‘I believe you are a witch. You have roused my curiosity; you must tell me more than this.’
‘Hector le Gautier is in love,’ Isodore replied, a world of quiet scorn running through her words, ‘and, strange as it may seem, I believe true. An English girl—Enid Charteris, with the blue eyes and fair hair—has bewitched him, satiated as he is with southern beauty.—You look surprised! I have the gift of fern-seed, and walk invisible. All these things I know. The Order is to be betrayed when the pear is ripe, and the traitor will be Hector le Gautier. The price of his treachery will enable him to become respectable, and lead a quiet life henceforward with his loving fair-haired bride. Poor, feeble, calculating fool!’ The bitter scorn in these words was undescribable, and round the speaker’s lips a smile was wreathed—a smile of placid unrelenting hate and triumph strangely blended.
‘It shall never be,’ Valerie cried passionately, ‘while I can raise my voice to save an innocent girl from the toils of such a scoundrel!—Yes,’ she hissed out between her white clenched teeth, ‘it will be a fitting revenge. It would be bliss indeed to me if I could stand between them at the altar, and say that man is mine!’
‘He is ours,’ Isodore corrected sternly; ‘do not ignore that debt entirely. Be content to leave the plot to me. I have worked out my scheme, and we shall not fail. Five years ago, I was a child, happy on the banks of my beloved Tiber. It was not far from Rome that we lived, my old nurse and I, always happy till he came and stole away my heart with his grand promises and sweet words. Six short months sufficed him, for I was only a child then, and he threw away his broken plaything. It made a woman of me, and it cost me a lover worth a world of men like him. I told him I would have revenge. He laughed then; but the time is coming surely. I have a powerful interest in the Brotherhood; he knows me by name, but otherwise we are strangers. To-night, I saw my old lover in his company. Ah, had he but known!—Come, Valerie; give me that coin, the lucky piece of gold which shall lure him to destruction. Come with me; I must say more to you.’
Mechanically, Valerie le Gautier followed her companion out of the Kursaal gardens, through the streets, walking till they got a little way out of the town. At a house there, a little back from the road, Isodore stopped, and opened the door with a passkey. Inside, all was darkness; but taking her friend by the hand, and bidding her not to fear, Isodore led her forward along a flagged passage and up a short flight of steps. Opening another door, and turning up the hanging lamp, she smiled. ‘Sit down,’ she said, ‘my sister that is to be. You are welcome.’
The apartment was somewhat large and lofty. By the light from the silver lamp, suspended from the ceiling in an eagle’s beak, the stranger noticed the room with its satin-wood panels running half way up the walls, surmounted by crimson silk hangings, divided over the three long windows by gold cords; a thread of the same material running through the rich upholstery with which the place was garnished. The floor was paved with bright coloured woodwork of some mysterious design; and heavy rugs, thick and soft to the feet, scattered about sufficient for comfort, but not enough to mar the beauty of the inlaid floor. Pictures on china plates let into the hangings were upon the walls; and in the windows were miniature ferneries, a little fountain plashing in the midst of each. There was no table in the room, nothing whereon to deposit anything, save three brass stands, high and narrow; one a little larger than the rest, upon which stood a silver spirit-lamp under a quaint-looking urn, a chocolate pot to match, and three china cups. There were cosy-looking chairs of dark massive oak, upholstered in red silk, with the same gold thread interwoven in all. A marble clock, with a figure of Liberty thereon, stood on the mantel-piece.
Isodore threw herself down in a chair. The other woman took in the scene with speechless rapture; there was something soothing in the harmonious place. ‘You are pleased,’ Isodore said with a little smile of pleasure, as she surveyed the place. ‘This is my home, if I can call any place a home for such a wanderer; but when I can steal a few days from the cares of the cause, I come here. I need not ask you if you like my apartments?’
‘Indeed, I do,’ Valerie replied, drawing a long breath of delight. ‘It is absolutely perfect. The whole thing surprises and bewilders me. I should not have thought there had been such a place in Homburg.’
‘I will give you another surprise,’ Isodore laughed, ‘before the evening is over. I am the princess of surprises; I surprise even the followers who owe me loyal submission.’
‘Ah! had I such a paradise as this, I should forswear political intrigue. I should leave that to those who had more to gain or to lose by such hazards. I should be content to let the world go on, so that I had my little paradise.’