It seems strange and painful to Lauraine to go back to the gaiety and
brilliance of Baden after the quiet and rest of pretty, picturesque
little Bingen.
A large party of her old friends and acquaintances are at the
Badischer Hof, and her husband meets her at the station. Lady
Etwynde has returned to England.
"You are not looking well," says Sir Francis. "And how thin you have
become."
"I have not been very strong; this hot weather tries me so," she
answers; and then they enter their carriage and drive to the hotel in
the cool, sweet September twilight. Lauraine forces herself to talk,
to try and appear interested in the forthcoming race; but the sense
of strangeness produced by long absence and utter want of sympathy
with each other's tastes and pursuits makes itself felt again and
again. It is a relief when she finds herself alone in her own room.
But with Lady Etwynde's words ringing in her ears, with her new
resolves firm and close to her heart, she will not listen to whispers
of distaste and discontent. She enters more into the business of her
toilette than she has done since her child's death. She astonishes
her maid by her critical objections. When she descends she looks
like the Lauraine of old. Her cheeks are flushed with excitement,
her eyes burn with feverish brilliancy. Her soft, snowy robes seem
to make her beauty more fair, more young, more pathetic. The first
person to greet her is the Lady Jean--Lady Jean, handsomer, if a
little louder and stouter than ever, arrayed in a wonderful Louis
Quatorze costume, with glittering steel buttons and ornaments.
Consistent with her new _rôle_, Lauraine greets her very cordially,
and even smiles with less repugnance on "Jo," who is one of her
special detestations, and who looks even uglier, and more Jewish than
of yore.
They are a very brilliant party assembled here, and the theme on
every tongue is the coming race, and the wonderful English racer
owned by Sir Francis. Lauraine wonders a little to find the women
apparently as conversant with racecourse slang as the men--at the
fluency with which Lady Jean discourses on "training," and "hedging,"
and "running form," and "hard condition." It seems so long since she
was with women of this sort, women who ape the "lords of creation" in
manners, dress, and morals, that she feels bewildered and out of
place amidst them all.
When dinner is over they saunter out to the Kursaal. The band is
playing, the _salons_ are crowded. The lights sparkle amid the
trees, and fall on fair faces and lovely toilettes, on sovereigns of
the _demi-monde_, supreme and defiant; on other sovereigns and
celebrities, quite unobtrusive, undistinguished. They mingle with
the crowd. Lady Jean, Sir Francis, and Lauraine are walking on a
little in advance of the others. A fountain is throwing up showers
of silver spray, the white gleam of a statue shines through the
foliage; on the chairs beneath the trees two people are sitting--a
man and a woman.
The light falls on her face: it is very lovely, though owing much to
art. Her hair is of too vivid a gold to be quite natural; the great
grey eyes are swept by lashes many shades darker than their original
hue. She is talking and laughing loudly. The man leans carelessly
back on his seat, tilting it to an angle that threatens its upset and
his own. Perhaps it is that fact, reminding her so of a trick of
Keith's, that makes Lauraine look a second time. Her heart gives a
wild throb, she feels cold and sick with a sudden shame.
She sees it is Keith himself....
Just as they pass, the tilted chair is pulled back to its level with
a ringing laugh.
"I declare to you it's impossible to speak when you will not look,"
says a shrill French voice.
His eyes go straight to that passing figure. He starts, and his face
grows darkly red. The eyes meet for a second's space. In hers is
pained rebuke, in his--shame. There is no word, no sign of
recognition. But all the night seems full of dizzy pain to Keith.
"It is very annoying," murmurs Lady Jean the next morning, as she
sits at the breakfast-table. "Why could they not have gone somewhere
else?"
"What is annoying?" questions Lauraine, looking up from her chicken
cutlets at the clouded, handsome face opposite.
"Why, those Americans; one meets them everywhere! Hortense tells me
they arrived last night--that Woollffe woman, you know, and her
niece; and they have the next rooms to mine; and, of course, we will
meet them everywhere; and oh! I am so sick of them, you can't
imagine!"
"Mrs. Woollffe is a very kind-hearted woman," murmurs Lauraine. She
is pale and languid, and her eyes have a weary, sleepless look in
them that tells of many hours of wakefulness. She and Lady Jean are
alone.
"Kind-hearted!" echoes Lady Jean. "My dear, so is our greengrocer's
wife, or our dressmaker, for all we know; but that is no reason why
we should receive them in our drawing-rooms. Now, I have done my
best to avoid this dreadful woman, for two seasons, and here she is,
next door to me!"
"You are not bound to associate with her, if you are so exclusive,"
says Lauraine, a little contemptuously. "But there are many women
received in society who have not half the honesty and sterling worth
of Mrs. Bradshaw Woollffe."
"Of course," laughs Lady Jean, with unfeigned amusement; "but honesty
and sterling worth are rather humdrum things, don't you think? And
she is _so_ vulgar!"
"That should be a recommendation, I fancy," says Lauraine. "Almost
every one is vulgar nowadays."
"Ah, but there is a distinction! When a woman is really well born,
and has an established position, she may do what she likes. It is
these mushroom millionaires, these _nouveaux riches_, with their
lined pockets and their 'piles,' made out of every imaginable horror,
adulterating, swindling, coal-mining, shoe-blacking, heaven only
knows what, that are so odious and yet so formidable a power! They
push, they struggle, they scheme, they spend their money like water,
they have a craze for society, the very highest, the very best. They
take our snubs and insults, and flatter and fawn just the same only
for a card in their halls, a half-hour passage through their
drawing-rooms, the honour and glory of a 'name' to figure in a
society journal as one of their guests. Faugh! it is sickening!"
"But the society who eats and drinks and amuses itself at their
expense is alone to blame," says Lauraine calmly. "If people had
sufficient dignity and self-respect to oppose such innovations, to
keep these people at a distance, they could not force themselves in."
"But they are always so abominably rich," laughs Lady Jean. "That
excuses so much, you see; and then they let us treat them pretty much
as we please. It is a case of get all you want, give what you like."
"To me that always seems a very mean doctrine," says Lauraine gravely.
"Do you treat Mrs. Bradshaw Woollffe as an equal, then?" asks Lady
Jean ironically.
"If you mean do I know her one day and cut her the next, do I go to
her balls and be blind when we pass in the Row, I must say--no. She
comes to my house, I go to hers. She was extremely kind to me in
Rome, and I never forget kindness. She is not very ladylike, I
acknowledge, but I should be sorry to hurt her feelings because of
that. I do not consider a lady can ever affect her own dignity by
her behaviour to those whom society counts her inferiors. For my
part I like to be consistent. If we receive such people on account
of their wealth, we take them at their own valuation. We have no
right to smile on them one minute and insult them the next."
"You were always peculiar," says Lady Jean, with some asperity. "I
suppose that comes of high principles and poetic fancies. I always
go where I can be amused myself. It is the best thing to do after
all."
"To amuse oneself?" questions Lauraine. "And afterwards?"
"Oh, after that--the deluge," laughs Lady Jean, shaking out the
countless lace ruffles and frills of her cambric morning gown. "I
could not take life _au grand sérieux_; it would kill me. Oh, I know
what you would say. Excitement is frivolous, useless, wearing to our
nerves, destruction to health and beauty. Perhaps so. But you are
blessed with a serene temperament; I am not. I like to live, to
enjoy, to be in one whirl from morning till night. I don't care
about long life, peace, tranquillity. No, I want all I can, _while_
I can."
Lauraine looks at her curiously. She knows very little of Lady
Jean--only just so much as one woman in society does know of another
who moves in the same set, dances at the same balls, pursues the same
routine of enjoyments. But she knows she is popular and admired, on
good terms with the world at large, and an immense favourite with men.
"You don't agree with me, of course?" pursues Lady Jean, sipping her
claret, and looking amusedly at Lauraine's grave face. "I suppose
you have aims and ambitions and 'views' like your friend Lady
Etwynde? What a curious thing, by the way, that she should be a
friend of yours, or indeed, of anybody's except a peacock. She must
be dreadfully uninteresting!"
"I think her charming," answers Lauraine. "She is one of the few
true women it has been my lot to meet."
Lady Jean feels a little uncomfortable. She has long passed the
stage of blushing, or she would feel the colour mounting as she meets
Lauraine's calm, frank gaze.
"Is there any _arrière pensée_?" she thinks. "Is she less blind than
we imagine?"
"I can't imagine a woman getting enthusiastic _about_ a woman," she
says coolly. "Seems unnatural. Of course, I have no doubt the
æsthetic is very charming to those who can appreciate her. I never
could."
"I suppose not. I should scarcely think you had much in common,"
answers Lauraine dryly.
"Still," says Lady Jean, rising carelessly from the table, "it was a
little odd and unnatural that you should go away with her, and leave
your poor husband all to himself. If he hadn't been one of the most
good-natured men----"
"Pardon me," interrupts Lauraine, very coldly, "I would rather not
discuss my husband with anybody. You may rest assured I had his full
sanction for my 'unnatural' conduct. And, if you know anything of a
mother's feelings at all, you might suppose that I scarcely felt
inclined for the gaieties and frivolities of London life after so sad
a trial."
"Ah, yes; I forgot--the poor little angel," murmurs Lady Jean, her
eyelids drooping to hide the angry flash in her black eyes. "But--I
may be wrong--I don't know, only to me it always seemed that a wife's
first duty was to her husband."
"Pray, has my husband been complaining of me?" inquires Lauraine
haughtily.
Lady Jean smiles involuntarily. "My dear, no, of course not. I only
said--
"I quite understand," says Lauraine. "Perhaps I was selfish in my
grief. I don't know. I had not meant to be; but he chose the world,
and I, solitude. I should not be so unwise again, rest assured."
"What does she mean?" says Lady Jean to herself uncomfortably. "And
how strange she looked. Surely, surely, she cannot suspect!"
An hour afterwards she is strolling with Sir Francis through the
grounds of the Kursaal.
"_Mon cher_," she says, with a little mocking laugh, "I do believe
your wife is jealous. It is very amusing, but you had better be
careful all the same. I object to be one in a _chronique
scandaleuse_."
"Lauraine jealous?" exclaims Sir Francis. "What put that idea in
your head?"
"She herself," answers Lady Jean. "She says for the future she will
not be so neglectful of you. She is afraid she left you too much
alone. Is not that charming news? Does it not arouse very sweet
emotions?"
"Don't talk folly, Jean," mutters Sir Francis savagely. "You know,
or ought to know, how much I care for Lauraine. A poor, weak,
milk-and-water creature. Heavens! how could I have ever fancied
myself in love with her?"
"But you were, you know," says Lady Jean calmly. "Only, like all
men, you deny it when your fickle fancy changes. It is always the
_last_ who is the only real love."
"I know well enough who is my real love, last or first," he says
hoarsely; and his eyes flash bold, ardent admiration at her, under
the drooping foliage of the trees.
"Hush!" she whispers, and with a warning glance around. "You must
not say such words--in public!"