However, she greeted him with perfect composure and satisfaction.
"Do you join our party this afternoon, Colonel Mohun? I expect them to call for me every moment. We are going to the Croix de Berny, to see the ground for the race next week. Mr. Livingstone was to have lunched here; but I never reckon on his keeping an engagement."
There was something in Ralph"s manner which made her uncomfortable. She took up her whip, and began twisting its slender stock rather nervously; you would not have thought there was so much strength in the delicate fingers.
"You are right," he replied, coolly, "not to count too much on Guy"s punctuality. He _is_ very uncertain in his movements. I fear he can not accompany you this afternoon. He would have charged me with his excuses, I am sure, if he had not been so hurried."
Flora looked up quickly.
"It must have been something very sudden, then. Have you any idea where he is now?"
Ralph consulted his watch. "About Mantes, I should imagine. He started for Havre by the last train. He will be at Southampton, to-morrow, and the same day he can reach--"
He stopped, gazing at his companion with a cold, cruel satisfaction. The blood was sinking in her cheeks, not with a sudden impulse, but gradually--as the sunset rose-tints fade from the brow of the Jungfrau, leaving a ghastly opaque whiteness behind them. During the silence that ensued, a sharp tinkle might be heard as the jeweled head of the riding-whip, snapped by a convulsive movement, fell at Flora"s feet.
It _was_ weak in her to betray such loss of self-command, but, remember, the blow came unexpectedly. She saw the edifice she had plotted, and toiled, and risked so much to build, ruined and shattered to its foundation-stone. How many whispers, and smiles, and eloquent glances had been lavished, only to end in this Pavia, where not even honor was saved from the utter wreck!
Was not the perfect waxen mask of the first Napoleon shivered in that terrible abdication-night at Fontainebleau? Where was Cleopatra"s queenly dignity when she heard that Antony had rejoined Octavia?
"Why has he gone? What called him back?"
Her voice had lost the clear ring of silver, and sounded dull and flat, like base metal.
"Constance Brandon wrote to tell him she was dying. Do you wonder that he went to her?"
A pa.s.sing cloud of horror swept across Flora"s pale face; but after it broke forth a gleam of strange, ferocious exultation, which stifled the rising pity in her hearer"s breast, and changed it into contempt.
"I don"t believe it," she cried, pa.s.sionately. "It is a trick. She was quite well two months ago. At least, she said nothing--"
She checked herself, but too late. The practiced duelist laughed grimly in his mustache, as he might have done on discovering the weak point in his enemy"s ward which laid him open to his rapier.
"You make my task easier," he said; "I came to inquire about a note which miscarried about the time you speak of. I _will_ know what became of it, Miss Bellasys, though I wish to spare you unnecessary exposure and shame."
He had gained a momentary advantage, but it did not profit him much.
There are swordsmen who will not own that they are touched, though their life-blood is ebbing fast. Flora rose without a sign of yielding or weakness in her dry eyes, drawing up her magnificent figure proudly.
Ralph could not help thinking how like her father she was just then.
"I will answer, though I deny your right to question me. I have not the faintest idea of what you refer to. I have seen no note, except such as were addressed to myself; and you will hardly think that Miss Brandon would choose me as a _confidante_ or correspondent."
Mohun saw that she would persist to the last, undaunted as Sapphira. So he rose to leave her, without another word.
"You do not doubt me?" Flora asked, as he turned away after saluting her. It was a rash question, all things considered, and scarcely worthy of the accomplished speaker. There is no more useful maxim in diplomacy than this: _Quieta non movere_.
Ralph faced her directly. "Miss Bellasys, when a lady tells me what I can not believe, I question--not her word, but--her agent." He was half way down stairs before she could answer or detain him.
He found out Willis"s direction at Guy"s hotel, but he had to wait some time before obtaining it; and other things delayed him _en route_, so that it was nearly two hours before he reached the modest lodgings, _au quatrieme_, where the discharged valet was hiding his greatness.
Willis had an extensive connection; this, and his well-known talents, made him tolerably sure of a situation whenever he chose to seek one. He had luxurious tastes, and thoroughly appreciated self-indulgence; so he determined to devote some time and a portion of his perquisites to relaxation before going into harness again.
On this particular evening he had in prospect a little dinner at Philippe"s--not uncheered by the smiles of venal beauty--and had just completed a careful toilette. He was above the small peculations of his order; indeed, had he been inclined to plunder his late masters wardrobe, the absurd disproportion in their size would have saved him from that vulgar temptation. He was somewhat choice in his tailors, and his clothes fitted him and suited him well. He was reviewing the general effect in the gla.s.s with a complacent and rather _egrillarde_ expression in his little eyes, when between him and his _partie fine_ rose the apparition of the colonel, like that of the commander before a bolder profligate. He knew that the interview must come, and did not wish to avoid it, but just at this moment it was singularly ill timed. What a contrast between the stern, fixed gaze that seemed to nail him to the spot where he stood and the well-tutored glances of fair, frail Heloise!
He felt as if he had been put into the ice-pail by mistake for the Champagne. However, he met his ill luck placidly, and, handing his visitor a chair, begged to know "what he could do to serve him."
"You can tell me what became of a letter from Miss Brandon, which ought to have reached yow master two months ago, and miscarried."
Willis was forewarned and armed for the question; but, even with this advantage given in, his blank, unconscious look and start of astonishment did him infinite credit.
"A letter, sir?" he said, vaguely, as if consulting his recollections.
"From Miss Brandon? I have never seen or heard of such a thing. If I had, of course I should have given it to Mr. Livingstone. What else could I have done with it?"
"I will give a thousand francs for it," Mohun went on, without noticing the denial, "or for a written acknowledgment of how you disposed of it, and at whose orders." He laid the bank-note on the table.
The flats changed; the look of bewilderment gave place to one of injured innocence--an appeal against manifest injustice. It was really artistically done.
"I am sorry, sir, that you should think I want a bribe to serve you or Mr. Livingstone. It is quite out of my power now. I don"t know what you refer to."
"I have no time to bargain," Ralph growled, and his eyes began to glisten ominously. "Name your price, and have done with it."
Finale and Grand Tableau--virtuous indignation--the faithful servant a.s.serting his dignity as a man. There was a hitch here somewhere; the scene-shifter was hardly up to his work, so that it was rather a failure.
"I have told you twice, sir, that I do not know any thing about it. I beg you will not insult me with more questions. You have no right to do so; I am neither in your service nor Mr. Livingstone"s now."
Mohun bent his bushy brows in some perplexity. After all, he had not a shadow of proof, though he felt a moral certainty. His sheet-anchor was the avarice of the scoundrel he was dealing with, and this seemed to fail. Evidently a strong counter-influence had been at work.
"Curse her!" he muttered between his clenched teeth, "she has been here before me."
Then he looked up suddenly, and what he saw caused the shallow cup of his patience at once to overflow.
In Willis"s eyes was an ill-repressed twinkle of exultation and amus.e.m.e.nt, and on his thin lips the dawning of an actual sneer. It was but seldom the trained satellite allowed himself the luxury of betraying any natural feeling. In truth, he chose his time badly for its exhibition now. Before he could collect himself so as to utter a cry, he lay upon his back on the carpet, a heavy foot on his chest; and the colonel was gazing down on him with a fell murderous expression, that made the victim"s blood run cold.
"By G--d!" Mohun said, in the smothered tones of concentrated pa.s.sion, "if you trifle with me ten seconds longer--if you open your lips except to answer my question, I"ll crush your breast-bone in."
Willis knew the desperate character of the man who held him in his power; it was no vain threat he had just heard; the pressure on his chest was agonizing already.
"For G.o.d"s sake don"t murder me!" he gasped out; "I--I gave it to Miss Bellasys."
"Of course you did," Mohun said, coolly; "I knew it all along. Now get up, and write that down."
He spurned away the fallen man as he spoke till he rolled over and over on the floor.
There is nothing which disconcerts a nature long used to obey like a sudden brutal _coup de main_. Remember the Scythians and their slaves.
The rebels met their masters boldly enough on a fair field with sword and spear, but they cowered before the crack of the horsewhips.
All the spider-webs of the unfortunate Willis"s diplomacy were utterly swept away; his powers of thought and volition were concentrated now on one point--to get rid of his visitor as soon as possible.
He rose slowly and painfully (for the mere physical shock had been heavy), and, placing himself at a table, tried to write the few words of acknowledgment that Mohun dictated; but his hand trembled so excessively that he could hardly form the letters. As he looked up in piteous deprecation, evidently fearing lest his inability to comply should be construed into unwillingness or rebellion, he presented a spectacle of degraded humanity so revolting in its abas.e.m.e.nt that even the cynic turned away in painful disgust.
It was done at last. As Willis saw his confession consigned to Mohun"s pocket-book, his avarice gave him courage to try one last effort to gain something by the transaction--a salve to his bruises--a set-off against the _relicta non bene parmula_.
"I hope you will consider I have done all I can, sir," he said, looking wistfully at the bank-note, which still lay on the table. "I shall be ruined if this becomes known."