University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.
AN EASTERN SPICE.

“That is all, Fanny; you may go and order
James to drive round to the door. Now,
Beatrice, please look at yourself in the full-length
mirror, and say that you approve my
taste.”

Miss Wansted rose from the low chair in
which she had submitted, during the last
hour, to the hands of her hair-dresser and ladies'-maid,
and obediently placed herself in
front of the mirror. Confronting her in its
depths she saw a regal figure, clothed in soft,
lustreless white silk—the hem, open neck, and
short sleeves of the dress ornamented with embroidery
of gold wrought in a classic pattern;
while the arms, the white throat, and the
bands of brown-gold hair were encircled with
chains of antique cameos, set in dead Etruscan
gold—Vezey Chappelleford's almost priceless

gift to his constant entertainer, Israel Barstow,
and transferred by him to his niece.

From this simple, severely classic, and yet
magnificent toilet, shone a face more incontestably
beautiful than that Marston Brent
had seen reflected beside his own in the mountain-pool,
where Millbrook pauses in her descent
of Moloch—more beautiful, because more
thoughtful, more assured—bearing traces of a
deeper life and larger experience.

“Well, what do you think?” demanded
Mrs. Charlton, a little impatiently.

“Why, that I ought to be named Lucia, or
Claudia, or Veronica, at the least. If Lord
Macaulay were to suddenly drop in upon our
transatlantic gathering, he would suspect me
of intriguing for a Lay of Ancient Rome in my
especial honor,” said Beatrice laughing.

“He would probably lay his ancient Rome
aside, and devote himself to youthful Columbia
in your person, my dear. Confess now
that face, figure, manner, and costume harmonize
admirably in the picture you seem so satisfied
to contemplate, and I am so delighted
to claim as my own production.”

But Beatrice was spared a reply she might
have found difficult to render both truthful
and modest, by the entrance of a servant with
a bouquet.

“For Miss Wansted, with Mr. Laforét's
compliments,” said he, presenting it.

Mrs. Charlton eagerly examined it; then
laid it somewhat contemptuously upon the
dressing-table.

“Roses, camellias, fuchsias, salvia, heath—
every thing in the hot-house—and all bundled
together without design or sentiment. You
must not touch it, Beatrice, under penalty of
spoiling your entire toilet.”

“Poor Mr. Laforét!” smiled Beatrice, rather
languidly.

“I hardly think you should carry a bouquet
at all,” continued Juanita thoughtfully. “I
do not know what would suit that dress.”

The door again swung open to admit Thomas,
carrying, with imperturbable face, another
bouquet upon his salver, and saying, in precisely
the same tone he had used before:

“For Miss Wansted, with the compliments
of a friend.”

“A friend! What friend, I wonder,” exclaimed
Beatrice, while Mrs. Charlton examined
the offering with a very different look
from that she had bestowed upon its predecessor.

“Now that is almost a miracle. I could not
have selected it better myself. Nothing but
a spike of tuberoses and a handful of Parma
violets in this porte-bouquet of Venetian filagree.
Thoroughly Italian, if not precisely Roman.
Now, this is admirable.”

“But who is the friend? I do not like accepting
or carrying anonymous porte-bouquets,
although I cannot object to the flowers,” said
Beatrice a little anxiously.

“Nonsense, my dear,” quietly replied
her chaperone. “If almost any gentleman
had offered the bauble in person, or over his
own name, you must have refused it, of
course; but dropping from Heaven, as it does,
you must accept it as a gift of Heaven—or, to
suit your ideas to your dress, as a gift of the
gods.”

“Well, then, as a gift of the gods. And
now are we ready? How nicely you are looking
yourself, Juanita. I have been so selfish,
and so—tired, I believe, that I have not looked
at you until now.”

“I do very well,” said Mrs. Charlton carelessly,
as she cast one comprehensive glance
at her own toilet of wine-colored velvet, rich
black lace, and the garnets which blazed like
red-hot coals upon her white, satiny neck and
arms, and among the abundant folds of her
blue-black hair.

“Yes, I do well enough for an old woman.
Come, here are your handkerchief, your gloves,
and this fan, dear, which I should like to give
you. I have had it for some time, but never
carried it—white silk embroidered with gold—
almost in the same pattern as your dress, you
see.”

“Admirable! How very kind of you, Juanita.
You think too much of me, and too little
of yourself,” said Beatrice, with a flush of
self-reproach; and then the two beautiful
women went together down the stairs, and
were escorted to their carriage by Mr. Barstow,
who sat smoking in his library with his
friend Chappelleford.

“Good-by, dears,” said he, as they seated
themselves with all the pleasant flutter of
silken skirts, perfumed handkerchiefs, laces,
bouquets, jewels, wraps, that attend such embarkations.
“Have a nice time, and we will
look in before you come home.”

Half an hour later, Beatrice was the centre
of a crowd of courtiers, and bearing herself
right royally among them. Not even the rivals,
who enviously watched the assumed ease

and grace of her every movement, and noted
the manner so nicely balanced between dignity
and archness, could find a flaw in either,
or could suggest a possible improvement in
person, dress, or bearing; nor could the most
critical observer detect in the style of this, the
latest “queen of society,” any trace of the
country breeding she never thought of concealing,
unless in a certain freshness and vitality
always remarked, and always celebrated
by Miss Wansted's admirers. She was not
without her weapons either, and could defend
herself upon occasion, as when Laforét, leading
her to the head of a set of Lancers, murmured
reproachfully:

“My poor flowers were not worthy to be
carried to-night, then?”

“Ah! Mr. Laforét, I have a quarrel with
you upon that subject! Which of my ill-wishers,
what woman selected that bouquet
for you to send me?”

“Ill-wishers! Woman! I beg your pardon
for echoing your words, and also for my
stupidity, but what do you mean?” asked the
unfortunate Laforét in great bewilderment.

“Why they were so magnificent, so rich
and varied in their colors, so conspicuous in
their brilliancy, so altogether admirable in
every way, that they would have utterly annihilated
the wearer. She would have become
merely the woman carrying that bouquet.
Now, what but feminine malice could have
suggested such a mode of smothering me in
honey? Confess, Mr. Laforét — tell me her
name.”

And Beatrice, flashing a bewildering smile
into her partner's face, turned to balance at
the corner with Rein, the artist, who seized
the occasion to murmur:

“If you would only sit to me in that
dress!”

“I will lend it you with the greatest pleasure,”
replied Beatrice, returning to her partner,
who began:

“No; but really were the flowers so unbecoming?”

“The flowers were magnificent. It was I
who was not equal to the occasion. Forward
with me, please.”

And Mr. Laforét finished the Lancers in a
state of mind equally balanced between doubt
and delight.

“But if I might ask, who gave you the
flowers you carry?” inquired he, escorting his
partner to her seat.

“It would be an odd question for you to ask,
or me to answer; but if you should ask, and I
should be indulgent enough to answer, I could
only say what was said to me: they are from
a friend.”

“That means any one among a hundred
men,” said Laforét.

“One among a hundred? One among a
thousand, if he were really a friend,” returned
Beatrice with a smile more bitter than gay,
and a little gesture of dismissal.

“Miss Wansted, allow me to present Mr.
Monckton, a gentleman who can give you the
latest news of the anthropophagi and King
Theodore,” said the hostess, pausing with a
gentleman in front of Beatrice.

Murmuring the conventional answer, she
looked up, and met the regards of a pair of
alert brown eyes set in a thin and deeply
bronzed face, whose claim to beauty was one
to be considered before determining.

“May I sit down, Miss Wansted? I am so
accustomed to making myself comfortable
whenever I have the opportunity.”

“Certainly; although, from what Mrs. Wesley
says of the direction of your travels, I
should not imagine comfort to have been your
principal object,” said Beatrice, quietly removing
her skirts from an ottoman beside her
chair.

“No. But like most of the good things I
have obtained in this world, it has often come
to me while I was looking for something
else. For instance, I came here to-night because
I thought I must, and — I have been
introduced to you.”

“I thought persons who travelled learned
new things,” remarked Beatrice very sweetly.

Mr. Monckton colored a little, then laughed.

“Really, Miss Wansted, I know it is rude to
be personal, but you must allow me to say I
had no idea that you would do that sort of
thing,” said he.

“What sort of thing, please?”

“The sarcastic and humiliating sort of
thing — the discovering so quickly, and telling
me so frankly, that I was talking like a
fool.”

“Not at all. I only meant that you talked
as if you supposed me one.”

“I shall never again suppose you one.”

“Again?” repeated Beatrice, with a smile of
quiet malice.

“Now, really, Miss Wansted! But I have
been so long out of society—the society of

ladies, at least—that a good deal must be pardoned.
I have forgotten the usages of the
beau monde, you perceive.”

“And I have never learned them; so let us
lay aside all thought of them, and talk like
human beings uncorrupted by this beau monde
of which you speak. Have you really travelled
in the East?”

“From Alexandria to the Vale of Kashmeer,
and from Jaffa to Jerusalem and the
plains of Palestine,” said Monckton, smiling
frankly.

“And will you please tell me all about it?”

“All!”

“Oh! yes; for where could you stop when
once you had begun?”

“And will you give me time to tell all?”

“Begin, please.”

“Shall I tell you then, while we watch
these dancers and listen to this charming
music, of a nautch that I attended in Delhi,
when the eldest son of Rajah Ahmed Defter
Singh was married to the daughter of the
Baboo Ali Raj Malimoo?”

“Pray do. But remember, please, that I
have read the Arabian Nights and also the
Thousand and One Days.”

“I will quote neither, but tell you the truth
pur et simple. I was in Delhi —”

“Miss Wansted, I believe I have your
promise for this quadrille,” said a young gentleman,
bowing before the lady, whose smile
of acquiescence was, to say the least, a little
forced.

“It is the German, and will last all the
evening,” said she apologetically, as she rose
from Mr. Monckton's side.

“And my poor nautch story? May I come
and tell it you to-morrow?”

“Thank you,” said Beatrice, a little doubtfully.

“I think my old friend, Mr. Barstow, will
not close his door in my face. Au revoir,”
said Monckton smiling.

And Beatrice, her doubt resolved, answered
gayly:

“Au revoir then.”