Part 31 (1/2)
”My dear Sylvie!” remonstrated Madame Bozier, ”How can you run on in this way? Do you want to break any more hearts? You are like a lamp for unfortunate moths to burn themselves in!”
”Oh no, not I,” said Sylvie, shaking her head with a touch of half melancholy scorn, ”I am not a 'professional' beauty! The Prince of Wales does not select me for his admiration,--hence it follows that I cannot possibly be an attraction in Europe. I have not the large frame, the large hands, and the still larger feet of the beautiful English ladies, who rule royal hearts and millionaires' pockets! Men scarcely notice me till they come to know me--and then, pouf!--away go their brains!--and they grovel at my small feet instead of the large ones of the English ladies!” She laughed. ”Now how is that, Katrine?”
”C'est du charme--toujurs du charme!” murmured Madame Bozier, studying with a wistful affection the dainty lines of Sylvie's slight figure, ”And that is an even more fatal gift than beauty, chere pet.i.te!”
”Du charme! You think that is it? Yes?--and so the men grow stupid and wild!--some want me, and some want my fortune--and some do not know what they want!--but one thing is certain, that they all quarrel together about me, and bore me to extinction!--Even the stranger with the bright stars of an American winter for eyes, might possibly bore me if I knew him!”
She gave a short sigh of complete dissatisfaction.
”To be loved, Katrine--really loved! What a delicious thing that would be! Have you ever felt it?”
The poor lady trembled a little, and gave a somewhat mournful smile.
”No, you dear romantic child! I cannot say with truth that I have! I married when I was very young, and my husband was many years older than myself. He was afflicted with chronic rheumatism and gout, and to be quite honest, I could never flatter myself that he thought of me more than the gout. There! I knew that would amuse you!”--this, as Sylvie's pretty tender laugh rippled out again on the air, ”And though it sounds as if it were a jest, it is perfectly true. Poor Monsieur Bozier! He was the drawing master at the school where I was a.s.sistant governess,--and he was very lonely; he wanted someone to attend to him when the gouty paroxysms came on, and he thought I should do as well, perhaps better than anyone else. And I--I had no time to think about myself at all, or to fall in love--I was very glad to be free of the school, and to have a home of my own. So I married him, and did my best to be a good nurse to him,--but he did not live long, poor man--you see he always would eat things that did not agree with him, and if he could not get them at home he went out and bought them on the sly. There was no romance there, my dear! And of course he died. And he left me nothing at all,--even our little home was sold up to pay our debts.
Then I had to work again for my living,--and it was by answering an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Times, which applied for an English governess to go to a family in Budapest, that I first came to know you.”
”And that is all your history!” said Sylvie, ”Poor dear Bozier! How uneventful!”
”Yes, it is,” and the worthy lady sighed also, but hers, was a sigh of placid arid philosophical comfort. ”Still, my dear, I am not at all sorry to be uninteresting! I have rather a terror of lives that arrange themselves into grand dramas, with terrible love affairs as the central motives.”
”Have you? I have not!” said Sylvie thoughtfully,--”With all my heart I admire a 'grande pa.s.sion.' Sometimes I think it is the only thing that makes history. One does not hear nearly so much of the feuds in which Dante was concerned, as of his love for Beatrice. It is always so, only few people are capable of the strength and patience and devotion needed for this great consummation of life. Now I--”
Madame Bozier smiled, and with tender fingers arranged one of the stray knots of pearls with which Sylvie's white gown was adorned.
”You dear child! You were made for sweetness and caresses,--not suffering . . .”
”You mistake!” said Sylvie, with sudden decision, ”You, in your fondness for me, and because you have seen me grow up from childhood, sometimes still view me as a child, and think that I am best amused with frivolities, and have not the soul in me that would endure disaster. But for love's sake I would do anything--yes!
. . . anything!”
”My child!”
”Yes,” repeated Sylvie, her eyes darkening and lightening quickly in their own fascinating way, ”I would consent to shock the stupid old world!--though one can scarcely ever shock it nowadays, because it has itself become so shocking! But then the man for whom I would sacrifice myself, must love ME as ardently as I would love HIM! That is the difficulty, Katrine. For men do not love--they only desire.”
She raised her face to the sky, and the moonbeams shed a golden halo round her.
”That,” she said slowly, ”is the reason why I have come here to avoid the Marquis Fontenelle. He does not love me!”
”He is a villain!” said Madame Bozier with asperity.
”Helas! There are so many villains!” sighed Sylvie, still looking up at the brilliant heavens, ”And sometimes if a villain really loves anybody he half redeems his villainy. But the Marquis loves himself best of anyone in the world . . . and I--I do not intend to be second in anyone's affections! So . . .” she paused, ”Do you see that star, Katrine? It is as bright as if it were s.h.i.+ning on a frosty night in America. And do you not notice the resemblance to the eyes of the stranger who has my rose? I daresay he will put it under his pillow to-night, and dream!” She laughed,--”Let us go in!”
Madame Bozier followed her as she stepped back into the lighted salon, where she was suddenly met by her little Arab page, carrying a large cl.u.s.ter of exquisite red and white roses. A card was attached to the flowers, bearing the words, ”These many unworthy blossoms in return for one beyond all worth.”
The Comtesse read and pa.s.sed it in silence to Madame Bozier. A smile was on her face, and a light in her eyes.
”I think Rome is not so dull after all!” she said, as she set the flowers carefully in a tall vase of Etruscan ware, ”Do you know, I am beginning to find it interesting!”
XVIII.