“A few—a few, perhaps,” he said. “Clancarty has doubtless often sought me vainly for the trivial coin: some butterflies in the coulisse of the playhouse will have missed my pouncet-box; but I swear there are few in Paris who would be inconsolable if Victor de Montaiglon never set foot on the trottoir again. It is my misfortune, mademoiselle, to have a multitude of friends so busy with content and pleasure—who will blame them?—that an absentee makes little difference, and as for relatives, not a single one except the Baroness de Chenier, who is large enough to count as double.”
“And there will be—there will be the lady,” said Olivia, with a poor attempt at raillery.
For a moment he failed to grasp her allusion.
“Of course, of course,” said he hastily; “I hope, indeed, to see her there.” He felt an exaltation simply at the prospect. To see her there! To have a host's right to bid welcome to his land this fair wild-flower that had blossomed on rocks of the sea, unspoiled and unsophisticated!
The jasmine stirred more obviously: it was fastened with a topaz brooch that had been her mother's, and had known of old a similar commotion; she became diligent with a book.
It was then there happened the thing that momentarily seemed a blow of fate to both of them. But for Mungo's voice at intervals in the kitchen, the house was wholly still, and through the calm winter night there came the opening bars of a melody, played very softly by Sim MacTaggart's flageolet. At first it seemed incredible—a caprice of imagination, and they listened for some moments speechless. Count Victor was naturally the least disturbed; this unlooked-for entertainment meant the pleasant fact that the Duchess had been nowise over-sanguine in her estimate of the Chamberlain's condition. Here was another possible homicide off his mind; the Gaelic frame was capable, obviously, of miraculous recuperation. That was but his first and momentary thought; the next was less pleasing, for it seemed not wholly unlikely now that after all Olivia and this man were still on an unchanged footing, and Mungo's sowing of false hopes was like to bring a bitter reaping of regretful disillusions. As for Olivia, she was first a flame and then an icicle. Her face scorched; her whole being seemed to take a sudden wild alarm. Count Victor dared scarcely look at her, fearing to learn his doom or spy on her embarrassment until her first alarm was over, when she drew her lips together tightly and assumed a frigid resolution. She made no other movement.
A most bewitching flageolet! It languished on the night with an o'ermastering appeal, sweet inexpressibly and melting, the air unknown to one listener at least, but by him enviously confessed a very siren spell. He looked at Olivia, and saw that she intended to ignore it.
“Orpheus has recovered,” he ventured with a smile.
She stared in front of her with no response; but the jasmine rose and fell, and her nostrils were abnormally dilated. Her face had turned from the red of her first surprise to the white of suppressed indignation. The situation was inconceivably embarrassing for both; now his bolt was shot, and unless she cared to express herself, he could not venture to allude to it again, though a whole orchestra augmented the efforts of the artist in the bower.
By-and-by there came a pause in the music, and she spoke.