VIOLA’S VANITY;
OR
A BITTER EXPIATION
By MRS. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER
HART SERIES NO. 67
COPYRIGHT 1897 BY GEORGE MUNRO’S SONS
Published by
THE ARTHUR WESTBROOK COMPANY,
Cleveland, Ohio, U. S. A.
INDEX
CHAPTER PAGE
I “Lightly Won is Lightly Lost.” 3
II “Sweetheart, Name the Day for Me.” 11
III The Moth and the Star 17
IV “And Thou Wert Gay,-- 22
V The Mysterious Stranger 27
VI Viola’s Repentance 34
VII ’Twixt Love and Hate 42
VIII Heart Struggles 47
IX “A Man’s Heart is not Simply a Toy!” 50
X Their Meeting 58
XI Turning Over a New Leaf 62
XII Hidden Grief 67
XIII A Sweet Confession 72
XIV Several Secrets 75
XV Queen of Song and Love and Beauty 82
XVI The Bridal-Eve 90
XVII Viola’s Waterloo 98
XVIII “I Drove Poor Viola to Her Death.” 104
XIX A Coup D’État. 112
XX “Was ever Maiden in This Humor Wooed?” 117
XXI The Bride’s Home-Coming 122
XXII “Go Back to your Haughty Bride.” 127
XXIII Playing her Part 133
XXIV The Letter that came too Late 138
XXV “Had you Only Waited ’Till This Morning.” 143
XXVI Only a Month 153
XXVII Viola’s New Role 158
XXVIII Viola’s Vindication 164
XXIX Alienation 170
XXX Rivals Still 176
XXXI “Could Ye Come Back to Me, Douglas!” 182
XXXII The Portrait 187
XXXIII “Whom First We Love, We Seldom Wed.” 193
XXXIV In Her Toils Again 200
XXXV “It was Pique, not Love.” 205
XXXVI Startling News 212
XXXVII Bon Voyage 215
XXXVIII “As Flies the Dove to seek its Mate.” 221
XXXIX Hope Deferred maketh the Heart Sick 224
XL “Cuba Libre” 229
XLI “After Long Grief and Pain.” 234
VIOLA’S VANITY
CHAPTER I.
“LIGHTLY WON IS LIGHTLY LOST.”
When the viols played their best,
Lamps above and laughs below,
“Love me,” sounded like a jest,
Fit for _yes_ or fit for _no_.
--MRS. BROWNING.
In the early spring of 1896, the morning papers of Washington, and
afterwards every journal of any consequence in the United States, one
day contained the following news item under the glaring headlines:
SOCIETY BELLE ELOPES.
VAGARIES OF A BEAUTY.
The Daughter of a High Government Official in Washington, Chief of
an Important Bureau.--The Handsomest Girl in Society.--A Charming
Coquette, Who Has Refused Scores of Eligibles, Jilts a Distinguished
Member of Congress on the Very Eve of Her Bridal for the Sake of a
Poor Young Journalist, Rolfe Maxwell, Whom She Secretly Preferred.
Fashionable society, which expected to get on its best togs today for
the grand noon wedding of Congressman Desha and the lovely Miss Viola
Van Lew, will stand aghast at learning that the marriage is off.
The young beauty, assuming the prerogative of woman to change her
mind, left her prospective bridegroom in the lurch last evening, and
eloped with a poor young man not in her set.
The marriage ceremony was solemnized last night at the rectory of
All Souls’ Church by the genial rector, from whom these facts were
gleaned by our reporter. It is understood that the jilted bridegroom
is _désolé_, and the astonished father furious and unforgiving, but as
the eloping bride inherits on her marriage the fortune of her deceased
mother, she can afford to snap her jeweled fingers in papa’s irate
face.
Behind this flippant announcement lay a thrilling romance of beauty,
coquetry, love, and pride that may interest the amiable reader whose
heart is yet young and warm enough to admire the good traits, excuse
the follies, and sympathize with the dire misfortunes of a beautiful,
thoughtless young girl.
If there was any excuse in the world for what Viola did, it lay in her
youth and her thoughtlessness, and because she did not understand at
all what a terrible force love is at its best or worst.
She had only heard of the grand passion in its lightest phases as it is
pictured by merry young school-girls boasting to each other of their
conquests, and it was plain to be seen that “the one with the most
strings to her bow” was more envied than any other. They made “nets,
not cages.”
She had the tenderest heart in the world. She would not have injured
the smallest living thing, yet she had never heard that love is a
flame that burns, and that one may carry its scars to the grave. They
should have taught her that, those who guided her young life, for she
had the fatal gift of beauty coupled with that subtle fascination that
draws men’s hearts as plants turn their leaves to the sun.
Slender, lithe, and graceful as a young palm-tree, with the daintiest
patrician hands and feet, piquant features, rose-leaf complexion, a
cloud of scented dark hair, and a tempting mouth like a rare, red
flower, her eyes alone would have made her lovely without the aid of
other charms. They were large, almond-shaped, and luminous.
In the shadow they were gray as doves’ wings, in the sunlight blue as
ocean’s deeps, at night they were dark like the sky, and flashing like
the stars, so that it dazzled you to look at them beneath the thick
fringe of the long black lashes. Then her voice, it was so sweet and
low, and her laugh so musical, how could any man help but adore?
When she was presented in society there was no one to equal her in
grace and charm. Women wondered and envied, men raved and adored. She
could have her pick and choice of them all from the multi-millionaire,
the gallant soldier, the haughty diplomat, down to the gilded youth who
aimed to be the glass of fashion and the mold of form. All alike were
Viola Van Lew’s slaves.
And the lovely, thoughtless creature, trained by indiscreet advisers
to regard all this as simply her due, flirted demurely while immensely
enjoying her conquests, as what fair maiden of eighteen would not,
when launched on the glittering, effervescent sea of official life in
Washington?
The first man that ever touched her heart was Florian Gay, a handsome,
dashing young fellow of the cavalier type who would have become a great
artist if he had not been very rich.
He had the divine afflatus, but lacked the incentive to work that
poverty confers on the child of genius. Owning a handsome studio on
a fashionable street, he trifled with art in a _dilettante_ way, and
devoted the most of his time to society.
He met Viola at a reception, and in due course of time, to quote an
envious rival, “his scalp dangled, with dozens of others, at her belt.”
In return he caught her fancy, and the flirtation became pronounced. In
it she found a spice of delicious tenderness, a subtle attraction that
she took for love.
He begged to paint Viola’s portrait, and accompanied by her chaperon--a
good-natured old aunt--she gave him several sittings.
Before the end of the sittings they became engaged, though Florian
secretly chafed at the secrecy she imposed.
“I should like to ask your father and make it public, so that those
other fellows--confound them!--would quit dangling after you,” he said,
betraying a spice of jealousy inherent in his nature.
But Viola put aside his entreaties.
“I like to have them dangling after me, as you call it,” she cried,
laughingly. “I like to be admired, and when I am married I wish to be
able to say that I had first refused a hundred suitors.”
He could not help crying:
“Heavens, what idle vanity! Have you no mercy on the men, Viola?”
“Oh, it does not hurt. They soon go away and forget,” she replied,
lightly.
“I do not think that I should soon forget if you had rejected me. I
fancy it would have been a very serious matter to me,” Florian Gay
replied, quite gravely; but his betrothed only laughed at him.
“Nonsense! You would have been courting another girl next day, Florian.”
“It is more likely that I should have put an end to my life, for I
seem to live only in you, my darling, and if I were to lose you now
after you had promised yourself to me, I could not answer for myself.
I should commit some desperate deed, I am sure!” he exclaimed, with
such sudden fire and passion that she started with alarm and queenly
displeasure.
“I don’t like stage ranting, please, Florian, and I can’t abide
jealousy. You are to keep our engagement secret, and not to interfere
with my flirtations, as you promised, or everything will be over
between us,” Viola said, resolutely, heedless of the jealous frown
that lowered upon his handsome brow, and with no comprehension of his
feelings, playing with fire like a thoughtless child.
A very madness of jealousy throbbed in the young man’s heart, but it
was sternly hidden out of sight as he cried, eagerly:
“I will obey your wishes, Viola; but won’t you tell me when you will be
willing to marry me?”
“Oh, not for ages yet, Florian. Remember, I am not nineteen yet, and
have only been out in society a year. My judgment is scarcely formed
now, and perhaps,” with an arch, sidelong glance from her dazzling
eyes, “I may yet see another man I could like better and throw you over
for his sake.”
“Woe be unto him at that hour!” the distracted lover muttered grimly
between his teeth; but Viola did not overhear. She did not, in fact,
apprehend any change in her constancy to Florian. She had simply been
teasing him to test her power, and now she said, with a sudden, sweet
smile:
“Poor auntie will wake up presently over there in her corner and think
it is time to have this sitting over, yet you have hardly begun. Please
go on.”
Florian took up the brush obediently, but his hand was unsteady with
the hot throbbings of his jealous heart. He longed to kiss her now that
she had granted him that sweet, tender smile, but she seldom permitted
a caress, she was so proudly coy.
“Ah, Viola, how hard it is to paint you! Such beauty can not be
transferred to canvas!” he sighed. “I am getting out of heart with my
work, and the poet’s lines, ‘In an Atelier,’ often occur to me.
“‘Ah, dearest, I am sick at heart,
It is so little I can do--
I talk my jargon--live for art--
I’d much prefer to live for you!
How dull and lifeless colors are!
You smile, and all my picture lies.
I wish that I could crush a star
To make a pigment for your eyes.’”
Viola laughed and rose.
“Well, I can not stay any longer today, because auntie and I are going
to the White House reception now. Will you come with us, Florian?”
“Delighted I am sure, but an engagement prevents.”
“Can’t you break it?”
“Not with this man, much as I would like to for the sake of going with
you. But I’ve been badgering him ever since he came to Congress for a
few sittings, and he has at last promised to begin this day--in fact,
this very hour.”
“Who is my important rival?”
“Professor Desha.”
Viola instantly made a rosy _moue_ of disdain, and exclaimed:
“I hate that man! He is too goody-goody!”
“He is a very noble and upright man, and I am particularly anxious to
paint his portrait. His fine head and face remind me somewhat of the
old masters’ pictures of Christ!” exclaimed Florian Gay, warmly.
“You are partial to him because he was your professor at college,” she
retorted.
“Perhaps so, but it is because that gave me an opportunity to know his
value better. Philip Desha is a noble fellow, with grand principles and
high ideals, and I am sorry that he yielded to ambition and let his
people elect him to Congress. Politics will prove a severe test to his
upright character,” he answered with more seriousness than he usually
displayed.
“Come, auntie, we must be going,” cried Viola, pettishly, waking up her
aunt, and taking an abrupt leave in her fear of meeting her lover’s
next sitter.
But she did encounter him coming up the steps, a very dignified looking
man of medium size, and about thirty years old, with as the artist had
remarked, a grave, noble, serene countenance much like the ideal heads
of Christ.
They bowed to each other with marked _hauteur_, and Viola passed on to
her waiting carriage.