“Nonsense! She was the handsomest young girl in Paris, and was the acknowledged belle of the season.”
“Possibly. Henna-dyed nails are considered irresistible in Turkey, but your opalescent ones attract me infinitely more pleasantly.”
“Pray what have my nails to do with Kate’s beauty?”
“Nothing destructive, I hope,—as I am disposed to think she has little to spare.”
“Good heavens! You surely would not insinuate that you believe or consider,—or would admit, that she is not vastly superior to—to—there, Beauty, down! She is actually dining on the fringe of my pelerine!”
To cover her confusion, Constance addressed herself to the diminutive dog at her feet, and taking her flushed face in his hands, the brother looked steadily down, and answered,—
“I never insinuate. It impresses me as a cowardly and contemptible bit of plebeian practice that found favor after the royal purple was trailed in agrarian democratic dust; and lest you should unjustly impute abhorred innuendoes to me, I will say perspicuously, that the most attractive and beautiful woman I have ever seen is not your fair friend Miss Sutherland, nor any other darling of diamond and satin sheen, but a young lady whom I admire beyond expression, Miss Salome Owen.”
An angry flush burned on the invalid’s face, and her mouth curled scornfully.
“She is rather handsome sometimes,—so are gypsies and other waifs; but it is a wild sort of beauty,—if beauty you persist in terming it; and low birth and blood are visible in everything that appertains to her. I never expected to see 383 my brother condescend to the level of opera-singers, and I am astonished at your infatuation. There! you need not expect to blast me with that fiery look, and besides, you know you mentioned her name, which I had scrupulously avoided. I confess I am very proud of my family, and of you, its sole male representative, and I wish it preserved from all taint.”
“Untainted it shall remain, while a drop of the blood throbs in my veins, and I, who am jealous of my honor, have carefully pondered the matter, and maturely decided that he who entrusts his happiness to Salome Owen will be indeed an enviable man, and pardonably proud of his prize. Once I bartered myself away at the altar, and gave my name and hand for wealth, for aristocratic antecedents, for fashionable status, and five years of purgatorial misery was the richly merited penalty for the insult I offered my heart. Death freed me, and for ten years I have lived at least in peace, indulging no thought of a second alliance, and merely amused, or disgusted by the matrimonial snares that have lined my path. I no longer belong to that pitiable class who feel constrained to marry for position, and who convert the altar-steps into so many rounds of the social ladder; and I have earned the right to indulge my outraged heart in any caprice that promises to mellow, to gild the evening of my life with that home-sunshine that was denied its gloomy tempestuous morning. My future, my fortune, my social standing, my unblemished name, are all my own,—and I shall exercise my privilege of bestowing them where and when I please, heedless of the sneers and howls of disappointed mercenary schemers. Come weal, come woe, I here announce that neither you nor the world need hope to influence me one ‘jot or tittle’ in an affair where I allow no impertinent interference. I warn you this is the last time I shall permit even an indirect allusion to matters with which you have no legitimate concern; and provided you do not obtrude them upon me, it is a question of indifference to me what your opinion and that of your ‘circle’ may chance to be. Constance, you here have your ultimatum. Defy me, if you please, but prompt separation will ensue; and you will unexpectedly find yourself en route for America. Peace or 384 war? Before you decide, recollect that all your future will be irretrievably colored by it.”