"And does he not, then, intend to honor us with his company?" inquired the duke.
"Oh, he will run down for a day or two ere long, I dare say. He must see Adelaide, of course; but when, he does not exactly say."
Adelaide did not appear displeased to hear this. She turned to her husband and asked what he had done with his visitor.
"He would not stay, he had an appointment to keep, so we must make up for all deficiencies ourselves."
The dinner passed away stiffly enough, and as the season was too late for a walk afterward, the gentlemen, following the then national custom, passed a considerable time over the bottle, discussing the politics of the day. It was late in the evening ere they joined the ladies. They found them in a large conservatory, which was illuminated in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey's arrival; and in this flowery retreat sundry self-acting musical instruments were hidden, which, from time to time, sent forth, as it were unbidden, melodious sounds and tuneful harmonies, which, vibrating amid the flowering shrubs that formed an artificial spring within the glass enclosure, contrasted pleasingly with the "fall of the leaf" that made all nature desolate without.
"Art conquers nature here," said Mr. Godfrey, as he entered the enchanted scene. "We might fancy ourselves in a fairy palace now. What says my Hester to this?"
"Oh! this is beautiful, indeed! Music, moonlight, love, and flowers are it 'A glorious combination,'" said Hester, pointing to the moon, which shone brightly through the windows; but her voice had lost its usual animation as she made the quotation, for a feeling passed over her heart, as if one ingredient, and that precisely the most important one, was wanting; she could not be satisfied that "love" presided in this abode of beauty and of grace.
The next morning the state rooms of the house were inspected. The duke was the great patron of the fine arts, and taste shone forth in every part of the stately edifice that was exposed to view.
The picture gallery and the hall of sculpture were celebrated far and wide, particularly the latter. Nor were the figures promiscuously arranged that decorated this scene of art; on the contrary, much care had been expended to form one harmonious whole. On the dome which formed the ceiling was painted ancient Saturn devouring his offspring as they rose into being, and beneath this centre-piece were painted the war of the Titans against Satan on the one side, and the war of the giants against Jupiter on the other. Thus far the ceiling. In the midst of the marble floor stood the mighty Jupiter, armed with his thunderbolts, majestic in strength and grand in intellectual sensualism. Beside him, grouped symmetrically and appropriately, were the legion of subordinate divinities—Venus, attended by the graces; Apollo, radiant in beauty; Hercules strangling the serpents while he was yet in the cradle; the Muses in various attitudes, with appropriate symbols of office. Scarcely a god, goddess, or demigod [{183}] could be named who was not here represented. Types of beauty—sensual, intellectual, and physical; types of grandeur and of tenor; types of mystery, beneath the veiled figure of the Egyptian deity, Isis; types of knowledge and of artistic skill were there. All that man bows before and worships when the sense of the supernatural is shut, and he learns of self to deify his own passions, was here, other delineated on the walls or chiselled out in the sculptural forms. It was ft Pantheon dedicated to all the gods of human sense, refined by beauty and grace, and polished by artistic merit of the highest order. Unbounded and unfeigned was the applause elicited from the party: hardly could they satisfied themselves with gazing on these perfect forms: even the lack of drapery seemed scarcely a drawback. Euphrasie, indeed, retired, but she was so strange habitually that her absence was hardly commented upon; and but for the smile that went round the circle as she left the hall, might have been deemed unobserved.
"The true gods of the earth are these yet." said Mr. Godfrey, when the door had closed behind the young French girl, "and the race has sadly degenerated since their worship was abandoned."