Ardath by Marie Corelli (best books to read in life .TXT) 📕

Alwyn shrugged his shoulders indifferently. His friend noticed the gesture and laughed.

“Still impervious to beauty, old boy?”—he said gayly—“You always were, I remember!”

Alwyn flushed a little, and rose from his chair.

“Not always,”—he answered steadily,—“There have been times in my life when the beauty of women,—mere physical beauty—has exercised great influence over me. But I have lately learned how a fair face may sometimes mask a foul mind,—and unless I can see the SUBSTANCE of Soul looking through the SEMBLANCE of Body, then I know that the beauty I SEEM to behold is mere Appearance, and not Reality. Hence, unless your beautiful Duchess be like the ‘King’s daughter’ of David’s psalm, ‘all glorious WITHIN’—her APPARENT loveliness will have no charm for me!—Now”—and he smiled, and spoke in a less serious tone.. “if you have no objection, I am off to my room to scribble for an hour or so. Come for me if you want me—you know I don’t in the least mind being disturbed.”

But Villiers detained him a moment, and looked inquisitively at him full in the eyes.

“You’ve got some singular new attraction about you, Alwyn,”—he said, with a strange sense of keen inward excitement as he met his friend’s calm yet flashing glance,—“Something mysterious, . .

something that COMPELS! What is it? … I believe that visit of yours to the Ruins of Babylon had a more important motive than you will admit, . . moreover.. I believe you are in love!”

“IN love!”—Alwyn laughed a little as he repeated the words..

“What a foolish term that is when you come to think of it! For to be IN love suggests the possibility of getting OUT again,—which, if love be true, can never happen. Say that I LOVE!—and you will be nearer the mark! Now don’t look so mystified, and don’t ask me any more questions just now—tonight, when we are sitting together in the library, I’ll tell you the whole story of my Babylonian adventure!”

And with a light parting wave of the hand he left the room, and Villiers heard him humming a tune softly to himself as he ascended the stairs to his own apartments, where, ever since he arrived, he had made it his custom to do two or three hours’ steady writing every morning. For a moment or so after he had gone Villiers stood lost in thought, with knitted brows and meditative eyes, then, rousing himself, he went on to his study, and sitting down at his desk wrote an answer to the Duchess de la Santoisie accepting her invitation.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

REWARDS OF FAME.

An habitual resident in London who is gifted with a keen faculty of hearing and observation, will soon learn to know instinctively the various characteristics of the people who call upon him, by the particular manner in which each one handles his door-bell or knocker. He will recognize the timid from the bold, the modest from the arrogant, the meditative thinker from the bustling man of fashion, the familiar friend from the formal acquaintance. Every individual’s method of announcing his or her arrival to the household is distinctly different,—and Villiers, who studied a little of everything, had not failed to take note of the curiously diversified degrees of single and double rapping by means of which his visitors sought admittance to his abode. In fact, he rather prided himself on being able to guess with almost invariable correctness what special type of man or woman was at his door, provided he could hear the whole diapason of their knock from beginning to end. When he was shut in his “den,” however, the sounds were muffled by distance, and he could form no just judgment,—sometimes, indeed, he did not hear them at all, especially if he happened to be playing his ‘cello at the time. So that this morning he was considerably startled, when, having finished his letter to the Duchess de la Santoisie, a long and persistent rat-tat-tatting echoed noisily through the house, like the smart, quick blows of a carpenter’s hammer—a species of knock that was entirely unfamiliar to him, and that, while so emphatic in character, suggested to his mind neither friend nor foe. He laid down his pen, listened and waited. In a minute or two his servant entered the room.

“If you please, sir, a lady to see Mr. Alwyn. Shall I show her up?”

Villiers rose slowly out of his chair, and stood eyeing his man in blank bewilderment.

“A LADY! … To see Mr. Alwyn!”—he repeated, his thoughts instantly reverting to his friend’s vaguely hinted love-affair,—

“What name?”

“She gives no name, sir. She says it isn’t needed,—Mr. Alwyn will know who she is.”

“Mr. Alwyn will know who she is, will he?” murmured Villiers dubiously.—“What is she like? Young and pretty?”

Over the man-servant’s staid countenance came the glimmer of a demure, respectful smile.

“Oh no, sir,—not young, sir! A person about fifty, I should say.”

This was mystifying. A person about fifty! Who could she be?

Villiers hastily considered,—there must be some mistake, he thought,—at any rate, he would see the unknown intruder himself first, and find out what her business was, before breaking in upon Alwyn’s peaceful studies upstairs.

“Show the lady in here”—he said—“I can’t disturb Mr. Alwyn just now.”

The servant retired, and soon reappeared, ushering in a tall, gaunt, black-robed female, who walked with the stride of a dragoon and the demeanor of a police-inspector, and who, merely nodding briskly in response to Villiers’s amazed bow, selected with one comprehensive glance the most comfortable chair in the room, and seated herself at ease therein. She then put up her veil, displaying a long, narrow face, cold, pale, arrogant eyes, a nose inclined to redness at the tip, and a thin, close-set mouth lined with little sarcastic wrinkles, which came into prominent and unbecoming play as soon as she began to speak, which she did almost immediately.

“I suppose I had better introduce myself to you, Mr. Alwyn”—she said with a condescending and confident air—“Though really we know each other so well by reputation that there seems scarcely any necessity for it! Of course you have heard of ‘Tiger-Lily!’”

Villiers gazed at her helplessly,—he had never felt so uncomfortable in all his life. Here was a strange woman, who had actually taken bodily possession of his apartment as though it were her own,—who had settled herself down in his particular pet Louis Quatorze chair,—who stared at him with the scrutinizing complacency of a professional physiognomist,—and who seemed to think no explanation of her extraordinary conduct was necessary, inasmuch as “of course” he, Villiers, had heard of “TIGER-LILY!”

It was very singular! … almost like madness! … Perhaps she WAS

mad! How could he tell? She had a remarkably high, knobby brow,—a brow with an unpleasantly bald appearance, owing to the uncompromising way in which her hair was brushed well off it—he had seen such brows before in certain “spiritualists” who believed, or pretended to believe, in the suddenly willed dematerialization of matter, and THEY were mad, he knew, or else very foolishly feigning madness!

Endeavoring to compose his bewildered mind, he fixed glass in eye, and regarded her through it with an inquiring solemnity,—he would have spoken, but before he could utter a word, she went on rapidly:

“You are not in the least like the person I imagined you to be!

… However, that doesn’t matter. Literary celebrities are always so different to what we expect!”

“Pardon me, madam,”—began Villiers politely.. “You are making a slight error,—my servant probably did not explain. I am not Mr.

Alwyn, . . my name is Villiers. Mr. Alwyn is my guest,—but he is at present very much occupied,—and unless your business is extremely urgent…”

“Certainly it is urgent”—said the lady decisively.. “otherwise I should not have come. And so you are NOT Mr. Alwyn! Well, I thought you couldn’t be! Now then, will you have the kindness to tell Mr. Alwyn I am here?”

By this time Villiers had recovered his customary self-possession, and he met her commanding glance with a somewhat defiant coolness.

“I am not aware to whom I have the honor of speaking,” he said frigidly. “Perhaps you will oblige me with your name?”

“My name doesn’t in the least matter,” she replied calmly—“though I will tell you afterward if you wish. But you don’t seem to understand I…I am ‘Tiger-Lily’!”

The situation was becoming ludicrous. Villiers felt strongly disposed to laugh.

“I’m afraid I am very ignorant!”—he said, with a humorous sparkle in his blue eyes,—“But really I am quite in the dark as to your meaning. Will you explain?”

The lady’s nose grew deeper of tint, and the look she shot at him had quite a killing vindictiveness. With evident difficulty she forced a smile.

“Oh, you MUST have heard of me!”—she declared, with a ponderous attempt at playfulness—“You read the papers, don’t you?”

“Some of them,” returned Villiers cautiously—“Not all. Not the Sunday ones, for instance.”

“Still, you can’t possibly have helped seeing my descriptions of famous people ‘At Home,’ you know! I write for ever so many journals. I think”—and she became complacently reflective—“I think I may say with perfect truth that I have interviewed everybody who has ever done anything worth noting, from our biggest provision dealer to our latest sensational novelist! And all my articles are signed ‘Tiger-Lily.’ NOW do you remember? Oh, you MUST remember? … I am so VERY well known!”

There was a touch of genuine anxiety in her voice that was almost pathetic, but Villiers made no attempt to soothe her wounded vanity.

“I have no recollection whatever of the name,” he said bluntly—

“But that is easily accounted for, as I never read newspaper descriptions of celebrities. So you are an ‘interviewer’ for the Press?”

“Exactly!” and the lady leaned back more comfortably in the Louis Quatorze fauteuil—“And of course I want to interview Mr. Alwyn. I want…” here drawing out a business looking note-book from her pocket she opened it and glanced at the different headings therein enumerated,—“I want to describe his personal appearance,—to know when he was born, and where he was educated,—whether his father or mother had literary tastes,—whether he had, or has, brothers or sisters, or both,—whether he is married, or likely to be, and how much money he has made by his book.” She paused and gave an upward glance at Villiers, who returned it with a blank and stony stare.

“Then,”—she resumed energetically—“I wish to know what are his methods of work;—WHERE he gets his ideas and HOW he elaborates them,—how many hours he writes at a time, and whether he is an early riser,—also what he usually takes for dinner,—whether he drinks wine or is a total abstainer, and at what hour he retires to rest. All this is so INTENSELY interesting to the public!

Perhaps he might be inclined to give me a few notes of his recent tour in the East, and of course I should be very glad if he will state his opinions on the climate, customs, and governments of the countries through which he has passed. It’s a great pity this is not his own house,—it is a pretty place and a description of it would read well. Let me see!”—and she meditated,—” I think I could manage to insert a few lines about this apartment, . . it would be easy to say ‘the picturesque library in the house of the Honble. Francis Villiers, where Mr. Alwyn received me,’ etc.,—

Yes! that would do very well!—very well indeed! I should like to know whether he has a residence of his own anywhere, and if not,