University of Virginia Library

II.

“I say, my pretty one! Dear! Dear! young man! Oh,
love, you are in a vast hurry, aint you? Can't you stop a bit,
now, my dear: do—there's a sweet fellow.”

Pierre turned; and in the flashing, sinister, evil cross-lights
of a druggist's window, his eye caught the person of a wonderfully
beautifully-featured girl; scarlet-cheeked, glaringly-arrayed,
and of a figure all natural grace but unnatural vivacity.
Her whole form, however, was horribly lit by the green and
yellow rays from the druggist's.

“My God!” shuddered Pierre, hurrying forward, “the
town's first welcome to youth!”

He was just crossing over to where a line of hacks were

drawn up against the opposite curb, when his eye was arrested
by a short, gilded name, rather reservedly and aristocratically
denominating a large and very handsome house, the second
story of which was profusely lighted. He looked up, and
was very certain that in this house were the apartments of
Glen. Yielding to a sudden impulse, he mounted the single
step toward the door, and rang the bell, which was quickly responded
to by a very civil black.

As the door opened, he heard the distant interior sound of
dancing-music and merriment.

“Is Mr. Stanly in?”

“Mr. Stanly? Yes, but he's engaged.”

“How?”

“He is somewhere in the drawing rooms. My mistress is
giving a party to the lodgers.”

“Ay? Tell Mr. Stanly I wish to see him for one moment
if you please; only one moment.”

“I dare not call him, sir. He said that possibly some one
might call for him to-night—they are calling every night for
Mr. Stanly—but I must admit no one, on the plea of the
party.”

A dark and bitter suspicion now darted through the mind
of Pierre; and ungovernably yielding to it, and resolved to
prove or falsify it without delay, he said to the black:

“My business is pressing. I must see Mr. Stanly.”

“I am sorry, sir, but orders are orders: I am his particular
servant here—the one that sees his silver every holyday. I
can't disobey him. May I shut the door, sir? for as it is, I can
not admit you.”

“The drawing-rooms are on the second floor, are they not?”
said Pierre quietly.

“Yes,” said the black pausing in surprise, and holding the
door.

“Yonder are the stairs, I think?”

“That way, sir; but this is yours;” and the now suspicious
black was just on the point of closing the portal violently upon
him, when Pierre thrust him suddenly aside, and springing up
the long stairs, found himself facing an open door, from whence
proceeded a burst of combined brilliancy and melody, doubly
confusing to one just emerged from the street. But bewildered
and all demented as he momentarily felt, he instantly stalked
in, and confounded the amazed company with his unremoved
slouched hat, pale cheek, and whole dusty, travel-stained, and
ferocious aspect.

“Mr. Stanly! where is Mr. Stanly?” he cried, advancing
straight through a startled quadrille, while all the music suddenly
hushed, and every eye was fixed in vague affright upon
him.

“Mr. Stanly! Mr. Stanly!” cried several bladish voices,
toward the further end of the further drawing-room, into which
the first one widely opened, “Here is a most peculiar fellow
after you; who the devil is he?”

“I think I see him,” replied a singularly cool, deliberate, and
rather drawling voice, yet a very silvery one, and at bottom
perhaps a very resolute one; “I think I see him; stand aside,
my good fellow, will you; ladies, remove, remove from between
me and yonder hat.”

The polite compliance of the company thus addressed, now
revealed to the advancing Pierre, the tall, robust figure of a remarkably
splendid-looking, and brown-bearded young man,
dressed with surprising plainness, almost demureness, for such
an occasion; but this plainness of his dress was not so obvious
at first, the material was so fine, and admirably fitted. He
was carelessly lounging in a half side-long attitude upon a
large sofa, and appeared as if but just interrupted in some very
agreeable chat with a diminutive but vivacious brunette, occupying
the other end. The dandy and the man; strength and
effeminacy; courage and indolence, were so strangely blended

in this superb-eyed youth, that at first sight, it seemed impossible
to decide whether there was any genuine mettle in him, or
not.

Some years had gone by since the cousins had met; years
peculiarly productive of the greatest conceivable changes in the
general personal aspect of human beings. Nevertheless, the
eye seldom alters. The instant their eyes met, they mutually
recognized each other. But both did not betray the recognition.

“Glen!” cried Pierre, and paused a few steps from him.

But the superb-eyed only settled himself lower down in his
lounging attitude, and slowly withdrawing a small, unpretending,
and unribboned glass from his vest pocket, steadily, yet
not entirely insultingly, notwithstanding the circumstances, scrutinized
Pierre. Then, dropping his glass, turned slowly round
upon the gentlemen near him, saying in the same peculiar,
mixed, and musical voice as before:

“I do not know him; it is an entire mistake; why don't
the servants take him out, and the music go on?—As I was
saying, Miss Clara, the statues you saw in the Louvre are not
to be mentioned with those in Florence and Rome. Why,
there now is that vaunted chef d'œuvre, the Fighting Gladiator
of the Louvre—”

“Fighting Gladiator it is!” yelled Pierre, leaping toward
him like Spartacus. But the savage impulse in him was restrained
by the alarmed female shrieks and wild gestures
around him. As he paused, several gentlemen made motions
to pinion him; but shaking them off fiercely, he stood erect,
and isolated for an instant, and fastening his glance upon his
still reclining, and apparently unmoved cousin, thus spoke:—

“Glendinning Stanly, thou disown'st Pierre not so abhorrently
as Pierre does thee. By Heaven, had I a knife, Glen,
I could prick thee on the spot; let out all thy Glendinning
blood, and then sew up the vile remainder. Hound, and base
blot upon the general humanity!”

“This is very extraordinary:—remarkable case of combined
imposture and insanity; but where are the servants? why
don't that black advance? Lead him out, my good Doc, lead
him out. Carefully, carefully! stay”—putting his hand in his
pocket—“there, take that, and have the poor fellow driven off
somewhere.”

Bolting his rage in him, as impossible to be sated by any
conduct, in such a place, Pierre now turned, sprang down the
stairs, and fled the house.