Lord Arleigh could not rest for thinking of the vision he had seen; the
face of the duchess' companion haunted him as no other face had ever
done. He tried hard to forget it, saying to himself that it was a fancy,
a foolish imagination, a day-dream; he tried to believe that in a few
days he should have forgotten it.
It was quite otherwise. He left Vere House in a fever of unrest; he went
everywhere he could think of to distract his thoughts. But the fair face
with its sweet, maidenly expression, the tender blue eyes with their
rich poetic depths, the sweet, sensitive lips were ever present. Look
where he would he saw them. He went to the opera, and they seemed to
smile at him from the stage; he walked home in the starlight--they were
smiling at him from the stars; he tried to sleep--they haunted him; none
had followed him as those eyes did.
"I think my heart and brain are on fire," he said to himself. "I will
go and look once again at the fair young face; perhaps if she smiles at
me or speaks to me I shall be cured."
He went; it was noon when he reached the Duke of Hazlewood's mansion. He
inquired for the duchess, and was told she had gone to Hampton Court. He
repeated the words in surprise.
"Hampton Court!" he said. "Are you quite sure?"
"Yes, my lord," was the footman's reply. "Her grace has gone there, for
I heard her talking about the pictures this morning."
He could hardly imagine the duchess at Hampton Court. He felt half
inclined to follow, and then he thought that perhaps it would be an
intrusion; if she had wanted his society, she would certainly have asked
for it. No, he would not go. He stood for a few minutes irresolute,
wondering if he could ask whether the duchess had taken her young
companion with her, and then he remembered that he did not even know her
name.
How was the day to pass? Matters were worse than ever. If he had seen
her, if he could have spoken to her, he might perhaps have felt better;
as it was, the fever of unrest had deepened.
He was to meet the duchess that evening at the French Embassy; he would
tell her she must relax some of her rigor in his favor. She was talking
to the ambassador when he entered, but with a smiling gesture she
invited him to her side.
"I hear that you called to-day," she said. "I had quite forgotten to
tell you that we were going to Hampton Court."
"I could hardly believe it," he replied. "What took you there?"
"You will wonder when I tell you, Norman," she replied, laughingly. "I
have always thought that I have a great capacity for spoiling people. My
fair Madaline, as I have told you, is both poet and artist. She begged
so hard to see the pictures at Hampton Court that I could not refuse
her."
"I should not think the history of the belles of the court of Charles
II. would be very useful to her," he said; and she was quick to detect
the jealousy in his voice.
"Norman, you are half inclined to be cross, I believe, because I did not
ask you to go with us."
"I should have enjoyed it, Philippa, very much."
"It would not have been prudent," she observed, looking most
bewitchingly beautiful in her effort to look matronly and wise.
He said no more; but if her grace had thought of a hundred plans for
making him think of Madaline, she could not have adopted one more to the
purpose.
From the moment Lord Arleigh believed that the young duchess intended
to forbid all acquaintance with her fair _protégée_, he resolved to see
her and to make her like him.
The day following he went again to the mansion; the duchess was at home,
and wished to see him, but at that moment she was engaged. He was shown
into the library, where in a few minutes she joined him.
"My dear Norman," she said, with a bright smile of greeting, "Vere told
me, if you came, to keep you for luncheon; he wants to see you
particularly. The horse that won the Derby, he has been told, is for
sale, and he wants you to see it with him."
"I shall be very pleased," replied Lord Arleigh. "You seem hurried this
morning, Philippa."
"Yes; such a _contretemps_! Just as I was anticipating a few hours with
you, the Countess of Farnley came in, with the terrible announcement
that she was here to spend the morning. I have to submit to fate, and
listen to the account of Clara's last conquests, of the infamous
behavior of her maid, of Lord Darnley's propensity for indiscreet
flirtations. I tell her there is safety in number. I have to look kind
and sympathetic while I am bored to death."
"Shall I accompany you and help you to amuse Lady Farnley?"
She repeated the words with a little laugh.
"Amuse Lady Farnley? I never undertake the impossible. You might as well
ask me to move the monument, it would be quite as easy."
"Shall I help her to amuse you, then?" he said.
"No, I will not impose on your friendship. Make yourself as comfortable
as you can, and I will try to hasten her departure."
Just as she was going away Lord Arleigh called to her.
"Philippa!" she turned her beautiful head half impatiently to him.
"What is it, Norman? Quick! The countess will think I am lost."
"May I go into your pretty rose-garden?" he asked.
She laughed.
"What a question! Certainly; you my go just where you please."
"She has forgotten her companion," he said to himself, "or she is not
about."
He went into the morning-room and through the long, open French window;
there were the lovely roses in bloom, and there--oh, kind, blessed
fate!--there was his beautiful Madaline, seated in the pretty trellised
arbor, busily working some fine point-lace, looking herself like the
fairest flower that ever bloomed.
The young girl looked up at him with a startled glance--shy, sweet,
hesitating--and then he went up to her.
"Do not let me disturb you," he said. "The duchess is engaged and gave
me permission to wait for her here."
She bowed, and he fancied that her white fingers trembled.
"May I introduce myself to you?" he continued. "I am Lord Arleigh."
A beautiful blush, exquisite as the hue of the fairest rose, spread over
her face. She looked at him with a smile.
"Lord Arleigh," she repeated--"I know the name very well."
"You know my name very well--how is that?" he asked, in surprise.
"It is a household word here," she said; "I hear it at least a hundred
times a day."
"Do you? I can only hope that you are not tired of it."
"No, indeed I am not;" and then she drew back with a sudden hesitation,
as though it had just occurred to her that she was talking freely to a
stranger.
He saw her embarrassment, and did his best to remove it.
"How beautiful these roses are!" he said, gently. "The duchess is
fortunate to have such a little paradise here."
"She ought to be surrounded by everything that is fairest and most
beautiful on earth," she declared, "for there is no one like her."
"You are fond of her?" he said.
She forgot all her shyness, and raised her blue eyes to his.
"Fond of her? I love her better than any one on earth--except perhaps,
my mother. I could never have dreamed of any one so fair, so bewitching,
so kind as the duchess."
"And she seems attached to you," he said, earnestly.
"She is very good to me--she is goodness itself;" and the blue eyes,
with their depth of poetry and passion, first gleamed with light, and
then filled with tears.
"We must be friends," said Lord Arleigh, "for I, too, love the duchess.
She has been like a sister to me ever since I can remember;" and he drew
nearer to the beautiful girl as he spoke. "Will you include me among
your friends?" he continued. "This is not the first time that I have
seen you. I stood watching you yesterday; you were among the roses, and
I was in the morning-room. I thought then, and I have thought ever
since, that I would give anything to be included among your friends."
His handsome face flushed as he spoke, his whole soul was in his eyes.
"Will you look upon me as one of your friends?" he repeated, and his
voice was full of softest music. He saw that even her white brow grew
crimson.
"A friend of mine, my lord?" she exclaimed. "How can I? Surely you know
I am not of your rank--I am not one of the class from which you select
your friends."
"What nonsense!" he exclaimed. "If that is your only objection I can
soon remove it. I grant that there may be some trifling difference. For
instance, I may have a title; you--who are a thousand times more worthy
of one--have none. What of that? A title does not make a man. What is
the difference between us? Your beauty--nay, do not think me rude or
abrupt--- my heart is in every word that I say to you--your grace would
ennoble any rank, as your friendship would ennoble any man."
She looked up at him, and said, gently:
"I do not think you quite understand."
"Yes, I do," he declared, eagerly; "I asked the duchess yesterday who
you were, and she told me your whole story."
It was impossible for him not to see how she shrank with unutterable
pain from the words. The point-lace fell on the grass at her feet--she
covered her face with her hands.
"Did she? Oh, Lord Arleigh, it was cruel to tell it!"
"It was not cruel to tell me," he returned. "She would not tell any one
else, I am quite sure. But she saw that I was really anxious--that I
must know it--that it was not from curiosity I asked."
"Not from curiosity!" she repeated, still hiding her burning face with
her hands.
"No, it was from a very different motive." And then he paused abruptly.
What was he going to say? How far had he already left all
conventionality behind? He stopped just in time, and then continued,
gravely: "The Duchess of Hazlewood and myself are such true and tried
friends that we never think of keeping any secrets from each other. We
have been, as I told you before, brother and sister all our lives--it
was only natural that she should tell me about you."
"And, having heard my story, you ask me to be one of your friends?" she
said, slowly. There were pain and pathos in her voice as she spoke.
"Yes," he replied, "having heard it all, I desire nothing on earth so
much as to win your friendship."
"My mother?" she murmured.
"Yes--your mother's unfortunate marriage, and all that came of it. I can
repeat the story."
"Oh, no!" she interrupted. "I do not wish to hear it. You know it, and
you would still be my friend?"
"Answer me one question," he said, gently. "Is this sad story the
result of any fault of yours? Are you in any way to blame for it?"
"No; not in the least. Still, Lord Arleigh, although I do not share the
fault, I share the disgrace--nothing can avert that from me."
"Nothing of the kind," he opposed; "disgrace and yourself are as
incompatible as pitch and a dove's wing."
"But," she continued, wonderingly, "do you quite understand?"
"Yes; the duchess told me the whole story. I understand it, and am truly
grieved for you; I know the duke's share in it and all."
He saw her face grow pale even to the lips.
"And yet you would be my friend--you whom people call proud--you whose
very name is history! I cannot believe it, Lord Arleigh."
There was a wistful look in her eyes, as though she would fain believe
that it were true, yet that she was compelled to plead even against
herself.
"We cannot account for likes or dislikes," he said; "I always look upon
them as nature's guidance as to whom we should love, and whom we should
avoid. The moment I saw you I--liked you. I went home, and thought about
you all day long."
"Did you?" she asked, wonderingly. "How very strange!"
"It does not seem strange to me," he observed. "Before I had looked at
you three minutes I felt as though I had known you all my life. How long
have we been talking here? Ten minutes, perhaps--yet I feel as though
already there is something that has cut us off from the rest of the
world, and left us alone together. There is no accounting for such
strange feelings as these."
"No," she replied, dreamily, "I do not think there is."
"Perhaps," he continued, "I may have been fanciful all my life; but
years ago, when I was a boy at school, I pictured to myself a heroine
such as I thought I should love when I came to be a man."
She had forgotten her sweet, half sad shyness, and sat with faint flush
on her face, her lips parted, her blue eyes fixed on his.
"A heroine of my own creation," he went on; "and I gave her an ideal
face--lilies and roses blended, rose-leaf lips, a white brow, eyes the
color of hyacinths, and hair of pale gold."
"That is a pretty picture," she said, all unconscious that it was her
own portrait he had sketched.
His eyes softened and gleamed at the _naïveté_ of the words.
"I am glad you think so. Then my heroine had, in my fancy, a mind and
soul that suited her face--pure, original, half sad, wholly sweet, full
of poetry."
She smiled as though charmed with the picture.
"Then I grew to be a youth, and then to be a man," he continued. "I
looked everywhere for my ideal among all the fair women I knew. I looked
in courts and palaces, I looked in country houses, but I could not find
her. I looked at home and abroad, I looked at all times and all seasons,
but I could not find her."
He saw a shadow come over the sweet, pure face as though she felt sorry
for him.
"So time passed, and I began to think that I should never find my ideal,
that I must give her up, when one day, quite unexpectedly, I saw her."
There was a gleam of sympathy in the blue eyes.
"I found her at last," he continued. "It was one bright June morning;
she was sitting out among the roses, ten thousand times fairer and
sweeter than they."
She looked at him with a startled glance; not the faintest idea had
occurred to her that he was speaking of her.
"Do you understand me?" he asked.
"I--I am frightened, Lord Arleigh."
"Nay, why should you fear? What is there to fear? It is true. The moment
I saw you sitting here I knew that you were my ideal, found at last."
"But," she said, with the simple wonder of a child. "I am not like the
portrait you sketched."
"You are unlike it only because you are a hundred times fairer," he
replied; "that is why I inquired about you--why I asked so many
questions. It was because you were to me a dream realized. So it came
about that I heard your true history. Now will you be my friend?"
"If you still wish it, Lord Arleigh, yes; but, if you repent of having
asked me, and should ever feel ashamed of our friendship, remember that
I shall not reproach you for giving me up."
"Giving you up?" cried Lord Arleigh. "Ah, Madaline--let me call you
Madaline, the name is so sweet--I shall never give you up! When a man
has been for many years looking for some one to fill his highest and
brightest dreams, he knows how to appreciate that some one when found."
"It seems all so strange," she said, musingly.
"Nay, why strange? You have read that sweetest and saddest of all love
stories--'Romeo and Juliet?' Did _Juliet_ think it strange that, so soon
after seeing her, _Romeo_ should be willing to give his life for her?"
"No, it did not seem strange to them," she replied, with a smile; "but
it is different with us. This is the nineteenth century, and there are
no _Juliets_."
"There are plenty of _Romeos_, though," he remarked, laughingly. "The
sweetest dreams in my life are the briefest. Will you pluck one of those
roses for me and give it to me, saying, 'I promise to be your friend?'"
"You make me do things against my will," she said; but she plucked a
rose, and held it toward him in her hand. "I promise to be your friend,"
she said, gently.
Lord Arleigh kissed the rose. As he did so their eyes met; and it would
have been hard to tell which blushed the more deeply. After that,
meetings between them became more frequent. Lord Arleigh made seeing her
the one great study of his life--and the result was what might be
imagined.