"I never heard of such an act of renunciation in my life," murmured Salome.
"And the pity of it was, young leddy, that it was a" in vain," said the housekeeper.
"Yes, I know. Where is he now?" inquired the young girl, in a subdued voice.
"I dinna ken, leddy. Naebody kens," answered Girzie Ross, with a deep sigh, which was unconsciously echoed by the listener.
Then Dame Ross not to trespa.s.s on her young mistress"s indulgence, arose and respectfully took her leave.
Salome fell into a deep reverie. From that hour she had something else to think about, beside the convent and the vail.
The portrait haunted her imagination, the story filled her heart and employed her thoughts. That night she dreamed of the self-exiled heir, a beautiful, vague, delightful dream, that she tried in vain to recall on the next morning.
In the course of the day she made several attempts to ask Mrs. Girzie Ross a simple question. And she wondered at her own hesitation to do it.
At length she asked it:
"Mrs. Ross, is that portrait in the tower very much like Lord Arondelle?"
"Like him, young leddy? Why, it is his verra sel"! And only not sae bonny because it canna move, or smile, or speak. Ye should see him _alive_ to ken him weel," said the housekeeper, heartily.
That afternoon Salome went up alone to the top of the tower, and spent a dreamy, delicious hour in sitting at the feet of the portrait and gazing upon the face.
That evening, while the housekeeper attended her at tea, she took courage to make another inquiry, in a very low voice:
"Is Lord Arondelle engaged, Mrs. Ross?"
She blushed crimson and turned away her head the moment she had asked the question.
"Engaged? What--troth-plighted do you mean, young leddy?"
"Yes," in a very low tone.
"Bless the la.s.s! nay, nor no thought of it," answered the housekeeper.
"I was thinking that perhaps it would be well if he were not, that is all," explained Salome, a little confusedly.
That night, as she undressed to retire to bed, she looked at herself in the gla.s.s critically for the first time in her life.
It was not a pretty face that was reflected there. It was a pale, thin, dark face, that might have been redeemed by the broad, smooth forehead, shaped round by bands of dark brown hair, and lighted by the large, tender, thoughtful gray eyes, had not that forehead worn a look of anxious care, and those eyes an expression of eager inquiry.
"But then I am so plain--so very, very plain," she said to herself, as if uttering the negation of some preceding train of thought.
And with a deep sigh she retired to rest.
The next day Girzie Ross herself was the first to speak of the young marquis.
"I hae been thinking, young leddy, what garred ye ask me gin the young laird, were troth plighted. And I mistrust ye must hae heard these fule stories anent his hardship, having a sweetheart at Ben Lone. There"s nae truth in sic tales, me leddy. No that I"m denying she"s a handsome hizzy, this Rose Cameron; but she"s nae one to mak" the young laird forget his rank. Ye"ll no credit sic tales, me young leddy."
"I have heard no tales of the sort," said Salome, looking up in surprise.
"Ay, hae ye no? Aweel, then, its nae matter," said the dame.
"But what tales are there, Mrs. Ross?" uneasily inquired the heiress.
And then she instantly perceived the indiscretion of her question, and regretted that she had asked it.
"Ou aye, it"s just the fule talk o" thae gossips up by Ben Lone. They behoove to say that"s its na the game that draws the young laird sae often to Ben Lone; but just Rab Cameron"s handsome la.s.s, Rose, and she _is_ a handsome quean as I said before; but nae "are to mak" the young master lose his head for a" that! Sae ye maun na beleiv" a word of it, me young leddy," said Dame Girzie.
And she hastened to change the subject.
"Ah! what a power beauty is! It can make a prince forget his royal state, and sue to a peasant girl," sighed Salome to herself. "I wonder--I wonder, if there _is_ any truth in that report? Oh, I hope there is not, for his own sake. I wonder where he is--what he is doing? But that is no affair of mine. I have nothing at all to do with it! I wonder if I shall ever meet him. I wonder if he would think me very ugly? Nonsense, what if he should? He is nothing to me. I--I _do_ wonder if a young man so n.o.ble in character, so handsome in person as he is, ever could like a girl without any beauty at all, even if she--even if she--Oh, dear! what a fool I am! I had better never have come out of the convent.
I will think no more about him," said Salome, resolutely taking up a volume of the "Lives of the Saints," and turning to the page that related how--
"St. Rosalie, Darling of each heart and eye, From all the youth of Italy Retired to G.o.d."
"That is the n.o.blest love and service, after all," she said--"the n.o.blest, surely, because it is Divine!"
And she resolved to emulate the example of the young and beautiful Italian virgin. She, too, would retire to G.o.d. That is, she would enter her convent as soon as her three probationary years should be pa.s.sed.
But though she so resolved to devote herself to Heaven in this abnormal way, the natural human love that now glowed in her heart, would not be put down by an unnatural resolve.
Days and nights pa.s.sed, and she still thought of the banished heir all day, and dreamed of him all night--the more intensely as well as purely perhaps, because she had never looked upon his living face.
To her he was an abstract ideal.
Later in the month her father returned to Lone--on business of more importance than that which had hurried him away.
He had only retired from one phase of public life to enter upon another.
There was to be a new Parliament. And at the solicitations of many interested parties, and perhaps also at the promptings of his own late ambition, Sir Lemuel Levison consented to stand for the borough of Lone.
In the absence of the young Marquis of Arondelle there was no one to oppose him, and he was returned by an almost unanimous vote.
Early in February, Sir Lemuel Levison took his dreaming daughter and went up to London to take his seat in the House of Commons at the meeting of Parliament.
He engaged a sumptuously furnished house on Westbourne Terrace, and invited a distant relative, Lady Belgrave, the childless widow of a baronet, to come and pa.s.s the season with him and chaperone his daughter on her entrance into society.
Lady Belgrade was sixty years old, tall, stout, fair-complexioned, gray-haired, healthy, good-humored, and well-dressed--altogether as commonplace and harmless a fine lady as could be found in the fashionable world.
Salome had never seen her, scarcely ever heard of her before the day of her arrival at Westbourne Terrace.
Salome met Lady Belgrade with courtesy and kindness, but with much indifference.
Lady Belgrade, on her part, met her young kinswoman with critical curiosity.
"She is not pretty, not at all pretty, and one does not like to have a plain girl to bring out. She is not pretty, and what is worse than all, she seems _to know it_. And she can only grow pretty by believing that she is so. A girl with such a pair of eyes as hers can always get the reputation of beauty if she can only be made to believe in herself,"
was Lady Belgrade"s secret comment; but--
"What beautiful eyes you have, my dear!" she said with effusion, as she kissed Salome on both cheeks.
The girl smiled and blushed with pleasure, for this was the first time in all her life that she had been credited with any beauty at all.