in London society had so thoroughly Anglicised Conte Cesare Dellatoria, that his conversation had become perfectly insular, and the Italian accent was only noticeable at times.
“You know – the artist whom we visited.”
“Oh, him! I’d forgotten. That his litter?”
“Yes.”
“Humph! I haven’t much faith in English artists. Better have waited till we went to Rome in the winter. Why, Tina, you look lovely this morning. That dress suits you exactly, beloved one.”
He bent down and kissed the softly rounded cheek, with the effect that the lady’s dark brows rose slightly, but enough to make a couple of creases across her forehead. Then, as a dull, cracking noise, as of the giving of some form of stay or stiffening was heard, the gentleman rose upright quickly, and glanced at himself in one of the many mirrors.
“Well, make him do you justice. But no – he cannot.”
“You are amiable this morning,” said the lady contemptuously.
“Always most amiable in your presence, my queen,” he replied.
“Oh, I see! You are going out?”
“Yes, dearest. By the way, don’t wait lunch, and I shall not be back to dinner.”
“Do you dine with Lady Grayson?”
The Conte laughed.
“Delightful!” he cried. “Jealousy. And of her dearest, most confidential friend.”
“No,” said the lady quietly. “I have only one confidential friend.”
“Meaning me. Thank you, dearest.”
“Meaning myself,” said the lady to herself. Then haughtily: “Yes?”
This to one of the servants who brought in a card on a waiter.
“Caller?” exclaimed the Conte. “Here, stop a moment; I’ve an engagement;” and he hurried out through the back drawing-room, while the lady’s eyes closed a little more as she took the card from the silver waiter, and sat up, listening intently, as she said in a low voice —
“Where is Mr Dale?”
“In the library, my lady.”
There was a pause, during which the Contessa turned her head toward the back room, and let her eyes pass over the preparations that had been made for her sitting.
“Move that easel a little forward,” she said.
The man crossed to the back room and altered the position of the tripod and canvas.
“A little more toward the middle of the room.”
At that moment there was the faintly heard sound of a whistle, followed by the rattle of wheels, which stopped in front of the house. A few moments later the rattle of the wheels began again, and there was the faint, dull, heavy sound of the closing front door.
“I think that will do,” said the Contessa carelessly. “Show Mr Dale up.”
The man left the room, and the change was instantaneous. His mistress sprang up eager and animated, stepped to one of the mirrors, gave a quick glance at her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, laid her hand for a moment upon her heaving bosom, and then hurriedly resumed her seat, with her head averted from the door. She took up a book, with which she half screened her face, the hand which held open the leaves trembling slightly from the agitation imparted by her quickened pulses.
The door opened silently, and the servant announced loudly – “Mr Dale,” and withdrew.
The artist took a step or two forward, and then waited for a sign of recognition, which did not come for a few moments, during which there was a quick nervous palpitation going on in the lady’s temples.
Then she rose quickly, letting fall the book, and advanced towards the visitor.
“You are late,” she said, in a low, deep, emotional voice.
“I beg your ladyship’s pardon,” said Dale, looking wonderingly, and with all an artist’s admiration for the beautiful in nature, at the glowing beauty of the woman whose eyes were turned with a soft appealing look in his, while the parted lips curved into a smile which revealed her purely white teeth.
“I forgive you,” she said softly, as she held out her hand – “now that you have come.”
Armstrong Dale’s action was the most natural in the world. He was in London, and it was two years since he left Boston to increase his knowledge of the world of art. He took the hand held out to him, and for the moment was fascinated by the spell of the eyes which looked so strangely deep down into his own. Then he was conscious of the soft white hand clinging tightly to his with a pressure to which it had been a stranger since he left the States.
Chapter Four.
An Unexpected Scene
Armstrong Dale walked up and down his grim-looking, soot-smudged studio, as if he had determined to wear a track on one side similar to that made by a wild beast in his cage.
“I won’t go again,” he said; “it’s a kind of madness. Heavens! how beautiful she is! And that man – that wretched, effete, miserable little piece of conceit, with his insolent criticisms of my work. I felt as if I could strangle him. If it had not been for her appealing looks, I should have had a row with him before now. I will not put up with it. But how she seems to hate him; how she – ”
“Bah! Brute! Idiot! Ass! Conceited fool! Because nature has given you a decent face, can’t a handsome woman look at you without your thinking she admires you – can’t she speak gently, and in her graceful refined way, without your thinking that she is in love with you?”
“It’s all right, Cornel, my darling! I’ve been a fool – a conceited fool; but I’ve got your sweet, innocent little face always before me, the remembrance of your dear arms about my neck, and your kisses – armour, all of them, to guard me against folly. Pish! Fancy and conceit! I will go, finish my painting, get it exhibited if I can, and pile up Philistine gold as spoil to bear home to her who is to be my very own.”
It was the third time of making this declaration, and, full of his self-confidence, Dale made his way for the fourth time to Portland Place, to find his pulses, which had been accelerating their rate, calm down at once, for his reception by the Contessa was perfect, but there was a mingling of annoyance with his satisfaction on finding that his hostess was not alone.
Lady Grayson, one of Valentina’s greatest intimates, was there, a handsome, arch-looking woman, widow of a wealthy old general, who, after a long life of warfare in the East, had commenced another in the West, but this was not even of seven years’ duration before he fell.
Lady Grayson smiled sweetly upon the artist as he entered; and he felt that there was as much meaning in her words as in her looks.
“I forgot this was your sitting day, Tina. Do you know, I thought ladies always had to go to an artist’s studio to be painted. There, I suppose you two want to be alone?”
“Pray, don’t go,” said Valentina calmly. “I do not suppose Mr Dale will mind you
