If I love an ideal, it is something like that."
"And she must be fair, like all the ladies Arleigh, with eyes like the hyacinth, and hair tinged with gold, I suppose, Norman?"
"Yes; I saw a picture once in Borne that realized my notion of true womanly loveliness. It was a very fair face, with something of the innocent wonder of a child mixed with the dawning love and pa.s.sion of n.o.blest womanhood."
"You admire an _ingenue_. We have both our tastes; mine, if I were a man, would incline more to the brilliant and handsome."
She would have added more, but at that moment Lady Peters drew aside the silken hanging.
"My dear children," she said, "I should ill play my part of chaperon if I did not remind you of the hour. We have been celebrating my birthday, but my birthday is past and gone--it is after midnight."
Lord Arleigh looked up in wonder.
"After midnight? Impossible! Yet I declare my watch proves that it is.
It is all the fault of the starlight, Lady Peters; you must blame that."
Lady Peters went out to them.
"I do not wonder at your lingering here," she said. "How calm and sweet the night is! It reminds me of the night in "Romeo and Juliet." It was on such a night _Jessica_--"
Philippa held up her hands in horror.
"No more poetry to-night, dear Lady Peters; we have had more than enough."
"Is that true, Lord Arleigh? Have you really had more than enough?"
"I have not found it so," he replied. "However, I must go. I wish time would sometimes stand still; all pleasant hours end so soon. Good-night, Lady Peters."
But that most discreet of _chaperons_ had already re-entered the drawing-room--it was no part of her business to be present when the two friends said good-night.
"Good-night, Philippa," he said, in a low, gentle voice, bending over her.
The wind stirred her perfumed hair until it touched his cheek, the leaves of the crimson roses fell in a shower around her. She raised her beautiful pale face to his--the unspeakable love, the yearning sorrow on it, moved him greatly. He bent down and touched her brow with his lips.
"Good-night, Philippa, my sister--my friend," he said.
Even by the faint starlight he saw a change pa.s.s over her face.
"Good-night," she responded. "I have more to say to you, but Lady Peters will be horrified if you remain any longer. You will call to-morrow, and then I can finish my conversation?"
"I will come," he replied, gravely.
He waited a moment to see if she would pa.s.s into the drawing-room before him, but she turned away and leaned her arms on the stone bal.u.s.trade.
It was nearly half an hour afterward when Lady Peters once more drew aside the hangings.
"Philippa," she said, gently, "you will take cold out there."
She wondered why the girl paused some few minutes before answering; then Miss L"Estrange said, in a low, calm voice:
"Do not wait for me, Lady Peters; I am thinking and do not wish to be interrupted."
But Lady Peters did not seem quite satisfied.
"I do not like to leave you sitting there," she said, "the servants will think it strange."
"Their thoughts do not concern me," she returned, haughtily.
"Good-night, Lady Peters; do not interrupt me again, if you please."
And the good-tempered _chaperon_ went away, thinking to herself that perhaps she had done wrong in interrupting the _tete-a-tete_.
"Still I did it for the best," she said to herself; "and servants will talk."
Philippa L"Estrange did not move. Lady Peters thought she spoke in a calm, proud voice. She would have been surprised could she have seen the beautiful face all wet with tears; for, Philippa had laid her head on the cold stone, and was weeping such tears as women weep but once in life. She sat there not striving to subdue the tempest of emotion that shook her, giving full vent to her pa.s.sion of grief, stretching out her hands and crying to her lost love.
It was all over now. She had stepped down from the proud height of her glorious womanhood to ask for his love, and he had told her that he had none to give her. She had thrown aside her pride, her delicacy. She had let him read the guarded secret of her heart, only to hear his reply--that she was not his ideal of womanhood. She had asked for bread--he had given her a stone. She had lavished her love at his feet--he had coolly stepped aside. She had lowered her pride, humiliated herself, all in vain.
"No woman," she said to herself, "would ever pardon such a slight or forgive such a wrong."
At first she wept as though her heart would break--tears fell like rain from her eyes, tears that seemed to burn as they fell; then after a time pride rose and gained the ascendancy. She, the courted, beautiful woman, to be so humiliated, so slighted! She, for whose smile the n.o.blest in the land asked in vain, to have her almost offered love so coldly refused! She, the very queen of love and beauty, to be so spurned!
When the pa.s.sion of grief had subsided, when the hot angry glow of wounded pride died away, she raised her face to the night-skies.
"I swear," she said, "that I will be revenged--that I will take such vengeance on him as will bring his pride down far lower than he has brought mine. I will never forgive him. I have loved him with a devotion pa.s.sing the love of woman. I will hate more than I have loved him. I would have given my life to make him happy. I now consecrate it to vengeance. I swear to take such revenge on him as shall bring the name of Arleigh low indeed."
And that vow she intended to keep.
"If ever I forget what has pa.s.sed here," she said to herself, "may Heaven forget me!"
To her servants she had never seemed colder or haughtier than on this night, when she kept them waiting while she registered her vow.
What shape was her vengeance to take?
"I shall find out," she thought; "it will come in time."
Chapter XIV.
Miss L"Estrange was standing alone in the small conservatory on the morning following her eventful conversation with Lord Arleigh, when the latter was announced. How she had pa.s.sed the hours of the previous night was known only to herself. As the world looks the fairer and fresher for the pa.s.sing of a heavy storm, the sky more blue, the color of flowers and trees brighter so she on this morning, after those long hours of agony, looked more beautiful than ever. Her white morning dress, made of choice Indian muslin, was relieved by faint touches of pink; fine white lace encircled her throat and delicate wrists. Tall and slender, she stood before a large plant with scarlet blossoms when he came in.
Lord Arleigh looked as he felt--ill at ease. He had not slept through thinking of the conversation in the balcony--it had made him profoundly wretched. He would have given much not to renew it; but she had asked him to come, and he had promised.
Would she receive him with tears and reproaches? Would she cry out that he was cold and cruel? Would she torture himself and herself by trying to find out why he did not love her? Or would she be sad, cold, and indifferent?
His relief was great when she raised a laughing, radiant face to his and held out her hand in greeting.