“It is I who cannot be acceptable to Mrs. Broughty!” he interrupted.
A suspicion that he had been drinking crossed her mind. She looked anxiously at him, and said: “Come, you are talking nonsense, cousin! Perhaps you are not as wealthy as that odious Sir Henry Gosford, but I am persuaded, from what Olivia has told me, that Mrs. Broughty is inclined to look upon you with the utmost complacence!”
He gave a short laugh. “Without doubt! C’est hors de propos, ma chere cousine! It is the Chevalier she looks upon with complacence. You, of all people, must know that there is no Chevalier!” She was now more than ever convinced that he had been drinking deeply, and said in some concern: “Camille, I think you don’t know what you are saying! No Chevalier? But—are not you the Chevalier d’Evron?”
He looked intently at her, and made a fatalistic gesture.
“I am in your hands, in effect! But you are my cousin! I thought—it did not seem to me possible that you should not know the truth. I have been grateful to you for your silence. When the so-obliging Mr. Westruther told me that you desired to renew your acquaintance with me—eh, that was a moment indeed! But always I am a gamester: it is my profession. Impossible to refuse the offered introduction! I came to Madame la Baronne’s house, risking all upon one throw of the dice.” A hint of his dancing smile appeared in his face; he said ruefully: “Ah, I will be frank, my dear cousin! Trusting in—in—oh, in mes agrementsl You were silent: I believed I had once more succeeded!
You did not know the truth!”
“My guardian has never talked to me of my mother’s family,” she faltered. “I thought, when Mr. Westruther brought you to Berkeley Square—that is, I did not question —”
“My credentials? But had you known that our family is not a noble one—? Would you have betrayed me?”
“Oh, no!” she said quickly. “How could I do such a thing? But—but why, Camille? What can it signify? Jack— Mr. Westruther—has no title, but he is at the very top of the
“Ah, he has birth, ma petitel For me, a title is a necessity. I shall not deceive you: I am, as well Mr. Westruther knows, an adventurer! I have said: I am in your hands!”
This dramatic finish to his speech went wide of the mark. Ignoring it, Kitty said: “Jack knows?”
“Be sure! He is no fool, that one! Also, he is dangerous. I have had the effrontery to love the object of his desire, you must understand. With my rich widow, he wishes me all success: ah, bah! what do I care, when I have seen that angel? I shall love her a jamais, but I know well she is not for me!”
He sank his head in his hands as he spoke, and so did not perceive the effect of his remarks upon Miss Charing. Much that she had not previously understood now became plain to her. Opening and shutting her fan, and staring with unseeing eyes at the medallions painted on its leaf, she wondered, in a curiously detached way, how it came about that her most pronounced emotion was a feeling of disgust. “Jack wishes to marry Olivia?” she said slowly.
“Marry! No!” he returned. “Pardon! You know him well! You have perhaps a kindness for him! I should not have allowed myself to speak!” She remembered remarks made by Olivia which had puzzled her. Drawing an audible breath, she said: “It does not signify. I understand you, I suppose. Jack wishes her to be his mistress. And you—loving her as you say you do! —will permit this?”
He raised his head, saying hotly: “What can I do? Do you imagine that madame her mother would for one little instant entertain my suit, if she knew the truth? That I have neither title nor fortune! That my father is the proprietor of a maison de jeu—what you call a gaming-house!”
“Good God!” said Kitty, rather faintly. “D-does Olivia know this?” “She knows all! Could you believe me capable of deceiving one whom I worship? Of stealing her from her mother cl la derobdel No! I am not so infamous! I do not conceal from you that I came to England an adventurer! It is known that if one is of—of bonne tenue, bien ne, riche, and above all French—c’est drole, cflf—one may be bien-venu in London! To be French, that bestows upon one a cachet!— It is known, then, that with these qualities one may do very well in England.” He spread out his hands. “De plus, in my childhood I lived here. I know England; I can speak the language with fluency. Perhaps I have not always the right idiom, or the accent, but that, chere Kitty, is regarded by the English as fort attrayantl”
“Yes, but I don’t understand. Did you—did you come to England to marry an heiress?” asked Kitty wonderingly.
“To seek my fortune, let us say.”
“Lady Maria? Camille, was it to pay your addresses to her that you came?”
“Ah, no! My meeting with Lady Maria was a coup de bonheur. Naturally, I am interested in ladies of large fortune, but of her existence I did not know until I was presented to her.”
This frank exposition of his aims very much shocked Miss Charing. She uttered a protest. “Oh, pray do not—! Surely you cannot mean to offer for Lady Maria! How could you bear to be married to her? I cannot believe it of you!”
“Marriage!” he said, smiling. “My dear little cousin, do you think that that would be permitted? If she would consent—eh bien, one must resign oneself! But I find her a woman insufferably proud, and I think she could not support the mortification of having so plainly encouraged the advances of one who is not—how shall I say?—a chevalier d’honneur, but a chevalier d’ Industrie.”
She gazed at him uncomprehendingly. “No, indeed! I think she would die of shame! But—”
“She would wish the so-fascinating Chevalier to depart from England without scandal, is it not so? Well, that could be arranged.”
She was by this time so much shocked and distressed that she could only find voice enough to say: “Olivia knows this? You have told her?”
“I have told her!” he said, with a groan. “But just now! It was necessary: I could not continue—! You must understand that I have for her a passion, a devotion, which makes it impossible that I should deceive her!”
“Oh, I wish to heaven I had never made you known to her!” Kitty exclaimed. “This is dreadful! I perceived, when she came back to the box, that she was suffering from some agitation, but that it could be as bad as this I had not the least apprehension!”
“Believe me,” he said earnestly, “it was not d dessein that I engaged her affection! When first I saw her I was carried beyond myself—I did not consider—I had never imagined to myself that I should ever meet one who so exactly fulfilled the dreams a man of sensibility must make for himself! Becasse! I should have acted with resolution. I allowed myself to be transported. When I tore myself away, I believed I was the only sufferer. But when, after so many days of misery, I received her billet, and yielded to the temptation of seeing her again, it was made plain to me that I had wounded her. She asked me, as you did, if I was troubled. What would you? I told her that I was not what she thought me to be, but a gamester, one on whom she would never be permitted to bestow her hand! She saw that there could be no hope for either of us. You may say that we have received our deathblows!”
She was easily able to refrain from making any such remark. In a tone of considerable censure, she said: “Good God, Camille, how could you distress her so? Surely you would have done better to have held your tongue—to have made up your mind not to see her again?”
“I could not!” he replied. “Would you have had me allow her think that she had bestowed her heart upon a mere coquet?”
“Yes, indeed I would!” said Kitty. “I daresay she would very soon have forgotten all about you. But now—! Oh, what a shocking tangle it is! I don’t know what to say! I wish you will take me back to the box!”
He rose at once. “I will do so. And you? I am at your mercy!”
She said crossly: “If you mean, shall I tell the world that you are an—an impostor, no, I shall not! You must perceive how reluctant I must be to see my own cousin exposed in such a way. In fact, I expect you were very well-aware of that when you disclosed the truth to me!”
He replied, with a faint smile: “C’est ce qui saute aux yeux, enfin!”
“You are quite abominable!” she told him.
He began to walk with her down the corridor. “I know it, alas!”
She was too much mortified to make any reply. They proceeded in silence for a moment or two, and might have exchanged no further remarks had not a most unwelcome sight suddenly presented itself. Strolling towards them, a masked lady in a black domino on his arm, his own mask dangling by its strings from his hand, was Mr. Westruther. “Oh, good God!” Kitty exclaimed involuntarily. “Put your mask on, for heaven’s sake, Camille!”
