A Mad Marriage by May Agnes Fleming (mini ebook reader .TXT) 📕

night, however.”

And thereupon his lordship briefly, and not without humor, sketched the

rencontre at the bal d’opera.

“And the result is to be a duel?” said Boville, still very gravely.

“Dynely, are you aware Di Venturini is the best swordsman, the deadest

shot, in Europe?”

“To be sure, mon ami. All that is a matter of history. Light up, old

fellow; I can recommend these Manillas.”

“And you?” Boville inquired, obeying.

“I? Oh! well, I know next to nothing of fencing, and never fired a

pistol half a dozen times in my life.”

“But—good Heaven! Dynely, you have no chance at all then, if the prince

means mischief! And he mostly does, I can tell you, when he fights.

Don’t you know he has killed three men already?”

Lord Dynely shrugged his shoulders.

“I can’t show the white feather on that account. I’ve got into this

scrape, and I must take the consequences. I’ve referred De Concressault

to you. You’ll act for me, old fellow, I know?”

“I shall be helping to murder you,” Boville answered, with a groan. “Is

there no way, Dynely, by which–-”

“There is no way by which this matter can be settled, except by a

meeting,” Dynely answered, impatiently. Di Venturini came to the ball

for no other purpose than to insult me. He did it, and I knocked him

down twice. You must perceive there can be but one ending to such a

thing as that.”

“Devil take Felicia!” growled his friend. “I wish you had never seen the

sorceress. She is fatal to all men. She reminds one of those fabled

What’s-their-names, mermaids—sirens—Lurline—who lure poor devils with

their smiles and songs, and then eat them up, and crunch their bones.

It’s a deuce of an affair, and I never served a friend so unwillingly

before in my life. By the way, was the prince masked? How did you know

him?”

“He tore off his mask in a fine frenzy after the second knock down. I

never saw him before in my life. And now I come to think of it, he

didn’t see me at all. I kept my mask on through the whole

fracas—never thought of it once. By Jove!” Eric cried, laughing, “the

idea of going out with a man he never saw!”

“It’s no laughing matter, let me tell you,” Boville growled again; “it’s

an infernal business, and I wish you had chosen anyone else to act for

you in the matter. However, if you insist that it is inevitable–-”

“It is most decidedly and emphatically inevitable; so be off and arrange

for to-morrow morning, there’s a good fellow. I’ve an engagement that I

would not be late for for worlds.”

“And pistols or swords–-”

“Are equal to me. Of the two I prefer pistols, as quickest and most

decisive. You understand. I have no doubt the result would be the same

with either weapon, for I think his excellency means mischief, as you

say, only pistols conclude things with dispatch.”

The two men shook hands and separated. Boville, reluctantly, to settle

preliminaries with De Concressault, and Lord Dynely to keep his last

appointment with Madame Felicia down the Seine, to Asni�res.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHEZ MADAME.

Half an hour later Madame Felicia and Lord Dynely had fairly started

upon their excursion—their last, they both knew, and the knowledge gave

the forbidden fruit fresh zest, even to their jaded palates. You must

feel an interest in a handsome and devoted young cavalier, lying in the

sunshine at your feet, who, this time to-morrow, for your sake, may be

lying with a bullet through his heart. As well as Lord Dynely himself,

Felicia knew what would inevitably take place in the light of

to-morrow’s dawn, and, though his youthful and impassioned lordship was

beginning seriously to bore her, she had never before been one-half so

sweet, so witching, as to-day.

Half an hour after their departure, there rattled up to madame’s door a

fiacre, from which alighted M. le Prince. That she would be awaiting his

coming, with more or less of impatience and anxiety, he did not doubt.

He absolutely stood dumb, when the tall chasseur, indorsed by Mam’selle

Pauline, announced madame’s departure, and with whom.

“Gone for the day to Asni�res, and with Lord Dynely!” he repeated,

staring at them blankly. The extent of the defiant audacity absolutely

took his breath away.

“But, yes, M. le Prince,” Pauline answered, with a shrug, “not to return

until barely time to dress for the theatre.”

“And she left no note, no message of any kind for me?”

“None, M. le Prince.”

“How did they seem, Pauline? in good spirits, or–-”

“In the very highest spirits, M. le Prince. She dressed with much more

than usual care, and so, evidently, had milor. I heard her tell him, as

they went away, laughing together, that he was looking handsome as an

archangel and elegant as a secretary of legation, and that she looked

forward to the pleasantest day of her life.”

He set his teeth with a snap, his eyes aflame.

“And he—what said monsieur?”

“That all days must be the pleasantest of his life spent in her

company. Then they drove off side by side.”

The yellow complexion of the prince had turned dirty white, with jealous

rage. If one chance of life had remained to his rival, he lost it in

that moment; if one chance of setting herself right had remained to the

woman who slighted him, she lost it in that hour.

“And, mademoiselle?” he asked, “the little captive—what of her?”

“Is still captive, monseigneur. She is to be removed to-night, after

midnight, safely out of Paris, for the present. Madame holds a little

reception after the play to-night. When it is over, Paujol and Mam’selle

Donny quietly leave Paris?”

“Ah! Madame holds a reception, does she?” the Prince said, grimly. “Very

well, Pauline, I will trouble you no further. I will do myself the honor

of being present at madame’s little reception after the play. Who knows

when she may hold another?”

He laughed inwardly—a laugh that might have warned madame had she heard

it. But, drifting down the sunny Seine to the music of the band of the

National Guard, madame heard nothing except the full-blown flatteries of

her English knight.

It was a charming day—all that there was of the most delightful. With

the abandon of a child, madame threw herself into the pleasure of the

moment, and lived, while she lived, each hour to the utmost. “Eat,

drink, and be merry, for to-morrow you die,” was the key-note of her

life. There was nothing new, and nothing true, but the sun shone with

summer warmth, and the band played sweetest music, the champagne and

truffles were of the best, and her companion was the handsomest man in

Paris. To-morrow the Prince Di Venturini would shoot him or run him

through—it was well; there were other adorers left; but the knowledge

added spice to the wine of life to-day.

“Thou art absent, Eric, mon ami!” she murmured, tenderly. “Of what art

thou thinking, then? Tired already of our f�te day—which I am

enjoying like a child, since I am with thee?”

He awoke with a start.

In very truth, as they wandered here arm in arm, his thoughts,

marvellous to relate, had strayed backward to—his wife! How madame

would have laughed had she known it. Poor little soul—poor little

Crystal! When the end came to-morrow, would not the shot that finished

him kill her also? One creature at least of all the women who had smiled

upon him for his azure eyes, and golden hair, and Greek face, had loved

him. Well, in this world, where there is so much of empty glitter, so

little real gold, even that was something.

The brief, bright February day wore on, grew gray and overcast. Madame

shivered in her wraps, and turned fretful and cold. They hurried back to

the steamer and re-embarked for Paris.

“We will have a storm to-morrow—dost thou not think so, Eric?” madame

asked, wrapping her rose-lined seal-skins closer about her, and looking

up at the gray, fast-drifting sky.

He followed her glance, dreamily. To-morrow! Where, this time to-morrow,

would he be? In this world or the next?—if there be a next—he thought.

“Still dreaming, mon cher?” Felicia said, with an impatient shrug. “I

begin to think you have not enjoyed our excursion after all.”

He answered her, as he knew she expected to be answered, in words of

empty compliment, but still with that absent, dreaming face. His wife

haunted him like a ghost, to-day. Poor little Crystal!

Yes, Dennison was right—he had been a brute to her. Only seven weeks a

bride, and to-morrow a widow! Ah, yes; it was hard on her!

“Shall we see you at my rooms to-night?” Felicia asked again.

“Yes—that is, no, I think not. I have an engagement for to-night that

will prevent my having that pleasure.”

She shrugged her shoulders. They stood together in the chilly twilight

at madame’s door.

“Then this is really good-night?”

“This is really good-night.”

She gave him her hand, in its perfectly fitting gray glove, and looked

at him in silence for a moment. There was a half smile on her lips—so,

without a word, black eyes and blue met, in one long, farewell glance.

“Ma foi! It is a thousand pities to kill anything half so handsome!”

madame was thinking. “Well—he has helped to amuse me for four weeks.

What more can one ask?”

“Does she know?” Eric was musing, “but of course she does. Also, of

course,” rather bitterly this, “she does not care. It is only one more

lover, growing wearisome, and safely out of the way.”

“Good-night, then, mon ami,” madame said, softly, “and au revoir!”

“Good-night, Felicia,” he answered, “until we meet again!”

And then he was gone, a smile on his blonde face, and those two had

looked at each other for the last time on earth.

Four hours later, and the glittering rooms of Madame Felicia were filled

with a very brilliant throng. The best men in Paris, the handsomest and

wittiest women met there. And there, when the reception was at its

highest, the conversation at its gayest, the music and laughter at their

liveliest, came M. le Prince Di Venturini.

Not unexpected. “Who has been here, Pauline?” madame had demanded, when

under the hands of her maid, at the dressing-room of the Varieties; and

the answer had been prompt, “M. le Prince, madame.”

“Ah! and you told him—”

“That you had gone to Asni�res for the day, with milor, madame.”

Madame laughed.

“How truthful you grow, petite. And M. le Prince—what said he?”

“Nothing, madame; but that he would see you later at the reception.”

So madame knew he was coming, and was prepared for all chances. War or

peace—she was equal to either fate, only a trifle curious. Others were

curious, too; that little contretemps at the bal d’opera, quiet as it

had been kept, was known, and people shrewdly suspected that Di

Venturini, noted duelist and fire-eater, would not let the matter drop

there. How would he meet madame?

He made his way slowly through the rooms, and met her with suave and

polished courtesy, told her of his journey, of his health, hoped she had

amused herself well in his absence, lingered half an hour among the

guests, and then, with an elaborate apology for his early departure,

went away.

By one