"'The dice of the gods are always loaded,' and what appears the
merest chance is as inexorably fixed, predetermined, as the rules of
mathematics, or the laws of crystallization. What madness to flout
fate!"
Mrs. Orme laid down her pen as she spoke, and leaned back in her
chair.
"Did you speak to me?" inquired Mrs. Waul, who had been nodding over
her worsted work, and was aroused by the sound of the voice.
"No, I was merely thinking aloud; a foolish habit I have contracted
since I began to aspire to literary laurels. Go to sleep again, and
finish your dream."
Upon the writing desk lay a _MS_. in morocco cover, and secured by
heavy bronze clasps, into which the owner put a small key attached to
her watch chain, carefully locking and laying it away in a drawer of
the desk.
Approaching a table in the corner of the room, Mrs. Orme filled
a tall narrow Venetian glass with that violet-flavoured,
violet-perfumed Capri wine, whose golden bubbles danced upon the
brim, and, having drained the last amber drop, she rolled her chair
close to the window, looped back the curtains, and sat down.
The lodgings she had occupied since her arrival in Naples were
situated on the _Riviera di Chiaja_, near the _Villa Reale_, and not
far from the divergence into the _Strada Mergellina_. Of the
wonderful beauty of the scene beyond her front windows She had never
wearied, and now in the ravishing afternoon glow, with the blue air
all saturated with golden gleams, she yielded to the Parthenopean
spell, which, once felt, seems never to be forgotten.
Had it the power to chant to rest that sombre past which memory kept
as a funeral theme for ever on its vibrating strings? Was there at
last a file for the serpent, that had so long made its lair in her
distorted and envenomed nature?
At thirty-three time ceases to tread with feathery feet, and the
years grow self-asserting, italicize themselves in passing; and
across the dial of woman's beauty the shadow of decadence falls
aslant. But although Mrs. Orme had offered sacrifice to that
inexorable Terminus, who dwells at the last border line of youth, the
ripeness and glow of her extraordinary loveliness showed as yet no
hint of the coming eclipse.
Health lent to cheek and lip its richest, warmest tints, and though
the silvery splendour of hope shone no longer in the eloquent brown
eyes, the light of an almost accomplished triumph imparted a baleful
brilliance, which even the long lashes could not veil.
Her pale lilac robe showed admirably the transparency of her
complexion, and in her waving gilded hair she wore a cluster of
delicate rose anemones.
Her gaze seemed to have crossed the blue pavement of sea, and rested
on the purpling outlines of Ischia and Capri; but the dimpling smile
that crossed her face sprang from no dreamy reverie of Parthenope
legends, and her voice was low and deep like one rehearsing for some
tragic outbreak.
"So Samson felt in Dagon's temple, amid the jubilee of his
tormentors, when silent and calm, girded only by the sense of his
wrongs, he meekly bowed to rest himself; and all the while his arms
groped stealthily around the pillars destined to avenge him. Ah! how
calm, how holy, all outside of my heart seems! How in contrast with
that charnel-house yonder vision of peaceful loveliness appears as
incongruous as the nightingales which the soul of Sophocles heard
singing in the grove of the Furies? After to-day will the world ever
look quite the same to me? Thirty-three years have brought me swiftly
to the last fatal page; and shall the hand falter that writes
_finis_?"
A strangely solemn expression drifted over her countenance, but at
that moment a tall form darkened the doorway, and she smiled.
"Come in, General Laurance. Punctuality is essentially an American
virtue, rarely displayed in this _dolce far niente_ land; and you
exemplify its nationality. Five was the hour you named, and my little
Swiss tell-tale is even now sounding the last stroke."
She did not rise, seemed on the contrary, to sink farther back in her
velvet-lined chair; and bending down General Laurance touched her
hand.
"When a man's happiness for all time is at stake does he loiter on
his way to receive the verdict? Surely you will----"
He paused and glanced significantly at the figure whose white cap was
bowed low, as its wearer slumbered over the interminable crochet.
"May not this interview at least be sacred from the presence of your
keepers?"
"Poor dear soul, she is happily oblivious, and will take no
stenographic notes. I would as soon declare war against my own shadow
as order her away."
Evidently chagrined, the visitor stood irresolute, and meanwhile the
gaze of his companion wandered back to the beauty of the Bay.
He drew a chair close to that which she occupied, and holding his hat
as a screen, should Mrs. Waul's spectacles chance to turn in that
direction, spoke earnestly.
"Have I been unpardonably presumptuous in interpreting favourably
this permission to see you once more? Have you done me the honour to
ponder the contents of my letter?"
"I certainly have pondered well the contents."
She kept her hands beyond his reach, and looking steadily into his
eager handsome face, she saw it flush deeply.
"Madame, I trust, I believe you are incapable of trifling."
"In which, you do me bare justice only. With me the time for
trifling is past; and just now life has put on all its tragic
vestments. But how long since General Laurance believed me incapable
of--worse than trifling?"
"Ever since my infamous folly was reproved by you as it deserved.
Ever since you taught me that you were even more noble in soul than
lovely in person. Be generous, and do not humiliate me by recalling
that temporary insanity. Having blundered fearfully, in my ignorance
of your real character, does not the offer of yesterday embody all
the reparation, all the atonement of which a man is capable?"
"You desire me to consider the proposal contained in your letter, as
an expiation for past offences, as an _amende honourable_ for what
might have ripened into insult, had it not been nipped in the bud? Do
I translate correctly your gracious diction?"
"No, you cruelly torment me by referring to an audacious and shameful
offence, for which I blush."
"Successful sins are unencumbered by penitential oblations, and only
discovered and defeated crimes arouse conscience, and paint one's
cheeks with mortification. General Laurance merely illustrates a
great social law."
"Do not, dear madame, keep me in this fiery suspense. I have offered
you all that a gentleman can lay at the feet of the woman he loves."
A cold smile lighted her face, as some arctic moonbeams gleams for an
instant across the spires and doomes of an iceberg.
"Once you attempted to offer me your heart, or what remains of its
ossified ruins; which I declined. Now you tender me your hand and
name, and indeed it appears that like many of the high-born class you
so nobly represent, your heart and hand have never hitherto been
conjoined in your _devoir_. It were a melancholy pity they should be
eternally divorced."
Bending over her, he exclaimed:
"As heaven hears me, I swear I love you better than life, than
everything else that the broad earth holds! You cannot possibly doubt
my sincerity, for you hold the proof in your own hands. Be merciful,
Odille, and end my anxiety."
He caught her hand, and as she attempted no resistance, he raised it
to his moustached lip. Her eyes were resting upon the blue expanse of
water, as if far away, across the vast vista of the Mediterranean she
sought some strengthening influence, some sacred inspiration; and
after a moment, turning them full upon his countenance, she said with
grave stony composure:
"You have asked me to become your wife, knowing full well that no
affection would prompt me to entertain the thought; and you must be
thoroughly convinced that only sordid motives of policy could
influence me to accept you. Do men who marry under such circumstances
honour and trust the women, who as a _dernier ressort_ bear their
names? You are not so weak, so egregiously vain, as to delude
yourself for one instant with the supposition that I could ever love
you?"
"Once my wife, I ask nothing more. Upon my own head and life, be the
failure to make you love me. Only give me this hand, and I will take
your heart Can a lover ask less, and hazard more?"
"And if you fail--woefully, as fail you must?"
"I shall not. You cannot awe or discourage me, for I have yet to find
the heart that successfully defies my worship. But if you remained
indifferent--ah, loveliest! you would not! Even then, I should be
blessed by your presence, your society--and that alone were worth all
other women!"
"Even though it cost you the heavy, galling burden of marriage vows,
an exorbitant price, which only necessity extorts? How vividly we of
the nineteenth century exemplify the wisdom of the classic aphorisms?
_Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat_. Have you no fear that you
are seizing with bare fingers a glittering thirsty blade, which may
flesh itself in the hand that dares to caress it?"
"I fear nothing but your rejection; and though you should prove
Judith or Jael, I would disarm you thus."
Again he kissed the fair slender hand, and clasped it tenderly
between both his own.
"A man of your years does not lightly forsake the traditions of his
Caste, and the usages of his ancestors; and what can patricians like
General Laurance hope to secure by stooping to the borders of
_proletaire?_"
"The woman whom he loves. To you I will confess, that never until
within the past six or eight months have I really comprehended the
power of genuine love. Early in life I married a high-born, gentle,
true-hearted woman, who made me a good faithful wife; but into that
alliance my heart never entered, and although for many years I have
been free to admire whom fickle fancy chose, and have certainly
petted and caressed some whom the world pronounced very lovely, the
impression made upon me was transient, as the perfume of a blossom
plucked and worn for a few hours only. You have exerted over me a
fascination which I can neither explain nor resist. For you I
entertain feelings never aroused in my nature until now; and I speak
only the simple truth, when I solemnly swear to you, upon the honour
of a Laurance, that you are the only woman I have ever truly and
ardently loved."
"The honour of a Laurance? What more sacred pledge could I possibly
desire?"
The fingers of her free hand were toying with a small gold chain
around her neck, to which was fastened the hidden wedding ring of
black agate, with its white skull; and as she spoke her scarlet lips
paled perceptibly, and her soft dreamy eyes began to glitter.
"Ah! I repeat, upon my honour as a gentleman and a Laurance; and a
holier oath no man could offer. Of my proud unsullied name I am
fastidiously careful, and can even you demand or hope a nobler one
than that I now lay at your feet?"
"The name of Laurance? Certainly I think it would satisfy even my
ambition."
He felt the pretty hand grow suddenly cold in his grasp, and saw the
thin delicate nostril expand slightly, as she fixed her brilliant
eyes on his, and smiled. Then she continued:
"Is it not too sacred and aristocratic a mantle to fling around an
obscure actress, of whose pedigree and antecedent life you know
nothing, save that widowhood and penury goaded her to histrionic
exhibitions of a beauty, that sometimes threatened to subject her to
impertinence and insult? Put aside the infatuation which not
unfrequently attacks men, who like you are rapidly descending the
hill of life, approaching the stage of second childlike simplicity,
and listen for a moment to the cold dictates of prudence and policy.
Suppose that ere you surrendered your reason to the magnetism of what
you are pleased to consider my 'physical perfection,' one of your
relatives, a brother, or say even your son, had met me at Milan as
you did; and madly forgetting his family rank, his aristocratic ties,
all the pride and worldly wisdom of heredity, had, while in a fit of
complete dementia, offered as you have done to clothe my humble
obscurity in the splendid name of Laurance? Would General René
Laurance have pardoned him, and received me as his sister, or his
daughter?"
"Could I censure any man for surrendering to charms which have so
completely vanquished me? Thank heaven! I have neither brother nor
son to rival me. My only child Cuthbert is safely anchored in the
harbour of wedlock, and having his own family ties, I am free to
consult only my heart in the choice of a bride. I have not journeyed
so far down the hill of life as you cruelly persist in asserting, and
the fervour of my emotions denies your unkind imputation. When I
proudly show the world the lovely wife of my heart's choice, you will
find my devotion a noble refutation of your unflattering estimate.
But a moment since, you confessed that to exchange the name of Orme
for that of Laurance would crown your ambition; my dearest, the truth
has escaped you."
With a sudden gesture of loathing she threw off his hand, struck her
palms together, and he started at the expression that seemed
literally to blaze in her eyes, so vivid, so withering was the light
that rayed out.
"Yes, the truth escaped my lips. The honourable name of Laurance is
talismanic, and offers much to Odille Orme; yet I will stain my soul
with no dissimulation. With love and romance, I finished long, long
ago; and to-day I have not patience to trifle even with its
phraseology. I am thirty-three, and in my early girlhood the one love
dream of all my life was rudely broken, leaving me no more capacity
to indulge a second, than belongs to those marbles in the _Musée
Bourbonique_. For my dear young husband I felt the only intense,
idolatrous, yes, blindly worshipping devotion, that my nature could
yield to any human being. When I lost him, I lost my heart also;
became doubly widowed, because my grief bereft me of the power of
properly loving even our little baby. For years I have given my body
and soul to the accomplishment of one purpose, the elevation of my
social status, and that of my child. Had my husband been spared to
me, we would not have remained obscure and poor, but after my
widowhood the struggle devolved upon me. I have not had leisure to
think of love, have toiled solely for maintenance and position; and
have sternly held myself aloof from the world that dared to believe
my profession rendered me easy of access. Titles have been laid at my
feet, but their glitter seemed fictitious, did not allure me; and no
other name save yours has ever for an instant tempted me. To-day you
are here to plead my acceptance of that name, and frankly, I tell
you, sir, it dazzles me. As an American I know all that it
represents, all that it would confer on me, all that it would prove
for my child, and I would rather wear the name of Laurance than a
coronet! I confess I have but one ambition, to lift my daughter into
that high social plane, from which fate excluded her mother; and this
eminence I covet for her, marriage with you promises me. I have no
heart to bring you; mine died with all my wifely hopes when I lost my
husband. If I consent to give you my hand, and nominally the claim of
a husband, in exchange for the privilege of merging Orme in Laurance,
it must be upon certain solemn conditions, to the fulfilment of which
your traditional honour is pledged. Is a Laurance safely bound by
vows?"
Her voice had grown strangely metallic, losing all its liquid
sweetness, and as her gaze searched his face, the striking
resemblance she traced in his eyes and mouth to those of Cuthbert and
Regina seemed to stab her heart.
To the man who listened and watched with breathless anxiety her
hardening, whitening features, she merely recalled the memory of her
own tragic "Medea" confronting "Jason" at Athens.
"Only accept my vows at the altar, and I challenge the world to
breathe an imputation upon their sanctity. René Laurance never broke
a promise, never forfeited a pledge; and to keep his name unsullied,
his honour stainless, is his sole religion. Odille, my Queen----"
She rose and waved him back.
"Spare me rapsodies that accord neither with your years nor my
sentiments. Understand, it is a mere bargain and a sale, and I am
carefully arranging the conditions. For myself I ask little; but as
you are aware, my daughter is grown, is now in her seventeenth year,
and the man whom the world regards as my husband must share his name
and fortune with my child. Doubtless you deem me calculating and
mercenary, and for her dear sake I am forced to do so; for all the
tenderness that remains in my nature is centred in my little girl.
She has been reared as carefully as a princess, is accomplished and
very beautiful, and when you see her I think you will scarcely refuse
the tribute of your admiration and affection."
For an instant a grey pallor spread from lip to brow, and the unhappy
woman shuddered; but rallying, she moved across the floor to her
writing desk, and the infatuated man followed, whispering:
"If she resembles her mother, can you doubt her perfect and prompt
adoption into my heart?"
"My daughter is unlike me; is so entirely the image of her lost
father, that the sight of her beauty sometimes overwhelms me with
torturing memories. Here. General Laurance is a carefully written
paper, which I submit for your examination and mature reflection.
When in the presence of proper witnesses you sign that contract, you
will have purchased the right to claim my hand--mark you, only my
hand--at the altar."
It was a cautiously worded marriage settlement, drawn up in
conformity with legal requirements; and its chief exaction was the
adoption of Regina, the transmission of the name of Laurance, and
the settlement upon her of a certain amount of money in stocks and
bonds, exclusive of any real estate. As he received the paper and
opened it, Mrs. Orme added: "Take your own time, and weigh the
conditions carefully and deliberately."
"Stay, Odille; do not leave me. A few moments will suffice for this
matter, and I am in no mood to endure suspense."
"Within an hour you can at least comprehend what I demand. I am going
to the terrace of the Villa Reale, and when in accordance with that
contract you decide to adopt my child, and present her to the world
as your own, you will find me on the terrace."
He would have taken her hand, but she walked away and disappeared,
closing a door behind her.
His hat had rolled out of sight, and as he searched hurriedly for it,
Mrs. Waul spoke from her distant recess:
"General Laurance will find his hat between the ottoman and the
window."
The winding walks of the Villa were comparatively deserted, when Mrs.
Orme began to pace slowly to and fro beneath the trees, whose foliage
swayed softly in the mild evening air. When the few remaining groups
had passed beyond her vision, she threw back the long thick veil that
had effectually concealed her features, and approaching the parapet
that overhung the sea, sat down. Removing her hat and veil, she
placed them beside her on the seat, and resting her hands on the iron
railing, bowed her chin upon them, and looked out upon the sea
murmuring at the foot of the wall.
The flush and sparkle of an hour ago had vanished so utterly, that it
appeared incredible that colour, light, and dimples could ever wake
again in that frozen face, over whose rigid features brooded the calm
of stone.
"A woman fair and stately,
But pale as are the dead,"--
she seemed some impassive soulless creature, incapable alike of
remorse or of hope, allured by no future, frightened by no past;
silently fronting at last the one sunless, joyless, dreary goal,
whose attainment had been for years the paramount aim of her stranded
life. The rosy glow of dying day yet lingered in the sky and tinged
the sea, and a golden moon followed by a few shy stars watched their
shining images twinkling in the tremulous water; but the loveliest
object upon which their soft light fell was that lonely, wan,
lilac-robed woman.
So Jephtha's undaunted daughter might have looked, as she saw the
Syrian sun sink below the palms and poppies, knowing that when it
rose once more upon the smiling happy world, her sacrifice would have
been accomplished, her fate for ever sealed; or so perhaps Alcestis
watched the slow-coming footsteps of that dreadful hour, when for her
beloved she voluntarily relinquished life.
To die for those we love were easy martyrdom, but to live in
sacrificial throes fierce as Dirce's tortures, to endure for tedious
indefinite lingering years, jilted by death, demands a fortitude
higher than that of Cato, Socrates, or Seneca.
To all of us come sooner or later lurid fateful hours that bring us
face to face with the pale Parcæ; so close that we see the motionless
distaff, and the glitter of the opening shears, and have no wish to
stay the clipping of the frayed and tangled thread.
In comparison with the grim destiny Mrs. Orme had so systematically
planned the hideous "death in life," upon which she was deliberately
preparing to enter, a leap over that wall into the placid sea beneath
would have been welcome as heaven to tortured Dives; but despite the
loathing and horror of her sickened and outraged soul, she
contemplated her future lot as calmly as St. Lawrence the heating of
his gridiron.
Over the beautiful blue bay, where the moon had laid her pavement of
gold, floated a low sweet song, a simple barcarolle, that came from a
group of happy souls in a small boat
"Che cosi vual que pesci
Fiduline!
L'anel que me cascá
Nella bella mia barca
Nella bella se ne vá.
Fiduline."
Approaching the shore, the ruddy light burning at one end of the boat
showed its occupants; a handsome athletic young fisherman, and his
pretty childish wife, hushing her baby in her arms, with a slow
cradle-like movement that kept time to her husband's song.
"Te daro cento scudi
Fiduline.
Sta borsa riccamá
Por la bella sua barca
Colla bella se ne vá
Fidulilalo, Fiduline."
Springing ashore he secured the boat, and held out his arms for the
sleeping bud that contained in its folded petals all their domestic
hopes; and as the star-eyed young mother kissed it lightly and laid
it in its father's arms, the happy pair walked away, leaving the echo
of their gay musical chatter lingering on the air.
To the woman who watched and listened from the parapet above, it
seemed a panel rosy, dewy, fresh from Tempe, set as a fresco upon the
walls of Hell, to heighten the horrors of the doomed.
From her chalice fate had stolen all that was sweet and rapturous in
wifehood and motherhood, substituting hemlock; and as the vision of
her own fair child was recalled by the sleeping babe of the Italian
fisherman, she suffered a keen pang in the consciousness that those
tender features of her innocent daughter reproduced vividly the image
of the man who had blackened her life.
The face in Regina's portrait was so thoroughly Laurance in outline
and Laurance in colour, that the mother had covered it with a thick
veil, unable to meet the deep violet eyes that she had learned to
hate in René Laurance and his son.
Yet for the sake of that daughter, whose gaze she shunned, she was
about to step down into flames far fiercer than those of Tophet,
silently immolating all that remained of her life.
Although she neither turned her head nor removed her eyes from the
sea, she knew that the end was at hand. For one instant her heart
seemed to cease beating, then with a keen spasm of pain slowly
resumed its leaden labour.
The erect, graceful, manly figure at her side bent down, and the
grizzled moustache touched her forehead.
"Odille, I accept your terms. Henceforth in accordance with your own
conditions you are mine; mine in the sight of God and man."
Recoiling, she drew her handkerchief across the spot where his lips
had rested, and her voice sounded strangely cold and haughty:
"God holds Himself aloof from such sacrilege as this, and sometimes I
think He does not witness, or surely would forbid. Just yet, you must
not touch me. You accept the conditions named, and I shall hold
myself bound by the stipulations; but until I am your wife, until you
take my hand as Mrs. Laurance, you will pardon me if I absolutely
prohibit all caresses. I am very frank, you see, and doubtless you
consider me peculiar, probably prudish, but only a husband's lips can
touch mine, only a husband's arm encircle me. When we are
married----"
She did not complete the sentence, but a peculiar musical laugh
rippled over her lips, and she held out her hand to him.
"Remember, I promised General Laurance only my hand, and here I
surrender it. You have fairly earned it, but I fear it will not prove
the guerdon you fondly imagine."
He kissed it tenderly, and keeping it in his, spoke very earnestly:
"Only one thing, Odille, I desire to stipulate, and that springs
solely from my jealous love. You must promise to abandon the stage
for ever. Indeed, my beautiful darling, I could not endure to see my
wife, my own, before the footlights. In Mrs. Laurance the world must
lose its lovely idol."
"Am I indeed so precious in General Laurance's eyes! Will he hold me
always such a dainty sacred treasure, safe from censure and
aspersion? Sir, I appreciate the delicate regard that prompts this
expression of your wishes, and with one slight exception, I willingly
accede to them. I have written a little drama, adapting the chief
_rôle_ to my own peculiar line of talent and I desire in that play,
of my own composition, to bid adieu to the stage. In Paris, where
illness curtailed my engagement, I wish to make my parting bow, and
I trust you will not oppose so innocent a pleasure? The marriage
ceremony shall be performed in the afternoon, and that night I
propose to appear in my own play. May I not hope that my husband
will consent to see me on my wedding day in that _rôle_? Only one
night, then adieu for ever to the glittering bauble! Can my
fastidious lover refuse the first boon I ever craved?"
She turned and placed her disengaged hand on his shoulder, and as the
moonlight shone on her smiling dangerously beguiling face, the
infatuated man laid his lips upon the soft white fingers.
"Could I refuse you anything, my beautiful brown-eyed empress? Only
once more then; promise me after that night to resign the stage, to
reign solely in my heart and home."
"You have my promise, and when I break my vows, it will be the
Laurance example that I follow. In your letter you stated that urgent
business demanded your return to Paris, possibly to America. Can you
not postpone the consummation of our marriage?"
"Impossible! How could I consent to defer what I regard as the
crowning happiness of my life? I have not so many years in store,
that I can afford to waste even an hour without you. When I leave
Europe, I shall take my darling with me."
The moon was shining full upon her face, and the magnificent eyes
looked steadily into his. There was no movement of nerve and muscle
to betray all that raged in her soul, as she fought and conquered the
temptation to spring forward, and hurl him over the parapet.
In the flush and enthusiasm of his great happiness, he certainly
seemed far younger in proportion to their respective years than his
companion; and as he softly stroked back a wave of golden hair that
had fallen on her white brow, he leaned until his still handsome face
was close to hers, and whispered:
"When may I claim you? Do not, my love, delay it a day longer than is
absolutely necessary."
"To-morrow morning I will give you an answer. Then I am going away
for a few days to Pæstum, and cannot see you again till we meet in
Paris. Recollect, I warned you, I bring no heart, no love; both are
lost hopelessly in the ashes of the past. I never loved but one
man--the husband of my youth, the father of my baby; and his loss I
shall mourn till the coffin closes above me. General Laurance, you
are running a fearful hazard, and the very marble of the altar should
find a voice to cry out and stay your madness."
She shivered, and her eyes burned almost supernaturally large and
lustrous.
Charmed by her beauty and grace, which had from the beginning of
their acquaintance attracted him more powerfully than any other woman
had ever done, and encouraged by the colossal vanity that had always
predominated in his character, he merely laughed and caressed her
hand.
"Can any hazard deter me when the reward will be the privilege, the
right to fold you in my arms? I am afraid of nothing that can result
from making you my wife. Do not cloud my happiness by conjuring up
spectres that only annoy you, that cannot for an instant influence
me. Your hands are icy and you have no shawl. Let me take you home."
Silently she accepted his arm, and as the fringy acacias trembled and
sighed above her, she walked by his side; wondering if the black
shadow that hung like a pall over the distant crest of Vesuvius were
not a fit symbol of her own wretched doomed existence, threatening a
sudden outbreak that would scatter ruin and despair where least
expected?
Nearing the Villa gate General Laurance asked:
"What is the character of your drama? Is it historic?"
"Eminently historic."
"In what era?"
"In the last eighteen or twenty years."
"When may I read the _MS_? I am impatient to see all that springs
from your dear hands."
"The dramatic effect will be finer, when you see me act it. Pardon me
if I am vain enough to feel assured that my little play will touch my
husband's heart as ever Racine, Shakespeare, and Euripides never
did!"
There was a triumphant, exultant ring in her silvery voice that only
charmed her infatuated companion, and tenderly pressing the hand that
lay on his arm, he added pleadingly;
"At least, my dear Odille, you will tell me the title?"
She shook off his fingers, and answered quietly:
"General Laurance, I call it merely--_Infelice_."