Kitabı oku: «The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume I», sayfa 31

CHAPTER XXXVI. A STREET RENCONTRE

LADY HESTER ONSLOW had passed a day of martyrdom. There was scarcely a single contrariety in the long catalogue of annoyances which had not fallen to her share. Her servants, habitually disciplined to perfection, had admitted every bore of her acquaintance, while, to the few she really wished to see, admittance had been denied. The rumor of an approaching departure had got wind through the servants, and the hall and the courtyard were crowded with creditors, duns, and begging impostors of every age and class and country. It seemed as if every one with a petition or a bill, an unsatisfied complaint or an unsettled balance, had given each other a general rendezvous that morning at the Mazzarini Palace.

It is well known how the most obsequious tradespeople grow peremptory when passports are signed and posthorses are harnessed. The bland courteousness with which they receive “your Ladyship’s orders” undergoes a terrible change. Departure is the next thing to death. Another country sounds like another world. The deferential bashfulness that could not hint at the mention of money, now talks boldly of his debt. The solvent creditor, who said always “at your convenience,” has suddenly a most pressing call “to make up a large sum by Saturday.”

All the little cajoleries and coquetries, all the little seductions and temptations of trade, are given up. The invitations to buy are converted into suggestions for “cash payment.” It is very provoking and very disenchanting! From a liberal and generous patron, you suddenly discover yourself transformed into a dubious debtor. All the halo that has surrounded your taste is changed for a chill atmosphere of suspicion and distrust. The tradesfolk, whose respectful voices never rose above a whisper in the hall, now grew clamorous in the antechamber; and more than once did they actually obtrude themselves in person within those charmed precincts inhabited by Lady Hester.

What had become of Miss Dalton? where could she be all this while? Had not Mr. Jekyl called? what was he about that he had not “arranged” with all these “tiresome creatures”? Was there no one who knew what to do? Was not Captain Onslow, even, to be found? It was quite impossible that these people could be telling the truth; the greater number, if not all of them, must have been paid already, for she had spent a world of money latterly “somehow.” Ce’lestine was charged with a message to this effect, which had a result the very opposite to what it was intended; and now the noisy tongues and angry accents grew bolder and louder. Still none came to her rescue; and she was left alone to listen to the rebellious threatenings that murmured in the courtyard, or to read the ill-spelled impertinences of such as preferred to epistolize their complaints.

The visitors who found their way to the drawing-room had to pass through this motley and clamorous host; and, at each opening of the door, the sounds swelled loudly out.

More than once she bethought her of Sir Stafford; but shame opposed the resolution. His liberality, indeed, was boundless; and therein lay the whole difficulty. Were the matter one for discussion or angry remonstrance, she could have adventured it without a dread. She could easily have brought herself to confront a struggle, but was quite unequal to an act of submission. Among the numerous visitors who now thronged the salons, Lord Norwood, who had just returned from his shooting excursion in the Maremma, was the only one with whom she had anything like intimacy.

“I am but a poor counsellor in such a case,” said he, laughing. “I was never dunned in my life, personally, I mean, for I always take care not to be found; and as to written applications, I know a creditor’s seal and superscription as well as though I had seen him affix them. The very postmark is peculiar.”

“This levity is very unfeeling at such a moment,” said Lady Hester, angrily; “and when you see me so utterly deserted, too!”

“But where ‘s Jekyl? He ought to know how to manage this!”

“He has never been here since morning. His conduct is inexcusable!”

“And George?”

“Out the whole day!”

“And the ‘Dalton’? for she has rather a good head, if I don’t mistake her.”

“She took the carriage into town, and has not returned.”

“By Jove! I’d write a line to Sir Stafford; I ‘d tell him that I was going for change of ah – , and all that sort of thing, to Como for a week or two, and that these people were so pestering and pressing, and all that; that, in fact, you were worried to death about it; and finding that your means were so very limited – ”

“But he has been most liberal. His generosity has been without bounds.”

“So much the better; he’ll come down all the readier now.”

“I feel shame at such a course,” said she, in a weak, faint voice.

“As I don’t precisely know what that sensation is, I can’t advise against it; but it must needs be a very powerful emotion, if it prevent you accepting money.”

“Can you think of nothing else, Norwood?”

“To be sure I can – there are twenty ways to do the thing. Close the shutters, and send for Buccellini; be ill dangerously ill and leave this to-morrow, at daybreak; or give a ball, like Dashwood, and start when the company are at supper. You lose the spoons and forks, to be sure; but that can’t be helped. You might try and bully them, too though perhaps it ‘s late for that; and lastly and, I believe, best of all raise a few hundreds, and pay them each something.”

“But how or where raise the money?”

“Leave that to me, if it must be done. The great benefactor of mankind was the fellow that invented bills. The glorious philanthropist that first devised the bright expedient of living by paper, when bullion failed, was a grand and original genius. How many a poor fellow might have been rescued from the Serpentine by a few words scrawled over a five-shilling stamp! What a turn to a man’s whole earthly career has been often given, as his pen glided over the imaginative phrase ‘I promise to pay’!”

Lady Hester paid no attention to the Viscount’s moralizings. Shame indignant shame monopolized all her feelings.

“Well,” said she, at last, “I believe it must be so. I cannot endure this any longer. Jekyl has behaved shamefully; and George I ‘ll never forgive. They ought to have taken care of all this. And now, Norwood, to procure the money what is to be done?”

“Here ‘s the patent treasury for pocket use the ‘Young Man’s Best Companion,’” said he, taking out of a black morocco case three or four blank bill-stamps, together with a mass of acceptances of various kinds, the proceeds of various play debts, the majority of which he well knew to be valueless. “What amount will be sufficient, how much shall we draw for?” said he, seating himself, pen in hand, at the table.

“I cannot even guess,” said she, trembling with embarrassment and confusion. “There are all these people’s accounts and letters. I suppose they are all horrid cheats. I ‘m sure I never got half the things, and that the rest are already paid for. But no matter now; let us have done with them at any cost.”

“‘Morlandi, coachmaker’ pretty well for Signer Morlandi!” said Norwood “eleven hundred scudi for repairs to carriages for destroying your patent axles, and replacing English varnish by the lacquer of a tea-tray something less than two hundred and fifty pounds!”

“He is an obliging creature,” said Lady Hester, “and always punctual.”

“In that case we ‘ll deal generously with him. He shall have half his money, if he gives a receipt in full.”

“‘Legendre, coiffeur; eight thousand francs.’ Pas mal, Monsieur Legendre! kid gloves and perfumes, Madonna bands and Macassar oil, are costly things to deal in.”

“That is really iniquitous,” said Lady Hester. “I see every bouquet is put down at a hundred francs!”

“A conservatory, at that rate, is better property than a coal-mine. Shall we say one thousand francs for this honest coiffeur?”

“Impossible! He would scorn such an offer.”

“Pardon me. I know these people somewhat better and longer than you do; and so far even from suffering in his estimation if that were a matter of any consequence you will rise in his good opinion. An Italian always despises a dupe, but entertains a sincere respect for all who detect knavery. I ‘ll set him down for one thousand, to be increased to fifteen hundred if he’ll tell me how to cut down his neighbor, Guercini.”

“What of Guercini? How much is his claim?”

“A trifle under five thousand crowns.”

“Nearly one thousand pounds!” exclaimed she. “Say, rather, eleven hundred and upwards,” said Norwood.

“It is incredible how little I’ve had from him: a few trifling rings and brooches; some insignificant alterations and new settings; one or two little presents to Kate; and, I really believe, nothing more.”

“We are getting deeper and deeper,” said Norwood, turning over the bills. “Contardo, the wine-merchant, and Frisani, table-decker, are both large claimants. If pine-apples were the daily food of the servants’ hall, they could scarcely cut a more formidable figure in the reckoning, indeed, if the whole establishment did nothing but munch them during all their leisure hours, the score need not be greater. Do you know, Hester, that the rogueries of the Continent are a far heavier infliction than the income-tax, and that the boasted economy of a foreign residence is sensibly diminished by the unfortunate fact that one honest tradesman is not to be found from Naples to the North Pole? They are Spartans in deceit, and only disgraced whenever the rascality is detected. Now, it is quite absurd to read such an item as this: ‘Bonbons and dried fruits, three hundred and seventy crowns!’ Why, if your guests were stuffed with marrons glaces, this would be an exaggeration.”

“You are very tiresome, Norwood,” said she, peevishly. “I don’t want to be told that these people are all knaves; their character for honesty is no affair of mine; if it were, Buccellini could easily mesmerize any one of them and learn all his secrets. I only wish to get rid of them, it ‘s very distressing to hear their dreadful voices, and see their more dreadful selves in the court beneath.”

“The task is somewhat more difficult than I bargained for,” said Norwood, thoughtfully. “I fancied a few ‘hundreds’ would suffice, but we must read ‘thousands’ instead. In any case, I ‘ll hold a conference with them, and see what can be done.”

“Do so, then, and lose no time, for I see Midchekoff s chasseur below, and I ‘m sure the Prince is coming.”

Norwood gave her a look which made her suddenly become scarlet, and then left the room without speaking.

If he had not been himself a debtor with the greater number of those who waited below, few could have acquitted themselves more adroitly in such a mission. He was an adept in that clever game by which duns are foiled and tradesmen mollified; he knew every little menace and every flattery to apply to them, when to soothe and when to snub them. All these arts he was both ready and willing to exercise, were it not for the unpleasant difficulty that his own embarrassments rendered him a somewhat dubious ambassador. In fact, as he himself phrased it, “it was playing advocate with one leg in the dock.”

He lingered a little, therefore, as he went; he stopped on the landing of the stairs to peep out on the tumultuous assemblage beneath, like a general surveying the enemy’s line before the engagement; nor was he over-pleased to remark that little Purvis was bustling about among the crowd, note-book and pencil in hand, palpably taking evidence and storing up facts for future mention. As he was still looking, the great gate was thrown open with a crash, and a caleche, dirty and travel-stained, was whirled into the court by three steaming and panting posters. After a brief delay, a short, thick-set figure, enveloped in travelling-gear, descended, and putting, as it seemed, a few questions as to the meaning of the assembled throng, entered the house.

Curious to learn who, what, and whence the new arrival came, Norwood hurried downstairs; but all that he could learn from the postilion was that the stranger had posted from Genoa, using the greatest speed all the way, and never halting, save a few minutes for refreshment. The traveller was not accompanied by a servant, and his luggage bore neither name nor crest to give any clew as to his identity. That he was English, and that he had gone direct to Sir Stafford’s apartments, was the whole sum of the Viscount’s knowledge; but even this seemed so worthy of remark that he hastened back with the tidings to Lady Hester, instead of proceeding on his errand.

She treated the announcement with less interest. It might be Proctor, Sir Stafford’s man. Was he tall and black-whiskered? No, he was short; and, so far as Norwood saw, he thought him fair-haired. “She knew of nobody to bear that description. It might be an English physician from Genoa, there was one there, or in Nice, she forgot exactly which, who was celebrated for treating gout, or sore eyes, she could not remember precisely, but it was certainly one or the other. On recollection, however, it was probably gout, because he had attended Lord Hugmore, who was blind.”

“In that case,” said Norwood, “Onslow would seem to be worse.”

“Yes, poor man, much worse. George sat up with him the night before last, and said he suffered terribly. His mind used to wander at intervals, too, and he spoke as if he was very unhappy.”

“Unhappy, a man with upwards of thirty thousand a year unhappy!” said Norwood, clasping his hands over his head as he spoke.

“You forget, my Lord, that there are other considerations than moneyed ones which weigh at least with some persons; and if Onslow’s fortune be a princely one, he may still feel compunctious regrets for his detestable conduct to me!”

“Oh, I forgot that!” said Norwood, with a most laudable air of seriousness.

“It was very kind of you, my Lord, very considerate and very kind, indeed, to forget it. Yet I should have fancied it was the very sentiment uppermost in the mind of any one entering this chamber, witnessing the solitary seclusion of my daily life, beholding the resources by which the weary hours are beguiled, not to speak of the ravages which sorrow has left upon these features.”

“On that score, at least, I can contradict you, Hester,” said he, with a smile of flattering meaning. “It is now above eight years since first – ”

“How can you be so tiresome?” said she, pettishly.

“Prince Midchekoff, my Lady, presents his compliments,” said a servant, “and wishes to know if your Ladyship will receive him at dinner to-day, and at what hour?”

“How provoking! Yes, say, ‘Yes, at eight o’clock,’” said she, walking up and down the room with impatience. “You ‘ll stay and meet him, Norwood. I know you ‘re not great friends; but no matter, George is so uncertain. He left us t’ other day to entertain the Prince alone, Kate and myself, only fancy; and as he takes half-hour fits of silence, and Kate occasionally won’t speak for a whole evening together, my part was a pleasant one.”

“How Florence wrongs you both!” said Norwood. “They say that no one is more agreeable to your Ladyship than the Midchekoff,” said he, slowly and pointedly.

“As Miss Dalton’s admirer, I hope rumor adds that,” said she, hastily.

“What? are you really serious? Has the Dalton pretensions?”

“Perhaps not; but the Prince has,” interrupted Lady Hester. “But you are forgetting these people all the while. Do pray do something anything with them; and don’t forget us at eight o’clock.” And with this Lady Hester hurried from the room, as if admonished by her watch of the lateness of the hour, but really anxious to escape further interrogatory from the Viscount.

When Norwood reached the court, he was surprised to find it empty; not one of the eager creditors remained, but all was still and silent.

“What has become of these good people?” asked he of the porter.

“The stranger who arrived in the caleche awhile ago spoke a few words to them, and they went.”

This was all that he knew, and being a porter, one of that privileged caste whose prerogative it is never to reveal what takes place before their eyes, his present communication was remarkable.

“Would that the good genius had remembered me in his moment of generous abandonment!” muttered Norwood, as he took his road homeward to dress for dinner.

Little scrupulous about the means of getting out of a difficulty, provided it were only successful, Norwood scarcely bestowed another thought upon the whole matter, and lounged along the streets, as forgetful of the late scene as though it had passed twenty years before.

As the Viscount strolled along towards his lodgings, Kate Dalton, with trembling limbs and palpitating heart, threaded her way through the thronged streets, now wet and slippery from a thin rain that was falling. So long as her road lay through the less-frequented thoroughfares, her appearance excited little or no attention in the passers-by; but when she entered the Piazza Santa Trinita, all ablaze with gas-lamps and the reflected lights from brilliant shops, many stopped, turned, and gazed at the strange sight of a young and beautiful girl, attired in the very height of fashion, being alone and afoot at such an hour. Unaccountable even to mystery, as it seemed, there was something in her gait and carriage that at once repelled the possibility of a disparaging impression, and many touched or removed their hats respectfully as they made way for her to pass. To avoid the carriages, which whirled past in every direction and at tremendous speed, she passed close along by the houses; and, in doing so, came within that brilliant glare of light that poured from the glass doors of the great Cafe of the Piazza. It was exactly the hour when the idle loungers of Florence society that listless class who form the staple of our club life in England were swarming to talk of the plans of the evening, what resources of pleasure were available, and what receptions were open. The drizzling rain, and the cold, raw feeling of the air prevented their being seated, as their custom was, before the doors, where in every attitude of graceful languor they habitually smoked their cigars and discussed the passersby, in all the plenitude of recreative indolence. The group consisted of men of every age and country.

There were princes and blacklegs and adventurers; some with real rank and fortune, others as destitute of character as of means. Many owned names great and renowned in history; others bore designations only chronicled in the records of criminal jurisprudence. All were well dressed, and, so far as cursory notice could detect, possessed the ease and bearing of men familiar with the habits of good society. Although mixing in very distinct circles, here, at least, they met every day on terms of familiar equality, discussing the politics of the hour and the events of the world with seeming frankness and candor.

From a small chamber at the back of the cafe, a little tide of loungers seemed to ebb and flow; while the sharp rattling sound of a dice-box indicated the nature of the occupation that went forward there. The small apartment was thronged with spectators of the game; and even around the door several were standing, content to hear the tidings of a contest they could not witness.

“To sit upon the Ponte Carraja, and chuck rouleaux of gold into the Arno, would be to the full as amusing, and not a more costly pastime,” said a sharp, ringing voice, which, once heard, there was no difficulty in recognizing as Haggerstone’s.

“But Onslow plays well,” said another.

“When he’s in luck, sir,” said the Colonel. “Let him always have the winning horse to ride, and I don’t say he ‘ll lose the saddle; but Maraffi would win on a donkey.”

“Is he a Russian?” asked one.

“No, sir, he ‘s worse; he ‘s a Greek. I know everything about him. His mother was a Finlander, and the father a Cephalonian. I don’t think Satan himself would ask a better parentage.”

“What luck! By Jove! I never saw such luck!” said a voice from within the door. “Onslow has no chance with him.”

“Nor will you, sir, if you persist in expressing your opinion in English,” said Haggerstone. “Maraffi speaks every language, plays every game, and knows the use of every weapon, from a jereed to a Joe Manton.”

“I ‘ll not test his abilities at any of them,” said the other, laughing.

“Per Baccho! there goes something new,” said a young Italian, from the window that looked into the street. “Who’s she?”

“Diantre!” said the old Duc de Parivaux. “That is something very exquisite, indeed. She was splashed by that carriage that passed, and I just saw her foot.”

“She’s the prima donna from Milan.”

“She ‘s the Cipriani. I know her figure perfectly.”

“She ‘s very like the Princesse de Raoule.”

“Taller, and younger.”

“And fifty times handsomer. What eyes! By Jove! I wish the drosky would never move on! She is regularly imprisoned there.”

“You are very ungallant, gentlemen, I must say,” said the young Count de Guilmard, the French secretary of legation, who, having finished his coffee and liquor, coolly arranged his curls beneath his hat before the glass, “very ungallant, indeed, not to offer an arm to an unprotected princess. We Frenchmen understand our devoirs differently.” And, so saying, he passed out into the street, while the rest pressed up closer to the window to observe his proceedings.

“Cleverly done, Guilmard!” cried one. “See how he affects to have protected her from the pole of that carriage.”

“She ‘ll not notice him.” “She will.” “She has.” “She has n’t.” “She is moving his way!” “Not at all.”

“She ‘s speaking!” “There, I told you he ‘d succeed.”

“But he hasn’t, though.” Amid all these phrases, which rattled on more rapidly than we can write them, Onslow joined the party, one heavy venture on a single card having involved him in a tremendous loss.

“Is that a countrywoman of yours, Onslow?” asked a young Russian noble. “If so, the entente cordiale with France seems scarcely so secure as statesmen tell us.”

Onslow gave one glance through the window, and dashed into the street with a bound like the spring of a wild animal. He threw himself between Guilmard and Kate. The Frenchman lifted his cane, and the same instant he fell backwards upon the pavement, rather hurled than struck down by the strong arm of the young Guardsman. Before the lookers-on could hasten out, George had hailed a carriage, and, assisting Kate in, took his seat beside her, and drove off.

So sudden was the whole incident, and so engrossing the terror of poor Kate’s mind, that she saw nothing of what passed, and was merely conscious that by George’s opportune coming she was rescued from the insolent attentions of the stranger.

“Did he speak to you? Did he dare to address you?” asked Onslow, in a voice which boiling passion rendered almost unintelligible.

“If he did, I know not,” said she, as she covered her face with shame, and struggled against the emotion that almost choked her.

“He took your arm; he certainly laid hold of your hand!”

“It was all so rapid that I can tell nothing,” said she, sobbing; “and although my courage never failed me till you came, then I thought I should have fainted.”

“But how came you alone, and on foot, and at such an hour, too? Where had you been?”

These questions he put with a sort of stern resolution that showed no evasive answer would rescue her.

“Did you leave home without a carriage, or even a servant?” asked he again, as no answer was returned to his former question.

“I did take a carriage in the morning; and and – ”

“Sent it away again,” continued George, impetuously. “And where did you drive to, where pass the day?”

Kate hung her head in silence, while her heart felt as if it would burst from very agony.

“This is no idle curiosity of mine, Miss Dalton,” said he, speaking with a slow and measured utterance. “The society you have mixed with here is not above any reproach nor beneath any suspicion. I insist upon knowing where you have been, and with whom? So, then, you refuse to speak, you will not tell. If it be Lady Hester’s secret – ”

“No, no! The secret is mine, and mine only. I swear to you, by all we both believe in, that it has no concern with any one save myself.”

“And can you not confide it to me? Have I no right to ask for the confidence, Kate?” said he, with tenderness.

“Know you any one more deeply and sincerely your friend than I am, more ready to aid, protect, or counsel you?”

“But this I cannot – must not tell you,” said she, in accents broken by sobbing.

“Let me know, at least, enough to refute the insolence of an imputation upon your conduct. I cannot tamely sit by and hear the slanderous stories that to-morrow or next day will gain currency through the town.”

“I cannot, I cannot,” was all that she could utter.

“If not me, then, choose some other defender. Unprotected and undefended you must not be.”

“I need none, sir; none will asperse me!” said she, haughtily.

“What! you say this? while scarce five minutes since I saw you outraged, insulted in the open street?”

A burst of tears, long repressed, here broke from Kate; and for some minutes her sobs alone were heard in the silence.

“I will ask but one question more, Miss Dalton,” said George, slowly, as the carriage passed under the arched gateway of the Palace, “and then this incident is sealed to me forever. Is this secret whatever it be in your own sole keeping; or is your confidence shared in by another?”

“It is,” murmured Kate, below her breath.

“You mean that it is shared?” asked he, eagerly.

“Yes, Mr. Jekyl at least knows – ”

“Jekyl!” cried George, passionately; “and is Alfred Jekyl your adviser and your confidant? Enough; you have told me quite enough,” said he, dashing open the door of the carriage as it drew up to the house. He gave his hand to Kate to alight, and then, turning away, left her, without even a “good-bye,” while Kate hurried to her room, her heart almost breaking with agony.

“I shall be late, Nina,” said she, affecting an air and voice of unconcern, as she entered her room; “you must dress me rapidly.”

“Mademoiselle must have been too pleasantly engaged to remember the hour,” said the other, with an easy pertness quite different from her ordinary manner.

More struck by the tone than by the words themselves, Kate turned a look of surprise on the speaker.

“It is so easy to forget one’s self at Morlache’s, they say,” added the girl, with a saucy smile; and although stung by the impertinence, Kate took no notice of the speech. “Mademoiselle will of course never wear that dress again,” said Nina, as she contemptuously threw from her the mud-stained and rain-spotted dress she had worn that morning. “We have a Basque proverb, Mademoiselle, about those who go out in a carriage and come back on foot.”

“Nina, what do you mean by these strange words and this still more strange manner?” asked Kate, with a haughtiness she had never before assumed towards the girl.

“I do not pretend to say that Mademoiselle has not the right to choose her confidantes, but the Principessa de San Martello and the Duchessa di Rivoli did not think me beneath their notice.”

“Nina, you are more unintelligible than ever,” cried Kate, who still, through all the dark mystery of her words, saw the lowering storm of coming peril.

“I may speak too plainly, too bluntly, Mademoiselle, but I can scarcely be reproached with equivocating; and I repeat that my former mistresses honored me with their secret confidence; and they did wisely, too, for I should have discovered everything of myself, and my discretion would not have been fettered by a compact.”

“But if I have no secrets,” said Kate, drawing herself up with a proud disdain, “and if I have no need either of the counsels or the discretion of my waiting-woman?”

“In that case,” said Nina, quietly, “Mademoiselle has only perilled herself for nothing. The young lady who leaves her carriage and her maid to pass three hours at Morlache’s, and returns thence, on foot, after nightfall, may truly say she has no secrets, at least, so far as the city of Florence is concerned.”

“This is insolence that you never permitted yourself before,” said Kate, passionately.

“And yet, if I were Mademoiselle’s friend instead of her servant, I should counsel her to bear it.”

“But I will not,” cried Kate, indignantly. “Lady Hester shall know of your conduct this very instant.”

“One moment, Mademoiselle, just one moment,” said Nina, interposing herself between Kate and the door. “My tongue is oftentimes too ready, and I say things for which I am deeply sorry afterwards. Forgive me, I beg and beseech you, if I have offended; reject my counsels, disdain my assistance, if you will, but do not endanger yourself in an instant of anger. If you have but little control over your temper, I have even less over mine; pass out of that door as my enemy, and I am yours to the last hour of my life.”

There was a strange and almost incongruous mixture of feeling in the way she uttered these words; at one moment abject in submission, and at the next hurling a defiance as haughty as though she were an injured equal. The conflict of the girl’s passion, which first flushed, now left her pale as death, and trembling in every limb. Her emotion bespoke the most intense feeling, and Kate stood like one spellbound, before her. Her anger had already passed away, and she looked with almost a sense of compassion at the excited features and heaving bosom of the Spanish girl.

“You wrong yourself and me too, Nina,” said Kate Dalton, at last. “I have every trust in your fidelity, but I have no occasion to test it.”

“Be it so, Mademoiselle,” replied the other, with a courtesy.

“Then all is forgotten,” said Kate, affecting a gayety she could not feel; “and now let me hasten downstairs, for I am already late.”

“The Prince will have thought it an hour, Mademoiselle,” said the girl; the quiet demureness of her manner depriving the words of any semblance of impertinence. If Kate looked gravely, perhaps some little secret source of pleasure lay hid within her heart; and in the glance she gave at her glass, there was an air of conscious triumph that did not escape the lynx-eyed Nina.