In his own dreary little den, behind the “Duomo,” the padre also slept heavily, not a thought, not a single passing idea breaking the stagnant surface of his deep lethargy.
Nina, however, was wakeful, and had no mind for repose. Her brilliant costume carefully laid aside, she was arranging her dark hair into its habitually modest braid; her very features composing themselves, as she did so, into their wonted aspect of gentleness and submission.
All the change of dress being little in comparison with the complete alteration now observable in her whole air and demeanor, she seemed a totally different being. And she was so, too; for while hypocrites to the world, we completely forget that we share in the deception ourselves.
CHAPTER XXIV. A MIDNIGHT RECEPTION
IT was past midnight, the Opera was just over, and the few privileged guests who were permitted to pay their visits to Lady Hester Onslow were assembled in the little drawing-room and boudoir sacred to these exclusive receptions. Nothing could be in stronger contrast than the gorgeous splendor of the apartment and the half-dressed, careless, lounging ease of the men as they stretched themselves on the ottomans, lounged on the sofas, or puffed their cigars, alike indifferent to the place and the presence of two ladies who, dressed in the very perfection of “toilette,” did the honors of the reception.
Lady Hester, who wore a small embroidered velvet cap, coquettishly set on one side of the head, and a species of velvet jacket, such as is common in Greece, lay upon a sofa beneath a canopy of pink silk covered with lace; a most splendidly ornamented hooka, the emerald mouthpiece of which she held in her hand, stood on a little cushion beside her; while grouped around in every attitude that taste and caprice suggested on chairs, on cushions, squabs, “Prie-Dieu” and other drawing-room devices of a like nature were some half-dozen men, whose air and bearing pronounced them long habituated to all the usages of society. One stamp of feature and style pervaded all; pale, dark-eyed, black-bearded, and weary-looking, they seemed as though they were tired of a life of dissipation, and yet utterly incapable of engaging in any other.
All born to high rank, some to large fortune, they found that no other career was open to them except vice in one shape or other. The policy of their rulers had excluded them from every road of honorable ambition; neither as statesmen nor soldiers could they hope to win fame or glory. Their habits of life and the tone of society gave no impulse to the cultivation of science or literature. The topics discussed in their circle never by chance adverted to a book; and there they were, with heads whose development indicated all that was intellectual, with brows and foreheads that betokened every gift of mental excellence, wearing away life in the dullest imaginable routine of dissipation, their minds neglected, their hearts corrupted, enervated in body, and deprived of all energy of character; they wore, even in youth, the exhausted look of age, and bore in every lineament of their features the type of lassitude and discontent.
In the adjoining room sat Kate Dalton at a tea-table. She was costumed for we cannot use any milder word in a species of “moyen-age” dress, whose length of stomacher and deep-hanging sleeves recalled the portraits of Titian's time; a small cap covered the back of her head, through an aperture in which the hair appeared, its rich auburn masses fastened by a short stiletto of gold, whose hilt and handle were studded with precious stones; a massive gold chain, with a heavy cross of the same metal, was the only ornament she wore. Widely different as was the dress from that humble guise in which the reader first knew her, the internal change was even greater still; no longer the bashful, blushing girl, beaming with all the delight of a happy nature, credulous, light-hearted, and buoyant, she was now composed in feature, calm, and gentle-mannered; the placid smile that moved her lips, the graceful motion of her head, her slightest gestures, her least words, all displaying a polished ease and elegance which made even her beauty and attraction secondary to the fascination of her manner. It is true the generous frankness of her beaming eyes was gone; she no longer met you with a look of full and fearless confidence: the cordial warmth, the fresh and buoyant sallies of her ready wit, had departed, and in their place was a timid reserve, a cautious, shrinking delicacy, blended with a quiet but watchful spirit of repartee, that flattered by the very degree of attention it betokened.
Perhaps our reader will not feel pleased with us for saying that she was more beautiful now than before; that intercourse with the world, dress, manners, the tact of society, the stimulus of admiration, the assured sense of her own charms, however they may have detracted from the moral purity of her nature, had yet invested her appearance with higher and more striking fascinations. Her walk, her courtesy, the passing motion of her hand, her attitude as she sat, were perfect studies of grace. Not a trace was left of her former manner; all was ease, pliancy, and elegance. Two persons were seated near her: one of these, our old acquaintance, George Onslow; the other was a dark, sallow-visaged man, whose age might have been anything from thirty-five to sixty, for, while his features were marked by the hard lines of time, his figure had all the semblance of youth. By a broad blue ribbon round his neck he wore the decoration of Saint Nicholas, and the breast of his coat was covered with stars, crosses, and orders of half the courts of Europe. This was Prince Midchekoff, whose grandfather, having taken an active part in the assassination of the Emperor Paul, had never been reconciled to the Imperial family, and was permitted to reside in a kind of honorable banishment out of Russia; a punishment which he bore up under, it was said, with admirable fortitude. His fortune was reputed to be immense, and there was scarcely a capital of Europe in which he did not possess a residence. The character of his face was peculiar, for while the forehead and eyes were intellectual and candid, the lower jaw and mouth revealed his Calmuck origin, an expression of intense, unrelenting cruelty being the impression at once conveyed by the thin, straight, compressed lips, and the long, projecting chin, seeming even longer from the black-pointed beard he wore. There was nothing vulgar or common-place about him; he never could have passed unobserved anywhere, and yet he was equally far from the type of high birth. His manners were perfectly well bred; and although he spoke seldom, his quiet and attentive air and his easy smile showed he possessed the still rarer quality of listening well.