Part 15 (1/2)

”Where? Oh, with Harry Falconcourt? That is Miss Walsingham, my companion, adviser, censurer, and sheep-dog in general.”

”I haven't seen such a face in my life before,” continued the young duke, with deepening earnestness; ”and it is so wholly stripped of animal beauty that the beauty that bursts from every look and tone is so mysterious. That is a countenance graced by goodness, bravery, candor, devotion. There are faces graced by bright eyes, an arched nostril, a small mouth; a row of white teeth, or a waxen complexion. Which is the greater charm, do you think?”

”I did not know you were such a physiognomist,” said Lady Juliana. ”Pray read _me_, my lord.”

He looked over the arch face with the plausible smile, the graceful features, the peach-like bloom, and a faint shadow crossed his brow.

”You would be sinking in the first storm, Lady Juliana.”

”Cousin Julie has suddenly subsided,” said Harry Falconcourt, looking up to the head of the table. ”A minute since she was sparkling as champagne, now she is tame as lemonade. What do you suppose has occurred, Miss Walsingham? A mutiny between her subjects?”

”Extraordinary disposition of the Brand estates down in Surrey,” said a voice opposite. ”They all go to a woman as hideous as one of Macbeth's witches, and the only scion of the race must either marry her or lose them.”

”Is not that captain St. Udo Brand, of the Guards?” asked a gentleman in uniform.

”The same, major.”

”Fine soldier, brave man. Did you see the gallant mention of him in the latest _American War Gazette_? Cut his way through three thousand of the enemy with his handful of Vermonters.”

”A daring deed, major.”

”Nothing when you know the vast nature of the man. He needed such scenes as are described in the sickening records of war to stir up the lion in him, and to bring out the gentleness too. He is the darling of his company--many a cheer, and I'll not be afraid to say a blessing also has greeted him in his tender visits to his suffering boys.”

”You knew him at home here?”

”Knew Captain Brand? Like a brother, sir. Sad dog, but a n.o.ble man--a n.o.ble man.”

What bright intelligence was in the deep gray eyes which watched the officer's face. But he did not see them, he was so absorbed by his subject.

A pause occurred in the gossip, for the band was having a rest of forty bars, and the flageolet was weak.

At the request of Lady Juliana, Margaret carried her careladen face to the piano and played a long time, what--she knew not, but gradually, from mechanical measure, the chords grew into solemn pulsations, and a vision rose up before her introverted eyes of a darkened battle-field, where the cannon belched forth its fiery death, the bugle sounded the retreat, the soldiers shouted, and cheered, and fell.

She saw the smoke and dust, the red blood pouring, the brave falling fast; and a shrouded moon, with three black stripes across its disk, was s.h.i.+ning weirdly over a man lying on his broken sword, his head upon the mane of his pulseless horse, his dark, dim eyes raised supplicatingly.

And a skulker among the dead was bending over him with demoniac eagerness, and the dastardly dagger was plunged hilt-deep, and the man who had been called a ”hero” sank beneath the feet of the dead--and the vision pa.s.sed away.

”Miss Walsingham.” She turned her electric face--her hands fell from the ivory keys.

The gentlemen had entered the drawing-room, and the Duke of Piermont stood beside Lieutenant Falconcourt, waiting to be introduced.

”I have much pleasure in this introduction,” said his grace, offering her an arm the instant that their hands met. ”I would like much to talk with you, so honor me by promenading with me in the conservatory. In the first place, what was that extraordinary piece which you played?”

”I do not know--was I playing?”

His grace gazed at his companion in amazement. Doubt and terror still struggled for the mastery on her pallid features; the large, mystic eyes were fixed sadly upon vacancy. Miss Walsingham was quite unconscious that she was walking through the centre of the long suite with a man who was coveted from her by half the ladies there. ”Is it possible that it was an impromptu?”

”I--pardon me, your grace--I was playing without thinking.”