CHAPTER XI
“THOU SHALT BRUISE HIS HEEL”
Upon the departure of General Benningsen from the Embassy, Pauline de Vaucluse was left, a victim to troubling thoughts.
Dear to her father’s heart was the Franco-Russian Alliance, and yet she, his daughter and confidante, had been secretly working to bring it to nought; and all to no purpose, so it seemed.
To be a successful traitress is bad enough, but to be an unsuccessful one——!
In too melancholy a mood to seek Wilfrid’s society again, she left her father to entertain him; and, on the plea of a headache, retired to her own room, wondering what the morrow would bring forth. Apart from the uneasiness arising from the loss of the incriminatory document, she was troubled with a feeling of self-reproach, due to an indefinable something in Wilfrid’s manner. It had not taken her long to discover that he was one to whom deception of any kind was distasteful, his character in this respect affording a striking contrast with her own. If any one had reproached her with duplicity, she would have asked with a smile how it was possible to succeed in this world without lying; but now, as she recalled the grave air with which Wilfrid had received the hints that she was secretly working in opposition to her father, she grew first uneasy and then angry; though why she should let Wilfrid’s opinion trouble her was a question that found no answer in her mind. There the fact was: her attitude towards her father, now, for the first time, appeared in an unfilial and hateful light, and it was mainly Wilfrid that had made it look so.
Another circumstance, though in itself absurdly trifling, added to her annoyance. Hitherto, she had been accustomed to regard the Czarovitch as her ideal of a hero, handsome and brave, courteous and charming; and lo, here was an Englishman handsomer and braver—had he not, even at the risk of his life, refused to bow to a tyrant?—more courteous and more charming, and, above all, truth-speaking, the last epithet being not always applicable to Alexander, as history can testify. She grew vexed with Wilfrid, as if it were a fault in him to be better than Alexander!
This odd frame of mind prevented her from obtaining her usual amount of sleep; and when she arose in the morning she started at sight of the wan face and heavy eyes reflected in the mirror.
Summoning her maid, Pauline proceeded to make her toilet, selecting her prettiest and daintiest attire; and never did Vera find her mistress more hard to please than on this particular morning. She was positively more critical of herself than on the day of her receiving the Czarovitch!