If Mr. Calvert found the pretty and vivacious Comtesse de Flahaut little to his taste, the society of which she was a type offended him still more. It had taken him but a short time to realize what shams, what hollowness, what corruption existed beneath the brilliant and gay surface. Amiability, charm, wit, grace were to be found everywhere in their perfection, but nowhere was truth, or sincerity, or real pleasure. All things were perverted. Constancy was only to be found in inconstancy. Gossip and rumor left no frailty undiscovered, no reputation unsmirched. Religion was scoffed at, love was caricatured. All about him Calvert saw young nobles, each the slave of some particular goddess, bowing down and doing duty like the humblest menial, now caressed, now ill-treated, but always at beck and call, always obedient. It was the fashion, and no courtier resented this treatment, which served both to reduce the men to the rank of puppets and to render incredibly capricious the beauties who found themselves so powerful. All the virility of Calvert's nature, all his new-world independence and his sense of honor, was revolted by such a state of things. As he looked around the company, there was not a man or woman to be seen of whom he had not already heard some risque story or covert insinuation, and, though he was no strait-laced Puritan, a sort of disdain for these effeminate courtiers and a horror of these beautiful women took possession of him.
"Decidedly," he thought to himself, "I am not fitted for this society," and so, somewhat out of conceit with his surroundings, and the Duchess having withdrawn, he bade good-night to the company without waiting for Mr. Morris, and took himself and his disturbed thoughts back to the Legation.
CHAPTER IX
IN WHICH MR. CALVERT'S GOOD INTENTIONS MISCARRY
It was in the midst of such society that Calvert encountered Madame de St. André repeatedly during the remainder of the winter and early spring. And though she was as imperious and capricious as possible, followed about by a dozen admirers (of whom poor Beaufort was one of the most constant); though she was as thoughtless, as pleasure-loving as any of that thoughtless, pleasure-loving society in which she moved; though she had a hundred faults easy to be seen, yet, in Calvert's opinion, there was still a saving grace about her, a fragrant youthfulness, a purity and splendor that coarsened and cheapened all who were brought into comparison with her. When she sat beside the old Duchesse d'Azay at the Opéra or Comédie, he had no eyes for la Saint-Huberti or Contat, and thought that she outshone all the beauties both on the stage and in the brilliant audience. Usually, however, he was content to admire her at a distance and rarely left the box which he occupied with Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Morris to pay his respects to her and Madame d'Azay. For while Adrienne attracted him, he was yet conscious that it was best for him not to be drawn into the circle of her fascinations, and, although he made a thousand excuses for her caprice and coquetry, he had no intention of becoming the victim of either. Indeed, he had already experienced somewhat of her caprice and had found it little to his liking. Since the afternoon on which they had skated together she had never again treated him in so unaffected and friendly a fashion. A hundred times had she passed him at the opera or the play or in the salons which they both frequented, with scarcely a nod or smile, and Mr. Calvert was both offended and amused by such cavalier treatment and haughty manners.
"She has the air of a princess royal and treats me as the meanest of her subjects. 'Tis a good thing we Americans have cast off the yoke of royalty," he thought to himself, with a smile. "And as for beauty—there are a dozen belles in Virginia alone almost her equal in loveliness and surely far sweeter, simpler, less spoiled. And yet—and yet—" and the young man would find himself wondering what was that special charm by virtue of which she triumphed over all others. He did not himself yet know why it was that he excused her follies, found her the most beautiful of all women, or fell into a sort of rage at seeing her in the loose society of the day, with such men as St. Aulaire and a dozen others of his kind in her train. But though unable to analyze her charm he was yet vaguely conscious of its danger, and had it depended upon himself he would have seen but little of her. This, however, was an impossibility, as Mr. Jefferson was a constant visitor at the hôtel of Madame d'Azay, who, true to her word, seemed to take the liveliest interest in Mr. Calvert and commanded his presence in her salon frequently. Indeed, the old Duchess was pleased to profess herself charmed with the young American, and would have been delighted, apparently, to see him at any and all hours, had his duties permitted him so much leisure. Besides the cordial invitations of the dowager Duchess to the hotel in the rue St. Honoré, there were others as pressing from d'Azay himself, who, having secured his election in Touraine, had returned to Paris. The young nobleman was frequently at the American Legation in consultation with the Minister, whose opinions and character excited his greatest admiration, and it was one of his chiefest delights, when business was concluded, to carry Mr. Jefferson and Calvert back to his aunt's drawing-room with him for a dish of tea and an hour's conversation.
It was on one of those occasions that, having accompanied Mr. Jefferson and d'Azay to the rue St. Honoré in the latter's coach (Mr. Morris promising to look in later), Mr. Calvert had the opportunity of speaking at length with Madame de St. André for the first time since the afternoon on the ice. When the three gentlemen entered the drawing-room a numerous company was already assembled, the older members of which were busy with quinze and lansquenet in a card-room that opened out of the salon, the younger ones standing or sitting about in groups and listening to a song which Monsieur de St. Aulaire, who was at the harpsichord, had just begun. It was Blondel's song from Grétry's "Richard Coeur de Lion," about which all Paris was crazy and which Garat sang nightly with a prodigious success at the Opéra. This aria Monsieur de St. Aulaire essayed in faithful imitation of the great tenor's manner and in a voice which showed traces of having once been beautiful, but which age and excesses had now broken and rendered harsh and forced.
As Calvert saluted Adrienne, when the perfunctory applause which this performance called forth had died away, he thought he had never seen her look so lovely. She wore a dress of some soft water-green fabric shot with threads of silver that fell away from her rounded throat and arms, bringing the creamy fairness of her complexion (which, for the first time, he saw enhanced by black patches) and the dusky brown of her hair to a very perfection of beauty. She was standing by the harpsichord when the gentlemen entered, but, on catching sight of Mr. Jefferson, she went forward graciously, extending her hand, over which he bowed low in admiration of that young beauty which, in his eyes, had no equal in Paris.
There was another pair of eyes upon her which saw as Mr. Jefferson's kindly ones did, but to them the young girl paid little attention, only giving Mr. Calvert a brief courtesy as she went to salute her brother.
"Will you not make Mr. Jefferson a dish of tea, Adrienne?" asked d'Azay, kissing her on both her fair cheeks. "And if we are to have music I beg you will ask Calvert to sing for us, for he has the sweetest voice in the world."