On leaving his cousin's house Graham walked on, he scarce knew or cared
whither, the image of the beloved dead so forcibly recalled the solemnity
of the mission with which he had been intrusted, and which hitherto he
had failed to fulfil. What if the only mode by which he could, without
causing questions and suspicions that might result in dragging to day the
terrible nature of the trust he held, enrich the daughter of Richard
King, repair all wrong hitherto done to her, and guard the sanctity of
Lady Janet's home,--should be in that union which Richard King had
commended to him while his heart was yet free? In such a case, would not
gratitude to the dead, duty to the living, make that union imperative at
whatever sacrifice of happiness to himself? The two years to which
Richard King had limited the suspense of research were not yet expired.
Then, too, that letter of Lady Janet's,--so tenderly anxious for his
future, so clear-sighted as to the elements of his own character in its
strength or its infirmities--combined with graver causes to withhold his
heart from its yearning impulse, and--no, not steel it against Isaura,
but forbid it to realise, in the fair creature and creator of romance,
his ideal of the woman to whom an earnest, sagacious, aspiring man
commits all the destinies involved in the serene dignity of his hearth.
He could not but own that this gifted author--this eager seeker after
fame--this brilliant and bold competitor with men on their own stormy
battle-ground-was the very person from whom Lady Janet would have warned
away his choice. She (Isaura) merge her own distinctions in a
husband's;--she leave exclusively to him the burden of fame and calumny!
--she shun "to be talked about!" she who could feel her life to be a
success or a failure, according to the extent and the loudness of the
talk which it courted!
While these thoughts racked his mind, a kindly hand was laid on his arm,
and a cheery voice accosted him. "Well met, my dear Vane! I see we are
bound to the same place; there will be a good gathering to-night."
"What do you mean, Bevil? I am going nowhere, except to my own quiet
rooms."
"Pooh! Come in here at least for a few minutes,"--and Bevil drew him up
to the door-step of a house close by, where, on certain evenings, a well-
known club drew together men who seldom meet so familiarly elsewhere--men
of all callings; a club especially favoured by wits, authors, and the
_flaneurs_ of polite society.
Graham shook his head, about to refuse, when Bevil added, "I have just
come from Paris, and can give you the last news, literary, political, and
social. By the way, I saw Savarin the other night at the Cicogna's--he
introduced me there." Graham winced; he was spelled by the music of a
name, and followed his acquaintance into the crowded room, and, after
returning many greetings and nods, withdrew into a remote corner, and
motioned Bevil to a seat beside him.
"So you met Savarin? Where, did you say?"
"At the house of the new lady-author--I hate the word authoress--
Mademoiselle Cicogna! Of course you have read her book?"
"Yes."
"Full of fine things, is it not?--though somewhat highflown and
sentimental: however, nothing succeeds like success. No book has been
more talked about at Paris: the only thing more talked about is the lady-
author herself."
"Indeed, and how?"
"She doesn't look twenty, a mere girl--of that kind of beauty which so
arrests the eye that you pass by other faces to gaze on it, and the
dullest stranger would ask, 'Who, and what is she?' A girl, I say, like
that--who lives as independently as if she were a middle-aged widow,
receives every week (she has her Thursdays), with no other chaperon than
an old _ci-devant_ Italian singing woman, dressed like a guy--must set
Parisian tongues into play even if she had not written the crack book of
the season."
"Mademoiselle Cicogna receives on Thursdays,--no harm in that; and if she
have no other chaperon than the Italian lady you mention, it is because
Mademoiselle Cicogna is an orphan, and having a fortune, such as it is,
of her own, I do not see why she should not live as independently as many
an unmarried woman in London placed under similar circumstances. I
suppose she receives chiefly persons in the literary or artistic world,
and if they are all as respectable as the Savarins, I do not think ill-
nature itself could find fault with her social circle."
"Ah! you know the Cicogna, I presume. I am sure I did not wish to say
anything that could offend her best friends, only I do think it is a pity
she is not married, poor girl!"
"Mademoiselle Cicogna, accomplished, beautiful, of good birth (the
Cicogna's rank among the oldest of Lombard families), is not likely to
want offers."
"Offers of marriage,--h'm--well, I dare say, from authors and artists.
You know Paris better even than I do, but I don't suppose authors and
artists there make the most desirable husbands; and I scarcely know a
marriage in France between a man-author and lady-author which does not
end in the deadliest of all animosities--that of wounded _amour propre_.
Perhaps the man admires his own genius too much to do proper homage to
his wife's."
"But the choice of Mademoiselle Cicogna need not be restricted to the
pale of authorship--doubtless she has many admirers beyond that
quarrelsome borderland."
"Certainly-countless adorers. Enguerrand de Vandemar--you know that
diamond of dandies?"
"Perfectly--is he an admirer?"
"_Cela va sans dire_--he told me that though she was not the handsomest
woman in Paris, all other women looked less handsome since he had seen
her. But, of course, French lady-killers like Enguerrand, when it comes
to marriage, leave it to their parents to choose their wives and arrange
the terms of the contract. Talking of lady-killers, I beheld amid the
throng at Mademoiselle Cicogna's the _ci-devant_ Lovelace whom I remember
some twenty-three years ago as the darling of wives and the terror of
husbands-Victor de Mauleon."
"Victor de Mauleon at Mademoiselle Cicogna's!--what, is that man restored
to society?"
"Ah! you are thinking of the ugly old story about the jewels--oh, yes, he
has got over that; all his grand relations, the Vandemars, Beauvilliers,
Rochebriant, and others, took him by the hand when he reappeared at Paris
last year; and though I believe he is still avoided by many, he is
courted by still more--and avoided, I fancy, rather from political than
social causes. The Imperialist set, of course, execrate and prescribe
him. You know he is the writer of those biting articles signed Pierre
Firmin in the Sens Commun; and I am told he is the proprietor of that
very clever journal, which has become a power."
"So, so--that is the journal in which Mademoiselle Cicogna's roman first
appeared. So, so--Victor de Mauleon one of her associates, her
counsellor and friend--ah!"
"No, I didn't say that; on the contrary, he was presented to her the
first time the evening I was at the house. I saw that young silk-haired
coxcomb, Gustave Rameau, introduce him to her. You don't perhaps know
Rameau, editor of the Sens Commun--writes poems and criticisms. They say
he is a Red Republican, but De Mauleon keeps truculent French politics
subdued if not suppressed in his cynical journal. Somebody told me that
the Cicogna is very much in love with Rameau; certainly he has a handsome
face of his own, and that is the reason why she was so rude to the
Russian Prince X-----."
"How rude! Did the Prince propose to her?"
"Propose! you forget--he is married. Don't you know the Princess? Still
there are other kinds of proposals than those of marriage which a rich
Russian prince may venture to make to a pretty novelist brought up for
the stage."
"Bevil!" cried Graham, grasping the man's arm fiercely, "how dare you?"
"My dear boy," said Bevil, very much astonished, "I really did not know
that your interest in the young lady was so great. If I have wounded you
in relating a mere _on dit_ picked up at the Jockey Club, I beg you a
thousand pardons. I dare say there was not a word of truth in it."
"Not a word of truth, you may be sure, if the _on dit_ was injurious to
Mademoiselle Cicogna. It is true, I have a strong interest in her; any
man--any gentleman--would have such interest in a girl so brilliant and
seemingly so friendless. It shames one of human nature to think that the
reward which the world makes to those who elevate its platitudes,
brighten its dulness, delight its leisure, is Slander! I have had the
honour to make the acquaintance of this lady before she became a
'celebrity,' and I have never met in my paths through life a purer heart
or a nobler nature. What is the wretched _on dit_ you condescend to
circulate? Permit me to add:
"'He who repeats a slander shares the crime.'"
"Upon my honour, my dear Vane," said Bevil seriously (he did not want for
spirit), "I hardly know you this evening. It is not because duelling is
out of fashion that a man should allow himself to speak in a tone that
gives offence to another who intended none; and if duelling is out of
fashion in England, it is still possible in France.--_Entre nous_, I
would rather cross the Channel with you than submit to language that
conveys unmerited insult."
Graham's cheek, before ashen pale, flushed into dark red. "I understand
you," he said quietly, "and will be at Boulogne to-morrow."
"Graham Vane," replied Bevil, with much dignity, "you and I have known
each other a great many years, and neither of us has cause to question
the courage of the other; but I am much older than yourself--permit me to
take the melancholy advantage of seniority. A duel between us in
consequence of careless words said about a lady in no way connected with
either, would be a cruel injury to her; a duel on grounds so slight would
little injure me--a man about town, who would not sit an hour in the
House of Commons if you paid him a thousand pounds a minute. But you,
Graham Vane--you whose destiny it is to canvass electors and make laws--
would it not be an injury to you to be questioned at the hustings why you
broke the law, and why you sought another man's life? Come, come! shake
hands and consider all that seconds, if we chose them, would exact, is
said, every affront on either side retracted, every apology on either
side made."
"Bevil, you disarm and conquer me. I spoke like a hotheaded fool; forget
it--forgive. But--but--I can listen calmly now--what is that _on dit_?"
"One that thoroughly bears out your own very manly upholding of the poor
young orphan, whose name I shall never again mention without such respect
as would satisfy her most sensitive champion. It was said that the
Prince X------ boasted that before a week was out Mademoiselle Cicogna
should appear in his carriage at the Bois de Boulogne, and wear at the
opera diamonds he had sent to her; that this boast was enforced by a
wager, and the terms of the wager compelled the Prince to confess the
means he had taken to succeed, and produce the evidence that he had lost
or won. According to this _on dit_, the Prince had written to
Mademoiselle Cicogna, and the letter had been accompanied by a _parure_
that cost him half a million of francs; that the diamonds had been sent
back with a few words of such scorn as a queen might address to an
upstart lackey. But, my dear Vane, it is a mournful position for the
girl to receive such offers; and you must agree with me in wishing she
were safely married, even to Monsieur Rameau, coxcomb though he be. Let
us hope that they will be an exception to French authors, male and
female, in general, and live like turtle-doves."