"I believe," said Graham, after a pause, "that I comprehend your sentiment much better than I do Mrs. Morley"s opinions; but permit me one observation. You say truly that the course of modern civilization has more or less affected the relative position of woman cultivated beyond that level on which she was formerly contented to stand,--the nearer perhaps to the heart of man because not lifting her head to his height,--and hence a sense of restlessness, uneasiness; but do you suppose that, in this whirl and dance of the atoms which compose the rolling ball of the civilized world, it is only women that are made restless and uneasy? Do you not see amid the ma.s.ses congregated in the wealthiest cities of the world, writhings and struggles against the received order of things? In this sentiment of discontent there is a certain truthfulness, because it is an element of human nature, and how best to deal with it is a problem yet unsolved; but in the opinions and doctrines to which, among the ma.s.ses, the sentiment gives birth, the wisdom of the wisest detects only the certainty of a common ruin, offering for reconstruction the same building-materials as the former edifice,--materials not likely to be improved because they may be defaced. Ascend from the working cla.s.ses to all others in which civilized culture prevails, and you will find that same restless feeling,--the fluttering of untried wings against the bars between wider s.p.a.ce and their longings. Could you poll all the educated ambitious young men in England,--perhaps in Europe,--at least half of them, divided between a reverence for the past and a curiosity as to the future, would sigh, "I am born a century too late or a century too soon!""
Isaura listened to this answer with a profound and absorbing interest. It was the first time that a clever young man talked thus sympathetically to her, a clever young girl.
Then, rising, he said, "I see your Madre and our American friends are darting angry looks at me. They have made room for us at the table, and are wondering why I should keep you thus from the good things of this little life. One word more ere we join them,--consult your own mind, and consider whether your uneasiness and unrest are caused solely by conventional shackles on your s.e.x. Are they not equally common to the youth of ours,--common to all who seek in art, in letters, nay, in the stormier field of active life, to clasp as a reality some image yet seen but as a dream?"
CHAPTER VIII.
No further conversation in the way of sustained dialogue took place that evening between Graham and Isaura.
The Americans and the Savarins cl.u.s.tered round Isaura when they quitted the refreshment-room. The party was breaking up. Vane would have offered his arm again to Isaura, but M. Savarin had forestalled him. The American was despatched by his wife to see for the carriage; and Mrs.
Morley said, with her wonted sprightly tone of command,
"Now, Mr. Vane, you have no option but to take care of me to the shawl-room."
Madame Savarin and Signora Venosta had each found their cavaliers, the Italian still retaining hold of the portly connoisseur, and the Frenchwoman accepting the safeguard of the Vicomte de Breze. As they descended the stairs, Mrs. Morley asked Graham what he thought of the young lady to whom she had presented him.
"I think she is charming," answered Graham.
"Of course; that is the stereotyped answer to all such questions, especially by you Englishmen. In public or in private, England is the mouthpiece of plat.i.tudes."
"It is natural for an American to think so. Every child that has just learned to speak uses bolder expressions than its grandmamma; but I am rather at a loss to know by what novelty of phrase an American would have answered your question."
"An American would have discovered that Isaura Cicogna had a soul, and his answer would have confessed it."
"It strikes me that he would then have uttered a plat.i.tude more stolid than mine. Every Christian knows that the dullest human being has a soul. But, to speak frankly, I grant that my answer did not do justice to the Signorina, nor to the impression she makes on me; and putting aside the charm of the face, there is a charm in a mind that seems to have gathered stores of reflection which I should scarcely have expected to find in a young lady brought up to be a professional singer."
"You add prejudice to plat.i.tude, and are horribly prosaic to-night; but here we are in the shawl-room. I must take another opportunity of attacking you. Pray dine with us tomorrow; you will meet our Minister and a few other pleasant friends."
"I suppose I must not say, "I shall be charmed,"" answered Vane; "but I shall be."
"Bon Dieu! that horrid fat man has deserted Signora Venosta,--looking for his own cloak, I dare say; selfish monster! Go and hand her to her carriage; quick, it is announced!"
Graham, thus ordered, hastened to offer his arm to the she-mountebank.
Somehow she had acquired dignity in his eyes, and he did not feel the least ashamed of being in contact with the scarlet jacket.
The Signora grappled to him with a confiding familiarity. "I am afraid,"
she said in Italian, as they pa.s.sed along the s.p.a.cious hall to the porte cochere,--"I am afraid that I did not make a good effect to-night. I was nervous; did not you perceive it?"
"No, indeed; you enchanted us all;" replied the dissimulator.
"How amiable you are to say so! You must think that I sought for a compliment. So I did; you gave me more than I deserved. Wine is the milk of old men, and praise of old women; but an old man may be killed by too much wine, and an old woman lives all the longer for too much praise.
Buona notte."
Here she sprang, lithesomely enough, into the carriage, and Isaura followed, escorted by M. Savarin. As the two men returned towards the shawl-room, the Frenchman said, "Madame Savarin and I complain that you have not let us see so much of you as we ought. No doubt you are greatly sought after; but are you free to take your soup with us the day after to-morrow? You will meet the Count von Rudesheim, and a few others more lively if less wise."
"The day after to-morrow I will mark with a white stone. To dine with M.
Savarin is an event to a man who covets distinction."
"Such compliments reconcile an author to his trade. You deserve the best return I can make you. You will meet la belle Isaura. I have just engaged her and her chaperon. She is a girl of true genius; and genius is like those objects of virtu which belong to a former age, and become every day more scarce and more precious."
Here they encountered Colonel Morley and his wife hurrying to their carriage. The American stopped Vane, and whispered, "I am glad, sir, to hear from my wife that you dine with us to-morrow. Sir, you will meet Mademoiselle Cicogna, and I am not without a kinkle [notion] that you will be enthused."
"This seems like a fatality," soliloquized Vane as he walked through the deserted streets towards his lodging. "I strove to banish that haunting face from my mind. I had half forgotten it, and now--" Here his murmur sank into silence. He was deliberating in very conflicted thought whether or not he should write to refuse the two invitations he had accepted.
"Pooh!" he said at last, as he reached the door of his lodging, "is my reason so weak that it should be influenced by a mere superst.i.tion?
Surely I know myself too well, and have tried myself too long, to fear that I should be untrue to the duty and ends of my life, even if I found my heart in danger of suffering."
Certainly the Fates do seem to mock our resolves to keep our feet from their ambush, and our hearts from their snare! How our lives may be coloured by that which seems to us the most trivial accident, the merest chance! Suppose that Alain de Rochebriant had been invited to that reunion at M. Louvier"s, and Graham Vane had accepted some other invitation and pa.s.sed his evening elsewhere, Alain would probably have been presented to Isaura--what then might have happened? The impression Isaura had already made upon the young Frenchman was not so deep as that made upon Graham; but then, Alain"s resolution to efface it was but commenced that day, and by no means yet confirmed. And if he had been the first clever young man to talk earnestly to that clever young girl, who can guess what impression he might have made upon her? His conversation might have had less philosophy and strong sense than Graham"s, but more of poetic sentiment and fascinating romance.
However, the history of events that do not come to pa.s.s is not in the chronicle of the Fates.
BOOK III.
CHAPTER I.
The next day the guests at the Morleys" had a.s.sembled when Vane entered.
His apology for unpunctuality was cut short by the lively hostess. "Your pardon is granted without the humiliation of asking for it; we know that the characteristic of the English is always to be a little behindhand."
She then proceeded to introduce him to the American Minister, to a distinguished American poet, with a countenance striking for mingled sweetness and power, and one or two other of her countrymen sojourning at Paris; and this ceremony over, dinner was announced, and she bade Graham offer his arm to Mademoiselle Cicogna.
"Have you ever visited the United States, Mademoiselle?" asked Vane, as they seated themselves at the table.
"No."
"It is a voyage you are sure to make soon."
"Why so?"
"Because report says you will create a great sensation at the very commencement of your career; and the New World is ever eager to welcome each celebrity that is achieved in the Old,--more especially that which belongs to your enchanting art."
"True, sir," said an American senator, solemnly striking into the conversation; "we are an appreciative people; and if that lady be as fine a singer as I am told, she might command any amount of dollars."
Isaura coloured, and turning to Graham, asked him in a low voice if he were fond of music.
"I ought of course to say "yes,"" answered Graham, in the same tone; "but I doubt if that "yes" would be an honest one. In some moods, music--if a kind of music I like--affects me very deeply; in other moods, not at all. And I cannot bear much at a time. A concert wearies me shamefully; even an opera always seems to me a great deal too long.
But I ought to add that I am no judge of music; that music was never admitted into my education; and, between ourselves, I doubt if there be one Englishman in five hundred who would care for opera or concert if it were not the fashion to say he did. Does my frankness revolt you?"
"On the contrary, I sometimes doubt, especially of late, if I am fond of music myself."