Lying back gracefully, her handsome morning robe falling loosely around her, her superb black hair twisted away in a careless, serpentine coil, her face fresh and blooming, "at peace with the world and all therein,"
my lady Blanche digested her breakfast and leisurely skimmed the morning paper.
She always liked the "Personals." To-day they had a double interest for her. She read again and again--a dozen times, at least--that particular "Personal" appointing the meeting at Fourteenth Street, and a lazy smile came over her tropical face at last as she laid it down.
"Nothing could be better," mused Mrs. Walraven, with that indolent smile shining in her lazy, wicked black eyes. "The little fool sets her trap, and walks into it herself, like the inconceivable idiot she is. It reminds one of the ostrich, this advertis.e.m.e.nt--pretty Mollie buries her head in the sand, and fancies no one sees her. Now, if Guy only plays his part--and I think he will, for he"s absurdly and ridiculously in love with the fair-haired tom-boy--she will be caught in the nicest trap ever silly seventeen walked into. She was caged once, and got free. She will find herself caged again, and not get free. I shall have my revenge, and Guy will have his inamorata. I"ll send for him at once."
Mrs. Walraven rose, sought out her blotting-book, took a sheet of paper and an envelope, and scrawled two or three words to her cousin:
"DEAR GUY,--Come to me at once. I wish to see you most particularly.
Don"t lose a moment.
"Very truly,
"BLANCHE."
Ringing the bell, Mrs. Walraven dispatched this little missive, and then, reclining easily in the downy depths of her violet velvet _fauteuil_, she fell into a reverie that lasted for upward of an hour.
With sleepy, slow, half-closed eyes, the wicked, smile just curving the ripe-red mouth, Mme. Blanche wandered in the land of meditation, and had her little plot all cut and dry as the toy Swiss clock on the low mantel struck up a lively waltz preparatory to striking eleven. Ere the last silvery chime had ceased vibrating, the door of the boudoir opened and Dr. Guy Oleander walked in.
"Good-morning, Mrs. Walraven," said the toxicologist, briskly. "You sent for me. What"s the matter?"
He took off his tall hat, set it on a sofa, threw his gloves into it, and indulged in a prolonged professional stare at his fair relative.
"Nothing very serious, I imagine. You"re the picture of handsome health.
Really, Blanche, the Walraven air seems to agree with you. You grow fresher, and brighter, and plumper, and better-looking every day."
"I didn"t send for you to pay compliments, Doctor Oleander," said Mrs.
Walraven, smiling graciously, all the same. "See if that door is shut fast, please, and come and sit here beside me. I"ve something very serious to say to you."
Dr. Oleander did as directed, and took a seat beside the lady.
"Your husband won"t happen in, will he, Blanche? Because he might be jealous, you know, at this close proximity; and your black-a-vised men of unknown antecedents are generally the very d.i.c.kens when they fall a prey to the green-eyed monster."
"Pshaw! are you not my cousin and my medical adviser? Don"t be absurd, Guy. Mr. Walraven troubles himself very little about me, one way or other. I might hold a levee of my gentlemen friends here, week in and week out, for all he would know or care."
"Ah! post-nuptial bliss. I thought marriage, in his case, would be a safe antidote for love. All right, Blanche. Push ahead. What"s your business? Time is precious this morning. Hosts of patients on hand, and an interesting case of leprosy up at Bellevue."
"I don"t want to know your medical horrors," said Mrs. Walraven, with a shudder of disgust; "and I think you will throw over your patients when you hear the subject I want to talk about. That subject is--Mollie Dane!"
"Mollie!" The doctor was absorbed and vividly interested all at once.
"What of Mollie Dane?"
"This," lowering her voice: "I have found out the grand secret. I know where that mysterious fortnight was spent."
"Blanche!" He leaned forward, almost breathless. "Have you? Where?"
"You"d never guess. It sounds too romantic--too incredible--for belief.
Even the hackneyed truism, "Truth is stranger than fiction," will hardly suffice to conquer one"s astonishment--yet true it is. Do you recollect the Reverend Mr. Rashleigh"s story at the dinner-party, the other day--that incredible tale of his abduction and the mysterious marriage of the two masks?"
"I recollect--yes."
"He spoke of the bride, you remember--described her as small and slender, with a profusion of fair, curling hair."
"Yes--yes--yes!"
"Guy," fixing her powerful black eyes on his face, "do you need to be told who that masked bride was?"
"Mollie Dane!" cried the doctor, impetuously.
"Mollie Dane," said Mrs. Walraven, calmly.
"By Jove!"
Dr. Oleander sat for a instant perfectly aghast.
"I only wonder it did not strike you at the time. It struck me, and I whispered my suspicion in her ear as we pa.s.sed into the drawing-room.
But she is a perfect actress. Neither start nor look betrayed her. She stared at me with those insolent blue eyes of hers, as though she could not possibly comprehend."
"Perhaps she could not."
Mrs. Walraven looked at him with a quiet smile--the smile of conscious triumph.
"She is the cleverest actress I ever saw off the stage--so clever that I am sometimes inclined to suspect she may have been once on it. No, my dear Guy, she understood perfectly well. Mollie Dane was the extraordinary bride Mr. Rashleigh married that extraordinary night."
"And who the devil," cried Dr. Guy, using powerful language in his excitement, "was the birdegroom?"
"Ah!" said Blanche, "there"s the rub! Mr. Rashleigh doesn"t know, and I don"t know, and Mollie doesn"t know herself."
"What!"
"My dear Doctor Oleander, your eyes will start from your head if you stare after that fashion. No; Mollie doesn"t know. She is married; but to whom she has no more idea than you have. Does it not sound incredible?"
"Sound? It is incredible--impossible--absurd!"
"Precisely. It is an accomplished fact, all the same."
"Blanche, for Heaven"s sake, explain!" exclaimed the young man, impatiently. "What the foul fiend do you mean? I never heard such a c.o.c.k-and-bull story in all my life!"
"Nor I. But it is true, nevertheless. Listen: On the night following the dinner-party I did the meanest action of my life. I played eavesdropper.
I listened at Mollie"s door. All for your sake, my dear Guy."
"Yes?" said Guy, with an incredulous smile.
"I listened," pursued Mrs. Blanche, "and I overheard the strangest confession ever made, I believe--Mollie Dane relating the adventures of that hidden fortnight, at midnight, to that singular creature, Miriam."
"Miriam! Who is she?"
"Oh! you remember--the woman who tried to stop my marriage. Mollie quieted her on that occasion, and they had a private talk."