He ground his teeth at the remembrance of his failure. There had been no room for doubt. Those soft violet eyes had been transformed by indignation, and had flashed upon him with angry fire. That fair Madonna face had whitened to marble with suppressed passion. Not by one glance, not by one tremor in the contemptuous voice, had the woman he loved acknowledged his influence.
He put up at the Cosmopolitan, got in half-a-dozen French novels of the most advanced school from Galignani’s Library, and kept himself very close for a week or two; but he contrived to find out what the ladies at the Westminster were doing through Albrecht the courier, who believed him to be Miss Ransome’s suitor, and was inclined to be communicative, after being copiously treated to bocks, or petits verres, as the case might be.
From Albrecht, Castellani heard how Miss Ransome spent most of her time at the Palais Montano, or gadding about with her ladyship and Mrs. Murray; how, in Albrecht’s private opinion, the balls and other dissipations of Nice were turning that young lady’s head; how Mrs. Greswold went for lonely drives day after day, and would not allow Albrecht to show her the beauties of the neighbourhood, which it would have been alike his duty and pleasure to have done. He had ascertained that her favourite, and, indeed, habitual, drive was to St. Jean, where she was in the habit of leaving the fly at the little inn while she strolled about the village in a purposeless manner. All this appeared to Albrecht as eccentric and absurd, and beneath a lady of Mrs. Greswold’s position. She would have employed her time to more advantage in going on distant excursions in a carriage and pair, and in lunching at remote hotels, where Albrecht would have been sure of a bonne main from a gratified landlord, as well as his commission from the livery-stable.
Castellani heard with displeasure of Pamela’s dancings and junketings, and he told himself that it was time to throw himself across her pathway. He had not been prepared to find that she could enjoy life without him. Her admiration of him had been so transparent, her sentimental fancy so naïvely revealed, that he had believed himself the sultan of her heart, having only to throw the handkerchief whenever it might suit him to claim his prey. Much as he prided himself upon his knowledge of human nature, as exemplified in the softer sex, he had never estimated the fickleness of a shallow sentimental character like Pamela’s. No man with a due regard to the value and dignity of his sex could conceive the ruthless rapidity with which a young lady of this temperament will transfer her affections and her large assortment of day-dreams and romantic fancies from one man to another. No man could conceive her capacity for admiring in Number Two all those qualities which were lacking in Number One. No man could imagine the exquisite adaptability of girlhood to surrounding circumstances.
Had Castellani taken Miss Ransome when she was in the humour, he would have found her the most amiable and yielding of wives; a model English wife, ready to adapt herself in all things to the will and the pleasure of her husband; unselfish, devoted, unassailable in her belief in her husband as the first and best of men. But he had not seized his opportunity. He had allowed nearly a month to go by since his defeat at Pallanza, and he had allowed Pamela to discover that life might be endurable, nay, even pleasant, without him.
And now, hearing that the young lady was gadding about, and divining that such gadding was the high-road to forgetfulness, Mr. Castellani made up his mind to resume his sway over Miss Ransome’s fancy without loss of time. He called upon a dashing American matron whom he had visited in London and Paris, and who was now the occupant of a villa on the Promenade des Anglais, and in her drawing-room he fell in with several of his London acquaintances. He found, however, that his American friend, Mrs. Montagu W. Brown, had not yet succeeded in being invited to the Palais Montano, and only knew Lady Lochinvar and Miss Ransome by sight.
“Her ladyship is too stand-offish for my taste,” said Mrs. Montagu Brown, “but the girl seems friendly enough—no style—not as we Americans understand style. I am told she ranks as an heiress on this side, but at the last ball at the Cercle she wore a frock that I should call dear at forty dollars. That young Stuart is after her, evidently. I hope you are going to the dance next Tuesday, Mr. Castellani? I want some one nice to talk to now my waltzing days are over.”
Castellani protested that Mrs. Montagu Brown was in the very heyday of a dancer’s age, and would be guilty of gross cruelty to terpsichorean society in abandoning that delightful art.
“You make me tired,” said Mrs. Montagu Brown, with perfect good-humour. “There are plenty of women who don’t know when they’re old, but I calculate every woman knows when she weighs a hundred and sixty pounds. When my waist came to twenty-six inches I knew it was time to leave off waltzing; and I was pretty good at it, too, in my day, I can tell you.”
“With that carriage you must have been divine,” replied César; “and I believe the cestus of the Venus de Milo must measure over twenty-six inches.”