"They are faithful old friends who followed me across the Atlantic, who are invaluable, and shield me from impertinent annoyances, to which all women of my profession are more or less subjected. The world to which you belong sometimes seem disposed to forget that beneath and behind the paint and powder, false hair and fine tragic airs and costumes they pay to strangle time for them at San Carlo, or Teatro de' Fiorentini there breathes a genuine human thing; a creature with a true, pure, womanly heart beating under the velvet, gauze, and tinsel, and with blood that now and then boils under unprovoked and dastardly insult. If I were cross-eyed, or had been afflicted with small-pox, or were otherwise disfigured, I should not require Mr. and Mrs. Waul; but Madame Orme, the lonely widow deprived by death of a father's or brother's watchful protection, finds her humble companions a valuable barrier against presumption and insolence. For instance, when strangers, pleased with my carefully practised jeu de theâtre, send fulsome notes and costly bijouterie to my lodgings, praying in return a lock of my hair or a photograph, my griffons, as you facetiously term them, rarely even consult me, but generally send back the jewels by the bearer, and twist the billets-doux into tapers to light Mr. Waul's pipe. Sometimes I see them; often I am saved the trouble of knowing anything about the impertinence."
Her voice was sweet and mellow as a Phrygian flute sounding softly on moonlight nights through acacia and oleander groves, but the scorn burning in her eyes was intolerable, and before it the old man seemed to shrink, while a purplish flush swept across his proud face.
"Mrs. Orme is an anomaly among lovely women, and especially among popular tragediennes, and as I am suffering the consequences of that unexpected fact, may I venture, in pleading for pardon, to remind her of that grand prayer: 'Be it my will that my mercy overpower my justice.' Will she not nobly forgive errors committed in ignorance of the peculiar sensitiveness of her nature, the mimosa delicacy of her admirable character?"
Not until this moment had the likeness between father and son shown itself so conspicuously, and in the handsome features and insinuating, beguiling velvet voice she found sickening resemblances that made her heart surge, until she seemed suffocating. Hastily she loosened the ribbons of her hat that were tied beneath her chin.
"Is General Laurance pleading abstractly for forgiveness for his vain and presumptuous sex?"
"Solely for my own audacious impertinence, which, had I known you, would never have been perpetrated. My rejected emeralds accuse me. Pardon me, and I will immediately donate them in expiatory offering to some Foundling Asylum, Hospital, or other public charity."
"If I condone past offences, it must be upon condition that they are never repeated, for leniency is not one of my characteristics. Hitherto we have been strangers; you are from America the land of my adoption, and have been presented to me as a gentleman, as the friend of my physician. Henceforth consider that your acquaintance with me dates from to-day."
She suffered him to take her hand, and bow low over it, breathing, volubly his thanks for her goodness, his protestations of profound repentance, and undying gratitude; and all the while she shut her eyes as if to hide some approaching horror,—and the blood in her views seemed to freeze at his touch, gathered like icicles around her aching heart, turning her gradually to stone.
Taking his offered arm, they walked back toward the spot where she had desired her companions to await her return, and as he attempted to analyze the strange perplexing expression on her chiselled white face, he said:
"I trust this delicious climate has fully restored your health?"