Fashion and Famine

by Ann S. Stephens

It was a fiendish pleasure, that of torturing a young heart so full of deep emotions; but the pleasures of that man were all fiendish; the cold refinement of his intellect made him cruel. With his mind he tortured the soul over which that mind had gained ascendancy. He named the song very gently which that poor young creature was to sing. It was her father's favorite air. The last time she had played it—oh! with what a pang she remembered that time. It sent the color from her lips. Her hand seemed turning to marble on the strings.

This was what Leicester expected. He loved to see the hot, passionate flashes of a heart all his own thus frozen by a word from his lip or a glance of his eye. A moment before she had been radiant with happiness—now she sat before him drooping and pale as a broken lily. That was enough. He would send the fire to her cheek again.

"No, let me think, there was a pretty little air you sometimes gave us on shipboard—do you remember I wrote some lines for it! Let me try and catch the air."

He began to hum over a note or two, as if trying to catch an almost forgotten air, regarding her all the while through his half-closed eyes. But even the mention of that song did not quite arouse her; it is easier to give pain than pleasure; easier to dash the cup of joy from a trembling hand than to fill it afterward. She sighed deeply, and sat with her eyes bent upon the floor. That bad man was half offended. He looked upon her continued depression as an evidence of his waning power, and was not content unless the heart-strings of his victim answered to every glowing or icy touch of his own evil spirit.

"Ah, you have forgotten the air—I expected it," he said, in a tone of thrilling reproach, but so subdued that it only reached the ear for which it was intended. He had stricken that young heart cruelly. Even this but partially aroused her. His vicious pride was pained. He leaned back on the divan, and the words of a song, sparkling, passionate and tender with love broke from his lips. His voice was superb; his features lighted up; his dark eyes flashed like diamonds beneath the half-closed lashes.

You should have seen Florence Leicester then. That voice flowed through her chilled heart like dew upon a perishing lily—like sunshine upon a rose that the storm has shaken; her drooping form became more erect; her hand began to tremble; her pale lips were softly parted, and grew red as if the warm breath, flashing through, kindled a richer glow with each short, eager gasp. Deeper and deeper those mellow notes penetrated her soul; for the time, her very being was given up to the wild delusion that had perverted it.

All the time that his spirit seemed pouring forth its tender memories, he was watching the effect, coldly as the physician counts the pulse of his patient. She was very beautiful as the bloom came softly back to her cheek like a smile growing vivid there; it was like watching a flower blossom, or the escape of sunbeams from underneath a summer cloud. He loved a study like this; it gratified his morbid taste; it gave him mental excitement, and yielded a keen relish to his inordinate vanity.

A doubt that his hitherto invincible powers of attraction might fall away with the approach of age, had began to haunt him about this time, and the thought stimulated his hungry self-love into more intense action. He was testing his own powers in the beautiful agitation of that young creature. The rich vibrations of his voice were still trembling upon the air, when the old lady returned to the room. Her manner was still quiet, but her large and very black eyes were brighter than they had been, and her tread, though still, was more firm as she crossed the room. She advanced directly toward Leicester, whose back was partly turned toward her, and touched his shoulder.

"William!"

Leicester started from his half reclining position and sat upright; his song was hushed the instant that low, but ringing voice fell upon his ear, and, with some slight display of embarrassment, he looked in the old lady's face. Its profound gravity seemed to chill even his self-possession.