She was in this mood one day when he called, and found her in a
tête-à-tête with Lord Randolph. She was dressed _à l'Amazone_, for her
horse was awaiting its lovely mistress below.
"I have arrived _mal à propos_," he said, after the salutations of
meeting were over. "I see your ladyship is going out."
"Come with us," asked Lord Randolph, shaking his hand warmly. "A gallop
will chase away the clouds of study from your brow. Lady Dora, did you
ever behold so altered a face? Why, man, your studio will be the death
of you."
"Not _that_," he replied, looking gloomily downwards; then, as suddenly
raising his head, he seemed to chase away shades and clouds, for the
face became calm and smiling.
"Will you take me _en croupe_?" he asked, addressing Lord Randolph, in
answer to his question. "I saw but two horses below--yours and Lady
Dora's."
"Oh, no! I will send my groom away, if you will mount his. You must
accompany us."
"Lady Dora says nothing; the lady may have too much excellent taste to
admire a trio. In my opinion much pleasure is often lost in them, either
in music or society."
"How so, Mr. Tremenhere?" she asked coldly.
"Why," he answered, laughing,--"there are the soprano, the contralto,
and the mezzo; this last I have ever looked upon as an almost
indistinct, useless sort of 'lend-its-aid' to support and show off the
other two."
"Then I'll play mezzo," cried Lord Randolph good-humouredly, but with
singular, though unconscious truth; "for I have a bad headache, and you
two shall sing, and I will listen, occasionally throwing in a note."
"Don't let it be one of discord," cried Tremenhere, in the same tone as
before. "We must have harmony; if Lady Dora consent to this, I will
gladly take your groom's horse."
Her eyes said more than her lips, as she replied--"We shall be most
happy of your company."
"Might I have chosen a character, in which to have handed Lady Dora
down, by my humble skill, to posterity, I should have selected her
present one. Lady, I never saw you so perfect as in your Amazonian
costume; it suits your style far better than Diana even," and Tremenhere
bent his eyes in well-schooled admiration upon her; still the effort was
not an immense one, for, as an artist, he could not but have admired her
perfection of beauty in this dress; then, too, she was grace personified
in the management of a spirited horse, which seemed as a part of herself
in pride of beauty.
"Why do you object to Diana?" she inquired, fixing her full gaze upon
him undauntedly, in all its fire.
"Diana," said Lord Randolph, before the other could reply, "conveys to
my mind the idea of a lady over fond of being out at night, not a
loving bride or wife," and he laughed significantly at Lady Dora, who
turned away towards Tremenhere.
"You have not answered my question," she said.
"Something of Lord Randolph's thought is mine," he replied. "Diana is
cold, uncheered, uncheering; she sails onward in her dignity and
splendour, surrounded by satellites, uncaring for them all, beautiful,
but unloving."
"What do you say to Endymion?" she asked, and her glance crossed his.
"She loved him, and he slept!" was the calm reply.
"That was _his_ fault; 'she could not wake his eye-lids with her kiss,'"
fell from her lips.
"Because," answered Tremenhere, "it was too queenly, too cold; had Venus
embraced him, he would have started into waking life and love!" Her eye
fell beneath his glance.
"The 'Mezzo' must put in a note," said Lord Randolph.
At the word "Mezzo," a gentle, but involuntary laugh escaped from Lady
Dora. Tremenhere was grave. He despised while he played with this girl;
and, turning to the other, asked in a tone almost too serious and
feeling for the occasion, "What is your thought?"
"I think Diana was an arrant, heartless flirt, and certainly deceitful.
She assumed to herself a character not deserved--a strictly chaste
goddess would never have come down o' night to embrace a shepherd on a
hill. I think it is very fortunate he _did_ sleep; had he awakened, he
would have had a very different opinion of the lady, and have been fully
justified in nodding significantly when her name was mentioned. I only
wonder she should have told of herself; for unless she did so--how was
this midnight visit known?"
"Oh! she perhaps wanted the cleverness which some possess, of keeping
her own counsel," answered Tremenhere.
"Most probably," hazarded Lady Dora, not liking to keep too painful a
silence where the subject had become so strangely epigrammatic, "some
star betrayed her mistress."
"True!" replied Tremenhere, "as in 'Love's Witnesses,'" and he repeated
in a soft, impressive voice--
"Love! when we last night, embracing,
Sigh'd farewell--who saw us part?
Was it night? or sly Aurora?
Or the stars? or the moon who heard?"
"A star shot down and told the ocean--
Ocean told a mariner;
Then the mariner told his mistress;
She--she told it every where!"
"'Gad, that's how Madam Diana's escapade became known, I bet my life!"
cried Lord Randolph.
She did not reply; she was dreaming over the tone in which "Love! when
we last night, embracing," had dropped from his lips, and was lost in
that tone's significance, which sent up the harmony to her eyes, with
which her softened glance lit on Tremenhere's; and then faded into shade
beneath her trembling lashes, consumed, Phoenix-like, by its own fire.
"Then Diana was cruel, too," continued Lord Randolph, hunting down the
huntress. "Unsparing with her darts; the wound from which, like wound of
hart, never heals!"
"Let her rest," said Lady Dora, fixing a full look of meaning on
Tremenhere; "those skilled in venery say, there _is_ a balm for wound of
hart."
"Yes, from the animal which has inflicted it," answered Tremenhere.
"Let us have a canter!" cried Lady Dora, starting off down an avenue of
the _Bois de Boulogne_, where the sand deadened the sound of their
flying horses' feet. It was a lovely day, and there were groups of
equestrians. They had ridden some time, when they met three or four
gentlemen together. After bowing _en passant_, Lord Randolph suddenly
stopped--
"That's Gillingham!" he exclaimed; "and riding the very horse he wants
me to buy. Lady Dora, may I leave you five minutes, _à regret_, however,
on my own account, under Tremenhere's care. I will rejoin you near the
pond."
She merely bowed.
"Beware of the '_Mare au Diable_!'" cried Tremenhere to him, as he
cantered off. "Have you read George Sand's tale of that name?" asked he
of Lady Dora.
"No; that is, I am not certain of having done so--what is the plot?"
"Oh! one full of intense interest; simply told, and of simple persons.
It may not interest you."
"I like simplicity," she replied.
"Do you? I am glad to hear that. True feeling is _always_ simple, meek,
and confiding."
"But the tale?" she asked, to change his tone. She wanted time to
prepare herself for a _tête-à-tête_. She began to fear her own sudden
impulses.
"Well," he said, "the plot is told in a few words; 'tis the working out
of various feelings which is so perfect:--A man loves a girl whom he
should not love----
"Why?" and she stilled her heart, and looked calmly at him.
"Because _he_ was rich, and _she_ only a poor, simple, peasant girl.
Could I _reverse_ the case, I might find tongue to speak more eloquently
on the subject; as it is, I can only tell your ladyship facts."
"And what were these facts?"
"They journeyed together, on horseback--_not_ as _we_ are doing, but in
more primitive style, she on a pillion behind him. _He was a young
widower_"--(these words were each distinctly articulated)--"and his boy
rode before him, on his knee: 'tis a pretty scene! Night, however, comes
on, and they lose their way, and at last find themselves beside the
_'Mare au Diable_,' noted as fatal to all approaching it; and beside
this they pass the night."
"And?" she asked, deeply interested.
"The place _was_ fatal; for Love was the spirit there. Probably," he
added, laughing, "as _Le Diable_ is often said to '_émporte l'amour_,'
he might have brought him to that spot. Certain it is, there he was, and
he prompted two, to know their own hearts who had never known them
before."
"I am all impatience for the conclusion."
"I am a bad story-teller; besides, the case is so _completely_ against
_my_ position, that I cannot fully, soulfully, enter into it; however, I
will satisfy your ladyship's impatience. Hearts _will_ speak at
last--theirs did; and he, for her sake, relinquished a rich marriage,
station, all--and married the simple girl."
"And was happy?"
"Blest--so the tale has it; and never looked back to the '_Mare au
Diable_' without a feeling of gratitude. Here we are at the pond, Lady
Dora. I wonder where Lord Randolph is!"
"I cannot think love so hastily created," she said, not attending to his
other words; "'tis of slower growth."
"_Growth!_ yes; but I tried to give you the author's idea. They,
unacknowledged, loved one another a long time, and a word opened their
eyes to the truth."
"There are few who make sacrifices for love," she replied, "and such,
when made, are seldom appreciated."
"Pardon me, we differ. When _truly_ made, from sincere affection, we bow
down in almost adoration of the giver--'tis so sweet to give! The heart
feels so light when it has yielded all its store; buoyant and
healthful, it only grieves at its own poverty and ungathering powers;
for it would fain, like a bee, renew the sweet store, to carry all home
to one hive."
"How may we know such a gift would be prized?"
"By reading in a never closed page, by the eyes writ; but some do not
love making sacrifices,--they cost dear."
She felt, if this subject were continued in this strain, her courage
would fail her. "Not yet!" she thought; "he shall suffer for all I felt
the day he quitted me so abruptly."
"Sacrifices are foolish things," she said aloud; "good for boys and
girls--men do not value them; they are like water poured on the ground."
"Which brings forth flowers," he added; "but I quite agree with you,
they _are_ foolish; but then the mere human heart cannot boast of
unerring wisdom. How stupid it is," he said, changing his tone, "to be
walking round this _mare_! This is no god or _diable_ there; let us
pursue that avenue before us; we will return hither. Now," he continued,
when they were side by side in a quiet alley, "tell me _how_ one may
school the heart not to offer itself up in sacrifice?"
"There is no such thing as an appreciated sacrifice," she said proudly,
"for a woman; to offer one, there must be a not desecrated altar--man's
heart never _could_ be such; they are all deceitful, and profaned--on
the like, I should trample as on a reptile!"
"It might turn, and leave an unerring sting."
"How? I do not understand you!"
"In bruising a weed, we may trample on a flower; and our own heart never
arise to vigour or life again." As he spoke, he leaned almost over her
saddle-bow, and looked in her face.
"I do not fear that, but we were speaking of the thing we _dare_ not
love. Such a love I would look upon, in all its phases, till my eye grew
tired, and my heart sunk to rest."
"What constitutes that which we _dare_ not love?"
"The thing we should sacrifice too much in loving, and, so doing, lose
our own weight in the balance, and--"
"And," he interrupted, "be slighted by the person we _fear_ to love, not
being certain of gaining love for love, and gratitude, everlasting
gratitude, for the word which raised us from despair to generous hope!"
Her hand trembled on the bridle-rein, his eyes were fixed upon her
downcast lid, and her lip was quivering with its effort not to speak. At
that moment a close carriage passed them, in which was an invalid, a
lady, and child. It was going very slowly--the invalid was Minnie, the
child and woman, little Miles and Mary. This latter endeavoured to veil
the vision before them by leaning across, but Minnie had seen all; his
look, air, their closely-drawn figures, and grasping Mary's hand she
became pale as death. Mary had been urging, and she had almost consented
to Skaife's telling Tremenhere that she lived!
"Oh, I have done well to refuse!" she cried. "Mere sufferance from him
would kill me! Oh, would that I were dead!--would that he were free!
Then he might marry her! Poor Miles--poor Miles, he never will be
happy! Were I gone, her proud heart would not perhaps reject him at
last; I know her well, and how difficult his task must be; is he not
deserving all pity? He _thought_ he loved me, to awaken and know another
held his heart in bondage! He loves her well! no wonder he looks so sad
and ill: poor Miles!" and the generous heart bled more for him than for
its own breaking sorrow!
A few moments afterwards, Lady Dora and her two attendant suitors passed
the quiet carriage in a hand-canter.