He was too wise and too wary to reply with anything like enthusiasm.
"Beautiful for those who like brunettes," he answered coldly, and his wife's heart was at rest. If he had gone into raptures she would have been disgusted.
"If she would but leave me in peace," thought Lord Chandos to himself.
He was bewildered and confused. Before him stood the great and gifted singer whom kings and emperors had delighted to honor, the most beautiful and brilliant of women; yet surely those dark, lustrous eyes had looked in his own; surely he had kissed the quivering lips, over which such rich strains of music rolled; surely he knew that beautiful face. He had seen it under the starlight, under the shade of green trees by the mill-stream; it must be the girl he had loved with such mad love, and had married more than four years ago. Yet, how could it be? Of Leone he had never heard one syllable.
Mr. Sewell had written to Lady Lanswell to tell her of her indignant rejection of all help, of her disappearance, how she never even returned to River View for anything belonging to her, and after some time the countess had told her son. He went to River View and he found the house closed and the servants gone; he made some inquiries about Leone, but never heard anything about her. He deplored the fact—it added to his misery over her. If he could have known that he left her well provided for he would not have suffered half so much.
All these years he had never heard one word of her. He had thought of her continually, more than any one would have imagined; he never knew what it was to forget her for one minute. His heart was always sad, his soul sorrowful, his mind ill at ease. The more he thought of it, the more despicable his own conduct seemed. He hated the thought of it, he loathed the very memory.
And here was the face he had seen by the mill-stream, the face which had haunted him, the face he loved so well—here it was alight with power, passion and genius. Could this brilliant, gifted singer be Leone, or was he misled by a wonderful likeness? He could not understand it, he was bewildered.
He had wondered a thousand times a day what had become of Leone; he remembered her wonderful talent, how she read those grand old tragedies of Shakespeare until she knew them by heart; but could it be possible that Leone had become the finest singer and the grandest actress in the world?
It was in the last grandly pathetic scene that their eyes met, and for one half moment the gifted woman, on whose lightest breath that vast crowd hung, swayed to and fro as though she would have fallen; the next minute she was pouring out the richest streams of melody, and Lady Chandos said:
"Is it my fancy, Lance, or was La Vanira looking at you?"