A Mad Love, Charlotte Mary Brame [read this if txt] 📗

Chandos, who greatly desires the pleasure of your acquaintance."

Then the two who had crossed each other's lives so strangely looked at each other face to face. Leone's heart almost stood still with a great throb of pain as she glanced steadily at the fair, lovely face of her rival. How often had he sunned himself in those blue eyes? how often had he kissed those sweet lips and held those white hands in his own? She recovered herself with a violent effort and listened. Lady Chandos was speaking to her.

"I am charmed to see you, Madame Vanira," she said; "I am one of your greatest admirers."

"You are very kind, Lady Chandos," said Leone.

Then Lady Marion turned to her hostess.

"I should like to remain with Madame Vanira," she said; "that is, if you will, madame?"

Leone drew aside her rich cream-colored draperies and lace. Lady Chandos sat down by her side.

"I am so pleased to meet you," she continued, with what was unusual animation with her. "I have longed to see you off the stage."

Leone smiled in the fair face.

"I can only hope," she said, "that you will like me as well off the stage as you do on."

"I am sure of that," said Lady Chandos, with charming frankness.

She admired the beautiful and gifted singer more than she cared to say. She added, timidly:

"Now that I have met you here, madame, I shall hope for the pleasure and honor of receiving you at my own house."

She wondered why Madame Vanira drew back with a slight start: it seemed so strange to be asked into the house that she believed to be her own.

"I shall be delighted," continued Lady Chandos. "I give a ball on Wednesday week; promise me that you will come."

"I will promise you to think of it," she replied, and Lady Chandos laughed blithely.

"That means you will come," she said, and the next moment Lord Chandos entered the room.


CHAPTER XLV.


AN INVITATION.

They both saw him at the same moment. Leone, with a sudden paling of her beautiful face, with a keen sense of sharp pain, and Lady Chandos with a bright, happy flush.

"Here is my husband," she said, proudly; little dreaming that the beautiful singer had called him husband, too.

He came toward them slowly; it seemed to him so wonderful that these two should be sitting side by side--the woman he loved with a passionate love, and the woman he married under his mother's influence.

There were so many people present that it was some time before he could get up to them, and by that time he had recovered himself.

"Lance," cried Lady Chandos, in a low voice, "see how fortunate I am; I have been introduced to Madame Vanira."

Yes, his heart smote him again; it seemed so cruel to deceive her when she was so kind, so gentle; she trusted in him so implicitly that it seemed cruel to deceive her. She turned with a radiant face to Leone.

"Let me introduce my husband, Lord Chandos, to you, Madame Vanira," she said, and they looked at each other for one moment as though they were paralyzed.

Then the simple, innate truth of Leone's disposition came uppermost. With the most dignified manner she returned the bow that Lord Chandos made.

"I have had the pleasure of meeting Lord Chandos before," she said.

And Lady Marion looked at her husband in reproachful wonder.

"And you never told me," she said. "Knowing my great admiration for Madame Vanira, you did not tell me."

"Where was it, madame?" he asked, looking at her with an air of helpless, hopeless entreaty.

Then she bethought herself that perhaps those few words might cause unpleasantness between husband and wife, and she tried to make little of them.

"I was at the French Embassy here in London, Lord Chandos, at the same time you were," she said.

And Lady Marion was quite satisfied with the explanation, which was perfectly true.

Then they talked for a few minutes, at the end of which Lady Chandos was claimed by her hostess for a series of introductions.

Lord Chandos and Leone were left alone.

She spoke to him quickly and in an undertone of voice.

"Lord Chandos," she said, "I wish to speak to you; take me into the conservatory where we shall not be interrupted."

He obeyed in silence; they walked through the brilliant throng of guests, through the crowded, brilliant room, until they reached the quiet conservatory at the end.

The lamps were lighted and shone like huge pearls among the blossoms. There were few people and those few desired no attention from the new-comers. He led her to a pretty chair, placed among the hyacinths; the fragrance was very strong.

"I am afraid you will find this odor too much, beautiful as it is," he said.

"I do not notice," she said; "my heart and soul are full of one thing. Oh, Lord Chandos, your wife likes me, likes me," she repeated, eagerly.

"I am not surprised at it; indeed, I should have been surprised if she had not liked you," he said.

The dark, beautiful eyes had a wistful look in them as they were raised to his face.

"How beautiful she is, how fair and stately!" she said.

"Yes, beautiful; but compared to you, Leone, as I said before, she is like moonlight to sunlight, like water to wine."

"I have done no wrong," continued Leone, with a thrill of subdued passion in her voice; "on the contrary, a cruel wrong was done to me. But when I am with her, I feel in some vague way that I are guilty. Does she know anything of your story and mine?"

His dark face burned.

"No," he replied; "she knows nothing of that except that in my youth--ah, Leone, that I must say this to you--in my youth I made some mistake; so my lady mother Was pleased to call it," he added, bitterly. "She does not know exactly what it was, nor could she ever dream for one moment that it was you."

She looked at him with a serious, questioning gaze.

"Surely you did not marry her without telling her that you had gone through that service already, did you? If so, I think you acted disloyally and dishonorably."

He bent his head in lowly humility before her.

"Leone," he said--"ah, forgive me for calling you Leone, but the name is so sweet and so dear to me--Leone, I am a miserable sinner. When I think of my weakness and cowardice, I loathe myself; I could kill myself; yet I can never undo the wrong I have done to either. She knows little, and I believe implicitly she has forgotten that little. Why do you ask me?"

"It seems so strange," said Leone, musingly, "I asked you to come here to speak to me that I might ask your advice. She, Lady Marion, has asked me to her house--has pressed me, urged me to go; and I have said that I will think of it. I want you to advise me and tell me what I should do."

"My dear Leone, I--I cannot. I should love above all things to see you at my house, but it would be painful for you and painful to me."

She continued, in a low voice:

"Lady Marion has asked me to be her friend; she is good enough to say she admires me. What shall I do?"

He was silent for some minutes, then he said:

"There is one thing, Leone, if you become a friend, or even a visitor of Lady Marion's, I should see a great deal of you, and that would be very pleasant; it is all there is left in life. I should like it, Leone--would you?"

Looking up, she met the loving light of the dark eyes full upon her. Her face flushed.

"Yes," she whispered, "I, too, should like it."

There was silence between them for some little time, then Leone said:

"Would it be quite safe for me to visit you? Do you think that Lady Lanswell would recognize me?"

"No," he answered, "if the eyes of love failed to recognize you at one glance, the eyes of indifference will fail altogether. My mother is here to-night; risk an introduction to her, and you will see. It would give fresh zest and pleasure to my life if you could visit us."

"It would be pleasant," said Leone, musingly; "and yet to my mind, I cannot tell why, there is something that savors of wrong about it. Lord Chandos," she added, "I like your wife, she was kindness itself to me. We must mind one thing if I enter your house; I must be to you no more than any other person in it--I must be a stranger--and you must never even by one word allude to the past; you promise that, do you not?"

"I will promise everything and anything," he replied. "I will ask Madame de Chandalle to introduce you to my mother--I should not have the nerve for it."

"If she should recognize me there will be a scene," said Leone, with a faint smile; "it seems to me that the eyes of hate are keener than the eyes of love."

"She will not know you. I believe that she has forgotten even your name; who would think of finding Leone in the brilliant actress for whose friendship all men sigh? Why, Leone, forgive me for using the word--life will be quite different to me if we are to be friends, if I may see your face sometimes in the home that should have been yours. It will make all the difference in the world, and I am absurdly happy at the bare thought of it."

"I think our conference has lasted long enough," she said, rising. "You think, then, that I should accept Lady Marion's invitation?"

"Yes, it will give us more opportunities of meeting, and will bring about between Lady Marion and yourself a great intimacy," he said.

"Heaven send it may end well," she said, half sadly.

"Thank Heaven for its kindness," he replied, and then they left the quiet conservatory, where the soft ripple of the scented fountain made sweetest music.

Lord Chandos quitted her, much to his regret, and Leone sought out Madame de Chandalle.

"I should like to ask you, madame, for one more introduction," she said. "I should much like to know the Countess of Lanswell."

Nothing could exceed madame's delight and courtesy. She took Leone to the blue saloon, as it was called, where the Countess of Lanswell sat in state. She looked up in gratified surprise as the name of the great singer was pronounced. If Leone felt any nervousness she did not show it; there must be no hesitation or all would be lost. She raised her eyes bravely to the handsome, haughty face of the woman who had spurned her. In the one moment during which their eyes met, Leone's heart almost stood still, the next it beat freely, for not even the faintest gleam of recognition came into my lady's eyes.

But when they had been talking for some minutes, and the countess had excelled herself in the grace of her compliments, she gazed with keen, bright eyes in that beautiful face.

"Do you know, Madame Vanira, that the first time I saw you there