To men and women of intensely emotional nature, it sometimes happens
that a day of keen and torturing suspense, or a night's vigil of
great anguish, mars and darkens a countenance more indelibly than the
lapse of several ordinary monotonous years; and as Madame Orme sat in
her reception-room at one o'clock on the following afternoon,
awaiting the visit of the minister, the blanched face was far sterner
and prouder than when yesterday's sun rippled across it, and bluish
shadows beneath the large eyes that had not closed for twenty-four
hours lent them a deeper and more fateful glow.
The soft creamy folds of her Cashmere robe were relieved at the
throat by a knot of lilac ribbon, and amid its loops were secured
clusters of violets, that matched in hue the long spike of hyacinth
which was fastened in one side of the coiled hair, twined just behind
the ear, and drooped low on the snowy neck. Before her on a gilded
stand was the purple pyramid of flowers she had brought from the
theatre, and beside them lay several perfumed envelopes with
elaborate monograms. These notes contained tributes of praise from
strangers who had been fascinated by her "Amy Robsart," and begged
the honour of an interview, or the favour of a "photograph taken in
the silken cymar which so advantageously displayed the symmetry of
her figure."
Among the latter she had recognized the handwriting of Mr. Laurance,
though the signature was "Jules Duval," and her fingers had shrunk
from the folds of rose paper, as though scorched by flame. Lying
there on the top of the _billets-doux_, the elegant, graceful
chirography of the "Madame Odille Orme" drew her gaze, like the
loathsome fascination of a basilisk, and taking a package of notes
from her pocket, she held them for a moment close to the satin
envelope. Upon one the name of the popular actress; on the others--in
the same peculiar beautiful characters--"Minnie Merle." She put away
the latter, and a flash of scorn momentarily lighted her rigid face.
"Craven as of old! Too cowardly to boldly ask the thing his fickle
fancy favours; he begs under borrowed names. Doubtless his courage
wilts before his swarthy, bold-eyed Xantippe, who allows him scant
latitude for flirtations with pretty actresses. To be thrown
aside--trampled down--for such a creature as Abbie Ames! his
coarse-featured, diamond-dowered bride! Ah! my veins run lava; when I
think of her thick heavy lips, pressing that haughty perfect mouth,
where mine once clung so fondly! Last night the two countenances
seemed like 'as Hyperion to a Satyr!' How completely he sold his
treacherous beauty to the banker's daughter, whom to-day he would
willingly betray for a fairer, fresher face. Craven traitor!"
She passed her handkerchief across her lips, as if to efface some
imaginary stain, and they slowly settled back into their customary
stern curves.
Just then a timid tap upon the door of the reception-room was
followed almost simultaneously by the entrance of Mrs. Waul, who
held a card in her hand.
"The waiter has just brought this up. What answer shall he take
back?"
Mrs. Orme glanced at it, sprang to her feet, and a vivid scarlet
bathed her face and neck.
"Tell him--No! no--no! Madame Orme begs to decline the honour."
Then the crimson tide as suddenly ebbed, she grew ghastly in her
colourlessness, and her bloodless lips writhed, as she called after
the retreating figure:
"Stop! Come back,--let me think."
She walked to the window, and stood for several moments as still as
the bronze Mercury on the mantel. When she turned around, her
features were as fixed as if they belonged to some sculptured slab
from Persepolis.
"Pray don't think me weak and fickle, but indeed, Mrs. Waul, some of
my laurels gash like a crown of thorns. Tell the waiter to show this
visitor up, after five minutes, and then I wish you to come back and
sit with your knitting yonder, at the end of the room. And please
drop the curtain there, the pink silk will make me look a trifle less
ghostly after last night's work. You see I am disappointed, I
expected the American minister on business, and he sends this Paris
beau to make his apologies; that is all."
As the old lady disappeared, Mrs. Orme shuddered, and muttered with
clenched teeth:
"All have a Gethsemane sooner or later, and mine has overtaken me
before I am quite ready. God grant me some strengthening angel!"
She sank back into the arm chair, and drew the oval gilt table before
her as a barrier, while some inexplicable, intuitive impulse prompted
her to draw from her bosom a locket containing Regina's miniature.
Touching a spring, she looked at the childish features so singularly
like those she had seen the previous evening, and when Mrs. Waul
returned and seated herself at the end of the room, the spring
snapped, the locket lay in one hand, the minister's card in the
other.
Mrs. Orme heard the sound on the stairs and along the hall--the
well-remembered step. Amid the tramp of a hundred she could have
singled it out, so often in bygone years had she crouched under the
lilacs that overhung the gate, listening for its rapid approach,
waiting to throw herself into the arms that would clasp her so
fondly; to-day that unaltered step smote her ears like an echo from
the tomb, and for an instant her heart stood still, and she shut her
eyes; but the door swung back, and Mr. Laurance stood upon the
threshold. As he advanced, she rose, and when he stood before her
with outstretched hand, she ignored it, merely rested her palm on the
table between them; and glancing at the card in her fingers said:
"Mr. Laurance, I believe, introduced by the American minister. A
countryman of mine, he writes. As such I am pleased to see you, sir,
for when abroad the mere name of American is an _open sesame_ to
American sympathy and hospitality. Pray be seated, Mr. Laurance.
Pardon me, not that stiff-backed ancient contrivance of torture,
which must have been invented by Eymeric. You will find that green
velvet Voltaire, like its namesake, far more easy, affording ample
latitude."
The sweet voice rung its silver chimes as clearly as when she trod
the stage, and no shadow of the past cast its dusky wing over her
proud, pale face, while she gracefully waved him to a seat, and
resumed her own.
"If Madame Orme, so recently from home, yields readily to the
talismanic spell of 'American' she can perhaps imagine the
fascination it exerts over one who for many years has roamed far
from his roof-tree and his hearthstone; but who never more proudly
exulted in his nationality than last night, when as Queen of Tragedy,
Madame lent new lustre to the land that claims the honour of being
her birthplace."
"Thanks. Then I may infer you paid me the tribute of your presence
last evening?"
They looked across the table, into each other's eyes,--hers radiant
with a dangerous steely glitter, his eloquent with the intense
admiration which kindled on the previous evening, now glowed more
fervently from the contemplation of a beauty that to-day appeared
tea-fold more irresistible. The question slightly disconcerted him.
"I had the honour of accompanying our minister, and sharing his box."
"Indeed! I have never had the pleasure of meeting him, and hoped to
have seen him to-day, as he fixed this hour for the arrangement of
some business details, concerning which I was advised to consult him.
One really cannot duly appreciate American liberty until one has been
trammelled by foreign formalities and Continental police quibbles."
An incredulous smile, ambushed in his silky moustache, was reflected
in his fine eyes, as he recalled the flattering emphasis with which
she had certainly singled out his face in that vast auditory, and,
thoroughly appreciating his munificent inheritance of good looks, he
now imagined he fully interpreted her motive in desiring to ignore
the former meeting.
"Doubtless hundreds who shared with me the delight you conferred by
your performance last night would be equally charmed to possess my
precious privilege of expressing my unbounded admiration of your
genius; but unfortunately the impression prevails that my charming
countrywoman sternly interdicts all gentleman visitors, denies access
even to the most ardent of her worshippers, and I deem myself the
most supremely favoured of men in having triumphantly crossed into
the enchanted realm of your presence. Of this flattering distinction
I confess I am very proud."
It was a bold challenge, and sincerely he rued his rashness, when,
raising herself haughtily, she answered in a tone that made his
cheeks tingle:
"Unfortunately your countrywoman has not studied human nature so
superficially as to fail to comprehend the snares and pitfalls which
men's egregious vanity sometimes spring prematurely; and rumour
quotes me aright, in proclaiming me a recluse when the curtain falls
and the lights are extinguished. To-day I deviated from my usual
custom in compliment to the representative of my country, who sends
you--so his card reads--'charged with an explanation of his
unavoidable absence.' As minister-extraordinary, may I venture to
remind Mr. Laurance of his errand?"
Abashed by the scornful gleam in her keen wide eyes, he replied
hastily:
"A telegram from Pau summoned him this morning to the bedside of a
member of his family suddenly attacked with dangerous illness, and he
desired me to assure you that so soon as he returned he would seize
the earliest opportunity of congratulating you upon your brilliant
triumph. In the interim he places at your disposal certain printed
regulations, which will supply the information you desire, and which
you will find in this envelope. May I hope, Madame, that the value of
the contents will successfully plead the pardon of the audacious, yet
sufficiently rebuked messenger?" He rose, and with a princely bow
offered the packet.
Suffering her eyes to follow the motion of his elegantly formed
aristocratic hand, now ungloved, one swift glance showed her that
instead of the unpretending slender gold circlet she had placed on
the little finger of his left hand the day of their marriage--a ring
endeared to her, because it had been her mother's bridal pledge--he
now wore a flashing diamond, in a broad and costly setting. Almost
unconsciously her own left hand glided to the violets on her breast,
beneath which, securely fastened by a strong gold chain, she wore
the antique cameo ring, with its grinning death's head resting upon
her heart.
Slightly inclining her head, she signed to him to place the papers on
the table, and when he had resumed his sect, she asked:
"How long, Mr. Laurance, since you left America?"
"Thirteen or fourteen years ago; yet the memories of my home are
fresh and fragrant as though I quitted it only yesterday."
"Then happy indeed must have been that hearthstone, whose
rose-coloured reminiscences linger so tenderly around your heart, and
survive the attrition of a long residence in Paris. Your _repertoire_
of charming memories tempts me almost to the verge of covetousness.
In what portion of the United States did you reside?"
"My boyhood was spent in one of the middle States, where my estate is
located, but my collegiate life removed me to the north, whence I
came immediately abroad. My residence in Europe confirms the belief
that crossed the Atlantic with me, that in beauty, grace, and all the
nameless charms that constitute the perfect, peerless, fascinating
woman, my own country I pre-eminently bears the palm. Broad as is her
domain, and noble her civil institutions, the crowning glory of
America dwells in her lovely and gifted women."
He had never looked handsomer than at that moment, as, slightly
bending his head in homage, his dangerously beautiful eyes rested
with an unmistakable expression upon the faultless features before
him; and watching him, a cold smile broke up the icy outline of his
companion's delicate lips:
"American beauty might question the sincerity of a champion whose
worship is offered only at foreign shrines, and the precious oblation
of whose heart is laid on distant and strange altars."
"Ah, Madame,--neither at foreign shrines nor strange altars, but ever
unwaveringly at the feet of my divine countrywomen. Is it needful
that I recross the ocean to bow before the reigning muse? Is it not
conceded that the brightest, loveliest planet in Parisian skies,
brought all her splendour from my western home?"
"How you barb with keen regret the mortifying reflection that I,
alas! cannot as an American lay claim to a moiety of your chivalric
allegiance! Ill-fated Odille Orme!"
The stinging sarcasm in the liquid voice perplexed him, and the
strange lambent light that seemed now and then to ray out of the
brilliant eyes that had never wandered from his, sent an
uncomfortable thrill over him.
"Surely the world cannot have erred in according to my own country
the honour of your nationality?"
"I was born upon a French ship, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean."
"Ah, dearest Madame! then it is no marvel that, as you have inherited
the cestus of Aphrodite, your votaries bow as blindly, as helplessly,
as those over whom your ancient Greek mother ruled so despotically.
By divine right of birth you should reign as Odille Anadyomene."
"Madame Odille Orme has abjured the pagan æsthetics that seem to
trench rather closely upon Mr. Laurance's ethics, and shed far too
rosy an Orientalism over his mind and heart; and hopes he will not
forget her proud boast that by divine right she wears a dearer,
nobler, holier title--Odille Orme, wife and mother."
Bolder libertinism than found shelter in Mr. Laurance's perverted
nature, would have cowered before the pure face that now leaned far
forward, with dilated, scornful eyes which seemed to run like
electric rays up and down the secret chambers of his heart.
Involuntarily he shrank back into the depths of his chair, and mutely
questioned as on the previous night, "Where have I heard that voice
before?"
With some difficulty he recovered himself, and said hastily:
"Will you forgive me if I tell you frankly, that ever since I saw you
last night I have been tantalized by a vague yet very precious
consciousness that somewhere you and I have met before? When or
where, I cannot conjecture, but of one thing I am painfully certain,
we can never be strangers henceforth. Some charm in your voice, in
the expression of your eyes when as 'Amy Robsart' the loving woman
you looked so fondly into your 'Leicester's' face, awoke dim memories
that will never sleep again. Happy--enviable indeed--that Leicester
who really rules the empire of your love."
Tightening the clasp of her palms which enclosed the little gold
locket containing the image of their child, a wintry smile broke over
her white face, lending it that mournful glimmer which fading
moonlight sheds on some silent cenotaph in a cemetery.
"If my stage tricks of glance or tone, my carefully studied and
practised attitudes and modulations, recall some neglected memories
of your sunny past, let me hope that Mr. Laurance links me with the
holy associations that cluster about a mother's or a sister's sacred
features; reviving the earlier years, when he offered at the shrine
of friendship, of honour, and of genius, tributes too sincere to
admit the glozing varnish of fulsome, fashionable adulation, which
degrades alike the lips that utter and the ears that listen. If at
some period in the mysterious future, you, whom--because my
countryman--I reluctantly consented to receive, should really
discover a noble lovely woman before whose worth and beauty that
fickle heart you call your own utterly surrenders, and whom winning
as wife, and cherishing as only husbands can the darlings they
worship, you were finally torn away from--by inexorable death--the
only power that can part husbands and wives, then think you, Mr.
Laurance, that the universe holds a grave deep enough to keep you
quiet in your coffin--if vain heartless men profaned her sacred
widowhood by such utterances as you presume to offer me? The stage is
the arena, where in gladiatorial combat I wage my battle with the
beasts of Poverty and Want: there I receive the swelling acclamations
of triumph, or the pelting hisses of defeat; there before the
footlights where I toil for my bread, I am a legitimate defenceless
target for artistic criticism; but outside the precincts of the
theatre, I hold myself as sacred from the world as if I stood in
stone upon an altar behind some convent's bars, and as a lonely,
sorrow-stricken mother widowed of the father of my child, bereft of a
husband's tenderly jealous guardianship, I have a right to claim the
profound respect, the chivalric courtesy, which every high-toned,
honourable gentleman accords to worthy stainless women. Because as an
actress I barter my smiles and tears for food and raiment for my
fatherless child, it were not quite safe to imagine that I share the
pagan tendencies which appear to have smitten some of my countrymen
with moral leprosy."
The words seemed to burst forth like a mountain cataract long locked
in snow, which, melting suddenly under some unseasonable fiery
influence, falls in an impetuous icy torrent, bearing the startling
chill of winter into flowery meadows, where tender verdure sown thick
with primroses and daisies smiles peacefully in summer sunshine.
Twice the visitor half rose and essayed to speak, but that deep
steady voice bore down all interruption, and as he watched her, Mr.
Laurance just then would have given the fortune of the Rothschilds
for the privilege of folding in his own the perfect hands that lay
clasped on the marble slab.
While her extraordinary beauty moved his heart as no other woman had
yet done, the stern bitterness of her rebuke appealed to the latent
chivalry and slumbering nobility of his worldly soul. Looking upon
his flushed handsome face, interpreting its eloquent varying
expressions by the aid of glancing lights which memory snatched from
long-gone years, she saw the struggle in his dual nature, and hurried
on, warned by the powerful magnetism of his almost invincible eyes
that the melting spell of the Past was twining its relaxing fingers
about the barred gateway of her own throbbing heart.
"Trained in the easy school of latitudinarianism so fashionable
nowaday on both sides of the Atlantic, doubtless Mr. Laurance deems
his adopted countrywoman a nervous puritanical prude; and upon my
primitive and wellnigh obsolete ideal of social decorum and
propriety, upon my lofty standard of womanly delicacy and manly
honour, I can patiently tolerate none of the encroachments with which
I have recently been threatened. Just here, sir, permit a pertinent
illustration of the impertinence that sometimes annoys me."
Lifting between the tips of her fingers the pretty peach-bloom-tinted
note, whose accusing characters betrayed the hand that penned it, she
continued, with an outbreak of intense and overwhelming contempt:
"Listen, if you please, to the turbid libation which some rose-lipped
Paris, some silk-locked Sybarite poured out last night, after leaving
the theatre. Under the pretence of adding a leaf to the chaplets, won
by what he is pleased to tern 'diving dramatic genius,' this 'Jules
Duval'--let me see, I would not libel an honourable name; yes, so it
is signed--this Jules Duval, this brainless, heartless, soulless
Narcissus, with no larger sense of honour than could find ample
waltzing room on the point of a cambric needle, insolently avows his
real sentiments in language that your _valet_ might address to his
favourite _grisette_; and closes like some ardent accepted lover,
with an audacious demand for my photograph, 'to wear for ever over
his fond and loyal heart!' That is fashionable homage to my
genius--it is? I call it an insult to my womanhood! Nay--I am
ashamed to read it! 'Twould stain my cheeks, soil my lips, dishonour
your gentlemanly ears. Mr. Laurance, if ever you should become a
husband, and truly love the woman you make your wife, you will
perhaps comprehend my feelings, when some gay unprincipled gallant
profanes the sanctity of her retirement with such unpardonable, such
unmerited insolence."
She held it up between thumb and forefinger, shaking out the pink
folds till the signature in violet ink flaunted before the violet
eyes of its owner, then, crushing it as if it were a cobweb, she
tossed it toward the window.
Turning her head, she said in an altered and elevated tone:
"Mrs. Waul, may I disturb you for a moment?"
The quiet figure, clad in sober grey, and wearing a muslin cap whose
crimped ruffle enclosed in a snowy frame the benevolent wrinkled
countenance, came forward, knitting in hand, spectacles on her nose,
and for the first time the visitor became aware of her presence.
"Please lower the curtain yonder beside the étagère, the sun shines
hot upon Mr. Laurance's brow. Then touch the bell, and order the
carriage to be ready in twenty minutes."
Humiliated as he had never been before, Mr. Laurance resolved upon
one desperate attempt to regain the position his vanity had rashly
forfeited. Waiting until the Quaker-like _duenna_ had retreated to
her former seat, he rose and leaned across the small table, and under
his rich low voice and passionately pleading eyes the actress held
her breath and clutched the locket till its sharp edge sunk into her
quivering flesh.
"You dismiss me as unworthy of your presence, and, acknowledging the
justice of your decree, I sincerely deplore the fatuity that prompted
the offence. Your rebuke was warranted by my foolish presumption,
and, confessing the error into which I was betrayed by your
condescending notice last night, I humbly and sorrowfully solicit
your generous forgiveness. Fervid flattering phrases sorely belie my
real character if, sinking me almost beneath your contempt, you deem
me devoid of a high sense of honour, or of chivalric devotion to
noble womanly delicacy. Madame Orme, if your unparalleled beauty,
grace, and talent bewitched me into a passing folly and vain
impertinence, for which indeed I blush, your stern reproof recalls me
to my senses, to my better nature; and I beg that upon the unsullied
word of an American gentleman, you will accept with my apology the
earnest assurance that in quitting this room I honour and revere my
matchless countrywoman far more than when I entered her noble
presence. Fashionable freedom may have demoralized my tongue, but by
the God above us, I swear it has not blackened my heart, nor deadened
my perception and appreciation of all that constitutes true feminine
refinement and purity. You have severely punished my presumptuous
vanity, and now will you not mercifully pardon a man who, finding in
you the perfect fulfilment of his prophetic dreams of lofty as well
as lovely womanhood, humbly but most earnestly craves permission to
reinstate himself in your regard; to attempt to win your esteem and
friendship, which he will value far more highly than the adoration of
any--yes, of all other women?"
He was so near her that she saw the regular quick flutter of the blue
vein on his fair temples, and as the musical mastering voice so well
remembered and once so fondly loved stole tenderly through the dark,
lonely, dreary recesses of her desolate, aching heart, it waked for
one instant a wild, maddening temptation, an intense longing to lift
her arms, clasp them around his neck, lean forward upon his bosom,
and be at rest.
In the weary years that followed, how bitterly she denounced and
deplored the fever of implacable revenge that held her back on that
memorable day! Verily for each of us a "Nemean Lion lies in wait
somewhere," and a lost opportunity might have cost even Hercules that
tawny skin he wore as trophy.
Mr. Laurance saw a slow dumb motion of the pale lips that breathed no
sound to fill the verbal frame they mutely fashioned--"my husband;"
and then with a gradual drooping of the heavily lashed lids, the eyes
closed. Only until one might have leisurely counted five was he
permitted to scan the wan face in its rare beautiful repose, then
again her eyes pitiless as fate met his--so eager, so wistful--and
she too rose, confronting him with a cold proud smile.
"I fear Mr. Laurance unduly bemoans and magnifies a mistake, which,
whatever its baleful intent, has suffered in my rude inhospitable
hands an 'untimely nipping in the bud,' and most ingloriously failed
of consummation. After to-day the luckless incident of our
acquaintance must vanish like some farthing rushlight set upon a
breezy down to mark a hidden quicksand; for in my future panorama I
shall keep no niche for mortifying painful days like this--and you,
sir, amid the rush and glow and glitter of this bewildering French
capital, will have little leisure and less inclination to recall the
unflattering failure of an attempted flirtation with a pretty but
most utterly heartless actress, who wrung her hands, and did high
tragedy, and stormed and wept for gold! Not for perfumed pink
_billets-doux_, nor yet for adulation and vows of deathless devotion
from high-born gentlemen handsome and heartless enough to serve in _Le
Musée du Louvre_ as statues of Apollo, but for gold, Mr. Laurance,
only for gold!"
"Do not inexorably exile me--do not refuse my prayer for the
privilege of sometimes seeing you. Permit me to come here and teach
you to believe in my----"
"_Le jeu n'en vaut pas la chandelle!_" she exclaimed, with a quick
nervous laugh that grated grievously upon his ear.
"Madame, I implore you not to deny me the delight of an occasional
interview."
A sudden pallor crept across his eager face, and he attempted to
touch the fair dimpled hand which, still grasping the locket, rested
upon the table.
Aware of his purpose, she haughtily shrank back, drew herself up, and
folding her arms so tightly over her breast that the cameo ring
pressed close upon her bounding heart, she looked down on him as from
some distant height, with an intensity of quiet scorn that no
language could adequately render, that bruised his heart like
hail-stones.
"I deny you henceforth all opportunity of sinking yourself still
deeper in my estimation, of annoying me by any future demonstrations
of a style of admiration I neither desire, appreciate, nor intend to
permit. If accident should ever thrust you again across my path, you
will do well to forget that our minister committed the blunder of
sending you here to-day. Mr. Laurance will please accept my thanks
for this package of papers, which shall be returned to-morrow to the
office of the American embassy. Resolved to forget the unpleasant
incidents of to-day, Madame Orme is compelled to bid you good-bye."
Angry but undaunted, his eloquent eyes boldly bore up under hers, as
if in mortal challenge; and he bowed, with a degree of graceful
_hauteur_, fully equal to her own best efforts.
"Madame's commands shall be rigidly and literally obeyed, for
Cuthbert Laurance is far too proud to obtrude his presence or his
homage on any woman; but Mrs. Orme's interdict does not include that
public realm, where she has repeatedly assured me that gold always
secures admission to her smiles, and from which no earthly power can
debar me. Watching you from the same spot, where last night you
floated like an angelic dream of my boyhood, like a glorious
revelation upon my vision and my heart, I shall defy the world to mar
the happiness in store for me, so long as you remain in Paris. A
distant but devoted worshipper, cherishing the memory of those
thrilling glances with which 'Amy Robsart' favoured me, permit me to
wish Madame Orme a pleasant ride, and good afternoon."
He bent his handsome head low before her, and left the room less like
an exile than a conqueror, buoyed by an abiding fatalism, a fond
faith in that magnetic influence and fascination he had hitherto
successfully exerted over all, whom his wayward, fickle, fastidious
fancy had chosen to enslave.
When the sound of his retreating footsteps was no longer audible, the
slender white-robed figure moved unsteadily across the floor, entered
the adjoining dressing-room, and locked the door.
The play was over at last, the long tensions of nerve, the iron
strain on brain and heart, the steel manacles on memory, all snapped
simultaneously; the actress was trampled out of sight, the weak,
suffering, long-tortured woman bowed down in helpless and hopeless
agony before her desecrated mouldering altar, was alone with the dust
of her overturned and crumbling idol.
"My husband! O God! Thou knowest--not hers--not that woman's--but
mine! all mine! My baby's father!--my Cuthbert--my own husband!"
"Oh past! past the sweet times that I remember well!
Alas that such a tale my heart can tell!
Ah, how I trusted him! what love was mine!
How sweet to feel his arms about me twine,
And my heart beat with his! What wealth of bliss
To hear his praises; all to come to this,--
That now I durst not look upon his face,
Lest in my heart that other thing have place--
That which men call hate!"