University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.
A DEUX TEMPS.

In the ball-room the frenzy of the galop had subsided into the passionate
tenderness of the waltz, and the band, led by a musician, rendered, with such
fidelity and abandon, the wild heart-break of the Sophia waltzes, that one instinctively
feared to see the whole place a necropolis of swooning and dying
princesses.

Francia, in her charming costume, à la Pompadour, her supple waist encircled
by the arm of the King Charles, his breath upon her cheek, her right hand
pressed close to his heart, floated round and round the room in a strange ecstacy,
wondering how she had lived so long and never before felt the joy of life;
wondering, too, at the passionate impulse of tears that almost suffocated her.

The music ceased with a long, piercing strain, that might have been the wail
of the lover as his royal mistress fell dead at his feet, and Francia, blind and
breathless, allowed her partner to support her for a moment longer in the embrace
which we all consider so eminently proper while the motion of the dance
continues—so very shocking a few minutes later.

“I never shall forget this waltz,” murmured King Charles.

“Nor I, for I never enjoyed one half so much,” said Francia, guilelessly;
and behind his mask the merry monarch smiled a meaning smile.

“Let us promenade a little,” said he, and led the way to the cool shadow of
the conservatory.

“Do you believe in magnetism, Marquise?” asked he, seating his companion
upon an ottoman and throwing himself upon a footstool at her side.

“I don't know anything about it,” said Francia, wonderingly.

“Then take your first lesson of me, ma belle. It was a powerful magnetism
that drew me to you the first moment my eyes rested upon you; it is that same
magnetism that made our waltz to me the very culmination of my life; and, tell
me, Marquise, may I be very frank, very bold?”

“Yes,” murmured Francia.

“It was that same magnetism that wrought upon you when you said you
never had enjoyed a dance so much.”

He took in his the soft, white hand that Francia had nervously ungloved
when she first sat down.

“I must see your face, I must hear your name, here and now,” murmured
he, half beseechingly, half imperiously.

The little hand grew cold, and trembled in his grasp, but it was not withdrawn,
nor did the bewildered girl resist, as with a quick movement her companion
untied the ribbon confining her mask, and suffered it to drop into her
lap.

The face thus disclosed was indeed one worthy of a monarch's admiration;
and just now, with cheeks and lips at their brightest, eyes at their bluest,
and the perfect shape of the low white forehead displayed by the coquettish
backward roll of the hair glittering with golden powder, Francia's fresh beauty
was so bewildering that it hardly seemed an extravagance for her masked admirer
to murmur,

“O, that I were indeed a king, that I might, with some faint hope of success,
offer my throne to the Queen of Love and Beauty!”

Francia's head drooped lower and lower, while the carnation deepened on
her cheeks, and even “the nape of her white neck flushed rosy red,” but, alas!
not “with indignation.”

His bold eyes devouring her beauty, Charles grasped again the hand she
had withdrawn, and murmured,

“Tell me what to call you, my queen.”

A sharp step rang through the ante-room dividing the conservatory from
the other apartments, and Francia, snatching away her hand, hurriedly replaced

[ILLUSTRATION]

King Charles and the Marquise

[Description: 451EAF. Illustration page. King Charles, who is wearing a mask, is kneeling next to the Marquise.]

her mask. It was not yet tied when a knight in golden armor stood before
her.

“Excuse me, sir,” said he, haughtily, to King Charles, who had risen to his
feet; “but this young lady is a relative of mine, and I am desired by her friends
to conduct her to them.”

“If the young lady desires to exchange my company for yours, I shall of
course submit to her wishes, otherwise I shall claim my privilege of leaving her
under charge of the lady from whose side I took her,” retorted the quasi monarch,
with right kingly imperiousness.

The knight hesitated an instant, then turned his back upon his rival, and
said in a low voice,

“Francia, come with me.”

The girl arose, but before she could accept the arm offered her by the knight,
her late partner interposed,

“May I not have the usual privilege of a gentleman who has been honored
with a lady's hand in the dance, and escort you to your chaperone?” asked he,
in a voice so exceedingly guarded as to betray the irritation of his feelings.

Francia hesitated, half-turned toward the last speaker, then again to the
knight, and whispered,

“I will go directly to Claudia, Fergus, and you can come, too.”

“You will do as you choose,” was the stern reply; and Francia, her eyes
filled with tears, took the arm persistently offered by her other cavalier, and
walked away in a very different mood from that of a few moments before.

“May I ask the name of that young man?” inquired King Charles, still in
the tone of elaborate courtesy, so significant to a practised ear.

“He is my cousin,” faltered Francia, instinctively answering the question her
companion had not chosen to ask.

“Cousins have strange privileges, it appears to me,” said the King. “Sweet
ones, too, sometimes, if I am rightly informed.”

“Fergus has always been like a brother to me,” murmured Francia.

“Very like a brother, as I have found them behind the scenes,” said her
companion. “But may I not resume the inquiry you were about to answer
when this peremptory cousin-brother of yours interrupted us?”

“My name? Mrs. Minturn can tell you. Ah, here is Neria.”

“The Undine? But there is Cleopatra in the next room, with a crowd of
courtiers about her. Will you go to her?”

“Yes, if you please.”

And as she answered, the poor little marquise cast a timid look over her
shoulder at the stately form of the golden knight who now stood in the doorway
of the ball-room watching her movements.

“Monsieur le cousin appears to doubt either your word or my honor,” said
King Charles, bitterly, as he followed her eyes.

Francia made no reply, but hurried on, and in another moment stood beside
Claudia, who received her with a little nod, and went on talking to the three
gentlemen, who all claimed her attention at the same moment.

King Charles, with a low bow and a murmured word of thanks left her here,
and went to look for Mrs. Minturn, with whom he was an especial favorite.

While Cleopatra and her courtiers flashed their javelins of wit and badinage
over her head, Francia remained for some moments in a bewildered reverie,
through which the waltz, the conservatory, the strange bold words of her late

partner, and the displeasure of her cousin mingled confusedly. Recovering a
little, she raised her eyes, and timidly explored the room for Fergus.

He was promenading with an elegant Diana upon his arm, and although he
passed and repassed the spot where Francia stood, never by any chance turned
his head toward her.

“How vexed he is, and how much I shall have to say before he will be kind
again,” thought Francia, and over the glitter of the ball-room and the flush of
her innocent gayety came a dark mist, a chill, like that when upon a summer's
afternoon, great white clouds of fog come rolling over the sea and wrap earth
and sky in their mantle of bleak despondency.

She sighed heavily, and the domino who, although dismissed by Cleopatra in
the first of the evening, had soon returned to hover near her, offered his arm.

“Tiresome, ain't it,” said he, in a low voice to the drooping little marquise
“Never mind, they'll have supper in a few minutes, and that will pay for all.
If it was'n't for the suppers I couldn't stand this sort of life.”

“I was not tired until just now,” said Francia, accepting the proffered support.

Neria approached with Mephistopheles.

“And here we come,” said he, “to a group whose disguises I will not
venture to penetrate, and even could I do so, I shrewdly suspect you are better
able to describe to me than I to you the graces and virtues adorning it.”

“I hope you have been as correct in all your intimations as in this,” said
Neria, playfully.

“Do not doubt it, and I am glad to have been able to illustrate to you my
remark of a previous occasion, that there are, after all, very few wolves in this
so much maligned society of ours.”

The latter part of the remark reached the ear of Cleopatra, who turned
sharply round—

“Ah, it is you,” said she, quickly.

“Great queen, who can withstand your penetration. It is the humblest of
your slaves,” said Mephistopheles.

“Malice avers that Lucifer was an ally of yours in the old times, and, according
to his wont, deserted you at the last,” suggested one of the courtiers.

“Malice was, then, as stupid as she generally is,” said Mephistopheles,
coolly; “for it was Cleopatra who deserted me.”

A swift glance passed between the Queen and the speaker, and each turned
to another companion. At this moment Mrs. Minturn approached on the arm
of King Charles.

“Pardon the mauvais goût of an introduction en masque,” said she, aside to
Claudia; “and allow me to present my cousin, Rafe Chilton. He begs your
permission to take Miss Vaughn down to supper.”

“Certainly; I will let her understand that I sanction the movement, although
your drawing-room is sufficient guarantee for any of your guests,” replied Claudia,
in the same tone, and Mrs. Minturn rejoined aloud.

“Will your majesty permit me to introduce a brother monarch, hight Charles
of England.”

Cleopatra, with a regal inclination of the head, extended her hand, which
Charles made a feint of raising to his lips As he lifted his head their eyes met,
and while Claudia remembered the saucy query, “Is it Marc Antony or another,

to-day?” which had intercepted her entrance to the drawing-room, Charles saw
that she remembered it.

“Generosity is a royal prerogative,” said he, in a low voice.

“So your majesty found it when Louis Quatorze filled your exchequer with
French gold,” retorted Cleopatra, in the same voice.

Charles laughed.

“Let us forget all that we should blush for in our former lives,” said he, “and
begin our acquaintance from the present moment.”

“Agreed; and unless we are better than most of the people about us, we
shall, in the next hour, have accumulated a new stock of blushing matter, and
shall have to begin over again,” said the Queen.

“That can hardly be, for Cleopatra of to-day has preserved all the grace
and none of the foibles of her prototype,” said Charles, courteously.

“And the merry monarch of England has certainly freed himself from the
reproach of having

replied Cleopatra.

“Do not force him to believe, also, that he has `never done a wise one' in
seeking the honor of an introduction to your majesty,” suggested Charles, with
a royal audacity which did not injure him in the estimation of the lady he addressed.

“Nous verrons,” said she, laughing.

“May I ask your majesty to present me to the young lady at your side, and
allow me to escort her to the supper-room?” pursued the King, with easy
grace.

“Mademoiselle, allow me to present King Charles the Second, of England,
a monarch whose reputation is his best introduction,” said Claudia, turning to
Francia, who bowed without speaking.

“A breach of faith, royal sister. We had agreed to leave our former reputations
out of the question,” said Charles, meaningly; and Cleopatra, slightly
abashed, made no retort.