He was the more composed of the two. Bowing over her hand with a few words I could not hear, he drew back a step and began uttering the usual commonplace sentiments of the occasion.
She did not respond. With a splendor of indifference not often seen even in the manner of our grandest ladies, she waited, opening and shutting her richly feathered fan, as one who would say, “I know all this has to be gone through with, therefore I will be patient.” But as the moments passed, and his tone remained unchanged, I could detect a slight gleam of impatience flash in the depths of her dark eyes, and a change come into the conventional smile that had hitherto lighted, without illuminating her countenance. Drawing still further back from the crowd that was not to be awed from pressing upon her, she looked around as if seeking a refuge. Her glance fell upon a certain window, with a gleam of satisfaction. Seeing they would straightway withdraw there, I took advantage of the moment and made haste to conceal myself behind a curtain as near that vicinity as possible. In another instant I heard them approaching.
“You seem to be rather overwhelmed with attention tonight,” were the first words I caught, uttered in Mr. Blake’s calmest and most courteous tones.
“Do you think so?” was the slightly sarcastic reply. “I was just deciding to the contrary when you came up.”
There was a pause. Taking out my knife, I ripped open a seam in the curtain hanging before me, and looked through. He was eyeing her intently, a firm look upon his face that made its reserve more marked than common. I saw him gaze at her handsome head piled with its midnight tresses amid which the jewels, doubtless of her dead lord, burned with a fierce and ominous glare, at her smooth olive brow, her partly veiled eyes where the fire passionately blazed, at her scarlet lips trembling with an emotion her rapidly flushing cheeks would not allow her to conceal. I saw his glances fall and embrace her whole elegant form with its casing of ruby velvet and ornamentation of lace and diamonds, and an expectant thrill passed through me almost as if I already beheld the mask of his reserve falling, and the true man flash out in response to the wooing beauty of this full-blown rose, evidently in waiting for him. But it died away and a deeper feeling seized me as I saw his glances return unkindled to her countenance, and heard him say in still more measured accents than before:
“Is it possible then that the Countess De Mirac can desire the adulation of us poor American plebeians? I had not thought it, madame.”
Slowly her dark eyes turned towards him; she stood a statue.
“But I forget,” he went on, a tinge of bitterness for a moment showing itself in his smile: “perhaps in returning to her own country, Evelyn Blake has so far forgotten the last two years as to find pleasure again in the toys and foibles of her youth. Such things have been, I hear.” And he bowed almost to the ground in his half sarcastic homage.
“Evelyn Blake! It is long since I have heard that name,” she murmured.
He could not restrain the quick flush from mounting to his brow. “Pardon me,” said he, “if it brings you sadness or unwelcome memories. I promise you I will not so transgress again.”
A wan smile crossed her lips grown suddenly pallid.
“You mistake,” said she; “if my name brings up a past laden with bitter memories and shadowed by regret, it also recalls much that is pleasant and never to be forgotten. I do not object to hearing my girlhood’s name uttered—by my nearest relative.”
The answer was dignity itself. “Your name is Countess De Mirac, your relatives must be proud to utter it.”
A gleam not unlike the lightning’s quick flash shot from the eyes she drooped before him.
“Is it Holman Blake I am listening to,” said she; “I do not recognize my old friend in the cool and sarcastic man of the world now before me.”
“We often fail to recognize the work of our hands, madame, after it has fallen from our grasp.”
“What,” she cried, “do you mean—would you say that—”
“I would say nothing,” interrupted he calmly, stooping for the fan she had dropped. “At an interview which is at once a meeting and a parting, I would give utterance to nothing which would seem like recrimination. I—”
“Wait,” suddenly exclaimed she, reaching out her hand for her fan with a gesture lofty as it was resolute. “You have spoken a word which demands explanation; what have I ever done to you that you should speak the word recrimination to me?”
“What? You shook my faith in womankind; you showed me that a woman who had once told a man she loved him, could so far forget that love as to marry one she could never respect, for the sake of titles and jewels. You showed me—”
“Hold,” said she again, this time without gesture or any movement, save that of her lips grown pallid as marble, “and what did you show me?”
He started, colored profoundly, and for a moment stood before her unmasked of his stern self-possession. “I beg your pardon,” said he, “I take back that word, recrimination.”
It was now her turn to lift her head and survey him. With glance less cool than his, but fully as deliberate, she looked at his proud head bending before her; studying his face, line by line, from the stern brow to the closely compressed lips on which melancholy seemed to
