“No, no; I was never in America in my life; but I knew him when first he came to London, before people began to talk about him. I told him what a hit he was going to make.”
While Society was prostrating itself before a novel entertainer, Mr. Sefton and Sophy had drifted through the curtained archway to the little back room, which seemed, from its smallness, a kind of inner temple, where the treasures of the house might be found; as in the smallest rooms in old Italian palaces one looks for the choicest gems in the princely collection.
Sophy was talking and laughing with her host, radiant and happy. This tea-party seemed to her full of meaning. It was assuredly given for her pleasure. Mr. Sefton had said so. She had expressed a curiosity about his small house in Chelsea, and he had said instantly, “You must come and see it. I will ask some people to tea.” What more could a man do for the woman he meant to marry? Sophy was intoxicated with this delicate token of subjugation. She imagined herself looked at and talked about as the future Mrs. Sefton. Unconsciously she gave herself some small airs of an affianced wife; chiding him; making little jokes at his expense; pretending to underrate his surroundings—the pretty childish graces and little pettish tricks which come naturally to the weaker sex before marriage, as if they were recompensing themselves in advance for the iron heel under which they are to exist afterwards.
They sauntered into the inner room, brushing against the tapestry curtains, and one glance at the sanctuary sent the blood to Sophy’s cheeks in a hot, angry blush.
The most prominent position in the room was filled by an easel draped with orange and gold brocade, and on the easel appeared a full-length portrait of Signora Vivanti in her character of “Fanchonette.”
It was a bold sketch in water-colours, suggested by a photograph, but with all the grace and power of a picture painted from the living model. The painter had caught the fire and sparkle of the Italian face, the richness of colouring, the wealth of a somewhat vulgar beauty. The photographer had seized a happy moment of graceful abandon—not a photographer’s pose.
She was half reclining in her chair, with averted shoulder, and looking backward out of the picture with a most provoking smile—Fanchonette’s audacious smile, which had taken the town by storm.
The velvet bodice set off the bust and shoulders in all their beauty, the blue and white striped petticoat was short enough to show the well-shaped leg and large useful foot in scarlet stocking and neat buckled shoe. A grisette’s little white muslin cap sat airily upon the splendid coils of blue-black hair. Beauty of the plebeian type could go no further. Eyes, hair, complexion, figure, all were perfect; and over and above all there was the charm of mutinous lip and flashing smile, a look that was bold without immodesty, the frank outlook of a nature unacquainted with guile.
Sefton watched Sophy’s face as she stared at the portrait, and her pinched lips, her sickly pallor, smote him with a sudden remorse. He had been fooling this rustic for his own purposes, making her an instrument in his scheme of evil. He felt that he had gone too far. Poor simpleton! What had she done that he should give her pain? Eve had slighted him; Eve’s husband had come between him and the woman who was his passion; but this simpering, chattering, giggling girl had done him no wrong; and it was a base treachery to have deluded her with flattering speeches and meaningless attentions. However, the harm was done, done with deliberate purpose; and he had only to carry out his plan to the end. He meant Sophy to be his means of communication with Eve. He meant to reach the wife’s ear through the sister.
“I’ll make his life as miserable as he has made mine, if I can,” he said to himself.