"Has Flora proved more attractive than Thalia?"
Armand Dupleisis, long since become acquainted, stood examining a
bouquet of roses and geraniums in the music-room of Mademoiselle Milan,
and the lady was seated near him, trifling with the keys of her piano.
"I gaze on beauty, mademoiselle, to accustom my eyes to divinity."
"Really! Were it not for his gigantic proportions, one would suppose man
was reared in an atmosphere of compliment."
"You mistake us. Though not a favorite diet, in Pekin we devour rice
with the gusto of the most polished Celestial."
"I bow to your sincerity. Women, then, are to be talked to of birds, and
flowers, and stars, and fed on water-cresses?"
"Women, mademoiselle, make men apt scholars in the art of pleasing. I
have studied much."
"How singular!" rejoined the lady. "I should never have detected it."
"True art, mademoiselle, lies in its concealment. My life has been one
of concealment."
"Now you pique my curiosity," she replied. "Do let me learn the
'veritable historie.'"
The smile on Mademoiselle Milan's face showed that the interest was
feigned, but the grim look about Dupleisis' mouth proved him conscious
of it. A man without an object would have changed the subject at once;
but Dupleisis _had_ an object, and did not.
"I was ushered into this land of hope and sunny smiles with scarcely any
other patrimony than a name."
"What limited resources!" ejaculated the lady, with a slight sneer.
"While blushing with the consciousness of my virgin cravat, I went to
Paris, that sacred ark, which saves from shipwreck all the wretched of
the provinces if but crowned with a ray of intellect."
"And which saved you, of course," continued the lady.
"Through the influence of my friends, I entered the _École
Polytechnique_, and, after graduating, cut the army, and cast my fate,
for better or for worse, in the flowery paths of literature."
"Now, do not say it proved for worse."
"It was for worse," said Dupleisis. "My family were treated shabbily;
'the muse is a maiden of good memory,' but a _cocote_; my satiric
efforts were rewarded by a _lettre de cachet_."
"What a loss to France!"
"At the accession of the Emperor, I returned, a prodigal son of Mars,
and now manage to sustain myself by----"
"By writing sonnets to Brazilian hospitality," interrupted mademoiselle.
Dupleisis bowed gravely. "Anxious to do so, mademoiselle, but I have
not, as yet, collected sufficient material."
The retort crimsoned the lady's face, and Dupleisis adroitly covered her
confusion by asking her to sing.
"What will you say to me, when you speak of yourself as though you were
a block of wood?"
"The prosy geologist talks pedantically of a granite rock, and is mute
when he sees the flower that blooms above it."
"_Mon Dieu_, M. Dupleisis! I cannot sit by and hear _Chamfort_ so
ruthlessly robbed."
"Mademoiselle, you are unkind. I say nothing complimentary but you cry,
'Stop thief!'"
The lady played a few sparkling bars, and sang. She had a magnificent
voice, but her music, like herself, was studied, faultless, but chilling
as the north wind. It swelled deep and full, in rich, flute-like tones,
now ringing clear and sweet in pure, rippling notes, now quivering low
in waves of enchanting melody. There were soft, gurgling sounds, that
flowed wild and free as a mountain-rivulet. It was brilliant,
bewildering; but the dazzle was like the frozen glitter of an icicle.
Suddenly, a look of unmitigated scorn swept across her face, and the
music ceased.
She eyed Dupleisis for a moment half defiantly, and asked, "Would you
really like to hear me sing?"
Dupleisis answered, earnestly, "Yes."
A plaintive prelude followed, and her voice mingled with it almost
imperceptibly. It was one of those gloomy Spanish ballads, dramatic
rather than harmonious, that poured forth its mournful strains in the
fitful measure of an Æolian harp. There were bursts of pathos that
seemed to echo from her very soul. It was fierce, mocking, passionate;
tender, wicked, terrible. It sank in sobs of melting compassion; it
implored pity and sympathy in words of thrilling entreaty; and then it
rose, cold and calm, in sounds of withering derision and implacable
hate. It trembled, it scorned, it pleaded, it taunted, it struggled, it
hoped, it despaired; and then, as if for the dead, it wailed and died in
a long, helpless cry of sorrow.
Dupleisis sat listening to the dreary history entranced. There was love,
and feeling, and fond womanly devotion; there was refined thought,
gentle pity, and warm generous charity; and there was a neglected heart,
a gloomy, embittered mind, a life lost in utter desolation. The glorious
being whom God had created to cheer and encourage man was a beautiful
statue.
Who would teach that heart to feel again? Who turn to quivering flesh
that rigid marble? Yet the man of iron sat masking his features,
controlling his emotions, with every muscle under his command. It was a
flash of real feeling from a proud, sensitive woman, but it passed
lightly as a snowdrift on a frozen river.