A Heart-Song of To-day (Disturbed by Fire from the 'Unruly Member'): A Novel

by Annie G. Savigny

Here footsteps were heard, both on the gravel walk outside the small conservatory and in the corridor by which they had entered the boudoir. And though the occupants did not see Del Castello, he saw them at the same time as Everly with De Vesey (a gay Paris beau to whom Vaura had been engaged for this dance, now over) crossed the threshold. De Vesey, on seeing the situation, and not caring to be de trop, was for retreating, but Everly was in no mood for this, now that his dance and his only one for the night was on the tapis. He, like any other man, would have feared to leave the woman he loved with a man so fascinating as Trevalyon. Vaura, in the second or two of their hesitation, had time to recover outward composure. Lionel folded his arms, moved a pace or two backwards, and stood like a statue; the muscles of his face throbbed, but in the dim rose-tinted light Everly and De Vesey coming from the glare of the lustres and torches of the ball-room did not see clearly.

"Pardonnez, Mademoiselle, but Sir Tilton Everly would continue his search until our belle of the evening was found," said De Vesey, apologetically.

"Not so loud, Monsieur De Vesey," Vaura answered in a whisper. "This is the temple of the god of Silence, and Captain Trevalyon and I have been worshipping at his shrine. I perceive you are both," she added, moving on tiptoe towards them, "feeling the influence of the place, and you don't look as though you care to pour incense. So let us back to Comus and revelry. Au revoir, Capt. Trevalyon."

Vaura managed while speaking to detach from her corsage some violets and a crushed rose, which, when Everly and De Vesey were not observing, she dropped at Trevalyon's feet; and turning her head as she took Sir Tilton's arm, gave him her own syren smile from eyes and lips—and Lionel was alone. Del Castello who had been a witness to this scene from the outside of the conservatory now entered, and coming forward stood facing Lionel.

One would look far before meeting two as handsome men as these two rivals for the love of one woman. Capt. Trevalyon, with some of the best Saxon blood in his veins, of distingue bearing, tall, broad-shouldered, blue-eyed, blonde, tawney mustache, short side whiskers, face somewhat bronzed by exposure on the battle field and in travel: a man, a manly man every inch of him, a man whom woman adored and man leaned on, unless when his foes and rivals.

Del Castello truly the nobleman, tall, dark, and handsome.

The Spaniard was the first to speak.

"Pardon my intrusion, Monsieur, but I cannot rest until I know the truth; I have seen Mademoiselle Vernon several times walking and driving at places of public amusement, but never have been fortunate enough to obtain an introduction to her until to-night, though I have made repeated efforts so to do. Her beauty and grace had made a deep impression upon me, which now that I have had the great joy of conversing and dancing with her has ripened into love so strong as not to be subdued, and which, excuse me, Monsieur, for saying, I believe only a Spaniard or perhaps an Italian could feel. You English are so cold; Mademoiselle is not, but reminds me of the women of my own love-warm, sun-lit land. It was my intention to have called upon Mademoiselle Vernon at her hotel on to-morrow ere the sun had set, to ask her if she would be the light of my life by doing me the great honour of accepting my name, hand and fortune. I had been roaming through the grounds meditating upon her many charms, and of how best I could make my offer so as not to agitate her by its seeming prematureness, when I was very much troubled on coming to the conservatory (meaning to enter) to see you, a powerful rival, in the blissful retirement of this boudoir with the woman I have, perhaps unfortunately, conceived, such passionate love for. I was as if chained to the spot and, when you were alone, determined to enter and ask you if my worst fears are true. Are you a successful suitor for the hand of Mademoiselle Vernon? Are you, Monsieur, anything to her?"

This had been, to say the least of it, a very trying night for Lionel—and it seemed his troubles were not yet over. He knew the Marquis Del Castello to be a parti the bluest blood in his own land would be more than satisfied with. He was the possessor of a noble and princely estate, and this man, with all these advantages, was a suitor for the hand of the woman he loved with an overwhelming passion. And the Spaniard had said she could not be loved as he loved her. Ah, well! what does man know of man? Only this, what he chooses more than "language," as Talleyrand says, "was given us to conceal our thoughts;" for we smile when the heart is breaking; we weep to conceal the joy we are feeling; and Lionel listened and suffered. He had never been a man to make his moan into the ear of men and women, for the sympathy of society is curiosity! and man listens and forgets, and woman listens and talks; she cannot help it, poor thing. Can the snake do other than charm—then sting?

And Vaura had conquered and enslaved him, but was still unsubdued—so he thought,—and though peerless among her sex, she is only a woman. And how will it be if I allow this man to pour his love tale into her ear with all the impassioned eloquence his countrymen possess. "Oh, darling!" and he groaned inwardly, "I cannot put you to the test; I cannot speak yet;" and he must not. All this poor Lionel thought, as with folded arms he listened to the Spaniard, and to his concluding words of "Are you anything to Mademoiselle Vernon?" he merely bowed. The temptation to dismiss this smooth-tongued Southerner, with the warmth of the south in his words, with the looks of an Adonis, ere Vaura should listen to his pleadings, was too much for him. Ah, well, though we love him much, this Lionel Trevalyon, he is only mortal. "After I have made her love me, I shall tell her of this man's proposal of marriage," he said to his aggrieved conscience. After all is there not an instinctive leaning in the hearts of most of us towards the Roman Catholic doctrine of penance? Immediately on our conscience becoming seared as with a red-hot iron through some act its sensitiveness shrinks from, we, feeling this inward shrinking away as if from our lower nature invariably bring out the whip and lash our poor weak flesh by way of atonement. And so Lionel thought now as he bowed to Del Castello's question of "are you anything to her?" and thought while doing what hurt his conscience—"I shall tell her after."