“H’m! I thought as much,” put in Sergius. “I was just thinking that the woman approaching us would have been quite handsome, if her face had been less soulless, when I saw her flash such a malignant look at my Dora as is never seen on the face of the good, and which a stranger certainly could not evoke. I don’t envy my Lord Greatlands.”
“And I would not like to be in Miss Courtney’s shoes,” said Nina. “For her affianced looks just like one of my father’s parishioners used to look. He had been both wicked and dissipated, and finished his career in a madhouse. We will, however, hope that your sister, when married, will find her husband more desirable than he looks.”
Alas! I knew too well how little happiness the future could really have in store for my misguided sister and the unhappy man who had succumbed to her evil influence. The latter looked even more ill than I had expected to see him, and I doubted whether the haunting remorse from which he suffered would not soon drive his reason from its throne.
And Belle! How could she comport herself with such queenly pride, and with such an air of self-satisfaction as she was wearing just now? It was inexplicable to me. But though the puzzle was beyond my comprehension, it had the power to damp my joy for the rest of the day.
I would much rather have been spared the sight of my enemy on my wedding-eve, and, for the life of me, I could not help wondering whether her presence in London would not prove an ill omen for me. Of course the fancy was silly. But there it was, and I could not banish it. Still, though I was less happy than before, I did not wish to spoil the pleasure of my companions, and, for their sakes, I feigned a gayety I no longer felt.
As we were being driven slowly past Hyde Park Corner, on our way back to Kensington, something else occurred to cause me an accession of surprise not unmixed with dread. A woman was waiting to cross the road as soon as it should be safe to do so.
She was carelessly glancing at the occupants of the carriages which passed her, and I was just thinking how handsome she was, and with what perfect taste she was dressed, when I felt a convulsive pressure of the hand which was clasping mine. I looked up, to see that Sergius had turned deadly pale, and that he hastily leaned back and turned his head away from the stranger.
But he was too late. She had seen him. Moreover, he was no stranger to her, as I could tell by the swift recognition which flashed across her features, and by a hasty forward movement that she made, as if to intercept our progress. The princess was not noticing the by-play. But that Prince Michaelow had seen and recognized the stranger I knew by the glances of dismayed intelligence which he exchanged with my fiancé.
Soon after this we were back at the house of my generous friends, and three of us at least were less light-hearted than when we set out early in the afternoon.
That evening I could not dismiss the stranger from my mind. Who was she? And what acquaintance could she have with Count Volkhoffsky, who had been in London so short a time? But the prince knew her too, and both men had been distinctly dismayed when they saw her. Sergius had been so little away from me since we came to London that he could not have made many acquaintances of whom I did not know.