Part 58 (1/2)
”Each of these lockets,” sneered madame, ”contains a victim to my power of fascination, [there were at least a dozen,] and the whole string of them was presented to me by an old vice admiral who fell in love with me at Barbadoes last winter, and escorted me to the Bermudas when I went there. My good lady, that first foolish pa.s.sion of mine has so destroyed my powers of mercy that I love to torture mankind and madden them with false expectations, if only I might be revenged.”
The beautiful lips of the lady suddenly compressed with a cruel expression, and looking up, Margaret beheld the Chevalier de Calembours hurrying across the room to join them.
”The Chevalier de Calembours wishes to be presented to you,” said Margaret.
Those gleaming, chrysolite orbs flashed a full upward glare in the chevalier's face. He recoiled, he changed color, and became strangely silent.
”So glad to meet the chevalier,” murmured madame, with an inimitable elegance of manner.
Monsieur's face relaxed; he drew near her, dazzled as with the eye of a rattlesnake.
”Incomparable madame, where have we met before?” inquired he, with soft insinuation.
She honored him with a glance of astonishment and an artless smile.
”Indeed I cannot say, chevalier,” she minced, ”unless we've met in dreams.”
”Pardon the presumption, madame, _mon amie_,” persisted the chevalier, growing very pale, ”but I think we are not strangers.”
Another change swept over Madame Hesslein's ever-changeful face; all resemblance of her late self disappeared, and a bold, brilliant, haughty creature sat in her place, smiling with supercilious amus.e.m.e.nt at the little Bohemian's blunder.
”I should indeed feel honored if monsieur would recall the circ.u.mstances of our acquaintance,” she said, blandly; ”for I am frequently accosted by strangers who vow that I am known to them, and who afterward discover that my resemblance to the person they took me for was owing solely to the Protean expression of my face. I can't help my face being like twenty other people's in a breath, can I, Miss Walsingham? But I would like to think that Chevalier Calembours had known me previously, for I always have a warm side to Frenchmen for a special reason.”
The chevalier was himself again: his doubts had fled, and he was laughing at himself for his momentary illusion.
”Madame has explained the sweet hallucination,” he said, hand on heart.
”We have not met except in dreams. Ah! that we had been friends in those days of glory when I was the favorite of the Hungarian court, the Count of Calembours, owner of diamond mines! _Mon Dieu!_ my homage was worthy of its object then!”
Monsieur launched into his loftiest braggadocio, and madame listened well, and drew him out with skill.
”So monsieur was born in Hungary?”
”In Hungary, madame.”
”Have you seen the pretty river Theiss?”
”Hem! Yes, madame. I lived in Irzegedin.”
”Ah!”--with a mocking smile--”the residences of the counts are particularly magnificent in that city, are they not?”
”Madame is right. Madame must have been there.”
”Oh, no, my dear chevalier, else I should have heard of Count Calembours, without doubt. And Chevalier de Calembours left his princely fortune behind when he came here to fight?”
”Madame is a good listener.”
”Brave chevalier! but you will return to your estates?”
”Without doubt, madame, when I am weary of glory.”
”Admirable man!” cried madame, with a silvery laugh. ”What an enviable lady your wife is.”