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                            BEATRICE BOVILLE
                                   AND
                             OTHER STORIES.

                                   BY

                                "OUIDA."

                               AUTHOR OF
             "STRATHMORE," "GRANVILLE DE VIGNE," "CHANDOS,"
                 "IDALIA," "RANDOLPH GORDON," ETC., ETC.

                             Third Series.

                             PHILADELPHIA:
                       J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
                                  1905

CONTENTS.

BEATRICE BOVILLE.

    I.--OF EARLSCOURT'S FIANCEE.                                     9
   II.--THE FIRST SHADOW.                                           13
  III.--HOW PRIDE SOWED AND REAPED.                                 23
   IV.--WHERE I SAW BEATRICE BOVILLE AGAIN.                         33
    V.--HOW IN PERFECT INNOCENCE I PLAYED THE PART OF A RIVAL.      44
   VI.--HOW PRIDE BOWED AND FELL.                                   51

A LINE IN THE "DAILY."

  WHO DID IT, AND WHO WAS DONE BY IT.                               65

HOLLY WREATHS AND ROSE CHAINS.

    I.--THE COLONEL OF THE "WHITE FAVORS" AND CECIL ST. AUBYN.     109
   II.--THE CANADIAN'S COLD BATH WARMS UP THE COLONEL.             119
  III.--SHOWING THAT LOVE-MAKING ON HOLY GROUND DOESN'T PROSPER.   132
   IV.--THE COLONEL KILLS HIS FOX, BUT LOSES HIS HEAD AFTER
        OTHER GAME.                                                146

SILVER CHIMES AND GOLDEN FETTERS.

    I.--WALDEMAR FALKENSTEIN AND VALÉRIE L'ESTRANGE.               161
   II.--FALKENSTEIN BREAKS LANCES WITH "LONGS YEUX BLEUS."         174
  III.--"SCARLET AND WHITE" MAKES A HIT, AND FALKENSTEIN FEELS
        THE WEIGHT OF THE GOLDEN FETTERS.                          188
   IV.--THE GOLDEN FETTERS ARE SHAKEN OFF AND OTHERS ARE PUT ON.   202
    V.--THE SILVER CHIMES RING IN A HAPPY NEW YEAR.                215

SLANDER AND SILLERY.

    I.--THE LION OF THE CHAUSSÉE D'ANTIN.                          225
   II.--NINA GORDON.                                               233
  III.--LE LION AMOUREUX.                                          242
   IV.--MISCHIEF.                                                  252
    V.--MORE MISCHIEF, AND AN END.                                 263

SIR GALAHAD'S RAID.

  AN ADVENTURE ON THE SWEET WATERS.                                285

"REDEEMED."

  AN EPISODE WITH THE CONFEDERATE HORSE.                           307

OUR WAGER; OR, HOW THE MAJOR LOST AND WON.

    I.--INTRODUCES MAJOR TELFER OF THE 50TH DASHAWAY HUSSARS.      333
   II.--VIOLET TRESSILLIAN.                                        339
  III.--FROM WHICH IT WOULD APPEAR, THAT IT IS SOMETIMES WELL
        TO BEGIN WITH A LITTLE AVERSION.                           346
   IV.--IN WHICH THE MAJOR PROVOKES A QUARREL IN BEHALF OF
        THE FAIR TRESSILLIAN.                                      353
    V.--THE DUEL, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.                            367

OUR COUNTRY QUARTERS.                                              379

BEATRICE BOVILLE.

OF EARLSCOURT'S FIANCEE.

      "To compass her with sweet observances,
      To dress her beautifully and keep her true."

That, according to Mr. Tennyson's lately-published opinion, is the
devoir of that deeply-to-be-pitied individual, l'homme marié. Possibly
in the times of which the Idyls treat, Launcelot and Gunevere _might_
have been the sole, exceptional mauvais sujets in the land, and woad,
being the chief ingredient in the toilet-dress, mightn't come quite so
expensive. But nowadays "sweet observances," rendered, I presume, by
gifts from Hunt and Roskell's and boxes in the grand tier, tell on a
cheque-book so severely; "keeping her true" is such an exceedingly
problematical performance, to judge by Sir C. C.'s breathless work, and
"dressing her beautifully" comes so awfully expensive, with crinoline
and cashmeres, pink pearls, and Mechlin, and the beau sexe's scornful
repudiation, not alone of a faded silk, like poor Enid's, but of the
handsomest dress going, if it's damned by being "seen twice," that I
have ever vowed that, plaise à Dieu, I will never marry, and with
heaven's help will keep the vow better than I might most probably keep
the matrimonial ones if I took them. Yet if ever I saw a woman for whom
I could have fancied a man's committing that semisuicidal act, that
woman was Beatrice Boville. Not for her beauty, for, except one of the
loveliest figures and a pair of the most glorious eyes, she did not
claim much; not for her money, for she had none; not for her birth, for
on one side that was somewhat obscure; but for _herself_; and had I ever
tried the herculean task of dressing anybody beautifully and keeping
anybody true, it should have been she, but for the fact that when I knew
her first she was engaged to my cousin Earlscourt. We had none of us
ever dreamt he would marry, for he had been sworn to political life so
long, given over so utterly to the battle-ground of St. Stephen's and
the intrigues of Downing Street, that the ladies of our house were
sorely wrathful when they heard that he had at last fallen in love and
proposed to Beatrice Boville, who, though she was Lady Mechlin's niece,
was the daughter of a West Indian who had married her mother, broken her
heart, spent her money, deserted her, and never been heard of since; the
more wrathful as they had no help for themselves, and were obliged to be
contented with distinguishing her with refreshing appellations of a
"very clever schemer," evidently a "perfect intrigante," and similar
epithets with which their sex is driven for consolation under such
trying circumstances. It's a certain amount of relief to us to call a
man who has cut us down in a race "a stupid owl; very little in him!"
but it is mild gratification to that enjoyed by ladies when they
retaliate for injury done them by that delightful bonbon of a sentence,
"No doubt a most artful person!" You see it conveys so much and proves
three things in one--their own artlessness, their enemy's worthlessness,
and their victim's folly. Being with Earlscourt at the time of his
"singularly unwise, step," as they phrased it, I knew that he wasn't
trapped in any way, and that he was loved irrespectively of his social
rank; but where was the good of telling that to deeply-injured and
perforce silenced ladies? "They knew better;" and when a woman says
that, always bow to her superior judgment, my good fellow, even when
she knows better than you what you did with yourself last evening, and
informs you positively you were at that odious Mrs. Vanille's opera
supper, though, to the best of your belief, you never stirred from the
U. S. card-room; or you will be voted a Goth, and make an enemy for the
rest of your natural life.

In opposition to the rest of the family, _I_ thought (and you must know
by this time, amis lecteurs, that I hardly think marriage so enjoyable
an institution as some writers do, but perhaps a little like a pipe of
opium, of which the dreams are better than the awakening)--I thought
that he could hardly have done better, as far as his own happiness went,
as I saw her standing by him one evening in the window of Lady Mechlin's
rooms at Lemongenseidlitz, where we all were that August, a brilliant,
fascinating woman already, though then but nineteen, noble-hearted,
frank, impetuous, with something in the turn of her head and the proud
glance of her eyes, that told you, you might trust her; that she was of
the stuff to keep her word even to her own hinderance; that neither
would she tell a lie, nor brook one imputed to her; that she might err
on the side of pride, on the side of meanness never; that she might have
plenty of failings, but not anything petty, low, or ungenerous among
them. The evening sun fell on them as they stood, on her high, white
forehead, with its chestnut hair turned off it as you see it in old
pictures, which Earlscourt was touching caressingly with his hand as he
talked to her. They seemed well suited, and yet--his fault was pride,
an unassailable, unyielding pride; hers was pride, too, pride in her own
truth and honor, which would send you to the deuce if you ever presumed
to doubt either; and I wondered idly as I looked at them, whether those
two prides would ever come in conflict, and if so, whether either of
them would give in in such a case--whether there would be submission on
one side or on both, or on neither? Such metaphysical and romantic
calculations are not often my line; but as they stood together, the sun
faded off, and a cold, stormy wind blew up in its stead, which, perhaps,
metaphorically suggested the problem to me. As one goes through life one
gets up to so many sunny, balmy, cloudless days, and so often before the
night is down gets wetted to the skin by a drenching shower, that one
contracts an uncomfortable habit when the sun _does_ shine, of looking
out for squalls, a fear that, sans doute, considerably damps the
pleasures of the noon. But the fear is natural, isn't it, more's the
pity, when one has been often caught?

I chanced to ask her that night what made her so fond of Earlscourt. She
turned her fearless, flashing eyes half laughingly, half haughtily on
me, the color brighter in her face:

"I should have thought you would rather have asked how could I, or any
other woman whom he stooped to notice, fail to love him? There are few
hearts and intellects so noble: he is as superior to you ball-room
loungers, you butterfly flutterers, as the stars to that chandelier."

"Bien obligé!" laughed I. "But that is just what I meant. Most young
ladies are afraid of him; you never were?"

She laughed contemptuously.

"Afraid! You do not know much of me. It is precisely his giant
intellect that first drew me to him, when I heard his speech on the
Austrian question. Do you remember how the Lords listened to him so
quietly that you could have heard a feather fall? I like that silence of
theirs when they hear what they admire, better than I do the cheers of
the other house. Afraid of him! What a ludicrous idea! Do you suppose I
should be afraid of any one? It is only those who are conceited or
cowardly, who are timid. If you have nothing to assume, or to conceal,
what cause have you to fear? I love, honor, reverence Lord Earlscourt,
God knows; but fear him--never!"

"Not even his anger, if you ever incurred it?" I asked her, amused with
her haughty indignation.

"Certainly not. Did I merit it, I would come to him frankly, and ask his
pardon, and he would give it; if I did not deserve it, _he_ would be the
one to repent."

She looked far more attractive than many a handsomer woman, and
infinitely more noble than a more tractable one. She was admirably
fitted for Earlscourt, if he trusted her; but it was just possible he
might some day _mis_trust and _mis_understand her, and then there might
be the devil to pay!

II.

THE FIRST SHADOW.

Lemongenseidlitz was a charming little Bad. Beatrice Boville
and her aunt Lady Mechlin, Earlscourt and I, had been there
six weeks. His brother peers--of whom there were scores at
Lemongenseidlitz--complimented Earlscourt on his fiancée.

"So you're caught at last?" said an octogenarian minister, who was as
sprightly as a schoolboy. "Well, my dear fellow, you might have gone
higher, sans doute, but on my honor I don't think you could have done
better."

It was the universal opinion. Beatrice was not the belle of the Bad,
because there were dozens of beautiful women, and beautiful she was not;
but she was more admired than any of them, and had Earlscourt wanted
voices to justify his choice he would have had them, but he didn't; he
was entirely independent of the opinions of others, and had he chosen to
set his coronet on the brows of a peasant girl, would have cared little
what any one thought or said. We all of us enjoyed that six weeks. Lady
Mechlin lost to her heart's content at roulette, and was as complacent
over her losses as any old dowager could be. Beatrice Boville shone
best, as nice natures ever do, in a sunny atmosphere; and if she had any
faults of impatient temper or pride, there was nothing to call them
forth. Earlscourt, cold politician though he'd been, gave himself up
entirely to the warmer, brighter existence, which he found in his new
passion; and I, not being in love with anybody, made the pleasantest
love possible wherever I liked. We all of us found a couleur de rose
tint in the air of little Lemongenseidlitz, and I'd quite forgotten my
presentiment, when, one night at the Kursaal, a cloud no bigger than a
man's hand came up on the sunny horizon, and put me in mind of it.

Earlscourt came into the ball room rather late; he had been talking with
some French ministers on some international project which he was anxious
to effect, and asked Lady Mechlin where Beatrice was.

"She was with me a moment ago; she is waltzing, I dare say," said the
old lady, whose soul was hankering after the ivory ball.

"Very likely," he answered, as he looked among the dancers for her; he
was restless without her, though he would have liked none to see the
weakness, for he was a man who felt more than he told. He could not see
her, and went through the rooms till he found her, which was in a small
anteroom alone. She started as he spoke to her, and a start being a
timorous and nervous thing of which Beatrice Boville was never guilty,
he drew her to him anxiously.

"My darling, has anything annoyed you?"

She answered him with her habitual candor:

"Yes; but I cannot tell you what, just now."

"Cannot tell me! and why?"

"Because I cannot. I can give no other reason. It is nothing of import
to you, or you are sure I should not keep it from you."

"Yes; but I am equally sure that anything that concerns you _is_ of
import to me. To whom should you tell anything, if not to me? I do not
like concealment, Beatrice."

His tone was grave; indeed, too much like reproof to a fractious child
to suit Beatrice's pride. She drew away from him.

"Nor I. You must think but meanly of me if you can impute anything like
concealment to me."

"How can I do otherwise? You tell me you have been annoyed, and refuse
to say how, and by whom. Is that anything but concealment? If any one
has offended or insulted you, I ought to be the first you came to. A
woman, Beatrice, should have nothing hidden from the man who is, or will
be, her husband."

She threw her arms around him. Her moods were variable as a child's.
Perhaps this very variability Earlscourt hardly understood, for it was
utterly opposed to his own character: you always found him the same;
_she_ would be all storm one moment, all sunshine the next.

"Do you suppose I would hide anything from you? Do you think for a
moment I would hold back anything you had a right to know? You might
look into my heart; there would be no thought or feeling there I should
wish to keep from you. But if you exact confidence, so do I. Would you
think of taking as your wife one you could not trust?"

He answered her a little sternly:

"No; if I once ceased to believe in your truth or honor, as I believe in
my own, I should part from you forever, though God knows what it would
cost me!"

"God knows what it would cost _me!_ But I give you free leave. The
instant you find a flaw in either, I am no longer worthy of your love;
withdraw it, and I will never complain. But trust me you must and will;
I merit your confidence, and I exact it. Look at me, Ernest. Do you
believe I could ever deceive you?"

He looked into her eyes long and earnestly.

"No. When you do, your eyes will droop before mine. I trust you,
Beatrice, fully, and I know you will never wrong it."

She clung to him with caressant softness, softer in her than in a
meeker-spirited woman, as she whispered, 'Never!' and a man would need
have been obtuse and skeptical, indeed, who could then have doubted her.
And so that cloud blew over, for a time, at the least--trusted, Beatrice
Boville was soft and gentle as a lamb; mistrusted or misjudged, she was
fiery as a young lioness, and Earlscourt, I thought, though originally
won by her intellect, held her too much as a child to fully understand
her character, and to see that, though she was his darling and
plaything, she was also a passionate, ardent, proud-spirited woman,
stung by injustice and impatient of doubt. No two people could be more
fitted to make each other's happiness, yet it struck me that it was just
possible they might make each other's misery very completely, through
want of comprehension on the one side, through want of explanation on
the other.

"Your marriage is fixed, isn't it, Earlscourt?" asked his sister, Lady
Clive Edghill, who had come to Lemongenseidlitz, and, though compelled
by him, as he compelled all the rest of the family, to show Beatrice
strict courtesy, disliked her, because she was not an advantageous
match, was much too young in their opinion, and had no money--the
gravest crimes a woman can have in the eyes of any man's relatives.
"The 14th! Indeed! yours is a very short engagement!"

"Is there any reason why it should be longer?"

"O, dear, no! none that I am aware of. I wish, earnestly, my dear
Earlscourt, I could congratulate you more warmly; but I can never say
what I do not feel, and I had so much hoped--"

"My dear Helena, as long as I have so much reason to congratulate
myself, it matters very little whether you do or do not," smiled
Earlscourt. He was too much of a lion to be stung by gnats.

"I dare say. I sincerely trust you may ever have reason. But I heard
some very disagreeable things about that Mr. Boville, Beatrice's father.
Do you know that he was in a West India regiment, but was deprived of
his commission even there?--a perfect blackleg and sharper, I
understand. I suppose she has never mentioned him to you?"

"You are very much mistaken; all that Beatrice knows of him, I know;
that is but little, for Lady Mechlin took her long ago, when her mother
died, from such unfit guardianship. Beatrice is as open as the day--"

"Indeed! A little too frank, perhaps?"

"Too frank? That is a paradox. No one can have too much candor. It is
not a virtue of your sex, but it is one, thank God! which she possesses
in a rare degree, though possibly it gains her enemies where it should
gain her friends."

"Still frankness _may_ merge into indiscretion," said Helena, musingly.

"I doubt it. An indiscreet woman is never frank, for she has always the
memory of silly things said and done which require concealment."

"I was merely thinking," Helena went on, regardless of a speech which
she did not perhaps relish, pour cause, "merely from my deep interest in
you, and my knowledge of all you will wish your wife to be, that perhaps
Beatrice might be, in pure insouciance, a little too careless, a little
too candid for so prominent a position as she will occupy. Last night,
in passing a little anteroom in the Redoute, I saw her in such extremely
earnest conversation with a man, a handsome man, about your height and
age, and--"

The anteroom! Earlscourt thought, with a pang, of the start she had
given when he entered it the previous night. But he was not of a jealous
temperament, nor a curious one; his mind was too constantly occupied
with great projects and ambitions to be capable of joining petty things
together into an elaborate mosaic; he had no petitesses himself, and
trifles passed unheeded. He interrupted her decidedly:

"What is there in that to build a pyramid of censure from? Doubtless it
was one of her acquaintances--probably one of mine also. I should have
thought you knew me better, Helena, than to attempt this gossiping
nonsense with me."

"O, I say no more. I only thought you, of all men, would wish Cæsar's
wife to be above--"

The gnat-strings had been too insignificant to rouse him before, but at
this one his eyebrows contracted, and he rose.

"Silence! Never venture to make such a speech as that to me again. In
insulting Beatrice you insult me. Unless you can mention her in terms of
proper respect and reverence, never presume to speak her name to me
again. Her enemies are my enemies, and, whoever they may be, I will
treat them as such."

Helena was sorely frightened; if she held anybody in veneration it was
Earlscourt, and she would never have ventured so far with him but for
the causeless hate she had taken to Beatrice, simply because Lady Clive
had decided long ago that her brother was too voué to public life ever
to marry, and that her son would succeed to his title. She was sorely
frightened, but she comforted herself--the little thorn she had thrust
in might rankle after a while; as pleasant a consolation under failure
as any lady could desire.

Beatrice was coming along the corridor as Earlscourt left Helena's
rooms, which were in the same hotel as Lady Mechlin's. She was stopping
to look out of one of the windows at the sunset; she did not see him at
first, and he watched her unobserved, and smiled at the idea of
associating anything deceitful with her--smiled still more at the idea
when she came up to him, with her frank, bright, regard, lifting her
face for a caress, and patting both her hands through his arm.
Accustomed to chill and reserved women in his own family, her abandon
had a great charm for him; but perhaps it led him into his error in
holding her still as half a child.

"You have been seeing my enemy?" she said, laughingly. "Your sister does
not like me, does she?"

"Not like you! Why should you think so? She may not like my marrying,
perhaps, because she had decided for me that I should never do so; and
no woman can bear any prophecies she makes to prove wrong."

"Very possibly that may be one reason; but she does not think me good
enough for you."

Her tips curved disdainfully, and Earlscourt caught a glimpse of her in
her fiery mood. He laughed at her where, with her, he had better have
admitted the truth. Beatrice had too much pride to be wounded by it, and
far too much good sense to measure herself by money and station.

"Nonsense, Beatrice; I should have thought you too proud to suppose such
a thing," he said, carelessly.

"It is the truth, nevertheless."

"More foolish she, then; but if you and I do not, what can it signify?"

"Nothing. As long as I am worthy of you in your eyes, what others think
or say is nothing to me. I honor you too much to make the gauge between
us a third person's opinion; or measure you or myself by a few stops
higher or lower in the social ladder. Your sister thinks me below you in
rank, soit! She is right; I am quite ready to admit it; but that I am
your equal in all that makes men and women equal in the sight of Heaven,
I know. When she finds me unworthy of you in thought or deed, then she
may call me beneath you--not till then."

Her cheeks were flushed; he could hear her quick breathings, and in her
vehemence and haughty indignation she picked the petals of her bouquet
de corsage to pieces and flung them away. Another time he would have
thought how well her pride became her, and given her some fond reply.
Just now the thorn rankled as Lady Clive had hoped, and he answered her
gravely, in the tone which it was as unwise to use to her as to prick a
thorough-bred colt with both spurs.

"You are quite right. Were I a king, you would be my equal as long as
your heart was mine, your mind as noble, and your character as unsullied
as I hope them to be now."

She turned on him rapidly with the first indignant look she had ever
given to him.

"_Hope!_ You might say _know_, I think!"

"I would have said 'know,' and meant it too, yesterday."

"Yesterday? What do you mean? Why am I less worthy your confidence
to-day than yesterday?"

She looked wonderingly at him, her eyes full of inquiry and
bewilderment. It was marvellous acting, if it was acting; yet he thought
she could scarcely have so soon forgotten their scene in the anteroom
the previous night. They had now come into the salon; he left her side
and walked to the mantel-piece, leaning his arm on it, and speaking
coldly, as he had never done to her since they first met.

"Beatrice, do not attempt to act with me. You cannot have forgotten what
we said in the anteroom last night. Nothing assumed ever deceives me,
and you only lower yourself in my estimation."

She clinched her hands till the rings he had given her crushed together.

"Act! assume! Great Heaven, how dare you speak such words to me?"

"Dare? You speak like an angry child, Beatrice. When you are reasonable
I will answer you."

The tears welled into her eyes, but she would not let them fall.

"Reasonable? Is there anything unreasonable in resenting words utterly
undeserved? Would you be calm under them yourself, Lord Earlscourt? I
remember now what you mean by yesterday; I did not remember when I asked
you. Had I done so I should never have simulated ignorance and surprise.
Only last night you promised to trust me. Is this your trust, to accuse
me of artifice, of acting, of falsehood? I would bear no such imputation
from any one, still less from you, who ought to know me so well. What
happiness can we have if you--"

She stopped, the tears choking her voice, but he did not see them; he
only saw her indignant attitude, her flushed cheeks, her flashing eyes,
and put them down to her girlish passion.

"Calm yourself, Beatrice, I beg. This sort of scene is very distasteful
to me; to figure in a lover's quarrel hardly suits me. I am not young
enough to find amusement in disputation and reconciliation, sparring one
moment and caresses the next. My life is one of grave pursuits and
feverish ambitions; I am often harassed, annoyed, worn out in body and
mind. What I hoped for from you was, to borrow the gayety and brightness
of your own youth, to find rest, and happiness, and distraction. A life
of disputes, reproaches, and misconstruction, would be what I never
would endure."

Beatrice was silent; she leaned her forehead on her arms and did not
answer him. His tone stung her pride, but his words touched her heart.
Her passion was always short-lived, and no evil spirit possessed her
long. She rebelled against the first part of his speech with all her
might, but she softened to the last. She came up to him with her hands
out.

"I had no right to speak so impatiently to you. God knows, to make your
life happy will be my only thought, and care, and wish. If I spoke
angrily, forgive me!"

Earlscourt knew that the nature so quick to acknowledge error was worth
fifty unerring and unruffled ones; still he sighed as he answered her,--

"My dear child, I forgive you. But, Beatrice, there is no foe to love so
sure and deadly as dissension!" And as he drew her to him and felt her
soft warm lips on his, he thought, half uneasily yet, "She has never
told me who annoyed her--never mentioned her companion in the anteroom
last night."

Lady Clive had her wish; the thorn festered as promisingly as she could
have desired. Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coûte in quarrels as in
all else. Dispute once, you are very sure to dispute again, whether with
the man you hate or the woman you love.

III.

HOW PRIDE SOWED AND REAPED.

It only wanted three weeks to Beatrice Boville's marriage. We were all
to leave Lemongenseidlitz together in a fortnight's time for old Lady
Mechlin's house in Berks, where the ceremony was to take place.

"Earlscourt is quite infatuated," said Lady Clive to me one evening.
"Beatrice is very charming, of course, but she is not at all suited to
him, she is so fiery, so impetuous, so self-reliant."

"I think you are mistaken," said I. I admired Beatrice Boville--comme je
vous ai dit--and I didn't like our family's snaps and snarls at her.
"She may be impetuous, but, as her impulses are always generous, that
doesn't matter much. She is only fiery at injustice, and, for myself, I
prefer a woman who can stand up for her own rights and her friends' to
one who'll sit by in--you'll call it meekness, I suppose? I call it
cowardice and hypocrisy--to hear herself or them abused."

"Thank you, mon ami," said Beatrice's voice at my elbow, as Lady Clive
rose and crossed the room. "I am much obliged for your defence; I
couldn't help hearing it as I stood in the balcony, and I wish very much
I deserved it. I am afraid, though, I cannot dispute Helena's verdict of
'fiery,' 'impetuous,'--"

"And self-reliant?" I asked her. She laughed softly, and her eyes
unconsciously sought Earlscourt, who was talking to Lady Mechlin.

"Well? Not quite, now! But, by the way, why should people charge
self-reliance on to one as something reprehensible and undesirable? A
proper self-reliance is an indispensable ground-work to any success. If
you cannot rely upon yourself, upon your power to judge and to act, you
must rely upon some other person, possibly upon many people, and you
become, perforce, vacillating and unstable.

                'To thine own self be true,
  And it shall follow, as the day the night,
  Thou canst not then be false to any man.'"

As she spoke a servant brought a note to her, and I noticed her cheeks
grow pale as she saw the handwriting upon it. She broke it open, and
read it hastily, an oddly troubled, worried look coming over her face, a
look that Earlscourt could not help but notice as he stood beside her.

"Is there anything in that letter to annoy you, Beatrice?" he asked,
very naturally.

She started--rather guiltily, I thought--and crushed the note in her
hand.

"Whom is it from? It troubles you, I think. Tell me, my darling, is it
anything that vexes or offends you?" he whispered, bending down to her.

She laughed, a little nervously for her, and tore the note into tiny
pieces.

"Why do you not tell me, Beatrice?" he said again, with a shade of
annoyance on his face.

"Because I would rather not," she said, frankly enough, letting the
pieces float out of the window into the street below. The shadow grew
darker in his face; he bent his head in acquiescence, and said no more,
but I don't think he forgot either the note or her destroyal of it.

"I thought there was implicit confidence _before_ marriage whatever
there is after," sneered his sister, as she passed him. He answered her
calmly:--

"I should say, Helena, that neither before nor after marriage would any
man who respected his wife suffer curiosity or suspicion to enter into
him. If he do, he has no right to expect happiness, and he will
certainly not go the way to get it."

That was the only reply he gave Lady Clive, but her thorn No. 2 festered
in him, and when he bade Beatrice good night, standing alone with her in
the little drawing room, he took both her hands in his, and looked
straight into her eyes.

"Beatrice, why would you not let me see that note this evening?"

She looked up at him as fearlessly and clearly.

"If I tell you why, I must tell you whom the note was from, and what it
was about, and I would much rather do neither as yet."

"That is very strange. I dislike concealment of all kinds, especially
from you, who so soon will be my wife. It is inconceivable to me why you
should need or desire any. I thought your life was a fair open book,
every line of which I might read if I desired."

Beatrice looked at him in amazement.

"So you may. Do you suppose, if I had any secret from you that I feared
you should know, I could have a moment's peace in your society, or look
at you for an instant as I do now? I give you my word of honor that
there was nothing either in the note that concerns you, or that you
would wish me to tell you. In a few days you shall know all that was in
it, but I ask you as a kindness not to press me now. Surely you do not
think me such a child but that you can trust me in so small a trifle. If
you say I am not worthy of your confidence, you imply that I am not
worthy of your love. You spoke nobly to your sister just now, Ernest; do
not act less nobly to me."

He could not but admire her as she looked at him, with her fearless,
unshadowed regard, her head thrown a little back, and her attitude
half-commanding, half-entreating. He smiled in spite of himself.

"You are a wayward, spoiled child, Beatrice. You must have your own
way?"

She gave a little stamp of her foot. She hated being called a spoiled
child, specially by him, and in a serious moment.

"If I have my own way, have I your full confidence too?"

"Yes; but, my dear Beatrice, the only way to gain confidence is never to
excite suspicion." And Lady Clive's thorn rankled à ravir; for even as
he pressed his goodnight kisses on her lips, he thought, restlessly,
"Shall we make each other happy?--am I too grave for her?--and is she
too wilful for me? I want rest, not contention."

The night after that there was a bal-masqué at the Redoute. I was just
coming out of my room as Beatrice came down the corridor; She had her
mask in her hand, her dress was something white starred with gold, and
round her hair she had a little band of pearls of Earlscourt's gift. I
never saw her look better, specially when her cheeks flushed and her
eyes brightened as Earlscourt opened his door next mine, and met her. He
did not see me, the corridor was empty, and he bent down to her with
fond words and caresses.

"Do I look well?" she said, with child-like delight.

"I am so glad, Ernest, I want to do you honor."

In that mood he understood her well enough, and he pressed her against
his heart with the passion that was in him, whose strength he so rarely
let her see. Then he drew her hand through his arm, and led her down the
stairs; and, as I laughed to find to what lengths our cold statesman
could come at last, I thought Lady Clive's thorns would be innocuous,
however well planted.

Earlscourt never danced; nothing but what was calm and stately could
possibly have suited him; but Beatrice did, and waltzed like a Willis,
(though she liked even better than that standing on his arm and talking
with his friends--diplomatic, military, and ministerial--on all sorts of
questions, most of which she could handle nearly as well as they;) and
about the middle of the evening, while she was waltzing with some man or
other who had begged to be introduced to her, Earlscourt left the
ball-room for ten minutes in earnest conversation with one of the French
ministers, who was leaving the next morning. As he came back again, I
asked him where Beatrice was, because Powell, of the Bays, was bothering
my life out to introduce him to her.

"In the ball room, isn't she? She is with Lady Mechlin, of course, if,
the waltz is over."

A familiar voice stopped him.

"She is not in the ball room. Go where you found her the other night,
and see if Cæsar's promised wife be above suspicion!"

I could have sworn the voice was Lady Clive's; a pink domino passed us
too fast for detention, but Earlscourt's lips turned white at the subtle
whisper, and he muttered a fierce oath--fiercer from him, because he's
never stirred into fiery expletives. "There is some vile plot against
her. I must sift it to the bottom;" and, pushing past me, he entered the
ball room. Beatrice was not there; and wending his way through the
crowd, he went in through several other apartments leading off to the
right, and involuntarily I followed him, to see what the malicious
whisper of the pink domino had meant. Earlscourt lifted the curtain that
parted the anteroom from the other chamber--lifted it to see Beatrice
Boville, as the pink domino had prophesied, and not alone! With her was
a man, masked, but about Earlscourt's height, and seemingly about his
age, who, as he saw us, let go her hand with a laugh, turned on to a
balcony, which was but a yard or so from the street, and dropped on to
the pave below. Beatrice started and colored, but I thought she must be
the most desperate actress going, for she came up to Earlscourt with a
smile, and was about to put her hand through his arm, but he signed her
away from him.

"Your acting is quite useless with me. I am not to be blinded by it
again. I have believed in your truth as in my own--"

"So you may still. Listen to me, Ernest!"

"Hush! Do not add falsehood to falsehood."

He spoke sternly and coldly; his pride, which was as strong as his love
for her, would not gratify her by a sign of the torture within him, and
even in his bitterest anger Earlscourt would never have been ungentle to
a woman. That word acted like an incantation on her, the blood crimsoned
her temples, her eyes literally flashed fire, and she threw back her
head with the haughty, impatient gesture habitual to her.

"Falsehood? Three times of late you have used that word to me."

"And why? Because you merited it."

She stood before him, the indignant flush hotter still upon her cheeks,
her lips curved into scornful anger. If she was an actress, she knew her
rôle to perfection.

"Do you speak that seriously, Lord Earlscourt? Do you believe that I
have lied to you?"

"God help me! What else can I believe?" he muttered, too low for her to
hear it.

She asked him the question again, fiercely, and he answered her briefly
and sternly,--

"I believe that all your life with me has been a lie. I trusted you
implicitly, and how do you return it? By carrying on clandestine
intercourse with another man, giving him interviews that you conceal
from me, having letters that you destroy, doubtless receiving caresses
that you take care are unwitnessed; while you dare to smile in my face,
and to dupe me with child-like tenderness, and to bid me 'trust' you and
believe in you! Love shared to me is worthless, and on my wife,
Beatrice, no stain must rest!"

As he spoke, a dark shadow spread over her countenance, her evil spirit
rose up in her, and her bright, frank, fearless face grew almost as
hard and cold as his, while her teeth were set together, till her lips,
usually soft and laughing, were pressed into one straight haughty line.

"Since you give me up so easily, far be it from me to dispute your will.
We part from this hour, if you desire it. My honor is as dear to me as
yours to you, and to those who dare to suspect it I never stoop to
defend it!"

"But, my God! Beatrice, what _am_ I to believe?"

"Whatever you please!"

"What I please! Child, you must be mad. What _can_ I believe, but that
you are the most perfect of all actresses, that your art is the greatest
of all sins, the art that clothes itself in innocence, and carries
would-be truth upon its lips. Prove to me that I wrong you!"

She shook her head; the devil in her had still the victory; her eyes
glittered, and her little teeth were clinched together.

"What I exact is trust without proof. I am not your prisoner, Lord
Earlscourt, to be tried coldly, and acquitted if you find legal evidence
of innocence; convicted, if there be a link wanting. If you choose to
trust me, I have told you often your trust will never be wronged; if you
choose to condemn me, do. I shall not stoop to show you your injustice."

Earlscourt's face grew dark and hard as hers, but it was wonderful how
well his pride chained down all evidence of suffering; the only sign was
in the hoarseness of, and quiver in, his voice.

"Say nothing more--prevarication is guilt! God forgive you, Beatrice
Boville! If you loved me, and knelt at my feet, I would not make you my
wife after the art and the lies with which you have repaid my trust.
Thank God, you do not already bear my name and my honor in your hands!"

With those words he left her. Beatrice stood still in the same place,
her lips set in one scornful line, her eyes glittering, her brow
crimson, her whole attitude defiant, wronged, and unyielding. Earlscourt
passed me, his face white as death, and was out of sight in a second. I
waited a moment, then I followed my impulse, and went up to her.

"Beatrice, for Heaven's sake, what is all this?"

She turned her large eyes on me haughtily.

"Do _you_ believe what your cousin does?"

I answered her as briefly:--

"No, I do not. There is some mistake here."

She seized my arm, impetuously:--

"Promise me, on your honor, never to tell what I tell to you while I
live. Promise me, on your faith as a gentleman."

"On my honor, I promise. Well?"

"The man whom you saw with me to-night is my father. Lord Earlscourt
chose to condemn me without inquiry; so let him! But I tell you, that
you may tell him if I die before him, that he wronged me. You know Mr.
Boville's--my father's--character. I had not seen him since I was a
child, but when he heard of my engagement to Lord Earlscourt he found me
out, and wanted to force himself on him, and borrow money of him, and--"
She stopped, her face was crimson, but she went on, passionately. "All
my efforts, of course, were to keep them apart, to spare my father such
degradation, and your cousin such an application. I could not tell Lord
Earlscourt, for he is generous as the winds, and I knew what he would
have done. My note was from my father; he wanted to frighten me into
introducing him to Lord Earlscourt, but he did not succeed. I would not
have your cousin disgraced or pained by--Arthur, that is all my crime!
No very great one, is it?" And she laughed a loud, bitter laugh, as
unlike her own as the stormy shadow on her face was like the usual
sunshine.

"But, great Heaven! why not have told this to Earlscourt?"

She signed me to silence with a passionate gesture.

"No! He dishonored me with suspicion; let him go. I forbid you ever to
breathe a word of what I have told you to him. If he has pride, so have
I. He would hold no dishonor greater than for another man to charge him
with a lie. My truth is as untainted as his, and my honor as dear to me.
He accused me wrongly; let him repent. I would have loved and reverenced
him as never any woman yet could do; but once suspected, I could find no
happiness with him. His bitter words are stamped into my heart. I shall
never forget--I doubt if I shall ever forgive--them. I can bear anything
but injustice or misconception. If any doubt me, they are free to do so;
theirs is the sin, not mine. As he has sown so must he reap, and so must
I!" A low, gasping sob choked her voice, but she stood like a little
Pythoness, the pearl gleaming above her brow, her eyes unnaturally
bright, the color burning in her face, her attitude what it was when he
left her, defiant, wronged, unyielding. She swept away from me to a man
who was coming through the other room, and he stared at her set lips and
her gleaming eyes as she asked him, carelessly, "Count Avonyl, will you
have the kindness to take me to Lady Mechlin?"

That was the last I saw of her. She left the Bad with her aunt as soon
as the day dawned, and when I went to our hotel, I found that Earlscourt
had ordered post-horses immediately he quitted the ball room, and
gone--where he did not leave word. So my presentiment was verified; the
pride of both had come in conflict, and the pride of neither had
succumbed. How long it would sustain and satisfy them, I could not
guess; but Lady Clive smiled again, as sweetly as ladies ever do when
their thorns have thriven and brought forth abundant fruit. Some other
time I will tell you how I saw Beatrice Boville again; but I often
thought of

  "Pauline, by pride
  Angels have fallen ere thy time!"

when I recalled her with the pearls above her brow, and her passionate,
gleaming eyes, and her fearless, scornful, haughty anguish, as she had
stood before me that night when Pride _v_. Pride caused the wreck of
both their lives.

IV.

WHERE I SAW BEATRICE BOVILLE AGAIN

I don't belong to St. Stephen's myself, thank Heaven. Very likely they
would have returned me for the county when the governor departed this
life had I tried them; but as I generally cut the county, from not being
one of the grass countries, and as I couldn't put forward any patriotic
claims like Mr. Harper Twelvetrees, (who, as he's such a slayer of
vermin, thought, I suppose, that he'd try his hand at the dry-rot and
the red tapeworms, which, according to cotton grumblers, are sapping the
nation,) I haven't solicited its suffrages. The odds at Tattersall's
interest me more than the figures of the ways and means; and
Diophantus's and Kettledrum's legerdemain at Newmarket and Epsom is more
to my taste than our brilliant rhetorician's with the surplus. I don't
care a button about Lord Raynham and Sir C. Burrell's maids-of-all-work;
they are not an attractive class, I should say, and, if they like to
amuse their time tumbling out of windows, I can't see for the life of me
why peers and gentlemen should rush to the rescue like Don Quixote to
Dulcinea's. And as for that great question, Tea _v_. Paper, bohea
delights the souls of old ladies and washerwomen--who destroy crumpets
and character over its inebriating cups, and who will rush to crown Lord
Derby's and Mr. Disraeli's brows with laurels if they ever go to the
country with a teapot blazoned on their patriotic banners--more than it
does mine, which prefers Bass and Burgundy, seltzer and Sillery; and,
though I dare say Brown, Jones, and Robinson find the Divorce News
exciting, and paper collars very showy and economical, as I myself am
content with the _Times_ and its compeers, and think, with poor Brummel,
that life without daily clean linen were worthless, _that_ subject
doesn't absorb me as it does those gentlemen who find "the last tax of
knowledge" so grandiloquent and useful a finishing period. So I have
never stood for the county, nor essayed to stand for it, seeing that to
one Bernal Osborne there are fifty prosers in St. Stephen's, and to be
bored is, to a butterfly flutterer, as the young lady whose name heads
this paper once obligingly called me, torture unparalleled by anything
short of acid wine or the Chinese atrocities, though truly he who heads
our Lower House with his vernal heart and his matchless brain were
enough to make any man, coxcomb or hero, oppositionist or
ministerialist, proud to sit in the same chamber with him. But there are
nights now and then, of course, when I like to go to both Houses, to
hear Lord Derby's rich, intricate oratory, or Gladstone's rhetoric,
(which has so potent a spell even for his foes, and is yet charged so
strangely against him as half a crime; possibly by the same spirit with
which plain women reproach a pretty one for her beauty: what business
has he to be more attractive than his compeers? of course it's a péché
mortel in their eyes!) and when Mrs. Breloques, who is a charming little
woman, to whom no man short of a Goth could possibly say "No" to any
petition, gave me a little blow with her fan, and told me, as I valued
her friendship, to get an order and take her and Gwen to hear the Lords'
debate on Tuesday, when my cousin Viscount Earlscourt, one of the best
orators in the Upper House, was certain to speak, of course I obliged
her. Her sister Gwen, who was a girl of seventeen, barely out, and whom
I wished at Jerico, (three is so odious a number, one of the triad must
ever be _de trop_,) was wrathful with the Upper House; it in no wise
realized her expectations; the peers should have worn their robes, she
thought, (as if the horrors of a chamber filled with Thames odors in
June wasn't enough without being bored with velvet and ermine) she would
have been further impressed by coronets also; they had no business to
lounge on their benches as if they were in a smoking-room; they should
have declaimed like Kean, not spoken colloquially; and--in fact, they
shouldn't have been ordinary men at all. I think a fine collection from
Madame Tussaud's, with a touch of the Roman antique, would have been
much more to Gwen's ideal, and she wasn't at all content till Earlscourt
rose; _he_ reconciled her a little, for he had a grand-seigneur air, she
said, that made up for the incongruities of his dress. It was a measure
that he had much at heart; he had exerted for it all his influence in
the cabinet, and he was determined that the bill should pass the Lords,
though the majority inclined to throw it out. As he stood now against
the table, with his calm dignity of gesture, his unstrained flow of
words, and his rich and ringing voice, which could give majesty to
commonplace subjects, and sway even an apathetic audience as completely
as Sheridan's Begum speech, every one in the House listened attentively,
and each of his words fell with its due weight. I heard him with pride,
often as I had done so before, though I noticed with pain that the lines
in his forehead and his mouth were visibly deepened; that he seemed to
speak with effort, for him, and looked altogether, as somebody had said
to me at White's in the morning, as if he were wearing out, and would go
down in his prime, like Canning and Pitt.

"Lord Earlscourt looks very ill--don't you think so?" said Lelia
Breloques.

As I answered her, I heard a sharp-wrung sigh, and I looked for the
first time at the lady next me. I saw a delicate profile, lips
compressed and colorless, chestnut hair that I had last seen with his
pearls gleaming above it: I saw, en deux mots, Beatrice Boville for the
first time since that night eight months before, when she had stood
before me in her passion and her pride. She never took her eyes off
Earlscourt while he spoke, and I wondered if she regretted having lost
him for a point of honor. Had she grown indifferent to him, that she had
come to his own legislative chamber, or was her love so much stronger
than her pride that she had sought to see him thus rather than not see
him at all? When his speech was closed, and he had resumed his place on
the benches, she leaned back, covering her eyes with her hand for a
moment: and, as I said aloud (more for her benefit than Mrs.
Breloques's) my regret that Earlscourt would wear himself out, I was
afraid, in his devotion to public life, Beatrice started at the sound
of my voice, turned her head hastily, and her face was colorless enough
to tell me she had not gratified her pride without some cost. Of course
I spoke to her; she had been a favorite of mine always, and I had often
wished to come across her again; but beyond learning that she was with
Lady Mechlin in Lowndes Square, and had been spending the winter at Pau
for her aunt's health, I had no time to hear more, for Lelia, having
only come for Earlscourt's speech, bade me take her to her carriage,
while Beatrice and her party remained for the rest of the debate; but
the rencontre struck me as so odd, that I believe it occupied my
thoughts more than Mrs. Breloques liked, who got into her carriage in
not the best of humors, and asked me if _I_ was going in for public life
that I'd grown so particularly unamusing. We're always unamusing to one
woman if we're thinking at all about another.

"Do you know who was at the House to-night, Earlscourt, to hear your
speech?" I asked him, as I met him, a couple of hours afterwards, in one
of the passages, as he was leaving the House. He had altered much in
eight months; he stooped a little from his waist; he looked worn, and
his lips were pale. Men said his stamina was not equal to his brain;
physicians, that he gave himself too much work and too little sleep. I
knew he was more wrapped in public life than ever; that in his place in
the government he worked unwearyingly, and that he found time in spare
moments for intellectual recreation that would have sufficed for their
life's study for most men. Still, I thought possibly there might be a
weakness still clinging round his heart, though he never alluded to it;
a passion which, though he appeared to have crushed it out, might be
sapping his health more than all his work for the nation.

"Do you mean any one in particular? Persigny said he should attend, but
I did not see him."

"No, I meant among the ladies. Beatrice Boville was in the seat next
me." I had no earthly business to speak of her so abruptly, for when I
had seen him for the first time after he left the Bad when Parliament
met that February, he had forbidden me ever to mention her name to him,
and no allusion to her had ever passed his lips. The worn, stern
gravity, that had become his habitual expression, changed for a moment;
bullet-proof he might be, but my arrow had shot in through the chain
links of his armor; a look of unutterable pain, eagerness, anxiety,
passion, passed over his face; but, whatever he felt, he subdued it,
though his voice was broken as he answered me:--

"Once for all, I bade you never speak that name to me. Without being
forbidden, I should have thought your own feeling, your own delicacy,
might--"

"Have checked me? O, hang it, Earlscourt, listen one second without
shutting a fellow up. I never broached the subject before, by your
desire; but, now I have once broken the ice, I must ask you one
question: Are you sure you judged the girl justly? are you sure you were
not too quick to slan--"

He pressed his hand on his chest and breathed heavily as I spoke, but he
wouldn't let me finish.

"That is enough. Would any man sacrifice what he held dearest wantonly
and without proof? She is dear to me _now_. You are the only living
being so thoughtless or so merciless as to force her name upon me, and
rake up the one folly, the one madness, the one crowning sorrow of my
life. See that you never dare bring forward her name again."

He went out before me into the soft night air. His carriage was
waiting; he entered it, threw himself back on its cushions, and was
driven off before I had time to break my word of honor to Beatrice
Boville, which I felt sorely tempted to do just then. Who among the
thousands that heard his briliant speech that night, or read it the next
morning, who saw him pass in his carriage, and had him pointed out to
them as the finest orator of his day, or dined with him at his
ministerial dinners at his house in Park Lane, would have believed that,
with all his ambition, fame, honors, and attainments, the one cross, the
one shadow, the one dark thread, in the successful stateman's life, was
due to a woman's hand, and that underneath all his strength lay that
single weakness, sapping and undermining it?

"_Did you_ see that girl Boville at the House last night?" Lady Clive
(who had smiled most sweetly ever since her thorns had brought forth
their fruit--her son _would_ be his heir--Earlscourt would never marry
now!) said to me, the next day, at one of the Musical Society concerts.
"Incredible effrontery, wasn't it, in her, to come and hear Earlscourt's
speech? One would have imagined that conscience and delicacy might have
made her reluctant to see him, instead of letting her voluntarily seek
his own legislative chamber, and listen coolly for an hour and a half to
the man whom she misled and deceived so disgracefully."

I laughed to think how long a time a woman's malice _will_ flourish,
n'importe how victorious it may have been in crushing its object, or how
harmless that object may have become.

"You are very bitter about her still, Lady Clive. Is that quite fair?
You know you were so much obliged to her for throwing Earlscourt away.
You want Horace to come in for the title, don't you?" Which truism
being unpalatable, Lady Clive averred that she had no wish on earth but
for Earlscourt's happiness; that of course she naturally grieved for his
betrayal by that little intrigante, but that had his marriage been a
well-advised one, nobody would have rejoiced more, etc., etc., and bade
me be silent and listen to Vieuxtemps, both of which commands I obeyed,
pondering in my own mind whether I should go and call in Lowndes Square
or not: if anybody heard of it, they would think it odd for me alone, of
all the family, to continue acquainted with a girl whom report
(circulated through Lady Clive) said had used Earlscourt so ill, and
wrong constructions might get put upon it; but, thank God! I never have
considered the qu'en dira-t-on. If constructions are wrong, to the deuce
with them! they matter nothing to sensible people; and the man who lives
in dread of "reports" will have to shift his conduct as the old man of
immortal fable shifted his donkey, and won't ever journey in any peace
at all. If anybody remarked my visiting Lowndes Square, I couldn't help
it: I wanted to see Beatrice Boville again, and to Lowndes Square, after
the concert, I drove my tilbury accordingly, which, as that turn-out is
known pretty tolerably in those parts, I should be wisest to leave
behind me when I don't want my calls noticed. By good fortune, I saw
Beatrice alone. They were going to drive in the Park, and she was in the
drawing room, dressed and waiting for her aunt. She was not altered: at
her age sorrow doesn't tell physically as it does at Earlscourt's. In
youth we have Hope; later on we know that of all the gifts of Pandora's
box none are so treacherous and delusive as the one that Pandora left at
the bottom. True, Beatrice had none of that insouciant, shadowless
brightness that had been her chief charm at Lemongenseidlitz, but she
was one of those women whose attractions, dependent on fascination, not
on beauty, grow more instead of less as time goes on. She met me with a
trace of embarrassment; but she was always self-possessed under any
amount of difficulties, and stood chatting, a trifle hurriedly, of all
the subjects of the year, of anything, I dare say, rather than of that
speech the night before, or of the secret of which I was her sole
confidant. But I was not going to let her off so easily. I had come
there for a definite purpose, and was not going away without
accomplishing it. I was afraid every second that Lady Mechlin might come
down, or some visitor enter, and as she sat in a low chair among the
flowers in the window, leant towards her, and plunged into it _in medias
res_.

"Miss Boville, I want you to release me from my promise."

She looked up, her face flushing slightly, but her lips and eyes
shadowed already with that determined pride and hauteur that they had
worn the last time I had seen her. She did not speak, but played with
the boughs of a coronella near her.

"You remember" (I went on speaking as briefly as possible, lest the old
lady's toilet should be finished, and our tête-à-tête cut short) "I gave
you my word of honor never to speak again of what you told me in the
Kursaal last autumn until you gave me leave; that leave I ask you for
now. Silence lies in the way of your own happiness, I feel sure, and not
alone of yours. If you give me carte blanche, you may be certain I shall
use it discreetly and cautiously. You made the prohibition in a moment
of heat and passion; withdraw it now--believe me, you will never
repent."

The flush died out of her cheeks as I spoke; but her little, white
teeth were set together as they had been that night, and she answered me
bitterly,--

"You ask what is impossible; I cannot, in justice to myself, withdraw
it. I would never have told you, but that I deemed you a man of honor,
whom I could trust."

"I do not think I have proved myself otherwise, Beatrice. I have kept my
word to you, when I have been greatly tempted to break it, when I have
doubted whether it were either right or wise to stand on such punctilio,
when greater stakes were involved by my silence. Surely, if you once had
elevated mind enough to comprehend and admire such a man as Earlscourt,
and be won by the greatness of his intellect to prefer him to younger
rivals, it is impossible you can have lowered your taste and found any
one to replace him. No woman who once loved Earlscourt could stoop to an
inferior man, and almost all men _are_ his inferiors; it is impossible
you can have grown cold towards him."

She turned her eyes upon me luminous with her old passion--the color hot
in her cheeks, and her attitude full of that fiery pride which became
her so infinitely well.

"_I_ changed!--_I_ grown cold to him! I love him more than all the
world, and shall do to my grave. Do you think that any who heard him
last night could glory in him as I did? Did you think any physical
torture would not have been easier to bear than what I felt when I saw
his face once more, and thought of what we _should have been_ to one
another, and of what we _are_? We women have to act, and smile, and wear
a calm semblance, while our hearts are bursting; and so you fancy that
we never feel."

"But, great Heavens! Beatrice, if you love Earlscourt like this, why not
give me leave to tell him? Why not write to him yourself? A word would
clear you, a word restore you to him. Your anger, your pride, he would
forgive in a moment."

I'm a military man, not a diplomatist, or I shouldn't have added that
last sentence.

She rose, and looked at me haughtily and amazedly.

"It is I who have to forgive, not he. I wronged him in no way; he
wronged me bitterly. He dared to misjudge, to suspect, to insult me. I
shall never stoop to undeceive him. He gave me up without a trial. I
never will force myself upon him. He thanked God I was not his
wife--could I seek to be his wife after that? Love him passionately I
do, but forgive him I do _not_! I forbid you, on your faith as a
gentleman, ever to tell him what I told you that night. I trusted to
your honor; I shall hold you _dis_honored if you betray me."

Just as she paused an open carriage rolled past. I looked down
mechanically; in it was Earlscourt lying back on his cushions,
returning, I believe, from a Cabinet Council. There, in the street,
stood my tilbury, with the piebald Cognac that everybody in Belgravia
knew. There, in the open window, stood Beatrice and I; and Earlscourt,
as he happened to glance upwards, saw us both! His carriage rolled on;
Beatrice grew as white as death, and her lips quivered as she looked
after him; but Lady Mechlin entered, and I took them down to their
barouche.

"You are determined not to release me from my promise?" I asked
Beatrice, as I pulled up the tiger-skin over her flounces.

She shook her head.

"Certainly not; and I should think you are too much of a gentleman not
to hold a promise sacred."

Pride and determination were written in every line of her face, in the
very arch of her eyebrows, the very form of her brow, the very curve of
her lips--a soft, delicate face enough otherwise, but as expressive of
indomitable pride as any face could be. And yet, though I swore at her
as I drove Cognac out of the square, I couldn't help liking her all the
better for it, the little Pythoness! for, after all, it was natural and
very intelligible to me--she had been misjudged and wrongly suspected,
and the noblest spirits are always the quickest to rebel against
injustice and resent false accusation.

V.

HOW IN PERFECT INNOCENCE I PLAYED THE PART OF A RIVAL.

The season whirled and spun along as usual. They were having stormy
debates in the Lower House, and throwing out bills in the Upper; stifled
by Thames odors one evening, and running down to Epsom the next morning;
blackguarding each other in parliamentary language--which, on my honor,
will soon want duels revived to keep it within decent breeding, if Lord
Robert Cecil and others don't learn better manners, and remember the
golden rule that "He alone resorts to vituperation whose argument is
illogical and weak." We, luckier dogs, who weren't slaves to St.
Stephen's, nor to anything at all except as parsons and moralists, with
whom the grapes sont verts et bons pour des goujats, said to our own
worldly vitiated tastes and evil leanings, spent our hours in the Ring
and the coulisses, White's and the United, crush balls and opera
suppers, and swore we were immeasurably bored, though we wouldn't have
led any other life for half a million. The season whirled along.
Earlscourt devoted himself more entirely than ever to public life; he
filled one of the most onerous and important posts in the ministry, and
appeared to occupy himself solely with home politics and foreign
politics. Lady Mechlin, only a baronet's widow, though she had very
tolerable society of her own, was not in _his_ monde; and Beatrice
Boville and he, with only Hyde Park Corner between them, might as well,
for any chance of rapprochement, have been severally at Spitzbergen and
Cape Horn. Two or three times they passed each other in Pall-Mall and
the Ride; but Earlscourt only lifted his hat to Lady Mechlin, and
Beatrice set her little teeth together, and wouldn't have solicited a
glance from him to save her life. Earlscourt was excessively distant to
me after seeing my tilbury at her door; no doubt he thought it strange
for me to have continued my intimacy with a woman who had wronged him so
bitterly. He said nothing, but I could see he was exceedingly
displeased; and the more I tried to smooth it with him, the more
completely I seemed to set my foot in it. It was exceedingly difficult
to touch on any obnoxious subject with him; he was never harsh or
discourteous, but he could freeze the atmosphere about him gently, but
so completely, that no mortal could pierce through it; and, fettered by
my promise to her and his prohibition to me, I hardly knew how to bring
up her name. As the Fates would have it, I often met Beatrice myself, at
the Regent Park fêtes, at concerts, at a Handel Festival at Sydenham, at
one or two dinner parties; and, as she generally made way for me beside
her, and was one of those women who are invariably, though without
effort, admired and surrounded in any society, possibly people remarked
it--possibly our continued intimacy might have come round to Earlscourt,
specially as Lady Clive and Mrs Breloques abused me roundly, each à sa
mode, for countenancing that "abominable intrigante." I couldn't help
it, even if Earlscourt took exception at me for it. I knew the girl was
not to blame, and I took her part, and tried my best to tame the little
Pythoness into releasing me from my promise. But Beatrice was firm; had
she erred, no one would have acknowledged and atoned for it quicker, but
innocent and wrongly accused, she kept silent, coûte que coûte, and in
my heart I sympathized with her. Nothing stings so sharply, nothing is
harder to forgive, than injustice; and, knowing herself to be frank,
honorable, and open as the day, his charge of falsehood and deception
rankled in her only more keenly as time went on. Men ran after her like
mad; she had more of them about her than many beauties or belles. There
was a style, a charm, a something in her that sent beauties into the
shade, and by which, had she chosen, she could soon have replaced
Earlscourt. Still, it needed to be no Lavater to see, by the passionate
gleam of her eyes and the haughty pride on her brow, that Beatrice
Boville was not happy.

"Why _will_ you let pride and punctilio wreck your own life, Beatrice?"
I asked her, in a low tone, as we stood before one of Ed. Warren's
delicious bits of woodland in the Water-Color Exhibition, where we had
chanced to meet one day. "That he should have judged you as he did was
not unnatural. Think! how was it possible for him to guess your father
was your companion? Remember how very much circumstances were against
you."

"Had they been ten times more against me, a man who cared for me would
have believed in me, and stood by me, not condemned me on the first
suspicion. It was unchivalrous, ungenerous, unjust. I tell you, his
words are stamped into my memory forever. I shall never forgive them."

"Not even if you knew that he suffered as much and more than you do?"

She clinched her hands on the rolled-up catalogue with a passionate
gesture.

"No; because he _misjudged_ me. Anything else I would have pardoned,
though I am no patient Griselda, to put up tamely with any wrong; but
_that_ I never could--I never would!"

"I regret it, then. I thought you too warm and noble-hearted a woman to
retain resentment so long. I never blamed you in the first instance, but
I must say I blame you now."

She laughed, a little contemptuously, and glanced at me with her
haughtiest air; and on my life, much as it provoked one, nothing became
her better.

"Blame me or not, as you please--your verdict will be quite bearable,
either way. I am the one sinned against. I can have nothing explained to
Lord Earlscourt. Had he cared for me, as he once vowed, he would have
been less quick then to suspect me, and quicker now to give me a chance
of clearing myself. But you remember he thanked God I had not his name
and his honor in my hands. I dare say he rejoices at his escape."

She laughed again, turning over the catalogue feverishly and
unconsciously. _Those_ were the words that rankled in her; and it was
not much wonder if, to a proud spirit like Beatrice Boville's, they
seemed unpardonable. As I handed her and Lady Mechlin into their
carriage when they left the exhibition, Earlscourt, as ill luck would
have it, passed us, walking on to White's, the fringe of Beatrice's
parasol brushed his arm, and a hot color flushed into her cheeks at the
sudden rencontre. By the instinct of courtesy he bowed to her and Lady
Mechlin, but passed up Pall-Mall without looking at Beatrice. How well
society drills us, that we meet with such calm impassiveness in its
routine those with whom we have sorrowed and joyed, loved and hated, in
such far different scenes!

Their carriage drove on, and I overtook him as he went up Pall-Mall. He
was walking slowly, with his hand pressed on his chest, and his lips set
together, as if in bodily pain. He looked at me, as I joined him, with
an annoyed glance of unusual irritation for him, for he was always calm
and untroubled, punctiliously just, and though of a proud temper, never
quick to anger.

"You passed that girl wonderfully coldly, Earlscourt," I began, plunging
recklessly into the thick of the subject.

"Coldly!" he repeated, bitterly. "It is very strange that you will
pursue me with her name. I forbade you to intrude it upon me; was not
that sufficient?"

"No; because I think you judged her too harshly."

"Think so, if you please, but never renew the topic to me. If she gives
you her confidence, enjoy it. If you choose, knowing what you do, to be
misled by her, be so; but I beg of you to spare me your opinions and
intentions."

"But why? I say you _do_ misjudge her. She might err in impatience and
pride; but I would bet you any money you like that you would prove her
guilty of no indelicacy, no treachery, no underhand conduct, though
appearances might be against her."

"_Might_ be! You select your words strangely; you must have some deeper
motive for your unusual blindness. I desire, for the last time, that you
cease either the subject to me, or your acquaintance with me, whichever
you prefer."

With which, he went up the steps of White's, and I strolled on, amazed
at the fierce acrimony of his tone, utterly unlike anything I had ever
heard from him, wished their pride to the devil, called myself a fool
for meddling in the matter at all, and went to have a quiet weed in the
smoking-room of the U. S. to cool myself. I was heartily sick of the
whole affair. If they wanted it cleared, they must clear it
themselves--I should trouble myself no more about it. Yet I couldn't
altogether dismiss Beatrice's cause from my mind. I thought her, to say
the truth, rather harshly used. I liked her for her fearless, truthful,
impassioned character. I liked her for the very courage and pride with
which she preferred to relinquish any chance of regaining her forfeited
happiness, rather than stoop to solicit exculpation from charges of
which she knew she was innocent. Perhaps, at first, she did not consider
sufficiently Earlscourt's provocation, and perhaps, now, she was too
persisting in her resentment of it; still I liked her, and I was sorry
to see her, at an age when life should have been couleur de rose, to one
of her gay and insouciant nature, with a weary, passionate look on her
face that she should not have had for ten years to come--a look that was
rapidly hardening into stern and contemptuous sadness.

"You tell me I am too bitter," she said to me one day, "how should I be
otherwise? I, who have wronged no one, and have never in my life done
anything of which I am ashamed, am called an intrigante by Lady Clive
Edghill, and get ill-will from strangers, and misconstructions from my
friends, merely because, thinking no harm myself, it never occurs to me
that circumstances may look against me; and, hating falsehood, I cannot
lie, and smile, and give soft words where I feel contempt and
indignation. Mrs. Breloques yonder, with whom les présens ont toujours
raison, and les absens ont toujours tort, who has honeyed speeches for
her bitterest foes, and poisoned arrows (behind their back) for her most
trusting friends, who goes to early matins every morning, and pries out
for a second all over the top of her prayer-book, who kisses 'darling
Helena,' and says she 'never looked so sweetly,' whispering en petit
comité what a pity it is, when Helena is so passée, she _will_ dress
like a girl just out--she is called the sweetest woman possible--so
amiable! and is praised for her high knowledge of religion. You tell me
I am too bitter. I think not. Honesty does _not_ prosper, and truth is
at a miserable discount; straightforward frankness makes a myriad of
foes, and adroit diplomacy as many friends. If you make a
prettily-turned compliment, who cares if it is sincere? if you hold your
tongue where you cannot praise, because you will not tell a conventional
falsehood, the world thinks you very ill-natured, or odiously satirical.
Society is entirely built upon insincerity and conventionality, from the
wording of an acceptance of a dinner invitation, where we write 'with
much pleasure,' thinking to ourselves 'what a bore!' to the giant
hypocrisies daily spoken without a blush from pulpit and lecturn, and
legitimatized both as permissible and praiseworthy. To truth and
unconventionality society of course is adverse; and whoever dares to
uphold them must expect to be hissed, as Paul by the Ephesians, because
he shivered their silver shrines and destroyed the craft by which they
got their wealth."

Beatrice was right; her truth and fearlessness were her enemies with
most people, even with the man who had loved her best. Had she been
ready with an adroit falsehood and a quick excuse, Earlscourt's
suspicions would never have been raised as they were by her frank
admission that there was something she would rather not tell him, and
her innocent request to be trusted. That must have been some very
innocent and unworldly village schoolmaster, I should say, who first set
going that venerable proverb, "Honesty is the best policy." He must have
known comically little of life. A diplomatist who took it as his motto
would soon come to grief, and ladies would soon stone out of their
circles any woman bête enough to try its truth among them. There is no
policy at greater discount in the world, and straightforward and candid
people stand at very unequal odds with the rest of humanity; they are
the one morsel of bread to a hogshead of sack, the handful of Spartans
against a swarm of Persians, and they get the brunt of the battle and
the worst of the fight.

VI.

HOW PRIDE BOWED AND FELL.

Beyond meeting Earlscourt at White's, or, for an hour, at the réunion of
some fair leader of ton, I scarcely saw him that season, for he was more
and more devoted to public life. He looked wretchedly ill, and his
physicians said if he wished to live he must go to the south of France
in July, and winter at Corfu; but he paid them no heed; he occupied
himself constantly with political and literary work, and grudged the
three or four hours he gave to sleep that did him little good.

"Will you get me admittance to the Lords to-morrow night?" Beatrice
asked me, one morning, when I met her in the Ride. I looked at her
surprised.

"To the Lords? Of course, if you wish."

"I do wish it." Her hands clinched on her bridle, and the color flushed
into her face, for Earlscourt just then passed us, riding with one of
his brother ministers. He looked at us both, and his face changed
strangely, though he rode on, continuing his conversation with the other
man, while I went round the turn with Beatrice and the other fellows who
were about her; le fruit défendu is always most attractive, and
Beatrice's profound negligence of them all made them more mad about her
than all the traps and witcheries, beguilements and attractions, that
coquettes and beauties set out for them. She rode beautifully; and a
woman who _does_ sit well down on her saddle, and knows how to handle
her horse, never looks better than en Amazone. Earlscourt met her three
times at the turn of the Ride; and though you would not have told that
he was passing any other than an utter stranger, I think it must have
struck him that he had lost much in losing Beatrice Boville. I was
riding on her off-side each time when we passed him. As I say, I never,
thank God! have cared a straw for the qu'en dira-t-on? and if people
remarked on my intimacy with my cousin's cast off fiancée, so they
might, but to Earlscourt I wished to explain it more for Beatrice's sake
than my own; and as I rode out by Apsley House afterwards, I overtook
him, and went up to Piccadilly with him, though his manner was decidedly
distant and chill, so pointedly so that it would have been rude, had he
not been too entirely a disciple of Chesterfield to be ever otherwise
than courteous to his deadliest foe; but, disregarding his coldness, I
said what I intended to say, and began an explanation that I considered
only due to him.

"I beg your pardon, Earlscourt, for intruding on you a topic you have
forbidden, but I shall be obliged to you to listen to me a moment. I
wish to tell you my reasons for what, I dare say, seems strange to you,
my continued intimacy with--"

But I was not permitted to end my sentence; he divined what I was about
to say, and stopped me, with a cold, wearied air.

"I understand; but I prefer not to hear them. I have no desire to
interfere with your actions, and less to be troubled with your motives.
Of course, you choose your friendships as you please. All I beg is, that
you obey the wish I expressed the other day, and intrude the subject no
more upon me."

And he bade me good morning, urged his mare into a sharp canter, and
turned down St. James's Street. How little those in the crowd, who
looked at him as he rode by, pointing him out to the women with them as
Viscount Earlscourt, the most eloquent debater in the Lords, the
celebrated foreign minister, author, and diplomatist, guessed that a
woman's name could touch and sting him as nothing else could do, and
that under the calm and glittering upper-current of his life ran a dark,
slender, unnoticed thread that had power to poison all the rest! Those
women, mon ami!--if we _do_ satirize them a little bit now and then, are
we doing any more than taking a very mild revenge? Don't they make fools
of the very best and wisest of us, play the deuce with Cæsar as with
Catullus, and make Achilles soft as Amphimachus?

The next morning I met Beatrice at a concert at the Marchioness of
Pursang's. Lady Pursang would not have been, vous concevez, on the
visiting list of Lady Mechlin, as she was one of the crème de la crème,
but she had met Beatrice the winter before at Pau, had been very
delighted with her, and now continued the acquaintance in town. I
happened to sit next our little Pythoness, who looked better, I think,
that morning, than ever I saw her, though her face was set into that
disdainful sadness which had become its habitual expression. She liked
my society, and sought it, no doubt, because I was the only link between
her and her lost past; and she was talking with me more animatedly than
usual, thanking me for having got her admittance to the Lords that
night, during a pause in the concert, when Earlscourt entered the room,
and took the seat reserved for him, which was not far from ours. Music
was one of his passions, the only délassement, indeed, he ever gave
himself now; but to-day, though ostensibly he listened to Alboni and
Arabella Goddard, Hallé and Vieuxtemps, and talked to the marchioness
and other women of her set, in reality he was watching Beatrice, who,
her pride roused by his presence, laughed and chatted with me and other
men with her old gay abandon, and, impervious to déréglement though he
was, I fancy even _he_ felt it a severe trial of his composure when Lady
Pursang, who had been the last five years in India with her husband, and
who was ignorant of or had forgotten the name of the girl Earlscourt was
to have married the year before, asked him, when the concert was over,
to let her introduce him to her, yet Beatrice Boville, bringing him in
innocent cruelty up to that little Pythoness, with whom he had parted so
passionately and bitterly ten months before! Happy for them that they
had that armor which the Spartans called heroism, the stoics philosophy,
and we--simply style good breeding, or they would hardly have gone
through that ordeal as well as they did when she introduced them to each
other as strangers!--those two who had whispered such passionate love
words, given and received such fond caresses, vowed barely twelve
months before to pass their lifetime together! Happy for them they were
used to society, or they would hardly have bowed to each other as calmly
and admirably as they did, with the recollection of that night in which
they had parted so bitterly, so full as it was in the minds of both.
Beatrice was standing in one of the open windows of the little cabinet
de peinture almost empty, and when the marchioness moved away, satisfied
that she had introduced two people admirably fitted to entertain one
another, Earlscourt, with people flirting and talking within a few yards
of him, was virtually alone with Beatrice--for there is, after all, no
solitude like the solitude of a crowd--and _then_, for the first time in
his life, his self-possession forsook him. Beatrice was silent and very
pale, looking out of the window on to the Green Park, which the house
overlooked, and Earlscourt's pride had a hard struggle, but his passion
got the better of him, malgré lui, and he leaned towards her.

"Do you remember the last night we were together?"

She answered him bitterly. She had not forgiven him. She had sometimes,
I am half afraid, sworn to revenge herself.

"I am hardly likely to forget it, Lord Earlscourt."

He looked at her longingly and wistfully; his pride was softened, that
granite pride, hitherto so unassailable! and he bent nearer to her.

"Beatrice! I would give much to be able to wash out the memories of that
night--to be proved mistaken--to be convicted of haste, of sternness--"

The tears rushed into her eyes.

"You need only have given one little thing--all I asked of you--trust!"

"Would to God I dare believe you now! Tell me, answer me, did I judge
you too harshly? Love at my age never changes, however wronged; it is
the latest, and it only expires with life itself. I confess to you, you
are dearer to me still than anything ever was, than anything ever will
be. Prove to me, for God's sake, that I misjudged you! Only prove it to
me; explain away what appeared against you, and we may yet--"

He stopped; his voice trembled, his hand touched hers, he breathed short
and fast. The Pythoness was very nearly tamed; her eyes grew soft and
melting, her lips trembled; but pride was still strong in her. At the
touch of his hand it very nearly gave way, but not wholly; it was there
still, tenacious of its reign. She set her little teeth obstinately
together, and looked up at him with her old hauteur.

"No, as I told you then, you must believe in me _without_ proof. I have
not forgotten your bitter words, nor yet forgiven them. I doubt if I
ever shall. You roused an evil spirit in me that night, Lord Earlscourt,
which you cannot exorcise at a moment's notice. Remember what was your
own motto, 'An indiscreet woman is never frank,'--yet from my very
frankness you accused me of indiscretion, and of far worse than
indiscretion--"

"My God! if I accused you falsely, Beatrice, forgive me!"

He must have loved her very much to bow his pride so far as that. _He_
was at _her_ feet--at _her_ mercy now; he, whom she had vainly sued,
sued her; but a perverse, fiery devil in her urged her to take her own
revenge, compelled her to throw away her own peace.

"You should have asked me that ten months ago; it is too late now."

His face dyed white, his eyes filled with passionate anguish. He crushed
her hand in his.

"Too late! Great Heavens! Answer me, child, I entreat you--I beseech
you--is it 'too late' because report is true that you have replaced me
with your cousin--that you are engaged to Hervey? Tell me truth now, for
pity's sake. I will be trifled with no longer."

Beatrice threw back her haughty little head contemptuously, though
ladies _don't_ sneer at the idea of being liées with me generally, I can
assure you. Her heart throbbed triumphantly and joyously. She had
conquered him at last. The man of giant intellect and haughty will had
bowed to her. She held him by a thread, he who ruled the fate of
nations!--and she loved him so dearly! But the Pythoness was not wholly
tamed, and she could not even yet forget her wrongs.

"You told me before I spoke falsehoods to you, Lord Earlscourt; my word
would find no more credence now."

He looked at her, dropped her hand, and turned away, before Beatrice
could detain him. Five minutes after he left the house. Little as I
guessed it, he was jealous of me--I! who never in my own life rivalled
any man who wished to _marry_! Beatrice had fully revenged herself. I
wonder if she enjoyed it quite as much as she had anticipated, as she
stood where he had left her looking out on the Green Park?

I went with Beatrice and her party to the Lords that night; it was the
tug of war for the bill which Earlscourt was so determined should pass,
and a great speech was expected from him. We were not disappointed. When
he rose he spoke with effort, and his oratory suffered from the slight
hoarseness of his voice, for half the beauty of his rhetoric lay in the
flexibility and music of his tones; still, it was emphatically a great
speech, and Beatrice Boville listened to it breathlessly, with her eyes
fixed on the face--weary, worn, but grandly intellectual--of the man
whom Europe reverenced, and she--a girl of twenty!--ruled. Perhaps her
heart smote her for the lines she had added there; perhaps she felt her
pride misplaced to him, great as he was, with his stainless honor and
unequalled genius; perhaps she thought of how, with all his strength,
his hand had trembled as it touched hers; and how, with all her love,
she had been wilful and naughty to him a second time. His voice grew
weaker as he ended, and he spoke with visible effort; still it was one
of his greatest political triumphs: his bill passed by a large majority,
and the papers, the morning after, filled their leading articles with
admiration of Viscount Earlscourt's speech. But before those journals
were out, Earlscourt was too ill almost to notice the success of his
measures: as he left the House, the presiding devil of beloved Albion,
that plays the deuce with English statesmen as with Italian
cantatrices,--the confounded east wind,--had caught him, finished what
over-exertion had begun, and knocked him over, prostrated with severe
bronchitis. What pity it is that the body _will_ levy such cruel black
mail upon the mind; that a gust of wind, a horse's plunge, the effluvia
of a sewer, the carelessness of a pointsman, can destroy the grandest
intellect, sweep off the men whose genius lights the world, as
ruthlessly as a storm of rain a cloud of gnats, and strike Peel and
Canning, Macaulay and Donaldson, in the prime of their power, as
heedlessly as peasants little higher than the brutes, dull as the clods
of their own valley, who stake their ambitions on a surfeit of fat
bacon, and can barely scrawl their names upon a slate!

Unconscious that Earlscourt's jealousy had fastened so wrongly upon me,
I was calling upon Beatrice late the next morning, ignorant myself of
his illness, when his physician, who was Lady Mechlin's too, while
paying her a complimentary visit, regretted to me my cousin's sudden
attack.

"Lord Earlscourt would speak last night," he began. "I entreated him
not; but those public men are so obstinate; to-day he is very ill--very
ill indeed, though prompt measures stopped the worst. He has risen to
dictate something of importance to his secretary; he would work his
brain if he were dying; but it has taken a severe hold on him, I fear. I
shall send him somewhere south as soon as he can leave the house, which
will not be for some weeks. He would be a great loss to the country. We
have not such another foreign minister. But I admit to you, Major
Hervey--though of course I do not wish it to go further--that I _do_
think very seriously of Lord Earlscourt's state of health."

Beatrice heard him as she sat at her Davenport; her face grew white, and
her eyes filled with great anguish. She thought of his words to her only
the day before, and of how her pride had repelled him a second time. I
saw her hand clinch on the pen she was playing with, and her teeth set
tight together, her habitual action under any strong emotion, thinking
to herself, no doubt, "And my last words to him were bitter ones!"

When the physician had left, I went up to her.--

"Beatrice, you must let me tell him _now_!"

She did not answer, but her hand clinched tighter on the pen-handle.

"His life is in your hands; for God's sake relinquish your pride."

But her pride was strong in her, and dear to her still, strong and dear
as her love; and the two struggled together. Earlscourt had bowed _his_
pride to her; but she had not yielded up her own, and it cost her much
to yield it even now. All the Pythoness in her was not tamed yet. She
was silent--she wavered--then her great love for him vanquished all
else. She rose, white as death, her passionate eyes full of unshed
tears, the bitterest, yet the softest, Beatrice Boville had ever known.

"Take me to him. No one shall tell him but myself."

Earlscourt was lying on a couch in his library; he had been unable to
dictate or to write himself, for severe remedies had prostrated him
utterly, and he could not speak above his breath, though he was loath to
give up, and acknowledge himself as ill as he was. His eyes were closed,
his forehead knitted together in pain, and his labored breathing told
plainly enough how fiercely his foe had attacked him, and that it was by
no means conquered yet. He had not slept all night, and had fallen into
a short slumber now, desiring his attendants to leave him. I bade the
groom of the chambers let us enter unannounced, and, opening the door
myself, signed to Beatrice to go in, while her aunt and I waited in the
anteroom. She stopped a moment at the entrance; her pride had its last
struggle; but he turned restlessly, with a weary sigh, and by that sigh
the Pythoness was conquered. Beatrice went forward and fell on her knees
beside his sofa, bending down till her lips touched his brow, and her
hot tears fell on his hands.

"I was too proud last night to tell you you misjudged me. I have no
pride now. I am your own--wholly your own. I never loved, I never should
love, any but you. I forgive you now. O, how could you ever doubt me?
Lord Earlscourt--Ernest--may we not yet be all we once were to one
another?"

Awakened by her kisses on his brow, bewildered by her sudden appearance,
he tried to rise, but sank back exhausted. He did not disbelieve her
now. He had no voice to speak to her, no strength to answer her; but he
drew her down closer and closer to him, as she knelt by him, and, as her
heart beat once more against his, the little Pythoness, tamed at last,
threw her arms round him and sobbed like a child on his breast. And
so--Beatrice Boville took her best REVENGE!--while I shut the library
door, invited Lady Mechlin to inspect Earlscourt's collection of French
pictures, and asked what she thought of _Punch_ this week.

I don't know what his physicians would have said of the treatment, as
they'd recommended him "perfect quiet;" all I do know is, that though
Earlscourt went to the south of Europe as soon as he could leave the
house, Beatrice Boville went with him; and he took his place on the
benches and in the cabinet this season, without any trace of bronchia,
or any sign of wearing out.

Lady Clive, I regret to say, "does not know" Lady Earlscourt: anything
for her beloved brother she _would_ do, were it possible; but she hopes
we understand that, for her daughters' sakes, she feels it quite
impossible to countenance that "shocking little intrigante."

A LINE IN THE "DAILY."

A LINE IN THE "DAILY."

WHO DID IT, AND WHO WAS DONE BY IT.

"Lieutenant-Colonel Fairlie's troop of Horse Artillery is ordered to
Norwich to replace the 12th Lancers, en route to Bombay."--Those three
lines in the papers spread dismay into the souls of Norfolk young
ladies, and no less horror into ours, for we were very jolly at
Woolwich, could run up to the Clubs and down to Epsom, and were far too
material not to prefer ball-room belles to bluebells, strawberry-ice to
fresh hautboys, the sparkle of champagne-cups to all the murmurs of the
brooks, and the flutter of ballet-girls' wings to all the rustle of
forest-leaves. But, unhappily, the Ordnance Office is no more given to
considering the feelings of their Royal Gunners than the Horse Guards
the individual desires of the two other Arms; and off we went to
Norwich, repining bitterly, or, in modern English, swearing hard at our
destinies, creating an immense sensation with our 6-pounders, as we
flatter ourselves the Royals always contrive to do, whether on fair
friends or fierce foes, and were looked upon spitefully by the one or
two young ladies whose hearts were gone eastwards with the Twelfth,
smilingly by the one or two hundred who, having fruitlessly laid out a
great deal of tackle on the Twelfth, proceeded to manufacture fresh
flies to catch us.

We soon made up, I think, to the Norwich girls for the loss of the
Twelfth. They set dead upon Fairlie, our captain, a Brevet
Lieutenant-Colonel, and a C. B. for "services in India," where he had
rivalled Norman Ramsay at Fuentes d'Onor, had had a ball put in his hip,
and had come home again to be worshipped by the women for his romantic
reputation. They made an immense deal, too, of Levison Courtenay, the
beauty of the troop, and called Belle in consequence; who did not want
any flummery or flirtation to increase his opinion of himself, being as
vain of his almond eyes as any girl just entered as the favorite for the
season. There were Tom Gower, too, a capital fellow, with no nonsense
about him, who made no end of chaff of Belle Courtenay; and Little Nell,
otherwise Harcourt Poulteney Nelson, who had by some miracle escaped
expulsion both from Carshalton and the College; and _votre humble
serviteur_ Phil Hardinge, first lieutenant; and one or two other
fellows, who having cut dashing figures at our Woolwich reviews,
cantering across Blackheath Common, or waltzing with dainty beauties
down our mess-room, made the Artillery welcome in that city of shawls
and oratorios, where according to the Gazetteer, no virtuous person
ought to dwell, that volume, with characteristic lucidity, pronouncing
its streets "ill-disposed."

The Clergy asked us to their rectories--a temptation we were often proof
against, there being three noticeable facts in rectories, that the talk
is always slow, "the Church" being present, and having much the same
chilling effect as the presence of a chaperone at a tête-à-tête; the
daughters generally ugly, and, from leading the choir at morning
services, perfectly convinced that they sing like Clara Novello, and
that the harmonium is a most delightful instrument; and, last and worst,
the wines are almost always poor, except the port which the reverend
host drinks himself, but which, Dieu merci! we rarely or never touch.

The County asked us, too; and there we went for good hock,
tolerable-looking women, and first-rate billiard-tables. For the first
month we were in Norfolk we voted it unanimously the most infernally
slow and hideous county going; and I dare say we made ourselves
uncommonly disagreeable, as people, if they are not pleased, be they
ever so well bred, have a knack of doing.

Things were thus quiescent and stagnant, when Fairlie one night at mess
told us a bit of news.

"Old fellows, whom do you think I met to-day?"

"How should we know? Cut along."

"The Swan and her Cygnets."

"The Vanes? Oh, bravo!" was shouted at a chorus, for the dame and
demoiselles in question we had known in town that winter, and a nicer,
pleasanter, faster set of women I never came across. "What's bringing
them down here, and how's Geraldine?"

"Vane's come into his baronetcy, and his place is close by Norwich,"
said Fairlie; "his wife's health has been bad, and so they left town
early; and Geraldine is quite well, and counting on haymaking, she
informed me."

"Come, that is good news," said Belle, yawning. "There'll be one pretty
woman in the county, thank Heaven! Poor little Geraldine! I must go and
call on her to-morrow."

"She has existed without your calls, Belle," said Fairlie, dryly, "and
don't look as if she'd pined after you."

"My dear fellow, how should you know?" said Belle, in no wise
disconcerted. "A little rogue soon makes 'em look well, and as for
smiles, they'll smile while they're dying for you. Little Vane and I
were always good friends, and shall be again--if I care."

"Conceited owl!" said Fairlie, under his moustaches. "I'm sorry to hurt
your feelings, then, but your pretty 'friend' never asked after you."

"I dare say not," said Belle, complacently. "Where a woman's most
interested she's always quietest, and Geraldine----"

"Lady Vane begged me to tell you you will always be welcome over there,
old fellows," said Fairlie, remorselessly cutting him short. "Perhaps we
shall find something to amuse us better than these stiltified Chapter
dinners."

The Vanes of whom we talked were an uncommonly pleasant set of people
whom we had known at Lee, where Vane, a Q. C., then resided, his
prospective baronetcy being at that time held by a third or fourth
cousin. Fairlie had known the family since his boyhood; there were four
daughters, tall graceful women, who had gained themselves the nickname
of The Swan and her Cygnets; and then there were twins, a boy of
eighteen, who'd just left Eton; and the girl Geraldine, a charming young
lady, whom Belle admired more warmly than that dandy often admired
anybody besides himself, and whom Fairlie liked cordially, having had
many a familiar bit of fun with her, as he had known her ever since he
was a dashing cadet, and she made her _début_ in life in the first
column of the _Times_. Her sisters were handsome women; but Geraldine
was bewitching. A very pleasant family they were, and a vast acquisition
to us. Miss Geraldine flirted to a certain extent with us all, but
chiefly with the Colonel, whenever he was to be had, those two having a
very free-and-easy, familiar, pleasant style of intercourse, owing to
old acquaintance; and Belle spent two hours every evening on his
toilette when we were going to dine there, and vowed she was a "deuced
pretty little puss. Perhaps she might--he wasn't sure, but perhaps (it
would be a horrid sacrifice), if he were with her much longer, he wasn't
sure she mightn't persuade him to take compassion upon her, he _was_ so
weak where women were concerned!"

"What a conceit!" said Fairlie thereat, with a contemptuous twist of his
moustaches and a shrug of his shoulders to me. "I must say, if I were a
woman, I shouldn't feel over-flattered by a lover who admired his own
beauty first, and mine afterwards. Not that I pretend to understand
women."

By which speech I argued that his old playmate Geraldine hadn't thrown
hay over the Colonel, and been taught billiards by him, and ridden his
bay mare over the park in her evening dress, without interesting him
slightly; and that--though I don't think he knew it--he was deigning to
be a trifle jealous of his Second Captain, the all-mighty conqueror
Belle.

"What fools they must be that put in these things!" yawned Belle one
morning, reading over his breakfast coffee in the _Daily Pryer_ one of
those "advertisements for a wife" that one comes across sometimes in the
papers, and that make us, like a good many other things, agree with
Goldsmith:

  Reason, they say, belongs to man,
  But let them prove it if they can;
  Wise Aristotle and Smiglicious,
  By ratiocinations specious,
  Have strove to prove with great precision,
  With definition and division,
  Homo est ratione præditum,
  But for my soul I cannot credit 'em.

"What fools they must be!" yawned Belle, wrapping his dressing-gown
round him, and coaxing his perfumy whiskers under his velvet
smoking-cap. Belle was always inundated by smoking-caps in cloth and
velvet, silk and beads, with blue tassels, and red tassels, and gold
tassels, embroidered and filigreed, rounded and pointed; he had them
sent to him by the dozen, and pretty good chaff he made of the donors.
"Awful fools! The idea of advertising for a wife, when the only
difficulty a man has is to keep from being tricked into taking one. I
bet you, if I did like this owl here, I should have a hundred answers;
and if it was known it was I----"

"Little Geraldine's self for a candidate, eh?" asked Tom Gower.

"Very possibly," said Belle, with a self-complacent smile. "She's a fast
little thing, don't check at much, and she's deucedly in love with me,
poor little dear--almost as much trouble to me as Julia Sedley was last
season. That girl all but proposed to me; she did, indeed. Never was
nearer coming to grief in my life. What will you bet me that, if I
advertise for a wife, I don't hoax lots of women?"

"I'll bet you ten pounds," said I, "that you don't hoax one!"

"Done!" said Belle, stretching out his hand for a dainty
memorandum-book, gift of the identical Julia Sedley aforesaid, and
entering the bet in it--"done! If I'm not asked to walk in the Close at
noon and look out for a pink bonnet and a black lace cloak, and to
loiter up the market-place till I come across a black hat and blue
muslin dress; if I'm not requested to call at No. 20, and to grant an
interview at No. 84; if I'm not written to by Agatha A. with hazel, and
Belinda B. with black, eyes--all coming after me like flies after a
sugar-cask, why you shall have your ten guineas, my boy, and my colt
into the bargain. Come, write out the advertisement, Tom--I can't, it's
too much trouble; draw it mild, that's all, or the letters we shall get
will necessitate an additional Norwich postman. By George, what fun it
will be to do the girls! Cut along, Tom, can't you?"

"All right," said Gower, pushing away his coffee-cup, and drawing the
ink to him. "Head it 'MARRIAGE,' of course?"

"Of course. That word's as attractive to a woman as the belt to a
prize-fighter, or a pipe of port to a college fellow."

"'MARRIAGE.--A Bachelor----'"

"Tell 'em a military man; all girls have the scarlet fever."

"Very well--'an Officer in the Queen's, of considerable personal
attractions----'"

"My dear fellow, pray don't!" expostulated Belle, in extreme alarm; "we
shall have such swarms of 'em!"

"No, no! we must say that," persisted Gower--"'personal attractions,
aged eight-and-twenty----'"

"Can't you put it, 'in the flower of his age,' or his 'sixth lustre'?
It's so much more poetic."

"'--the flower of his age,' then (that'll leave 'em a wide range from
twenty to fifty, according to their taste), 'is desirous of meeting a
young lady of beauty, talent, and good family,'--eh?"

"Yes. All women think themselves beauties, if they're as ugly as sin.
Milliners and confectioner girls talk Anglo-French, and rattle a
tin-kettle piano after a fashion, and anybody buys a 'family' for
half-a-crown at the Heralds' Office--so fire away."

"'--who, feeling as he does the want of a kindred heart and sympathetic
soul, will accord him the favor of a letter or an interview, as a
preliminary to the greatest step in life.'"

"A step--like one on thin ice--very sure to bring a man to grief,"
interpolated Belle. "Say something about property; those soul-and-spirit
young ladies generally keep a look-out for tin, and only feel an
elective affinity for a lot of debentures and consols."

"'The advertiser being a man of some present and still more prospective
wealth, requires no fortune, the sole objects of his search being love
and domestic felicity.' Domestic felicity--how horrible! Don't it sound
exactly like the end of a lady's novel, where the unlucky hero is always
brought to an untimely end in a 'sweet cottage on the banks of the
lovely Severn.'"

"'Domestic felicity'--bah! What are you writing about?" yawned
Belle. "I'd as soon take to teetotalism: however, it'll tell in the
advertisement. Bravo, Tom, that will do. Address it to 'L. C., care of
Mrs. Greene, confectioner, St. Giles Street, Norwich.' Miss Patty'll
take the letters in for me, though not if she knew their errand. Tip
seven-and-sixpence with it, and send it to the _Daily Pryer_."

We did send it to the _Daily_, and in that broadsheet we all of us read
it two mornings after.

     MARRIAGE.--A Bachelor, an Officer of the Queen's, of
     considerable personal attractions, and in the flower of
     his age, is desirous of meeting a young lady of beauty,
     accomplishments, and good family, who, feeling as he does the
     want of a kindred heart and sympathetic soul, will accord him
     the favor either of a letter or an interview, as a preliminary
     to the greatest step in life. The advertiser being a man of
     some present and still more prospective wealth, requires no
     fortune, the sole objects of his search being love and domestic
     felicity. Address, L. C., care of Mrs. Greene, confectioner,
     St. Giles Street, Norwich.

"Whose advertisement do you imagine that is?" said Fairlie, showing the
_Daily_ to Geraldine, as he sat with her and her sisters under some
lilac and larch trees in one of the meadows of Fern Chase, which had had
the civility, Geraldine said, to yield a second crop of hay expressly
for her to have the pleasure of making it. She leaned down towards him
as he lay on the grass, and read the advertisement, looking uncommonly
pretty in her dainty muslin dress, with its fluttering mauve ribbons,
and a wreath she had just twisted up, of bluebells and pinks and white
heaths which Fairlie had gathered as he lay, put on her bright hair. We
called her a little flirt, but I think she was an unintentional one; at
least, her agaceries were, all as unconscious as they were--her worst
enemies (_i. e._ plain young ladies) had to allow--unaffected.

"How exquisitely sentimental! Is it yours?" she asked, with demure
mischief.

"Mine!" echoed Fairlie, with supreme scorn.

"It's some one's here, because the address is at Mrs. Greene's. Come,
tell me at once, monsieur."

"The only fool in the Artillery," said Fairlie, curtly: "Belle
Courtenay."

"Captain Courtenay!" echoed Geraldine, with a little flush on her
cheeks, caused, perhaps, by the quick glance the Colonel shot at her as
he spoke.

"Captain Courtenay!" said Katherine Vane. "Why, what can he want with a
wife? I thought he had _l'embarras de choix_ offered him in that line;
at least, so he makes out himself."

"I dare say," said Fairlie, dryly, "it's for a bet he's made, to see how
many women he can hoax, I believe."

"How can you tell it is a hoax?" said Geraldine, throwing cowslips at
her greyhound. "It may be some medium of intercourse with some one he
really cares for, and who may understand his meaning."

"Perhaps you are in his confidence, Geraldine, or perhaps you are
thinking of answering it yourself?"

"Perhaps," said the young lady, waywardly, making the cowslips into a
ball, "there might be worse investments. Your _bête noire_ is strikingly
handsome; he is the perfection of style; he is going to be Equerry to
the Prince; his mother is just married again to Lord Chevenix; he did
not name half his attractions in that line in the _Daily_."

With which Geraldine rushed across the meadow after the greyhound and
the cowslip ball, and Fairlie lay quiet plucking up the heaths by the
roots. He lay there still, when the cowslip ball struck him a soft
fragrant blow against his lips, and knocked the Cuba from between his
teeth.

"Why don't you speak?" asked Geraldine, plaintively. "You are not half
so pleasant to play with as you were before you went to India and I was
seven or eight, and you had La Grace, and battledoor and shuttlecock,
and cricket, and all sorts of games with me in the old garden at
Charlton."

He might have told her she was much less dangerous then than now; he was
not disposed to flatter her, however. So he answered her quietly,

"I preferred you as you were then."

"Indeed!" said Geraldine, with a hot color in her cheeks "I do not think
there are many who would indorse your complimentary opinion."

"Possibly," said Fairlie, coldly.

She took up her cowslips, and hit him hard with them several times.

"Don't speak in that tone. If you dislike me, you can say so in warmer
words, surely."

Fairlie smiled _malgré lui_.

"What a child you are, Geraldine! but a child that is a very mischievous
coquette, and has learned a hundred tricks and _agaceries_ of which my
little friend of seven or eight knew nothing. I grant you were not a
quarter so charming, but you were, I am afraid--more true."

Geraldine was ready to cry, but she was in a passion, nevertheless; such
a hot and short-lived passion as all women of any spirit can go into on
occasion, when they are unjustly suspected.

"If you choose to think so of me you may," she said, with immeasurable
hauteur, sweeping away from him, her mauve ribbons fluttering
disdainfully. "I, for one, shall not try to undeceive you."

The next night we all went up to a ball at the Vanes', to drink Rhenish,
eat ices, quiz the women, flirt with the pretty ones in corners, lounge
against doorways, criticise the feet in the waltzing as they passed us,
and do, in fact, anything but what we went to do--dance,--according to
our custom in such scenes.

The Swan and her Cygnets looked very stunning; they "made up well," as
ladies say when they cannot deny that another is good-looking, but
qualify your admiration by an assurance that she is shockingly plain in
the morning, and owes all to her milliner and maids. Geraldine, who, by
the greatest stretch of scepticism, could not be supposed "made up," was
bewitching, with her sunshiny enjoyment of everything, and her untiring
waltzing, going for all the world like a spinning-top, only a top tires,
and she did not. Belle, who made a principle of never dancing except
under extreme coercion by a very pretty hostess, could not resist her,
and Tom Gower, and Little Nell, and all the rest, not to mention half
Norfolk, crowded round her; all except Fairlie, who leaned against the
doorway, seeming to talk to her father or the members, or anybody near,
but watching the young lady for all that, who flirted not a little,
having in her mind the scene in the paddock of yesterday, and wishing,
perhaps, to show him that if he did not admire her more than when she
was eight, other men had better taste.

She managed to come near him towards the end of the evening, sending
Belle to get her an ice.

"Well," she said, with a comical _pitié d'elle-même_, "do you dislike me
so much that you don't mean to dance with me at all? Not a single waltz
all night?"

"What time have you had to give me?" said Fairlie, coldly. "You have
been surrounded all the evening."

"Of course I have. I am not so disagreeable to other gentlemen as I am
to you. But I could have made time for you if you had only asked for it.
At your own ball last week you engaged me beforehand for six waltzes."

Fairlie relented towards her. Despite her flirting, he thought she did
not care for Belle after all.

"Well," he said, smiling, "will you give me one after supper?"

"You told me you shouldn't dance, Colonel Fairlie," said Katherine Vane,
smiling.

"One can't tell what one mayn't do under temptation," said Fairlie,
smiling too. "A man may change his mind, you know."

"Oh yes," cried Geraldine; "a man may change his mind, and we are
expected to be eminently grateful to him for his condescension; but if
_we_ change our minds, how severely we are condemned for vacillation:
'So weak!' 'Just like women!' 'Never like the same thing two minutes,
poor things!'"

"You don't like the same thing two minutes, Geraldine," laughed Fairlie;
"so I dare say you speak feelingly."

"I changeable! I am constancy itself!"

"Are you? You know what the Italians say of 'ocche azzure'?"

"But I don't believe it, monsieur!" cried Geraldine:

  "Blue eyes beat black fifty to seven,
  For black's of hell, but blue's of heaven!"

"I beg your pardon, mademoiselle," laughed Fairlie:

  "Done, by the odds, it is not true!
  One devil's black, but scores are blue!"

He whirled her off into the circle in the midst of our laughter at their
ready wit. Soon after he bid her good night, but he found time to
whisper as he did so.

"You are more like _my_ little Geraldine to-night!"

The look he got made him determine to make her his little Geraldine
before much more time had passed. At least he drove us back to Norwich
in what seemed very contented silence, for he smoked tranquilly, and let
the horses go their own pace--two certain indications that a man has
pleasant thoughts to accompany him.

I do not think he listened to Belle's, and Gower's, and my conversation,
not even when Belle took his weed out of his mouth and announced the
important fact: "Hardinge! my ten guineas, if you please. I've had a
letter!"

"What! an answer? By Jove!"

"Of course, an answer. I tell you all the pretty women in the city will
know my initials, and send after me. I only hope they _will_ be pretty,
and then one may have a good deal of fun. I was in at Greene's this
morning having mock-turtle, and talking to Patty (she's not bad-looking,
that little girl, only she drops her 'h's' so. I'm like that
fellow--what's his name?--in the 'Peau de Chagrin:' I don't admire my
loves in cotton prints), when she gave me the letter. I left it on my
dressing-table, but you can see it to-morrow. It's a horrid red
daubed-looking seal, and no crest; but that she mightn't use for fear of
being found out, and the writing is disguised, but that it would be. She
_says_ she has the three requisites; but where's the woman that don't
think herself Sappho and Galatea combined? And she was nineteen last
March. Poor little devil! she little thinks how she'll be done. I'm to
meet her on the Yarmouth road at two, and to look out for a lady
standing by the first milestone. Shall we go, Tom? It may lead to
something amusing, you know, though certainly it won't lead to
marriage."

"Oh! we'll go, old fellow," said I. "Deuce take you, Belle! what a lucky
fellow you are with the women."

"Luckier than I want to be," yawned Belle. "It's a horrid bore to be so
set upon. One may have too much of a good thing, you know."

At two the day after, having refreshed ourselves with a light luncheon
at Mrs. Greene's of lobster-salad and pale ale, Belle, Gower, and I
buttoned our gloves and rode leisurely up the road.

"How my heart palpitates!" said Belle, stroking his moustaches with a
bored air. "How can I tell, you know, but what I may be going to see the
arbiter of my destiny? Men have been tricked into all sorts of
tomfoolery by their compassionate feelings. And then--if she should
squint or have a turn-up nose! Good Heavens, what a fearful idea! I've
often wondered when I've seen men with ugly wives how they could have
been cheated into taking 'em; they couldn't have done it in their
senses, you know, nor yet with their eyes open. You may depend they took
'em to church in a state of coma from chloroform. 'Pon my word, I feel
quite nervous. You don't think the girl will have a parson and a
register hid behind the milestone, do you?"

"If she should, it won't be legal without a license, thanks to the fools
who turn Hymen into a tax-gatherer, and won't let a fellow make love
without he asks leave of the Archbishop of Canterbury," said Gower.
"Hallo, Belle, here's the milestone, but where's the lady?"

"Virgin modesty makes her unpunctual," said Belle, putting up his
eye-glass.

"Hang modesty!" swore Tom. "It's past two, and we left a good quarter of
that salad uneaten. Confound her!"

"There are no signs of her," said I. "Did she tell you her dress,
Belle?"

"Not a syllable about it; only mentioned a milestone, and one might have
found a market-woman sitting on that."

"Hallo! here's something feminine. Oh, good gracious! this can't be it,
it's got a brown stuff dress on, and a poke straw bonnet and a green
veil. No, no, Belle. If you married her, that _would_ be a case of
chloroform."

But the horrible brown stuff came sidling along the road with that
peculiar step belonging to ladies of a certain age, characterized by
Patty Greene as "tipputting," sweeping up the dust with its horrible
folds, making straight _en route_ for Belle, who was standing a little
in advance of us. Nineteen! Good Heavens! she must have been fifty if
she was a day, and under her green veil was a chestnut front--yes,
decidedly a front--and a face yellow as a Canadian's, and wrinkled as
Madame Pipelet's, made infinitely worse by that sweet maiden simper and
assumed juvenility common to _vieilles filles_. Up she came towards poor
Belle, who involuntarily retreated step by step till he had backed
against the milestone, and could get no farther, while she smiled up in
his handsome face, and he stared down in her withered one, with the most
comical expression of surprise, dismay, and horror that had ever
appeared on our "beauty's" impassive features.

"Are you--the--the--L. C.?" demanded the maiden of ten lustres, casting
her eyes to the ground with virgin modesty.

"L. C. ar----My dear madam, I don't quite understand you," faltered
Belle, taken aback for once in his life.

"Was it not you," faltered the fair one, shaking out a
pocket-handkerchief that sent a horrible odor of musk to the olfactory
nerves of poor Belle, most fastidious connoisseur in perfume, "who
advertised for a kindred heart and sympathetic soul?"

"Really, my good lady," began Belle, still too aghast by the chestnut
front to recover his self-possession.

"Because," simpered his inamorata, too agitated by her own feelings to
hear his horrible appellative, keeping him at bay there with the fatal
milestone behind him and the awful brown stuff in front of him--"because
I, too, have desired to meet with some elective affinity, some
spirit-tie that might give me all those more subtle sympathies which can
never be found in the din and bustle of the heartless world; I, too,
have pined for the objects of your search--love and domestic happiness.
Oh, blessed words, surely we might--might we not?----"

She paused, overcome with maidenly confusion, and buried her face in the
musk-scented handkerchief. Tom and I, where we stood _perdus_, burst
into uncontrollable shouts of laughter. Poor Belle gave one blank look
of utter terror at the _tout ensemble_ of brown stuff, straw poke, and
chestnut front. He forgot courtesy, manners, and everything else; his
lips were parted, with his small white teeth glancing under his silky
moustaches, his sleepy eyes were open wide, and as the maiden lady
dropped her handkerchief, and gave him what she meant to be the softest
and most tender glance, he turned straight round, sprang on his bay, and
rushed down the Yarmouth road as if the whole of the dignitaries of the
church and law were tearing after him to force him _nolens volens_ into
carrying out the horrible promise in his cursed line in the _Daily_.
What was Tom's and my amazement to see the maiden lady seat herself
astride on the milestone, and join her cachinnatory shouts to ours,
fling her green veil into a hawthorn tree, jerk her bonnet into our
faces, kick off her brown stuff into the middle of the road, tear off
her chestnut front and yellow mask, and perform a frantic war-dance on
the roadside turf. No less a person than that mischievous monkey and
inimitable mimic Little Nell!

"You young demon!" shouted Gower, shrieking with laughter till he cried.
"A pretty fellow you are to go tricking your senior officer like this.
You little imp, how can you tell but what I shall court-martial you
to-morrow?"

"No, no, you won't!" cried Little Nell, pursuing his frantic dance.
"Wasn't it prime? wasn't it glorious? wasn't it worth the Kohinoor to
see? You won't go and peach, when I've just given you a better farce
than all old Buckstone's? By Jove! Belle's face at my chestnut front!
This'll be one of his prime conquests, eh? I say, old fellows, when
Charles Mathews goes to glory, don't you think I might take his place,
and beat him hollow, too?"

When we got back to barracks, we found Belle prostrate on his sofa,
heated, injured, crestfallen, solacing himself with Seltzer-and-water,
and swearing away anything but mildly at that "wretched old woman." He
bound us over to secrecy, which, with Little Nell's confidence in our
minds, we naturally promised. Poor Belle! to have been made a fool of
before two was humiliation more than sufficient for our all-conquering
_blondin_. For one who had so often refused to stir across a ball-room
to look at a Court beauty, to have ridden out three miles to see an old
maid of fifty with a chestnut front! The insult sank deep into his soul,
and threw him into an abject melancholy, which hung over him all through
mess, and was not dissipated till a letter came to him from Mrs.
Greene's, when we were playing loo in Fairlie's room. That night Fairlie
was in gay spirits. He had called at Fern Chase that morning, and though
he had not been able to see Geraldine alone, he had passed a pleasant
couple of hours there, playing pool with her and her sisters, and had
been as good friends as ever with his old playmate.

"Well, Belle," said he, feeling good-natured even with him that night,
"did you get any good out of your advertisement? Did your lady turn out
a very pretty one?"

"No: deuced ugly, like the generality," yawned poor Belle, giving me a
kick to remind me of my promise. Little Nell was happily about the city
somewhere with Pretty Face, or the boy would scarcely have kept his
countenance.

"What amusement you can find in hoaxing silly women," said Fairlie, "is
incomprehensible to me. However, men's tastes differ, happily. Here
comes another epistle for you, Belle; perhaps there's better luck for
you there."

"Oh! I shall have no end of letters. I sha'n't answer any more. I think
it's such a deuced trouble. Diamonds trumps, eh?" said Belle, laying the
note down till he should have leisure to attend to it. Poor old fellow!
I dare say he was afraid of another onslaught from maiden ladies.

"Come, Belle," said Glenville; "come, Belle, open your letter; we're all
impatience. If you won't go, I will in your place."

"Do, my dear fellow. Take care you're not pounced down upon by a
respectable papa for intentions, or called to account by a fierce
brother with a stubby beard," said Belle, lazily taking up the letter.
As he did so, the melancholy indolence on his face changed to eagerness.

"The deuce! the Vane crest!"

"A note of invitation, probably?" suggested Gower.

"Would they send an invitation to Patty Greene's? I tell you it's
addressed to L. C.," said Belle, disdainfully, opening the letter,
leaving its giant deer couchant intact. "I thought it very likely; I
expected it, indeed--poor little dear! I oughtn't to have let it out.
Ain't you jealous, old fellows? Little darling! Perhaps I may be tricked
into matrimony after all. I'd rather a presentiment that advertisement
would come to something. There, you may all look at it, if you like."

It was a dainty sheet of scented cream-laid, stamped with the deer
couchant, such as had brought us many an invitation down from Fern
Chase, and on it was written, in delicate caligraphy:

"G. V. understands the meaning of the advertisement, and will meet L. C.
at the entrance of Fern Wood, at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning."

There was a dead silence as we read it; then a tremendous buzz. Cheaply
as we held women, I don't think there was one of us who wasn't surprised
at Geraldine's doing any clandestine thing like this. He sat with a look
of indolent triumph, curling his perfumed moustaches, and looking at the
little autograph, which gave us evidence of what he often
boasted--Geraldine Vane's regard.

"Let me look at your note," said Fairlie, stretching out his hand.

He soon returned it, with a brief, "Very complimentary indeed!"

When the men left, I chanced to be last, having mislaid my cigar-case.
As I looked about for it, Fairlie addressed me in the same brief, stern
tone between his teeth with which he spoke to Belle.

"Hardinge, you made this absurd bet with Courtenay, did you not? Is this
note a hoax upon him?"

"Not that I know of--it doesn't look like it. You see there is the Vane
crest, and the girl's own initials."

"Very true." He turned round to the window again, and leaned against it,
looking out into the dawn, with a look upon his face that I was very
sorry to see.

"But it is not like Geraldine," I began. "It may be a trick. Somebody
may have stolen their paper and crest--it's possible. I tell you what
I'll do to find out; I'll follow Belle to-morrow, and see who does meet
him in Fern Wood."

"Do," said Fairlie, eagerly. Then he checked himself, and went on
tapping an impatient tattoo on the shutter. "You see, I have known the
family for years--known her when she was a little child. I should be
sorry to think that one of them could be capable of such----"

Despite his self-command he could not finish his sentence. Geraldine was
a great deal too dear to him to be treated in seeming carelessness, or
spoken lightly of, however unwisely she might act. I found my
cigar-case. His laconic "Good night!" told me he would rather be alone,
so I closed the door and left him.

The morning was as sultry and as clear as a July day could be when Belle
lounged down the street, looking the perfection of a gentleman, a trifle
less bored and _blasé_ than ordinary, _en route_ to his appointment at
Fern Wood (a sequestered part of the Vane estate), where trees and
lilies of the valley grew wild, and where the girls were accustomed to
go for picnics or sketching. As soon as he had turned a corner, Gower
and I turned it too, and with perseverance worthy a better cause, Tom
and I followed Belle in and out and down the road which led to Fern
Wood--a flat, dusty, stony two miles--on which, in the blazing noon of a
hot midsummer day, nothing short of Satanic coercion, or love of
Geraldine Vane, would have induced our beauty to immolate himself, and
expose his delicate complexion.

"I bet you anything, Tom," said I, confidently, "that this is a hoax,
like yesterday's. Geraldine will no more meet Belle there than all the
Ordnance Office."

"Well, we shall see," responded Gower. "Somebody might get the
note-paper from the bookseller, and the crest seal through the servants,
but they'll hardly get Geraldine there bodily against her will."

We waited at the entrance of the wood, shrouded ourselves in the wild