Part 80 (1/2)

After courteously saluting the ladies present, Valerie subsided into a dull silence, from which she could not arouse herself; but her voice was not missed, since every visitor seemed anxious to talk rather than listen, and therefore kept up a chattering that would have carried off the palm in a contest with a village sewing-circle or aviary full of excited magpies.

Valerie, the last to enter, was also the first to rise, but Lady C.

detained her by a slight signal, and she sat down again, and relapsed into dullness and silence.

One by one the visitors arose and took leave, chattering to the very last.

As soon as the two ladies were left alone together, Lady C. took Valerie's hand, and gazing earnestly in her face, said:

”What is the matter with you, my child? You look pale and ill. Although I am so glad to see you, under any circ.u.mstances, I am half inclined to scold you for coming out at all.”

For a moment Valerie felt inclined to open her oppressed and suffering heart to this sweet, matronly friend, and tell her the whole, bitter truth, and seek her wise counsel; but again the want of moral courage, which had always been so fatal to her welfare, sealed her lips.

”Well,” said Lady C., after a short pause for that answer that never came, ”I will not press the question. 'The heart knoweth its own bitterness.'”

”Yes,” murmured Valerie, in a very low voice. Then, not to seem indifferent or unsocial, and also, if the truth must be told of her, to gratify a gnawing curiosity, she inquired:

”How goes the expected marriage of your niece, madame?”

”I cannot tell you dear. I have been daily expecting some communication on the subject from de Volaski: but as yet he has made none. After coming to Paris for the purpose, (for of course his office in the emba.s.sy is a mere sinecure and a plausible excuse,) he betrays the bashfulness of a girl in pressing his suit; but some men, some of the best and purest of men, are just that way--in love affairs as shy women,” said her ladys.h.i.+p.

Valerie smiled bitterly. She thought she understood the reason why the Count de Volaski was in no hurry to press the suit for marriage with a dreaming girl, to whom he had been arbitrarily contracted when he was a boy of fifteen, and she a child of twelve.

”I shall, however, write again to her father. I will not have my sister's daughter wasting her youth in a convent, while waiting for a tardy suitor.”

Valerie smiled again, and then arose to take her leave.

Lady C. kissed her affectionately, and promised soon to visit her at the Hotel de la Motte.

”But--how long will you remain there?” inquired her ladys.h.i.+p.

”I do not know. Until some business connected with my father's will shall be arranged, I think. We are there on sufferance only. My cousin, Louis, the present baron, wrote from Algiers, very kindly asking us to occupy the Hotel de la Motte at any time when business or pleasure should call us to Paris. The house was the home of my childhood, and I prefer to live in it as long as I may. The duke, though he would rather live at the '_Trois Freres_,' yields to my whim, and so we occupy the Hotel de la Motte, but I do not know for how long a time.”

”Until you leave Paris, I presume?”

”Yes, probably,” answered Valerie, as with another kiss, she took leave of her kind friend.

”Shall I ever see her sweet face, hear her sweet voice again?” murmured the young d.u.c.h.ess, as she pa.s.sed out to her carriage.

”You posted my letter?” she inquired of the footman who opened the carriage-door.

”Yes, your grace.”

”That will do. Home.”

The footman repeated the order to the coachman, who drove back to the Hotel de la Motte.

As Valerie entered her morning-room after laying off her bonnet and wrappings, she found the Duke of Hereward there, reading the papers.

He arose and placed a chair for her, saying kindly:

”I hope your drive has done you good, dear; if it has not been so long as to fatigue you.”