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

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“Yes, he came in with me,” Boville says, with a faint, weary little

laugh. “Where is he now? In much pleasanter company, dear boy—driving

home with Madame Felicia. Intoxicating creature that—eh, Terry? And

weally, on my word, you know,” lisps Mr. Boville, raising his white

eyebrows, “Dynely is altogether the spooniest fellow!”

 

“Where does Madame Felicia live?” Terry growls, with a flash of his eye,

cutting Mr. Boville’s drawl suddenly short.

 

The slow, sleepy eyes open again. Mr. Boville looks at Mr. Dennison with

a curious little half smile. But he gives Madame Felicia’s address

readily enough, and watches the big dragoon out of sight with a shrug.

 

“Is Eric to be brought to his senses, and is Terry deputed to do it, I

wonder?” he thinks. “If so, then Terry has quite the most difficult task

before him that heavy dragoon was ever called upon to do.”

 

Yes, Terry was going to bring him to his senses—going to bring him to

his wife; and without a moment’s hesitation, he hails a fiacre, gives

the address, and is whirled away through the noonday gaslit brilliance

of the boulevards.

 

“There’s to be a supper, no doubt,” he thinks. “Is not Felicia famous

wherever she goes for her after-theatre suppers? Well, fortune stands my

friend this time—I hold the open sesame to her doors, and though I

have never availed myself of it before, by Jove! I will to-night.”

 

His mind goes back to a certain day two years before, when he had in all

probability saved Madame Felicia’s life, or at least what was of equal

account to her, her beauty. It was the old story of runaway horses—the

lady rescued in the nick of time. Madame’s passion for spirited ponies

had, on more occasions than one, placed her pretty neck and graceful

limbs in jeopardy—on this occasion the runaways had become altogether

unmanageable, the reins had been jerked from her hands, and with heads

up and eyes flashing, they had rushed madly along. The gates of a great

park ended the road—if those gates were open madame still stood one

chance, if they were closed—she shuddered, intrepid little Amazon as

she was, and sat still as death, and white as marble, straining her eyes

through the whirlwind of dust as they flew along. The park came in

sight—the gates were closed! It was just at that moment Terry

Dennison, on horseback, came in view. He took in the situation in an

instant. To attempt to check the horses in their mad career would have

been useless now; they would wrench his arms from the sockets before

they could be stopped. He galloped up, hurled himself off his horse, and

with the agility of a circus rider and the strength of a latter-day

Samson, lifted the lady sheer out of the carriage. The horses went

headlong at the closed gates, shivering the frail phaeton to atoms, and

Madame Felicia fainted quietly away in Lieutenant Dennison’s arms.

 

That was the story. Terry never made capital of it, but the actress did.

She was profoundly and greatly grateful, and to show that gratitude,

made every possible effort to captivate her preserver and break his

heart. For once she failed. Mr. Dennison was invulnerable. All her

cajoleries, all her fascinations, all her beauty and chic, fell

powerless on this big dragoon’s dull sensibilities. He saw through her

and laughed at her quietly in his sleeve. What the deuce did the little,

gushing dancer mean making eyes at him? Terry wondered. He wasn’t an

elder son; he didn’t keep an open account at Hunt & Roskell’s; he had

never given any one a diamond bracelet in his life. She knew it

too—then what did she mean? It was madame’s way of showing her deep

gratitude to the preserver of her life—simply that. But for Terry she

would have been smashed to atoms with the phaeton, her beauty ruined,

her symmetrical limbs broken, her occupation gone. She shuddered when

she thought of it; death would have been preferable to that. She was

grateful, deeply and truly grateful, and gave Mr. Dennison carte blanche

to come and go as he pleased from henceforth forever. It was a

privilege for which royalty itself was sighing just then, but with the

dull insensibility that had always characterized him in these things,

Dennison treated it and her with the calmest, utterest indifference. He

liked her as a dancer, but as a woman, and in private life, not any,

thanks. Terry did not go in for dancers. In short Mr. Dennison would

not be numbered among her victims, would not lose his head for her;

and madame saw and laughed good-naturedly, and gave it up and respected

him accordingly. It would be a refreshing novelty to have a masculine

friend, a friend pure and simple, who would never be a lover, and so she

liked Dennison as honestly, as a more honest woman might, and still kept

her doors open to him. He came at times to those pleasant, post-opera

suppers, where the cleverest painters, the most distinguished novelists,

the handsomest actresses in London were to be met, and was ever warmly

welcomed.

 

He had known she was in Paris—he had not met her for seven months, but

he had not had the faintest intention of calling upon her here. And now

he was whirling along rapidly to her rooms. Of his welcome from her, at

all times and in all places, he was sure; his welcome from Eric was much

more to the point just at present; and of that he was not at all sure.

 

“Hang her!” Terry thought, with an inward growl; “hang all such

confounded little pirates, cruising in honest waters, and raising the

devil wherever they go. Still if one goes there at all, one must be

civil, I suppose.”

 

Civil accordingly, Mr. Dennison was when ushered into the gem-like

drawing-room of Madame Felicia.

 

A chandelier, blazing like a mimic sun in the frescoed ceiling, made the

room one sheet of golden light. The walls were lined with mirrors, the

windows hung with satin and lace, the air heavy with pastilles.

Half-a-dozen elegantly dressed and exceptionally handsome women reclined

in every species of easy-chair, with attendant cavaliers. On a low

fauteuil reclined the great Felicia herself, robed in a billowy cloud of

translucent white. As a rule she affected costly moires, stiff brocades,

heavy velvets; to-night, crisp, white gossamer floated about the

perfect form, richest lace draped the arms and shoulders, diamonds and

opals glittered about her, and pale, perfumy, yellow roses nestled in

the dead-blue blackness of her hair. By her side, Lord Dynely sat,

gazing at the dusky, languid, slightly-bored, warmly-lovely face, as if

he could never gaze enough. All started and stared as the new-comer was

announced. Unknown to all but two—most unlooked for by them—Terry yet

advanced with that ease that the utter absence of all vanity, of all

self-consciousness, gives.

 

“I only reached Paris to-night,” he said, “and unorthodox as is the

hour, I could not resist the temptation to call. It is seven months

since we met, madame, and you will recollect that in your goodness I

hold permission to visit you in season and out of season.”

 

Quite a lengthy and diplomatic speech for the speaker, but he had

prepared it in the fiacre. When one deals with serpents one must be

subtle. The yellow-black eyes turned upon him, a light of real pleasure

in them; she half arose and held out her hand. She was cordially pleased

to see Terry.

 

“Mr. Dennison knows he is always more than welcome—one does not easily

forget such service as he rendered. How very nice of you to call. Let me

introduce you to Lord Dynely; but you know him, perhaps?”

 

She looked doubtfully at his lordship. Know him? Surely! for on Lord

Dynely’s face an unmistakable scowl has arisen.

 

“What the devil brings you to Paris, Dennison?” he bluntly demands;

“when did you come?”

 

“To-night, mon cher—have you not heard me say so? Delighted to see me

does he not look?” Terry says gayly, turning to madame.

 

“Where are you stopping?” Eric asks, still with a scowl.

 

“I honor the Louvre with my patronage on this occasion, my lord.”

 

Then there is a pause. The two men look at each other—one straight,

level, searching glance—angry and suspicious on Eric’s part—stern and

resolved on Terry’s. Eric is the first to turn away, with a shrug, and a

slight contemptuous laugh.

 

“John Bull is ubiquitous! Go where you will he crops up when you least

expect him. It is one of the great drawbacks of our civilization.”

 

“Was monsieur at the Varietes to-night?” madame asks, coquettishly. She

is not French, but she affects the French language as she affects French

cookery, French toilettes, and French morals.

 

“I have had that pleasure,” Terry responds. “Madame is irresistible in

all things, but she out-does herself in ‘La Sorci�re d’Or.’ Shall we

see you in it at the Bijou next London season?”

 

Felicia laughs softly, and glances up from under her black lashes at

Lord Dynely’s gloomy face.

 

“Ah—who knows? Next London season—it begins in a month or two, does it

not? but who knows what may happen in a month or two? One may be a

thousand miles away from your bleak fogs, and easterly winds, and dull

phlegmatic stalls by that time. Mon ami, how sulky you look,” striking

Dynely a blow with her perfumed fan. “As you say in your country—a

penny for your thoughts.”

 

“They are worth much more—I was thinking of you,” he answers rather

bitterly.

 

“Lord Dynely does me too much honor. Judging by his tone they must be

pleasant. May I ask what?”

 

“I was wondering if there will be any Madame Felicia to enchant the

sleepy British stalls of the Bijou next season. I was wondering if by

that time it will not be Her Excellency, Madame La Princesse Di

Venturini.”

 

She laughs a second time. His angry, jealous tone, which he cannot

conceal if he would, amuses her vastly.

 

“Who knows?” is her airy answer, “such droll things happen! I am not

sure, though, that it would be half so pleasant. They are announcing

supper. Mr. Dennison, will you give me your arm? Lord Dynely, the most

delightful of men, the most gallant of gentlemen on ordinary occasions,

yet falls a prey at times to what I once heard a countryman of his call

the doldrums. And I cannot endure people who have the doldrums!”

 

She laughs once more, softly and musically, and shows dazzlingly white

teeth. She is a trifle vulgar, this peerless Felicia—her most ardent

admirers admit that. She smokes, she drinks a great deal of her own

champagne—she has even been known to swear at times. But she laughs

well—it is one of her most telling points—languidly, sweetly and very

often. What her nationality is no one seems exactly to know. English she

is not—French, Italian, Spanish, German, she is not. There are people

who hint at Yankee extraction; but this madame herself denies, furiously

and angrily denies. She has never crossed the Atlantic in her life, and

never, never will. She hates America. The lazy, topaz eyes flash as

she says it. She will never play in America in her life.

 

The ruby velvet porti�res were drawn aside, and they filed in by twos

into the adjoining dining-room. Here too the light was vivid as noonday,

and beneath the mimic sun of gas a table glittered that was a vision.

Tall epergnes of frosted silver, filled with rarest hot-house flowers,

slender glasses of waxy camellias from the greenery of a duke, rarest,

costliest grapes, peaches and pears.