The Ordeal of Elizabeth Part 18

"What, Halleck? Oh, he sings very well," he returned, absently.

"I never before posed as a patron of rising musicians," she went on, "but Elizabeth knew him, it seems, in the country, and asked if I would mind helping him a little. She's so fond of music, you know."

She spoke quite innocently. Gerard gave her a quick, searching glance.

Apparently she suspected nothing. Yet she was a woman of quick perceptions. Perhaps, after all, it was he who was mistaken; his jealous, suspicious nature had led him into unnecessary torture. No wonder she had met his doubt with defiance, had not deigned to justify herself, or to dispel a distrust which he had no right to display. In the sudden, glad, unreasoning reaction, he was ready to heap all manner of insulting epithets upon himself.

"I think your efforts will be repaid," he said, inclined in his relief to be generous. "Halleck has a fine voice. I shouldn't wonder if he were quite a success."

"It was very nice of you to come in," she said. "You have been such a recluse lately. What have you been doing?"

"Oh, the whirl of excitement in which I've been living was too much for me," he declared "and so I've given up society for awhile, and am going in for hard study by way of rest."

"Good gracious! That sounds very impressive," she said. "I'm almost afraid to suggest, under the circ.u.mstances, that you should take a seat in our box at the opera to-night. And yet I wish you would, Julian, just by way of doing me a favor, for some people I've asked are not coming, and Bobby is away, and Elizabeth and I will be quite alone."

He smiled. "I don't think there's much chance of your being alone very long," he said. Yet he promised at last to take one of the vacant seats, though he had refused several other invitations for that evening. Mrs. Bobby's eyes sparkled as if she had achieved a victory.

"Julian is coming to-night," she announced to Elizabeth, when the musicale was over and the last guest had departed.

"Is he?" Elizabeth spoke without apparent interest, as she sank, with a weary look, into a chair in front of the fire.

"You are tired. Would you rather not go to-night?"

"Oh, no"--with a languid gesture. "Music doesn't tire me!"

"And yet," said Mrs. Bobby, who had taken the seat opposite her and was watching her thoughtfully, "you didn't seem to care enough about it to come in to listen to your friend this afternoon."

Elizabeth blushed. "I could hear him in the other room," she said.

"Where, besides, you seemed to be very well entertained," said Mrs.

Bobby, serenely. "Still, I don't think it was nice of you. It is hard on the poor man, after flirting with him in the country, to treat him so indifferently in town."

"I didn't flirt with him," said Elizabeth, but her protest was faint, and seemed purely perfunctory. In fact, she was not sorry that Mrs.

Bobby had adopted this theory, realizing that a half-truth may sometimes be the most effective barrier to a knowledge of the whole.

"Don't tell me anything so wildly improbable, my dear," said Mrs.

Bobby. "My knowledge of human nature will not allow me to believe that a pretty girl and a handsome young singer, thrown together for weeks in the country, as I believe you were, did _not_ indulge in a tremendous flirtation. But seriously, Elizabeth, I am glad that it went no further, and that you have recovered so easily. For I can imagine that you lost your heart to him a little. Confess, Elizabeth, didn't you?"

"Perhaps I did," said Elizabeth, staring immovably into the fire "but one gets over such things, you know."

"Indeed one does," said Mrs. Bobby. "I was desperately in love at seventeen, and cried my eyes out when they made me give the man up; and yet had I married him, I should have been the most wretched being in the world, instead of a much happier woman than I deserve to be, thanks to a husband far too good for me. (But that, dear, is between ourselves. I always try to make Bobby think it's the other way.) But imagine how dreadful it would have been, if I had had my own foolish way at seventeen. And so I am glad, Elizabeth, that you have got over your penchant for this young artist, who is good-looking, and sings well, and all that; but who is--even if I knew anything about him, which I don't--quite the last man I should like you to marry."

Elizabeth's face was turned away. "I don't know," she said in a low voice, "why you think of that."

"Oh, I was only speculating on what might have been," said Mrs. Bobby, lightly. "I know," she went on after a moment, stealing a furtive glance at the girl's averted face, "I know the sort of man I should like you to marry, Elizabeth. He must be older than you, considerably older; of a serious disposition, with a strong will, stronger than yours, for you might be perhaps a little hard to manage; fond of music and fond of books; rich, and with a good position of course; and--and I should like him to be every bit as nice as Bobby, if such a thing is possible."

Elizabeth turned her white face towards her friend. "And you think,"

she said, in a low, stifled voice, "that I should come up to the standard of a paragon like that?"

"My dear," said Mrs. Bobby, wisely, "paragons don't marry _other_ paragons, or the world would be somewhat more dull than it is at present. A man who is very serious should marry a woman who is a trifle frivolous, and in that way they strike the happy medium."

"I don't know," said Elizabeth. "They would be more likely, I should think, to strike a--a discordancy. It would be fatiguing to try to please a man like that. One could never, do what one would, come up to his standard."

"You wouldn't have to," said Mrs. Bobby, softly, "he would think you perfect, if--he loved you."

"Do you think so?" said Elizabeth, with rather a dreary smile. "I think, for my part, that he would be harder to satisfy, he would exact all the more, because--he loved you." She sat pondering the idea for a moment, then with a careless little gesture, she seemed to dismiss the subject as a thing of small consequence. "It's much better not to try to satisfy people like that," she declared. "What a lot of time we are wasting! It must be time to dress." She got up and moved towards the door.

Mrs. Bobby followed her with her eyes. "I'll send Celeste to you," she said. "Wear your most becoming gown. Look your best, and do your hair the way I like it. I a.s.sure you, such trifles have their effect--even upon a paragon."

_Chapter XXI_

"Look my best!" Elizabeth repeated, standing before her muslin-skirted dressing-table, and staring at the haggard apparition that met her eyes. "Wear my most becoming gown, do my hair the most becoming way!

It all sounds so easy. But what can bring back my color, what can take away these terrible dark rings, this horrible strained, anxious look?

Any one can see, to look at me, that I've something on my mind....

"... I shall never tell him the truth--never, never. I may beat about the bush, but I shall always leave myself a loop-hole to crawl out of.

And yet if I could only consult him--consult _some one_--find out what I really ought to do. But no, no, I don't dare risk it; it would be terrible to be advised--just the way I don't want. I must decide on some plan myself. But--Heaven knows what!" She stood for a while motionless, gazing helplessly into a mist of perplexities.

The little Sevres clock on her mantel-piece roused her as it struck the hour, and she began hastily to dress. She drew the rippling waves of her hair into the fas.h.i.+on that Mrs. Bobby liked, she put on her favorite gown, a charming creation of white lace and chiffon, relieved by touches of pale green; she tried conscientiously to look her best, but still her cheeks were pale, there was the strained look in her eyes.

She was about ready when Mrs. Bobby's maid came to help her, bringing a box of flowers that had just that moment arrived. Celeste, a thrifty person, regarded them with some disgust. She could tell them, these gentlemen, that it was of little use to waste their money on Mademoiselle, who did not care about, sometimes hardly glanced at, the flowers which some other young lady would give her eyes to receive.

Ah, well, that was the unequal way in which things in this world were arranged. Celeste disposed of the matter thus, with a philosophic French shrug of the shoulders.

But there was no counting on such a capricious person as Mademoiselle.

To-night, as she glanced at the card in the box, she blushed beautifully, took out the flowers with care, and read with eager eyes the few lines that the giver had scrawled, apparently in great haste and in pencil:

"This afternoon I was unspeakably rude--even brutal. Forgive me--what right had I to take you to task for your actions? My only excuse is that I care--I can't help caring--so desperately. I send you white roses--they suit you best. You wore one that I gave you--do you remember?--but probably you don't--the first night I saw you. If you are very merciful, if you accept my repentance, wear one to-night--in token of forgiveness."

"In token of forgiveness?" Elizabeth pressed one of the exquisite, creamy-white roses against her glowing cheeks. "You wore one the first night I saw you--probably you don't remember?" Ah, yes, she remembered--but that was different. She could not wear one now. "Yet only in token of forgiveness?" With a quick, pa.s.sionate gesture, she raised it to her lips, then fastened it carefully amidst the lace of her gown.

Celeste, whose presence she had forgotten, bent down discreetly, with a suppressed smile, to arrange the folds of her train. Ah, clearly, after all, there was one gentleman who did not waste his money on Mademoiselle.

"Madame wished Mademoiselle to look well to-night," she observed, after a moment. "I think Madame will be satisfied."

Mademoiselle glanced at herself again, and started as she looked.

Could this brilliant young beauty, her small head proudly erect, her eyes brilliant, her cheeks aflame, be the same woman whose haggard reflection had stared back at her from the same mirror only half-an-hour before?

She did not feel like the same woman. The doubts, the fears, which had beset her then seemed mere chimeras, the fancies of a morbid brain.

She felt gay, confident, strong enough to conquer even fate. Celeste was right--she looked her best. Mrs. Bobby's words rang in her ears.

"Such trifles have their effect--even on a paragon." And then again--"He would think you perfect as you were if--he loved you." "No, he need not think me perfect," she murmured to her mirror, "but he must--he shall think me beautiful. And that is more to the point,"

she concluded, as she gathered up fan and gloves and left the room.

The opera that night was Carmen, which peculiarly suited her phase of mind. There is no other which so thoroughly embodies the spirit of recklessness, the triumph of the senses, the frank, impulsive, untrammeled enjoyment of life and of living. To be sure, there is the tragic ending--but before that, three acts of brilliant melody, glowing with color, with warm, sensuous pleasure.

Gerard was waiting in the box when they arrived. On the stage Carmen--that ideal Carmen of whom Merimee dreamed and Bizet set to music--had just appeared upon the scene of Don Jose's misfortune, and was warbling, with bewitching abandon, the notes of the Habanera.

Gerard's face, which had an anxious look, brightened wonderfully, radiantly, as the two women entered the box. He murmured eagerly a few grateful words in Elizabeth's ear, and took the seat directly behind her, which he did not abandon, even though his predictions were justified, and Mrs. Van Antwerp's box was filled, after the first act, with men who looked anything but pleased at finding that particular place monopolized. Mrs. Bobby, however, seemed delighted to entertain them, was gracious, charming and piquante, and elicited from a stern dowager in the next box severe criticisms on the wiles of young married women, and their reprehensible manner of diverting to themselves the attention due to the young girls under their charge.