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

o’clock the rooms were empty, the lights out. Madame valued her

good looks and lustrous eyes too highly to keep very late hours. Paujol

had quitted his post, Pauline had disrobed her mistress of silks and

laces, and substituted a dressing-gown. In her room Felicia sat, smoking

two or three nerve-soothing cigarettes before going to bed. In the

boudoir without Pauline sat, waiting, half-asleep, with her mistress’

night draught of spiced wine and eggs on the table before her. Madame

often sat dozing and dreaming over her cigarettes for an hour at a time,

while the girl waited. So to-night she lay luxuriously back in her

chair, her eyes closed, the rose-scented smoke curling upward, when a

man made his way noiselessly into the boudoir from the street. He

glanced at the sleeping Pauline, at the waiting night draught, and

passed on into the dressing-room, into the bed-room, and so came, still

noiselessly, upon madame.

 

He stood for a moment looking down upon her. She had not heard him, but

some baleful, mesmeric influence warned her he was there. She sat up

suddenly, opened her eyes, and looked full into the yellow face of

Prince Di Venturini.

 

For a second there was silence. She was a plucky little woman, without a

nerve about her, and uttered no word or sound. She looked at him

straight, silent, then: “Monsieur the prince.”

 

“At your service, madame. I trust I have not too greatly disturbed you?”

 

A mocking smile was on his lips. She looked at him disdainfully.

 

“You have not disturbed me at all. For a moment, I confess, I took you

for a burglar, but my nerves are good. What was Paujol about that you

entered unannounced?”

 

“Paujol was asleep in his loge.”

 

“And, Pauline?”

 

“Pauline is asleep also in your boudoir. It is past two, madame.”

 

“And a very late hour for M. Di Venturini’s visit. Could it not have

been deferred until to-morrow, I wonder?”

 

“It could not, madame. By to-morrow I shall be across the frontier, and

very far from Paris.”

 

“Ah, I understand!” she looked at him unflinchingly. “You mean to kill

Lord Dynely?”

 

“I mean to kill Lord Dynely. Such an insult as he offered me can only be

wiped out in blood. I regret that madame must lose her lover, but—”

 

“Pray, no apologies, M. le Prince!” madame answered, with perfect

sang-froid; “he was beginning to bore me. Grand passions are always in

bad form, and poor boy, he was ludicrously in earnest. Well, monsieur,

as you depart to-morrow, I suppose I must give you an audience, even at

this improper hour, and in this apartment, or—shall we adjourn to the

boudoir?”

 

He laughed derisively.

 

“It shocks madame’s delicacy then, that I have intruded here. A thousand

pardons, ma belle. Where, may I ask, when he paid his last visit, did

you receive the painter, M. Gordon Caryll?”

 

She never flinched. He knew that then.

 

“He was your husband, was he not? And one does not stand on ceremony

with one’s husband. You see, madame, I know all!”

 

She smiled—a smile that fanned his jealous anger into fury.

 

“And madame’s daughter, that she keeps caged up like a wild

animal—what of her? You see I know that also. And all the lies madame

has been telling me from the first—what of them?”

 

“Nothing of them. And lies is an ugly word to use to a lady.”

 

“Diable! do you sit there and mock at me! Do you sit there and deny

this?”

 

“I deny nothing, monsieur. I affirm nothing. M. le Prince will believe

precisely what he pleases.”

 

“And do you think—do you for a moment think, I will marry you after all

this? You, the cast-off wife of this man Caryll. You, the mother of this

girl—”

 

“Stay! M. le Prince,” Felicia said, with one flash of her yellow black

eyes. “You have said quite enough! No, I do not think you will marry me.

I would not marry you, with your diabolical temper and jealousy, if you

were king of Italy, much less owner of a beggarly principality. I don’t

really think I ever meant to marry you at all—you are much too old,

and, if you will pardon me, too ugly. I adore handsome men—Gordon

Caryll and Lord Dynely are that, at least. And De Vocqsal—you remember

the Austrian marquis, I think, prince? Yes—well, De Vocqsal is coming

to Paris next week, and is more urgent than ever that I shall become

Madame la Marquise. He is young, he is handsome, he has fourteen

quarterings, and a rent-roll that is fabulous. He never calls me ugly

names, and is much too gallant a gentleman to intrude into a lady’s

chamber at two in the morning on purpose to insult her. Here is your

ring, prince; it never fitted from the first, and I am glad to be rid of

it. It is the only present you ever gave me, so I have, happily, nothing

to return. Now let me say good-night and bon voyage, for I am really

very sleepy.”

 

She yawned aloud, as she removed the heavy diamond from her finger and

held it out to him.

 

“Good-night, prince; and a pleasant trip to you both—he, _pauvre

enfant_, to the next world, and you—to Italy, is it? Take your ring,

monsieur, and go.”

 

He took it, and stood looking at her, his face cadaverous, his eyes

like coals. “You tell me this? You mean to marry De Vocqsal?”

 

“I am growing tired of the stage. Even that palls. Yes; I shall marry

De Vocqsal, prince, and become a fine lady.”

 

“This is the end, then?”

 

“Oh, mon Dieu! yes, if you ever mean to go. How can there be an end

while you loiter here? Go! go! I insist.”

 

He laughed.

 

“I go, madame; pray do not say it again. Thanks for your good wishes.

Accept my congratulations beforehand. It is a brilliant destiny to be

Madame la Marquise de Vocqsal. Good-night, and adieu.”

 

He bowed low, and was gone—through the dressing-room, and into the

sitting-room beyond. Here, Pauline, still guarding the wine, and fast

asleep now, sat in the dim light. He went to the table, something

between his fingers, a shining globule, and dropped it into the glass.

The bell rang sharply at the moment. Pauline started up, with a cry, and

Di Venturini vanished through the outer door.

 

“Madame never misses her night draught, so Pauline tells me,” he said to

himself, with a sardonic smile, as he leaped into his waiting cab; “she

will not miss it to-night; and once drank, there is a longer journey

before her than a bridal trip to the imperial court of Francis Joseph.

So good-night to you, madame, and bon voyage!”

 

CHAPTER XV.

 

“HOW THE NIGHT FELL.”

 

From the window of her room, Crystal, Lady Dynely, watched the twilight

of that overcast February day close down. She lay on a broad, low sofa,

half buried in cushions, her small face gleaming out like marble against

their rose tints, the large blue eyes, so brilliant with happy

love-light a few brief weeks ago, dim with watching and much weeping

now.

 

Outside the wind was rising. The trees rocked in the gale, the darkness

deepened, the first heavy rain-drops began pattering against the glass.

Inside the gloom deepened also, until the little, pale face was barely

visible. All day long she had been alone, sick in body, sick in soul,

crushed of heart. Now she was straining her ears, for the first sound of

that familiar step on the stairs, for the first note of that gay

whistle, with which he was wont to herald his coming. To her this

twilight hour was the hour of the twenty-four, for it almost

invariably brought Eric, to dress or dine.

 

Her maid entered to light the lamps, but the soft little voice sent her

away. “Not yet,” she said, gently. “I like the dusk. Has—has my lord

come home?”

 

“No, my lord has not come home,” the Frenchwoman answered, with a

compassionate glance at the drooping figure. Alas! was not my lord’s

defection as well known in the servants’ hall as in salon or chamber?

 

Where was he to-day?—the child wondered. Where was he now? Was he with

her?—that wicked, beautiful, brown woman? Oh! to be able to win him

back, her very own, her husband, and hold him from them all! Was God

punishing her for loving too greatly, for worshipping the creature

instead of the Creator? She did not know—it might be wicked—this

unreasoning worship of hers; but wicked or worthy, it would last until

her life’s end. She could see her face now as she lay—the room was

lined with mirrors. What a pitiful, pale face it was! And he liked rosy

bloom, peachy, plentiful flesh and blood. The dancing woman had

these—she had nothing left but the moonlight shadow of her pearl

face, and her true and tender heart. Good and pleasant things, but not

likely long to hold a sensuous, changeful, beauty-worshipping,

thoroughly selfish man. Dimly she knew this, and with a half sob, buried

that poor, wasted face in her hands. He had fancied her from the first,

only for her pretty, flower-like looks; let her lose these charms, as

she was losing fast, and her last hold on her husband’s heart was gone.

 

She lay thinking this—thinking so intently, that she did not hear the

door pushed gently open, and a tall figure come in. It came softly over,

and knelt on one knee beside her, and so, in the dusk of the room,

looked down upon the colorless, wasted face, the locked hands, from

which the wedding ring hung loose. Suddenly her eyes opened.

 

“It is I, Crissy,” he said.

 

The bewildered look changed to one of electric surprise and joy. She

flung her arms around his neck, and held him as though she would never

let him go.

 

“Poor little soul!” he said, more moved than he cared to show. “You have

been alone all day, and have got the horrors. Were there none of them

here—my mother—France—all day?”

 

“Yes, both. Your mother stayed an hour, and then went to make some calls

with Terry. France stayed and read to me all the morning. She is so

good—my own dear France. They are all good, but—but,” the clinging

arms close together, he can feel her passionate heart beat: “Oh, my

love! I only want you.

 

“Poor little Chris!”

 

It is all he can say. He lays his face beside hers for a moment, and is

still. He is thinking of this time to-morrow—he knows as surely as that

he rests here, that the bullet that kills him will end her life. And it

is for that dark daughter of Herodias, he has forsaken her. All at once

a loathing of Felicia, of himself, comes upon him. What a black and

brutal wretch he is! how utterly unworthy of this spotless wife, whose

heart he is breaking. If the past could but come over again! if what is

done could be undone, how differently he would act, how happy he would

make her. But it is too late for all that—the end has come.

 

“Crystal,” he says gently, “I’ve not been a very good sort of husband,

I’m afraid—I never was a very good sort of fellow at any time. I’ve

done enough to forfeit all right to your love, but—you care for me

still?”

 

“Care for you!” she whispered. And then the clinging grasp tightens, and

she can say no more.

 

“Yes, I know you do,” he says,