CHAPTER XII.
GUIOMAR.
“Those devotions I am to pay
Are written in my heart, not in this book.”
Enter RUTILIO.
“I am pursued—all the ports are stopped too,
Not any hope to escape—behind, before me,
On either side, I am beset.”
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, The Custom of the Country
The party were just gone—it was already the peep of day—the wheels of the last carriage had died in the distance.
Madame de Merville had dismissed her woman, and was seated in her own room, leaning her head musingly on her hand.
Beside her was the table that held her MSS. and a few books, amidst which were scattered vases of flowers. On a pedestal beneath the window was placed a marble bust of Dante. Through the open door were seen in perspective two rooms just deserted by her guests; the lights still burned in the chandeliers and girandoles, contending with the daylight that came through the half-closed curtains. The person of the inmate was in harmony with the apartment. It was characterised by a certain grace which, for want of a better epithet, writers are prone to call classical or antique. Her complexion, seeming paler than usual by that light, was yet soft and delicate—the features well cut, but small and womanly. About the face there was that rarest of all charms, the combination of intellect with sweetness; the eyes, of a dark blue, were thoughtful, perhaps melancholy, in their expression; but the long dark lashes, and the shape of the eyes, themselves more long than full, gave to their intelligence a softness approaching to languor, increased, perhaps, by that slight shadow round and below the orbs which is common with those who have tasked too much either the mind or the heart. The contour of the face, without being sharp or angular, had yet lost a little of the roundness of earlier youth; and the hand on which she leaned was, perhaps, even too white, too delicate, for the beauty which belongs to health; but the throat and bust were of exquisite symmetry.
“I am not happy,” murmured Eugenie to herself; “yet I scarce know why. Is it really, as we women of romance have said till the saying is worn threadbare, that the destiny of women is not fame but love. Strange, then, that while I have so often pictured what love should be, I have never felt it. And now,—and now,” she continued, half rising, and with a natural pang—“now I am no longer in my first youth. If I loved, should I be loved again? How happy the young pair seemed—they are never alone!”
At this moment, at a distance, was heard the report of fire-arms—again! Eugenie started, and called to her servant, who, with one of the waiters hired for the night, was engaged in removing, and nibbling as he removed, the remains of the feast. “What is that, at this hour?—open the window and look out!”
“I can see nothing, madame.”
“Again—that is the third time. Go into the street and look—some one must be in danger.”
The servant and the waiter, both curious, and not willing to part company, ran down the stairs, and thence into the street.