A Mad Marriage, May Agnes Fleming [best big ereader .TXT] 📗

>“Who can she be, I wonder?” thinks the artist, pocketing the check and

going into the house; “a personage of rank, or—stay! this popular

danseuse from over the water, whose name rings the changes through

London, and whose beauty and whose dancing are the talk of the town. The

Prince is known to be the most devoted of her devotees—some men lay

heavy odds he’ll marry her. I must drop in, by the by, some night at the

Bijou, and look at her. So, my picture is sold at my own price. Lady

Dynely’s fashionable doors are thrown open to me—surely a turn in

fortune’s wheel, this.”

 

He laughs slightly. He is the possessor of more money this evening than

he has owned any time the past sixteen years. In the days that are gone

he has known poverty in its bitterest shape, the bitter poverty of a

man born to the purple and fallen from his high estate.

 

He divested himself of his picturesque, paint-stained, velvet blouse,

and got himself into a dress-coat and tie. All the while he kept

wondering vaguely who had purchased his picture. “If by any chance the

Prince is present at Lady Dynely’s, I will inquire,” he thought, as he

pocketed his latch-key and left the house; “I really should like to

know.”

 

He really would, no doubt. Interested as he was in this unknown lady, he

would have been more interested probably had he been present in the

academy that afternoon.

 

The rooms, as usual, were filled; as usual, too, the centre of

attraction was “How the Night Fell.” Very shortly after the doors were

thrown open there had entered a lady and gentleman—whose entrance

created a sensation, and who divided the interest with the pet picture

of the year. The gentleman was the Neapolitan Prince, the lady the most

popular danseuse in London, Madame Felicia.

 

She came moving slowly through the throng, seeing and enjoying the

sensation she created, a plump, rather petite beauty, her dark face lit

by two wonderful eyes, long, sleepy, yellow-black. She was of a beauty,

in a dark way, simply perfect, and she was dressed in the perfection of

taste. A silver-gray silk, with here and there vivid dashes of scarlet

and touches of rare old lace, the masterpiece of a masculine mantua

maker of the Rue de la Paix. Every eye turned to gaze after this lionne

of Coulisses, the most perfect dancer they said that ever bounded before

the footlights since the days of Taglioni. The Prince hung devotedly

upon her lightest word, but she turned impatiently away from him,

glancing with a scornful little air of disdain along the walls.

 

“Always the same,” she said, pettishly; “simpering women, glowering

women, wax-doll misses with yellow hair and china-blue eyes, insipid as

their own nursery bread and butter. Bah! why does one take the trouble

to come at all?”

 

“Will madame condescend to look at that?”

 

He led her before the picture—the group surrounding it fell back a

little. She lifted her eyes, bored, disdainful, then—a sudden stillness

came over her from head to foot. All languor, all ennui, fled from her

face, its rich coloring faded—she grew ashen gray to the very lips. So

for the space of fully five minutes she stood.

 

“How does madame find it?” the suave voice of the Italian asked.

 

She neither moved nor answered. She never took her eyes from the

picture. Slowly life and color returned to her face, slowly into the

great topaz eyes, sleepy and half-closed like a panther’s, there came a

vivid light. One small gloved hand crushed her catalogue

unconsciously—as if fascinated she stood there and gazed.

 

“Thou art pleased with the picture then, madame?” Di Venturini said,

softly, in French.

 

“Pleased with it?” she repeated, a slow, curious smile dawning on her

lips. “Prince, I must have that picture!”

 

“But, if it is already sold? True, the star is not affixed, but–-”

 

“I must have that picture!” madame repeated, with a flash of the black

eyes; “sold or not, I still must have it. How do they call the artist?”

She looked at the catalogue. “‘G. Locksley.’ The name is new—is it not,

Prince?”

 

“Altogether new, madame. If you really wish it, I will discover this M.

Locksley and purchase the picture if still in the market.”

 

“I do wish it, Monsieur Prince. That picture I must have though it cost

half a fortune. ‘How the Night Fell!’”

 

She turned back to it, and looked and looked as though she could never

look enough.

 

“It is an odd fancy,” said Prince Di Venturini, after a pause; “an

absurd one, you may think, madame, but the face of that woman in the

picture is very like yours. Not one half so lovely, but very like,

nevertheless. Does madame perceive it?”

 

“Does madame not?” madame responded, that slow, sleepy smile still on

her lips. “Who could fail? And yet, mon Prince, you cannot fancy me with

that expression, can you? He is leaving her—is it not? and her heart

is breaking. Bah! it is like the egotism of men, they desert us and we

die—or so they think! Prince, that picture must be mine before I sleep.

You hear?”

 

“And live but to obey!” with a most profound bow; “the picture shall be

yours!”

 

He escorted her to her carriage.

 

At sunset across the gate of the Brompton cottage the bargain was

struck, and “How the Night Fell” became the property of Madame Felicia,

the actress.

 

CHAPTER IV.

 

LADY DYNELY’S THURSDAY.

 

Brilliantly lit, brilliantly filled, Lady Dynely’s elegant rooms were a

study of color in themselves for a painter when Mr. Locksley arrived. He

was rather late—dancing was going on, as he made his way to his

hostess’ side to pay his respects.

 

In his ceremonial costume, the artist looked something more than well,

and that military air of his was more conspicuous than ever.

 

“You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will,

But the scent of the roses will hang round it still,”

 

quotes Miss France Forrester to Mr. Terence Dennison. “I would know the

stalk of a trooper (and have seen it more than once) under the cowl of a

monk. Your Mr. Locksley, Terry, is the most distinguished-looking man in

the rooms.”

 

“I never said he was my Mr. Locksley. So you find the painter as

attractive as the painting, France, and you will be good to him, and

smile upon him, and turn his head, for the space of a week. The last

victim was the popular new poet, the Cheapside tailor’s son. Ah! poor

Locksley!”

 

“Terry,” Miss Forrester says severely, “small boys should never attempt

the sarcastic—you least of all—for some years to come. I am interested

in aspiring geniuses—as a soldier’s daughter, in all soldiers. Where

did you say Mr. Locksley had served?”

 

“India and America. Indian mutiny, and American civil war, with great

distinction in both. A professional freelance, and, I have heard, brave

as a lion.”

 

“He looks it,” France said, dreamily. “He has the true air noble.

Surely that man is well born, or else the old adage, that blood tells,

is false. And Lady Dynely says he resembles Gordon Caryll.”

 

“Never saw Gordon Caryll,” Terry sleepily responds, “Heard of him

though. Went to perdition for a woman, didn’t he? A common case enough.

And you take him to your heart of hearts for that resemblance, don’t

you, Miss Forrester? I know you have set up this Gordon Caryll as a sort

of demi-god, my hero-worshipping young lady.”

 

She smiled, then sighed. She was looking brilliantly handsome to-night

in pink silk, pink roses in her brown hair, caught back by gleaming

diamonds. She had a love for bright colors and rich gems, and looked

with contempt on the white tulle and pale pearls of her young lady

friends.

 

“What clergyman was it said once when he introduced operatic airs into

his choir, that it was a pity the devil should have all the good

tunes. On the same principle, I say it is a pity your married women

should monopolize the brightest colors and richest jewels. The English

Miss has been trampled upon long enough—let me be the heroine to

inaugurate a new era.”

 

This is what Miss Forrester had said to Lady Dynely, this very evening,

when slightly remonstrated with on the subject of her magnificence. The

vivid colors, the vivid gems, the roses and laces, suited her dusk, warm

loveliness, and she knew it.

 

Terry had been her companion for the past hour. The Canadian heiress had

a very affectionate regard for Mr. Dennison, and made no secret of it.

 

“I am awfully fond of Terry,” she was wont to say; “the best fellow

alive and the greatest simpleton ever created.”

 

“She treats me like a small boy of ten, at home for the holidays,” Mr.

Dennison would supplement with a groan.

 

They both pause for a moment while they discuss Mr. Locksley, and look

at him. Many others look, too. “How the Night Fell” has made a

sensation; they feel a languid interest in the painter.

 

“France,” Mr. Dennison says, after that pause, “I have an idea.”

 

“Have you, Terry? Cherish it then, my dear boy, for you are never likely

to have another.”

 

“Madame,” Terry responds, “your sex protects you! Here is my idea. What

if that fellow should be the long-lost heir of Caryllynne, returned to

the halls of his fathers, and all that sort of thing, once more, to cut

you out of a fortune. It would be uncommonly like a thing on the stage,

now wouldn’t it?”

 

“Certainly like a thing on the stage,” Miss Forrester disdainfully

replies; “therefore very unlike anything in real life. Ah, no! that

would be too good to be true. Gordon Caryll, poor fellow, is dead. The

likeness Lady Dynely sees, if indeed she sees any, is but a coincidence.

See, she is beckoning—let us go over.”

 

They cross the room. Miss Forrester, with a frank smile of welcome, and

looking very bright and lovely, gives the artist a most gracious

greeting.

 

“I saw you were not dancing, France, and want you to do the honors of my

picture gallery. You could not have a better cicerone, Mr. Locksley.

France has lived as she says in an atmosphere of paintings all her

life.”

 

“And familiarity breeds contempt,” murmurs Mr. Dennison.

 

“Only in the case of stupid dragoons,” retorts Miss Forrester. “How

often have I tried to impress upon you, Terry, that sarcasm isn’t your

forte. I shall have much pleasure in displaying our art treasures to

your critical eyes, Mr. Locksley. I always feel en rapport immediately

with artists—they were the staple of my acquaintance in Rome. It is the

hot-bed of genius. You have studied there, I can see.”

 

“For three years, Miss Forrester. And,” he smiles as he says it, and

Miss Forrester marvels to see how that smile lights up his dark, grave

face—“I have seen you there many times.”

 

“Indeed! But you must, of course; I spent half my life sketching in the

galleries. The very happiest days of my life were spent in Rome.”

 

He looks down upon the dusk lovely face with gravely admiring eyes.

 

“But so little of your life has come,” that gaze says to her, “you have

not yet begun to live.”

 

“There is one thing about Rome which must strike the most casual

observer,” says Dennison, suddenly, seized with a second idea, “and that

is, the lamentable dearth of Roman noses! They were snubs, give you my

word, when I was