"My cousin!" said Lady Vereker with a laugh. "I should like to assist at that, and I would willingly place the first fagot on the pile!"
"It would not be prudent to go farther in this direction," said one of the footmen; "the crowd is very great, and if they were to recognize your ladyship's livery—"
"I see how it is," remarked Lady Vereker, still laughing, and turning to Esther; "the rascals are afraid. Very well; drive home by the shortest way. I shall be able to keep you a few minutes longer, my dear. Do not be anxious; a man shall be despatched to inform your friends that you are safe."
But Esther was not in the least disturbed. Was she not of that age when one blesses the slightest adventure that chances to disturb the monotonous course of every-day life and suddenly produces the unforeseen?
A few minutes later the two women were seated in one of those tiny, low-ceiled, over-decorated apartments in which the new instinct of intimacy and mystery confined the higher classes of the period. Louis XV. had first set the example of these miniature chambers which best suited the queens of his left hand. And all over Europe, where France still set the fashion, although she was the object of attack, every one strove to make a mystery of life, although in nine cases out of ten there was no reason for it. There were no longer the spacious galleries for state pageants, no longer the throne-like beds: but boudoirs round as nests and muffled in silken hangings; furniture monstrously stuffed, consoles and pier-tables, and étagères littered with costly nothings. Upon the walls, pastels and portraits of much-bedecked women, wearing the same vague, coquettish smile upon their vermilion lips. Not an angle was visible, and none of the straight-backed chairs which oblige the body to maintain a respectable position, but easy-chairs everywhere, into the depths of which one sank with voluptuous deliberation,—nothing but curves to invite ease and languor. The white woodwork and delicate, tender tints which had begun to prevail in France had not yet crossed the Channel. The day of the massive, so to speak, had passed; that of simplicity had not yet dawned. It was, in short, in the daintiest of boudoirs that Esther Woodville and her new friend drank tea out of exquisite Japanese cups. A fire crackled upon the hearth; a jet of water plashed softly as it fell into its marble basin at the feet of a nymph whose ideally slender limbs and elegant nudity were scarcely visible in the semi-obscurity that prevailed,—the image of the mistress of the house, by the celebrated Roubiliac, if we may credit indiscreet and envious tongues. A silver lamp shed a mellow radiance upon the dainty and delicate objects which littered the table,—the encas always ready for my lady. The entire upper portion of the chamber, the panels painted by Lautherbourg, the azure ceiling where cupids sported, the marvellous great Venetian chandelier with its four hundred sparkling crystal drops,—all remained veiled in shadow, scarcely visible. A sweet but oppressive perfume, which seemed to exhale from everything, made the will languid and paralyzed the senses with a delicious stupor.
Lady Vereker had quitted her place and had taken a seat upon a tabouret close to Esther. She had captured one of the girl's hands and had riveted her gaze upon her face.
"You were saying," she began slowly, "that Lord Mowbray is in love with you."
"I said nothing of the kind. It was your ladyship who said so."
"In the first place, dear, drop 'your ladyship.' My name is Arabella. Those who love me call me Bella. Call me Bella, and I will call you Esther."