THE STORY.
"With all my heart," said the General, with an effort; and after a short
pause in which to arrange his subject, he commenced one of the strangest
narratives I ever heard.
"My dear child was looking forward with great pleasure to the visit you
had been so good as to arrange for her to your charming daughter." Here
he made me a gallant but melancholy bow. "In the meantime we had an
invitation to my old friend the Count Carlsfeld, whose schloss is about
six leagues to the other side of Karnstein. It was to attend the series
of fêtes which, you remember, were given by him in honour of his
illustrious visitor, the Grand Duke Charles."
"Yes; and very splendid, I believe, they were," said my father.
"Princely! But then his hospitalities are quite regal. He has Aladdin's
lamp. The night from which my sorrow dates was devoted to a magnificent
masquerade. The grounds were thrown open, the trees hung with coloured
lamps. There was such a display of fireworks as Paris itself had never
witnessed. And such music--music, you know, is my weakness--such
ravishing music! The finest instrumental band, perhaps, in the world,
and the finest singers who could be collected from all the great operas
in Europe. As you wandered through these fantastically illuminated
grounds, the moon-lighted château throwing a rosy light from its long
rows of windows, you would suddenly hear these ravishing voices stealing
from the silence of some grove, or rising from boats upon the lake. I
felt myself, as I looked and listened, carried back into the romance and
poetry of my early youth.
"When the fireworks were ended, and the ball beginning, we returned to
the noble suite of rooms that were thrown open to the dancers. A masked
ball, you know, is a beautiful sight; but so brilliant a spectacle of
the kind I never saw before.
"It was a very aristocratic assembly. I was myself almost the only
'nobody' present.
"My dear child was looking quite beautiful. She wore no mask. Her
excitement and delight added an unspeakable charm to her features,
always lovely. I remarked a young lady, dressed magnificently, but
wearing a mask, who appeared to me to be observing my ward with
extraordinary interest. I had seen her, earlier in the evening, in the
great hall, and again, for a few minutes, walking near us, on the
terrace under the castle windows, similarly employed. A lady, also
masked, richly and gravely dressed, and with a stately air, like a
person of rank, accompanied her as a chaperon. Had the young lady not
worn a mask, I could, of course, have been much more certain upon the
question whether she was really watching my poor darling. I am now well
assured that she was.
"We were now in one of the _salons_. My poor dear child had been
dancing, and was resting a little in one of the chairs near the door; I
was standing near. The two ladies I have mentioned had approached, and
the younger took the chair next my ward; while her companion stood
beside me, and for a little time addressed herself, in a low tone, to
her charge.
"Availing herself of the privilege of her mask, she turned to me, and in
the tone of an old friend, and calling me by my name, opened a
conversation with me, which piqued my curiosity a good deal. She
referred to many scenes where she had met me--at Court, and at
distinguished houses. She alluded to little incidents which I had long
ceased to think of, but which, I found, had only lain in abeyance in my
memory, for they instantly started into life at her touch.
"I became more and more curious to ascertain who she was, every moment.
She parried my attempts to discover very adroitly and pleasantly. The
knowledge she showed of many passages in my life seemed to me all but
unaccountable; and she appeared to take a not unnatural pleasure in
foiling my curiosity, and in seeing me flounder, in my eager perplexity,
from one conjecture to another.
"In the meantime the young lady, whom her mother called by the odd name
of Millarca, when she once or twice addressed her, had, with the same
ease and grace, got into conversation with my ward.
"She introduced herself by saying that her mother was a very old
acquaintance of mine. She spoke of the agreeable audacity which a mask
rendered practicable; she talked like a friend; she admired her dress,
and insinuated very prettily her admiration of her beauty. She amused
her with laughing criticisms upon the people who crowded the ball-room,
and laughed at my poor child's fun. She was very witty and lively when
she pleased, and after a time they had grown very good friends, and the
young stranger lowered her mask, displaying a remarkably beautiful face.
I had never seen it before, neither had my dear child. But though it was
new to us, the features were so engaging, as well as lovely, that it
was impossible not to feel the attraction powerfully. My poor girl did
so. I never saw anyone more taken with another at first sight, unless,
indeed, it was the stranger herself, who seemed quite to have lost her
heart to her.
"In the meantime, availing myself of the licence of a masquerade, I put
not a few questions to the elder lady.
"'You have puzzled me utterly,' I said, laughing. 'Is that not enough?
won't you, now, consent to stand on equal terms, and do me the kindness
to remove your mask?'
"'Can any request be more unreasonable?' she replied. 'Ask a lady to
yield an advantage! Beside, how do you know you should recognise me?
Years make changes.'
"'As you see,' I said, with a bow, and, I suppose, a rather melancholy
little laugh.
"'As philosophers tell us,' she said; 'and how do you know that a sight
of my face would help you?'
"'I should take chance for that,' I answered. 'It is vain trying to make
yourself out an old woman; your figure betrays you.'
"'Years, nevertheless, have passed since I saw you, rather since you saw
me, for that is what I am considering. Millarca, there, is my daughter;
I cannot then be young, even in the opinion of people whom time has
taught to be indulgent, and I may not like to be compared with what you
remember me. You have no mask to remove. You can offer me nothing in
exchange.'
"'My petition is to your pity, to remove it.'
"'And mine to yours, to let it stay where it is,' she replied.
"'Well, then, at least you will tell me whether you are French or
German; you speak both languages so perfectly.'
"'I don't think I shall tell you that, General; you intend a surprise,
and are meditating the particular point of attack.'
'At all events, you won't deny this,' I said, 'that being honoured by
your permission to converse, I ought to know how to address you. Shall I
say Madame la Comtesse?'
"She laughed, and she would, no doubt, have met me with another
evasion--if, indeed, I can treat any occurrence in an interview every
circumstance of which was pre-arranged, as I now believe, with the
profoundest cunning, as liable to be modified by accident.
"'As to that,' she began; but she was interrupted, almost as she opened
her lips, by a gentleman, dressed in black, who looked particularly
elegant and distinguished, with this drawback, that his face was the
most deadly pale I ever saw, except in death. He was in no
masquerade--in the plain evening dress of a gentleman; and he said,
without a smile, but with a courtly and unusually low bow:--
"'Will Madame la Comtesse permit me to say a very few words which may
interest her?'
"The lady turned quickly to him, and touched her lip in token of
silence; she then said to me, 'Keep my place for me, General; I shall
return when I have said a few words.'
"And with this injunction, playfully given, she walked a little aside
with the gentleman in black, and talked for some minutes, apparently
very earnestly. They then walked away slowly together in the crowd, and
I lost them for some minutes.
"I spent the interval in cudgelling my brains for a conjecture as to the
identity of the lady who seemed to remember me so kindly, and I was
thinking of turning about and joining in the conversation between my
pretty ward and the Countess's daughter, and trying whether, by the time
she returned, I might not have a surprise in store for her, by having
her name, title, château, and estates at my fingers' ends. But at this
moment she returned, accompanied by the pale man in black, who said:
"'I shall return and inform Madame la Comtesse when her carriage is at
the door.'
"He withdrew with a bow."