Part 36 (1/2)
”You must have heard of our ruin,” the Contessa said, looking full into the d.u.c.h.ess's face; ”everybody has heard of that. I have been too poor to live in my own house. We have wandered everywhere, Bice and I. When one is proud it is more easy to be poor away from home. But we are in very high spirits to-day, the child and I,” she added. ”All can be put right again. My little niece has come into a fortune. She has made an inheritance. We received the news to-night only. That is how I have recovered my spirits--and to see you, d.u.c.h.ess, and renew the beautiful old times.”
”Oh, indeed!” the d.u.c.h.ess said, which was not much; but then she was a woman of few words.
”Yes, we came to London very poor,” said the Contessa. ”What could I do?
It was the moment to produce the little one. We have no Court. Could I seek for her the favour of the Piedmontese? Oh no! that was impossible.
I said to myself she shall come to that generous England, and my old friends there will not refuse to take my Bice by the hand.”
”Oh no; I am sure not,” said the d.u.c.h.ess.
As for Bice she had long ere now set off with Montjoie, who had hung round her from the moment of her entrance into the room, and whose admiration had grown to such a height by the c.u.mulative force of everybody else's admiration swelling into it, that he could scarcely keep within those bounds of compliment which are permitted to an adorer who has not yet acquired the right to be hyperbolical.
”Oh yes, it's pretty enough: but you don't see half how pretty it is, for you can't see yourself, don't you know?” said this not altogether maladroit young pract.i.tioner. Bice gave him a smile like one of the Contessa's smiles, which said everything that was needful without giving her any trouble. But now that the effect of her entrance was attained, and all that dramatic business done with, the girl's soul was set upon enjoyment. She loved dancing as she loved every other form of rapid movement. The only drawback was that there was so little room. ”Why do they make the rooms so small?” she said pathetically; a speech which was repeated from mouth to mouth like a witticism, as something so characteristic of the young Italian, w hose marble halls would never be overcrowded: though, as a matter of fact, Bice knew very little of marble halls.
”Were you ever in the gallery at the Hall?” she asked. ”To go from one end to the other, that was worth the while. It was as if one flew.”
”I never knew they danced down there,” said Montjoie. ”I thought it very dull, don't you know, till you appeared. If I had known you had dances, and fun going on, and other fellows cutting one out----”
”There was but one other fellow,” said Bice gravely. ”I have seen in this country no one like him. Ah, why is he not here? He is more fun than any one, but better than fun. He is----”
Montjoie's countenance was like a thunder-cloud big with fire and flame.
”Trevor, I suppose you mean. I never thought that duffer could dance. He was a great sap at school, and a hideous little prig, giving himself such airs! But if you think all that of him----”
”It was not Mr. Trevor,” said Bice. Then catching sight of Lady Randolph at a little distance, she made a dart towards her on her partner's arm.
”I am telling Lord Montjoie of my partner at the Hall,” she said. ”Ah, Milady, let him come and look! How he would clap his hands to see the lights and the flowers. But we could not have our gymnastique with all the people here.”
Lucy was very pale; standing alone, abstracted amid the gay crowd, as if she did not very well know where she was.
”Baby? Oh, he is quite well, he is fast asleep,” she said, looking up with dim eyes. And then there broke forth a little faint smile on her face. ”You were always good to him,” she said.
”So it was the baby,” said Montjoie, delighted. ”What a one you are to frighten a fellow. If it had been Trevor I think I'd have killed him.
How jolly of you to do gymnastics with that little beggar; he's dreadfully delicate, ain't he, not likely to live? But you're awfully cruel to me. You think no more of giving a wring to my heart than if it was a bit of rag. I think you'd like to see the blood come.”
”Let us dance,” said Bice with great composure. She was bent upon enjoyment. She had not calculated upon any conversation. Indeed she objected to conversation on this point even when it did not interfere with the waltz. All could be settled much more easily by the Contessa, and if marriage was to be the end, that was a matter of business not adapted for a ballroom. She would not allow herself to be led away to the conservatory or any other retired nook such as Montjoie felt he must find for this affecting purpose. Bice did not want to be proposed to.
She wanted to dance. She abandoned him for other partners without the slightest evidence of regret. She even accepted, when he was just about to seize upon her at the end of a dance, Mr. Derwent.w.a.ter, preferring to dance the Lancers with him to the bliss of sitting out with Lord Montjoie. That forsaken one gazed at her with a consternation beyond words. To leave him and the proposal that was on his very lips for a square dance with a tutor! The young Marquis gazed after her as she disappeared with a certain awe. It could not be that she preferred Derwent.w.a.ter. It must be her cleverness which he could not fathom, and some wonderful new system of Italian subtlety to draw a fellow on.
”I like it better than standing still--I like it--enough,” said Bice.
”To dance, that is always something.” Mr. Derwent.w.a.ter also felt, like Lord Montjoie, that the young lady gave but little importance to her partner.
”You like the rhythm, the measure, the woven paces and the waving hands,” her companion said.
Bice stared at him a little, not comprehending. ”But you prefer,” he continued, ”like most ladies, the modern Bacchic dance, the whirl, the round, though what the old Puritans call promiscuous dancing of men and women together was not, I fear, Greek----”
”I know nothing of the Greeks,” said Bice. ”Vienna is the best place for the valse, but Greek--no, we never were there.”
”I am thinking of cla.s.sic terms,” said MTutor with a smile, but he liked her all the better for not knowing. ”We have in vases and in sculpture the most exquisite examples. You have never perhaps given your attention to ancient art? I cannot quite agree with Mr. Alma Tadema on that point.
He is a great artist, but I don't think the wild leap of his dances is sanctioned by anything we possess.”