THE COMPACT OF FRIENDSHIP.
The one set of quadrilles had been danced, and Leone said to herself
that there was more pain than pleasure in it, when Lady Marion, with an
unusual glow of animation on her face, came to Leone, who was sitting
alone.
"Madame Vanira," she said, "it seems cruel to deprive others of the
pleasure of your society, but I should like to talk to you. I have some
pretty things which I have brought from Spain, which I should like to
show you. Will it please you to leave the ballroom and come with me, or
do you care for dancing?"
Leone smiled sadly; tragedy and comedy are always side by side, and it
seemed to her, who had had so terrible a tragedy in her life, who stood
face to face with so terrible a tragedy now, it seemed to her absurd
that she should think of dancing.
"I would rather talk to you," she replied, "than do anything else." The
two beautiful, graceful women left the ballroom together. Leone made
some remark on the magnificence of the rooms as they passed, and Lady
Chandos smiled.
"I am a very home-loving being myself. I prefer the pretty little
morning-room where we take breakfast, and my own boudoir, to any other
place in the house; they seem to be really one's own because no one else
enters them. Come to my boudoir now, Madame Vanira, and I will show you
a whole lot of pretty treasures that I brought from Spain."
"From Spain." She little knew how those words jarred even on Leone's
heart. It was in Spain they had intrigued to take her husband from her,
and while Lady Marion was collecting art treasures the peace and
happiness of her life had been wrecked, her fair name blighted, her love
slain. She wondered to herself at the strange turn of fate which had
brought her into contact with the one woman in all the world that she
felt she ought to have avoided. But there was no resisting Lady Marion
when she chose to make herself irresistible. There was something
childlike and graceful in the way in which she looked up to Madame
Vanira, with an absolute worship of her genius, her voice, and her
beauty. She laid her white hand on Leone's.
"You will think me a very gushing young lady, I fear, Madame Vanira, if
I say how fervently I hope we shall always be friends; not in the common
meaning of the words, but real, true, warm friends until we die. Have
you ever made such a compact of friendship with any one?"
Leone's heart smote her, her face flushed.
"Yes," she replied; "I have once."
Lady Chandos looked up at her quickly.
"With a lady, I mean?"
"No," said Leone; "I have no lady friends; indeed, I have few friends of
any kind, though I have many acquaintances."
Lady Marion's hand lingered caressingly on the white shoulder of Leone.
"Something draws me to you," she said; "and I cannot tell quite what it
is. You are very beautiful, but it is not that; the beauty of a woman
would never win me. It cannot be altogether your genius, though it is
without peer. It is a strange feeling, one I can hardly explain--as
though there was something sympathetic between us. You are not laughing
at me, Madame Vanira?"
"No, I am not laughing," said Leone, with wondering eyes. How strange it
was that Lance's wife, above all other women, should feel this curious,
sympathetic friendship for her!
They entered the beautiful boudoir together, and Lady Marion, with
pardonable pride, turned to her companion.
"Lord Chandos arranged this room for me himself. Have you heard the
flattering, foolish name for me that the London people have invented?
They call me the Queen of Blondes."
"That is a very pretty title," said Leone, "they call me a queen, the
Queen of Song."
And the two women who were, each in her way, a "queen," smiled at each
other.
"You see," continued Lady Chandos, "that my husband used to think there
was nothing in the world but blondes. I have often told him if I bring a
brunette here she is quite at a disadvantage; everything is blue, white,
or silver."
Leone looked round the sumptuous room; the ceiling was painted by a
master hand; all the story of Endymion was told there; the walls were
superbly painted; the hangings were of blue velvet and blue silk,
relieved by white lace; the carpet, of rich velvet pile, had a white
ground with blue corn-flowers, so artistically grouped they looked as
though they had fallen on the ground in picturesque confusion. The
chairs and pretty couch were covered with velvet; a hundred little
trifles that lay scattered over the place told that it was occupied by a
lady of taste; books in beautiful bindings, exquisite drawings and
photographs, a jeweled fan, a superb bouquet holder, flowers costly,
beautiful, and fragrant; a room that was a fitting shrine for a goddess
of beauty.
"My own room," said Lady Chandos, with a smile, as she closed the door;
"and what a luxury it is, Madame Vanira--a room quite your own! Even
when the house is full of visitors no one comes here but Lord Chandos;
he always takes that chair near those flowers while he talks to me, and
that is, I think, the happiest hour in the day. Sit down there
yourself."
Leone took the chair, and Lady Chandos sat down on a footstool by her
side. It was one of the most brilliant and picturesque pictures ever
beheld; the gorgeous room, with its rich hangings, the beautiful,
dark-eyed woman, with the Spanish face, her dress like softened
sunbeams, the fire of her rubies like points of flame, her whole self
lovely as a picture, and the fair Queen of Blondes, with the golden hair
and white roses--a picture that would have made an artist's fortune.
"How pleasant this is," said Lady Chandos, "a few minutes' respite from
the music and dancing! Do you love the quiet moments of your life,
Madame Vanira?"
Leone looked down on the fair, lovely face with a deep sigh.
"No, I think not," she replied; "I like my stage life best."
Lady Chandos asked, in a half pitying tone:
"Why did you go on the stage? Did you always like it?"
And Leone answered, gravely:
"A great sorrow drove me there."
"A great sorrow? How strange! What sorrow could come to one so
beautiful, so gifted as you?"
"A sorrow that crushed all the natural life in me," said Leone; "but we
will not speak of it. I live more in my life on the stage than in my
home life; that is desolate always."
She spoke unconsciously, and the heart of the fair woman who believed
herself so entirely beloved warmed with pity and kindness to the one
whose heart was so desolate.
"A great sorrow taught you to find comfort in an artificial life," she
said, gently; "it would not do that to me."
And her white hand, on which the wedding-ring shone, caressed the
beautiful white arm of Madame Vanira.
"What would it do to you?" asked Leone, slightly startled.
"A really great trouble," replied Lady Chandos, musingly, "what would it
do for me? Kill me. I have known so little of it; I cannot indeed
remember what could be called trouble."
"You have been singularly fortunate," said Leone, half enviously.
And the fair face of the Queen of Blondes grew troubled.
"Perhaps," she said, "all my troubles are to come. I should not like to
believe that."
She was quite silent for some few minutes, then, with a sigh, she said:
"You have made me feel nervous, and I cannot tell why. What trouble
could come to me? So far as I see, humanly speakingly, none. No money
troubles could reach me; sickness would hardly be a trouble if those I
loved were round me. Ah, well, that is common to every one." A look of
startled intelligence came over her face. "I know one, and only one
source of trouble," she said; "that would be if anything happened to
Lord Chandos, to--to my husband; if he did not love me, or I lost him."
She sighed as she uttered the last words, and the heart of the gifted
singer was touched by the noblest, kindest pity; she looked into the
fair, flower-like face.
"You love your husband then?" she said, with a gentle, caressing voice.
"Love him," replied Lady Chandos, her whole soul flashing in her
eyes--"love him? Ah, that seems to me a weak word! My husband is all the
world, all life to me. It is strange that I should speak to you, a
stranger, in this manner; but, as I told you before, my heart warms to
you in some fashion that I do not myself understand. I am not like most
people. I have so few to love. No father, no mother, no sisters, or
brothers. I have no one in the wide world but my husband; he is more to
me than most husbands are to most wives--he is everything."
Leone looked down on that fair, sweet face with loving eyes; the very
depths of her soul were touched by those simple words; she prayed God
that she might always remember them. There was infinite pathos in her
voice and in her face when she said:
"You are very happy, then, with your husband, Lady Marion?"
"Yes, I am very happy," said the young wife, simply. "My husband loves
me, I have no rivals, no jealousies, no annoyances; I may say I am
perfectly happy."
"I pray God that you may always be so!" said Leone, gently.
And with an impulse she could not resist she bent down and kissed the
sweet face.
Then Lady Chandos looked up.
"I am afraid," she said, "that our pleasant five minutes' chat is ended.
We must go back to the ballroom. I am afraid all your admirers will be
very angry with me, Madame Vanira."
"That is a matter of perfect indifference?" she replied. "I know you
better, Lady Marion, for those five minutes spent here than I should
have done during a century in ballrooms."
"And you promise that we shall always be friends," said the fair woman
who called herself Lady Chandos.
"I promise, and I will keep my word," said the beautiful singer, who had
believed herself to be his wife.
And with those words they parted.