24
MOTHS.
early,noon-day. The chteau was quite still.
At nightJhe great ball was Jto be given to the
English princes, but the household was too
well trained to make any disturbance with their
preparations. Down the steps of the great ter-
race there was stretched scarlet cloth, and all
the face of the building was hung with globes
and cressets of oil, to be lit at dark. These
were the only outward signs that anything more
brilliant than usual was about to take place.
"You will come to breakfast?" said Lady
Dolly, pausing at the threshold of her room.
It was the first word she had said to Vere
since the dawn, when they had parted, and her
own voice sounded strange to her.
Vere shuddered as with cold.
"I cannot.    Make some excuse."
" What is the use of putting off?" said her
mother, fretfully. " You will be ill; you are
ill. If you should be ill to-night, what will
every one say? what will he think? what shall
I do?"
Vere went into her chamber and locked her
door. She locked out even her maid ; flung her
hat aside, and threw herself forward on the bed,
face downward, and there lay.
Lady Dolly went into her chamber, and
glanced at her own face with horror. Though
made up, as weU as usual for the day, she
looked yellow, worn, old.
" /must go down!" she thought: how selfish
youth was, and how hard a thing was mother-
hood ! She had herself dressed beautifully and
took some ether.
She had sunk her drowned conscience fath-
oms deep, and began once more to pity herself
for the obstinacy and oddness of the child to
whom she had given birth. Why could not the
girl be like any others?
The ether began to move in her veins and
swim in her head; her eyes grew brighter. She
went out of her room and along the corridor
to the staircase, fastening an autumn-rose or
two in her breast, taken from the bouquet of
her dressing-table. As she glanced down the
staircase into the hall where the servants in the
canary-colored liveries of the house were going
to ana fo, she thought of all the rank and
riches of whicli Flicit was only one trifling
portion and symbol, and thought to herself that
after allany mother would have done as
she had done, and no maiden surely could need
a higher reward for the gift of her innocence
to the minotaur of a loveless marriage.
" If I had been married like th at !" she thought.
and felt that she had been cruelly wronged by
destiny; if she had been married like that, how
easy it would have been lo have become a good
woman ! What could Vere complain of?the
marriage was perfect in a worldly sense, and in
any other sensedid it matter what it was?
So the ether whispered to her.
She began to taste the sweets of her victory
and to forget the bitter, as the ether brought its
consoling haze over all painful memories and
lent its stimulating brightness to all personal
vanities.
After all, it was very delightful to go down
those stairs, knowing' that when she met all
those dear female friends whom she detested,
and who detested her, no one could pity her and
every one must envy her. She had betrothed
her daughter to one of the richest and best-born
men in all Europe. Was it not the crown of
maternity, as maternity is understood in society?
So down she went, and crossed the great ves-
tibule, looking young, fair, and bewitching
with the roses in her bosom, and an admirably
chosen expression on her face, half glad and
half plaintive, and with a flush under her paint
that made her look prettier than ever; her eyes
sparkled, her smile was all sunshine and sweet-
ness, she pressed the hands of her most intimate
friends with an eloquent tenderness, she was ex-
quisitely arrayed with cascades of old Mechlin
falling from her throat to her feet.
""A mother only lives to be young again in
her child!" she said, softly,and knew that she
looked herself no more than twenty years old as
she said it.
Sergius Zouroff, profuse in delicate compli-
ment to her aloud, said to himself,
" Brava, naughty Dolly ! Bis-bis! Will she
ever be like you, I wonder? Perhaps. The
world makes you all alike after a little while."
He was ready to pay a high price for inno-
cence, because it was a new toy that pleased
him. But he never thought that it would last,
any more than the bloom lasts on the peach.
He had no illusions.    Since it would be agree-
able to brush it off himself, he was ready to
purchase it.
There was a sense of excitement and of dis-
appointment in the whole house-party; and
Princess Nelaguine ran from one to another,
with her little bright Tartar eyes all aglow,
murmuring, " Charme, charme, charme!" to
impatient ears.
"Such a beast as he is!" said the men who
smoked his cigars and rode his horses.
"And she who looked all ice and innocence!"
said the women, already in arms against her.
Vere did not come down to taste the first
fruits of her triumph.
At the great midday breakfast, where most
people assembled, she was absent. Zouroff him-
self laid another bouquet of orchids by her
plate, but she was not there to receive the deli-
cate homage.
"Mademoiselle Vera has not risen?" he asked
now, with an angry contraction of his low
brows, as no one came where the orchids were
lying.
"Vera had a headache," said Lady Dolly se-
renely, aloud. "Or said so," she murmured to
his ear alone. "Don't be annoyed. She was
shy. She is a little farouche, you know, my
poor darling. "
Zouroff nodded, and took his caviare.
"What did I predict, love?" murmured Lady
Stoat, of Stitchley, taking her friend aside after
breakfast. "But how quickly you succeeded!
Last evening only you were in despair! Was the
resistance only a feint? Or what persuasions
did you bring to bear?"
" I threatened to send her to Bulmer Chase!"
said Lady Dolly, with a gay little laugh. Lady
Stoat laughed also.
"I wonder what you did do," she reflected,
however, as she laughed. " Oh, naughty little
pussyfoolish, foolish, little pussy!to have
any secrets from me!"
The day wore away, and Vere Herbert re-
mained unseen in Flicit
The guests grew surprised, and the host an-
Princess Nelaguine herself had ascended to
the girl's room and had been denied.
People began to murmur that it was odd.
" Go and fetch her," said Zouroff, in a fierce
whisper,    "It is time that I, at least, should
see her,unless you have told me a lie."
"Unless she be really ill, I suppose you mean,
you cruel creature!" said her mother, reproach-
' dngly; but she obeyed him and went.
"Girls are so fond of tragedy!" reflected
Lady Stoat, recalling episodes in the betrothal
of her own daughter, and passages that had
preceded it.
It was five o'clock. The day had been chilly,
as it is at times along the Channel shores, even
in summer. Several persons were in the blue-
room, so called because of its turquoise silk
walls and its quantities of Delft, Nankin, Sa-
vona, and other blue china ranged there. It
was the room for afternoon tea. Several of the
ladies were there in tea-gowns of the quaintest
and prettiest, that allowed them to lie about in
the most gracefully-tired attitudes. The strong
summer sun found its way only dimly there,
and the sweet smells of the flowers and of the
sea were overborne by the scent of the pastilles
burning in the bodies of blue china monsters.
Zouroff, who at times was very negligent of
his guests, was pacing up and down the long
dim chamber impatiently, and every now and
then he glanced at the door. He did not look
once at the pretty groups, like eighteenth-cen-
tury pictures tinged with the languor of oda
lisques that were sipping tea out of tiny cups
in an alcove lined with celadon and crackling.
The tinkle of the tea-cups and the ripple of the
talk ceased as the door at the father end opened,
and Vere entered, lea by her mother.
She was white, and cold, and still; she did
not raise her eyelids.
Zouroff approached with eager steps, and
bowed before her with the dignity that he could
very well assume when he chose.
"Mademoiselle," he said, softly, "is it true
that you consent to mate the most unworthy of
men the most happy?"
He saw a slight shudder pass over her as if
some cold wind had smitten her.
She did not lift her eyes.
"Since  you wish,  monsieur
swered, very low, and then paused.
"The adoration of a life shall repay you,"
he murmured, in the conventional phrase, and
kissed her hand.
she   an-
has made you do this, and you hate m. Never-
mind."
Then he drew her hand on his arm, and led
her to the Princess Nelaguine.
^ " My sister, embrace your sister. I shall have
two angels henceforth instead of one, to watch
and pray for my erring soul \'2~
Princess Nelaguine did not smile. She kissed
the cold cheek of the girl with a glistenjof tears
in her eyes.
" What a sacrifice ! What a martyrdom!" she
thought. "Ah, the poor child!but perhaps
he will ranger,let us hope."
All the while Vere might have been made of
marble, she was so calm and so irresponsive,
and she never once lifted her eyes.
" Will you not look at me once?" he entreat-
ed. She raised her lids and gave him one fleet-
ing, hunted glance. Cruel though he was, and
hardened, Sergius Zouroff felt that look go to
his soul.
"Bah! how she loathes me!" he said in his
teeth. But the compassion in him died out al-
most as it was born, and the base appetites in
him were only whetted and made keener by this-
knowledge.
Lady Stoat glided towards them and lifted
her lips to Vere's cheek.
" My sweet child! so charmed, so delighted!""
she whispered. "Did I not say how it would
be when your first shyness had time to fold its
tents, as the poem says, and steal away?"
"You are always a prophetess of good,and
my mother's friend," said Vere. They were al-
most the first words she had spoken, and they
chilled even the worldly breast of her mother s
friend.
There was an accent in them which told of a
childhood perished in a night,of an innocence
and a faith stabbed, and stricken, and buried
for evermore.
"You are only sixteen, and you will never-
be young any more!" thought Princess Nela-
guine, hearing the cold and bitter accent of those
pregnant words.
But the ladies that made the eighteenth-cen-
tury picture had broken up and issued from the
alcove, and were offering congratulations and
compliments in honeyed phrases; and no one
heeded or had time for serious thought.
Only Lady Dolly, in a passionate murmur,,
cried, unheeded by any, in her daughter's ear,
" For heaven's sake smile, blush, seem happy t
What will they say of you to look at you like
this?they will say that I coerce you!"
" I do my best!" answered Vere, coldly.
" My lovely mother-in-law." muttered Prince
Zouroff, bending to Lady Dolly, as he brought
her a cup of tea, " certainly you did not lie to
me this morning when you told me that your
Vere would marry me; but did you not lie
just a little lie, a little white onewhen you
said she would love me?"
"Love comes in time," murmured Lady
Dolly, hurriedly.
Sergius Zouroff laughed grimly.
" Does it?   I fear that experience
rather that with timeit goes."
"Yours may; hers will come: the woman's
always comes last."
' ' Ma chre, your new theories are astound-
ing. Nevertheless, as your son-in-law, I will
give in my adhesion to them. Henceforth all
the sex of your Vereand yourselfis purity
and perfection in my sight!"
Lady Dolly smiled sweetly in his face.
" It is never too late to be converted to the
truth," she said, playfully, whilst she thought,
" Oh, you beast!   If I could strangle you!"
Meanwhile Princess Nelaguine was saying,
with kindness in her tone and gaze,
" My sweet child, you look chilly and pale.
Were you wise to leave your room out of good-
ness to us?"
"I am cold," murmured Vere, faintly. "I
should be glad if I might go awayfor a little."
"Impossible," said the princess; and added,
" Dear, reflect: it will look so strange to people.
My brother------"
"I will stay, then," said Vere, wearily; and
she sat down, and received the homage of one
and the felicitations of another, still with her
eyes always cast downward, still with her young
face passionless and chill as a mask of marble.
" An hour's martyrdom more or less,did it
matter?" she said to herself. All her life would
be a martyrdom, a long mute martyrdom, now.
A few hours later her maid dressed her for
the ball. She had no need of her mother's
pearls, for those which had been ordered from,
tells one
In his own thoughts he said, " Your mother I Paris'jewelers were there,the   largest   and.