The Bondwoman. Ryan Marah Ellis
a confirmed blue stocking, the Marquise understands remarkably well how to make her little compliments,” said the Countess Helene.
Mrs. McVeigh arose, and with a slight bow to the dowager, passed into the alcove. At the last bar of the song a shadow fell across the keys, and the musician saw their American visitor beside her.
“I should love to have you see the country whose music you interpret so well,” she said impulsively; “I should like to be with you when you do see it.”
“You are kind, and I trust you may be,” replied the Marquise, with a pretty nod that was a bow in miniature. She was rising from the piano, when Mrs. McVeigh stopped her.
“Pray don’t! It is a treat to hear you. I only wanted to ask you to take my invitation seriously and come some time to our South Carolina home; I should like to be one of your friends.”
“It would give me genuine pleasure,” was the frank reply. “You know I confessed that my sympathies were there ahead of me.” The smile accompanying the words was so adorable that Mrs. McVeigh bent to kiss her.
The Marquise offered her cheek with a graciousness that was a caress in itself, and thus their friendship commenced.
After the dowager and her daughter-in-law were again alone, and with an assurance that even the privileged Dumaresque would not break in on their evening, the elder lady asked, abruptly, a question over which she had been puzzling.
“Child, what possessed you to tell to a Southern woman of the States that story reflecting on the most vital of their economic institutions? Had you forgotten their prejudices? I was in dread that you might offend her, and I am sure Helene Biron was quite as nervous.”
“I did not offend her, Maman,” replied the Marquise, looking up from her embroidery with a smile, “and I had not forgotten their prejudices. I only wanted to judge if she herself had ever heard the story.”
“Madame McVeigh!–and why?”
“Because Rhoda Larue was also a native of that particular part of Carolina to which she has invited me, and because of a fact which I have never forgotten, the young planter for whom she was educated–the slave owner who bought her from her father’s brother was named McVeigh. My new friend is delightful in herself but–she has a son.”
“My child!” gasped the dowager, staring at her. “Such a man the son of that charming, sincere woman! Yes, I had forgotten their name, and bid you forget the story; never speak of it again, child!”
“I should be sorry to learn it is the same family,” admitted the Marquise; “still, I shall make a point of avoiding the son until we learn something about him. It is infamous that such men should be received into society.”
The dowager relapsed into silence, digesting the troublesome question proposed.
Occasionally she glanced towards the Marquise as though in expectation of a continuation of the subject. But the Marquise was engrossed by her embroideries, and when she did speak again it was of some entirely different matter.
CHAPTER III
Two mornings later M. Dumaresque stood in the Caron reception room staring with some dissatisfaction across the breadth of green lawn where the dryad and faun statues held vases of vining and blooming things.
He had just been told the dowager was not yet to be seen. That was only what he had expected; but he had also been told that the Marquise, accompanied, as usual, by Madame Blanc, had been out for two hours–and that he had not expected.
“Did she divine I would be in evidence this morning?” Then he glanced in a pier glass and grimaced. “Gone out with that plain Madame Blanc, when she might have had a treat–an hour with me!”
While he stood there both the Marquise and her companion appeared, walking briskly. Madame Blanc, a stout woman of thirty-five, was rather breathless.
“My dear Marquise, you do not walk, you fly,” she gasped, halting on the steps.
“You poor dear!” said the Marquise, patting her kindly on the shoulder. “I know you are faint for want of your coffee,” and at the same time her strong young arms helped the panting attendant mount the steps more quickly.
Once within the hall Madame Blanc dropped into the chair nearest the door, while the Marquise swept into the reception room and hastily to a window fronting on the street.
“How foolish of me,” she breathed aloud. “How my heart beats!”
“Allow me to prescribe,” said Dumaresque, stepping from behind the screen of the curtain, and smiling at her.
She retreated, her hands clasped over her breast, her eyes startled; then meeting his eyes she began to laugh a little nervously.
“How you frightened me!”
“And it was evidently not the first, this morning.”
She sank into a seat, indicated another to him, away from the window, removed her hat and leaned back looking at him.
“No, you are not,” she said at last. “But account for yourself, Monsieur Loris! The sun is not yet half way on its course, yet you are actually awake, and visible to humanity–it looks serious.”
“It is,” he agreed, smiling at her, yet a trifle nervous in his regard. “I have taken advantage of the only hour out of the twenty when there would be a chance of seeing you alone. So I made an errand–and I am here.”
“And–?”
“And I have determined that, after the fashion of the Americans or the English, I shall no longer ask the intervention of a third person. I decided on it last night before I left here. I have no title to offer you–you coldest and most charming of women, but I shall have fame; you will have no reason to be ashamed of the name of Dumaresque. Put me on probation, if you like, a year, two years!–only–”
“No; no!” she said pleadingly, putting out her hands with a slight repellant gesture. “It is not to be thought of, Monsieur Loris, Maman has told you! Twice has the same reply been given. I really cannot allow you to continue this suppliance. I like you too well to be angry with you, but–”
“I shall be content with the liking–”
“But I should not!” she declared, smilingly. “I have my ideals, if you please, Monsieur. Marriage should mean love. It is only matrimony for which liking is the foundation. I do not approve of matrimony.”
“Pardon; that is the expression of the romance lover–the school girl. But that I know you have lived the life of a nun I should fear some one had been before me, some one who realized those ideals of yours, and that instead of studying the philosophies of life, you have been a student of the philosophy of love.”
He spoke lightly–half laughingly, but the flush of pink suffusing her throat and brow checked his smile. He could only stare.
She arose hastily and walked the length of the room. When she turned the color was all gone, but her eyes were softly shining.
“All philosophy falls dead when the heart speaks,” she said, as she resumed her chair; “and now, Monsieur Loris, I mean to make you my father confessor, for I know no better way of ending these periodical proposals of yours, and at the same time confession might–well–it might not be without a certain benefit to myself.” He perceived that while she had assumed an air of raillery, there was some substance back of the mocking shadow.
“I shall feel honored by your confidence, Marquise,” he was earnest enough in that.
“And when you realize that there is–some one else–will you then resume your former role of friend?”
“I shall try. Who is the man?”
She met his earnest gaze with a demure smile, “I do not know, Monsieur.”
“What, then?–you are only jesting with me?”
“Truly, I do not know his name.”
“Yet you are in love with