The Coquette's Victim Part 9

CHAPTER IX.

Weaving the Spell.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Hexham bore the reputation of being a most accomplished woman; if she excelled in anything it was certainly the giving of b.a.l.l.s.

She had the largest, loftiest and best ball-room in London. It was never overcrowded.

"As many flowers as possible," she was in the habit of saying; "but we must limit our guests."

It did not matter either who was fas.h.i.+onable and who was not, the d.u.c.h.ess would have nothing but beauty and grace at her b.a.l.l.s. You were sure at Hexham House to meet the most beautiful women in London and the most eligible men. It was consequently agreed on all sides that her grace gave the best b.a.l.l.s during the season. This one at which Lady Amelie was to be present, promised unusual splendor.

An archduke of one of the European courts was just then the guest of the queen, and he had promised to honor Hexham House with his presence.

"He shall see such lovely women," said the d.u.c.h.ess to her husband, "that he shall go back to his own country in despair."

To Lady Amelie she had said, laughingly: "Look your very loveliest. I want you to make a conquest of the archduke."

And that queen of coquettes thought to herself that her hands on that eventful evening would indeed be full. Not one word did the diplomatic old colonel say to Basil, but that young man was not quite himself. He had been wonderfully attracted by Lady Lisle's face; he read poetry, love of romance and everything else beautiful and piquant in it. Of all the women he had seen she was the only one who had interested him. He wondered whether the mind matched the peerless face. She must be clever, witty, brilliant, he thought, or she would not have kept all those men enchained as she did. He was very anxious to see her again.

"If she is like everyone else," he said, "I shall soon be disenchanted, but if she speaks as she looks, she will indeed be peerless among women."

He longed for the evening. He said nothing of her, but he talked so incessantly of the d.u.c.h.ess of Hexham, that the colonel understood exactly where his thoughts were, and smiled again most knowingly to himself.

He looked at his young kinsman in his faultless evening dress, and said to himself that there was not in all England a more n.o.ble or handsome man.

Lady Amelie called all the skill of the milliner to her aid; her dress was superb and effective--gold flowers on a white ground--a dress that irresistibly reminded one of sunbeams; it fell around her in statuesque folds that would have driven a sculptor to despair. Her beautiful neck and white arms were bare. She wore a diamond necklace of almost priceless value; her dark, s.h.i.+ning hair was crowned with a circlet of the same royal stones; a diamond bracelet clasped one rounded arm. As she moved the light shone on her dress and gleamed on her jewels, until one was dazed with her splendor.

Lady Amelie was very particular about her flowers. On this evening, with her costly dress and magnificent jewels, she would have nothing but white daphnes. Did she know that the sweet, subtle fragrance of a daphne reaches the senses long before the odor of other flowers touches them?

As she surveyed herself in the mirror, she felt devoutly satisfied.

"I shall be able to convert Basil Carruthers, Esq., to anything I like,"

she said; "if he has resisted all the world, he will yield to me."

So she drove off, resplendent, happy, animated, ready for the weaving of her spells.

Any good Christian, seeing her pa.s.s by with that triumphant smile on her lovely face, might have prayed their nearest and dearest should be kept from harm.

Lady Amelie never arrived very early at a ball. She liked to make her entree when most of the other guests were a.s.sembled. It was sweet to her to see how sorry and shy the ladies looked at her arrival, and how the faces of the men brightened. The first thing, of course, when she arrived at Hexham House, was the archduke. It was wonderful to watch the various phases of character that she could a.s.sume at will. With the archduke, she was the brilliant woman of the world, witty, sarcastic, adorable. He was enchanted with her; he declared that she combined all the charms of English and French women; he danced with her and would fain have lingered by her side, but that etiquette called him away.

Then Lady Amelie, already the belle of the ball, looked up, for Colonel Mostyn was standing before her, and by his side one of the handsomest and n.o.blest young men she had ever seen. He introduced Basil Carruthers to his fate.

She looked in his face with a smile, and drawing aside a fold of her sumptuous dress, made room for him to sit near her.

He thought her even more dazzlingly beautiful than when he had seen her at the opera. The perfume of the white daphnes must have touched his senses as those most lovely eyes smiled into his; his brain seemed to reel; he was intoxicated with her beauty as some men are with the fumes of rare wine.

Colonel Mostyn lingered for a few minutes, then, well satisfied, went away, leaving Basil and Lady Amelie together. She had taken her seat under the shade of a magnificent ma.s.s of gorgeous, blooming flowers, with wondrous leaves and rich perfume. As she sat with her gleaming dress and jewels showing to perfection, from against this beautiful background, Basil was completely charmed. In all his life he had never even seen such a picture. She turned to him, when they were alone, with the sweetest smile on her lovely lips; her eyes seemed to rain down light into his.

"This is a brilliant scene, Mr. Carruthers; the d.u.c.h.ess excels in the arrangement of her rooms."

He made some reply; he never quite knew what it was. It was enough for him to watch the charm of that irresistible face as she spoke. "Of course, everything depends on taste," she continued; "I quite expect you to laugh at me, but do you know what scene I should find much more brilliant than this?"

"I cannot imagine," he replied; "but I shall not laugh."

"Ah, well. I am peculiar in my tastes. In place of this brilliant ballroom, I should like to be seated at a tournament. I should like to see the knights with their banners and waving plumes, in the lists--the ladies in their balconies all hung with cloth of gold--the queen of beauty with the prize. Ah, me! in those days, ladies had knights and men were heroes."

As he looked at her, his whole soul shone in his eyes.

"And I, too," he cried. "I love those days ten thousand times better than these."

"Do you?" asked her ladys.h.i.+p with admiring eyes, "how strange! It is not long since I was speaking to one whom I may call a young man of the period, and his reply was, 'Horrid bore, those kind of things were, Lady Lisle,' and I thought most young men were of his opinion."

"I am not," said Basil, "I love those knights and heroes of old! great men and grand men who were content to ride forth, and to battle unto death for a woman's smile."

She raised her radiant eyes to his.

"Would you do that much for a woman's smile, Mr. Carruthers?"

He paused a moment before speaking, then said: "For one such woman as those men loved, I would." She sighed deeply; the jewels on her white breast gleamed and glistened.

"Ah, you think, then, that the glorious race of women heroes loved and died for, have disappeared?"

"I thought so, until I saw you," he replied.

"You are wrong," she said. "You will live to tell me that you are wrong.

There may be no Helen such as she who lived at Troy, and no Cleopatra such as Egypt's dusky queen, but there are grand women living yet, worthy of heroes' love."

"I am sure of it," he said, "now that I have seen you."

But she made no reply; she did not even appear to have heard his words.

"I can understand you," she said, gently. "Women have sometimes the rare gift of entering into the minds of reserved men. I understand you as though I had known you for years."

His face cleared, his heart beat, his eyes brightened for her as they had never done for any other woman.

"I can remember," she said, "when I had many similar opinions. I used to think these, our present days of steam and progress, quite unfit for heroes; I used to long for olden times again, when, by one great deed, a man made a great name."

His eyes shone with new fire as he looked at her; it seemed to him that he had found his other soul at last. His mother laughed at him; Marion Hautville was sarcastic to him, but this beautiful woman--this magnificent queen at whose feet men bowed--she not only sympathized with him, but she had the self-same ideas.

"The great thing that I complain of," said Lady Amelie, "is that there really seems in these days nothing to do. You, for instance, supposing that you were ambitious, how would you distinguish yourself?"

And as she asked the question, my lady gave a sidelong look at her victim and was charmed to see the progress she had made.

CHAPTER X.