Infelice Part 64

To-night the freshness of youth came back, and the cold, politic, non-committal lawyer found himself for the first time an ardent trembling lover.

He watched the faint quiver of her blue-veined lids, and heard the shuddering sigh that a.s.sured him consciousness was returning. Softly stroking her hand, he saw the eyes at last unclose.

"You certainly have been down among your uncanny Undine caves; for you quite resemble a drenched lily. Now sit up."

He lifted her back into the easy chair, as if she had been an infant, and stood before her.

As her mind cleared, she recalled what had pa.s.sed, and said almost in a whisper:

"Did I dream, or did you tell me that horrible man is not my father?"

"I told you so. He is a black-hearted, vindictive miscreant, who successfully blackmailed you, by practising a vile imposture."

"Oh! are you quite sure?"

"Perfectly sure. I have been hunting him for years, and at last have obtained in black and white his own confession, which n.o.bly exonerates your mother from his infamous aspirations."

"Thank G.o.d! Thank G.o.d!"

Tears were stealing down her cheeks, and he saw from the twitching of her face that she was fast losing control of her overtaxed nerves.

"You must go to your room and rest, or you will be ill."

"Oh! not if I am sure he will never dare to claim me as his child.

Oh, Mr. Palma! that possibility has almost driven me wild."

"Dismiss it as you would some hideous nightmare. Go to sleep and dream of your mother, and of----"

He bit his lip to check the rash words, and too much agitated to observe his changed manner, she asked:

"Where is he now?"

"No matter where. He is so completely in my power, that he can trouble us no more."

She clasped her hands joyfully, but the tears fell faster, and looking at her mother's picture, she exclaimed:

"Have mercy upon me, Mr. Palma! Tell me--do you know--whom I am? Do you really know beyond doubt who was--or is--my father?"

"This much I can tell you, I know your father's name; but just now I am forbidden by your mother to disclose it, even to you. Come to your room."

He raised her from the chair, and as she stood before him, it was pitiable to witness the agonized entreaty in her pallid but beautiful face.

"Please tell me only one thing, and I can bear all else patiently.

Was he--was my father--a gentleman? Oh! my mother could never have loved any--but a gentleman."

"His treatment of her and of you would scarcely ent.i.tle him to that honourable epithet; yet in the eyes of the world your father a.s.suredly is in every respect a gentleman, is considered even an aristocrat."

She sobbed aloud, and the violence of her emotion, which she seemed unable to control, alarmed him. Leading her to the library door he said, retaining her hand.

"Compose yourself, or you will be really sick. Now that your poor tortured heart is easy, can you not go to sleep?"

"Oh, thank you! Yes, I will try."

"Lily, next time trust me. Trust your guardian in everything.

Good-night. G.o.d bless you."

CHAPTER XXV.

"'The dice of the G.o.ds are always loaded,' and what appears the merest chance is as inexorably fixed, predetermined, as the rules of mathematics, or the laws of crystallization. What madness to flout fate!"

Mrs. Orme laid down her pen as she spoke, and leaned back in her chair.

"Did you speak to me?" inquired Mrs. Waul, who had been nodding over her worsted work, and was aroused by the sound of the voice.

"No, I was merely thinking aloud; a foolish habit I have contracted since I began to aspire to literary laurels. Go to sleep again, and finish your dream."

Upon the writing desk lay a _MS_. in morocco cover, and secured by heavy bronze clasps, into which the owner put a small key attached to her watch chain, carefully locking and laying it away in a drawer of the desk.

Approaching a table in the corner of the room, Mrs. Orme filled a tall narrow Venetian gla.s.s with that violet-flavoured, violet-perfumed Capri wine, whose golden bubbles danced upon the brim, and, having drained the last amber drop, she rolled her chair close to the window, looped back the curtains, and sat down.

The lodgings she had occupied since her arrival in Naples were situated on the _Riviera di Chiaja_, near the _Villa Reale_, and not far from the divergence into the _Strada Mergellina_. Of the wonderful beauty of the scene beyond her front windows She had never wearied, and now in the ravis.h.i.+ng afternoon glow, with the blue air all saturated with golden gleams, she yielded to the Parthenopean spell, which, once felt, seems never to be forgotten.

Had it the power to chant to rest that sombre past which memory kept as a funeral theme for ever on its vibrating strings? Was there at last a file for the serpent, that had so long made its lair in her distorted and envenomed nature?

At thirty-three time ceases to tread with feathery feet, and the years grow self-a.s.serting, italicize themselves in pa.s.sing; and across the dial of woman's beauty the shadow of decadence falls aslant. But although Mrs. Orme had offered sacrifice to that inexorable Terminus, who dwells at the last border line of youth, the ripeness and glow of her extraordinary loveliness showed as yet no hint of the coming eclipse.

Health lent to cheek and lip its richest, warmest tints, and though the silvery splendour of hope shone no longer in the eloquent brown eyes, the light of an almost accomplished triumph imparted a baleful brilliance, which even the long lashes could not veil.

Her pale lilac robe showed admirably the transparency of her complexion, and in her waving gilded hair she wore a cl.u.s.ter of delicate rose anemones.

Her gaze seemed to have crossed the blue pavement of sea, and rested on the purpling outlines of Ischia and Capri; but the dimpling smile that crossed her face sprang from no dreamy reverie of Parthenope legends, and her voice was low and deep like one rehearsing for some tragic outbreak.

"So Samson felt in Dagon's temple, amid the jubilee of his tormentors, when silent and calm, girded only by the sense of his wrongs, he meekly bowed to rest himself; and all the while his arms groped stealthily around the pillars destined to avenge him. Ah! how calm, how holy, all outside of my heart seems! How in contrast with that charnel-house yonder vision of peaceful loveliness appears as incongruous as the nightingales which the soul of Sophocles heard singing in the grove of the Furies? After to-day will the world ever look quite the same to me? Thirty-three years have brought me swiftly to the last fatal page; and shall the hand falter that writes _finis_?"

A strangely solemn expression drifted over her countenance, but at that moment a tall form darkened the doorway, and she smiled.

"Come in, General Laurance. Punctuality is essentially an American virtue, rarely displayed in this _dolce far niente_ land; and you exemplify its nationality. Five was the hour you named, and my little Swiss tell-tale is even now sounding the last stroke."

She did not rise, seemed on the contrary, to sink farther back in her velvet-lined chair; and bending down General Laurance touched her hand.

"When a man's happiness for all time is at stake does he loiter on his way to receive the verdict? Surely you will----"

He paused and glanced significantly at the figure whose white cap was bowed low, as its wearer slumbered over the interminable crochet.