CHAPTER XXXIII. THE CONCLUSION OF A “GRAND DINNER.”
LADY HESTER'S dinner of that day was a “grand one,” that is to say, it was one of those great displays which, from time to time, are offered up as sacrifices to the opinion of the world. Few of her own peculiar set were present. Some she omitted herself; others had begged off of their own accord. Midchekoff, however, was there; for, however accustomed to the tone and habits of a life of mere dissipation, he possessed every requirement for mixing with general society. It was true he was not fond of meeting “Royal Highnesses,” before whom his own equivocal rank sank into insignificance; nor did he love “Cardinals,” whose haughty pretensions always over-topped every other nobility. To oblige Lady Hester, however, he did come, and condescended, for “the nonce,” to assume his most amiable of moods. The Marchesa Guardoni, an old coquette of the days of the French Empire, but now a rigid devotee, and a most exclusive moralist; a few elderly diplomates, of a quiet and cat-like smoothness of manner, with certain notabilities of the Court, made up the party. There were no English whatever; Jekyl, who made out the list, well knowing that Florence offered none of a rank sufficiently distinguished, except Norwood, whose temporary absence from the city was rather a boon than the reverse; for the noble Viscount, when not “slang,” was usually silent, and, by long intercourse with the Turf and its followers, had ceased to feel any interest in topics which could not end in a wager.
The entertainment was very splendid. Nothing was wanting which luxury or taste could contribute. The wines were delicious; the cookery perfect. The guests were courteous and pleasing; but all was of the quietest, none of the witty sallies, the piquant anecdotes, the brilliant repartees, which usually pattered like hail around that board. Still less were heard those little histories of private life where delinquencies furnish all the interest. The royal guest imposed a reserve which the presence of the Cardinal deepened. The conversation, like the cuisine, was flavored for fine palates; both were light, suggestive, and of easy digestion. Events were discussed rather than the actors in them. All was ease and simplicity; but it was a stately kind of simplicity, which served to chill those that were unaccustomed to it. So Kate Dalton felt it; and however sad the confession, we must own that she greatly preferred the free and easy tone of Lady Hester's midnight receptions to the colder solemnity of these distinguished guests.
Even to the Cardinal's whist-table, everything wore a look of state and solemnity. The players laid down their cards with a measured gravity, and scored their honors with the air of men discharging a high and important function. As for the Archduke, he sat upon a sofa beside Lady Hester, suffering himself to be amused by the resources of her small-talk, bowing blandly at times, occasionally condescending to a smile, but rarely uttering even a monosyllable. Even that little social warmth that was kindled by the dinner-table seemed to have been chilled by the drawing-room, where the conversation was maintained in a low, soft tone, that never rose above a murmur. It may be, perhaps, some sort of consolation to little folk to think that Princes are generally sad-looking. The impassable barrier of reserve around them, if it protect from all the rubs and frictions of life, equally excludes from much of its genial enjoyment; and all those little pleasantries which grow out of intimacy are denied those who have no equals.
It was in some such meditation as this Kate Dalton sat, roused occasionally to bestow a smile or a passing word of acknowledgment in return for some of those little morsels of compliment and flattery which old courtiers pay as their rightful tribute to a young and handsome woman. She was sufficiently accustomed to this kind of homage to accept it without losing, even for an instant, any train of thought her mind was pursuing. Nor did the entrance of any new guest, a number of whom had been invited for the evening, distract her from her half revery.
The salons, without being crowded, now showed a numerous company, all of whom exhibited in their demeanor that respectful reserve the presence of royalty ever inspires. It seemed, indeed, as though all the conversation that went forward was like a mere “aside” to that more important dialogue which was maintained beside the Prince.
A slow but measured tide of persons passed before him, bowing with respectful deference as they went. With some he deigned to speak a few words, others had a smile or a little nod of recognition, and some again one of those cold and vacant stares with which great people are occasionally wont to regard little ones. His Royal Highness was not one of those accomplished princes whose pride it is to know the name, the family, the pursuits, and predilections of each new presentee. On the contrary, he was absent, and forgetful to a degree scarcely credible; his want of memory betraying him into innumerable mistakes, from which, even had he known, no adroitness of his own could have extricated him. On this evening he had not been peculiarly fortunate; he had complimented a minister who had just received his recall in disgrace; he had felicitated a young lady on her approaching marriage, which had been broken off; while the burden of his talk to Lady Hester was in disparagement of those foreigners who brought a scandal upon his court by habits and manners which would not be tolerated in their own countries. Divorce, or even separation, met his heavy reprobation; and while his code of morality, on the whole, exhibited very merciful dispositions, he bestowed unmitigated severity upon all that could shock the world's opinion.
To this Lady Hester had to listen as best she might, a task not the less trying and difficult from the ill-suppressed looks of malice and enjoyment she saw on every side. From all these causes put together, the occasion, however flattering to her vanity, was far from being pleasurable to her feelings, and she longed for it to be over. The Prince looked wearied enough, but somehow there is nothing like royalty for endurance; their whole lives would seem to teach the lesson, and so he sat on, saying a stray word, bowing with half-closed lids, and looking as though very little more would set him fast asleep.
It was the very culminating point of the whole evening's austerity; one of those little pauses which now and then occur had succeeded to the murmur of conversation. The whist party had been broken up, and the Cardinal was slowly advancing up the room, the company, even to the ladies, rising respectfully as he passed, when the folding-doors were thrown wide, and a servant announced Mr. Scroope Purvis.
If the name was unknown to the assembled guests, there was one there at least who heard it with a sensation of actual terror, and poor Kate Dalton sank back into her chair with a kind of instinctive effort at concealment. By this time the door had closed behind him, leaving Mr. Purvis standing with an expression of no small bewilderment at the gorgeous assembly into which he had intruded.