The Vultures Part 8

"Perhaps Lord Orlay is open to conviction."

"If you tackle Orlay, you'll find you've bitten off a bigger bit than you can chew," replied Joseph, who had a singular habit of lapsing into the vulgarest slang when Julia mounted her high horse in the presence of himself only. When others were present Mr. Mangles seemed to take a sort of pride in this great woman. Let those explain the att.i.tude who can.

Lady Orlay's entertainments were popularly said to be too crowded, and no one knew this better than Lady Orlay.

"Let us ask them all and be done with them," she said; and had said it for thirty years, ever since she had begun a social existence with no other prospects than that which lay in her husband's brain--then plain Mr. Orlay. She had never "done with them," had never secured that peaceful domestic leisure which had always been her dream and her husband's dream, and would never secure it. For these were two persons, now old and white-haired and celebrated, who lived in the great world, and had a supreme contempt for it.

The Mangleses were among the first to arrive, Julia in a dress of rich black silk, with some green about it, and a number of iridescent beetle-wings serving as a relief. Miss Netty Cahere was a vision of pink and self-effacing quietness.

"We shall know no one," she said, with a shrinking movement of her shoulders as they mounted the stairs.

"Not even the waiters," replied Joseph Mangles, in his lugubrious ba.s.s, glancing into a room where tea and coffee were set out. "But they will soon know us."

They had not been in the room, however, five minutes before an acquaintance entered it, tall and slim, like a cheerful Don Quixote, with the ribbon of a great order across his s.h.i.+rt-front. He paused for a moment near Lord and Lady Orlay, and his entrance caused, as it usually did, a little stir in the room. Then he turned and greeted Joseph Mangles. Over the large, firm hand of that gentleman's sister he bowed in silence.

"I have nothing to say to that great woman," he sometimes said. "She is so elevated that my voice will not reach her."

Deulin then turned to where Miss Cahere had been standing. But she had moved away a few paces, nearer to a candelabrum, under which she was now standing, and a young officer in full German uniform was openly admiring her, with a sort of wonder on his foolish, Teutonic face.

"Ah! I expected you had forgotten me," she said, when Deulin presented himself.

"Believe me--I have tried," he replied, with great earnestness; but the complete innocence of her face clearly showed that she did not attach any deep meaning to his remark.

"You must see so many people that you cannot be expected to remember them all."

"I do not remember them all, mademoiselle--only a very, very few."

"Then tell me, who is that lovely girl you bowed to as you came into the room?"

"Is there another in the room?" inquired Deulin, looking around him with some interest.

"Over there, with the fair hair, dressed in black."

"Ah! talking to Cartoner. Yes. Do you think her beautiful?"

"I think she is perfectly lovely. But somehow she does not look like one of us, does she?" And Miss Cahere lowered her voice in a rather youthful and inexperienced way.

"She is not like one of us, Miss Cahere," replied Deulin.

"Why?"

"Because we are plebeians, and she is a princess."

"Oh, then she is married?" exclaimed Miss Cahere, and her voice fell three semitones on the last word.

"No. She is a princess in her own right. She is a Pole."

Miss Cahere gave a little sigh.

"Poor thing," she said, looking at the Princess Wanda, with a soft light of sympathy in her gentle eyes.

"Why do you pity her?" asked Deulin, glancing down sharply.

"Because princesses are always obliged to marry royalties, are they not--for convenience, I mean--not from . . . from inclination, like other girls?"

And Miss Cahere's eyelids fluttered, but she did not actually raise her eyes towards her interlocutor. An odd smile flickered for an instant on Deulin's lips.

"Ah!" he said, with a sharp sigh--and that was all. He bowed, and turned away to speak to a man who had been waiting at his elbow for some minutes. This also was a Frenchman, who seemed to have something special to report, for they walked aside together.

It was quite late in the evening before Deulin succeeded in his efforts to get a few moments' speech with Lady Orlay. He found that unmatched hostess at leisure in the brief s.p.a.ce elapsing between the arrival of the latest and the departure of the earliest.

"I was looking for you," she said; "you, who always know where everybody is. Where is Mr. Mangles? An under-secretary was asking for him a moment ago."

"Mangles is listening to the music in the library--comparatively happy by himself behind a barricade of flowers."

"And that preposterous woman?"

"That preposterous woman is in the refreshment-room."

Thus they spoke of the great lecturer on Prison Wrongs.

"You have seen the Bukatys?" inquired Lady Orlay. "I called on them the moment I received your note from Paris. They are here to-night. I have never seen such a complexion. Is it characteristic of Poland?"

"I think so," replied Deulin, with unusual shortness, looking away across the room.

Lady Orlay's clever eyes flashed round for a moment, and she looked grave. It was as if she had pushed open the door of another person's room.

"I like the old man," she said, with a change of tone. "What is he?"

"He is a rebel."

"Proscribed?"

"No--they dare not do that. He was a great man in the sixties. You remember how in the great insurrection an unfailing supply of arms and ammunition came pouring into Poland over the Austrian frontier--more arms than the national government could find men for."

"Yes, I remember that."

"That is the man," said Deulin, with a nod of his head in the direction of the Prince Bukaty, who was talking and laughing near at hand.

"And the girl--it is very sad--I like her very much. She is gay and brave."

"Ah!" said Deulin, "when a woman is gay and brave--and young--Heaven help us."

"Thank you, Monsieur Deulin."

"And when she is gay and brave, and . . . old . . . milady--G.o.d keep her," he said with a grave bow.

"I liked her at once. I shall be glad to do anything I can, you know.

She has a great capacity for making friends."