CHAPTER I.
“LIGHTLY WON IS LIGHTLY LOST.”
When the viols played their best,
Lamps above and laughs below,
“Love me,” sounded like a jest,
Fit for yes or fit for no.
—Mrs. Browning.
In the early spring of 1896, the morning papers of Washington, and afterwards every journal of any consequence in the United States, one day contained the following news item under the glaring headlines:
SOCIETY BELLE ELOPES.
Vagaries of a Beauty.
The Daughter of a High Government Official in Washington, Chief of an Important Bureau.—The Handsomest Girl in Society.—A Charming Coquette, Who Has Refused Scores of Eligibles, Jilts a Distinguished Member of Congress on the Very Eve of Her Bridal for the Sake of a Poor Young Journalist, Rolfe Maxwell, Whom She Secretly Preferred.
Fashionable society, which expected to get on its best togs today for the grand noon wedding of Congressman Desha and the lovely Miss Viola Van Lew, will stand aghast at learning that the marriage is off.
The young beauty, assuming the prerogative of woman to change her mind, left her prospective bridegroom in the lurch last evening, and eloped with a poor young man not in her set.
The marriage ceremony was solemnized last night at the rectory of All Souls’ Church by the genial rector, from whom these facts were gleaned by our reporter. It is understood that the jilted bridegroom is désolé, and the astonished father furious and unforgiving, but as the eloping bride inherits on her marriage the fortune of her deceased mother, she can afford to snap her jeweled fingers in papa’s irate face.
Behind this flippant announcement lay a thrilling romance of beauty, coquetry, love, and pride that may interest the amiable reader whose heart is yet young and warm enough to admire the good traits, excuse the follies, and sympathize with the dire misfortunes of a beautiful, thoughtless young girl.
If there was any excuse in the world for what Viola did, it lay in her youth and her thoughtlessness, and because she did not understand at all what a terrible force love is at its best or worst.
She had only heard of the grand passion in its lightest phases as it is pictured by merry young school-girls boasting to each other of their conquests, and it was plain to be seen that “the one with the most strings to her bow” was more envied than any other. They made “nets, not cages.”
She had the tenderest heart in the world. She would not have injured the smallest living thing, yet she had never heard that love is a flame that burns, and that one may carry its scars to the grave. They should have taught her that, those who guided her young life, for she had the fatal gift of beauty coupled with that subtle fascination that draws men’s hearts as plants turn their leaves to the sun.
Slender, lithe, and graceful as a young palm-tree, with the daintiest patrician hands and feet, piquant features, rose-leaf complexion, a cloud of scented dark hair, and a tempting mouth like a rare, red flower, her eyes alone would have made her lovely without the aid of other charms. They were large, almond-shaped, and luminous.
In the shadow they were gray as doves’ wings, in the sunlight blue as ocean’s deeps, at night they were dark like the sky, and flashing like the stars, so that it dazzled you to look at them beneath the thick fringe of the long black lashes. Then her voice, it was so sweet and low, and her laugh so musical, how could any man help but adore?
When she was presented in society there was no one to equal her in grace and charm. Women wondered and envied, men raved and adored. She could have her pick and choice of them all from the multi-millionaire, the gallant soldier, the haughty diplomat, down to the gilded youth who aimed to be the glass of fashion and the mold of form. All alike were Viola Van Lew’s slaves.
And the lovely, thoughtless creature, trained by indiscreet advisers to regard all this as simply her due, flirted demurely while immensely enjoying her conquests, as what fair maiden of eighteen would not, when launched on the glittering, effervescent sea of official life in Washington?
The first man that ever touched her heart was Florian Gay, a handsome, dashing young fellow of the cavalier type who would have become a great artist if he had not been very rich.
He had the divine afflatus, but lacked the incentive to work that poverty confers on the child of genius. Owning a handsome studio on a fashionable street, he trifled with art in a dilettante way, and devoted the most of his time to society.
He met Viola at a reception, and in due course of time, to quote an envious rival, “his scalp dangled, with dozens of others, at her belt.” In return he caught her fancy, and the flirtation became pronounced. In it she found a spice of delicious tenderness, a subtle attraction that she took for love.
He begged to paint Viola’s portrait, and accompanied by her chaperon—a good-natured old aunt—she gave him several sittings.
Before the end of the sittings they became engaged, though Florian secretly chafed at the secrecy she imposed.
“I should like to ask your father and make it public, so that those other fellows—confound them!—would quit dangling after you,” he said, betraying a spice of jealousy inherent in his nature.
But Viola put aside his entreaties.
“I like to have them dangling after me, as you call it,” she cried, laughingly. “I like to be admired, and when I am married I wish to be able to say that I had first refused a hundred suitors.”
He could not help crying:
“Heavens, what idle vanity! Have you no mercy on the men, Viola?”
“Oh, it does not hurt. They soon go away and forget,” she replied, lightly.
“I do not think that I should soon forget if you had rejected me. I fancy it would have been a very serious matter to me,” Florian Gay replied, quite gravely; but his betrothed only laughed at him.
“Nonsense! You would have been courting another girl next day, Florian.”
“It is more likely that I should have put an end to my life, for I seem to live only in you, my darling, and if I were to lose you now after you had promised yourself to me, I could not answer for myself. I should commit some desperate deed, I am sure!” he exclaimed, with such sudden fire and passion that she started with alarm and queenly displeasure.
“I don’t like stage ranting, please, Florian, and I can’t abide jealousy. You are to keep our engagement secret, and not to interfere with my flirtations, as you promised, or everything will be over between us,” Viola said, resolutely, heedless of the jealous frown that lowered upon his handsome brow, and with no comprehension of his feelings, playing with fire like a thoughtless child.
A very madness of jealousy throbbed in the young man’s heart, but it was sternly hidden out of sight as he cried, eagerly:
“I will obey your wishes, Viola; but won’t you tell me when you will be willing to marry me?”
“Oh, not for ages yet, Florian. Remember, I am not nineteen yet, and have only been out in society a year. My judgment is scarcely formed now, and perhaps,” with an arch, sidelong glance from her dazzling eyes, “I may yet see another man I could like better and throw you over for his sake.”
“Woe be unto him at that hour!” the distracted lover muttered grimly between his teeth; but Viola did not overhear. She did not, in fact, apprehend any change in her constancy to Florian. She had simply been teasing him to test her power, and now she said, with a sudden, sweet smile:
“Poor auntie will wake up presently over there in her corner and think it is time to have this sitting over, yet you have hardly begun. Please go on.”
Florian took up the brush obediently, but his hand was unsteady with the hot throbbings of his jealous heart. He longed to kiss her now that she had granted him that sweet, tender smile, but she seldom permitted a caress, she was so proudly coy.
“Ah, Viola, how hard it is to paint you! Such beauty can not be transferred to canvas!” he sighed. “I am getting out of heart with my work, and the poet’s lines, ‘In an Atelier,’ often occur to me.
“‘Ah, dearest, I am sick at heart,
It is so little I can do—
I talk my jargon—live for art—
I’d much prefer to live for you!
How dull and lifeless colors are!
You smile, and all my picture lies.
I wish that I could crush a star
To make a pigment for your eyes.’”
Viola laughed and rose.
“Well, I can not stay any longer today, because auntie and I are going to the White House reception now. Will you come with us, Florian?”
“Delighted I am sure, but an engagement prevents.”
“Can’t you break it?”
“Not with this man, much as I would like to for the sake of going with you. But I’ve been badgering him ever since he came to Congress for a few sittings, and he has at last promised to begin this day—in fact, this very hour.”
“Who is my important rival?”
“Professor Desha.”
Viola instantly made a rosy moue of disdain, and exclaimed:
“I hate that man! He is too goody-goody!”
“He is a very noble and upright man, and I am particularly anxious to paint his portrait. His fine head and face remind me somewhat of the old masters’ pictures of Christ!” exclaimed Florian Gay, warmly.
“You are partial to him because he was your professor at college,” she retorted.
“Perhaps so, but it is because that gave me an opportunity to know his value better. Philip Desha is a noble fellow, with grand principles and high ideals, and I am sorry that he yielded to ambition and let his people elect him to Congress. Politics will prove a severe test to his upright character,” he answered with more seriousness than he usually displayed.
“Come, auntie, we must be going,” cried Viola, pettishly, waking up her aunt, and taking an abrupt leave in her fear of meeting her lover’s next sitter.
But she did encounter him coming up the steps, a very dignified looking man of medium size, and about thirty years old, with as the artist had remarked, a grave, noble, serene countenance much like the ideal heads of Christ.
They bowed to each other with marked hauteur, and Viola passed on to her waiting carriage.