Quintin Ferrars was gone, and Miss Ballinger acknowledged to herself
that she missed his visits greatly. His conversation, it is true,
aroused her combativeness as no one else's did; but then, no one
interested, and at the same time puzzled her, as did this strange man.
It cannot be said that she thought much of him when alone, for her mind
was still engrossed with the image of a very different person, between
whom and herself a gulf, wider than the Atlantic, had been fixed. But
in the human procession that passed daily before her eyes, no figure
was as vivid as that of Ferrars, none that she could have missed as
she did his. Under no circumstances could she have loved this man--his
nature was not heroic. And the only men who had exercised, or could by
any possibility ever exercise, an influence on her life, had, whether
rightly or wrongly, seemed to her as heroes. For Quintin Ferrars she
felt very sorry, but no respect. His existence appeared to be a wasted
one. She admired his intellectual capacity; his very strangeness had
a certain attraction for her; the knowledge that there was some real
cause for his unhappiness, though she was ignorant of that cause, all
made him an interesting person in her eyes. But there her feeling for
him stopped. The more she studied his character, the more she felt that
there was something which evaded her. He had shirked a duty; he had not
fallen in a fair stand-up fight with life--he almost acknowledged as
much--and it is not of such stuff that heroes are made.
But Grace Ballinger was a woman, and not above a woman's weaknesses.
She liked appreciation--admiration--call it what you will; and, though
possessed of no craving to have a man always at her feet, the constant
occupation--it might almost be called the devotion--of a clever and
original one was certainly agreeable to her. She did not even now
realize all that this meant to Ferrars. He sought her as he did no
one else; but his reticence as to his own feelings on every personal
subject blinded her to the fact that she was growing to be of paramount
importance in his scheme for the future. They had now been nearly a
month in New York, and had met almost daily, yet it never occurred to
her to regard his assiduity in a very serious light. Her view of it was
that he found an intellectual pleasure in her society, nothing more.
He was too self-absorbed in brooding over past troubles to feel any
longer a passionate interest in any one. Mordaunt, standing further
off, discovered what she did not. We cannot see the object accurately
that is held too close to our eyes.
And so it came to pass that when he bade her good-by, with a certain
rigidity and difficulty of utterance, she expressed her sorrow at his
departure with more than her usual frankness.
"I am so sorry you are going. I hope you will try and be at Brackly
when we are there."
"Yes. You may depend on that. Mrs. Courtly will write to me; she has
promised."
"I fancy we shall not be there beyond the middle of February, and I
think, from what my brother said yesterday, he means to go to Boston
straight from here."
Mordaunt had dropped something more than this, to wit--that Miss
Planter was a friend of Mrs. Courtly's, and was going to stay at
Brackly in February. But Grace did not give this reason for the faith
that was in her as regarded her brother's movements.
"I hope you are going to do your duty as a good American citizen," she
said, smiling, as she shook his hand.
"I am going to fulfil the law, at all events," he returned, grimly. And
then he departed.
What an odd man he was, to be sure! How difficult it was to understand
him! Perhaps the explanation of it was that the lens of his mental
photographic apparatus was ill-adjusted: not only were the shadows too
black, the objects themselves were distorted; and the nearer they stood
in relation to him, the more they were out of focus.
Mrs. Van Winkle's party that evening was no compromise. She had nailed
her colors fast to the staff of fashion; and literature, save in
her own fair person, was unrepresented. Mr. Sims, who stood on the
borderland of the two worlds, and the young painter, Michael Angelo
Brown, at present engaged on a portrait of Mrs. Van Winkle in the
character of Diana, with a crescent on her head and a bow in her
hand--these were the pinches of salt thrown in to flavor the social
compound, with a regard to Miss Ballinger's appetite for something
stronger than a fashionable _soufflé_. It is true that bright creature,
Mrs. Siebel, was of the party, whose shrewd perceptions and ebullient
sense of fun irradiated any circle. But then, in Mrs. Van Winkle's
eyes, she was first of all a woman of fashion; only a delightful human
being afterwards. For Sir Mordaunt, Mrs. Van Winkle felt herself to be
feast enough; but with the happy confidence of a woman who fears no
rivalry, she had selected two pretty units of the "Four Hundred" to
add brilliancy to the entertainment. She looked unusually well herself,
in pale blue velvet, with powdered hair, and pearls. When Grace
remarked how much they became her, she whispered,
"Diamonds are getting so vulgar! Look at the poor dear princess. She is
always like a badly-made _blanc-mange_, but to-night she looks as if
she had been upset in a jeweller's window, and had got mixed up with
the diamonds."
For the Princess Lamperti's ample white form was resplendent with
jewels, two necklaces defining a waist which it would have taken a
life-guardsman to encircle. Not wholly unlike a life-guardsman was
Mr. George Ray, who was on her left, while the host sat between her
and Miss Ballinger. He was a well-favored gentleman of fifty, with
extremely good manners, and not much besides. The dinner was perfect,
and the ingenuity with which it was _colored_ gave rise to some
amusement, of the thin, obvious kind which any one can enjoy. The table
was covered with forget-me-nots growing out of moss, procured for Mrs.
Van Winkle with infinite difficulty at this season. The candle-shades
were pale blue; the bills of fare were printed, as were the names
of the guests, on pale blue cards. Of course the _menu_ began with
Blue Point oysters. Then there was a _Potage à la Mazarin_, having
an occult reference to the tint associated with the cardinal of that
name. This was followed by _Truites au bleu_, and what Mrs. Van Winkle
had christened "True-blue Fillets of Salmon." After that there came a
compote of "blue-rock pigeons," and I know not what other birds of the
air, and _entrées_ of meat which had been re-christened for the nonce.
In the second course there was a jelly of blueberries, I remember, and
finally the _menu_ closed with a _fondu au cordon bleu_.
On the other side of Grace was Mr. Sims. He fired his little shots
alternately at the hostess, the princess, and other ladies across the
table, breaking up the _têtes-à-têtes_ with the laughter which followed
his assaults.
"I never saw so becoming a 'fit of the blues' as your dress, Mrs. Van
Winkle," he declared.
"It is quite too sweet of you to say so; you don't generally pay
compliments."
"He would not have done so now but for the temptation of the pun,"
laughed Mrs. Siebel. "I wonder he did not get in something about 'blue
stockings.'"
"It was an oversight," he replied, merrily. "Couldn't you have
concocted a dish '_au bas-bleu_,' Mrs. Van Winkle?"
"You don't suppose I did not think of it? My avoidance of that
opprobrious term was deliberate. Literary women never understand
the art of eating; I am the exception. With me it is a _fine_ art.
Observe the combination in this _menu_. The sequence of flavors is as
delicately felt as the juxtaposition of colors on Titian's canvases."
"You mean it is a 'symphony in blue'?"
"Exactly. You think you are making an epigram, Mr. Sims. You are
uttering the simple truth. There are no harsh discords here. You are
led up from one dish to another; you may eat straight through this
dinner. You will find that all the surprises _resolve_ themselves, like
the surprises in harmony."
"Great Scot!" cried Mr. Sims. "I had no idea eating was allied to
music, as well as to painting! It only remains to drag in poetry."
"Oh!" interposed Grace, "she requires no dragging. Does not she step
in of her own accord? From Homer downwards all the grand, healthy
old poets take delight in the pleasures of the table. It is only the
morbid, attenuated school that feed on rose-leaves."
"That reminds me of the 'Souls,' that exclusive society of æsthetes in
London we have heard so much about," said Mrs. Van Winkle. "Are you a
'Soul,' Miss Ballinger?"
Grace laughed. "I am no_body_, but I am not a 'Soul'."
"I should like to be one," sighed her hostess. "But must I abandon all
the pleasures of the flesh to be admitted to this spiritual community?"
"No; some female 'Souls' are very corporeally active--a sort of
'Walkyre'--spirits on horseback. They ride; they hunt."
"In couples?" asked the hostess, with an air of infantine innocence.
"Only misanthropes like doing things alone," returned Grace, with a
smile. "I am sure I don't."
"Nor I!" cried Mrs. Siebel.
"My dear, who is prepared to contradict you?" Mrs. Van Winkle played
with a morsel of jelly on the end of her fork, as she spoke. "We all
love humanity too much. Yes, I wish I were a 'Soul'!"
"Well!" said Sims, reflectively, with a funny twitch of his mouth,
"you fence beautifully, and I have seen you dance a _pas seul_--two
recommendations, I believe, to Souldom." Then, turning to the large
lady, who certainly looked as if she could neither fence nor dance a
_pas seul_, he continued, "And you, princess, what do _you_ say? Do you
feel like being a 'Soul'?"
The princess paused, and looked grave, before she replied,
"I don't quite know what it all means, Mr. Sims; but if it has
anything to do with ghosts, and visions, and second sight, I have the
best right to join the society, for I am very _croyante_. I have had
_such_ experiences! Ah!"
"Do tell us about them."
"A ghost story first hand! How delightful!" said several people round
the table.
"Not now, not while we are at table," returned the princess. "Perhaps
by and by." And no one had the bad taste to insist further.
But Mrs. Van Winkle, who, no matter at what cost, was never content to
play second fiddle, here observed,
"I once saw a ghost--or what I took to be a ghost--in St. Petersburg,
in the dusk of the evening, in my room. I was dreadfully frightened. It
proved to be a Russian; those foreigners are so very enterprising. He
had long shown his admiration. He now sprang at me with a drawn sword
in his hand. Happily, I was near the bell, or it might have been very
awkward."
"And what became of the ghost?" asked Mordaunt, biting his lips. "Did
you have him arrested?"
"Oh, no, I felt too much compassion for him, poor man! Indeed, I was
very much touched. There is so little romance in this present day."
"What a charming, comprehensive word that is, my dear Mrs. Van
Winkle!" laughed Sims. "It includes murder, highway robbery, and now, I
see, other little offences!"
A good deal of amusement was caused by this peculiar revelation, and
one can only imagine the narrator intended that such should be the
result. I am confident she rarely expected to be taken seriously. If
she could shock or astonish her audience by her utterances she was
satisfied. She had certainly driven the ghosts from the field.
But when dinner was over, and the men had rejoined the ladies in that
bower of embroideries and perfume where Mrs. Van Winkle received her
guests, lapped in languorous repose on satin cushions, and no one's
face could be distinguished under the dim, irreligious light of
silk-shrouded lamps, then the narrator of abnormal experiences, being
pressed by her hostess, began, without reluctance, without a shadow of
hesitation,
"It will be five years ago next May, I was in Rome and alone. The
prince had left me to go to Palermo--on business, as he said. I had
only been married three years at this time, and though I cannot say
I was happy, no!--I still loved my husband. I was not completely
_desillusionnée_. I knew he was _volage_, but I had no reason to
suspect that he was quite--how do you say?--estranged from me. I gave
him a liberal allowance, over and above what had been settled on him
at our marriage, and he always treated me with, well--with respect. He
was not _passionné_, no--but I thought, _enfin_, I thought it was not
his nature. Well! he went to Palermo, and I had a letter from him in
the course of a few days, saying his business was advancing favorably,
though slowly. He would probably be detained longer than he expected.
I was not anxious, I was not uneasy about him--why should I be?--when
I went to bed that night. That made my dream the more extraordinary,
_tout à fait saisissante_. I saw him in a garden, under a tree. Beside
him stood a dark woman, whose face was quite distinct. I could have
drawn it. She gave him some fruit."
"Were they in the condition of Adam and Eve?" murmured Mrs. Van Winkle,
from her pile of satin cushions.
"Oh, no," continued the princess, gravely, "she had on a yellow gown,
trimmed with _broderie Anglaise_. I can see it now! He was dressed
in gray tweed. He ate the fruit she gave him, and then gradually,
gradually, I saw his face change color, and the expression, ah! _il
avait un air méchant_. I had never seen him look like that before--he
was almost green, his features hideously distorted. He fell down at her
feet, and I knew that she had poisoned him. I woke with a scream!"
"No wonder. You must yourself have eaten something that disagreed with
you, princess!" said Sims.
She shook her head. "No, but my dream disagreed with me! Ah! I was
quite _boulversée_, I could not sleep again, and still I saw them
distinctly before me. In the morning I rang for my maid, and said I
would start for Palermo. My family tried to dissuade me from following
my husband, but I said I knew some misfortune had happened to him, or
would happen, if I did not go. What I had dreamed was a _presentiment_;
and so persuaded of this was I, that when I reached Naples, though a
great hurricane was blowing, and I am a dreadful sailor--_je souffre
horriblement_--I insisted on embarking. They told me the steamer was a
very bad one, and really not fit to put to sea in such weather, but I
was firm. _Que voulez vous?_ I was possessed with the idea. We had a
terrible passage, but at last we reached Palermo, and I drove to the
Hôtel des Palmes. I was dreadfully nervous; I scarcely dared ask after
my husband, but they told me he was quite well--he was in the garden,
so I followed him. I could not rest till I had seen, with my own eyes,
that he did not look as he had done in my dream. I found him under a
tree, a palm-tree, in his gray tweed suit, seated beside a brunette
dressed in yellow--that Madame Moretto, _who has poisoned his life ever
since_!"
"And does that account for his looking as he does--so very
unwholesome--princess?" asked Mrs. Van Winkle.
"Ah! I saw a change in that minute, when he looked up and perceived
me. Ah! he turned green, just as I had seen him in my dream--_d'un ton
verdâtre_--and his expression, it was terrible! That was the beginning
of all my trouble, which lasted nearly five years, before I consented
to divorce him. He went to live in Paris, and, having no Italian
property, became a French subject. This enabled me to do so. Have I not
reason, _ma chere_, to believe in spiritual warnings, second sight,
and--and so on?"
Of course every one declared that it was the most interesting and
remarkable instance of spiritual premonition that he or she had ever
heard, direct from the fountain-head. Only Mr. Sims made a captious
remark, to the effect that the vision seemed to have been quite
useless--it had resulted in the princess being very seasick, and very
unhappy some time before she need have been; otherwise, the warning had
produced no effect, one way or the other.
Grace listened to all this in silence. It was amazing to her that any
one could bring herself to relate deliberately so painful an episode
in her past, to hand it over, as it were, for analysis to a cold and
curious circle, eager, indeed, for "some new thing," but not even
pretending to feel any warm sympathy for the lady's domestic woes.
It confirmed Grace in the opinion that those woes could not be very
deep-seated. No doubt this soft feather-bed of a woman had suffered
to some extent, but not to the extent which she herself believed--not
as a proud, passionate, sensitive nature would have suffered in like
circumstances. To such a one it would have been impossible to make
them the subject of after-dinner discussion, in a circle of the merest
acquaintance.
She was at some distance from the princess, and Madame Siebel, who sat
near her, whispered,
"You can take a horse to the water, but you can't make him drink. He
was dead sick of his wife five years ago, so she would have done better
to set him free then."
"In England we don't think that sort of millstone should be so easily
slipped off the neck," returned Grace, half seriously and half
playfully. "She has only just divorced him, then?"
"Only just. He is waiting now, I believe, for Madame Moretto to divorce
_her_ husband in order to marry her."
"Good gracious! Has _she_ got a husband also? And what is the plea in
_her_ case?--or is it the husband who divorces _her_!"
"No. He is passive, I am told, in the matter. She pleads desertion,
though of course that is all nonsense, for she is ever so rich, and
left him years ago. The curious thing is, no one knew she had a husband
until the prince was free to marry her. Then it came out she had been
clandestinely married to some American, who had separated from her,
when he discovered the sort of woman she was."
"Well! I must say these divorces by mutual consent seem very easily
obtained in your country."
"Yes, if you are in the right State. I don't mean state of mind or
body--I mean if you go and live for six months in a State where it is
the law. Madame Moretto has come over here expressly for that purpose,
and is living in Rhode Island, I am told, where divorce is made easy.
It is not so in New York."
"But I have seen her here twice?"
"Oh! they have only been over for the day. It is a funny story, isn't
it?--this sort of double game of chess. To make it complete, the
American ought now to marry the princess."
"I should think she had had enough of matrimony."
"Oh, dear, no. She is just the woman to marry again. A husband is a
luxury that sort of woman cannot forego. I shouldn't wonder if George
Ray the Third were the fortunate man."
"That young Adonis? Do you mean that he--? Oh! impossible!"
"Impossible that he should propose? Not at all. He is awfully hard
up. The only gold, I believe, he possesses is in his teeth." Here she
laughed merrily. "Sometimes I think we take a pride in the amount of
gold we stuff into our mouths. Talk about the gold-fields, I will back
a fashionable churchyard to beat them as a mine of wealth."
Grace could not help laughing.
"I heard of a man who had a front tooth stuffed with a diamond, but I
didn't believe it."
"Why not? Young men addicted to precious stones have so few
opportunities of displaying them. If George Ray the Third marries the
princess, I'll suggest to him that he should wear one of hers, instead
of that lump of gold, in his eye-tooth."
The princess here rose. It was time to go to the assembly, of which she
was a patroness, and whither nearly all the party present were bound.