"Devil take the bird!" thought its master; "even he'll be witness against me." And as he went down stairs to his cab, a chorus of birds shouting "Tu aimes Pauline!" followed him, and while he laughed, he sighed to think that even these unconscious things could tell her how little his love was worth. He forgot all but his love, however, when he leaned over her chair in the Gaités and saw that, strenuously as De Concressault and De Kerroualle sought to distract her attention, and many as were the lorgnons levelled at the chevelure dorée, all her thoughts and smiles were given to him.
Ernest had never, even in his careless boyhood, felt so happy as he did that night as he handed her into Gordon's carriage, and drove to the Chaussée d'Antin; and though Gordon sat there heavy and solemn, looming like an iceberg on Ernest's golden future, Vaughan forgot him utterly, and only looked at the sunshine beaming on him from radiant eyes that, skeptic in her sex as he was from experience, he felt would always be true to him. The carriage stopped at No. 10, Rue des Mauvais Sujets. He had given her one or two dinners with the Senecterre, the De Salvador, and other fine ladies—grand affairs at the Frères Provençaux that would have satisfied Brillat-Savarin—but she had never been to his rooms before, and she smiled joyously in his face as he lifted her out—the smile that had first charmed him at the Français. He gave her his arm, and led her across the salle, bending his head down to whisper a welcome. Gordon and Selina and several men followed. Selina felt that it was perdition to enter the Lion's den, but a fat old vicomte, on whom she'd fixed her eye, was going, and the "femmes de trente ans" that Balzac champions risk their souls rather than risk their chances when the day is far spent, and good offers grow rare.
Ernest's Abyssinian, mute, subordinate to that grand gentleman, M. François, ushered them up the stairs, making furtive signs to his master, which Vaughan was too much absorbed to notice. François, in all his glory, flung open the door of the salon. In the salon a sight met Ernest's eyes which froze his blood more than if all the dead had arisen out of their graves on the slopes of Père la Chaise.
The myriad of wax-lights shone on the rooms, fragrant with the perfume of exotics, gleamed on the supper-table, gorgeous with its gold plate and its flowers, lighted up the aviary with its brilliant hues of plumage, and showed to full perfection the snowy shoulders, raven hair, and rose-hued dress of a woman lying back in a fauteuil, laughing, as De Cheffontaine, a man but slightly known to Ernest, leaned over her, fanning her. On a sofa in an alcove reclined another girl, young, fair, and pretty, the amber mouthpiece of a hookah between her lips, and a couple of young fellows at her feet.
The brunette was Bluette, who played the soubrette rôles at the Odéon; the blonde was Céline Gamelle, the new première danseuse. Bluette rose from the depths of her amber satin fauteuil, with her little pétillant eyes laughing, and her small plump hands stretched out in gesticulation. "Méchant! Comme tu es tard, Ernest. Nous avons été ici si longtemps—dix minutes au moins! And dis is you leetler new Ingleesh friend. How do you do, my dear?"
Nina, white as death, shrank from her, clinging with both hands to Ernest's arms. As pale as she, Vaughan stood staring at the actress, his lips pressed convulsively together, the veins standing out on his broad, high forehead. The bold Lion hunted into his lair, for once lost all power, all strength.
Gordon looked over Nina's shoulder into the room. He recognized the women at a glance, and, with his heavy brow dark as night, he glared on Ernest in a silence more ominous than words or oaths, and snatching Nina's arm from his, he drew her hand within his own, and dragged her from the room.
Ernest sprang after him. "Good God! you do not suppose me capable of this. Stay one instant. Hear me——"
"Let us pass, sir," thundered Gordon, "or by Heaven this insult shall not go unavenged."
"Nina, Nina!" cried Ernest, passionately, "do you at least listen!—you at least will not condemn——"