"I am sure I don't know. Perhaps it has something to do with the settlement of the princess's money."
"Why, it must all have been settled when she married. You don't suppose she would give him anything more? He has got enough out of her already. Besides, I thought this Madame Moretto was also very rich?"
"So I conclude. He wouldn't have married her without."
"He is, then, actually married to her."
"Why, certainly, or, if not married, going to be."
"Upon my honor! It is a pretty story altogether. We pride ourselves upon our society being very free from scandals; but if people will marry foreigners—" then she corrected herself—"I mean foreign princes, who are mere fortune-hunters, what can one expect?"
Grace, meantime, had looked at the rivals in this pitiful story, and had come to the conclusion that Madame Moretto's was no common face. She was handsome, though young no longer, but the strength of the countenance, more than its beauty, made it remarkable. A woman, this, to exercise a fateful hold, probably, over any man on whom she had fastened—certainly over a weak one. As Grace looked at those eyes, burning like lamps in the depths of two dark caverns, at the proud and splendidly poised head and ample bust, and then at the figure and face of the deserted wife, she read at once how unequal the contest must have been. Coarse? Well, she might be coarse, but it was the coarse strength of Tintoretto, as compared with the faded feebleness of Guido.
The curtain had now fallen upon the second act, and Mordaunt, with the other men, had left the box, to visit their acquaintances and make room for those who wished to pay their respects to Mrs. Hurlstone and inspect the English beauty more closely. Among these was a powerfully built young man, of medium height, with a fine resolute face and a delightfully frank smile. His general bearing and ease of manner, which never touched the confines of familiarity—that snare of the underbred—would have distinguished him in any society. He was greeted with cordiality by mother and daughter, and introduced to Miss Ballinger as Mr. Caldwell. He repeated her name, as all Americans do, on being presented.
"Mr. Caldwell does not honor New York very much," explained Mrs. Hurlstone, with a smile. "We spoil him so much here, whenever he comes, that he thinks it best to make himself precious."
"Quite true," said the young fellow, showing the whitest teeth in the world under his incipient black moustache. "It is only coming here very seldom that makes me tolerated, I know. I am a grub, an earth-worm, who is out of place among the butterflies."