University of Virginia Library

26. CHAPTER XXVI.

It was evidently with her mind very much upon something
else, that Miss Ashly pursued the conversation, as
she and Paul lingered along by the pedestals of the statues,
or stopped to look at one and another of the “old masters”
that lined the walls. They talked of Florence and its
climate, the looks of the grand duke, Austrian politics in
Italy, the fashions and the pictures.

“Did I understand you,” she said, at last, reverting to
the subject which Paul had skillfully digressed from, “that
this artist friend of yours speaks English?”

“It is his native language,” said Paul, very safely.

“Ah, an Englishman! I might have known that, however,”
she went on presently to add, “for no foreigner
would have read so well the physiognomy of an English
family. I forget whether you mentioned his name?”

Paul was staggered. Here was a direct summons to
surrender his secret! He felt the betraying blood flush
into his temples, but presently made half a confession,

thinking it might be just possible that she would not jump
to the conclusion at once.

“Why, to tell the truth, he is a former acquaintance
of yours,” he said, “but I was not to tell you his name.
He was curious to know whether you would remember
him.”

Miss Ashly's answer poured oil upon the long-hidden
irritation at Paul's heart!

“He is modest—for a man of his genius—certainly,”
she said, with a smile of evident pleasure at the compliment
she had found for herself in the explanation. “He must
bear the mark of his superiority, of course, for observant
eyes, and such men are not easily forgotten. I should feel
very much ashamed to have met the painter of those pictures—even
to have had the pleasure of his acquaintance
(as you say I have)—without recognizing his quality;
besides” (she added, after a moment's pause), “he must
be a very high-bred man, by the air of birth and breeding
which he has given to his subjects, and which can be
alone given by the instinct of the artist's own habits and
manners.”

The contradiction to all this, which had stuck in Paul's
memory like the barb of an arrow—(her own lack of
recognition of that same artist once and complete forgetfulness
of him now)—was not enough to spoil the sweetness
of her words. But he wished to prolong a little, the

window-opening she had given to the closeness of his
heart.

“And do you think,” he asked, “that the quality of the
man is always recognizable, in the ordinary acquaintance
of society?”

“Yes,” she replied, after a moment's turning the
question over in her mind, “I think we usually recognize
superiority—at least, I have always thought I did, myself,
though we by no means pay homage to it always,
or even show that we are conscious of its presence. A
woman's pride, policy, vanity, reserve, diffidence, or any
one of a hundred reasons, may prevent her giving the least
sign of being aware that a man she could admire is near
her—but she treasures none the less the memory of having
met him.”

“A myth of consolation very sweet to believe in,” murmured
Paul.

“And that reminds me of the request I was intending
to make of you, Mr. Fane,” said Miss Ashly, dropping his
arm and taking a seat for a tête-à-tête—“a request which
I will preface with the apology that Colonel Paleford told
me you had more influence than any one else in the matter
it refers to.”

“My friend, the colonel, honors me,” said Paul, “whatever
the matter be—though I wonder”—

He hesitated, for (in his surprise at Colonel Paleford's

frankness in confessing, as well as sagacity in divining that
influence), he was about to betray his anticipation of what
it would be more delicate for Miss Ashly to speak of first.
She proceeded after waiting a moment for the unfinished
sentence.

“I should add, perhaps, that it seemed to be an expression
let slip unguardedly by the colonel, and that he turned
the conversation, unwilling, apparently, to say more upon
the subject. But,” she added, with a smile, after an
instant's hesitation, remembering the discovery I had
already made, of your power of magnetizing—(my Aunt
Winnie's familiar confidence being a very wonderful conquest,
I assure you, Mr. Fane!)—I thought the influence
he ascribed to you very probable. At all events, with the
importance of the object in view, it was worth while to try
to enlist it in our favor.”

“And this object?”—inquired Paul, already anticipating
her answer.

“Is the winning of Miss Sybil Paleford for my brother.”

As Miss Ashly thus briefly expressed her wish, she looked
very scrutinizingly at Paul, evidently with a curiosity as to
whether he had any feeling of his own to which this proposition
might run counter. The tone of his reply, was
very reassuring, to her.

“You will be surprised to hear that I had already a plot
in hand to bring the match about.”

But as he made this mere reference to the portrait of
her brother (which he had been employed upon for four or
five days), Paul became, for the first time, aware of a lurking
reluctance in his hitherto willing task of furthering the
love of Mr. Ashly. The image of Miss Paleford, as he had
seen her that evening in her mourning dress, and with the
exquisite sadness of a mourning heart impressed upon her
beautiful features, strangely took the place at present, of
all his previous impressions of her—displacing, too, unaccountably
to himself, the image of Mary Evenden, which
had hitherto filled all the foreground of his fancy. He
could see no other Sybil Paleford than the beautiful
mourner—no other face, than hers with its tender pensiveness,
even as he looked now at Miss Ashly. There had
been a moment's pause, only, during which these sudden
convictions had crowded upon his mind. It was interrupted
by a laugh from his wondering companion.

“You make me feel,” she said, “like the traveller in the
German story, who could never knock at a door without
the same man's making his appearance on the inside. I
find you before me, somehow in all my supposed secrets.
May I ask what project it is, in my brother's favor, for
which (let me say beforehand), I am already very grateful?”

“I must reserve the disclosure of it, with your permission,”
said Paul—“the principal wheel of the machinery

not being as yet, very certain of completion. But (if I
may venture to ask the question), are we quite sure that it
is to be `a course of true love' which is to be made to
`run smooth' with our aid and contrivance?”

Paul scarce confessed to himself the real motive which
lay hidden under this apparently very considerate question
—the hope, that, in Miss Ashly's fuller explanation of the
probabilities of the match, he might find some excuse to
himself for less zeal in its favor. Her reply gave somewhat
of a new color to her own interest in it, and—(what
with the significancy of the gift of which he now found the
bestowal in his own hands, and the side-inferences as to
his own value by the same standard, in the mind of the
Aunt)—he listened more attentively even than Miss Ashly
was aware of—interrupting her only by monosyllables of
surprise or encouragement.

“As to my brother,” she commenced, “there is no doubt
but what he is very thoroughly in love. It is, I believe,
the first time in his life, and his temperament is phlegmatic
and unimpressible; and so it is likely to go seriously
with him—either for happiness or disappointment. He
has made a full confession of his feeling on the subject, to
me, and I have very naturally, the earnestness of a confidante
in his cause. But, aside from this, and, aside from
the devotion of an affectionate sister to his happiness, there
is a family pride enlisted in the matter—outweighing in

this case (if I can manage to explain its peculiarity to
you), most of the ordinary desirablenesses of a match.”

Paul turned his inquiring eyes more fully towards her as
she paused, for he was not aware that the relative position
of the two families was so much in favor of the Palefords.

“It is not the common family pride, that would seek
honor by alliance with high descent, you will understand,”
she continued. We are vain enough to think our own
blood better than that of most of the titled families around us
—at least sufficiently pure to give distinction to any with
which it chose to mingle. But, with the best blood, there
should be also the best look of personal superiority; and
this (I may say to you Mr. Fane, since you have brought
me to the confessional), is a hobby that amounts to a
monomania in our family. With the other usual considerations
already provided for—wealth enough and blood
pure enough—we wish all who belong to us to look it,
undeniably. The Ashlys and their descendants must, if
possible, be kept recognizable by their exterior—wherever
seen, wearing the superiority which tells its rank unasserted.
We think it due to our race accordingly, while
we represent it, to engraft nothing upon it that is not
perfect in its physique—healthy, beautiful, and of noble
presence.”

“All of which Miss Paleford certainly is,” echoed
Paul.

“Yes, and the match is very agreeable to us in other
respects,” she continued. “The Palefords and Ashlys
have been friends and neighbors for centuries, and we
know all their qualities of character. They are incapable
of pettiness or guile—essentially lofty-natured, frank, brave
and true. Gentler or purer blood beats in no heart on
earth than in Sybil Paleford's!”

As Miss Ashly's cold eye kindled with the glow of
this generous tribute to her friend—her neck lifting
unconsciously from the bend forward that was usually
somewhat ungraceful, and her proudly cut mouth changing
from its habitual disdain to a less curving arch of genial
enthusiasm—Paul took the imprint upon his memory
of what he should reproduce in her portrait. She had
given the mysterious artist a “sitting,” unaware. But
there was more than this, and more than sympathy of
homage to beauty, in the apparently absorbed attention
of the courteous attaché. In spite of a half-conscious
reluctance at his heart, Paul felt that resistless welding
of a new link to the heart which comes with timely
corroboration by another's praise. His freshly received
impression of Sybil's beauty and character—as new that
evening as if he had never before seen her—was graven
in, by this eloquent homage (from one who chanced to
be, for him, the highest authority of her own sex), as
by the point of a diamond. But his zeal of partnership,

in the task of securing her love for another, grew colder
as he listened.

“To one side, then, certainly, I think,” recommenced
Miss Ashly, “the match would bring happiness—to my
brother, and to his home and kindred. We know, also,
that it would be a most welcome alliance to Colonel
Paleford.”

“Great make-weights in the scale!” said Paul, giving
voice with an effort to a conviction which he could not
shut out.

“Are they not? And, against these and my brother's
wooing, which, if not very demonstrative, is, at least,
sincere and undivided, there is only (as I inferred from
what Colonel Paleford said) the obstacle of a romantic
whim—a girlish horror of making a mercenary match,
and consequent distaste to my brother as a man of
fortune!”

“To be overcome, I take it, if at all, by touching the
romance of her nature, in some way,” said Paul, talking
very mechanically, but, at the same time, expressing his
sincere opinion on the point.

“You have already given it thought, I have the
woman's instinct to see,” said Miss Ashly, with a smile.
“And is the project you have in hand (if I may venture
to make the inquiry), based upon this key to our affections?”

“If successful,” he replied, “it will cause Mr. Ashly to
be seen by Miss Paleford with just that difference—a
romantic sentiment in his face instead of its habitual
imperturbability.”

“You are a magician—I am quite prepared to be
convinced!” said Miss Ashly; “and” (she continued,
turning to Paul with a genial relaxation of her proud
features, but in the expression of which his keen eye
saw lurking the something still withheld—the still unsurrendered
reservation of an habitual consciousness of
superiority), “it is with this excuse that I account to
myself for such extraordinary confidence in a stranger.
Bless me, Mr. Fane! how little I have known you,
after all! And to be telling secrets to you in this
way! And asking a favor of you, too, which I really
do not think I could ask of another man living!”

Paul bowed very low, with a mock look of incredulity.

“It is my friend the necromancer, however—not a
Mr. Fane of a week's acquaintance—whom I thus wonderfully
trust,” she added playfully, as she rose from
her seat, “and, if we eventually owe to you this jewel,
so coveted to grace the Ashly name, I shall, at least,
feel a life-long gratitude to your kindness (that is to
say, to your hocus-pocus!)—and I leave it hopefully in
your hands. I suppose,” she asked, as Mrs. Cleverly came

in sight, evidently in search of them, “we can take no
farther counsel as to your project, at present?”

“Not till we meet at your aunt's, with the nameless
artist,” answered Paul, very mystifyingly, and the next
moment, addressing a remark to Mrs. Cleverly, and so
ending the tête-à-tête with Miss Ashly, leaving her, however,
still more puzzled than before by his closing words.

The remainder of the evening passed off very dreamily
to Paul, though he was mechanically and very acceptably
unremitting in his attendance upon Mrs. Cleverly. In
their promenades he came several times in sight of Mary
Evenden; and he was somewhat surprised, with all his
abstraction, to see how her eyes failed to follow him,
after each sisterly glance of recognition; but, with the
princess and her circle of friends, she seemed absorbed
and entirely at her ease; and Paul could not but feel
that his attentions (which he was to show her but for
the peremptory orders to the contrary), were anything
but missed! “Signor Valerio,” to whose side she kept
close, was sufficing for her present happiness, without a
doubt—he saw it in the face he knew so well. But there
was a stronger feeling than jealousy in his heart, which
took the uppermost place again, as, each time, she passed
out of sight; and, with this feeling, at last, Paul found
himself struggling, as the morning broke on his sleepless
eyes after the ball.