Chapter Twenty One.
The Ruse.
There was a puzzled look in Lady Grayson’s face as Dale sprang at the Conte, and swung him round, sending him staggering from the door, before which he placed himself, his face dark with wrath.
For the moment, the Italian looked utterly astounded. Then, with a fierce ejaculation, he made at Dale with his cane raised, and his countenance convulsed.
“Dog!” he muttered in Italian; and the artist clenched his fist, ready to proceed to any extremities now in Lady Dellatoria’s defence.
But Lady Grayson flew between them, whispering to the Conte eagerly, and Dale caught a word or two here and there—
“Scandal—mistake—my sake—meet her now.” The Conte drew himself up and pressed Lady Grayson’s hand, as he gave her a significant look. Then, veiling his anger with a peculiar smile, he turned to Dale.
“Lady Grayson is right,” he said, with grave courtesy; “it was a mistake. I was quite in the wrong, Mr Dale. I ought not to have attempted to break in upon your privacy. We all have our little secrets, eh? There, it is quite past. An accident, that Lady Dellatoria should be calling now when we are here?”
“Yes—a very strange accident,” said Lady Grayson, with a malicious look at the artist.
“It does not matter,” continued the Count. “All this contretemps because ladies are vain enough to wish the world to see how beautiful they are. But she is long coming, this wife of mine.”
No one spoke for a few moments, all standing listening for the steps upon the stairs, and the rustling sound of the Contessa’s dress, but everything was perfectly still, and at last, with a shrug of the shoulders, the Conte turned to Armstrong.
“Is the lady in some ante-room waiting for our departure?”
“No,” said Dale sharply.
“Because we would relieve you of our company, but we would rather meet the lady now.”
“Of course,” cried Lady Grayson. “We do not wish our visit to be misconstrued.”
“I do not understand it,” said Dale; and going to the bell, he rang sharply. Then once more there was silence, till shuffling steps were heard, then a tap at the door, and Keren-Happuch entered in answer to a loud “Come in,” wiping her hands upon her apron, and with her face scarlet.
“Where is the lady you announced just now?” said Dale sharply.
“Plee, sir, she’s gone, sir.”
“Gone?”
“Yes, sir.”
Lady Grayson uttered a low sigh of satisfaction.
“What did she say?”
“Nothin’, sir.”
“Did you tell her that this lady and gentleman were here?”
“Oh no, sir. I never said nothin’ to her, sir.”
“But she said she would call again?”
“That she didn’t, sir. She couldn’t. She just comed and goed,” faltered the girl.
“But did she not hear our voices in the studio?”
“No, sir; she couldn’t. Why, she never come no further than the street-door mat, and you can’t hear no talking in here, even if you stand just outside.”
“Oh, you have tried?” said the Conte laughingly. “That I hain’t, sir, but I’ve seed missus more’n once.”
“That will do.”
“Yes, sir,” said Keren-Happuch, but Dale checked her.
“Don’t go,” he said.
“Ah, well then, Mr Dale, as the lady is not coming up to see us, we will go and see her: Mahomet to the mountain, eh! my dear Lady Grayson? May I see you to your carriage?”
“I have no carriage here,” she said quickly. “Yes, we had better go.”
“After our double failure to-day; but Mr Dale will alter his decision on our behalf. Good day, my dear modern representative of Fra Lippo Lippi. It is grand to be a handsome young artist,” the Conte continued, as he took a step toward the dais, and raised something on the end of his cane, “supplicated by beautiful ladies to transfer their features to canvas; but you should warn them not to leave their veils behind when they take refuge in another room. Look, my dear Lady Grayson;” and he held the veil toward her on the end of his cane, “thick—secretive—admirable for a disguise.—Come.”
He tossed the veil back on to the dais, and opened the door for his companion to pass out, while Dale stood fuming with rage, and Lady Grayson gave him a mocking look as he advanced.
“Good morning, Mr Dale,” she said laughingly, and then in a whisper—“secret for secret, my handsome friend. You and I cannot play at telling tales out of school.”
“Lor’, if it ain’t like being at the theayter,” thought Keren-Happuch, as the door was shut, and Dale crossed quickly to reopen it, and stand listening till the front door closed. Then he came back to where the little maid stood waiting, while, faintly heard, came a call from below.
“Keren—Hap—puch!”
“Comin’, mum. Please, Mr Dale, sir, missus is a callin’ of me; may I go?”
“Who was the lady who came just now?” Keren-Happuch writhed slightly, as she looked in a frightened way in the artist’s face.
“Do you hear me? I said, Who was the lady who came just now? It was not the Contessa?”
“No, sir.”
“Was it that—that American lady?”
“What! her with the pretty face, who went away crying, sir? Oh no; it wasn’t her.”
The girl’s words sent a sting through him.
“Then who was it?”
“Please, Mr Dale, sir, I don’t like to tell you.”
“Tell me this instant, girl,” he cried, catching her fiercely by the arm.
“Oh, don’t, please, Mr Dale,” she whimpered. “You frighten me.”
“Then speak.”
“Yes, sir; but I shall holler if you pinch my arm, and that ’Talian girl’ll hear me.”
“Who was it, then?”
“Please, sir, it was a cracker.”
“What?”
“A bit of a fib, sir. I knowed you wanted to get rid of them two ’cause you’d got her as you’re so fond on shut up in there.”
“Silence!”
“Yes, sir, but missus can’t hear; she’s down in the kitchen.”
“Then nobody came?”
“No, sir; I thought if I come and said that, you’d like it, because it would send them away. I’ve often done it for missus when some one’s been bothering her for money.”
“Go down,” said Dale, writhing beneath the sense of degradation he felt at being under this obligation to the poor little slut before him.
“Yes, Mr Dale, sir; but please don’t you be cross with me. I don’t mind missus, but it hurts me if you are.”
“Go down.”
“Yes, sir,” said the girl, with a sob; and the tears began to make faint marks on her dirty face. “I wouldn’t ha’ done it, sir, on’y I knowed you was in love with her and wanted to be alone.”
“Poor Cornel!” muttered Dale as he turned away. “Fallen so low as this! If you only knew!”
“Please, Mr Dale, sir, have I done very wrong?” she whimpered.
“No; go down now.”
“Keren—Hap—puch!”
“Comin’, mum,” cried the girl, thrusting her head out of the door, and then turning back “Oh, thankye, sir. I don’t mind now.”
Dale fastened the door after her; and as he turned back, that of the inner room opened, and Valentina came out with her eyes flashing and a joyful look upon her face, as she took his arm and nestled to him.
“We must never forget that poor, brave little drudge, dear,” she whispered fondly. “Don’t look so serious. All that is nothing to us.”
“Nothing?” he said, as he bent down, fascinated by the beautiful eyes which gazed so tenderly into his.
“Nothing. I am glad they came, to show you how little cause for compunction you have. You see what she is—what the wretched woman is who gives me her sickly kisses and calls me her friend.” She clung to him, and passed her soft white hand over his brow as she looked into his eyes, her voice growing gentle like the cooing of some dove, as she almost whispered—
“I am going now for awhile, but when I am gone don’t think of me as a mad, reckless woman, abandoned to her passion, false to her husband and her oaths. I never loved but you, Armstrong: I shall never love another. Try and think of me as one who was forced into a marriage with that despicable wretch who in one week taught me to loathe him; and till I saw you I was the wretched being whose life was void, a kind of gilded doll upon which he hung his jewels, and whom he paraded before his guests, while in private my life was a mockery. Wife? By law, yes, till we can break the tie, and then you will take me to your heart, dear, away from all that black despairing life, to a new one all delight and joy. For I shall be with you, my brave, noble—husband! May I call you husband then?”
She sank upon her knees, clasped her arms about him, and laid her cheeks against his hands, murmuring softly—
“If you will take me for your wife, dearest. If not, I should be always happy as your slave.”
He would have been more than man if he had not raised the beautiful appealing woman to his breast, and held her tightly there.
“I love you—I love you!” she murmured, as her soft, swimming eyes gazed in his, “and it is misery to leave you now. But there is all that new joy in my heart to keep me waiting and hopeful till I come again.”
“But the risk—for you?” he said.
“Risk?” she laughed softly. “You will protect me. I must go now, and you will wait till your poor Italian model is here once more—she whom you love so well.”
He clasped her to his heart, and held her till she faintly struggled to be free, and then laughingly covered her face with the thick veil her husband had thrown down.
“There,” she said merrily. “Now I must go. Back to my faithful Jaggs.”
“What!”
“He is my slave—‘The Emperor,’ he says you call him. He has been my slave from the first day you sent him to the house. He told me everything about you in answer to my questions regarding the portrait you had painted from memory, and then—‘Armstrong does love me with all his heart’ I said to myself, and I was ready to risk everything to win that love.”
“And did he suggest that you should be my model?” said Dale.
“No; that was my idea, when he told me how hard you were pressed. He helped me, and I came. And now, once more, I must go. It will not be like life until I am here again.”
She gave him her white hands, which he held passionately to his lips. Then, covering them hastily with her common gloves, she drew her cloak about her.
“One moment,” he whispered. “The address? Where are you now—for this?”
“Always in your heart,” she said, in a passionate whisper. Then, “A rivederla,” she said aloud, and was gone.
“Poor Cornel!” sighed Dale, as he sank into a chair. “Forgive me, dear. She is right; a boy and girl’s pure gentle love, of which I am not worthy. It is fate, dear, and this is really love—a love for which a man might sacrifice honour—even sell his very soul.”
So he said, for it has been written of old—“Love is blind.”