What shall I say concerning the splendors of that 215 place? The temporary palaces, built of painted and gilded canvas, adorned with pictures and statues, and surrounded with gardens and shrubberies, where kings and princes were served from gold and silver plate; where after the most magnificent military pageants all day long, at evening came soft and dulcet music, concerts and serenades and even operas; where all the splendor and beauty in Europe seemed gathered together. It was like the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and it lasted for a whole month. I sometimes wondered why, among the great number of ladies present, there should not be Mademoiselle Capello and Madame Riano; and one summer afternoon, my question was answered, for rolling along the highway, toward a fine country mansion, where many guests were entertained, I saw a splendid traveling coach, well horsed and with outriders. The liveries were not the purple and canary of Madame Riano, but a superb crimson and gold. In this coach sat Madame Riano, and by her side, Francezka Capello—Francezka, in the very flush and flower of her exquisite beauty.
CHAPTER XVII
AN IMPATIENT LOVER
Why do I always call Mademoiselle Capello beautiful? I can not tell. Her features were only tolerably regular, not even so regular as Madame Riano’s; but Francezka had on her eloquent face the power, if not the substance, of the most dazzling loveliness. She put handsomer women behind the door, at the mere look of her. Everything became her. If she were splendidly appareled, that seemed the best and only dress for her. If she rode a-horseback, with her hat and feather, that was the right thing for her, and when she wore a simple linen gown and a straw hat, we wondered how she could endure to wear any other costume. That, I take it, is the essence of beauty—not that I am learned in beauty, though I am an expert in ugliness.
The coach was stopped, and I hastened to pay my duty to the ladies. Madame Riano’s greeting was kind, Francezka’s more than kind. They were to be the guests of some great people at the fine mansion for which they were bound, during the remainder of the camp—about a fortnight longer. Madame Riano was disposed to grumble a little that so many sovereigns and princes should waste their time in pageants instead 217 of using their arms to set Prince Charles Stuart upon the throne of his ancestors; but otherwise she was reasonable enough.
Francezka looked scarcely a day older than when I had last seen her two years and a half before. She leaned forward, out of the coach door, one little red-heeled shoe showing coquettishly. A large straw hat, fit for a woodland nymph to wear shaded her dark eyes, now soft, now sparkling. She expressed many wishes to see much of me, and reminded me, as did Madame Riano, that I was due at the château of Capello on our return to France. Presently, the coach rolled away, along the highroad, under the dappled shadows of the linden trees, and that was the only satisfactory interview I had with Francezka that bout.
Gaston Cheverny had not so much as even one satisfactory interview, for, straightway, Francezka was pounced upon by every man who felt the need of fortune for himself or his sons, and every woman who thought the estates of Capello would be desirable in her family. Besides this, there were numbers of young officers who were deeply smitten by Francezka’s own dark eyes, for she was one of those women born to trouble the hearts of men. No young girl ever had more of admiration and adulation than Francezka had, on this her first entrance upon a larger stage than that of a province.
Count Saxe showed her marked, but respectful attention. The Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia admired her openly, and always danced with her at the grand balls given every other night by the King of Saxony. As for the young sprigs of royalty and nobility, 218 Mademoiselle Capello was the toast of the hour with them, and he that could rob her of her little slipper and drink her health in it was reckoned a hero.