The Master-Christian Part 18

"So you gave the Abbe Vergniaud a rose the other day, my child?"

"Yes," replied Manuel, "He looked sad when I met him,--and sometimes a flower gives pleasure to a person in sorrow."

The Cardinal thought of his own roses far away, and sighed with a sensation of longing and homesickness.

"Flowers are like visible messages from G.o.d," he said, "Messages written in all the brightest and loveliest colours! I never gather one without finding out that it has something to say to me."

"There is a legend," said Manuel, "which tells how a poor girl who has lost every human creature she loved on earth, had a rose-tree she was fond of, and every day she found upon it just one bloom. And though she longed to gather the flower for herself she would not do so, but always placed it before the picture of the Christ. And G.o.d saw her do this, as He sees everything. At last, quite suddenly she died, and when she found herself in Heaven, there were such crowds and crowds of angels about her that she was bewildered, and could not find her way. All at once she saw a pathway edged with roses before her, and one of the angels said, 'These are all the roses you gave to our Lord on earth, and He has made them into a pathway for you which will lead you straight to those you love!' And so with great joy she followed the windings of the path, seeing her roses blossoming all the way, and she found all those whom she had loved and lost on earth waiting to welcome her at the end!"

"A pretty fancy," said the Cardinal smiling, "And, as not even a thought is wasted, who knows if it might not prove true?"

"Surely the beautiful must be the true always!" said Manuel.

"Not so, my child,--a fair face may hide an evil soul."

"But only for a little while," answered the boy, "The evil soul must leave its impress on the face in time, if life lasts long enough."

"That is quite possible," said Bonpre, "In fact, I think it often happens,--only there are some people who simulate the outward show of goodness and purity perfectly, while inwardly 'they are as ravening wolves,' and they never seem to drop the mask. Others again--" Here he paused and looked anxiously at his young companion, "I wonder what you will be like when you grow up, Manuel!"

"But if I never grow up, what then?" asked Manuel with a smile.

"Never grow up? You mean--"

"I mean if I die," said Manuel, "or pa.s.s through what is called dying before I grow up?"

"G.o.d forbid!" said the Cardinal gently, "I would have you live--"

"But why," persisted Manuel, "since death is a better life?"

Bonpre looked at him wistfully.

"But if you grow up and are good and great, you may be wanted in the world," he said.

An expression of deep pain swept like a shadow across the boy's fair open brow.

"Oh no!" he said quietly, "the world does not want me! And yet I love the world--not because it is a world, for there are millions upon millions of worlds,--they are as numerous as flowers in a garden--but because it is a sorrowful world,--a mistaken world,--and because all the creatures in it have something of G.o.d in them. Yes, I love the world!--but the world does not love me."

He spoke in a tone of gentle pathos, with the resigned and patient air of one who feels the burden of solitude and the sense of miscomprehension. And closing the Testament he held he rested his clasped hands upon it, and for a moment seemed lost in sorrowful reverie.

"I love you," said the Cardinal tenderly, "And I will take care of you as well as I can."

Manuel looked up at him.

"And that will be well indeed, my lord Cardinal!" he said softly, "And you serve a Master who will hereafter say to you, remembering your goodness,--'Verily, in asmuch as ye have done it unto the least of my brethren ye have done it unto Me.'"

He smiled; and the Cardinal meeting his glance wondered whether it was the strong level light of the sinking sun through the window-pane that made such a glory s.h.i.+ne upon his face, and gave such a brilliancy to his deep and steadfast eyes.

XI.

Meanwhile, Angela Sovrani was detained in her studio by the fascinating company and bewildering chatter of a charming and very well-known personage in Europe,--a dainty, exquisitely dressed piece of femininity with the figure of a sylph and the complexion of a Romney "Lady Hamilton,"--the Comtesse Sylvie Hermenstein, an Austro-Hungarian of the prettiest and most bewitching type, who being a thorough bohemienne in spirit, and having a large fortune at her disposal, travelled everywhere, saw everything, and spent great sums of money not only in amusing herself, but in doing good wherever she went. By society in general, she was voted "thoroughly heartless,"--when as a matter of fact she had too much heart, and gave her "largesse" of sympathy somewhat too indiscriminately. Poor people wors.h.i.+pped her,--the majority of the rich envied her because most of them had ties and she had none. She might have married scores of times, but she took a perverse pleasure in "drawing on" her admirers till they were just on the giddy brink of matrimony,--then darting off altogether she left them bewildered, confused, and not a little angry.

"They tell me I cannot love, cara mia," she was saying now to Angela who sat in pleased silence, studying her form, her colouring, and her animated expression; with all the ardour of an artist who knows how difficult it is to catch the swift and variable flashes of beauty on the face of a pretty woman, who is intelligent as well as personally charming. "They tell me I have no heart at all. Me--Sylvie!--no heart!

Helas!--I am all heart! But to love one of those stupid heavy men, who think that just to pull a moustache and smile is sufficient to make a conquest--ah, no!--not for me! Yet I am now in love!--truly!--ah, you laugh!--" and she laughed herself, shaking her pretty head, adorned with its delicate "creation" in gossamer and feathers, which was supposed to be a hat--"Yes, I am in love with the Marquis Fontenelle!

Ah!--le beau Marquis! He is so extraordinary!--so beautiful!--so wicked! It must be that I love him, or why should I trouble myself about him?"

She spread out her tiny gloved hands appealingly, with a delightful little shrug of her shoulders, and again Angela laughed.

"He is good-looking, certainly," she said, "He is very like Miraudin.

They might almost be brothers."

"Miraudin, ce cher Miraudin!" exclaimed the Comtesse gaily, "The greatest actor in Europe! Yes, truly!--I go to the theatre to look at him and I almost fancy I am in love with him instead of Fontenelle, till I remember he stage-manages;--ah!--then I shudder!--and my shudder kills my love! After all it is only his resemblance to the Marquis that causes the love,--and perhaps the shudder!"

"Sylvie, Sylvie!" laughed Angela, "Can you not be serious? What do you mean?"

"I mean what I say," declared Sylvie, "Miraudin used to be the darling of all the sentimental old maids and little school-girls who did not know him off the stage. In Paris, in Rome, in Vienna, in Buda-Pesth--always a conqueror of ignorant women who saw him in his beautiful 'make-up'! Yes, he was perfectly delightful,--this big Miraudin, till he became his own manager and his own leading actor as well! Helas! What it is to be a manager! Do you know? It is to keep a harem like a grand Turk;--and woe betide the woman who joins the company without understanding that she is to be one of the many! The sultana is the 'leading lady'. Poor Miraudin!--he must have many little f.a.ggots to feed his flame! Oh, you look so shocked! But the Marquis is just like him,--he also stage-manages."

"In what way?"

"Ah, he has an enormous theatre,--the world! A big stage,--society! The harem is always being replenished! And he plays his part so well! He has what the wise-acrescall 'perverted morals',--they are so charming!--and he will not marry. He says, 'Why give myself to one when I can make so many happy!' And why will not I, Sylvie Hermenstein, be one of those many? Why will I not yield to the embraces of Monsieur le beau Marquis? Not to marry him,--oh, no! so free a bird could not have his wings clipped! And why will I not see the force of this?--"

She stopped, for Angela sprang towards her exclaiming,

"Sylvie! Do you mean to tell me that the Marquis Fontenelle is such a villain?--"

"Tais-toi! Dear little flame of genius, how you blaze!" cried Sylvie, catching her friend by the hand and kissing it, "Do not call Fontenelle a villain--he is too charming!--and he is only like a great many other men. He is a bold and pa.s.sionate person; I rather like such characters,--and I really am afraid--afraid--" here she hesitated, then resumed, "He loves me for the moment, Angela, and I--I very much fear I love him for a little longer than that! C'est terrible! He is by no means worthy of it,--no, but what does that matter! We women never count the cost of loving--we simply love! If I see much of him I shall probably sink into the Quartier Latin of love--for there is a Quartier Latin as well as a high cla.s.s Faubourg in the pa.s.sion,--I prefer the Faubourg I confess, because it is so high, and respectable, and clean, and grand--but--"

"Sylvie," said Angela determinedly, "You must come away from Paris,--you must not see this man--"

"That is what I have arranged to do," said Sylvie, her beautiful violet eyes flas.h.i.+ng with mirth and malice intermingled, "I am flying from Paris . . . I shall perhaps go to Rome in order to be near you. You are a living safety in a storm,--you are so serene and calm. And then you have a lover who believes in the ideal and perfect sympathy."

Angela smiled,--and Sylvie Hermenstein noted the warm and tender flush of pleasure that spread over her fair face.

"Yes, Florian is an idealist," she said, "There is nothing of the brute in him."

"And you think Fontenelle a brute?" queried Sylvie, "Yes, I suppose he is; but I have sometimes thought that all men are very much alike,--except Florian!" She paused, looking rather dubiously, and with a touch of compa.s.sion at Angela, "Well!--you deserve to be happy, child, and I hope you will be! For myself, I am going to run away from Monsieur le Marquis with as much speed as if I had stolen his watch!"

"It is the best thing you can do," said Angela with a little sigh of relief, "I am glad you are resolved."

Comtesse Sylvie rose from her chair and moved about the studio with a pretty air of impatience.

"If his love for me could last," she said, "I might stay! I would love him with truth and pa.s.sion, and I would so influence him that he should become one of the most brilliant leading men of his time. For he has all the capabilities of genius,--but they are dormant,--and the joys of self-indulgence appeal to him more strongly than high ambition and attainment. And he could not love any women for more than a week or a month at most,--in which temperament he exactly resembles the celebrated Miraudin. Now I do not care to be loved for a week or a month--I wish to be loved for always,--for always!" she said with emphasis, "Just as your Florian loves you."

Angela's eyes grew soft and pensive.

"Few men are like Florian," she said. Again Sylvie looked at her doubtfully, and there was a moment's silence. Then Sylvie resumed.