Part 19 (2/2)
”Would you like to see me in a stormy humour?” asked Angela, smiling.
”No, not exactly;--but,--you are TOO quiet,--too secure--too satisfied in your art and your surroundings; and you do not enter at all into the pa.s.sions and griefs of other people. You are absorbed in your love and your work,--a beautiful existence! Only I hope the G.o.ds will not wake you up some day!”
”I am not asleep,” said Angela, ”nor dreaming.”
”Yes you are! You dream of beautiful things,--and the world is full of ugly ones; you dream of love and constancy, and purity,--and the world is full of spite, and hate, and bribery, and wickedness; you have a world of your own,--but Angela, it is a gla.s.s world!--in which only the exquisite colours of your own soul are reflected, take care that the pretty globe does not break!--for if it does you will never be able to put it together again! Adieu!”
”Adieu!” and Angela returned her loving embrace with equal affection, ”I will announce your departure to the Marquis Fontenelle to-morrow.”
”You will? Sweet Angela! And when you hear from me, and know where I am, you will write me a long, long letter and tell me how he looked, and what he said, and whether he seemed sorry or indifferent, or angry, or ashamed--or--”
Before she could finish the sentence the studio door was thrown open, and the servant announced, ”Monsieur le Marquis Fontenelle!”
XII.
A moment's flas.h.i.+ng glance of half-amused dismay at Angela, and the Comtesse Sylvie had vanished. Pa.s.sing quickly behind one of the several tall tapestry screens that adorned the studio, she slipped away through a little private door at which Angela's ”models” presented themselves, a door which led into the garden and then into the Bois, and making straight for her carriage which was in waiting round the corner, she sprang into it and was rapidly driven away. Meanwhile, Angela Sovrani, rather bewildered by her friend's swift departure, was left alone to face the Marquis, who entered almost on the heels of the servant who announced him, and in one swift survey of the studio saw that the object of his search was not there. Concealing his disappointment, however, under an admirable show of elegant indifference, he advanced towards Angela and saluted her with a courtly old-world grace that very well became his handsome face and figure.
”I must apologise for this intrusion,” he said, speaking in deep, soft accents which gave a singular charm to his simplest words, ”But--to be quite frank with you--I thought I should find the Comtesse Hermenstein here.”
Angela smiled. In her heart she considered the man a social reprobate, but it was impossible to hear him speak, and equally impossible to look at him without a vague sense of pleasure in his company.
”Sylvie was here a moment ago,” she answered, still smiling.
The Marquis took one or two quick impulsive steps forward--then checking himself, stopped short, and selecting a chair deliberately sat down.
”I understand!” he said, ”She wished to avoid me, and she has done so.
Well!--I would not run after her for the world. She must be perfectly free.”
Angela looked at him with a somewhat puzzled air. She felt herself in a delicate and awkward position. To be of any use in this affair now seemed quite impossible. Her commission was to have told the Marquis that Sylvie had left Paris, but she could not say that now as Sylvie was still in the city. Was she supposed to know anything about the Marquis's dishonourable proposals to her friend? Surely not! Then what was she to do? She stood hesitating, glancing at the fine, clear-cut, clean-shaven face of Fontenelle, the broad intellectual brows, and the brilliant hazel eyes with their languid, half-satirical expression, and her perplexity increased. Certainly he was a man with a grand manner,--the manner of one of those never-to-be-forgotten haughty and careless aristocrats of the ”Reign of Terror” who half redeemed their vicious lives by the bravery with which they faced the guillotine.
Attracted, yet repelled by him, Angela had always been,--even when she had known no more of him than is known of a casual acquaintance met at different parties and reunions, but now that she was aware of Sylvie's infatuation, the mingled attraction and revulsion became stronger, and she caught herself wis.h.i.+ng fervently that the Marquis would rouse himself from his lethargy of pleasure, and do justice to the capabilities which Nature had evidently endowed him with, if a fine head and n.o.ble features are to be taken as exponents of character.
Fontenelle himself, meanwhile, leaning carelessly back in the chair he had taken, looked at her with a little quizzical lifting of his eyebrows.
”You are very silent, mademoiselle,” he broke out at last, ”Have you nothing to say to me?”
At this straight question Angela recovered her equanimity.
”I HAD something to say to you, Marquis,” she answered quietly, ”but it was to have been said to-morrow.”
”To-morrow? Ah, yes! You receive your world of art to-morrow,” he said, ”and I was to come and meet la Comtesse,--and of course she would not have been here! I felt that by a natural instinct! Something psychological--something occult! I saw her carriage pa.s.s my windows up the Champs Elysees,--and I followed in a common fiacre. I seldom ride in a common fiacre, but this time I did so. It was an excitement--la cha.s.se! I saw the little beauty arrive at your door,--I gave her time to pour out all her confidences,--and then I arranged with myself and le bon Dieu to escort her home.”
”You arranged well,” said Angela, inclined to laugh at his easy audacity, ”but le bon Dieu was evidently not of your opinion,--and you must remember that the most excellent arrangements are not always carried out.”
”True!” and Fontenelle smiled, ”In the case of the fascinating Sylvie, I do not know when I have had so much trouble about a woman. It is interesting, but vexatious. Sometimes I think I shall have to give up and gallop off the hunting-field altogether--”
”Excuse me, Marquis,” said Angela coldly, ”Sylvie Hermenstein is my friend--pray understand that I cannot allow her to be spoken of in the tone of badinage you are pleased to a.s.sume.”
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