Somehow also the impression had got abroad that Madame Wyvil was a very wealthy woman—the daughter of some New York merchant prince and the widow of some California mine king.
Who was responsible for starting the story is not certainly known; but it is undeniable that Madame Von Bruyin chuckled a great deal over the hallucination, when she saw Lilith sought, followed, flattered and fawned upon by impoverished nobles and impecunious princes.
Lilith knew nothing of the romances in circulation concerning her vast riches. The adulation she received both pleased and pained her. No beautiful girl of seventeen could be quite insensible or indifferent to the homage of the world; homage that she innocently supposed was paid to herself, rather than to her imaginary wealth; but when she remembered her position, she felt that she would gladly give all, all this worship for one kind word, or glance, from her alienated husband—
“Coldly she turns from their praise and weeps,
For her heart ‘at his feet’ is lying.”
She was often glad to get away from those court circles—though they were never gay scenes—to escape from everybody, even from her kindest friend, Madame Von Bruyin—lock herself up in her room at night, and there in solitude and darkness forget or ignore the cruel sentence that had banished her from her beloved husband and her dear home; bridge over the painful scenes that had marred the last weeks of their wedded life and go back and live over again in memory and imagination the brief, bright days of their harmony and happiness, and recall the few precious words of affection or approbation Tudor Hereward had ever addressed to her.
How fondly, how vividly—lying with her eyes closed and her fingers laid upon her eyelids as if the better to shut out the real world and the present time—how fondly and how vividly she recalled that day when she sat all day long over the writing-table in their room at the hotel, so busy at work for him, so happy, ah! so happy to be of use to him, answering piles of letters that he had marked for her, copying the crabbed manuscript for his speech, looking out authorities for his reference.
And when evening came and he returned from the Capitol, and sank wearily into his easy-chair at the table and slowly examined her work, and finally said:
“You have performed your task only too well.... Your day’s work has saved me from a night’s work, my little lady love.” And he kissed her.
It was a precious memory.