smile on his cousin's lips that he didn't care to provoke. "I am come,"
he said, stiffly, "partly for health, partly to collect materials for a
work on the 'Gurgoyles and Rose Mouldings of Mediaeval Architecture,' and
partly to oblige some friends of mine. Pardon me, here they come."
Vaughan lifted his eyes, expecting nothing very delectable in
Ruskinstone's friends; to his astonishment they fell on his beauty of
the Francais! with the outlying sentries of father, governess, and two
other women, the Warden's maiden sisters, stiff, manierees, and prudish,
like too many Englishwomen. The young lady of the Francais was a curious
contrast to them: she started a little as she saw Vaughan, and smiled
brilliantly. On the spur of that smile Ernest greeted his cousins with a
degree of _empressement_ that they certainly wouldn't have been honored
by without it. They were rather frightened at coming in actual contact
with such a monster of iniquity as a Paris _Lion_, who, they'd heard,
had out-Juan'd Don Juan, and gave him but a frigid welcome. Mr. Gordon
had doubtless heard, too, of Vaughan's misdemeanors, for he looked
stoical and acidulated as he bowed. But the young girl's eyes reconciled
Ernest to all the rest, as she frankly returned a look with which he was
wont to win his way through women's hearts, 'midst the hum of ball
rooms, in the soft tete-a-tete in boudoirs, and over the sparkling
Sillery of _petits soupers_. So, for the sake of his new quarry, he
disregarded the cold looks of the others, and made himself so charming,
that nobody could withstand the fascination of his manner till their
dinner was served, and then, telling his cousins he would do himself the
pleasure of calling on them the next day, he left the cafe to drive over
to Gentilly, to inspect a grey colt of De Kerroualle's.
"La chevelure doree is quite as pretty by daylight, Ernest," said De
Concressault. "Bon dieu! it is such a relief to see eyes that are not
tinted, and a skin whose pink and white is not born from the mysterious
rites of the toilet."
Vaughan nodded, with his Manilla between his teeth.
"That cousin of yours is queer style, mon garcon," said Kerroualle.
"How some of those islanders contrive to iron themselves into the
stiffness and flatness they do, is to me the profoundest enigma. But
what Church of England meaning lies hid in his coat-tails? They are, for
all the world, like our reverends peres! What is it for?"
"High Church. Next door shop to yours, you know. Our ecclesiastics are
given to balancing themselves on a tight rope between their 'mother' and
their 'sister,' till they tumble over into their sister's open arms--the
Catholics say into salvation, the Protestants into damnation; into
neither, I myself opine, poor simpletons. Ruskinstone is fearfully
architectural. The sole things he'll see here will be facades,
gurgoyles, and clerestories, and his soul knows no warmer loves than
'stone dolls,' as Newton calls them. I say, Gaston, what do you think of
_my_ love of the Francais; isn't she _chic_, isn't she mignonne, isn't
she spirituelle?"
"Yes," assented De Kerroualle, "prettier than either Bluette or Madame
de Melusine would allow, or--relish."
Ernest frowned. "I've done with Bluette; she's a pretty face, but--ah,
bah! one can't amuse oneself always with a little paysanne, for she's
nothing better, after all; and I'm half afraid the Melusine begins to
bore me."
"Better not tell her so, mon ami," said De Kerroualle; "she'd be a nasty
enemy."
"Pooh! a woman like that loves and forgets."
"Sans doute; but they also sometimes revenge. Poor little Bluette you
may safely turn over; but Madame la Baronne won't so easily be jilted."
Vaughan laughed. "Oh, I'm not going to break her heart. Don't you know,
Gaston, 'on a bien de la peine a rompre, meme quand on ne s'aime plus."
"I shouldn't have said you found it so," smiled De Concressault, "for
you change your loves as you change your gloves. La chevelure doree will
be the next, eh?"
"Poor little thing!" said Ernest, bitterly. "I wish her a better fate."
He went to call on la chevelure doree, nevertheless, the morning after,
and found her in the salon alone, greatly to his surprise and pleasure.
Nina Gordon _was_ pretty _even_ in the morning--as Byron says--and she
was much more, she was fascinating, and as perfectly demonstrative and
natural as any peasant girl out of the meadows of Arles, ignorant of the
magic words toilette, cosmetique, and crinoline.
She received him with evident pleasure and perfect unreserve, which even
this daring and skeptical _Lion_ could not twist or contort into
boldness, and began to talk fast and gaily.
"Do I like Paris?" she said, in answer to his question. "Oh yes; or at
least I should, if I could see it differently. I detest sight-seeing,
crowding one's brains with pictures, statues, palaces, Holy Families
jostling Polinchinelle, races, mixing up with grand masses, Versailles,
clouding St. Cloud--the Trianon rattled through in five minutes--all in
inextricable muddle. _I_ should like to see Paris at leisure, with some
one with whom I had a 'rapport,' my thoughts undisturbed, and my
historical associations fresh and fervent."
"I wish I were honored with the office of your guide," said Ernest,
smiling. "Do you think you would have a 'rapport' with me?"
She smiled in return. "Yes, I think I should. I cannot tell why. But as
it is, my warmest souvenir of Conde is chilled by the offer of an ice,
and my tenderest thought of Louise de la Valliere is shivered with the
suggestion of dinner."
Vaughan laughed. "Bravo!" thought he. "Thank God this is no tame English
icicle. I would give much," he said, "to be able to take my cousin's
place, and show you Paris. We would have no such vulgar gastronomical
interruptions; we would go through it all perfectly. I would make you
hear the very whispers with which La Valliere, under the old oaks of St.
Germain, unknowingly, told her love to Louis. In the forest glades of
St. Cloud you should see Cinq-Mars and the Royal Hunt riding out in the
_chasse de nuit_; in the gloomy walls of the prisons you should hear
Andre Chenier reciting his last verses, and see Egalite completing his
last toilet. The glittering 'Cotillons' on the terraces of Versailles,
the fierce canaille surging through the salons of the Tuileries, the
Templars dying in the green meadows at the back of St. Antoine--they
should all rise up for you under my incantations."
Positively Ernest, bored and blase, accustomed to look at Paris through
the gas-lights of his _Lion's_ life, warmed into romance to please the
eyes that now beamed upon him.
"Ah! that would be delightful," said the girl, her eyes sparkling. "Mr.
Ruskinstone, you know, is terrible to me, for he goes about with
'Ruskin' in one hand, 'Murray' in the other, and a Phrase-book or two in
his pocket (of course he wants it, as he's a 'classical scholar'), and
no matter whatever associations cling around a place, only looks at it
in regard to its architectural points. I beg your pardon," she said,
interrupting herself with a blush, "I forgot he was your cousin; but
really that constant cold stone does tease me so."
At that moment the heavy father, as Ernest irreverently styled the tall,
pompous head of one of the first banks in London, who was worth a
million if he was worth a sou, entered, and the Rev. Eusebius after
him, who had been spending a lively morning taking notes among the
catacombs. He was prepared to be as cold as a refrigerator, and the
banker to follow his example, at finding this _bete noire_ of the
Chaussee d'Antin tete-a-tete with Nina. But Ernest had a sort of haughty
high breeding and careless dignity which warned people off from any
liberties with him; and Gordon remembered that he knew Paris and its
_haute volee_ so well that he might be a useful acquaintance if kept at
arm's length from Nina, and afterwards dropped. Unlucky man! he actually
thought his weak muscles were strong enough to cope with a _Lion's_!
Vaughan took his leave, after offering his box at the Opera-Comique to
Mr. Gordon, and drove to the Jockey Club, pondering much on this new
species of the _beau sexe_. He was too used to women not to know at a
glance that she had nothing bold about her, and yet he was too skeptical
to credit that a girl could possibly exist who was neither a coquette
nor a prude. As soon as the door closed on him his friends began to open
their batteries of scandal.
"How sad it is to see life wasted as my cousin wastes his," said the
Warden, balancing a paper-knife thoughtfully, with a depressed air;
"frittered away on mere trifles, as valuless and empty as soap-bubbles,
but not, alas! so innocent."
"What do you mean?" Nina asked, quickly.
"What do I mean, Miss Gordon?" repeated Eusebius, reproachfully; "what
can I mean but the idle whirl of gaiety, the vitiating pleasures, the
debts and the vices which are to be laid at poor Ernest's door. Ever
since we were boys together, and he was expelled from Rugby for going
to Coventry fair and staying there all night, he has been going rapidly
down the road to ruin."
"He looks very comfortable in his descent," smiled the young lady. "Pray
why, after all, shouldn't horses, operas, and Manillas, be as legitimate
objects to set one's affections upon as Norman arches and Gregorian
chants? He has his dissipations, you have yours. Chacun a son gout!"
The Warden had his reasons for conciliating the young heiress, so he
made a feeble effort to smile. "You know as well as I that you do not
think what you say, Miss Gordon. Were it merely Vaughan's tastes that
were in fault it would not be of such fearful consequence, but
unfortunately it is his principles."
"He is utterly without any," said Miss Selina Ruskinstone, who, ten
years before, had been deeply and hopelessly in love with Ernest, and
never forgave him for not reciprocating the passion.
"He is a skeptic, a gambler, a spendthrift; and a more heartlessless
flirt never lived," averred Miss Augusta, who hated the whole of
Ernest's sex--even the Chapter--_pour cause_.
"Gentlemen can't help seeming flirts sometimes, some women pay such
attention to them," said Nina, with a mischievous laugh. "Poor Mr.
Vaughn! I hope he's not as black as he is painted. His physiognomy tells
a different tale; he is just my ideal of 'Ernest Maltravers.' How kind
his eyes are; have you ever looked into them, Selina?"
Miss Ruskinstone gave an angry sneer, vouchsafing no other response.
"My dear Nina, how foolishly you talk, about looking into a young man's
eyes," frowned her father. "I am surprised to hear you."
Her own eyes opened in astonishment. "Why mayn't I look at them? It is
by the eyes that, like a dog, I know whom to like and whom to avoid."
"And pray does your prescience guide you to see a saint in a ruined
_Lion_ of the Chaussee d'Antin?" sneered Selina, with another
contemptuous sniff.
"Not a saint. I'm not good enough to appreciate the race," laughed Nina.
"But I do not believe your cousin to be all you paint him; or, at least,
if circumstances have led him into extravagance, I have a conviction
that he has a warm heart and a noble character au fond."
"We will hope so," said the Warden, meekly, with an expression which
plainly said how vain a hope it was.
"I think we have wasted a great deal too much conversation on a
thankless subject," said Selina, with asperity. "Don't you think it
time, Mr. Gordon, for us to go to the Louvre?"
That day, as they were driving along the Boulevards, they passed Ernest
with Bluette in his carriage going to the Pre Catalan: they all knew
her, from having seen her play at the Odeon. Selina and Augusta turned
down their mouths, and turned up their eyes. Gordon pulled up his
collar, and looked a Brutus in spectacles. Nina colored, and looked
vexed. Triumph glittered in Eusebius's meek eyes, but he sighed a
pastor's sigh over a lost soul.
III.
"LE LION AMOUREUX."
The morning after, as they were going into the Exposition des Beaux
Arts, they met Vaughan; and no ghost would have been more unwelcome to
the Warden than the distingue figure of his fashionable cousin. Nina was
the only one who looked pleased to recognise him, and she, as she
returned his smile, forgot that the evening before it had been given to
Bluette.
"Are you coming in too?" she asked.
"I was not, but I will with pleasure," said Ernest. And into the
Exhibition with them he went, to Ruskinstone's wrath and Gordon's
annoyance.
Vaughan was a connoisseur in art. The Warden knew no more than what he
took verbatim from the god of his idolatry, Mr. John Ruskin. It was very
natural that Nina should listen to the friend of Ingres and Vernet
instead of to the second-hand worshipper of Turner. Vaughan, by
instinct, dropped his customary tone of compliment--compliment he never
used to women he delighted to honor--and talked so charmingly, that Nina
utterly forgot the luckless Eusebius, and started when a low, sweet
voice said, close beside her, "What, Ernest, you here?"
She turned, and saw a woman about eight-and-twenty, dressed in
perfection of taste, with an exquisite figure, and a face of brunette
beauty; the rouge most undiscoverable, and the eyes artistically tinted
to make them look larger, which, Heaven knows, was needless. She darted
a quick look at Vaughan's companion, which Nina gave back with a dash of
hauteur. A shade came over his face as he answered her greeting.
"Will you not introduce me to your friend?" said the new comer. "She is
of your nation, I fancy, and you know I am entetee of everything
English."
Ernest looked rather gloomy at the compliment, but turning to Nina,
begged to introduce her to Madame de Melusine. The gay, handsome
baronne, taking in all the English girl's points as rapidly as a groom
at Tattersall's does a two-year-old's, was chatting volubly to Nina,
when the others came up. Gordon, though wont to boast that he belonged
to the aristocracy of money, was always ready to fall in the dust before
the noblesse of blood, and was gratified at the introduction,
remembering to have read in the _Moniteur_ the name of De Melusine at
the ball at the Tuileries. And the widow was very charming even to the
professedly stoical eyes of a Brutus of sixty-two. She soon floated off,
however, with her party, giving Vaughan a gay "A ce soir!" and
requesting to be allowed the honor of calling on the Gordons.
"Is she a great friend of yours?" asked Nina, when she and he were a
little in advance of the others.
"I have known her some time."
"And you are very intimate, I suppose, as she called you by your
Christian name?"
He smiled a smile that puzzled Nina. "Oh! we soon get familiar here!"
"Where are you going to see her again this evening?" she persevered,
playing with her parasol fringe.
"At her own house--a house that will charm you. By the way, it once
belonged to Bussy Rabutin, and it has all Louis Quatorze furniture."
"Is it a dinner?--a ball?"
"No, an Opera supper--she is famed for her Sillery and her mots. Ten to
one I shall not go; what amuses one once palls with repetition."
"I don't understand that," said Nina, quickly; "what I like, I like pour
toujours."
"Pauvre enfant! you little know life," muttered Ernest. "Ah! Miss
Gordon, you are at the happy age when one can believe in the feelings
and friendships, and all the charming little romances of existence. But
I have passed it, and so that I am amused for a moment, so that
something takes time off my hands, I look no further, and expect no
more. I know well enough the champagne will cease to sparkle, but I
drink it while it foams, and don't trouble myself to lament over it.
Qu'importe? when one bottle's empty, there is another!"
"Ah! it is such women as Madame de Melusine who have taught you that
doctrine," cried Nina, with an energy that rather startled Ernest,
though his nerves were as strong as any man's in Paris. "My romances, as
you term them, still I believe sleep in your heart, but the world you
live in has stifled them. Do you think amusement will always be enough
for you?--do you think you will never want something better than your
empty champagne foam?"
"I hope I shall not, mademoiselle," said Vaughan, bitterly, "for I am
certain I do not believe in it, and am quite sure I should never get it.
Leave me to the roses of my Tritericae; they are all I shall ever enjoy,
and they, at the best, are withered."
"Nina, love," interrupted Selina, coming up with much amiability, "I was
_obliged_ to come and tell you not to be _quite_ so energetic. All the
people in the room are looking at you."
"I dare say they are," said Vaughan, calmly. "It is not often the
Parisians have the pleasure of seeing beauty unaffected, and
fascinations careless of their own charms. Nature, Selina, is unhappily
as rare one side the Channel as the other, and we men appreciate it when
we do see it."
When Vaughan parted from them soon after, he swore at himself for three
things. First, for having driven Bluette, en plein jour, through the
Boulevards, though he had driven Bluette, and such as Bluette, a
thousand times before; secondly, for having been so weak as to
introduce Madame de Melusine to the Gordons; and, thirdly, for
having--he the thorough-paced _Lion_, whose manual was Rochefoucauld,
and tutor in love, De Kock--actually talked romance as if he were Werter
or Paul Flemming, or some other sentimental simpleton.
Vaughan, to his great disgust, felt a fit of blue devils stealing on
him, hurled one or two rose notes waiting for him into the fire with an
oath, smoked half a dozen Manillas fiercely, and then, to get
excitement, went to a dinner at the Rocher de Cancale, played ecarte
with a beau joueur, went to an Opera supper--_not_ to the De
Melusine's--then to Mabille and came home at seven in the morning after
a night such as would have raised every hair off Brutus's head, given a
triumphant glitter to the Warden's small blue eyes, and possibly even
staggered the hot faith of his young champion. Pauline de Melusine was
as good as her word--she did call on the Gordons--and Brutus, stoic
though he was, was well pleased; for the baronne, though her nobility
only dated from the Restoration, and was not received by the exclusive
Legitimists of the old Faubourg St. Germain, had a very pleasant set of
her own, and figured among the nouvelle noblesse and bourgeois decores
who fill the vacant places of the De Rochefoucauld, the De Rohan, and
the Montmorency, in the "imperial" salons of the Tuileries, where once
the noblest blood in Europe was gathered.
"It is painful to me to frequent Ernest's society," the Warden was wont
to say, "for every word he utters impresses me but more sadly with the
conviction of his lost state. But we are commanded to be in the world
though not of it, and, if I shun him, how can I hope to benefit him?"
"True; and, as your cousin, it would scarcely be charitable to avoid
him entirely, terrible as we know his habits to be. But there is no
necessity to be too intimate, and I do not wish Nina to be too much with
him," the banker was accustomed to answer.
"_Anglice_, Vaughan gets us good introductions, and makes Paris pleasant
to us; we'll use him while we want him: when we don't, we will give him
his conge."
That's the reading of most of our dear friends' compliments and
caresses, isn't it?
Vaughan knew perfectly well that they would like to make a cat's-paw of
him, and was the last man likely to play that simple and certainly not
agreeable role unless it suited him. But he had reasons of his own for
forcing Gordon to be civil and obliged to him, despite the prejudices of
that English, and therefore, of course, opinionated gentleman. It amused
him to mortify Eusebius, whom he saw at a glance was bewitched with the
prospect of Nina's _dot_, and it amused him very much to see Nina's
joyous laughter as he leaned over her chair at the Opera Comique, to
hear her animated satire on Madame de Melusine, for whom, knowing
nothing of her, the young lady had conceived hot aversion, and to listen
to her enthusiasm when she poured out to him her vivid imaginings.
Gradually the cafes, and the Boulevards, and the boudoirs missed Ernest
while he accompanied Nina through the glades of St. Cloud, or down the
Seine to Asnieres, or up the slopes of Pere la Chaise, in his new
pursuit; and often at night he would leave the coulisses, or a
lansquenet, or the gas-lights of the Maison Doree, and the Closerie des
Lilas, to watch her thorough enjoyment of a vaudeville, her fervent
feeling in an opera, or to waltz with her at a ball, and note her glad
recognition of him.
To this girl, Ernest opened his heart and mind as he--being a reserved,
proud, and skeptical man--had never done to any one; there was a
sympathy and confidence between them, and she learned much of his inner
nature as she talked to him soft and low under the forest trees of
Fontainebleau, such talk as could not be heard in Bluette's boudoir,
under the wax-lights of the Quartier Breda, or in the flow of the
Sillery at la Melusine's soupers. All this was new to the tired _Lion_,
and amused him immensely. La chevelure doree was twisting the golden
meshes of its net round him, as De Concressault told him one day.
"Nonsense," said Ernest; "have I not two loves already on my hands more
than I want?"
"Dethrone them, and promote la petite."
Vaughan turned on his friend with his eyes flashing.
"Bon Dieu! do you take her for a ballet-girl or a grisette?"
"Well, if you don't like that, marry her then, mon cher. You will
satisfy your fancy, and get cinquante mille francs de rente--at a
sacrifice, of course; but, que veux-tu? There is no medal without its
reverse, though a 'lion marie' is certainly an anomaly, an absurdity,
and an intense pity."
"Tais-toi," said Ernest, impatiently; "tu es fou! Caught in the toils of
a wretched intrigante, in the power of any tailor in the Rue Vivienne,
any jeweller in the Palais Royal, my money spent on follies, my life
wasted in play, the turf, and worthless women, I have much indeed to
offer to a young girl who has wealth, beauty, genius, and heart!"
"All the more reason why you should make a good coup," said Emile,
calmly, after listening with pitying surprise to his friend in his new
mood. "You have a handsome face, a fashionable reputation, and a good
name. Bah! you can do anything. As for your life, all women like a
mauvais sujet, and unless the De Melusine turn out a Brinvilliers, I
don't see what you have to fear."
"When I want your counsel, Emile, I will ask it," said Vaughan, shortly;
"but, as I have no intention of going in for the prize, there is no need
for you to bet on the chance of the throw."
"Comme tu veux!" said the Parisian, shrugging his shoulders. "That homme
de paille, your priestly cousin, will take her back to the English fogs,
and make her a much better husband than you'd ever be, mon garcon."
Vaughan moved restlessly.
"The idiot! if I thought so---- The devil take you, Emile! why do you
talk of such things?"
At that minute Nina was sitting by one of the windows of their hotel,
watching for Ernest, with a bouquet he had sent her on a table by her
side; and the Rev. Eusebius was talking in a very low tone to her
father. She caught a few words. "Last night--Vaughan at the Freres
Provencaux--a souper au cabinet--Mademoiselle Celine, premiere
danseuse--quite terrible," &c., &c.
Nina flushed scarlet, and turned round. "If you blame your cousin, Mr.
Ruskinstone, why were you there yourself?"
The Warden colored too. With him, as with a good many, foreign air
relaxed the severity of the Decalogue, and what was sin at home, where
everybody knew it, was none at all abroad--under the rose. Some dear
pharisees will not endanger their souls by a carpet-dance in England,
but if a little bird followed them in their holiday across the Channel,
it might chance to see them disporting under a domino noir.