 colours of the canvas of Greuze. Constantly in her 
 society, meeting her alone in the freshness of the 
 early morning, strolling with her at evening under 
 the trellised roofing of the vines, bowing to the sway 
 of her coquetries in the salon where she held her gay 
 omnipotent reign, Strathmore did not dispute the 
 "destiny" which she had said had decreed them to 
 be friends. 
 
 For him, too, she had her most certain and most 
 dangerous charm : capricious, mutable, scattering her 
 coquetries a pleines mains, as the Hours of Corregio 
 scatter their roses ; she had a softness, a sadness, a 
 tenderness, / call it — she termed it a " friendship " — 
 for and with Strathmore which seemed to bespeak that 
 something warmer than vanity, something deeper 
 than mere pride of conquest, might be awakened in 
 her. Amidst the largesse of adoration that she levied 
 from all who came within sight of lier brilliant 
 banner, which fluttered with its audacious motto, 
 " Je regne partoutj^ from north to south, from east 
 to west, she made a distinction towards the man who
 
 THE WEAVING OF THE GOLDEN SHUTTLE. 211 
 
 had saved her life at the Vigil of St. John, which 
 gave good ground for attributing a preference that 
 every man, from Monsignore Villaflor downwards, 
 bitterly envied him as they began to yield place to 
 him as of necessity, and to couple his name with 
 hers in the card-room or smoking-room, when neither 
 he nor the Marquis were present. The latter was 
 the only one at Yernon^eaux who never troubled 
 his head which way his Marchioness's caprices might 
 be turning ; it was a matter of profound indifference 
 to him, and he dozed, and read French novels, and 
 played ecarte, and discussed Vart de gout, and let his 
 wife go on her oya\ ways, like a gentleman of breed- 
 ing who did as he would be done by. 
 
 Half hating her, half beguiled by her, one hour 
 accrediting to her all the velvet treachery, the wanton 
 cruelty of the panther ; the next, subdued by that 
 charm which he had little wish and less will to resist ; 
 one instant, bitterly contemptuous on the witchery 
 that made his pulse beat quicker at the mere fra- 
 grance of a woman's hair ; another seeking with all 
 the skill the world had taught him, to make the 
 softened glance of her eyes deepen into tenderness ; — 
 so the golden shuttle of a woman's power had woven 
 its woof and wound its web around Strathmore, and 
 so he had courted, even while he rebelled from, its 
 enchanted toils. And just at the very moment when 
 the surest meshes of its twisted threads were entangling 
 round him, when he was first beginning to feel it a 
 necessity to be in her presence — ^just then, Lady 
 p2
 
 212 STEATHMORE. 
 
 Vavasour left Vernon9eaux. Without announcement, 
 without preparation, she went; carefully avoiding 
 any tete-a-tete farewell, bidding him " au revoir " with 
 laughing negligence in a crowded salon, with an in- 
 difference which Strathmore was not slow to simulate 
 in imitation. Yet that adieu, by its very avoidance 
 of him, by its very abandonment of that tendresse 
 which she used as her habitual weapon of war, told 
 him, by his experience of women, might equally mean 
 one of two things : that she felt nothing, or — felt too 
 much I Which ? 
 
 The question was left open, and pursued him cease- 
 lessly ; nothing in his life had ever haunted him so 
 persistently as that single doubt. I believe that weeks, 
 months spent in her presence, would not have rooted 
 her in his memory so firmly as that well-timed absence, 
 that insoluble uncertainty. Away from her, it was in 
 vain that he contemned, as he did with bitter irony, 
 with pitiless rancour, her coquetries and her caprices ; 
 or mercilessly dissected her faults, her foibles, and 
 her fascinations : her power had begun ! Insecurity 
 is to passion as the wind to the flame — without the 
 cold breeze wafted to it, the embers would have faded 
 fast, and never flared up into life ; with the rush of 
 the cooler air the fire leaps into flame, and its lust is 
 not sated till it has destroyed all before it. 
 
 The Strathmores of White Ladies had never loved 
 the women who had slept innocently on their hearts, 
 and laid their pure lives within their keeping; the
 
 THE WEAVING OF THE GOLDEN SHUTTLE. 213 
 
 only passion that had ever roused them had been some 
 fierce forbidden desire, and the guilty leaven of the 
 dead race was alive in the man who bore their name 
 and their features. From Vernon9eaux Strathmore 
 went to Baden, and if any feeling was strong in him 
 towards the woman whose beauty, when the scarlet 
 flowers bound her amber hair, had made him think of 
 Fredegonde, of Sifrid, of Lucrezia, of every living 
 Circe who had drawn men downward by the witching 
 gleam of her white arms till they lost all likeness of 
 themselves, and sank into an abyss whence they could 
 never more rise again into the pure light left for ever 
 at her bidding, he would have said, and perhaps said 
 rightly, that it was — hatred. If pity be akin to love, 
 believe me passion is as often allied to hate ! It 
 would slay what it vainly covets ; if it cannot kiss the 
 lips it woos, it would blur them out of all beauty by 
 a blow ; what it seeks so fiercely, it loathes for the 
 pain of its own unslaked desire ; and what it is forbid- 
 den to enjoy, it would thrust away out of its own and 
 other eyes, into the darkness of an absolute or of a 
 hving death, with the hatred of Amnon, to the tomb 
 of Heloise ! 
 
 Such was the passion now wakening in Strathmore ; 
 which, whilst it made him hate the woman who fasci- 
 nated and blinded him, because he knew that the 
 softness of such hours as that upon the rose -terrace 
 was but a more fatal phase of her brilliant and studied 
 coquetries, were but the shadows which, with a cun-
 
 214 STRATHMOKE. 
 
 ning art, she threw in to heighten a dazzling picture ; 
 had still made him leave Baden the instant that the 
 note he now flung aside had reached him — the note 
 which accepted his invitation afresh, and selected 
 White Ladies from amidst a hundred other places 
 that were open to the honour of her ladyship's bright 
 and sovereign presence. 
 
 In his own room that night he read over the delicate 
 fragrant letter that had made him leave Baden (and 
 would have made him leave Paradise !), and with an 
 oath threw it away from him, as though it were 
 tainted with poison. He hated the mad fool's delight 
 that lay in it for him because her hand had touched 
 it, yet he longed with ungovernable desire to feel that 
 hand lie once more within his own ; and Strathmore, 
 who held that he could mould his life like plastic clay 
 into any shape that pleased him, did not seek to 
 inquire whether the clay would break or harden in 
 the fire which was beginning to seethe and coil 
 around it. 
 
 As he flung the letter away and rose, he pulled 
 back the curtains of the window nearest him, and 
 threw one of its casements open. He felt impatient 
 for the air, impatient with himself, intolerant with 
 all the world ! The night was very hot, and he stood 
 looking out for a while into the moonlight. The 
 scene was lovely enough, and the old monastic lands, 
 as far as he could see, were his own ; but Strathmore, 
 absorbed in his own thoughts, looked little at the
 
 THE WEAVING OF THE GOLDEN SHUTTLE. 215 
 
 landscape. It was a mere hazard that the figure of a 
 man crossing the turf caught his eye. 
 
 " A poacher as near the house as that ; impossible ! 
 That Knightswood gang are the very deuce for 
 
 audacity, but even they'd never " he thought, as 
 
 he leaned out to get a good look at the intruder ; in 
 the clear white light the form, though distant, was 
 distinct enough, and the red end of a cigar, as it 
 moved through the gloom, sparkled like a glow- 
 worm. 
 
 Strathmore looked hard at the mysterious shadow, 
 till it had gone out of the moonlight into the deep 
 shade of a cluster of elms. 
 
 "By Jove! Erroll, as I live! Another of my 
 tenants' daughters come to grief, I suppose ! What 
 a fellow it is ; if he's away from Phya of the Bijou 
 Villa, he takes up with Phyllis of the Home-farm ! 
 I wonder how cider tastes, faulting champagne? 
 Eather flat, and terribly homely, I should fancy; 
 better than nothing, though, I suppose, for the 
 Sabreur. Well, it's a very nice night for an erotic 
 adventure. Byron's quite right — 
 
 The devil's in the moon for mischief ; 
 
 there is not a day, 
 
 The longest, not the twenty-first of June, 
 
 Sees half the business in a wicked way 
 
 On which three single hours of moonshine smile — 
 
 And then she looks so modest all the while ! 
 
 He might have said, too, that in that respect the 
 women who make the mischief are like the moon that
 
 216 STRATHMORE. 
 
 looks on it! Chaste Diana of the skies, or of the 
 sex, only veils that she may lend herself — to some- 
 thing naughty!" 
 
 With which reflection Strathmore shut the window 
 down and rang for his Albanian, giving no more 
 thought to ErrolFs moonlight errand. Long after- 
 wards, when it formed a link in that chain which his 
 own passions forged about his life, the remembrance 
 of this September night came back to him.
 
 217 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 FEATHERY SEEDS THAT WERE FREIGHTED WITH 
 FRUIT OF THE FUTURE, 
 
 " It was a fine moonlight night last night, my 
 dear fellow, and Hampshire ' moonrakers ' do go fish- 
 ing after contraband goods, au clair de la lune, but I 
 didn't know you belonged to the fraternity, Bertie," 
 said Strathmore, the next evening, as they walked 
 home brushing through the ferns, after a good day 
 out in the open. 
 
 Erroll turned with a certain dismay ; though in 
 the teeth of a convicted wickedness he would stroke 
 his moustache with the blandest plait-ilf look of 
 innocence, he was thrown a little off his guard, and 
 confidence was such a habit with him with Strath- 
 more, that it was difficult to get out of it. 
 
 " The deuce. Strath, you're as bad as a detective ! " 
 he mm-mm-ed, plaintively. "Where did you see me ? " 
 
 " Where you were very easily to be seen, my dear
 
 218 STRATHMOEE. 
 
 fellow, as I told you once before. If you walk about 
 in the open air, as large as life, with a cigar in your 
 mouth, I can't understand how you can very judici- 
 ously expect to go imseen, myself ! What have you 
 got about you, Erroll, to confer invisibility? You 
 seem to expect it as your prerogative ! " 
 
 " Bosh ! " interrupted Bertie, striking a fusee. 
 "But, by the way, my dear Cis, how came you to 
 be looking at the moonlight last night? That isn't 
 your line at all." 
 
 " Thank God, no ! Who will may have the moon- 
 rays for me : we can spend the night much more 
 pleasantly than by looking at it ! Who is she, mon 
 cher? Such nocturnal depredations are poaching on 
 my manor-rights ; however, I don't grudge tliem to 
 you. Katie or Jeanneton may make a very pretty 
 picture with a broken pitcher or a gleaner's bundle 
 for Mulready or Meissonnier, but in real life — ^no, 
 thank you ! No Psyche can lie on a hard pallet 
 under a thatched roof. Bah ! I thought better of 
 you, Sabreur!" 
 
 Erroll laughed and didn't defend himself, but he 
 looked a trifle thoughtful and wonied for so insigni- 
 ficant an affair as a provincial amow^ette, which to 
 that universal conqueror was usually something what 
 knocking over a swallow with a stone, might be to 
 a splendid shot, after the best bouquets of prime 
 battues. 
 
 " Don't say anything about it, there's a good old 
 fellow ! " he said, carelessly, after a moment's pause —
 
 > 
 
 FRUIT OF THE FUTUKE. 219 
 
 a pause apparently of some hesitation and indecision 
 on a subject on wliicli lie seemed tempted to speak 
 fully. 
 
 " Did I say anything about the other, last 
 summer? If I were a man, now, who liked cab- 
 bage-roses, I should try my droits de seigneur, and 
 turn you out from your monopoly. But on my life, 
 Bertie, I don't understand your village liaisons," 
 went on Strathmore, thinking no more about the 
 matter than that Erroll's equal worship of Eros, 
 whether the little god of miscliief lived under a 
 lean-to roof, or a ceiling painted after Fragonard, 
 was not his own line of action, and seemed an 
 unintelligible elasticity of taste. "'A Gardener's 
 Daughter ' and ' Jacqueline la Bouquetiere ' look very 
 well in poetry and painting ; so do rags and tatters ; 
 but, in real life, I can no more fancy making love 
 to them, than taking to a beggar's clothes by choice. 
 Love's born of the senses ; then why the deuce take 
 Love where half his senses must be shocked ? " 
 
 ''L^ amour est niveleur!''^ laughed Erroll, a little 
 more absent still than usual. "He's the only real 
 republican, the only sincere socialist going, my dear 
 Cis ; he won't complain where you take him so long 
 as he has a soft nest in a white breast, and can talk 
 in his own tongue ! What do you know about him ? 
 You only 'make love' languidly to some grande 
 dame, who blinds him with sandal-wood and stifles 
 him in lace^; or some Champs Elys^es Aspasia, who 
 di^enches his wings with vin mosseux, smothers him in
 
 220 STRATHMOBE. 
 
 cachemires, kills him with mots, and sells him for rou- 
 leaux! Your god isn't the god ! " 
 
 " My dear fellow, will you tell me in what religion 
 my god is ever the god according to my neighbour's 
 orthodoxy ? " said Strathmore. " I say, Bertie, didn't 
 you lose a good deal at the Spring Meetings'? I 
 told you that miserable bay was worth nothing." 
 
 Erroll laughed gaily. 
 
 " I did drop a good deal, but I cleared a few 
 hundreds after at Goodwood, that put things a little 
 square. Things always right themselves : worry's 
 like a woman, who, if she sees she's no effect, leaves 
 off plaguing you. Bills, like tears, are rained down 
 on you if they disturb you an inch, but, if you're 
 immovable to both, you see no more of either ! " 
 
 " Comfortable creed ! I never knew, though, that 
 the unpaid and the unloved w^ere quite so soon 
 daunted ! But, Bertie, you promised me that — that 
 if ^" 
 
 "My dear old fellow, I know I did ! " broke in the 
 Sabrem\ "If I were in any mess for money, I 
 would tell you frankly, and take from you as cheer- 
 fully as you'd lend " 
 
 " Parole d'honneur ? " 
 
 " Parole d'honneur ! Won't that satisfy you ? " 
 
 " No ! I want to free you from those beggarly 
 Jews. You might let me have my own whim here. 
 Name any interest to me you like — a hundred per 
 cent., if that will please you — ^but only ^" 
 
 " Sign a bond that you'd tear in two and scatter to
 
 FKUIT OF THE FUTURE. 221 
 
 the windsj or thrust in the fire as soon as it was 
 written ! You served me that trick once," muttered 
 Erroll; but his eyes grew soft with a grateful and 
 cordial light as he looked at Strathmore. " Old 
 fellow, you knoiv how I thank you ; but I can't let 
 you have your whim here, though you're as true as 
 steel, Strath, God bless you ! I say, what does Paris 
 think of Graziella ? She's not worth half they rave 
 of her in the Guards' Box, and her ankles are so 
 atrociously thick ! " 
 
 " The deuce they are ! She owes everything to her 
 face ; her pas de seul w^ould never be borne in public, 
 onl}^ she's so extremely handsome for a pas de deux 
 in private ! Carlotta has ten times more grace ; but 
 Carlotta got a claque against her from the first ; she 
 began by being — virtuous, and, though she's seen the 
 error of her ways, the imprudence will never be 
 forgiven her. Virtue is as detrimental in the 
 Coulisses as Honesty on 'Change ! The professors 
 of either soon get hissed down for such an eccentric 
 innovation, and tire of its losing game before the 
 sibilation ! " 
 
 With which truism upon Life and Virtue, Strath- 
 more walked on through the ferns, talking with 
 Erroll of the topics of the hour, from the carte of 
 the coming policies of Europe, to the best site for a 
 new tan-gallop. That evening, as they strolled home- 
 wards in the mellow sunset, smoking and chatting, 
 while Our Lady's bells chimed slowly and softly over 
 w^oodland and cornland, over river and valley, in the
 
 222 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 Curfew cliant, was the last hour in which they enjoyed, 
 untainted, the free, frank, hon camarade communion of 
 a friendship that was closer than brotherhood and 
 stronger than the tie of blood. It was the last before 
 a woman laid the axe to its root. 
 
 And even now their conversation lagged, and their 
 voices dropped to silence, as the thoughts of both were 
 occupied by her whom neither named — ErroU musing 
 with an impatient curiosity, a prophetic prescience of 
 distrust, on this sorceress-beauty which men attributed 
 to the Marchioness of Vavasour and Yaux, yet which 
 his friend averred had assailed him no more than the 
 lifeless perfection of some Titian chef-d'oeuvre ; and 
 Strathmore thinking of the hour, now near, when her 
 hand should touch his, when the light of her eyes should 
 glance on him again, when his own roof should shelter 
 the loveliness which was fast shattering to the dust 
 the proud panoply of his chill philosophies, and whose 
 seductive sweetness had stolen into his life unperceived, 
 from the first night that he had looked by the light 
 of the spring stars on the blonde aux yeux noirs in 
 Bohemia. 
 
 That evening Lady Vavasour drove through Paris ; 
 she had been staying with the Court at Compiegne, 
 and was here but for a day or two in her favourite 
 residence, which was peerless among cities as herself 
 amidst womanhood. She and Paris both brilliant, 
 sparkling, proud, without rival in their path, Vith their 
 days one brilliant fete de triomphe, and their sovereign
 
 FKUIT OF THE FUTURE. 225 
 
 sceptre wi*eatlied with flowers, suited and resembled 
 each other — the Queen of Cities and the Queen of 
 Fashion ! And if in the Past and Future of the 
 woman, as in the Past and Future of the citj, there 
 were cruelties which teemed with the ferocity of the 
 tigress, lustful vanities which rioted with the licence 
 of a Faustina, dark hours in which the Discrowned 
 tasted of the bitterness of death, with both the Past 
 was shrouded, and the Future veiled. 
 
 Paris, fair and stately, lay glittering in the sunset, 
 with its myriad of lights a-lit, its song, its revels, its 
 music; and Marion Marchioness of Vavasour and 
 Vaux drove through the streets, her moqueur smile 
 upon her lips, her silken lashes lazily drooped as she 
 mused over a thousand victorious memories, her deli- 
 cate form wrapped in costliest silks and laces, the 
 very crowds doing homage to her as she passed through 
 them, and they turned into the streets to glance after 
 the loveliest woman of her day. 
 
 The carriage with its fretting roans, its mazarine- 
 blue liveries, its outriders a la Eeine, — for she passed 
 through Paris with well-nigh as much pomp and 
 circumstance as Montespan or Marie Antoinette, — 
 halted before the doors of her hotel, and the people 
 thronging on their way to the Boulevards and the 
 Caf^s-chantants, turned to gaze at the superb equipage, 
 and more at the loveliness which lay back upon its 
 cushions, negligently indifferent to their gaze. 
 
 Among the crowd was a woman, a gipsy, at whom
 
 224 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 a Quartier Latin student, who lived on a pipe and 
 three litre a day, and dreamt of high art when he 
 was not drunk with absinthe, looked, thinking rue- 
 fully what a model she would have made had he had 
 a sou to give her ; for as the double light of the 
 sunset and the rSverheres fell on her, her vagrant 
 dress was Kembrandtesque, and her olive features had 
 the dark, still, melancholy beauty of an Arab's — that 
 mournful and immutable calm which Greek sculptors 
 gave to the face of Destiny and of the god Demeter, 
 and which on the living countenance ever bespeaks 
 repressed but concentred passions. And this wo- 
 man, mingling among the passengers that thronged 
 the trottoir, drew nearer and nearer the carriage as 
 it stopped before the Hotel Vavasour. 
 
 The horses pawed the ground impatient, the out- 
 riders pulled theirs up with noise and fracas, the 
 Chasseur lowered the steps, and Lady Vavasour de- 
 scended from her carriage, sweeping onwards with 
 her royal, negligent grace, the subtle perfume of her 
 dress wafted out upon the evening air. The Bohemian 
 had drawn near ; so near, that as she stretched for- 
 ward this vagrant obstructed the path of the English 
 peeress, and her heavy, weather-stained cloak, covered 
 with the dust of the streets, all but touched the scented 
 gossamer laces and trailing train of the Leader of 
 Fashion ! 
 
 ^ " Chassez-la /" said Marion Vavasour to her Chas- 
 seur, as she slightly di'ew back; — she, for whom
 
 FKUIT OF THE FUTUEE. 225 
 
 sovereigns laid down their state, and before whose 
 word bowed princes of the blood, to have her passage 
 blocked by a beggar-woman ! 
 
 The Chasseur, obedient, struck the gipsy a sharp 
 blow with his long white wand, and ordered her out 
 of the way. 
 
 She fell out of the path, and Lady Vavasour went 
 onward up the steps of her hotel, and passed at once 
 to her own rooms to make, still more elaborately than 
 usual, her dinner toilette — S. A. R. le Prince d'Etoile 
 and his Eminence the Cardinal Miraflora dined with 
 her that night, and ere bringing down royal stags she 
 loved to know that all her w^eapons were primed and 
 burnished. As she sank into her couch, and resigned 
 herself into the hands of her maids, she tossed care- 
 lessly over the hundred notes that had collected in her 
 absence, and were heaped together on a Louis-Quinze 
 salver, chased by Reveil ; she glanced at this, threw 
 that carelessly aside, till she had dismissed dozens, 
 scarce reading a line; at last over one she paused, 
 with amused triumph glancing away the languor from 
 her eyes, and a smile playing on her lips — a smile of 
 success ; while as she looked up from the letter to the 
 face reflected in the mirror before her, the thought 
 that floated through her mind was a fatal truth : 
 
 " My cold, proud Strathmore, w^ho dared to disdain 
 the power of woman ! — you own it now, then, at 
 last!" 
 
 And underneath the windows of her stately hotel 
 the Bohemian still lingered, as though loth to leave 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 the place, while the crowds brushed past her, and the 
 carriage and the outriders swept away. When the blow 
 of the Chasseur had struck her, and he had ordered her 
 out of his path like a cur, the fixed, immutable me- 
 lancholy of her face had not changed : she had spoken 
 no word, made no sign, only her teeth had set tightly, 
 and the light as of a flame had leaped for one moment 
 into her eyes ; this had been all. She lingered some 
 moments longer, while the rush of the throngs jostled 
 and moved her unnoticed: then she passed slowly 
 away, walking wearily and painfully, with her head 
 bowed, as the daylight faded, and the gas in the lamps 
 glared brighter ; while amidst the gay babble and the 
 busy noise of Paris, her lips muttered to herself in the 
 mellow Czeschen patois of her people : 
 
 " My beloved ! my beloved ! Eedempta has not 
 forgot thee, Redempta will yet avenge thee! Her 
 hireling struck me, at her bidding, like a dog — that 
 was not needed too. Patience! — the lowliest stone 
 may serve to bring to earth the loftiest bird that -
 
 227 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE CHAKM OF THE ROSE. 
 
 " She is divine — but slie will destroy him !" 
 They were uncomplimentary words, and very harsh 
 ones, for that devout adorer of the beau sexe ; but as 
 Erroll stood leaning against the doorway of the por- 
 trait-gallery at White Ladies, and looking down it to 
 its farthest end, where Lady Vavasour was seated, 
 while Strathmore bent towards her, on the morning 
 after her arrival, a jealousy towards this woman 
 stirred in a heart which never harboured any acrid 
 thought or mijust envy to any living thing. 
 
 Is a man ever leniently disposed towards the woman 
 whom his friend loves? Very rarely. She is his 
 rival, and in lists, moreover, in which he can oppose 
 nothing to her power. She supplants him, she in- 
 vades his supremacy, fifty to one she is the cause of 
 dispute between them; and he will see no good in 
 q2
 
 228 STEATHMOKE. 
 
 this soft-skinned intruder, this dangerous Nazarene : 
 unless he does what is worse — fall in love with her 
 too! 
 
 And Erroll twisted his mofistaches, and muttered 
 to himself the first unflattering and mistrustful words 
 that he had ever uttered of a lovely woman, Bertie 
 being generally given to deny at all odds that the 
 Ceinture could ever strangle ; or the " Drink to me 
 with thine eyes!" ever be an invitation to a cup of 
 poisoned wine. Yet what he looked at was matchless? 
 and dazzled his eyes even while he swore against it. 
 
 " Hate her!" — the germ of hatred might lie in it, 
 but all of impatience and aversion, that had crossed 
 and checked the witchery she had for Strathmore 
 were swept away the moment that he touched her 
 hand and received her beneath his own roof. She 
 came — the beauty of Paris, the Queen of Fashion — 
 where before her Mary Stuart had languished a cap- 
 tive, and in ages yet farther the ascetic Dominicans 
 had dwelt, thrusting away from them, with the throes 
 of an unnatural stiniggle, the mere thought, the mere 
 memory, of her sex. She came to White Ladies with 
 the rest of a gay, dashing, fashionable party from his 
 favourite Paris set ; and the advent of Royalty could 
 not have been received there with more splendour 
 than was the Sovereign of the Salons. The State 
 chambers were given to her, where the White Queen 
 and the Winter Queen had closed their soft Stuart 
 eyes in slumber before her, and where none save 
 crowned heads till now had been laid.
 
 THE CHARM OF THE EOSE. 229 
 
 The witchery of this woman was on him, and to 
 lend eclat and honour to her I believe Strathmore 
 would have dissolved pearls in his wines, or scattered 
 diamonds a pleines mains. He did not realise it ; told 
 it, he would not perhaps have believed even yet ; but 
 the web woven by the golden shuttle was drawing its 
 charmed toils tighter and tighter about him, and he 
 was fast becoming the slave of Marion Vavasour : 
 doubt had but bound him closer, absence had but 
 riveted her chains ; and Lady Vavasour laughed 
 softly to herself when on the night of her arrival she 
 drew her hands through her amber tresses, as she 
 leant her head on her arm and looked at her face in 
 the mirror, thinking, " My cold Strathmore ! you are 
 my captive now!" 
 
 Was it love that she felt for him which set her 
 heart so strongly on this triumph ? It is as easy to 
 follow the wayward flight of a bird on the wing, or 
 an April wind's wanton vagaries as it blows over field 
 and flower, as to sift the reasons of a woman's will 
 — of a coquette's caprices ! 
 
 " That is your best friend. Major Erroll, isn't it ? " 
 she asked Strathmore, when they stood together in 
 the deep embrasured window of the picture-gallery 
 her eyes glancing at the Sabreur, where he leaned 
 against the doorway. 
 
 " My best indeed ! You have been introduced to 
 him?" 
 
 " Oh yes, you introduced me last night. I was 
 anxious to see the only person out of the whole world
 
 230 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 to whom you are not indifferent ! What charm has 
 he about him ? " 
 
 " What charm ? Dear old fellow ! None, save the 
 gentlest nature and truest honour that I ever found 
 in any man. He has the strength of a lion and the 
 sweetness of a woman ; he is game to the backbone, 
 and frank as a boy !" 
 
 She raised her eyebrows. She was a little impa- 
 tient of the warmth of his tone and the sincerity of 
 his praise ; a tyrannous, victorious woman is jealous 
 of all influence not her own ; and perhaps she foresaw 
 here a power that might be opposed to hers. Lady 
 Vavasour, with a woman's swift, unerring instinct, 
 guessed that Erroll would be against her, in exact 
 proportion to the sway she exercised over his friend. 
 
 " You admiring warmth of heart and the candour 
 of boyhood, Strathmore," she said, maliciously enough. 
 " Why don't you cultivate them, mon ami, if you 
 think them so admirable?" ^ 
 
 At her tone all the strange, sudden hatred of her, 
 which now and then flashed so ominously across the 
 passion which was growing on him for this woman, 
 stirred into life afresh for a moment; he smiled 
 slightly, the smile which made his face sneeringly 
 cold, and gave his eyes the look that, in a dog or a 
 horse, we call dangerous. 
 
 ^' I am an Athenian, Lady Vavasour : I may ad- 
 mire what I fail to practise. Life makes us all 
 egotists and dissemblers; but we may honour the 
 nature which is such true steel that it resists and
 
 THE CHAEM OF THE KOSE. 231 
 
 escapes the coiToding. Erroll's is the only one / 
 know which has done so." 
 
 Her impatience at Erroll increased. With the 
 quick wit of her sex, she saw at once that Erroll 
 would undermine her power if she did not undermine 
 hisj and she changed her tactics accordingly. She 
 looked at the Sabreur, letting her lashes droop over 
 her eyes, and lend them that glance of softened in- 
 terest which was the most delicate flattery such eyes 
 could bestow. 
 
 " I can believe it ; his face tells one so. How sin- 
 gularly beautiful a face it is, too; a woman might 
 envy him his golden hair and his azure eyes !" 
 
 And for the first time in his life, as he stood beside 
 her — not for the praise of his personal attractions, 
 such petty vanity and envy Strathmore was far above 
 — ^but for the softness of her look as it dwelt on 
 him, the softness which with imperious jealousy he 
 loathed to see wake for any save himself, an ill-feeling 
 stirred in him towards the man whom he loved closer 
 than a brother. And Lady Yavasour glanced at 
 him and smiled, amused and content ; she had sown 
 the larvae of the cankerworm that would eat away 
 friendship ! It is a work at which the hands of 
 women ever love well to be busy. 
 
 She had done enough to please her, and with one 
 of her graceful, antelope-like movements she turned 
 and looked upward at the portrait above her. 
 
 " Ah ! a Vandyke and a Strathmore. Keally you 
 are wonderfully like one of those old pictures animated
 
 232 STEATHMORE. 
 
 into life, Lord Cecil! My lord is quite right; he 
 says you are a walking Velasquez. There are the 
 eyes, ^fathomless and darkly-wise,' of the legend; 
 you have them and the portrait has them; and in 
 both they never soften, even to a woman !" 
 
 As she spoke, her own glanced at him with their 
 most enchanting mischief, and Strathmore, subdued 
 to the charm of her will, bent towards her : 
 
 " Looking down on youy the very portraits of the 
 dead might soften their glance. How then shall any 
 living man have power to resist? Have you not 
 heard that the Strathmores of White Ladies have 
 often disdained all, only as their doom, to madly and 
 vainly covet — one ?" 
 
 And it was as he whispered those words that ErroU, 
 not catching even the sound of his voice, but seeing 
 the meaning warmth upon his face, the gaze which 
 Strathmore fastened on her, muttered, sotto voce, 
 " She is divine ; but she will destroy him !" 
 
 Into him, too, entered — with a nature as different 
 to Strathmore's as the summer to the winter, as the 
 sunny unruffled lake to the deep and silent sea — the 
 subtle poison of Marion Vavasour's beauty, mingled 
 with a warning and prophetic hatred of her power. 
 
 There was a large party gathered by this time at 
 the Abbey, and the hospitalities she had recently 
 quitted of a Bourbon at Neuilly had scarcely been 
 more brilliant than those which welcomed her at 
 White Ladies. There was Blanche de Ruelle, that
 
 THE CHAEM OF THE ROSE. 233 
 
 haughty clark-eyed beauty, who, amidst all the homage 
 she received, treasured bitterly and wearily the me- 
 mory of the love once whispered by a man whom no 
 love had touched — who was now her friend and her 
 host. There was Beatrix Beaudesert, that dashing 
 brunette who led the first flight in a twenty minutes' 
 burst up wind, and never funked at any bullfinch 
 or double that yawned in good Northamptonshire; 
 but could have cleared Brixworth Brook, and won the 
 Grand Military, were the sex allowed to enter either 
 for the Steeple Chase or the Service. There was the 
 Comtesse de Chantal, who wove half the intrigues of 
 the Tuileries, while statesmen and diplomatists wound 
 her floss silks, and who brewed emhroglie for the 
 Western Powers in her dainty Sevres coffee-cup. 
 There was pretty Lady Alaric, who was so very reli- 
 gious, and went on her knees before her missal-like 
 prayer-book before she floated down to breakfast to 
 commence the flirtations, which always pulled up just 
 short of a court and a co-respondent; of an error 
 and an esclandre. There was Lady Clarence Came- 
 lot, leader of the most exclusive of the thorough-bred 
 sets, who was cold and still as a rock-crystal, and 
 proud as any angel that ever fell by that queenly sin ; 
 but whose nature was sweet as the sun of Sorrento, 
 and whose heart was as mellow as a Catherine 
 pear, for the few who had the fortunate sesame to 
 either. There were these and others at White 
 Ladies, but Lady Vavasour outshone them all : she
 
 234 STEATHMORE. 
 
 was the Relne Regnante, and she used her sceptre 
 omnipotently, and far eclipsed those whom most 
 women found it a hard matter even to equal. 
 
 The Marquis — ^who came thither, en route to Spa, 
 for a few days, chiefly because the venison and the 
 char out of White Ladies' woods and waters had had 
 such a celebrity for centuries that he was curious to 
 test their reputed superiority — was blessed with the 
 most gentlemanlike indifference to his lovely wife's 
 vagaries. He knew she was always flirting with 
 somebody — wlio, didn't matter much ; perhaps when 
 he did think about it, his chief feeling was a certain 
 malicious pleasure in seeing so many of his fellow- 
 creatures chained, and worried, and fooled, by the 
 seductive tormentress whom he had let loose on the 
 world, with her droit de conquete legitimatised by his 
 coronet. The Marquis was a philosopher, and the 
 very husband for his wife : their marital relations 
 were admirably ordered for the preservation of peace 
 and friendship; they saw little or nothing of one 
 another (the secret recipe for conjugal unity), and, 
 by mutual consent, never interfered, he with her 
 caprices de cceur, nor she with his " separate establish- 
 ments." Wlien he had first married, people had 
 said his lordship was madly eiitete with his bride; 
 but that inconvenient folly had departed with a few 
 months' wear : and now — ^he was proud of her loveli- 
 ness, but wisely and placably negligent on whom 
 that loveliness might shine; a wisdom and a placa-
 
 THE CHAEM OF THE EOSE. 235 
 
 bility never more needed, perhaps, tlian now at White 
 Ladies. 
 
 " Lookest thou at the stars ? 
 If I were Heaven, with all the eyes of Heaven, 
 Would I look down on thee !" 
 
 The words were very softly whispered, as Strath- 
 more stood that evening on the terrace. It was Lite ; 
 the stars were shining, and the murmur of the waters 
 flowing onward under the ehn -woods was heard 
 plaintively and monotonously sweet, as Marion Va- 
 vasour, whose whim was every hour changing, and 
 who laughed at all feeling one hour, only to assume 
 it most beguilingly the next, left the drawing-rooms, 
 where she reigned supreme ; and strolled out for a 
 brief while in the summer night, followed by her 
 host. The white light of the stars fell about her, 
 glancing on the sapphires and diamonds that glittered 
 in her hair or sparkled in her bosom, and shone in 
 the depths of her eyes, as she raised them, and looked 
 upwards at the skies above, where, here and there, 
 some cloud of transparent mist trailed across the 
 brilliance of the moon, or veiled the swift course of 
 a falling star. She laughed, toying with the closed 
 autumn roses that twined round the balustrade. 
 
 " Strathmore ! you would do no such thing ! If 
 you had the eyes of Heaven, they would all be bent 
 in watching conferences you cannot join, and in 
 reading despatches you cannot see ! There are three 
 things no woman rivals with a man who loves any
 
 36 8TEATHM0RE. 
 
 one of them ; they are a Horse, a State secret, and 
 a Cigar. We may edipse all three, perhaps, for 
 a little while, but, in the long run, any one of the 
 triad outrivals us." 
 
 He bent lower towards her, with a soft whisper : 
 
 " Do not slander my sex, and belie the power of 
 your own. Have there not been women for whom 
 men have thought the world itself well lost ? " 
 
 " There have been fools, mon ami ; and that is how 
 you would phrase it if you were out of my presence 
 and in the smoking-room, and anybody advanced the 
 proposition ! " she laughed, with that moqueur incre- 
 dulity with which at Yernon9eaux she had so con- 
 stantly tantalised and provoked him. 
 
 "Fools? It would be rash to call them so. 
 Manuel was no fool, yet he found his Isles of Delight 
 sweeter than the din and clash of triumph, and the 
 fall of conquered citadels. Alcibiades was no fool, 
 yet he found to look into the eyes of Aspasia better 
 than the sceptre of the Alcmoeonidae and the wisdom 
 of the Schools ! " 
 
 Three months ago Strathmore would have sworn 
 never to utter such words, save in derision : but now, 
 as he stooped towards her in the stillness of the 
 night, it was not either in jest or flattery, that he 
 spoke them ; the roses had the perfume for him 
 with which they had wooed Manuel in the Isles of 
 Delight; the eyes had the power to which the soft 
 Greek had bowed and sunk. For with every year 
 the roses bloom, and with every' age men love !
 
 b 
 
 THE CHAEM OF THE ROSE. 237 
 
 Her sweet mocking laugh rang in the air — the 
 laugh which had enthralled him under the lindens of 
 Bohemia, and from behind the mask of the White 
 Domino. 
 
 " What ! you who acknowledge but one love — 
 Power; and covet but one boon — Age; confess so 
 much as that ! You must be very suddenly changed 
 since three months ago; your eyes, a Strathmore's 
 fathomless eyes, actually soften at the mere memory 
 of Aspasia ! " 
 
 Her eyes laughed up into his, her hand touched 
 his own where it wandered among the roses; the 
 sultry air of the night swept round them, only stirred 
 by the dreamy splash of fountains, and the rise and 
 fall of her low breathings. He had no strength 
 against her in such a moment, nor did he seek, or 
 strive, or wish, to have. 
 
 " Changed ? If I be so, the sorcery lies at your 
 door. It is not the memory of Aspasia which evokes 
 the confession ; the daughter of Hellas has be- 
 queathed her glamour to one who uses it to the 
 full, as fatally, and as surely ! " 
 
 A smile trembled on her lovely lips, which became 
 half a sigh, while her hand absently toyed with the 
 sapphire cross that glittered just below her throat. 
 
 " Ah-bah ! " she said, with a laugh, whose gay 
 mockery had in it for the first time a timbre of 
 constraint, as of lightness assumed but unfelt. "I 
 do not believe in such sudden converts; I do not 
 receive them into my creed ! Strathmore, am I,
 
 238 STEATHMOKE. 
 
 who read you so well wliile you were yet unknown, 
 likely to believe in your suave words so quickly? 
 Remember ! I am clairvoyante. ~ I know the sincerity 
 of every one who approaches me, and I know the 
 worth of your words, my diplomatist ! I shall be a 
 very long time before I accord to you the honour of 
 any belief in them." 
 
 "If you be clairvoyante, you will no longer dis- 
 believe; you will see without words what your sor- 
 cery works. You must know your own power too 
 well to doubt it ! " 
 
 Know her own power ? In every iota ! and she 
 knew it now ; knew that this man, who was steeled 
 in his own strength, and held himself far above the 
 soft foolery of passion, was fast bending to her will, 
 fast drinking in the draught which she tendered to 
 his lips, fast succumbing to her feet, to lie there, 
 bound, and powerless, to free himself from bondage ; 
 letting his life drift on as she should choose to guide 
 it ; losing all, forsaking all, risking all, so long as he 
 could look upward in her eyes, so long as her white 
 hand would wander to his own ! Know her own 
 power! Truly she did, and used it without mercy, 
 without scruple ! 
 
 Her eyes looked up and dwelt on his with the 
 mournful languor which gave to their dark brilliance 
 the softness as of unshed tears ; the mockery of her 
 smile faded ; and the lips seemed charged with some 
 unuttered whisper, as the roses she toyed, were charged 
 with the heavy sweetness of the clinging dew. If
 
 THE CHAEM OF THE EOSE. 239 
 
 ever woman loved, Stratlimore could have sworn she 
 loved him then; and the scorching sweetness, the 
 dangerous delight of a forbidden passion, stole over 
 him, and swept round him, in the sultry air of the 
 night, only heightened by the strange hatred of the 
 power which enthralled him to her will, which ever 
 mins;led with the madness that was stealing on him. 
 He bent towards her, his breath fanned her hair, his 
 hand touched hers where it rested among the flowers, 
 and touched — the diamond circlet that chilled him as 
 with the chill of ice. It recalled to him that this 
 woman was but fooling him; that this woman was 
 Marion Vavasour ! And as their hands met, she drew 
 her own away ; while a faint sigh stirred her heart 
 beneath its costly lace. 
 
 " Hush ! If they be not the words of flattery, they 
 must not be the words of friendship ! How beautiful 
 the night is ! I do not wonder that poets love it 
 better than the day. The sunlight is for haste and 
 care, and for men's toil and labour, and for the fret 
 of daily life; but the night, when the flowers are 
 closed, and the cities are silent, and the stars look into 
 the chambers, where the living sleep peacefully as the 
 dead, and shine upon the rivers, till the suicides who 
 have sought their refuge wear a calm smile on their 
 cold lips — the Night is the noon of the poets — ^the 
 Night is for rest, for dreams, for " 
 
 " Love I " 
 
 The word which paused upon her lips he uttered 
 for her ; and the soft rebuke, the gesture with which
 
 240 STBATHMORE. 
 
 she repelled him, and recalled to him that there was a 
 boundary which the language of homage must not 
 pass, to the woman who was a wife, enthralled him 
 more than any art she could have called forward, since 
 in his ear it whispered : 
 
 " The woman who fears your homage, fears her- 
 self!" 
 
 As she spoke dreamily, mournfully, with that oc- 
 casional earnestness which, when it succeeded her 
 caprices and her brilliant mockery, had the charm of 
 the Italian evening that follows on the dazzling day 
 Strathmore uttered, with a meaning new upon his 
 lips, the word which had been his derision and disdain ; 
 the word before which she paused ; the word which all 
 the voices of the voluptuous night seemed to re-echo 
 around them, while the moonlight streamed on the un- 
 covered limbs of sculptured marble that wore all the 
 repose of sleep, and the stars gleamed upon the 
 winding waters, white with the snowy burden of in- 
 numerable lilies. Love! Strathmore would have 
 flung away that word in disdain if spoken to him in 
 the *coldness of reason, in the pauses of judgment ; 
 but the insidious passion to which he gave no name, 
 but which in her presence swept over him like a 
 scorch of a sirocco, was love ; love, if you will, in its 
 most soulless, love in its most sensual, form, but that 
 form the most alluring, the most dangerous, in which 
 it ever steals into the life of man. 
 
 She shrugged her snow-white shoulders and pouted 
 her lips with a moue of pretty contempt, while at the
 
 THE CHARM OF THE ROSE. 241 
 
 same time the faint sigh which was so little in unison 
 with her beauty, yet gave it so rare a charm, heaved 
 the sapphires where they sparkled in her breast. 
 
 " Bah ! that is the ' pastime of fools,' too, and no 
 more suits our world than the other. We do not be- 
 lieve in it ; we only mimic it. It may do for Undine 
 among the water-lilies yonder, but we have no faith 
 left for those childish idyls. They are contes pour rire 
 for us ; we have outgrown them ! Who loves in our 
 world?" 
 
 For all its mockery the question was one of pitiless 
 danger, spoken by her, as she leaned against the 
 balustrade in the moonlight, gazing down on to the 
 dark masses of foliage sheltering beneath ; while her 
 eyes were heavy as with some indefinite regret, as she 
 pressed against her lips the leaves of a rose she had 
 disentangled from the rest, which was wet and fra- 
 grant with the night dews. His lips brushed her 
 hair, his breath fanned her brow, his words were 
 whispered softly and wooingly : 
 
 " To answer you would be to risk rebuke afresh. 
 The truth would neither lie in words of flattery nor 
 of friendship." 
 
 " Then — those words must not be spoken !" 
 
 The reply was but like the cold breath which fans 
 the embers into fire ; uttered while her eyes dwelt on 
 his without rebuke, wliile her lips parted with a breath 
 that was so near a sigh, while half in sadness, half in 
 coquetry, she silenced him with a light, fragrant blow 
 of the roses, the words in their very f orbiddance gave 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 fresh fuel to the dawning madness they rebuked. In 
 that moment he would have staked his Kfe that he 
 was loved by the woman he coveted, as he of Israel 
 coveted the loveliness on which the eastern sunlight 
 fell, making it in his sight, while yet it was unwon, 
 more precious than palace treasure, or kingly sway, 
 than the good word of man, or than the smile of his 
 God! 
 
 She turned from him with one of the swift move- 
 ments which had the charm of the antelope's grace, 
 turned as a woman might from the danger which she 
 dreads and fears ; the jewels in her hair glancing in 
 the starlight, the rose that had been pressed against 
 her lips, falling on the marble. 
 
 " Let us go in ! — we have given time enough to the 
 night we must give the rest to the world." 
 
 '^ And while the world claims you, even friendship 
 may at least claim this ? " said Strathmore, as he 
 stooped, and lifted from the ground the rich fresh 
 rose which had rested against lips as fair and fragrant 
 as itself. She laughed her gay mocking laugh ; but 
 her eyes were saddened still as she glanced at him 
 while he held back the heavy draperies of a window 
 for her to re-enter the drawing-rooms. 
 
 " Ah, I know you too well : to-night the roses are 
 taken in flattery ; to-morrow, withered and faded, they 
 will be flung away with a mot ! You are a man of 
 the world, Strathmore, and all you prize is power. 
 There is no State secret in the core of that rose."
 
 THE CHAEM OF THE KOSE. 243 
 
 " But there is a secret more fatal in the charm of 
 the lips that have touched it." 
 
 Strathmore's ejes darkened as he spoke with the 
 imperious and reckless passion she had rightly judged 
 would be the only love to which he would ever waken, 
 and which she had vowed to arouse in this man who 
 held himself sheathed in an armour of proof; his 
 words, losing the softness of suave compliment, w^ere 
 hoarse with a deeper meaning, and as he followed 
 her he thrust the rose into his breast — the delicate 
 leaves that had gained value in his sight, because her 
 lips had touched them ! 
 
 That night he drank deep of the delirious draught 
 of a woman's witchery; that night, as he paid liis 
 gold to the Marquis, at ecarte, he loathed the man 
 who had bought her beauty w^ith his title, and claimed 
 her by right of ownership, as he claimed his racing 
 stud, his chef de cuisuie, his comet wines ! — he 
 loathed himself for having him at his table and 
 beneath his roof; for chatting the idle nothings 
 of familiar intercourse with him; and bidding the 
 friendly good night of host to guest, to the man 
 whom he hated with the dark hatred of the Strath- 
 more blood, which was ever stronger than their 
 wisdom, and deeper than their love, and closer than 
 their honour. True ! We seat our foes at our 
 board, and w^elcome what we hate to om- hospitality, 
 and eat salt with those who betray us, and those 
 whom we betray; wronged Octavia smiles as she 
 receives Cleopatra into her house, and Launcelot 
 e2
 
 244 STRATHMORE. 
 
 shakes hands in good-fellowship with Arthur, the 
 day after he has writ the stain on his friend's 
 knightly shield ! It is done every day, and he was 
 accustomed to such convenience and such condona- 
 tion ; but Strathmore, when once roused, was a man 
 of darker, swifter, deeper passions than the passions 
 of our day, and the leaven of his race was working 
 in him, beneath the cold and egotistic sui'face of 
 habit and of breeding. As stillness fell that night 
 upon his household, and sleep came with the hush of 
 the advancing hours, and he stood in the silence of 
 his own chamber, hating the husband, coveting the 
 wife, knowing that both were now beneath his roof ; 
 he thought of her where, like the Lady Christabel, 
 
 Her lovely limbs she did undress, 
 And lay down in her loveliness : 
 
 till, with an oath, he pressed the broken rose-leaves 
 to his lips with a fierce kiss where her own had 
 rested on them, and hurled them out away into the 
 darkness of the night. 
 
 Already — did he love this woman ?
 
 245 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 " AT HER TEET HE BOWED AND FELL." 
 
 " I CONGRATULATE you Oil your fresh honours, 
 old fellow. ' Bomont writes word the ministers have 
 
 selected you for the Confidential mission to . 
 
 Ticklish business, and a very high compliment," said 
 Camelot, one morning at breakfast, when Lord 
 Vavasour had left for Spa, and his wife had been 
 some weeks the reigning Queen at the Abbey. 
 
 Strathmore went on stirring his chocolate. 
 
 " Bomont has no earthly business to tittle-tattle 
 Foreign-office secrets ; however, since he's let it out, 
 I may confess to it." 
 
 " You accept, of course ? You must leave at once 
 —eh ? " 
 
 "The affair's been on the tapis some time. I 
 always knew I should be selected to succeed Caradoc. 
 Try that potted char. Lady Beaudesert," answered 
 Strathmore, avoiding direct answer to either of
 
 246 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 Camelot's inquiries, while among his letters lay one 
 which selected him, in a juncture of critical difficulty, 
 to occupy a post which older diplomatists bitterly 
 envied him, and which gratified his ambition and 
 signalised his abilities to the fullest. Questions and 
 congratulations flooded in on him from the people 
 about his breakfast-table, among whom Lady Vava- 
 sour was not ; she usually had her coffee in her own 
 chamber. 
 
 " You will draw us into a war, I dare say. Strath- 
 more," laughed Beatrix Beaudesert. " You dips love 
 an embroglio as dearly as journalists love a ' crisis ; ' 
 and your race are born statesmen. Your herceaunettes 
 must have been trimmed with Red Tape ; and you 
 must have learnt your alphabet out of Machiavelli's 
 Maxims ! You're not like Hamlet ; you specially 
 enjoy the times being ' out of joint,' that you may 
 show your surgical skill in setting them right." 
 
 "Of course," laughed Strathmore. "If half a 
 million slaughtered gets a General the Garter, what 
 does he care who rots, so long as he rises ? Man's 
 the only animal that preys upon his species, and for 
 his superiority calls himself head of all creation. 
 The brutes only fly at their foes; ive turn on our 
 friends if we get anything by it I " 
 
 " Fi done! " cried Madame de Ruelle. " You have 
 just received the Bath, and are appointed to a post 
 which all the diplomatic world will envy you. You 
 otight not to be in a cynical mood, Strathmore. It
 
 247 
 
 is those with whom life goes badly, who write satires 
 and turn epigrams ; a successful man always approves 
 the world, because the world has approved him I " 
 
 " True, madame ;" but at the same time there may 
 be a drop of amari aliquid under his tongue, because 
 the world has approved other people too ! " 
 
 " Dear old fellow, how glad I am ! " said ErroU, 
 meeting him in the doorway a quarter of an hour 
 afterwards. " My K.C.B. ! a discerning nation does 
 for once put the right man in the right place. On 
 my word. Strath, I am proud of you ! " 
 
 "Thank you!" 
 
 The two monosyllables were odiously cold after the 
 cordial warmth of the other's words, and Strathmore 
 crossed the hall without adding others. He was 
 conscious that he could fling away power, place, 
 fame, honour, if one woman's voice would murmur, 
 " Relinquish them — for me ! " And the conscious- 
 ness made him bitter to all the world, even to the 
 man who was closer than a brother. 
 
 " The deuce ! How changed he is ! It is all that 
 woman's doings, with her angel's face and her devil's 
 mischief ; her gazelle's eyes and her Marcia's soul ! " 
 muttered Erroll. 
 
 " Vous avez Fair tant soit 2:>eu contrarie, monsieur I " 
 said a voice behind him, half amused, half contemp- 
 tuous, as Lady Vavasour, having just descended the 
 staircase, swept past him, radiant in the morning sun-
 
 248 STEATHMOKE. 
 
 light ; her silk folds trailing on the inlaid floor, and 
 the fragrance of her hair scenting the air. Perhaps 
 she had heard his words ? 
 
 Lady Yavasour, however, could very admirably 
 defy him and his enmity, and anybody or everybody 
 else. She played utterly unscrupulously, but equally 
 matchlessly, with Strathmore ; now avoiding him, till 
 she made his cheek grow white and his eyes dark as 
 night with anger; now listening with a feigned 
 rebuke, which made it but the sweeter, to the 
 whispers of a love, that while she chid, she knew 
 how to madden with the mere sweep of her dress 
 across him. 
 
 She was a coquette and a voluptuary. She loved 
 with the shallow, tenacious, fleeting love, such as 
 Parabere and Pompadour knew, while romance still 
 mingled with licence, as their best pointe a la sauce. 
 Strathmore's nature was new to her. To first rouse, 
 and then play with it, was delightful to this beau- 
 tiful panther ; and she did both, till a very insanity 
 was awakened in him. Love is by a hundred times 
 too tame and meaningless a word for what had now 
 broken up from his coldness as volcanic flames break 
 up from ice. It was a passion born entirely from the 
 senses, if you will, without any nobler element, any 
 better spring ; but for that very reason it was headlong 
 as flame, and no more to be arrested than the lightning 
 that seethes through men's veins and scorches all 
 before it. 
 
 She heard of his appointment to conduct the mis-
 
 " HE BOWED AND FELL." 249 
 
 sion to as though he were her brother, in whose 
 
 career she was fraternally interested, and nothing 
 more ; and spoke of his coming departure to Northern 
 Europe as if it were a question of going into the next 
 county for a steeplechase or a coursing meeting. 
 
 " Ah ! you are going to 1 " she said, tranquilly, 
 
 when she met him in the library, trifling with a new 
 French novelette. " It will be very cold ! Give my 
 compliments to M. le Prince de Vorn ; he is a great 
 friend of mine, though he is a political foe of yours. 
 His wit is charming ! " 
 
 Strathmore, standing near her, felt his face pale 
 with passion to the very lips as she spoke. She had 
 wooed, while she repressed; she had tempted, while 
 she forbade his love, as a woman only does who knows 
 that she has conquered where conquest is dear to her ; 
 and now — she heard of his departure for a lengthened 
 and indefinite term as carelessly as though he told her 
 he was going to visit his stables or his kennels ! 
 
 He tried vainly that day to meet her alone; she 
 avoided or evaded him from luncheon to dinner with 
 tantalising dexterity. Letters to write, a game of 
 billiards, chit-chat in the drawing-rooms — one thing 
 or another occupied her so ingeniously, that not even 
 for a single second did she give him the chance of a 
 tete-a-tete. She knew he sought one, and pleasured 
 herself by baflling and denying him, while her insou- 
 ciant indifference tortured him to fury. Ambition 
 had been the god, power the lust which alone had 
 possessed him ; with both within his grasp, he would
 
 250 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 now have thrown both from him, as idly as a child 
 casts pebbles to the sea, only to feel the lips of Marion 
 Vavasour close upon his own ! 
 
 That night there was a ball given at White Ladies, 
 one among the many entertainments which had 
 marked her visit ; it was to be, according to her com- 
 mand, a hal costume, and as Strathmore went to dress 
 he caught sight of the azure gleam of her silken skirt 
 sweeping along the corridor to the State chambers. 
 He crossed the passage that divided them, and in an 
 instant was at her side; she started slightly, and 
 glanced up at him : 
 
 " Ah ! Lord Cecil, you try one's nerves ! really, 
 you are so like those Vandykes in the gallery, that 
 one may very pardonably take you for a ghost !" 
 
 Strathmore laid his hand on her arm to detain her, 
 looking down into her eyes by the light from above : 
 
 " I have sought a word alone with you all the day 
 through, and sought it vainly ; mil you grant it me 
 now?" 
 
 " Now ? Impossible ! I am going to dress. The 
 toilette is to us what ambition is to you, the first, and 
 last, and only love — a ruling passion strong in death ! 
 A statesman dying, asks, 'Is the treaty signed?' a 
 woman dying asks, ' Am I hien coiffte ? ' " 
 
 Laughing, she moved onward to leave him, but 
 Strathmore moved too, keeping his hold on her hand : 
 
 " Hear me you must ! I told you once that I did 
 not dare to whisper the sole guerdon that would con- 
 tent me as the reward you offered; oioio I dare, be-
 
 251 
 
 cause, spoken or unspoken, you must know that the 
 world holds but one thought, one memory, one idol 
 for me ; you must know — that I love you /" 
 
 The words were uttered which, old as the hills 
 eternal, have been on every human lip, and cursed 
 more lives than they have ever blessed. And Marion 
 Vavasour listened, as the light gleamed upon the 
 lovely youth which lit her face, and her eyes met his 
 with the glance that women only give when they love. 
 
 "Hush, you forget," she murmured (and chiding 
 from those lips was sweet as the soft wrath of the 
 south wind !) — " / must not hear you." 
 
 But the eyes forgave him, while the voice rebuked : 
 and Strathmore's love, loosed from all bondage, poured 
 itself out in words of eager honeyed eloquence, with 
 every richest oratory, with every ardent subtilty, that 
 art could teach and passion frame. To win this 
 woman, he would have perilled, had he owned them, 
 twenty lives and twenty souls, and thought the prize 
 well bought ! 
 
 She listened still, her hand resigned to his, a warm 
 flush on her cheeks, and her heart beating quicker 
 in its gossamer nest of priceless lace; stirred with 
 triumph, perhaps stirred with love. Then — she drew 
 from him with a sudden movement, and laughed in 
 his face with radiant, malicious mockery : 
 
 " Ah ! my lord, you have learned, then, how dan- 
 gerous it was to boast to a woman that you had but 
 one idol-f— Ambition ; that you desired Age, and des- 
 pised Love ! The temptation to punish you was
 
 252 STEATHMORE. 
 
 irresistible; — you have learned an altered creed 
 now!" 
 
 The silvery laughter mocking him rang lightly out 
 upon the silence, and, ere he could arrest her, she had 
 entered her chamber, and the door had closed. He 
 stood alone in the empty corridor, stunned ; — and a 
 fierce oath broke from his throat. Had this woman 
 fooled him ? The echo of her words, the ringing of 
 her laughter, stung him to madness ; the taunt, the 
 mirth, the jest flung at him in the moment when he 
 had laid bare his weakness, and could have taken his 
 oath that he was loved, was like seething oil flung 
 upon flame. He swore that night to wrench confes- 
 sion from her of her love, or — or He grew dizzy 
 
 with the phantoms of his own thoughts. But one 
 resolve was fixed in him ; to win this woman, or — to 
 work on her the worst revenge that a foiled passion 
 and a fooled love ever wrought. 
 
 As he passed out of the State corridor and turned 
 towards his own chamber he came unhappily upon 
 ErroU. 
 
 " Is it you. Strath ? I want a word with you ; 
 may I come in for ten minutes ? " 
 
 " Entrezr 
 
 Strathmore's voice sounded strange in his own ears ; 
 he would have given away a year of his life to have 
 been left alone at that moment. 
 
 Erroll followed him into his chamber, however, 
 noticing nothing unusual, for Strathmojfe, with 
 Italian passion, had more than English self-control ;
 
 253 
 
 and Bertie, who had had bad intelligence of a weedy- 
 looking ba,y on whom he had risked a good deal for 
 the approaching Cesarewitch, came as usual to detail 
 his fears and doubts, and speculate on the most 
 judicious hedging with Strathmore. With a mad 
 love running riot in him, and a fierce resolve seething 
 up into settled shape, Strathmore had to sit and listen 
 to Newmarket troubles, and balance the pros and cons 
 of Turf questions as leisurely and as interestedly as 
 of old ! Apparently, he was calm enough ; actually, 
 eveiy five minutes of restraint lashed his pent-up 
 passion into fury. 
 
 The Newmarket business done with, ErroU still 
 lingered ; he had something else to say, and scarcely 
 knew how to phrase it. 
 
 "Will all these people stay much longer?" he 
 began ; " they've been here a long time." 
 
 " I don't tell my guests to go away," said Strath- 
 more, with a smile. "Besides, the pheasants just 
 now are at their prime." 
 
 " The pheasants ! Oh yes, but I was thinking of 
 the women. To be sure, though, you must leave 
 yourself in a few days ; I forgot ! When must you 
 start for 1" 
 
 " It is uncertain." The subject annoyed him, and 
 he answered shortly. 
 
 Erroll was silent a moment ; then he looked up, his 
 eyes shining with their frank and kindly light : 
 
 " Strath, you wouldn't take wrongly anything / 
 said, wi&uld you ? "
 
 254 STEATHMOKE. 
 
 " My dear Erroll ! what an odd question. I believe 
 I am not usually tenacious?" 
 
 " Of course not ; still I fancy you'd let me say to 
 you what you mightn't stand from another man; I 
 hope so at least, old fellow ! We have never been on 
 ceremony with one another yet; and I want to ask 
 you, Cis, if you know how yours and Lady Vavasour's 
 names are coupled together ? " 
 
 He could not have chosen a more fatal hour for his 
 question ! 
 
 "Who couples them?" 
 
 The words were brief and quietly said enough, but 
 Strathmore's hand clenched where it lay on the table, 
 and an evil light gleamed in his eyes. 
 
 " Oh, nobody in especial, but more or less every- 
 body," answered Erroll, carelessly, whom the gesture 
 did not put on his guard. " Your attention to her, 
 you know, must be noticed ; impossible to help it ! 
 Naturally the men joke about it when you're out of 
 hearing ; fellows always will." 
 
 "What do they say?" 
 
 The words were quiet still, but Strathmore's teeth 
 were set like a mastiff's. 
 
 " You can guess well enough ; you know how we 
 always laugh over that sort of thing. Look here,. 
 Strathmore!" and Erroll, breaking out of the lazy 
 softness of his usual tone, leant forward eagerly and 
 earnestly, " I know you'll take my words as they're 
 meant ; and if you wouldn't, it would be a wretched 
 friendship that shirked the truth when its telling were
 
 " HE BOWED AND FELL." 255 
 
 needed. If you called me out for it to-morrowj I 
 would let you know what everybody is saying — that 
 you are infatuated by a woman who is only playing 
 with you I" 
 
 Strathmore leaned back in his chair, fastening his 
 wristband stud, with a cold sneer on his face ; it cost 
 him much to repress the passion that would have 
 betrayed him. 
 
 " The world is very good to trouble itself about me; if 
 you will name the particular members of it who do the 
 gossiping, I will thank them in a different fashion." 
 
 " The better way would be to give them no grounds 
 for it!" 
 
 " Grounds ? I don't apprehend you." 
 
 "You do and you must I" broke in Erroll, impa- 
 tiently; this smootli, icy coating did not impose on 
 him. " Whether your heart be in the matter or not, 
 you act as though it were. You are becoming the 
 very slave of that arch coquette, who never loved 
 anything in her live save her o^vn beauty ; you, who 
 ridiculed everything hke woman-worship, are posi- 
 tively infatuated with Marion Vavasour ! Stop ! hear 
 me out ! I have no business with what you do ; true 
 enough ! I am breaking into a subject no man has 
 any right to touch on to another — ^I know that ! But 
 I like you well enough to risk your worst anger ; and 
 I speak plainly because you . and I have no need to 
 weigh our words to each other. Good God! you 
 must have too much pride, Strathmore, to be fooled 
 for the vanity of a woman !"
 
 256 STRATHMOEE. 
 
 He stopped in his impetuous flood of words, and 
 looked at his listener, who had heard him tranquilly 
 — a dangerous tranquillity, thin ice over lava-flames ! 
 Strathmore only kept reins on the storm because it 
 rose to his lips — ^to betray him. 
 
 " Pardon me, Erroll," he said, slowly and pointedly, 
 " I will not take you?' words as they might naturally 
 be taken, since you claim the privilege of ^ old friend- 
 ship;' but I must remind you that friendship may 
 be both officious and impertinent. The office of a 
 moral censor sits on you very ill ; attention to a 
 married woman is not so extraordinarily uncommon 
 in our set that it need alarm your virtue " 
 
 " Virtue be hanged ! " broke in Erroll, impetuously. 
 " You don't understand, or you ivon^t understand me. 
 All I say is, that hundreds of fellows will tell you 
 that Marion Vavasour is the most consummate 
 coquette going ; and that as soon as she has di'awn a 
 man on into losing his head for her, she turns round 
 and laughs him to scorn. What do you suppose 
 Scrope Waverley and all that lot will say? Only 
 that you have been first trapped and then tricked, as 
 they were !" 
 
 " Thank you, I have no fear I Lady Vavasour 
 makes you singularly bitter ? " 
 
 " Perhaps she does ; because I see her work. 
 Near that woman you are no more what you were 
 than " 
 
 "Really I must beg you to excuse my hearing a 
 homily upon myself !" interrupted Strathmore, as he
 
 "he BOWED AND FELL." 257 
 
 rose, speaking coldly, intolerantly, and haughtily. 
 " As regards Lady Vavasour, she is my guest, and as 
 such I do not hear her spoken of in this manner. 
 As regards the gossip you are pleased to retail, 
 people must chatter as they like, if they chatter 
 in my hearing I can resent it, without having my 
 path pointed out to me ; and for the future I will 
 trouble you to remember that even the privileges of 
 friendship may be stretched too far if you overtax 
 them." 
 
 While he spoke he rang the bell for Diaz, and as 
 the Albanian entered the chamber from the bath- 
 room, Erroll turned and went out without more words. 
 He was angered that his remonstrance had had no 
 more avail; he was hurt that his interference had 
 been so ill received, and his motive so little compre- 
 hended. Like most counsellors, he felt that what he 
 had done had been ill-advised and ill-timed : while 
 Strathmore, indifferent to how he might have wounded 
 a friendship which he had often sworn worth all the 
 love of women, was stung to madness by the words 
 with which Erroll had unwittingly heaped fuel on to 
 flame. Men saw his passion for Marion Vavasour ! 
 He swore that they should hopelessly and longingly 
 envy its success. 
 
 The fancy ball at White Ladies was as brilHant as 
 it could be made ; the great circle at the Dulve of 
 Tremayne's, the people sta}dng at Lady Millicent 
 Clinton's, and at other houses of note in the county, 
 afforded guests at once numerous and exclusive, and 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 tlie Royal women who had been visitors at White 
 Ladies had never been better entertained than was 
 Marion Vavasour. As he received them in the great 
 reception-room known as the King's Hall, that night, 
 women of the world, not easily impressible, glancing 
 at him, were arrested by they knew not what, and 
 remembered long afterwards how he had looked 
 that evening. He wore the dress of the Knights 
 Templars, the white mantle flung over a suit of 
 black Milan armour worked with gold, and the cos- 
 tume suited him singularly; while it yet seemed to 
 bring out more strongly still the resemblance in him 
 to all that was dark and dangerous in the Strathmore 
 portraits. Plis face was slightly flushed, like a man 
 after a carouse ; his wit was courtly and light, but 
 very bitter ; his attentions to the women were far 
 more impressive than his ever were — he might have 
 been in love with all in his rooms ! — ^but his eyes, 
 dark with suppressed eagerness, and with a heavy 
 shade beneath them, glanced impatiently over the 
 crowd. Every one had arrived, but she had not yet 
 descended ; his salons were filled, but to him they 
 were empty ! This was no light, languid love, seek- 
 ing a liaison as a mere pastime, which had entered 
 into Strathmore for another man's wife ; it was the 
 delirium, the frenzy, the blindness, in which the 
 world holds but one woman ! 
 
 At last, with her glittering hair given to the winds, 
 a diadem of diamonds crowning her brow,'snow-white
 
 " HE BOWED AND FELL." 259 
 
 clouds of drapery floating around her, llglit as morn- 
 ing mist, and lier beautiful feet sliod witli golden 
 sandals, she came, when all the rooms were full, 
 living impersonation of the Summer-Noon she re- 
 presented. A crowd of costumes followed her steps, 
 and murmurs of irrepressible admiration accompanied 
 her wherever she moved ; there were many beautiful 
 women there that night at AYhite Ladies, but none 
 that equalled, none that touched her. The gelden 
 apple was cast without a dissent into the white bosom 
 of Marion Vavasour; and at sight of her his reason 
 reeled and fell, and his madness mastered him, as it 
 subdued him of Broceliande before the witching eyes 
 and under the wreathing arms of Vivien, 
 
 ■while the forest echoed Fool ! 
 
 His face wore the reckless resolve which was 
 amongst the dark traits of the Strathmores when 
 their ruthless will had fixed a goal, and under- 
 neath their calm and courtly seeming, the fierce 
 spirit was a-flame Avliich made them pitiless as death 
 in all ])ursuit. His eyes followed the gleaming trail 
 of her streaming hair, the flash of her diamond 
 diadem, with a look which she caught, and fanned 
 to fire with one ch'eamy glance of languor, one touch 
 of her floating drapeiy. And yet, even while the 
 passion devoured him, he hated her for its pain — 
 liated her because she was another's and not his! 
 Do you know nothing of this because it has not 
 
 s2
 
 260 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 touched you ? — tut ! — the forms of human love are 
 as varied and as controlless as the forms of hnman 
 life; and you have learned but little of the world, 
 and the men that make it, if you have not learned 
 that Love, often and again, treads and trenches close 
 on Hate. 
 
 It was as though she set her will to make her 
 beauty more than mortal, and goad him on till he 
 was as utterly her bond-slave, as the Viking whom, 
 as the Norse legend tells, twenty strong men could 
 not capture, yet who lay, helpless and bound as in 
 gyves of iron, by one frail, single thread of a woman's 
 golden hair. That night his passion mastered him, 
 and all that was most dangerous, in a nature where 
 fire slept under ice, woke into life, and set into one 
 imperiovis resolve. 
 
 It was some hours after midnight, when he passed 
 with her into a cabinet de i^einture. The wax-radi- 
 ance streamed upon her where she stood like some 
 dazzling thing of light, some dream of the Greek 
 poets, some sorceress of the East, some diamond- 
 crowned Priestess of the Sun. In the stillness of 
 the night they were alone, and her eyes met his own 
 with a glance which wooed him on to his sweet 
 temptation. Ambition seemed idle as the winds; 
 fame he was ready to cast aside like dross ; at the 
 most brilliant point in his career, he was willing to 
 throw away all the past, and cut away all the future, 
 so that her voice but whispered him " Stay ! " His
 
 " HE BOWED AND FELL." 261 
 
 honour to the man who had been a guest beneath his 
 roof, the bond which bound him to hold sacred the 
 woman whom his house harboured, were forgotten 
 and left far behind him, drowned in his delirium as 
 men's wisdom is drowned in Avine. He saw, remem- 
 bered, heeded nothing in earth or heaven save her. 
 And she knew the meaninoj of his silence as he stood 
 beside her. 
 
 " So you will leave England very soon. Strath- 
 more?" 
 
 The words were light and ordinary : but her word 
 is but a tithe of a woman's language; and it was 
 her eyes which spoke, which challenged him to sum- 
 mon strength to leave her ; which dared him to rank 
 ambition before her, and claimed and usurped the 
 dominion which power alone had filled ! It was the 
 eyes he answered, only seeing in the midnight glare 
 the fairness of her face. 
 
 " Bid me stay for you ; — and I resign the Mission 
 to-morrow ! " 
 
 ^^ What ! desert your career, abandon your ambi- 
 tion, give up your power, and at a ivomaiUs word, too ! 
 Fie, fie. Lord Cecil!" 
 
 The sweet laughter echoed in his ear, and her face 
 had all its witching mockery as she turned it to him 
 in the light. 
 
 " Hush ! My God ! — you know my madness ; you 
 shall play with it no longer. Bid me stay, and I give 
 up everything for you ! But you must love me as I
 
 262 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 love ; you must clioose to-niglit for yourself and me. 
 If you are fooling me, beware ; it will be at a heavy 
 price ! Love me ; — and I throw away for you, honour, 
 fame, life, what you will ! " 
 
 The words were spoken in her ear, fierce with the 
 passion which was reckless of all cost; broken with 
 the love which was only conscious of itself, and of 
 the beauty that it adored. His face was white as 
 death ; his eyes gazed into hers, hot, dark, lurid as 
 the eyes of a tiger. This mad idolatry, this imperi- 
 ous strength, made love new to her, dear to her, as its 
 costliest toy to a child ; a richer gage of her power, a 
 stronger proof of her dominion. A blush warm and 
 lovely, if it were but a lie, wavered in her face ; her 
 eyes answered his with dreamy languor ; the diamonds 
 in her breast trembled with the heavings of her heart, 
 and even while she hushed him, and turned from him, 
 her hand lino-ered within his 
 
 He knew that he was loved ! — and his whole life 
 would have been staked on that mad hour. His 
 arms closed round her in an embrace she could not 
 break from ; he wound his hands in the shining 
 shower of her amber hair ; he crushed this soft and 
 dazzling thing which mocked, and maddened him, 
 against the chill steel of his armour as though to 
 slay her. Burning words broke from him, delirious, 
 imperious, half menace, half idolatry, born of the 
 strong passion, and the sensuous softness, of which 
 his love at once was made.
 
 " HE BOWED AND FELL." 263 
 
 " I sacrifice what you choose, for you ; or — I hate 
 you more bitterly than man ever hated ! Frieiidsldp 
 between us I My God ! it must be one of two things 
 — deadhest hate, or sweetest love ! " 
 
 He paused abruptly, crushing her with fierce un- 
 conscious strength against his breast, gazing down 
 into the face so fatally fair. Her eyes looked into 
 his with all their eloquence of loveliness ; her amber 
 hair floated, soft and silken, across his breast ; and 
 his lips met hers in kisses that only died to be re- 
 newed again, each longer, sweeter, more lingering 
 than the last.
 
 264 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE AXE LAID TO THE ROOT. 
 
 " You have written ! " she said, softly, looking up 
 into his eyes. 
 
 The whisper was brief, but as subtle and full of 
 power as any words that ever murmured from Cleo- 
 patra's lips, wooing him of Eome to leave his shield 
 for foes to mock at, and his sword to rust, and his 
 honour to drift away, a jeered and worthless thing, 
 while he lay lapped in a woman's love, with no 
 heaven save in a woman's eyes. 
 
 It was some hours past noon on the morrow of the 
 hal costume ; she had not yet left the State chambers. 
 Her hair was unbound, folds of azure, and lace of 
 gossamer textm-e, enveloped her ; and she lay back 
 on her low chair, resting her cheek on her white arm, 
 and letting her eyes dwell upon his. 
 
 " You have written ? " she murmured, softly, her 
 hand lying in his, her lips brushing his brow.
 
 THE AXE LAID TO THE ROOT. 265 
 
 For all answer he put into lier hand a letter he had 
 just then penned — a letter to decline the appointment 
 offered to him; to refuse the most brilliant dis- 
 tinction that could have fallen to him; in a word, 
 to resign the ambitions his life had been centred in, 
 to destroy the career, and the goal, of his present, 
 and his future ! 
 
 Her head rested against his breast while she read it, 
 her eyes glancing over the few brief lines which gave 
 up all power and honour, the world and the world's 
 ambitions, and flung away life's best prizes at her 
 bidding, as though they were empty shells or withered 
 leaves. And a smile, proud and glad, came upon her 
 lips. Even she had scarcely counted on binding him 
 thus far to her feet; — on chaining him thus utterly 
 her slave. She read it, then she lifted her eyes, now 
 sweet with the light of love, her warm breath fanning 
 his cheek. 
 
 " You will not regret it, Cecil ? Are you sure ? " 
 
 " Eegret ! My Heaven ! what room have I to 
 dream even of regret noiv ? My whole future would 
 be a willing price paid down for one hour of my 
 
 joy!" 
 
 The last words were spoken in a madman's heed- 
 less, headlong love ! He stooped over her, spending 
 breathless kisses on her lips, and passing his hands 
 through the golden scented hair which floated on her 
 shoulders. Every single shining thread might have 
 been a sorcery-twisted withe that bound him power- 
 less, so utterly he bowed before her power, so utterly
 
 266 STEATHMORE. 
 
 he was blinded to all that lay beyond the delicious 
 languor, and the sensuous joys, which steeped his 
 present in their rich delight. 
 
 An hour afterwards, Strathmore descended from 
 the State chambers by a secret staircase which wound 
 downward to the library. He listened ; the room was 
 silent ; he looked through the apertm^e left in the 
 carvings, by those subtle builders of the olden days, 
 for such reconnoissance by those who need secresy ; 
 it was empty, and, pressing the panel back, he 
 entered. As it chanced, however, in the deep em- 
 brasure of a window, hidden by the hea"\^ curtains, 
 ErroU sat reading the papers ; and, as he looked up, 
 he saw Strathmore, before the panel had wholly 
 closed on its invisible hinges, that were screened 
 in a mass of carving. Erroll knew whence that 
 concealed passage led. 
 
 " Why was she not dead in all her demon's beauty 
 before ever she came here ? " he muttered to himself ; 
 for Erroll had grown jealous of Marion Vavasour ; 
 and had, moreover, strange stray notions of honour 
 here and there, better fitting the days of Galahad 
 than our own. 
 
 " You here, Bertie ! " said Strathmore, carelessly, 
 very admirably concealing the annoyance he felt, 
 as Erroll looked up from his retreat. " What's the 
 news?" 
 
 " Nothing ! " yawned the Sabreur, stretching him 
 the Times. " They notice your appointment for
 
 THE AXE LAID TO THE EOOT. 267 
 
 ; very approvingly, too, for the Thunderer. 
 
 When do you go, old fellow ? " 
 
 " I do not go at all," Strathmore answered briefly. 
 He was aware it must be known sooner or later, and, 
 in the reckless rapture of his present, ridicule, remark, 
 or censure, were alike disregarded. 
 
 ErroU looked quickly up at him : 
 
 "Not go V 
 
 " No. I have requested permission to decline the 
 appointment." 
 
 There was a dead pause of unbroken silence ; then, 
 with a sudden impetuous movement, Erroll rose, 
 pushing back his chair, and flinging his fair hair 
 out of his eyes with a gesture of impatient anger : 
 
 " Good God ! Strathmore, have you sneered at 
 every love all your life through only to become a 
 w^oman's slave at last ! " 
 
 The swift dark wrath of his race glanced into 
 Strathmore's eyes. At all times he brooked com- 
 ment or interference ill; now he knew himself the 
 slave of a woman, and while in the sweet insanity of 
 successful love his serfdom was delicious, and its 
 bondage dearer than any liberty that had ever been 
 his boast, the words were still bitter to him. To any 
 but his friend they w^ould have been as bitterly 
 resented. 
 
 "That cm-sed coquette!" muttered Erroll between 
 his teeth, as he paced impatiently up and down. 
 " Wliat ! she enslaves you till you wreck your whole 
 future at her word, let all the world see you in your
 
 268 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 madness, and forget your honour even under your 
 OAvn roof ! " 
 
 The words broke out ahnost unconsciously ; he was 
 rife with hatred for the woman who had robbed liim 
 of his friend, and grown more powerful with Strath- 
 more than honour or ambition; than the present, 
 or the future ; than the ridicule of the world, or the 
 triumphs of his career. 
 
 Evil passions passed over his listener's face, flaming 
 into life all the more darkly because the accusation 
 bore with it the sting of Nathan's unto David — the 
 sting of truth. 
 
 '- By Heaven ! no man on the face of the earth, 
 save you, should dare say that to me and live ! " 
 
 Erroll looked up, stopped, and halted before him, 
 his sunny blue eyes growing cordial and earnest as 
 a Avoman's : 
 
 "Dear old fellow, forgive me! I had no right, 
 perhaps, to use the words I did, but we have never 
 stopped to pick our speech for one another. No ! — 
 hear me, Strathmore. By Heaven ! you shall I Your 
 honour is dearer to me than it ever will be to anyone, 
 and I only ask you now to pause, and think how you 
 will endure for the world to know that you are so 
 utterly a coquette's bond-slave that you lie at her 
 beck and call, and give up all your best ambitions at 
 her bidding. I am sinner enough myself, God 
 knows, and have plenty to answer for ; but no pas- 
 sion should have so blinded me to honour, let her 
 have tempted as she would, that the mf e of an absent
 
 \ 
 
 THE AXE LAID TO THE EOOT. 269 
 
 guest sliould liave ceased to become sacred to me, 
 while trusted to my protection, and under my own 
 roof!" 
 
 He stopped : and a dead silence fell again between 
 tliem. They were fearless and chivalrous words, 
 built on the code of Gawaine and of Arthur; and 
 the spirit of the dead Knights, and of a bygone age, 
 broke up from the soft indolence and easy epicurean- 
 ism of the man, and found its way to just and daunt- 
 less speech ; but speech that on the ear which heard 
 it was useless as a trumpet-blast in the ear of a dead 
 man, as little heeded and as powerless to rouse ! 
 The sting which lay in the Prophet's charge to him 
 of Israel lay here ; but here it touched to the quick 
 of no remorse : it only heated the furnace afresh, as 
 a blast of wind blows the fires to a white heat. 
 
 For one instant, while ErrolFs glance met his, 
 Strathmore made a forward gesture, like that of a 
 panther about to spring; then with all that was 
 coldest, most bitter, most evil in him awake, he leant 
 back in his chair, with a smile on his lips. 
 
 " An excellent homily ! Perhaps, like many other 
 preachers, you are envious of what you so veno- 
 mously upbraid !" 
 
 Over Erroll's face a flush of pain passed, as over a 
 woman's at a brutal and unmerited Avord. 
 
 "For shame! for shame!" he said, hotly. "You 
 know better than to believe your own words, Strath- 
 more ! I do not stand such vile inuendoes from 
 you!"
 
 270 STEATIIMOEE. 
 
 Stratlimore raised his eyebrows, liis cliill and con- 
 temptuous sneer still upon his lips; his anger was 
 very bitter at all times when the velvet glove was 
 stripped off and the iron hand disclosed, which was a 
 feature of his race. 
 
 " Soit I it is very immaterial to me ! Pray put an 
 end to these heroic s]:)eeches. I have no taste for 
 scenes, and from any other man I should call an 
 account for them under a harsher name." 
 
 " Call for what account you will ! But does our 
 friendship go for so little that it is to be sw^ept away 
 in a second for a word about a woman who is as 
 worthless, if you saw her in her true light, as 
 aiiy " 
 
 "Silence!" said Stratlimore, passionately. "I 
 bear no interference with myself and no traducement 
 to her ! End the subject, once and for all, or ^" 
 
 " Or you will break with a friendship of twenty 
 years for a love that will not last twenty weeks!' 
 broke in Erroll, bitterly. It cut him to the quick to 
 be cast off thus for the mere sake of a capricious 
 coquette ; from their earliest Eton days they had had 
 no words between them till now that this woman 
 brought them in her train ! 
 
 "It is the love which appears to excite your acri- 
 mony!" laughed Stratlimore, w4th his chilliest scorn; 
 that swift, keen jealousy stirring in him which is ever 
 the characteristic of such passion as his, even in its 
 earliest hours of acknowledgment and return, and
 
 THE AXE LAID TO THE EOOT. 271 
 
 whicli pennits no man even to look wislifully after 
 its idol michastised. 
 
 As sharply as if a shot had struck him, Erroll 
 swung round, righteous indignation flushing his face, 
 and his azure eyes flashing fire. 
 
 "For God's sake, Strathmore, has your mad pas- 
 sion so warped your nature that you can set down 
 such vile motives in cold blood to my share ? I have 
 no other feeling than hatred for the woman who 
 befools you. Tliat I will grant you is strong enough, 
 for / see her as she is !" 
 
 " Most wise seer and admirable preacher ! Since 
 when have you turned sermonizer instead of sinner ? " 
 sneered Strathmore, coldly, the dark wrath of his 
 race gleaming in his eyes. " It sits on you very ill !" 
 
 " Sermonizer I am not, nor have I title to be ! " 
 broke in Erroll, his gentle temper goaded fairly into 
 anger ; " but still in your place of host I might have 
 paused before I violated the common laws of hospi- 
 tality and honour to the wife of an absent man, let 
 her have been my temptress as she would ! " 
 
 In another instant words would have been uttered 
 which would have cut down and cast away the friend- 
 ship of a lifetime ; but the door of the di'awing-room 
 opened. 
 
 " Are you tired of waiting. Major Erroll ? Never 
 mind ! Patience is a virtue, if, like most other virtues, 
 she be a little dull sometimes !" said Lady Beaudesert, 
 as she floated in — a picture for Landseer — with a
 
 272 STRATHMOEE. 
 
 brace of handsome spaniels treading on the trailing 
 folds of her violet habit. 
 
 Her presence arrested, perforce, the words that 
 were rising hot and bitter to the lips of both. But 
 when the axe is laid at the root, what matter if its 
 work be delayed a few hours, a few days, a few 
 months ? The tree which would have stood through 
 storms is doomed by it, and will fall at the last ! 
 
 The words Erroll had spoken that day had been 
 just and true ones : but, like most words of truth in 
 this world, they had been rash, and idle as the winds 
 to carry one whit of warning, to stay for one hour's 
 thought the headlong sweep of a great j)assion. 
 Now that she had, like himself, forgotten every bond 
 of honour, and cast aside every memory save the 
 indulgence of a forbidden love, the semi-hatred which 
 had so strangely mingled with Strathmore's fatal 
 intoxication had gone : and with it the last frail 
 cord which had held him back from falling utterly 
 beneath the sway of her power. If in the bitterness 
 of an unwelcome love he had been her slave, in the 
 delirium of a permitted one he was more hopelessly 
 so still. ErroU's charge of having violated the laws 
 of hospitality stung him for one instant to the quick ; 
 but the next it was forgottten, as her smile lighted 
 upon him, and her silvery laugh rang on his ear ! 
 He weighed nothing in the scale against her ; he cast 
 away all to stay in the light of the eyes where his 
 heaven hung; he remembered nothing but the ex-
 
 THE AXE LAID TO THE ROOT. 273 
 
 ultant joy 'vvliich lay in those brief, yet all-eloquent 
 words : " he loved, and was loved ! " 
 
 She held him in her fatal web, as Guenevere held 
 her Lover, when the breath of her lips sullied the 
 shield which no foe had ever tarnished, and her false 
 love coiled with subtle serpent-folds round Launcelot 
 till he fell. But in Marion Vavasour would never 
 arise, what pardoned and purified, the soul of the 
 Daughter of Leodegraunce : those waters of bitterness 
 which yet are holy — Remorse and Shame. 
 
 i 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 274 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 GUENEVERE AND ELAINE. 
 
 That niglit, when tlie men had left the smoking- 
 room, and all was still, Bertie ErroU quitted the Ahbey 
 by one of those secret entrances which had been known 
 to him, as to Strathmore from their childish days, 
 and took his way across the park, treading the thick 
 golden leaves nnder foot. A bitterness and depres- 
 sion were on him, very new to him, since he usually 
 shook off all care, as he shook the ash off his cigar. 
 After such words as had passed between them, he 
 would not have stayed an hour under any other man's 
 roof; but he loved Strathmore well enough not to 
 resent it thus, though the breach in their friendship 
 cut him more hardly than the sneers wdiich had been 
 cast at himself, as he paced on through the beech 
 woods, that were damp and chill in the silent night, 
 with white mists rising up from the waters in thin 
 wreaths of vapour.
 
 GUENEVEEE AND ELAINE. 275 
 
 At some distance, just without the boundaries of 
 White Ladies, a light glimmered through the autumn 
 network of brown boughs and crimson leaves, from 
 the casement of a cottage which stood, so shut in by 
 wood from the lonely road near, that it might as 
 easily have been overlooked by any passer-by, as a 
 yellowhammer's nest on the highway. Its solitary 
 little beam shone bright, and star-like, through the 
 damp fogs of the chilly midnight; like the light 
 which burns before some Virgin shrine, and greets 
 us as we travel, wayworn and travel-stained and 
 foot-weary, down the rocky windings of some hill- 
 side abroad. The simile crossed Erroll's mind, and 
 perhaps smote something on his heart; it icas the 
 light of a holy shrine to him, but one from which his 
 steps too often turned, and one which now reproached 
 him. 
 
 He passed under the drooping hea\y boughs, and 
 over the fallen leaves, across the garden of the 
 little cottage, drew a latch-key from his pocket, 
 opened the door, and entered. A light was left 
 burning for him in the tiny cottage entrance, which 
 was still as death ; he took the lamp in his hand, 
 mounted the staircase noiselessly, and turned into the 
 bed-chamber upon his left. It was small, and simply 
 arranged, but about it, here and there, were articles 
 of refined luxuiy ; and half kneeling beside the bed, 
 as she had lately knelt in prayer, half resting against 
 it, in -the slumber which had conquered the watchful 
 wakefulness of love, was a young girl, delicate and fair 
 T 2
 
 276 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 tis any of the white HHes that had bloomed one brief 
 hour, to perish the next, on the lake-hke waters of 
 White Ladies. Her head rested on her arm, her 
 lips were slightly parted, and murmuring fondly his 
 o^vn name, while 
 
 her face so fair, 
 Stirred -with her dream as rose-leaves with the air. 
 
 His step was too noiseless to awake her, and he 
 stood still gazing on her in that slumber in which 
 Life, becoming at once ethereal and powerless, 
 escaping from earth, yet lying at man's mercy, so 
 strangely and so touchingly counterfeits Death. And 
 while he looked, thoughts arose, filling him witli 
 vague reproach ; thoughts at which the women he 
 had just left, the women Vho knew him in intrigue, 
 and in pleasure, and in idle flirtations, would have 
 bitterly marvelled, and as bitterly sneered. The 
 world in which we live knows nothing of us in our 
 best hours, as it knows nothing of us in our worst ! 
 
 They were in strange contrast ! — the dazzling 
 beauty of Marion Vavasour, on which he had looked 
 a few hours before, with a sorceress-lustre glancing 
 from her eyes, and rare Byzantine jewels flashing on 
 her breast; with this fair and mournful loveliness, 
 which was before him now, hushed to rest in the 
 holiness of sleep, with a smile like a child's upon 
 the tender lij)s, and with a shadow from the lamp 
 above falling upon a brow so pure that it might have 
 been shadowed by an angel's wings. They were in 
 strange contrast ! — and he stood beside his Wife, as
 
 GUENEVEEE AND ELAINE. 277 
 
 Launcelot stood and gazed upon Elaine, while the 
 pure breath of a stainless love was still upon his soul, 
 and while the subtle power of Guenevere only stole 
 upon him in the fevered, vague, phantasma of a 
 fleeting dream, unknown and unadmitted even there. 
 
 He stooped over her, and his lips broke the spell 
 of her sleep with a caress. She awoke with a low, 
 glad cry, and sprang up to nestle in his breast, to 
 twine her arms about him, to murmur her welcome 
 in sweet, joyous words. 
 
 " Ah, my better angel," he whispered, fondly yet 
 bitterly, as he rested against his the cheek which still 
 blushed at his kiss, speaking rather to his own 
 thoughts than to her, "why are men so doomed by 
 their own madness, that they sicken and weary of a 
 pure and sacred love like yours, on which Heaven 
 itself might smile; and forsake it for a few short 
 hours of some guilty passion, that is as senseless as 
 the drunkard's delirium ! " 
 
 And she believed he only spoke but of the sweet- 
 ness of their o^vn love, pitying those who had never 
 known such, and smiled up into his eyes.
 
 278 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE SILVER SHIELD AND THE CHAEMED LANCE. 
 
 " Is he to monopolise her for ever ? He's kept the 
 field a cursed long time," said a Secretary of Lega- 
 tion, dropping his lorgnon, one night at the Opera in 
 Paris. 
 
 "The deuce he has!" said his Grace of Linden- 
 mere. " Madame is marvellously faithful ; and they 
 say he's as mad after her now as when he first " 
 
 " Taisez vous ! A scandal six months old is worse 
 than dining off a recliaufft,^ broke in the Yicomte 
 de Belesprit. " A naughty story is like a pretty 
 mistress; charming at the onset, but a great bore 
 when it's lost its novelty. All Paris chattered itself 
 hoarse over their liaison last December ; what we 
 want to know note is — when will it come to an end ? " 
 
 " I dare say you do," chuckled the old Earl of 
 Beaume. "But the succession there would be as 
 dangerous as to the Polish Vice-royalty ; a smile from 
 her would cost a shot from him."
 
 THE SILVER SHIELD. 279 
 
 "All! — sort of man to do that style of thing," 
 yawned the Duke. "Don't understand it myself, 
 never should. But he's positively her slave — 
 actually." 
 
 " Plenty of 3^ou envy him his slavery ; white arms 
 are pleasant handcuffs," laughed Lord Beaume. " But 
 that woman's ruined him, and, what's worse, his 
 
 career. He gave up the special mission to 
 
 because it must have taken him where her ladyship 
 could not go! A man's never great in public life 
 till he's ceased to care for women ! " 
 
 " Which is possibly the cause, sir, why the country, 
 looking to you for great things, has always looked in 
 vain?" said Lindenmere. 
 
 The Earl laughed, taking out his tabatiere, ; he 
 was good nature itself, and his Grace was a privileged 
 wit, cest a dire, one of that class who have made 
 rudeness " the thing," and supply the esprit they lack 
 by the impudence they love ! The fashion has its 
 conveniences — it is difficult to be brilliant, but it is 
 so easy to be brusque. 
 
 Those whom they discussed were Lady Vavasour 
 and Strathmore. 
 
 Their love had been the theme of many buzzing 
 scandals the autumn before, when, on leaving White 
 Ladies, she had returned to Paris accompanied by 
 him ; but the buzz had soon exhausted itself, and 
 the liaison had become a fact generally understood, 
 and but very little disguised. His place and right 
 had been long unchallenged, however bitterly envied ;
 
 280 STKATHMORE. 
 
 and Avliatever rumour had said of lier capricious in- 
 constancy, as yet she had showed no disloyalty to her 
 lover, whatever she showed to her lord. Either she 
 really loved at last, or her entire dominion over the 
 man who had scoffed at the sway of women satiated 
 her delight in power ; for no coquetries ever roused 
 the jealousy, fierce as an Eastern's, which accom- 
 panied his passion, or flattered the hopes of those who 
 sought to supplant him. If any magician had had 
 the power twelve months before to show him himself 
 as he had now become, Strathmore would have recog- 
 nised the revelation, as little as we in youth should 
 recognise our own features could we see them marked 
 with the corruption they wall wear in death. 
 
 Men who have been long invulnerable to passion 
 ever become its abject bond-slaves when .they at 
 length bend down to it. Ambition was lulled to 
 forgetfulness in the sweet languor of his love ; had 
 he been offered the kingship of the earth he would 
 have renounced it, if to assume its empire he must 
 have left her side ! This man, who had long believed 
 that he could rule his will, and mould his life, as 
 though he w^ere, god-like, exempt from every inevita- 
 ble weakness or accident of mankind, had sunk into 
 a woman's arms, and let the golden meshes of her 
 loveliness enervate him, till every other feeling which 
 might have combated or rivalled her power was 
 drowned and swept away. Passion, often likened by 
 poets unto flame, does thus resemble it — that, once 
 permitted dominion, it can no longer be kept in
 
 THE SILVER SHIELD. 281 
 
 servitude, but, mastering all before it, devours even 
 that from wliicli it springs. The strength which he 
 had boasted could break " bonds of iron even as green 
 withes " had ebbed away into a voluptuary's weakness : 
 and under the even, brilliant, modern life he had led 
 through these eight months in Paris, there had rioted 
 in him the same guilty love which revelled in pos- 
 session of the Hittite's wife, the same keen jealousy 
 which slew Mariamne for a doubt in the days of old 
 Judaea ! 
 
 Lady Yavasour sat that evenino; in her locje at the 
 Opera, Strathmore in attendance on her, as he had 
 been throughout the winter wherever she went, the 
 Due de Vosges and Prince Michael of Tchemeidoff 
 her visitors, for the entree to her box, closely as 
 it was besieged, was ever a privilege as exclusive as 
 the Garter. Scandals, badinage, dainty flattery, 
 choice wit lying in a single word, rumours which 
 answered the " Quid Novi ? " asked as perpetually in 
 Paris as in the Violet City, circulated in her box; 
 and she sat there in her dazzling youth, shrouded in 
 black perfumed lace, like a Spanish gaditana, with 
 the diamonds flashing here and there and gleaming 
 starlike among her lustrous hair. Her coquetry of 
 manner she could no more abandon than could a 
 fawn its play, than a sapphire its sparkle ; but, as I 
 say, she never had fairly aroused that deadly jealousy 
 which lay in wait within him, as a tiger lies ready to 
 spring ; though Strathmore, whose love was a sheer 
 idolatry, as enthralled by her now as in the first mo-
 
 282 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 ment wlicii his kiss had touched her lips, begrudged 
 every ghmce wliich fell ou another. 
 
 " Strathmore has the monopoly now ; how long 
 will he keep it?" said the Due de Yosges, as he left 
 her boxj while S.A.R. the Prince d'Etoiles entered it. 
 ^^ There are women Avho have no lovers perhaps (at 
 least for our mothers' credit we all say so), as there 
 are women who use no rouge; but when once they 
 begin to take to either, they add both fresh every 
 day!" 
 
 "Peste!" said Ai'thus de Bellus, pettishly, "he has 
 had it a OTeat deal too Ions;. He must have bewitched 
 her in his old English chateau ! If a whole winter is 
 not an eternal constancy, what is ?" 
 
 " And this is May !" pursued the Due, reflectively ; 
 " but those Englishmen are resolute fellows ; they 
 hold their ground doggedly in battle as in love ; there 
 is no shaking them in either " 
 
 " Vo^ai ! There is only shooting them in both ! If 
 one picked a quarrel with my Lord Cecil, par liazardj 
 and had him out ^" 
 
 " He would shoot you, mon cher, and stand all the 
 better with madame for it," said the Due, dryly. 
 " Strathmore is the crack shot of Europe ; he can hit 
 the ruby in a woman's ring riding full galop — saw 
 him do it at Vienna ! " 
 
 " Look, Cecil ! There is your friend !" said Marion 
 Vavasour, lifting her lorgnon to her eyes and glancing 
 at the opposite side of the house. 
 
 "What an indefinite description!" laughed Strath-
 
 THE SILVER SHIELD. 283 
 
 more, lifting liis slowly. " We all have a million of 
 friends as long as we are happily ignorant of what 
 they say of us I" 
 
 " Tais toi with your epigrams ! All social comfort 
 lies in self-deception, we know that," she laughed, 
 mth that glance beneath her silken lashes wdiich had 
 first fallen on him under the midsummer stars of 
 Prague, and which still did with him what it would. 
 " There is your friend, your brother, your idol — the 
 Beau Sabrem', as you call him — I hope he will not 
 be shot like his namesake, Murat ; he is far too hand- 
 some ! Look ! it is he yonder, talking with Lord 
 Beaume!" 
 
 " Bertie ! so it is. What has he come to Paris for, 
 I wonder ? " 
 
 Strathmore's eyes lightened with pleasui'e, and his 
 brightest smile passed over his face as he recognised 
 Erroll; his attachment to him was too thorough to 
 have been cut away by those words, even bitter 
 though they were, which had been exchanged be- 
 tween them in the cedar drawing-room at "^^Hiite 
 Ladies. 
 
 She, glancing upward at him, saw the smile, and 
 this woman, rapacious, exacting, merciless, with the 
 panther nature under her delicate loveliness, per- 
 mitted no thought to wander away from her, allowed 
 no single feeling to share dominion with her ! And 
 she prepared his chastisement. 
 
 "What is he in Paris for? To see me, I dare 
 say ! N^est ce pas assez? Go and tell him to come
 
 284 STRATHMOKE. , ^ 
 
 here; he will not venture without," she said, care- 
 lessly, while she leaned a little forward and bowed to 
 Erroll with an envoi from her fan, for wdiich many 
 men in the house that night woukl have paid down 
 ten years of their lives. 
 
 How well she knew her lover, and knew her powder 
 over him ! The smile died off Strathmore's face, the 
 dark, dangerous anger of his race glanced into his 
 eyes. 
 
 "Pardon me if I decline the errand. I am not 
 your laquais de place.j Lady Vavasour!" he said, 
 coldly, as he leaned over her chair. The answer 
 was too low for those who w^ere in the box to hear it- 
 
 She glanced at him amusedly and shrugged her 
 shoulders slightly : 
 
 " Many would think themselves flattered by being 
 even that ! Since you are refractory, there are others 
 more obedient. M. de Lorn, will you be so good as 
 to tell Major Erroll he may come and speak to us 
 here ? There he is with Lord Beaume." 
 
 Lorn left the box on his errand, and Lady Vava- 
 sour turned to D'Etoiles. She was the reigning 
 beauty of Paris still ; none dared to dispute with her 
 the palm of pre-eminence. Sovereign of fashion, 
 she bent sovereigns to her feet, created a mode 
 with a word, and saw kings suitors to her for a 
 smile. She must have surely, they thought, loved 
 Strathmore strangely Avell, with more than the 
 fleeting, capricious passions rumour accredited to 
 her, that she allow^ed him so jealous and undivided
 
 THE SILVEE SHIELD. 285 
 
 II sway over her ; or — perchance it was that " the 
 dove " still loved " to peck the estridge," to tame this 
 imperious Avill to more than woman's weakness, and 
 see this man, who boasted himself of bronze, grow 
 pale if her glance but wandered from himself ! 
 
 " For shame ! " she murmured to him, as he bent 
 for an emerald which had fallen from her bouquet- 
 holder. "How rude you were. Do you not know 
 my motto is Napoleon's, Qui m'aime me suit ! " 
 
 " Yes," answered Strathmore, unsatisfied and un 
 appeased ; " but I do not see why you should care to 
 be followed by so very many ! " 
 
 She struck him a fragrant blow with her bouquet 
 of stephanotis. 
 
 "If a vast crowd follow ever in vain, is it not 
 the greater honour to be singled from so many? 
 Ingrat ! " 
 
 The idolatrous passion that was in him for Marion 
 Vavasour, which bound him to her will, and made 
 him hold his slavery sweeter than all duty, pride, or 
 glory, gleamed in his eyes as he stooped towards her 
 in the swell of a chorus of the "Puritani," which 
 drowned his words to any ear save hers : 
 
 " Ay ! but love grudges the idlest word that is cast 
 to others, the slightest glance that is bestowed else- 
 where. There is no miser at once so avaricious and 
 unreasonable ! " 
 
 "Unreasoning indeed! You are much more fit 
 for the days of Abelard and Heloise than you are for 
 these. No one loves so noio — save ourselves ! "
 
 286 STRATHMOEE. 
 
 For the sweetness of the last word, as it lingered 
 softly on her lips, murmured in the swell of the 
 music, he forgave her the arch mockery of the first ; 
 and the sirocco of jealousy which, once risen, never 
 wholly subsides, lulled, and passed harmless away for 
 the present. 
 
 Meanwhile, in Lord Beaume's loge^ Erroll received 
 his message; received it with so much reluctance, 
 almost repugnance in his tone and on his face, that 
 the Comte de Lorn, who had only known him a Sir 
 Calidore for courtesy and a very Richelieu for women, 
 stared at him and shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Peste ! the greatest beauty of the day sends for 
 you, and you are no more grateful to her than this ! 
 And one must stand very well with her, too, to be 
 invited to her box." 
 
 ''\ have no desire to ^ stand well' with Lady 
 Vavasour," said Erroll, impatiently, forgetting how 
 strangely his answer must sound, for memories of 
 this woman as he had last seen her at White Ladies 
 stirred u.p bitterly within him ; about her, and her 
 alone, passionate words had passed between him and 
 the man he loved ; through her, and her alone, that 
 blow had been struck to their fnendship, from which 
 friendship never rallies, howsoever dexterously the 
 w^ound be healed. 
 
 " So much the better for you, for nobody has a 
 chance of rivallino; vour friend, it seems. AUons ! 
 you will hardly send her such a message back as that?"
 
 THE SILVER SHIELD. 287 
 
 said the Frenchman, as he thought, " Ah-ah ! the fox 
 and the grapes ! " 
 
 Erroll wavered a moment, uncertain how best to 
 evade her summons : he felt an invisible reluctance, 
 in truth ; did it not seem too exaggerated and cowardly 
 a word, almost a dread to enter this woman's presence? 
 He recognised her sorceress power, and feared it ; he 
 knew her influence over Strathmore, and resented it ; 
 he believed it wisdom to shun, foolhardihood to brave 
 her ; he abhorred her nature, and he acknowledged 
 her loveHness. Down at White Ladies, even whilst 
 he had hated her for the dominion she exercised over 
 Strathmore, and loathed her for the wanton passions 
 she veiled beneath her delicate and poetic language, 
 her soft and refined 2;race, he had felt the dazzlina: 
 charm of that divine beauty sweep over and stagger 
 him, as though her eyes had some necromantic 
 spell. 
 
 Now, wdth all the stories that were rife of the utter 
 bondage in which she held Strathmore, abhorrence 
 is scarce too fierce a word for what Enroll felt for 
 Marion Vavasour. Had there been a plausible pre- 
 text for leaving the house to avoid her he would have 
 taken it ; akeady on his lips was an excuse to Lorn 
 for his attendance to her loge^ when, as she leaned 
 forward to lorgner the prima donna, her glance met 
 his, and he saw her, with the diamonds glancing in 
 her bosom and her hair, and her lustrous eyes out- 
 shining the jewels. He hated her, condemned her,
 
 288 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 feared lier, approaclied lier with aversion ; but that 
 encliantment which Marion Vavasour exercised at 
 will over temperaments the most diverse, hearts the 
 most steeled to her, stole upon him as the syren's sea- 
 song stole upon the mariners of Greece, though they 
 turned their prow from the fatal music ; as the fumes 
 of wine steal perforce upon a man, though he refuse 
 to put wine even to his lips ! 
 
 It seemed impossible to evade her summons; he 
 turned and followed the Comte de Lorn, as in this 
 life we ever follow the slender thread of Accident 
 which leads us to our fate. 
 
 "What has brought you to Paris? Anything 
 special ? " asked Strathmore, when Lady Vavasour, 
 having siven him a smile and a few words of neffli- 
 Sfent graceful courtesv, continued her conversation 
 with D'Etoiles. 
 
 The hot words that had been passed between them 
 had been allowed to drop into oblivion by both — freely 
 forgiven by the one who had had right on his side ; not 
 so freely by the one who had been in error, for it was 
 one of the worst traits among many darker that 
 belonged to men of liis race and blood, that a Strath- 
 more never pardoned. 
 
 "My uncle's illness," answered Erroll. "He was 
 knocked over at Auteuil by paralysis; they tele- 
 graphed for me some days ago, but this is the first 
 time I have left him. It will prove a fatal, they tell 
 me, though perhaps a lingering, affair." 
 
 " My dear fellow, I must be ' extremely glad and
 
 THE SILVEK SHIELD. 289 
 
 vastly sorry ' in one breath — ^tlie first for your inlieri- 
 tance, the last for your uncle ! " smiled Strathmore. 
 "Poor Sir Arthur — I wonder I never heard of it; 
 wiUjhe last long? " 
 
 " He may die any day ; he may linger on for many 
 months ; so the doctors say at least, but they always 
 hedge admirably in their prognostications, so that, 
 whether their patient be cured or killed they are 
 always in the right ! I fear there can be no chance 
 for him." 
 
 " Fear, Bertie ! — on your honour, now ? " said 
 Strathmore. 
 
 All the old baronet's estates were willed by him to 
 Erroll (his title he naturally succeeded to) ; a pro- 
 perty not extensive, but of high value to a cavalry 
 man in debt and in difficulties. 
 
 " On my honour ! What will come to me will set me 
 free in very many ways; but to rejoice in a man's 
 death because you reap by it, would be semi-murder." 
 
 " My dear fellow," cried Strathmore, " we all break 
 the Decalogue in our thoughts every hour with im- 
 punity, and in our acts, too, if we're not detected : 
 
 Le scandak du monde est ce qui fait I'offence, 
 Et ce n'est pas p^cher que pecher eii silence ! 
 
 Tartuffe's the essence of modern ethics !" 
 
 "Ethics! Murder! Death! Quelle horreur ! 
 What are you talking about?" interrupted Lady 
 Vavasour, catching fragmentary sentences, and turn- 
 ing her head, with her eyebrows arched in surprised 
 inquiry, as the Royal Duke bowed his cong6 and left 
 VOL. I. u
 
 290 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 her to go to the box of a scarcely more notorious, 
 though a less legltmiate lionne, who had not a coronet 
 to leaven her frailties. "What horrible words to 
 bring into my presence ! Are you going to quit-the 
 world and organise a new La Trappe, Major Erroll?" 
 
 "Not exactly! Though truly there are living 
 beauties that might drive us to as fatal a despair as 
 the dead loveliness of the Duchesse de Montbazon 
 awoke in the Trappist founder ! " answered Erroll, 
 almost involuntarily. 
 
 The eyes that dwelt on him, the subtle spell that 
 stole about him, seemed to wrench homage from him 
 to this woman in the very teeth of his aversion and 
 his condemnation of her, as if to justify the taunt 
 and the suspicion that Strathmore had thrown in his 
 teeth at White Ladies, and to make him by his own 
 words prove himself a liar ! 
 
 Strathmore' s eyes flashed swiftly on him, and a 
 contemptuous smile came upon his face. The thought 
 that prompted it did ErroU as rank an injustice' as 
 evil judgment ever wrought in a world where its 
 wrong verdicts are as many as the sands of the sea, 
 and its restitutions so tardy that they are rarely 
 offered, save — to the dead. 
 
 Marion Yavasour smiled — her moqueur, radiant, 
 resistless smile. 
 
 " Well, it is a proof of woman's omnipotence that 
 love for her w^as even the cause and the corner-stone 
 of the most rigid monastic establishment that ever 
 abjured her ! Have you been long in Paris ?"
 
 THE SILVEE SHIELD. 291 
 
 " Only a few days. I am staying in attendance 
 on an invalid relative at Auteuil." 
 
 " Auteuil! Ahj we go there in a week or so to 
 my maisonette. We shall be charmed to see you, 
 Major ErroU, whenever yon can make your escape 
 from yom' melancholy duty." 
 
 He bowed, and thanked her. For the few words 
 of invitation many peers of France and England 
 would have laid down half the trappings of their 
 rank! He acknowledged them, but chillily; he 
 could not pardon her for her work; he could not 
 forgive her the estrangement between him and the 
 man he held closer than a brother ; he could not see 
 Strathmore under the dominance, and by the side of 
 the woman who ensnared and enslaved him, without 
 bitterness of heart. He read her aright, this sorceress, 
 who could summon at will every phase of womanhood; 
 and his instinct and his reason alike allied to give out 
 against her an uncompromising verdict. 
 
 With but cold courtesy he made his adieux, and 
 left her box as soon as it was possible to do so, having 
 satisfied the bare obligations of politeness her message 
 had entailed on him. And yet, despite all this, as 
 Erroll drove away from the Opera towards the Maison 
 Doree that night, the remembrance, which involmi- 
 tarily uprose to him, of a pure and childlike loveliness, 
 dedicated solely to him, which he had often watched 
 when hushed in the repose of a sleep whose very 
 dreams were haunted by no other image, and mur- 
 mured of no other name than his own, was rivalled 
 I u2 .
 
 292 STEATHMORE. 
 
 and thrust aside by what he strove to put away from 
 him — the memory of the glance which had just met 
 his, hke the bHnding rays of a dazzhng hght. Strong 
 and close about him was the treasvire of a warm and 
 holy love ; but if even such a love be a silver shield 
 in hours of temptation to the man who wears it 
 (though rarely, I deem, is it so, as poets picture and 
 as women dream), it could not ward off the charmed 
 lance of Marion Vavasour's fascination. Her memory- 
 followed him through the gas-lit streets to the Maison 
 Doree ; her memory haunted him still when he left 
 the laughing companions of his opera-supper, and 
 drove through the grey dawn of the early June 
 morning back to Auteuil. Are we masters of our 
 own fate, or are we not rather playthings in the 
 hands of circumstances and chance, floated by them 
 against our will, as thistle-down upon the winds that 
 waft it ? It is an open question ! Half the world 
 mar their own lives, and the other half are marred 
 by life. 
 
 " Now, Cecil, what cause was there for you to look 
 as stern ' as Othello, and to assert that you were not 
 my laquais de place to-night, when I merely paid an 
 ordinary courtesy to your friend because he is your 
 friend? You are as jealous as a Spaniard, and as 
 ungrateful — as a man always is for that matter, so 
 there is no need for a simile ! " said Lady Vavasour 
 that night, after her own opera-supper, when Etoiles, 
 the Due de Vosges, and others who had formed her
 
 THE SILVER SHIELD. 293 
 
 guests at that most charming of all soupers a minuet, 
 had left. 
 
 The light shone down upon her where she leaned 
 back on a dormeuse, her perfumed laces drooping 
 off her snowy shoulders, and the diamonds glancing 
 above her fair Greek-like brow. They were alone'; 
 the Marquis was as polite a host to Strathmore as the 
 Marquis du Chatelet to Voltaire ; and Strathmore 
 bent his head and kissed the fragrant lips that mocked 
 him with such sweet laughter. 
 
 "Ma belle! there is cold love where there is no 
 jealousy! Love waits for no reason in its acts; it 
 only knows that it hates those Avho rob it of the 
 simplest word, and is jealous of the very brute that 
 wins a touch or a smile !" 
 
 She laughed as his hand pushed away from her a 
 little priceless toy dog, gift of the Prince d'Etoiles, 
 which had nestled in her lace. 
 
 " I tell you you are fit for the old days of Venice, 
 when a too daring look was revenged with the dagger ! 
 Nobody loves so now; we are too languid, and too 
 wise ; and two years ago you would have sworn never 
 to love so yourself, Cecil." 
 
 " Even so. But two years ago I had not met yoii^ 
 
 " No. How strangely we met, too, those summer 
 evenings in Bohemia ! I told you it was Destiny." 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 "My loveliest! I do not think there is much 
 ' destiny ' in this life beyond that which men's hands
 
 294 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 fashion for themselves, and women's beauty works 
 for them. But if fate would always use me as it 
 did then, I would never ask other guidance." 
 
 She laughed, that soft low laugh, which in its most 
 mellow sweetness had always a ring of triumph and 
 of mockery difficult to define, yet ever menacing in 
 its music. 
 
 "It was destiny! Let me keep to my creed. 
 Bah ! Life is governed by chance, and each of us, 
 at best, is but a leaf that drifts on a hazardous wind, 
 now in the sunlight, and now in the shadow; and 
 the winds blow the leaves hap-hazard together, for 
 evil, for good, whichever it be." 
 
 And Lady Vavasour laughed again at her own 
 careless philosophies ; a true epicurean, life had its 
 most golden charm for her, and turned to her its 
 sunniest side ; her foot was on the neck of the world, 
 and the world lay obedient, and enraptured by its 
 enslaver ; Emperors obeyed a sign of her fan, how 
 should Fate ever dare to turn rebel against her ? 
 
 Then that sadness, which gave to her gazelle eyes 
 their most dangerous sweetness, came over them ; she 
 assumed by turns, and at will, every shape and 
 caprice, now heartless and moquayite as the world 
 she reigned over, now tender and full of thought, 
 as the women of whom poets dream in their youth. 
 
 " Ah, Cecil ! I have taught you a better love than 
 the Age and the Power you once coveted ? And yet 
 — who knows ? — perhaps Ambition was the safer and 
 the wiser, though not the more faithful, mistress." 
 
 I
 
 THE SILVER SHIELD. 295 
 
 His eyes dwelt, with all the passion which she had 
 awakened in him, on the living picture before him, on 
 which the light of the chandeliers shone, enhancing 
 all its wonch'ous brilliance of tint, and its rare 
 grace of form. His idolatry outweighed the world, 
 shrivelled ambition as a scroll of paper shrivels in the 
 flames, and filled his past, his present, and his future, 
 only with Herself ! 
 
 " I do not know — I do not care ! " he said, passion- 
 ately, whilst his lips were hot against her cheek. 
 "For the love you have taught me, I would barter 
 life and sell eternity ! Ambition — it is dead in me ! 
 You are my world. I have forgot all others." 
 
 God pardon him I It was fatally true. And she 
 looked up softly in his eyes, his slavery was sweet 
 homage to her power, his insanity precious incense to 
 her vanity ; and as she knew that she was all the 
 world to him, so she whispered him he was to her. 
 She had vowed him so many times, with her enclian- 
 tress tongue, her fragrant lips, her eloquence of eye 
 and word — so she vowed him now. 
 
 " Ah, Cecil ! " she murmured, with that caressing 
 sweetness which was as resistless as the song of the 
 serpent-charmer, " we do not love the less, but the 
 more, because the world sometimes robs us of each 
 other, and would sever us if it could by its laws ! "
 
 296 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 BELLA DEMONIA CON ANGELICO EISO. 
 
 The Bosquet de Diane was situated midway 
 between Auteuil and Passy, in one of the most 
 charming retreats of those pleasant j)laces; nestled 
 among sycamore and lime-woods, catching from its 
 terraces a distant view of the spires of Paris, and a 
 nearer of the windings of the Seine, with a paradise 
 of roses beaming in its gardens, an($' the luxury of 
 a serail lavished on its interior. Hither, in the sultry 
 heats of early summer, when the thermometer was 
 38 deg. Reaumur, came Marion Lady Vavasour, 
 after a lengthened Paris season, with a choice cohue 
 of courtiers and guests, to head a circle scarce less 
 brilliant than that adjacent at St. Cloud ; to pass her 
 mornings, forming new sumptuary laws and despotic 
 edicts of fashion ; to frame fetes a la Watteau in her 
 rose-gardens, or in her private theatre ; to spend her
 
 BELLA DEMONIA CON ANGELICO RISO. 297 
 
 time as became the Marchioness of Vavasour and 
 Vaux, and the Queen of Society. 
 
 As it chanced, joining the grounds of her maisonette, 
 lay the grounds of a cozy bachelor-villa, that had 
 been long inhabited by an old English bo7i viveicr, 
 who, with very good taste, preferred Auteuil, and all 
 to which Auteuil lies near, to his own baronial hall 
 down in the dulness of Shropshire, where there was 
 not a decent dinner-party to be had nearer than 
 twenty miles as the crow flew. 
 
 The bon viveur was Sir Arthur Erroll, and the 
 villa was, naturally, the Paris residence of his nephew, 
 who had been summoned when a fit of paralysis 
 threatened a sure, though a gradual, death for the 
 baronet. The windows of the villa looked on to the 
 glades of lindens and the aisles of roses, which 
 formed the choicest portion of the grounds of the 
 Bosquet de Diane ; and, sitting in Sir Arthur's sick 
 chamber, Erroll had full view of the Decamerone- 
 like groups which strolled there in the luminous 
 evenings, and had ever before him, as Lady Vava- 
 sour moved in the moonlight or the sunset radiance 
 through the arcades of her orangeries, or down the 
 length of her terraces, a living picture which united 
 the rich glory of Giorgone with the aerial grace of 
 Greuze. Perchance this constant, yet distant view 
 of her, was more dangerous than closer neighbour- 
 hood ; through it, perforce, she haunted his solitude, 
 and usurped his thoughts. 
 
 Of necessity detained at Auteuil, he could not shut
 
 298 STEATHMOKE. 
 
 away what rose before liis sight ahuost as regularly 
 as the evemng stars themselves. He avoided visiting 
 at the maisonette as much as he could possibly do ; 
 to have constantly refused would have been to place 
 himself in the absurd light of censor morum to Strath- 
 more, and fostered rather than disabused the jealous 
 error into which Strathmore had fallen, regarding 
 the motive of his interference, the autumn before, 
 at White Ladies. Still he went thither very rarely ; 
 but he could not walk through the Bois, or drive 
 down the Versailles road, without encountering her 
 carriage or her riding parties ; and, when he sat 
 beside the open casements of his uncle's chamber, 
 he could not refuse his admiration to the brilliant 
 and graceful form surrounded with her court, which 
 came ever within his sight, when she swept slowly 
 along the marble terraces, or beneath the avenues of 
 her rose-gardens in the starlit summer night. He 
 ceased to wonder at Strathmore's infatuated passion 
 — he ceased to marvel that, for this woman's loveli- 
 ness, he flung away fame, time, ambition, everything 
 that had before been precious to him, like dross ; and, 
 almost unconsciously and irresistibly, Erroll ceased 
 also to care to drive over to dine at the Cafe de 
 Paris, and sup in the Breda Quartier, as he had done 
 hitherto, but stayed, in preference, to sit beside the 
 w^indow of an old man's sick-room, with some opened 
 novel, on which his eyes never glanced. 
 
 Perhaps Lady Vavasour perceived how markedly 
 her own invitations were refused, yet how surely
 
 BELLA DEMONIA CON ANGELICO KISO. 299 
 
 a lorgnon watched her from the balcony of Sir 
 Arthur's villa that was visible through the limes; 
 or perhaps she divined and resented the verdict her 
 lover's friend gave against her? "Major Erroll is 
 very rude. I have asked him to dinner three times, 
 and he has three times ' deeply regretted ' &c. &c. — 
 Anglice, refused! I have shown him courtesy for 
 your sake, Cecil ; now show him resentment for mine. 
 I will not have you sworn friends with the man ; he 
 does not like me !" said her ladyship, laughingly, one 
 morning to a lover with whom her word was law, and 
 who thought, as two scenes at White Ladies arose to 
 his memory, " Perhaps he but likes you too well ! " 
 
 The few phrases sufficed to sow afresh the doubt 
 in Strathmore's mind, and increased the coolness that 
 had come betwixt him and Erroll, whom Marion 
 Vavasour treated with an absolute indifference, though 
 occasionally she watched him with something of that 
 curiosity which a flattered, spoiled, and beautiful 
 woman might well feel for the only one who had 
 ever dared to show her his disapprobation, and been 
 proof against her charm ; and occasionally her eyes 
 lighted and dwelt on the rare beauty of his face with 
 a look which meant — it were hard to say what — per- 
 haps a challenge. 
 
 " Major Erroll, pray why do you persistently shun 
 us?" she asked him, suddenly, forsaking the negli- 
 gence with which she had hitherto habitually treated 
 him, as was natural from a proud and courted beauty 
 to a man who had ventured to be ungrateful for her
 
 300 STEATI-IMOEE. 
 
 condescensions, and to show tacit rebuke of her con- 
 duct, without the prestige of a high rank to excuse 
 him the insolence. It was one of those days when 
 he had been compelled to come to the Bosquet de 
 Diane, invited too publicly as he encountered them 
 in the Bois, when riding there with one of Louis 
 Philippe's equerries, to be able to refuse without 
 drawing comment. They were for the moment almost 
 alone, as they strolled through the gardens after din- 
 ner under the arcades of roses, while the starlight 
 shone down on her, burnishing her hair to its mar- 
 vellous lustre, and glancing off the Byzantine jewels 
 above her brow, while the shadow of the night, half 
 veiling her beauty, gave it a dream-like softness. She 
 knew so well when it was at its rarest and its most 
 resistless ! 
 
 " Shun you ? " he repeated. " Lady Yavasour can 
 surely never do herself so little justice as to deem 
 such a rudeness to her possible ? " Courtesy demanded 
 the reply, and he gave it only coldly. 
 
 "I deem it possible because it is the fact," she 
 laughed carelessly. " Come, I never am refused or 
 kept waiting, why do you do it ? " 
 
 "It is much honour to me that you should even 
 remark a discourtesy if I have been guilty of it," he 
 answered, coldly still. He condemned and abhorred 
 the nature which he read aright in her, and yet — his 
 voice softened despite himself as he looked down 
 upon her. 
 
 "You answer by an equivoque? For shame! I
 
 BELLA DEMONIA CON ANGELICO RISO. oOl 
 
 never permit evasions. Say frankly, Major Erroli, 
 the truth — that you dislike me !" 
 
 As she spoke she turned her ejes full on him, their 
 liquid darkness laughing with a light as of amusement 
 that any mortal could be found so mad as to defy her 
 power, so blind as to resist such loveliness ; a light 
 that flashed on him with its dazzling regard, chal- 
 lenging him to treasure hatred if he could, to pre- 
 serve defiance if he dared, to Marion Lady Vavasour. 
 
 " Come," she repeated, a haughty nonchalance in 
 her attitude as she turned her head towards him, 
 while she swept through the fragrant aisles of her 
 gardens, but with a mocking, amused smile about her 
 lips — "come ! the truth now, you dislike me?" 
 
 " Say, rather. Lady Vavasour, that I dread your 
 power, and that — since you ask for frankness — I 
 perhaps condemn its too pitiless exercise, its most 
 pitiful results ! " 
 
 They were rash and daring words to the pampered 
 beauty, who heard the truth as rarely as a sovereign 
 in her palace ! They were spoken on the impulse of 
 a frank nature and a loyal friendship, as Erroll's 
 clear eyes turned on her steadily, with the first 
 reproof that any living being had ever dared to offer 
 to Marion Vavasour. From that moment his fate 
 was sealed with her. 
 
 The glance she first gave him was one of grand 
 amazement, of haughty indignation ; then this woman, 
 in whom was combined every fairest phase of woman's 
 witcheries, and who could assume at her will any
 
 302 STKATHMOEE. 
 
 lying loveliness slie would, looked at him with a faint 
 blush wavering her cheek, and her lashes slightly 
 drooping over her eyes, that lost their malicious 
 laughter, and grew almost sad. 
 
 " Then you are unjust, and err in hasty judgment, 
 a common error of your sex," she said, gently, almost 
 mournfully. "Bah! you might as well condemn 
 the sun that shone on the -i^gean, because the blind 
 and the unwise bowed down to it as God ! You are 
 prejudiced. NHmporte ! when you know me better 
 you will not do me so much wrong." 
 
 And for the moment, as he listened, he forgot that 
 she who spoke was the arch-coquette of Europe, was 
 the avowed mistress of Strathmore ; he forgot that 
 those words on her lips were a graceful lie without 
 meaning, only uttered as the actress utters the words 
 of the role she assumes for the hour. They stood 
 alone in the starlight, about them' the heavy perf mne 
 of the roses that roofed the trellised aisle and strewed 
 the path : and as she leant slightly towards him in 
 the shadow, while her eyes seemed to glisten, and her 
 rich lips to part with a sigh, words broke from him 
 unawares, wrenched out against his will by this 
 woman's sorceress' charm. 
 
 "Let us know you as we may, you do with us 
 what you will ! Lady Vavasour, for God's sake take 
 heed — ^liave mercy — ^you hold a fearful power in your 
 hands !" 
 
 His tone bore more meaning than his speech? 
 which was rapid and broken, and his prayer, in its
 
 BELLA DEMONIA CON ANGELICO EISO. 303 
 
 very warning, only bore fresh incense to her triumphs. 
 Her eyes dwelt softly on him, and the warm hue still 
 lingered temptingly, flatteringly, on the cheek that 
 had no charm so perfect as its blush. Then she 
 laughed gaily as she turned away, the Byzantine 
 gems gleaming in the star-rays. " Power ? Bah ! 
 over an hour's rest, a moment's pique, an evening's 
 homage ! C^est grand* cJiose /" 
 
 With this careless, coquettish mockery she left 
 him, and was joined by Strathmore and the Due de 
 Vosges; and Erroll, turning suddenly away, strode 
 down the rose-walk in the moonlight at a swift, 
 uneven pace, not to return to the Bosquet de Diane 
 that night. Twelve months before, he had sworn, in 
 that certain remorse which comes to all men when 
 they return to one who has been faithful to them in 
 absence, with a reading of fidelity which they have 
 never followed, that no other love should ever sup- 
 plant or efface his Wife, sworn it in all sincerity, 
 believing that he should guard his oath sacred and 
 unbroken. She was very dear to him still, dear as 
 our purer thoughts, our better moments, our most 
 holy memories are dear to us ; he loved her fondly, 
 truly, deeply; yet, the holier love was but a frail 
 shield against the unholier, which swept on him 
 with a sirocco's strength, hated yet insidious. Mes 
 freres I did ever yet the silvery wings of your better 
 angel so wholly enshroud you, that they made you 
 blind to the laughing eyes of the bacchantes that 
 beset your path, and banned from your sight the
 
 304 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 wreathing arms and wooing lips that lured you into 
 error ? Never, most surely, out of the happy fables 
 of women's credence, and of poet's song. 
 
 Power ! 
 
 It was the idol of Marion Vavasour's religion, in 
 one form ; as in another, ere she had supplanted it, 
 it had been her lover's. She warped and used it 
 pitilessly ; and though she had disowned it, never 
 exercised it more capriciously and mercilessly than 
 over Strathmore, now that she had set her foot on 
 his bent neck, and bound him into slaver}^ No toy 
 was so dear to this tyrant as the imperious and un- 
 yielding nature she had bowed like a reed in her 
 hands ! No pastime so precious to her as to show, by 
 a hundred fresh ingenuities, how pliant as straw to 
 her bidding was the steel of his will and his pride ! 
 
 " From whom is that letter, Strathmore ? " she 
 asked one evening in the rose-gardens, her favourite 
 haunt, where she sat with him, the Due de Vosges, 
 and an English Viscountess. 
 
 The letter just brought him was from a British 
 minister arrived in Paris for a European congress, 
 and he passed it to her; his will had sunk so abso- 
 lutely into hers, that he neither seemed conscious of 
 her dominion or his own degradation. 
 
 She arched her delicate brows as she read. 
 
 "This evening? You cannot wait on him this 
 evening. We play ' Hernani.' " 
 
 " I fear it is impossible for me to avoid going ; you 
 see what is said," he answered her. " The Earl
 
 BELLA DEMONIA CON ANGELICO EISO. 305 
 
 would take no excuse in a matter of so much 
 import " 
 
 " He must take it, if I choose you to send him one. 
 You cannot go, Strathmore ; I need you specially." 
 
 " But indeed, since he does me the honour to 
 desire this interview, I could not refuse it without 
 marked slight, not alone to himself, but almost to the 
 Government at home." 
 
 Lady Vavasour made a moue mutine. She knew 
 a lovely woman is never lovelier than when she will 
 not hear reason. 
 
 " The Government ? What is that to me ? You 
 are to play Hernani, and that is of far more con- 
 sequence ! " 
 
 " But I assure you " began Strathmore, while 
 
 Lady Mostyn listened amusedly, and he caught a 
 smile on the face of the French Duke that he bitterly 
 resented : his rivals Strathmore kept utterly at a dis- 
 tance. She had him in thraldom, but they had not. 
 
 " Well ? what ? I cannot have my theatricals 
 disarranged to pleasure your Earl, especially as he 
 is a person I most particularly dislike. What would 
 be the consequence, pray, of your neglecting his 
 summons ? " 
 
 " I have said, it would be little less than an insult 
 to AUonby in his ministerial capacity', and " 
 
 " Insult him, then ! " cried her ladyship, with 
 charming nonchalance. " And apres ? " 
 
 Strathmore stooped towards her and lowered his 
 voice for her ear alone. 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 " Apres ? Yeiy natural offence from liim person- 
 ally, and great injury to my own future career, from 
 neglecting the opportunity lie affords me." 
 
 " Galimatias I I cannot have my tragedy spoiled 
 for the Ministry's farce," she answered aloud, with a 
 sliMit shruff of her shoulders. "You must send an 
 excuse to the Earl, or " — and she dropped her voice 
 — " if you insult me with divided allegiance, Cecil, I 
 shall receive none. You used to boast Age and 
 Power were all you coveted. You may go back to 
 your old loves if you disobey meJ' 
 
 Perhaps it was that she felt jealous of her old 
 rival, Ambition; perhaps it was merely to see her 
 own power in its wanton completeness ; but her eyes 
 dwelt on him with the glance that, from her to him, 
 commanded all things. 
 
 *' Well ! " she asked impatiently, " do you obey 
 Lord Allonby or me? Which? I never share a 
 sceptre." 
 
 A flush passed over Strathmore's face almost of 
 anger ; the look he caught on the face of Yosges 
 reminded him for once of how^ completely he — a 
 courtier, a diplomatist, a man of the world, who had 
 sneered with his most bitter wit at love and all its 
 follies — had become the slave of one passion, weak as 
 water in the hands of one woman ! 
 
 "Well? Which?" asked Marion Vavasour, with 
 her charming petulance, and by the light in her 
 eyes he knew that his capricious imperious tyrant 
 would perchance resent disobedience in this trifle on 
 which her will was set, more than a far heavier
 
 BELLA DEMONIA CON ANGELICO RISC. 307 
 
 disloyalty. And so great was his idolatry, that even 
 with lookers-on at his degradation, he — who had held 
 his will as bronze, and had boasted his self-dominion 
 as omnipotent — let her rule him even in this wanton 
 caprice. 
 
 He bowed his assent to her : 
 
 " What Lady Vavasour wishes is a command." 
 
 It was a strange oversight which, for a mere 
 frivolous tyranny, made Lady Vavasour detain him 
 that night at the Bosquet de Diane. 
 
 An hour afterwards, when the sun had sunk, and 
 the ladies had re-entered the inaisonette to dress for 
 dinner, Strathmore, at her request, remained behind 
 them, and took his way to the stables to look at her 
 favourite mare, which had been lamed in exercising 
 that morning, and which she would not leave solely 
 to the care of stud-grooms and farriers. 
 
 It was dusk, and the second dressing-bell had rung, 
 when, as he returned from the stables through the 
 thick shrubberies which filled that part of the grounds, 
 he stumbled against a female form, which crouched 
 upon the ground in a position so suspicious of some 
 thieving design, that he laid his hold upon her 
 clothes, and bade her get up Avitli no very gentle 
 epithet. The woman shook his grasp off by a rapid 
 movement, rose with a spring like a young doe, and 
 stood confrontmg him, without any sign of guilt or 
 fear, though her gipsy look, and dusty dress, con- 
 firmed him in his opinion that her errand lay towards 
 any costly trifles, or loose jewels, which the open 
 x2
 
 308 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 windows and vacated rooms of the maisonette might 
 let her make away with undetected. 
 
 She did not seem to hear the words he spoke to 
 her; but her eyes dwelt on him curiously and ear- 
 nestly, while a smile, half melancholy, half bitter, 
 played about her lips ; and as he scanned her face in 
 the fading light, he recognised in its dark Murillo 
 beauty the Bohemian woman who had taken his gold, 
 and prophesied his future, under the Czeschen limes. 
 The prophecy and the prophetess would alike have 
 been long forgotten, but for the one who had heard 
 and seen them with him. 
 
 " What ! " said the Zingara, in the Czeschen patois, 
 her moui'nful and monotonous tones falling dreamily 
 on his ear — " what ! the love is born already ? — the 
 yellow hair has drawn you in its net so soon ? Take 
 care ! take care ! Your kiss is not the first, nor will 
 it be the last, on her lips " 
 
 "Peace to your jargon!" broke in Strathmore, 
 imperatively, catching enough of the words to incense 
 him. "What are you doing here, an idle vagrant 
 prowling about to steal?" 
 
 She threw herself back with a proud fierce gesture, 
 the blood staining her bronze cheek, and a sinister 
 light flashing in her eyes, that were darkly brilliant 
 as those midnight stars from which, in olden days, 
 her ancient race had prophesied to kings the fate of 
 empires ; by which now, in a strange travesty of their 
 old fame and faith, they babbled to peasant-girls 
 of love-predictions. "Steal!" she muttered in the
 
 BELLA DEMONIA CON ANGELICO RISO. 309 
 
 Czeschen dialect. "Steal — from her house! I 
 would not drink a stoup of water that was hers^ to 
 save myself from dying." 
 
 The words were so fiercely spoken, that Strath- 
 more, catching them imperfectly, thought he must 
 have mistaken a language which, though known to 
 him was unfamiliar, and laid his grasp upon her 
 afresh. 
 
 " You must give some very good account of your- 
 self, or I shall turn you over to the gendarmes. You 
 are in private grounds at nightfall, and are here on 
 no honest errand." 
 
 She turned her eyes on him half haughtily, half 
 mournfully, with the same gaze with which she had 
 studied his face under the Bohemian limes, and un- 
 consciously his hand relaxed its hold and left her 
 free. The regard, while it shamed the suspicion 
 which accused her of low theft, struck him with the 
 same chill as when her vague words had traced out 
 his future in Bohemia. An artist would have given 
 that look to the changeless and fathomless eyes of 
 the Eumenides. 
 
 "I have no need to thieve," said the Bohemian, 
 quietly and proudly, " and my errand I will not tell 
 you — now. In a little time, when you hate where 
 you still love, you may share it — not yet. The sin is 
 fair in your sight, and the kiss is sweet on your lips 
 to-night; when the shi bears its curse, and the kiss 
 has turned to gall, come to me ; Redempta Avill show 
 you your vengeance."
 
 310 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 She turned swiftly, and had passed away in the 
 gloom through the trees before he could arrest her ; 
 taking advantage of the pause of involuntary hesi- 
 tance which he made, as he debated with himself 
 whether this woman was a maniac, or whether again 
 he might not have misunderstood the Czeschen dia- 
 lect, rendered doubly unfamiliar as it was by the 
 gipsy patois she employed. 
 
 His eyes vainly sought her in the twilight. She 
 was out of sight; and, disinclined to enter on the 
 chase himself, he passed into the house, and apprising 
 some of the servants that a beggar-woman was loiter- 
 ing suspiciously about the grounds, bade them have 
 diligent search made for her. His order was obeyed ; 
 but the Bohemian was nowhere discovered. She had 
 made her way through the twilight like a night-bird, 
 and left as little trace of her path.
 
 311 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE BROODING OF THE STORM. 
 
 "Hernani" was never better acted at tlie Fran- 
 9ais than it was in tlie Marcliioness's private theatre 
 tliat sultry midsummer night. So many people were 
 staying at the Bosquet de Diane that no other audience 
 was needed, and save one of the Royal Dukes from 
 St. Cloudj Erroll was the only externe guest. A little 
 note with but half a dozen lines in it had been sent 
 over to Sir Arthur's villa, signed " Marion Yavasour 
 and Yaux." That very morning Erroll had vowed 
 to leave Auteuil as soon as his uncle's death or re- 
 covery released him, and while forced to remain there 
 to go no more to the maisonette ; but — I'homme pro- 
 pose, et femme dispose I The few lines of gracious 
 courtesy and airy raillery on his eremite tastes invited 
 him that evening, and broke asunder all his freshly- 
 forged resolves ! 
 
 From her bijou theatre, of which Lady Yavasou r
 
 312 STRATHMOKE. 
 
 was singularly fond, actors and audience met again 
 in the supper-room, decorated a la Louis Quinze, 
 where she loved to revive the petits soupers that came 
 in with the Eegency and went out with the Eevolu- 
 tion. These suppers were a peculiar charm of the 
 Bosquet de Diane, and to-night one of the most bril- 
 liant of them followed on " Hernani," at which the 
 sparkle of the wit might fairly have vied with the 
 mots of Claudine de Tencin, Piron, or Eivarol; at 
 which the Due de Vosges, regarding his hostess, 
 began to ponder that the advice of Arthus de Bellus 
 might after all be the best, and that it would be well 
 to shoot a lover whom there seemed no chance of 
 supplanting; and at which Erroll's mots were so 
 sparkling and his spirits so high, that some of the 
 men there wondered to themselves if he were bent 
 on eclipsing Strathmore. 
 
 The supper lasted long, every one loth to leave a 
 table at which he was so well amused, and with the 
 introduction of those perfumed cigarettes which 
 Lady Vavasour permitted to be smoked in her pre- 
 sence, and which scented the air with a delicate 
 Oriental odour, fresh jeux de mots seemed intro- 
 duced, and it was very late when the Bourbon Prince 
 took his departure. Son Altesse Koyal was always 
 cordially gracious and en hon camerade with Strath- 
 more, whom he detained now at the door of his 
 carriage, saying some last words relative to the S ar- 
 tery Stakes, for which their horses were respectively 
 entered ; and when he rolled away, Strathmore stood
 
 THE BEOODING OF THE STORM. 313 
 
 outside the house a few moments, while Lord Vava- 
 sour left the entrance-hall after accompanying the 
 Due to his carriage. The air was pleasant, for the 
 night was very sultry and oppressive, as with the near 
 approach of a tempest ; it reminded him of the one, 
 now near twelve months past, when the first words of 
 love had passed his lips to Marion Vavasour, and he 
 had thrust into his breast the crimson leaves that had 
 been pressed against her lips ; it was she only of 
 whom he thought now as he paced up and down, 
 while the dawn broke above the woods to the east. 
 His passion had this characteristic of a worthier love 
 — that its success had not weakened, but tenfold 
 strengthened it, and her memory alone filled his 
 thoughts now in the hot, hushed stillness. She 
 was his ! and he would have driven out of his path 
 the boldest that had dared to seek her love, he would 
 have revenged with death the fairest rivalry, that had 
 dared to usurp his place. 
 
 Some twenty minutes might have gone by when, 
 as he turned to re-enter the maisonette by one of the 
 French windows which stood open to the piazza, the 
 figure of a man came between him and the moonlight, 
 he did not see whether from the villa or the grounds, 
 though a moment after he recognised Erroll. They 
 met as the one left, and the other turned to enter, 
 the house, met for the first time alone since the day at 
 White Ladies, when words about a woman, rash on 
 the one side, bitter on the other, had laid the edge of 
 the- axe at the root of their friendship.
 
 314 STBATHMOPtE. 
 
 In a clearer light, or when his own thoughts had 
 been less preoccnpied, Strathmore must have noticed 
 the change that had come over Erroll in the short 
 
 o 
 
 half-hour that had gone by from the time of the 
 Due's departure, when he had been laughing and 
 talking at the supper-table with all its usual gaiety, 
 and even more than his usual wit. Then, his mots 
 had sparkled through the conversation, dropped out 
 in his soft, lazy voice, and his laugh had rung as 
 often and as clearly as a young girl's — now, his face 
 was haggard and lined, and as he pulled the Glen- 
 garry over his eyes his hand shook slightly, like the 
 hand of a man who has been drinking deeply, which 
 was scarcely the case with him, since he had never 
 left the society of titled women. 
 
 Strathmore, however, did not observe this ; it was 
 very dark just then, as the clouds swept over the 
 moon, and the lights from Lady Vavasour's villa, 
 which were streaming full in his own eyes, dazzled 
 them, while Erroll stood with his back to their blaze. 
 " I thought you had left us, Bertie. Have a 
 cigar ? " he began, holding out his own case. 
 "What a hot night, isn't it? There's a storm 
 brewing. We shall have it down in half an hour." 
 
 " It looks dark," said Erroll, briefly, as he struck a 
 fusee. 
 
 "Mild word! How sweetly those limes smell; 
 rather oppressive, though. I will walk across the 
 grounds with you to Sir Arthur's ; how is he to- 
 day ? "
 
 THE BEOODING OF THE STOKM. 315 
 
 " Not imicli better." 
 
 ^^Well, really that tyrannous old gentleman has 
 lived quite long enough," laughed Strathmore, as he 
 moved down the terrace steps. " I want you to have 
 that Hurstwood property, the timber is magnificent. 
 What do you think of Milly Mostyn ? — lovely figure, 
 hasn't she? Only, unluckily, some wicked fellows 
 do say it is sadly fictitious, and disappears when her 
 maid disrobes her." 
 
 "We're often tricked in that way," laughed Erroll. 
 But the laugh was forced, and he pulled his cap down 
 over his eyes as they walked on under the limes and 
 across the lawn of Marion Vavasour's rose-gardens, 
 Strathmore talking to a spaniel of hers, that had 
 run after and leapt 'upon him — a beautiful creature 
 with a collar of silver bells. Erroll glanced at the 
 spaniel as they strolled on in silence farther, and 
 a bitter, haggard smile came on his face. " She 
 caresses you to-night — she will caress me to-morrow 
 — and a German Prince or a French Due the next 
 day!" 
 
 Strathmore laughed slightly; his laugh had a 
 peculiar intonation ; it was not often that it warmed, 
 but rather chilled. 
 
 " Poor Bonbon ! How severe you are on her. 
 What has she done to deserve such philippics ? " 
 
 " Nothing ! She merely made me think that she 
 strangely resembles — her mistress ! " 
 
 " Her mistress ! " repeated Strathmore. He hated 
 to hear the name of Marion Vavasour spoken by any.
 
 316 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 " Your remark is open to an odd construction, Erroll ; 
 what do you mean by it ? " 
 
 Erroll swung round and paused wliere they now 
 stood, under the limes in the midst of Lady Vava- 
 sour's gardens, nothing near them but the night 
 birds, which swept with a swift rush through the 
 foliage, fleeing to refuge before the storm — nothing 
 watching them but the quick lustrous eyes of the 
 dog, that glanced rapidly from one to the other. 
 
 " Strathmore ! do you believe now in the love of 
 that woman as you did twelve months ago ? " 
 
 " To the full." 
 
 The answer was mild as yet, but Strathmore's eyes 
 were beginning to glitter coldly and angrily. Of all 
 things, he hated his personal fefelings to be probed, 
 his personal matters touched. 
 
 " What ! " broke in Erroll ; his manner was utterly 
 changed from its usual soft and lazy nonchalance, 
 and his words were spoken by hoarse, abrupt efforts. 
 " What ! you are as mad about her, then, as you were 
 a year ago : You never see — you never think " 
 
 Strathmore laughed a little again, more chillily 
 than before : 
 
 " My dear Erroll ! a year before you were so good 
 as to intrude your counsels on me — 'pray don't be 
 at the trouble to repeat them. I bore rather ill 
 with your interference then, I may do so still worse 
 now." 
 
 " Bear with it as you will ! but do you mean to tell 
 me, then, that, arch coquette as Marion Yavasour is, 
 
 -
 
 THE BROODING OF THE STORM. 31 7 
 
 you are mad, blind, infatuated enough to believe she 
 will for ever " 
 
 " ^ For ever ' is a word for fools," interrupted 
 Strathmore, with his chilliest smile ; " even forbear- 
 ance will not last ^ for ever,' if it be tried too far, as 
 you take a fancy to try it to-night ! " 
 
 "For God's sake, do not let our friendship be 
 broken for her! " muttered Erroll, with so strange a 
 vehemence and pain that the spaniel. Bonbon, jumped 
 upon him, whining plaintively. " It will stay by us 
 when all the women's love on earth has rotted out of 
 our hands — do not let her destroy it ! " 
 
 "Faugh! " said Strathmore, with contemptuous 
 impatience. "If we had left the ladies' presence 
 at supper, I should say our good host the Marquis's 
 wine had got in your head, mon cher ! The duration 
 or rupture of our entente cordiale lies in your own 
 choice ; all I beg of you is, cease to meddle with my 
 private matters. I must take the liberty to remind 
 you, that you are neither my keeper nor my father- 
 confessor ! " 
 
 Strathmore's words were light, sneering, and cold : 
 such, flung at a man in a moment of high excitement, 
 keen suffering, and strong feeling, are like ice-water 
 flung on flames; they came so now to Erroll, and 
 on this spur he said, what else might never have 
 passed his lips. 
 
 " You must be a madman or a fool, Strathmore ! " 
 he broke in hotly and quickly. " I do not want to 
 be your confessor, to see that you are fettered hand
 
 318 STEATIIMORE. 
 
 and foot. It is no secret now, you never attempt 
 to keep it so. You are tlie slave of lier idlest caprice, 
 you are utterly chained and infatuated by her — all 
 the world sees it. It is a thing publicly and plainly 
 known enough. Men jest and jeer over it ! " 
 
 "Because they envy it — as perhaps you do ?" 
 
 "They ridicule you behind your back," went on 
 Erroll, hurriedly, not noticing (or evading) the sneer, 
 which was all the more cutting for its tranquillity. 
 "I tell you what they — sneaks and cowards — only 
 say out of your hearing. You have no will of your 
 own with her — she rules you as she pleases. Great 
 Heavens ! can you make such a byword of your 
 name, such a wreck of your ambition, for the sheer 
 sake of this wanton adultress ! " 
 
 "Silence!" 
 
 The word hissed out on the air like the ring of a 
 bullet. The black, silent wrath of his vengeful race 
 glared in Strathmore's eyes till they gleamed like 
 steel, and he turned away with a smile that had 
 darker meaning in it than the hottest fury, or 
 menace, that could have shaped themselves in oaths 
 or words. 
 
 " I should shoot any one else dead for that to-mor- 
 row morning. I do not need to say our acquaintance- 
 ship ceases from to-night ? Bonbon, ma belle, allons 
 nous en ! Voila la pluie qui tomber 
 
 He moved away with a low and punctilious bow of 
 contemptuous courtesy ; but with a sudden movement 
 Erroll swung round and stood before him in the path ;
 
 THE BEOODING OF THE STORM. 'ol9 
 
 in the yellow moonlight his face looked very pale, 
 and the nerves of his lips twitched under his mous- 
 taches. 
 
 " Stop ! we shall not part like that !" 
 
 They stood face to face in the middle of Marion 
 Vavasour's paradise of flowers, while the first storm- 
 drops fell among the leaves above head slowly one by 
 one, and the garish light of the moon, which looked 
 duskily red against the clouds, strayed in streaks 
 across the darkness. 
 
 " Wait a moment ! " Erroll's voice was thick as 
 he spoke, and shook slightly. " I risked death for you 
 once, I would do it again to-night. We have lived, 
 and shared, and thought together, as though the 
 same mother had borne us. We have not prated 
 about it like boys, but we have held each other closer 
 than men of the same blood do. We never had an 
 evil word between us till she brought them. Strath- 
 more ! is all that to be swept away in a single 
 night r' 
 
 The words were more eloquent by feeling than 
 they were by rhetoric ; they would have softened 
 most men : Strathmore they did not even touch. 
 He stood with his arms folded and his cigarette in his 
 mouth, while his face wore its darkest, deadliest 
 scorn. Wlien his will was crossed, his wrath was 
 roused, or his pride touched, the man was bronze; 
 words could not scathe, pity could not stir, memory 
 could not soften him. Once his glance grew a little 
 gentler, it was at Erroll's first words; but it soon
 
 320^ STKATHMOKE. 
 
 passed away, and the merciless scoff set on liis lips 
 again. 
 
 " You are admirably theatrical ! but we are not play- 
 ing ^ Hernani ' now, and I should prefer that we used 
 the language of gentlemen. It is sad waste of stage- 
 talent, and I should like fewer phrases and more 
 rational ones ! Lady Vavasour can in no way be 
 charged with having caused the ^evil words' you 
 speak of ; you have only yourself to thank for them 
 by your madman's conduct, and by your very marked 
 insolence to me. Be so good as to oblige me by 
 letting me pass?" 
 
 " Not yet," swore Erroll, between his teeth ; a hot 
 flush had come on his face, and his eyes were excited ; 
 Strathmore's words cut him to the quick, less for 
 their insult, than their chill and mocking heartless- 
 ness. " You insult me for her sake — ^you turn against 
 me because I tell you frankly what all your friends 
 and enemies say with one voice behind your back — 
 because I seek to warn you against your insane be- 
 lief, your wretched slavery, with a wanton coquette, 
 a titled courtezan ? What if I told you she were faith- 
 less to you 1 " 
 
 For an instant the words struck Strathmore like a 
 shot, and he made one fierce swift panther-like move- 
 ment, as though to spring upon and rend limb from 
 limb the man that dared to whisper this thing to him; 
 then he restrained himself, and laughed a low, cold, 
 imperious laugh of contempt and of power ; he took 
 the cigarette leisurely from his lips, and his eyes, that
 
 THE BROODING OF THE STORM. 321 
 
 glittered like a furious hawk's, fastened on ErroU 
 with deadly significance. 
 
 " What ! " he said, slowly, and gently w^inding a 
 loosened leaf round the cigar. " \^liat ? Why, you 
 would give me your life for the lie, that is all." 
 
 " But if I could prove to you that it were true ? " 
 
 " Prove it, then ! You have dared to hint it, dare 
 to make it 2;ood !" hissed Strathmore through his 
 teeth, where he leaned forward as a boar-hound 
 strains to leap upon his foes, while the leash holds 
 him back from the death-grip. 
 
 The blood rushed to Erroll's face, staining it crim- 
 son ; his head sank like a man suddenly and sorely 
 stricken ; he stood motionless in the still and sultry 
 night. 
 
 " Prove it, if you are not the greatest dastard upon 
 earth!" hissed Strathmore, his voice vibrating with 
 the suppressed passion, which was w^orse in men of his 
 blood than the darkest wrath of a more open and a 
 quicker spent anger. ^' Prove it, I say, if it is not 
 the vilest lie that jealousy ever spawned ! " 
 
 " My God ! it is the truth I spare you ! " 
 
 The words wrung out from him, died on his lips 
 too low to be overheard, as he forced them back 
 to silence, by the might of a generous self-sacrifice 
 which wrestled in conflict with a fiery temptation. 
 He stood silent, stood to be branded as a liar ! No 
 other man would have uttered that word to Bertie 
 Erroll and Hved when the dawn rose. 
 
 Strathmore looked at him, in the uncertain shim- 
 
 VOL. I. Y
 
 * 
 
 322 STEATHMOEE. 
 
 mer of the moon that streamed fitfully between them 
 through the boughs ; and he laughed, tauntingly, 
 scornfully, imperiously, while a cold exultant light 
 glittered in his eyes, and a haughty scorn sat on his 
 lips. 
 
 "You dare not? I thought so. Fie, sir, for 
 shame! So this is cowardice as well as falsehood? 
 You play in a ne\y 7vie I " 
 
 The words cut through the air like the swift whirr 
 of the sabre, and Erroll — stood silent still. The 
 veins swelled to cords on his temples ; the blood left 
 his face till it looked white and drawn like a corpse ; 
 he struggled with a horrible temptation. A word 
 uttered, a word held back : in this lay the whole gist 
 of a great self-sacrifice, and of a great revenge; in 
 this lay the whole powers of his choice. With a 
 word he could strike down the man who stood there 
 in the yellow weirdly light, scorning, and taunting, 
 and thrusting liar and coward in his teeth. With 
 a word he could cast him out of the paradise where 
 he had lain so long, cast him out of every one of 
 its sweet hours, every one of its honeyed draughts ; 
 with a word he could turn his exultant idolatry to 
 loathing hate, to bitter shame. With a word ! And 
 that word he was gibed and dared to utter ! 
 
 It was a deadly struggle, but the past, with all its 
 boyish memories, was closer knit about his heart 
 than about the heart of him whose laugh was grating 
 on his ear, and whose insults were falling on his 
 brain like drops of fire. His head drooped, his lips
 
 THE BROODING OF THE STOEM. 323 
 
 moved faintly, and he muttered like a man in his 
 extremity : 
 
 " God give me strength to keep silent !" 
 
 The words were very low, and were unheard, as the 
 night-birds cleft the air with a rushing sound, and the 
 winds rising swept up with a moan through the trees 
 — the moan of the storm afar off. 
 
 A moment more, and he lifted his head with a 
 gesture of proud grace; he chose to endure insult, 
 aspersion, wrong, rather than do what he held in his 
 power to do now — lay the burden on the shoulders, 
 and turn the steel back into the breast of the man who 
 had been his brother in all save the ties of blood. 
 
 " Since you deem it a falsehood, hold it one — Watch 
 your own treasure ! For the sake of the past, I let 
 pass your words ; / can afford to be called a co\yard. 
 Strathmore ! if we must p^rt, let it be in peace." 
 
 He held out his hand as he spoke, and his voice 
 grew mellow as music ; the moonlight fell full upon his 
 face, with its fair and fearless beauty, while his eyes 
 were soft with the wistful, forgiving, lingering gaze 
 of a woman. The look, the words, the action, should 
 have unlocked a flood of olden memories and thoughts 
 of youth, and should have swept away, as the light of 
 morning sweeps aside an evil dream, all the dark and 
 pitiless passions which a few seconds had been long 
 enough to beget and bring to birth. But in the 
 tangled web of Strathmore' s nature ran one hell- 
 woven thread — in anger he was pitiless, in revenge 
 relentless. With his sneer on his lips he signed aside
 
 324 STEATHMOHE. 
 
 the offered hand, and in the ghastly light his eyes 
 looked into those which met him with gallant fear- 
 lessness and wistful tenderness : but his own neither 
 changed nor softened. 
 
 "You might know me better — I never forgive !" 
 And with those brief, calm words he tmnied and 
 passed across the sward, followed by Lady Vavasour's 
 spaniel. Once, when he had reached the marble 
 piazza of the villa, he turned and glanced at the night, 
 as he called the dog to follow him. Erroll was out of 
 sight. There were only the heavy darkness, which 
 hung like a pall above the earth, and the angry moon, 
 gleaming blood-red where she glared through the mist. 
 The roar of the winds was rising louder, and from 
 afar off the thunder broke, subdued and sullenly. 
 The storm was near at hand. 
 
 END or VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 ridNTED BY C. WHITIXG, BKAUFORX HOUSE, STRAND.
 
 fwi