Thus cautioning him, she led Esca through a narrow door out of the by-street, into which they had diverged, and stepped briskly on, with a confidence born of local knowledge that he imitated with difficulty. They were now in a thickly planted shrubbery which effectually excluded the rays of a rising moon, and in which it was scarce possible to distinguish even Myrrhina’s white dress. Presently they emerged upon a smooth and level lawn, shut in by a black group of cedars, through the lower branches of which peeped the crescent moon that had not long left the horizon, and turning the corner of a colonnade, under a ghostly-looking statue, traversed another door, which opened softly to Myrrhina’s touch, and admitted them into a long carpeted passage, with a lamp at the farther end.
“Stay here while I fetch a light,” whispered the damsel; and, gliding away for that purpose, returned presently to conduct Esca through a large dark hall into another passage; where she stopped abruptly, and lifting some silken hangings, that served for the door of an apartment, simply observed, “You will find food and wine there,” and pushed him in.
Floods of soft and mellow light dazzled his eyes at first; but he soon realised the luxurious beauty of the retreat into which he had been forced. It was obvious that all the [pg 93]resources of wealth had been applied to its decoration with a lavish hand, guided by a woman’s sensibility and a woman’s taste. The walls were painted in frescoes of the richest colouring, and represented the most alluring scenes. Here the three jealous goddesses flashed upon bewildered Paris, in all the lustre of their immortal charms. A living envy sat on Juno’s brow; a living scorn was stamped on Minerva’s pale, proud face; and the living smile that won her the golden apple, shone in Aphrodité’s winning eyes. There glowed imperial Circé in her magic splendour; and the very victims of her spell seemed yet to crave, with fiery glances and with thirsty lips, for one more draught from the tempting, luscious, and degrading cup. A shapely Endymion lay stretched in dreams of love. A frightened Leda shrank while she caressed. Here fair Adonis bled to death, ripped by the monster in the forest glade; there, where the broad-leaved lilies lay sleeping on the shady pool, bent fond Narcissus, to look and long his life away; an infant Bacchus rolled amongst the grapes, in bronze; a little Cupid mourned his broken bow, in marble. Around the cornices a circle of nymphs and satyrs, in bas-relief, danced hand-in-hand—wild woodland creatures, exulting in all the luxuriance of beauty, all the redundancy of strength; and yonder, just where the lamp cast its softest light on her attractions, stood the likeness of Valeria herself, depicted by the cunning painter in a loose flowing robe that enhanced, without concealing, the stately proportions of her figure, and in an attitude essentially her own—an attitude expressive of dormant passion, lulled by the languid insolence of power, and tinged with an imperious coquetry that she had found to be the most alluring of her charms.
It was bad enough to sit in that voluptuous room, under that mellow light, drinking the daintiest produce of Falernian vineyards, and gazing on such an image as Valeria’s—an image of one who, beyond all women, was calculated to madden a heated brain, whose beauty could scarcely fail to captivate the outward senses, and take the heart by storm. It was bad enough to press the very couch of which the cushions still retained the print of her form—to see the shawl thrown across it, and trailing on the floor as though but now flung off—to touch the open bracelet hastily unclasped, yet warm from its contact with her arm. All this was bad enough, but worse was still to come.
Esca was in the act of setting down the goblet he had drained, and his eye was resting with an expression of [pg 94]admiration, not to be mistaken, on the picture opposite, when the rustling of the hangings caused him to turn his head. There was no more attraction now in bounding nymph or brilliant enchantress; haughty Juno, wise Minerva, and laughing Venus with her sparkling girdle, had passed into the shade. Valeria’s likeness was no longer the masterpiece of the apartment, for there in the doorway appeared the figure of Valeria herself. Esca sprang to his feet, and thus they stood, that noble pair, confronting each other in the radiant light. The hostess and her guest—the lady and the slave—the assailant and the assailed.
CHAPTER XIII
NOLENS—VOLENS
Valeria trembled in every limb; yet should she have remained the calmer of the two, inasmuch as hers could scarcely have been the agitation of surprise. Such a step, indeed, as that on which she now ventured, had not been taken without much hesitation and many changes of mind.