Following in the wake of the dense ma.s.s, they at last reached the gates of a great palace, and after some waiting gained access to the s.p.a.cious courtyard. The grim old statues and armorial bearings shone in the glare of a hundred torches, and the deep echoes rang with the brazen voices of the band as, pent up within the quadrangle, the din of a large orchestra arose. On a great terrace overhead numerous figures were grouped,--indistinctly seen from the light of the _salons_ within,--but whose mysterious movements completed the charm of a very interesting picture.
Some wrapped in shawls to shroud them from the night air, some, less cautiously emerging from the rooms within, leaned over the marble bal.u.s.trade and showed their jewelled arms in the dim hazy light, while around and about them gay uniforms and costumes abounded. As Billy gave himself up to the excitement of the music, young Ma.s.sy, more interested by the aspect of the scene, gazed unceasingly at the balcony. There was just that shadowy indistinctness in the whole that invested it with a kind of romantic interest, and he could weave stories and incidents from those whose figures pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed before him. He fancied that in their gestures he could trace many meanings, and as the bent-down heads approached, and their hands touched, he fashioned many a tale in his own mind of moving fortunes.
"And see, she comes again to that same dark angle of the terrace,"
muttered he to himself, as, shrouded in a large mantle and with a half mask on her features, a tall and graceful figure pa.s.sed into the place he spoke of. "She looks like one among, but not of, them. How much of heart-weariness is there in that att.i.tude; how full is it of sad and tender melancholy! Would that I could see her face! My life on"t that it is beautiful! There, she is tearing up her bouquet; leaf by leaf the rose-leaves are falling, as though one by one hopes are decaying in her heart." He pushed his way through the dense throng till he gained a corner of the court where a few leaves and flower-stems yet strewed the ground; carefully gathering up these, he crushed them in his hand, and seemed to feel as though a nearer tie bound him to the fair unknown. How little ministers to the hope; how infinitely less again will feed the imagination of a young heart!
Between them now there was, to his appreciation, some mysterious link.
"Yes," he said to himself, "true, I stand unknown, unnoticed; yet it is to _me_ of all the thousands here she could reveal what is pa.s.sing in that heart! I know it, I feel it! She has a sorrow whose burden I might help to bear. There is cruelty, or treachery, or falsehood arrayed against her; and through all the splendor of the scene--all the wild gayety of the orgie--some spectral image never leaves her side! I would stake existence on it that I have read her aright!"
Of all the intoxications that can entrance the human faculties, there is none so maddening as that produced by giving full sway to an exuberant imagination. The bewilderment resists every effort of reason, and in its onward course carries away its victims with all the force of a mountain torrent. A winding stair, long unused and partly dilapidated, led to the end of the terrace where she stood, and Ma.s.sy, yielding to some strange impulse, slowly and noiselessly crept up this till he gained a spot only a few yards removed from her. The dark shadow of the building almost completely concealed his figure, and left him free to contemplate her unnoticed.
Some event of interest within had withdrawn all from the terrace save herself; the whole balcony was suddenly deserted, and she alone remained, to all seeming lost to the scene around her. It was then that she removed her mask, and suffering it to fall back on her neck, rested her head pensively on her hand. Ma.s.sy bent over eagerly to try and catch sight of her face; the effort he made startled her, she looked round, and he cried out, "Ida--Ida! My heart could not deceive me!" In another instant he had climbed the balcony and was beside her.
"I thought we had parted forever, Sebastian," said she; "you told me so on the last night at Ma.s.sa."
"And so I meant when I said it," cried he; "nor is our meeting now of my planning. I came to Florence, it is true, to see, but not to speak with you, ere I left Europe forever. For three entire days I have searched the city to discover where you lived, and chance--I have no better name for it--chance has led me hither."
"It is an unkind fortune that has made us meet again," said she, in a voice of deep melancholy.
"I have never known fortune in any other mood," said he, fiercely. "When clouds show me the edge of their silver linings, I only prepare myself for storm and hurricane."
"I know you have endured much," said she, in a voice of deeper sadness.
"You know but little of what I have endured," rejoined he, sternly.
"You saw me taunted, indeed, with my humble calling, insulted for my low birth, expelled ignominiously from a house where my presence had been sought for; and yet all these, grievous enough, are little to other evils I have had to bear."
"By what unhappy accident, what mischance, have you made _her_ your enemy, Sebastian? She would not even suffer me to speak to you. She went so far as to tell me that there was a reason for the dislike,--one which, if she could reveal, I would never question."
"How can I tell?" cried he, angrily. "I was born, I suppose, under an evil star; for nothing prospers with me."
"But can you even guess her reasons?" said she, eagerly.
"No, except it be the presumption of one in _my_ condition daring to aspire to one in _yours_; and that, as the world goes, would be reason enough. It is probable, too, that I did not state these pretensions of mine over delicately. I told her, with a frankness that was not quite acceptable, I was one who could not speak of birth or blood. She did not like the coa.r.s.e word I applied to myself, and I will not repeat it; and she ventured to suggest that, had there not appeared some ambiguity in her own position, _I_ could never have so far forgotten mine as to advance such pretensions--"
"Well, and then?" cried the girl, eagerly.
"Well, and then," said he, deliberately, "I told her I had heard rumors of the kind she alluded to, but to _me_ they carried no significance; that it was for _you_ I cared. The accidents of life around you had no influence on my choice; you might be all that the greatest wealth and highest blood could make you, or as poor and ign.o.ble as myself, without any change in my affections. "These," said she, "are the insulting promptings of that English breeding which you say has mixed with your blood, and if for no other cause would make me distrust you."
""Stained as it may be," said I, "that same English blood is the best pride I possess." She grew pale with pa.s.sion as I said this, but never spoke a word; and there we stood, staring haughtily at each other, till she pointed to the door, and so I left her. And now, Ida, who is she that treats me thus disdainfully? I ask you not in anger, for I know too well how the world regards such as me to presume to question its harsh injustice. But tell me, I beseech you, that she is one to whose station these prejudices are the fitting accompaniments, and let me feel that it is less myself as the individual that she wrongs, than the cla.s.s I belong to is that which she despises. I can better bear this contumely when I know that it is an instinct."
"If birth and blood can justify a prejudice, a Princess of the house of Delia Torre might claim the privilege," said the girl, haughtily. "No family of the North, at least, will dispute with our own in lineage; but there are other causes which may warrant all that she feels towards you even more strongly, Sebastian. This boast of your English origin, this it is which has doubtless injured you in her esteem. Too much reason has she had to cherish the antipathy! Betrayed into a secret marriage by an Englishman who represented himself as of a race n.o.ble as her own, she was deserted and abandoned by him afterwards. This is the terrible mystery which I never dared to tell you, and which led us to a life of seclusion at Ma.s.sa. This is the source of that hatred towards all of a nation which she must ever a.s.sociate with the greatest misfortunes of her life! And from this unhappy event was she led to make me take that solemn oath that I spoke of, never to link my fortunes with one of that hated land."
"But you told me that you had not made the pledge," said he, wildly.
"Nor had I then, Sebastian; but since we last met, worked on by solicitation, I could not resist; tortured by a narrative of such sorrows as I never listened to before, I yielded, and gave my promise."
"It matters little to _me!_" said he, gloomily; "a barrier the more or the less can be of slight moment when there rolls a wide sea between us!
Had you ever loved me, such a pledge had been impossible."
"It was you yourself, Sebastian, told me we were never to meet again,"
rejoined she.
"Better that we had never done so!" muttered he. "Nay, perhaps I am wrong," added he, fiercely; "this meeting may serve to mark how little there ever was between us!"
"Is this cruelty affected, Sebastian, or is it real?"
"It cannot be cruel to echo your own words. Besides," said he, with an air of mockery in the words, "she who lives in this gorgeous palace, surrounded with all the splendors of life, can have little complaint to make against the cruelty of fortune!"
"How unlike yourself is all this!" cried she. "You of all I have ever seen or known, understood how to rise above the accidents of fate, placing your happiness and your ambitions in a sphere where mere questions of wealth never entered. What can have so changed you?"
Before he could reply, a sudden movement in the crowd beneath attracted the attention of both, and a number of persons who had filled the terrace now pa.s.sed hurriedly into the _salons_, where, to judge from the commotion, an event of some importance had occurred. Ida lost not a moment in entering, when she was met by the words: "It is she, Nina herself is ill; some mask--a stranger, it would seem--has said something or threatened something." In fact, she had been carried to her room in strong convulsions; and while some were in search of medical aid for her, others, not less eagerly, were endeavoring to detect the delinquent.
From the gay and brilliant picture of festivity which was presented but a few minutes back, what a change now came over the scene! Many hurried away at once, shocked at even a momentary shadow on the sunny road of their existence; others as anxiously pressed on to recount the incident elsewhere; some, again, moved by curiosity or some better prompting, exerted themselves to investigate what amounted to a gross violation of the etiquette of a carnival; and thus, in the _salons_, on the stairs, and in the court itself, the greatest bustle and confusion prevailed. At length some suggested that the gate of the palace should be closed, and none suffered to depart without unmasking. The motion was at once adopted, and a small knot of persons, the friends of the Countess, a.s.sumed the task of the scrutiny.
Despite complaints and remonstrances as to the inconvenience and delay thus occasioned, they examined every carriage as it pa.s.sed out. None, however, but faces familiar to the Florentine world were to be met with; the well-known of every ball and _fete_ were there, and if a stranger presented himself, he was sure to be one for whom some acquaintance could bear testimony.
At a fire in one of the smaller _salons_ stood a small group, of which the Duc de Brignolles and Major Scaresby formed a part. Sentiments of a very different order had detained these two individuals, and while the former was deeply moved by the insult offered to the Countess, the latter felt an intense desire to probe the circ.u.mstance to the bottom.
"Devilish odd it is!" cried Scaresby; "here we have been this last hour and a half turning a whole house out of the windows, and yet there"s no one to tell us what it"s all for, what it "s all about!"
"Pardon, monsieur," said the Duke, severely. "We know that a lady whose hospitality we have been accepting has retired from her company insulted. It is very clearly our duty that this should not pa.s.s unpunished."
"Oughtn"t we to have some clearer insight into what const.i.tuted the insult? It may have been a practical joke,--a _mauvaise plaisanterie_, Duke."
"We have no claim to any confidence not extended to us, sir," said the Frenchman. "To me it is quite sufficient that the Countess feels aggrieved."
"Not but we shall cut an absurd figure to-morrow, when we own that we don"t know what we were so indignant about."
"Only so many of us as have characters for the "latest intelligence.""
To this sally there succeeded a somewhat awkward pause, Scaresby occupying himself with thoughts of some perfectly safe vengeance.
"I shouldn"t wonder if it was that Count Marsano--that fellow who used to be about the Nina long ago--come back again. He was at Como this summer, and made many inquiries after his old love!"
A most insulting stare of defiance was the only reply the old Duke could make to what he would have been delighted to resent as a personal affront.
"Marsano is a _mauvais drole_," said a Russian; "and if a woman slighted him, or he suspected that she did, he"s the very man to execute a vengeance of the kind."
"I should apply a harsher epithet to a man capable of such conduct,"
said the Duke.
"He "d not take it patiently, Duke," said the other.
"It is precisely in that hope, sir, that I should employ it," said the Duke.
Again was the conversation a.s.suming a critical turn, and again an interval of ominous silence succeeded.
"There is but one carriage now in the court, your Excellency," said the servant, addressing the Duke in a low voice, "and the gentleman inside appears to be seriously ill. It might be better, perhaps, not to detain him."