First appearing Summer 1998 provided by Robin Panza BACK
Tina , the Little Lacemaker, by Mrs. George Sheldon
This story was published in 1910 by A. L. Burt Publishers. A friend
gave me the book, one he’d found in a box of books he’d bought at an auction.
I thought it would be fun to serialize it for the PLG newsletter, so the
whole group can enjoy it. I’m not going to tell you how it all comes
out – you’ll just have to keep reading the future installments!
Chapter 1. SEEKING EMPLOYMENT
“A lady to see Monsieur La Fort”
Monsieur La Fort, proprietor of a thriving lace manufactory
on Rue St. Honore, Brussels, looked up from his desk of ebony inlaid with
pearl, as the door to his luxurious office swung open, and the boy made the
above announcement, and then stood aside for a young girl to pass in.
Monsieur saw, with a slight start of surprise, the loveliest
face in the world-a face that flushed slightly as he bent his earnest, curious
gaze upon it; and the least haughty uplifting of the small, shapely head,
with its bright, waving brown hair, warned him that though the lady was both
young and unattended, a circumstance which he did not fail to observe, she
did not lack spirit or independence to carry her through an interview with
him, or, indeed, with any one. However imposing his presence or surroundings
might be.
The lace manufacturer’s first expression had been one
of annoyance at the interruption, for he had been busily engaged considering
an important order; but his brow involuntarily relaxed as he met those brown
eyes looking so gravely and calmly into his; as he marked the sweet mouth,
around whose delicate lips, bright as a maple-leaf after its first
frost-kiss, there played the least tremulousness of anxiety; as he
noted the white, graceful throat with its knot of pale pink fastening the
neat collar, and which lent a tinge of color to the round, smooth cheek;
the straight, slender figure in its closely fitting garments of a dark cloth,
and the small, shapely hands, with their neatly fitting gloves, that matched
her dress with characteristic French exactness.
The gallant Frenchman arose with alacrity from his velvet
chair, and came forward with a bow such as only a Frenchman knows ho to make.
“How can I serve mademoiselle?” he asked politely.
“Monsieur has need of help in his lace factory-I seek
employment,” was the response in clear sweet tones, while the tint deepened
upon the maiden’s cheek, as she pointed to an advertisement in the paper
which she carried in her hand.
“Mon Dieu! I was sure she was some aristocrat come to
give an order” monsieur mentally ejaculated, while his suave bearing underwent
a sudden change.
The smile faded from his face, and though the look of
admiration did not die out of his eyes, as they still rested on the girl’s
beautiful countenance, yet the pompous manner with which he received her
application plainly indicated that there was a vast difference in his estimation
between one suing for a favor and one giving an order for his expensive laces.
“Um! Yes, we need help; but we wish only experienced
help. Do you understand lace-making?” monsieur responded, with a doubtful
glance at her daintily gloved hands.
“I have made lace since childhood. Will monsieur
examine some of my work?” and the girl extended her wrist, around which
was gathered a ruffle of soft fine lace of a graceful, delicate pattern.
Monsieur La Fort reached out his white hand and took hers,
ostensibly to examine the pretty trifle, but with a familiarity that brought
the rich blood surging into the fair face before him.
She drew back from him with a haughty gesture.
“Perhaps monsieur can examine this more to his satisfaction,”
she said drawing from one of the pockets of her jacket a bewitching
little handkerchief edged with Valenciennes.
The manufacturer’s white teeth gleamed in a smile that
was a trifle sinister at the act, but he took the dainty fabric and examined
the edge critically.
It was very fine, and a lovely pattern.
“Did you make this?” he asked, in a tone of surprise,
and bending a searching glance upon her.
“Yes, monsieur,” was the brief, somewhat cold response.
“Where were you taught?”
“In my own home, monsieur.”
“Ah, mademoiselle’s mother, perhaps, was a lacemaker,
and you were brought up to it?” remarked the inquisitive manufacturer.
Mademoiselle made no reply, and neither her manner nor
bearing was favorable to further questioning, as she stood awaiting his decision
regarding her work.
Monsieur La Fort flushed at this silent rebuff, but his
tone was a trifle more respectful as he continued:
“Mademoiselle will please give me her name.”
The young girl gravely drew forth her purse –a pretty
and expensive trifle, her observer thought
for one craving employment-and, taking a card from it, placed it in his hand.”
“Cards! Mon Dieu!” the manufacturer again mentally
ejaculated, with arching eyebrows, “our pretty applicant assumes the airs
of les grande dames.”
But he read, written in a delicate, flowing hand, the
name- “Netina Florienz.”
“A pretty name for the pretty maid,” soliloquized monsieur,
as his eyes traveled from that bit of pasteboard to the sweet face before
him, and then back again, while he turned the question, whether to engage
her or not, over in his mind.
Absently he turned the card over, and saw these words
written on the back of it:
“MARIE:--Pray let me come to you. I can now explain
everything satisfactorily.
TINA.”
“Tina! Ah, that is sweeter yet!” he thought, and
again his eyes sought the beautiful face opposite him.
He was startled at the change he saw there.
The young girl had grown suddenly white as a snow-drift,
while her brown eyes were fixed with a frightened look upon the words he
had just been reading.
“Pardon, monsieur,” she said, in trembling tones, as she
reached out her hand and took the card from him. “I was not aware that
anything was written upon the card.”
With one quick glance she took in the simple words, and
heaved a sigh of relief as she saw the apparently insignificant sentence
penciled there.
But Monsieur La Fort had made a note of her emotion; it
told him that she had something to conceal.
“There us a mystery here,” he thought; “this pretty one,
with the manner of a queen, with her lovely face, her pure French and cultivated
language, is not what she would appear. It is a puzzle that I must
solve.
“You are Mademoiselle Florienz, then,” he said, and referring
with a look to her card again.
She bowed assent.
“Your residence?” he questioned.
“At present in Brussels.”
Monsieur La Fort smiled at her reply. It told him
nothing.
“Your lace is very fine, the threads are evenly laid,”
he continued, after a moment’s thought,
and returning her handkerchief, which he noticed, emitted a faint odor of
heliotrope. “We need help, as I have said; but it must be experienced
help. Will you come into the work-room and show me how well you can
handle the bobbins? One of our women is absent, and I will test your
ability at her pillow.”
Mademoiselle Florienz bowed assent, while a little smile of amusement twinkled
in her eyes, and dimpled the corners of her mouth. She was conscious
of her ability to perform, and there was no reluctance in her manner as he
asked her to prove what she could do.
She drew off her gloves preparatory to accompanying the
manufacturer to the work-room, and the quick-sighted individual remarked
that her hands were dainty as a queen's-white and soft, with no mark or stain
of labor on them, while the finger-tips were round and smooth, and pink like
the heart of a sea-shell.
At this moment the door opened again, and in darted a
small, shriveled, queer-looking creature, like a gust of wind from some northern
mountain.
She was old and wrinkled, sunburned and freckled, as if she was accustomed
to being out in all kinds of weather, while she was clad in the plainest
and oldest-fashioned garments imaginable.
She did not see Mademoiselle Florienz at first, but dashed
up to Monsieur La Fort, and said in shrill, rapid tones:
"Well, you told me not to come again for a week, but the
work's done, and I cannot be idle; I must have more," and she unfolded several
meters of coarse lace from a napkin as she spoke.
"Ah madam, you will flood the market, if you work at this
rate," monsieur responded, making a wry face, as he examined her work.
"Who cares, so that the poor fools who like such trumpery
get it, and I have money for making it?" she answered, sharply, while her
keen eyes watched him narrowly, as he measured off the lace meter by meter.
"But you will break me, madam, at this rate. I shall
not have money enough to pay you," laughed her employer, who evidently enjoyed
chaffing her. “But you will break me, madam, at this rate.
I shall not have money enough to pay you,” laughed her employer, who evidently
enjoyed chaffing her.
“Never fear,” she retorted, “there is no danger of ‘breaking’
a man who loves gold as you love it.”
Monsieur colored at this shaft, but retaliated:
“Do you talk to me about loving gold? Why Madame Beza, your own coffers
must be overflowing by this time.”
“How do you know?” she demanded, harshly.
“Why, just think how much you earn, and I have never known
of your spending a whole franc at one time, during all the years that you
have worked for me.”
“Hush!” she said, authoritatively; then glancing round
as if fearful some one might have heard, she discovered Tina who had stood
in the background listening to the above dialogue, with a good deal of surprise
and no small amount of interest.
“Who are you?” Madam Beza demanded sharply, as she ran
her quick glance in an instant from the top of Tina’s pretty brown head to
the toe of her small boot.
“Only a poor girl who is seeking employment, like yourself,
madam,” she replied, respectfully, while her eyes rested kindly upon the
unattractive face confronting her.
Madam Beza's look softened; then she came closer, and peered curiously into
the young girl’s countenance.
Something there seemed to hold her spell-bound for a moment;
then the tears gathered slowly in her eyes and rolled over her wrinkled cheeks.
“A poor girl seeking employment,” she repeated after her,
adding: “Child, you are too pretty to be working for your living.
I’m sorry for you-you look like some one whom I used to know. what’s
your name?”
“Tina Florienz,” the girl answered, simply, and wondering
to see her so moved.
The old woman shook her head, as if disappointed that
there was no familiar sound in the name.
“I never knew any one by that name,” she said sadly, “but
you are the only young person who has spoken so kindly to me this many a
year. If you ever need a friend come to Madam Beza, No. 15 Rue Delphine.”
Monsieur La Fort interrupted her with a loud laugh.
“Madam Beza-the female miser-anybody’s friend,” he said
in derision.
“Why not?” she demanded, turning fiercely upon him, her
features hardening again. “I’ll wager I’ve more friends now than you,
monsieur, with all your boasted wealth; and I’m not always bragging to my
left hand of what my right hand does either.”
“No only when you come to me with all this lace, which,
I begin to think, the witches help you to make,” he answered, good-humoredly.
“Well what if they do, so that your work is done, and
well done? But give me my due, and I’ll be off-I’ve no time to waste
in useless tattle with you.”
“What do I owe you?”
“Just twenty francs, monsieur.”
“So much!” he exclaimed.
“So much!” she repeated, mockingly. “You know as
well as I that no one ever gets a centime too much out of your close pockets,
Monsieur La Fort.”
“There, that is all right,” she added, after she had counted
the money, which he dropped into her bony hand piece by piece. “Now,
I’ll go to Madame Fouchard for more thread and I’ll bring you a dozen meters
more one week from to-day.
She turned to leave the room, and encountered Tina’s gaze
again.
“You do not laugh at the queer old woman,” she said abruptly,
and pausing before her.
”Why should I laugh, madam?” Tina asked, gently.
“I don’t know why, but they all do, there isn’t a girl
in Monsieur la Fort’s shop but makes sport of Barbara Beza. I suppose
they think I am cracked, and don’t mind, but the Lord has put everybody’s
heart in the same place, and my skin isn’t any thicker than any one else’s,
if it isn’t the same color. But old Barbara’s your friend from this
time, pretty one, if you choose to make her such,” and with these words the
strange creature turned and disappeared.
Chapter II. THE FLAW IN THE PATTERN
As soon as the door closed after her, Monsieur La Fort
turned to Tina with a light laugh.
"Madame Beza is the greatest natural curiosity in Brussels,"
he said. "She has lived here for years, and worked for me for the last
ten-no one can make this coarse lace so rapidly or so well as she, with those
skinny, yellow fingers of hers. But no one knows any more about her
than they did the first day she made her appearance here. She comes
when one least expects her, and disappears as suddenly, and is always short,
sharp, and crusty. She lives by herself, and no one has ever been inside
her house to my knowledge, and she has worn the same garments ever since
I knew her."
"She must be very lonely to be so friendless," Tina said
in a tone of pity.
"Friends! She does not need or want them-she is sufficient
unto herself," monsieur said, shortly, adding: "Come, we will go to the work-room
now."
They passed out of the office into the hall, by which
Tina had entered
Turning to the right, Monsieur la Fort led her the length
of it, passing on their way an open court, in the midst of which a fountain
was playing, and which was surrounded, outside the marble pavement that inclosed
it, with palms, ferns, and beautiful blowers in full bloom, while here and
there were rustic chairs and tiny tables.
Tina turned eagerly at the sound of the cool waters splashing
musically as they fell into the marble basin, and her eyes lingered longingly
on the pretty place, while a sigh escaped her lips, as if the sight reminded
her of something sad and painful.
Passing on, her companion opened another door, and conducted
her into a room in which there were at least fifty girls and women
at work. Monsieur La Fort led her to an unoccupied table.
Upon it there was a cushion, to which was attached a piece
of parchment, with the pattern of the lace to a wrought traced upon
it. Pins were stuck through this into the cushion and around these,
following the lines of the pattern,, the filmy threads, wound upon their
numerous bobbins, were carried.
"this is quite an intricate pattern, mademoiselle; do
you think you can do anything so difficult?" monsieur asked, pointing to
the cushion from which about a meter of lovely lace was hanging.
Tina bent forward to examine it more carefully.
"Yes, monsieur," she answered, quietly.
"will you let me see you weave a little?" he asked courteously.
Something about the fair girl seemed to compel him to
address her differently from what he was in the habit of speaking to most
of those in his employ.
Tina sat down before the work, a bright flush on her cheek,
as she realized that every eye in the room was fixed upon her with eager
curiosity.
She gathered some of the bobbins up in her white fingers,
and began plying them dexterously back and forth, her every movement full
of grace, while monsieur stood by watching her, a look of admiration and
deep interest in his eyes.
Suddenly she stopped in her work, bent lower over the
cushion, then reaching over she took up the end of the lace that was finished,
and examined it carefully.
"Is the pattern to intricate for you?" asked monsieur.
"No, monsieur; but there is a defect in it," she answered.
"A defect! How so?" he demanded, with a scowl.
Letting the lace slip through her fingers, she touched
here and there places where the threads had not been crossed as they should
have been around the pins.
"Monsieur will observe," Tina said, pointing at the pattern,
"that here there was a mistake in putting in the pins, and it has made a
break all along in the lace. It is not very much, but a critical observer
would discover the flaw at once."
"that is so," the manufacturer replied, sternly and then beckoned authoritatively
to a woman at the opposite side of the room, and who seemed to have the general
supervision of the lace-makers.
She responded at once to his gesture, all smiles and suavity.
"How is this, Madame Fouchard? There is a defect
in this patter," Monsieur La Fort said, in an angry tone.
"No; monsieur is mistaken; there is no defect; the pattern
is all right," madam returned, soothingly, but with assurance.
"I tell you there is a defect," her employer returned,
excitedly, "and you are very careless not to have discovered it. Here
is more that a meter of fine lace spoiled. The pattern is for Monsieur
Jacques, one of my best customers. Who set up this pattern?"
"Monsieur knows that I set up all the difficult patterns,
and that I make no mistakes," asserted Madame Fouchard, confidently, but
with an injured air, while her eyes rested somewhat anxiously upon the piece
of lace under discussion.
"Well you have made one this time, at all events.
See! Here, and there, all along the piece, and that fool of a girl
did not know any better than to goon making it, while you have overlooked
it. What will we do with it? It is ruined," and monsieur was
very much excited, while madam's face was also blank with dismay.
"Pardon, but will monsieur tell me how many meters are
ordered of this pattern?” Tina here interposed.
“How many meters, madam?” thundered the enraged manufacturer.
“Six, monsieur,” she answered, sullenly.
It did not please her to have this storm break over her
head in the presence of a stranger, and of one to whom she began to suspect
she was indebted for it.
“Then the defect can be remedied with very little trouble
and expense,” Tina said, flushing beneath the woman’s lowering glance.
“How?” monsieur asked, eagerly.
“See, the work is only wrong in this chain of forget-me-nots just in the
center of each of the deep scallops. Let a bit of needle-point be inserted
there-a tiny knot, as if it were intended; or a couple of inverted leaves-wait,
I will show you what I mean," Tina said, her bright face all alive
with interest, and drawing at the same time a card and pencil from her pocket.
With a few strokes she drew the chain of forget-me-nots,
inserting the tiny knot of which she had spoken at the point where the mistake
had been made, and then passed the card to the amazed lace manufacturer.
Who was this delicate, refined girl, who spoke such pure
French, who wrote such a fair, beautiful hand, and who could design patterns
for lace-making at a moment'' notice, like this?
She became more of a mystery to him every moment.
"Yes, it can be done," he said, slowly, after carefully
examining the design.
"Monsieur will observe it makes the pattern more unique-it
breaks the sameness of the chain-it will be richer, and doubtless more acceptable
to Monsieur Jacques. It will cost but a trifle, and-and monsieur-really the
mistake will prove, after all, a good thing."
Tina said this eagerly, and turned at the same time with
a kind smile to the forewoman, who was still writhing beneath her master's
censure.
She pitied her, and hoped thus to turn the blame from
her.
But Madame Fouchard only scowled angrily upon her in return.
She was beginning to be jealous of her, and to fear for her own laurels.
"Can you design a knot that will be in proportion to the
pattern, and not look as if it were a patch?" asked the manufacturer, somewhat
doubtfully.
If she could do it, his beautiful expensive lace would
be saved, and made even more elegant than before.
"I will try, monsieur," Tina answered, with a quiet smile
dimpling her pretty cheeks.
She bent her eyes searchingly for a moment upon the lace;
then, with her pencil, drew a tiny, graceful knot, and passed it to him.
His face lighted as he saw it.
He turned and gave it to Madame Fouchard, saying authoritatively:
"Count the blunders in this piece of work, make an estimate
of how many more there would be if it had been finished as it was begun;
take this design to Jeannette, and order her to make the desired number in
needle-point, and then see that they are all carefully inserted before the
lace goes to Monsieur Jacques."
Madame bowed assent to his terse commands, and turned
abruptly away with a very red face to execute them.
"Are you used to this kind of work?" Monsieur La Fort
asked, turning, with a smooth brow and a pleasant smile, to Tina.
"Designing? Oh, yes, I have made many patterns."
"Have you them with you?"
"No, monsieur."
"who taught you?"
Tina shrugged her graceful shoulders t this query.
"Ah, monsieur, it is but pastime to me! I see a
charming thing in nature, and it has to creep out on paper at my fingers.
I love the flowers, the vines, the trees, the birds-everything beautiful,
and I must copy them.
The eager light in her eyes, the flush on her cheeks,
and the enthusiasm of her manner, told the great lace manufacturer that she
was a heaven-born artist, and that she would be invaluable to him in
his business.
His resolve was taken-he would secure her service.
He had designers to whom he was obliged to pay a ;high price, because he
would have his own private pattern.
This girl was poor, doubtless, or she would not be seeking employment.
She would not, of course expect the wages of a professional designer, and
he would save a small fortune out of her, if she proved what he hoped.
" Will you bring me some of your designs and allow me
to examine them?" he asked.
Tina flushed, and cast down her eyes.
"It would be inconvenient; they are not in Brussels.
I did not bring them," she began with some confusion.
The, lifting her head proudly, she added, with a quiet
self-possession:
"But, monsieur, I will make you a design in half an hour;
something just to show you what I can do."
"I will try you. Come," he answered , and he led
her from the room, while both were oblivious of the sinister glances which
followed them from Madame Fouchard's snapping eyes.
"I will go in here, if monsieur pleases," Tina said, as
they were about passing the open court before referred to, and which she
had noticed with such wistful glances.
"Here are flowers, ferns, and grasses-yonder is a butterfly
hovering over a lily, and soon I will give you something both pretty and
unique," she added, entering the court and glancing round with a smile of
pleasure.
"Mademoiselle shall do as she pleases," Monsieur La Fort
said, watching her with a beating heart.
She was so pretty, so bright and graceful and withal so
simple and unassuming in manner, that he was fast losing both head and heart.
"Sit here," he said, drawing a light chair to a small
table in the most attractive corner of the room, "and I will bring you parchment,
pen and ink from the office."
Tina glided to the seat offered her, sat down and took
off her hat, revealing to better advantage her small, finely shaped head,
with its wealth of waving brown hair, and the marvelously white forehead
above her shining eyes and straight, dark brows.
"The sweetest picture I've seen in all my life," thought
the manufacturer, as his glance lingered upon her sitting there among the
vines and flowers. "I'll engage her at any rate, first for the sake
of the charm of her presence s," and then he went for the parchment.
Monsieur La Fort was forty, and the gray threads among
his dark locks could not be easily numbered. He had never been in love
with anybody or anything in all his life, save himself and his well-filled
pocketbook; but his case was becoming critical now-very!
Chapter III MAGNETIC GLANCES
The lace manufacturer on re-entering his office found
customers awaiting him, a circumstance which for the first time during his
whole business career nettled him, and caused him to give expression to an
exclamation of impatience.
He, however, called his office boy, by whom he dispatched the necessary materials
to Tina for her designing, and then turned his attention to the strangers-two
gentlemen, who having heard of his rare laces, had come to examine and purchase
some of them.
He led them into the salesroom, which adjoined the office,
where, inviting them to be seated by the velvet-covered table, he began to
spread his treasures before them.
Only one of the gentlemen, however, appeared desirous
of purchasing.
The other, after passing an indifferent glance over the
filmy nothings, arose and strolled listlessly about the room.
The salesroom of Monsieur La Fort was a large apartment
running the whole width of the house. It was very handsomely furnished
and well lighted by four windows, two overlooking the street, and two opposite,
opening into the court, where our fair designer, Tina, was sitting at her
work.
While Henri Beauhamais turned over Monsieur La Fort's
rich laces, trying in vain to decide upon something to buy, his friend was
making a tour of the room. He passed an glanced out of the windows
looking upon the street, but saw nothing there to attract his attention.
The Rue St. Honore was a very quiet street, through which there was comparatively
little passing, except when aristocratic people came to purchase monsieur's
costly fabrics.
He slowly turned away, paced the length of the room, parted the lace curtains
from one of the opposite windows, and looked out, expecting to see nothing
there; but he stopped as if suddenly spell-bound, and stood within the shadow
of the draperies apparently oblivious of all that was transpiring about him.
This was the picture that held him there, and which he never forgot during
all the years of his life: An open court, surrounded on every side with choice
vines and tropical plants, interspersed with many brilliant-hued blossoms,
while a fountain of marble and crystal threw a glittering jet of water high
into the air. Among the vines and ferns in one corner there sat a slender,
graceful figure, bending low over a table, upon which lay a piece of parchment,
while her white hand glided over it with a n ease and grace which to say
the least was simply fascinating to the young man looking upon the scene.
The face of the maiden was the fairest he had ever seen, while the bright,
eager eyes, the flushed cheek, and the parted crimson lips, plainly bespoke
the absorbing interest she felt in her work.
"Ernest, come here, and help me select a shawl for Olive,"
suddenly called out Henri Beauhamais, with an impatient glance at the motionless
figure by the window.
The young man started guiltily and flushed.
"Nonsense, Henri," he returned, after a moment.
"I know nothing about laces, and your offerings to your fair sister will
surely be scorned, if you depend upon my judgment in selecting them."
"Then come here and take lessons from my experience, that
you may know how to buy for yourself when you have that duty to perform,"
replied his friend, who was determined to secure his attention, if possible.
"I do not imagine that my duties in that direction will
ever be very onerous," indifferently responded he who had been addressed
as Ernest, and without removing from his post.
At his instant Tina lifted her bright head perching it
daintily upon one side, like some graceful bird, and taking up the parchment
upon which she had been so busily engaged, held it off at a little distance
to mark the effect of the delicate tracery thereon.
A smile of pleasure broke over her face; her red lips
parted, just disclosing the tips of her white teeth, while her eyes were
filled with delight over her achievement.
"By Jove! What a face! Delicate and beautiful as that
of the Venus de Medici; and a hand fit for the model of Michael Angelo, were
he living. There isn't a beauty in the royal court of Belgium, nor
of England, either, that can compare with her," muttered the young man at
the window to himself, as he watched this pretty pantomime.
There must have been some magnetism in his glance, for,
without the slightest change in her attitude, or warning, Tina's eyes were
slowly raised until they rested full upon that handsome face looking out
upon her.
He had never seen just such eyes before.
They were large and full , and when raised like this had
an earnest, searching gravity in them that thrilled him until he fairly trembled.
Man of the world though he was, and accustomed to mingle
with the most celebrated beauties of his own country and of foreign lands
he had never been so moved by any one before.
What "silver link"-what "silken tie"-held them thus eye
to eye, spell-bound, fascinated, as it were, until each lost all sense of
time or place-of everything but the presence of the other?
The young girl was the first to recover herself.
The rich blood began to mantle her face; a troubled, startled
look leaped into her eyes, and suddenly warned the young stranger of his
rudeness, unconscious though it had been.
He bowed gravely and deferentially; then, dropping the
curtains over the window, he reluctantly turned away and went back to his
companion's side.
"What has interested you so deeply outside, Ernest?" Henry
Beauharnais asked, as he folded a costly fichu of point and laid it upon
the top of a pile of other laces.
"Interested ? did I appear interested" was the evasive
query.
"Interested or stupid; I never saw such a muff as you
are about this finery," was the impatient rejoinder.
"Thank you," the young man said, absently.
His companion laughed.
"Old fellow, what has come over you? I know you
did not want to accompany me, but the time will come when you will wish you
had given better attention while I bought these," Henri said, pointing to
his pile of costly nothings.
"yes," he continued, with a mischievous twinkle in his
eyes, "the day will come when a certain fair lady whom I know will be asking
you to purchase these same articles for her."
"I think I shall allow the 'certain fair lady.' Whoever
she ,may be, to make her own purchase in that line."
"Whoever she may be?" repeated his friend, mockingly,
and with a light laugh, "judging from the events of the past fortnight, I
imagine it would not be very difficult to point her out. I fear the
beautiful Lady Viola Alford would not feel complimented by the forced indifference
that you have manifested today."
Ernest Holborn-who, by the way, was a young English Lord-laughed
lightly, although he colored a trifle at the imputation of his friend, while
his eyes involuntarily wandered again to the window at which he had been
standing a few moments before.
Through the lace curtains he could trace the outline of
the graceful figure still sitting there, but now bending low over her work,
and he wondered if he should ever in the future meet the fair girl, and how.
The purchases of Henri Beauharnais were at last completed,
and having received his change from the bland and smiling Monsieur La Fort,
who did not often find a readier customer, the two young men took their departure.
As they were passing through monsieur's office Ernest
Holborn, impelled by some impulse for which he could not account, stooped
and picked up a card from the carpet, reading as he did so, the name of "Netina
Florienz," written upon it in a delicate hand.
Monsieur La Fort, observing the act remarked with a smile,
as he held out his hand for the card:
"Ah, the card of a new applicant for employment! I must
have dropped it."
"Indeed!" his lordship said, appearing not to see the
extended hand, and examining the card more closely. "Is not the writing
remarkably delicate for one who is obliged to toil for a living?"
"Perhaps," the lace manufacturer returned; "but this is
an exceptional case. Mademoiselle has the touch of a fairy in her fingers,
and if monsieur will return at no distant day it will five me pleasure to
show him some of her designs," concluded the voluble Frenchman with an eye
to business.
"Ah!" Lord Holborn said to himself, "doubtless that was
the pretty designer whom I saw in the court.
"Thanks! He remarked aloud, experiencing a deep ad sudden
interest in the art of lace-making. "Your laces are very elegant, monsieur.
I will recommend them to my mother and sister, who, doubtless, will give
you an early call, as they will be in the city in a few days. Perhaps
you will allow me to visit your factory and see how your laces are made?"
"With pleasure," smiled the delighted Frenchman, as he
bowed the young men out; yet his eyes lingered wistfully upon the card which
Lord Holborn still retained. But he would not risk giving offense to
a future customer by asking for it, the key to a mystery which he might some
day wish to unravel.
Chapter IV “THAT SECRET SHALL BE MINE.”
Tina’s wonderful skill in designing as well as lace-making so won the admiration
of Monsieur La Fort that he was anxious to secure her services.
He told her that he would give her five francs a day; but she refused this
offer, saying that her work was certainly worth double that sum. After
much parleying, La Fort reluctantly engaged her at ten francs a day.
It was decided that she was to live at a pension, a boarding-house
connected with the factory.
When these arrangements had been concluded in Monsieur
La Fort’s office, he told her of an important order he had received for some
wedding finery, explained what would be required, and asked if she thought
she could design something that would do him honor and meet the requirements
of his customer.
“I will try, monsieur,” Tina said simply. “I will
make you a design in miniature, and if you should approve, I can easily enlarge
upon it.”
“That is good, mademoiselle-you shall go to work at once:
here, you shall sit by this window in my own private office, where no one
shall interrupt pr disturb you,” and the eager proprietor wheeled a chair
to a large table by a window, while his eyes glanced admiringly over the
girl’s supple figure, and lingered upon her fair face. It would be
pleasant for him to see her there.
Mademoiselle Florienz caught the look, and her lithe figure
straightened, her small head assumed a haughty poise, and the glance she
bestowed upon him in return seemed to make him suddenly dwindle into insignificance-figuratively
speaking-before her.
“Will monsieur tell me for whom the designs are to be
made?” Tina asked as he brought pens, ink and paper to her, adding: ”Knowing
something of the person might suggest ideas to me.”
“Certainly-mademoiselle can know. The wedding veil
and flounce are for her royal highness, the Princess Marie Charlotte,” monsieur
replied.
“The princess-Marie Charlotte?” repeated Tina mechanically,
every particle of color receding from her cheeks at the name, while she caught
hold of the table as if for support.
“Yes, the young princess, who is to marry Maximilian,
the Arch-duke of Austria,” Monsieur La Fort replied, with his keen eyes fixed
upon the white face before him, while he noted the painful quiver of her
lips, the tears that leaped involuntarily to her beautiful eyes, and the
violent trembling-amounting almost to a shudder-that shook her slight frame,
and which she was struggling hard to overcome.
“Is Mademoiselle Florienze ill?” The lace manufacturer
asked, in a tone of concern.
“No, I am not ill,” Tina answered, briefly, and turning
away from his searching gaze with something like a gesture of impatience.
“Aha! la belle is not what she would appear-la petite
stranger has some secret which she is striving to guard well,” thought the
manufacture; “but that secret shall be mine also ere many weeks have passed.
Those white perfect hands, that aristocratic face and proud bearing do not
belong to the life she is leading and it shall go hard with me if I do not
fathom the mystery. Meantime I must make the most of my opportunity.
“Will mademoiselle be comfortable here? Will the
light be sufficient?” he asked kindly, as he raised the curtain higher.
“Thanks, Monsieur, yes I shall do very well,” she answered,
as she removed her jacket and hat, and laid them one side.
With that painful quiver and a grieved expression still
hovering about her lips, she sat down by the table, took up her pen, and
drew the parchment before her. But when a few moments later, monsieur
left the room, and all necessity for restraint was removed, she bowed her
bright head upon the table with a sob of pain.
It was only for a moment, however; she seemed to realize
that it would not do to lose her self-possession and she sat suddenly upright
and struggled for composure
But something had evidently moved her deeply, for her
chest heaved, and her heart beat with great, heavy throbs, that made the
color come and go in her face with startling rapidity.
She took up her pen, dipped it in the ink, and held it
suspended above the parchment, but her hand trembled so that she knew it
would be useless for her to attempt to begin her work until she was calmer.
Laying it aside again, she pushed back her chair, arose,
and walked rapidly up and down the room.
The door leading to the salesroom was open, and as she
passed it, she involuntarily glanced within.
There was no one there, for monsieur himself usually waited
upon his customers; but something attracted Tina’s eye as she paused in her
walk-something bright and glittering, that lay just inside the lace curtains
of one of the windows which overlooked the court, where she had sat while
making the design for monsieur.
She stepped within and picked it up, feeling assured that
it was some bauble belonging to him who had so recently been standing there
and watching her so intently become detached from a gentleman’s watch-chain.
It was a beautiful onyx set in finely wrought gold, and
surrounded with small diamonds, while in the center was a monogram composed
of the initials E.H. Turning it over, the young girl say a coat-of-arms,
representing a dove bearing an olive branch in its beak, with a laurel wreath
above.
A bright blush dyed Tina’s fair face, and something like
a thrill pervaded her as she remembered that handsome face looking out upon
her, with that earnest admiring glance in the eyes which had held her spell-bound
only a little while before.
“It must belong to him; what shall I do with it?” she
murmured to herself, while the glittering thing lying in her hand seemed
almost like a link between her and the attractive stranger.
But she heard monsieur coming through the hall, and she
stole softly back to her chair, the costly jewel clasped tightly in her hand,
feeling half-guilty of some wrong, yet with an unaccountable aversion to
mentioning her discovery to the lace manufacturer.
Monsieur entered, saw the bright head bowed intently over
the parchment, sat down to his desk without disturbing her, and after waiting
half an hour in silence called his office boy, and, giving him several letters,
said:
“Take these to the post, then go to the Hotel de Europe,
and get a list of the recent arrivals.”
The boy took the letters, bowed, and withdrew.
Half an hour later he returned and gave a folded paper
to his master.
Monsieur unfolded it, and ran his eyes quickly over the
names written there.
“This must be the name that I want,” he said aloud; “it
is the only English one among them. It sounds well, too-Ernest, Viscount
of Holborn, Herefordshire, England. Now for a catalogue to his lordship
to remind him to bring his lady mother and sister.”
Monsieur folded and addressed one of his handsomely illustrated
catalogues, and dispatched it forthwith to the above address.
Chapter V. A SURPRISE
“Ernest Holborn, an English lord!” quoth the listening,
brown-eyed Tina to herself, while a quiet little smile of satisfaction played
around her red lips. “That is the address that I want, too, I imagine;
but it will be best to make sure.
“What did monsieur observe?” she asked, glancing over
her shoulder, as if she thought he was speaking to her.
“Nothing, mademoiselle; I was but repeating the name of
a gentleman who was here an hour ago, and who is to come again soon,’ replied
the unsuspicious manufacturer.
Tina nodded her bright head reflectively.
“He is English, I am sure; there can be no mistake.
Besides, the initials are the same.”
A short time after, when she was alone again, she drew
from her pocket a small box, from which she took two beautiful rings, which
she carefully put into her purse. In their place she laid the costly
seal which she had found, and wrapping it in a sheet of letter paper that
she took from monsieur’s desk, she wrote upon it in her delicate hand, Lord
Holborn’s name and address.
When the day began to fade, and she could no longer see
to work upon her design, she stole out, and seeking the nearest express office,
dispatched her little package to its destination, breathing a hearty wish
that it might reach its owner in safety; while as she let it go an unaccountable
feeling of sadness crept over her and she wondered if she would ever see
him or look into those magnetic eyes again.
Then she went back to make her first appearance at the table among the other
occupants of Monsieur La Fort’s pension.
The morning following the incidents just related, while Earnest, Lord Holborn,
was sitting over his breakfast with his friend, Count Henri Beauhamais, a
servant came to him, bringing a tiny package upon a salver.
“What may this dainty thing be?” his lordship said, as
he took it, a look half-surprise, half-curiosity upon his face.
Then, as he instantly recognized that delicate tracery
upon the wrapper, as identical with that upon the card that he had picked
up in Monsieur La Fort’s office the day before, the blood tingled to his
very finger-tips, and leaped to the roots of his dark hair.
He tore it open, wondering what it could contain, and lo!-There lay his seal-a
highly prised gift from his mother. He had only that morning discovered
his loss. He held it out to his friend with a smile of pleasure.
“I never thought to see it again,” he said.
“Who has found it? Who has returned it?” questioned
the count.
“There is no message, no name-nothing to tell me who the
finder was,” Ernest Holborn replied, examining the wrapper with rising color;
and yet in his own mind he was convinced that he was indebted to no other
than the lovely girl in whom he had been so deeply interested the day before.
“Doubtless, it dropped from my chain while we were at
the lace manufactory yesterday’” he added, ”and some one has expressed it
to me from there.”
“But it is addressed in a lady’s hand, and such a pretty
hand, too, upon my word,” returned his friend reaching out and taking the
paper from him.
“It was doubtless directed by monsieur’s orders, by some
one in his employ,” said the young lord.
“But how would any one know that you were the loser?”
persisted Count Beauhamais, with a puzzled look.
“My initials and coat-of-arms are engraven on the seal,”
responded Lord Holborn, who was also puzzled by the same question.
“But I did not introduce you, how should they know you,
or where to send it?”
“We will not trouble ourselves as to the ’how’ of the
matter so long as I have the seal once more,” Ernest replied, with more indifference
than he really felt, while he refastened the trinket in its place upon his
chain. But for several days the incident was not absent from his mind,
while he, too. strove to solve the mystery of its having been sent to its
proper destination.
Meanwhile, Tina was busily engaged upon her designs for
the royal finery, and they grew and blossomed into such beauty that the lace
manufacturer could scarcely contain his delight and exultation.
He decided that Tina should direct and control the operatives
in the working of her own designs. This plan virtually displaced Madame
Fouchard, as far as Tina’s designs were concerned, and of course, the older
employee was highly indignant. She remonstrated with Monsieur La Fort,
and threatened to give up her position. This threat, however, proved
of no force whatever; therefore Madame Fouchard reconsidered her determination,
and concluded to remain. She solaced herself by vowing vengeance against
the unsuspecting Tina.
Chapter VI. THE JEALOUS PRINCESS
In a luxurious room of one of the imperial palaces of
Belgium, there sat, one day, a few weeks before the opening of our story,
two maidens, engaged in an excited and bitter controversy.
Both were apparently of the same age, although there was
really three years difference in the date of their birth- one being sixteen,
the other nineteen.
One was a bright, beautiful girl, whose every movement
was full of grace and vivacity; although at this time her face was overcast
with sadness and anxiety, while her eyes were suffused with tears.
Her companion, on the other hand, was rather plain, and
just now, with the expression of anger and jealousy upon her face, she was
absolutely repulsive.
“I tell you,” she cried, to the fair girl opposite her
“you are just as treacherous as you can be. He never would have bestowed
upon you this munificent gift if you had not worked upon his feelings, and
artfully wound and insinuated yourself into his favor. Perhaps you
are trying to supersede me in his regard-perhaps you even aspire to become
his grace’s bride-you!” and the scornful laugh which accompanied this bitter
sentence brought the bright color in a sudden wave to the fair face of her
listener.
“Marie, how can you wrong me so?” the elder girl returned,
gently, yet with dignity; “you well know that his grace feels only a friendly
interest in me upon your account, and, perhaps, for the slight favor which
it befell me to render him. Indeed, I had given you the credit of having
confided to him my orphanage and state of dependence, and had even suggested
the nature of the gift.”
“Not I, for I have long seen through your arts; you have
seized every opportunity to put yourself in his way, and have practiced your
airs and graces upon him, as you do upon every one, until, if this thing
goes on, he will soon give me-his betrothed-the cold shoulder. Are
you not ashamed of yourself-you, who, but for the generosity of others would
be an outcast and a beggar?” passionately retorted the enraged girl.
“I am a gentlewoman, your ladyship, and with some of the
proudest blood of the land in my veins, as you very well know,” quietly returned
the maiden who had been so abused.
“Ha, ha! Granted on your mother’s side; but what of your
father, my would-be lady?” retorted the Princess Marie Charlotte, for the
angry, bitter words which we have recorded proceeded from no other than she;
and it was in her boudoir-a charming room, all furnished in blue and silver,
in King Leopold’s summer palace-that this conversation occurred.
“It is true,” she resumed, after pausing to take breath,
for she was extremely excited, “that you are the child of my mother the queen’s,
cousin-her most intimate and dearly beloved friend; but who, to her sorrow,
disgraced herself, while residing in Florence, by eloping with an unknown
artist. You have been told all the incidents of that disgraceful escapade,
but I do not wish you to forget either them or yourself. Where is your
gratitude for the past, that you should turn against me and try to steal
my lover from me?-where is your sense of honor that you wrong me thus?”
The elder girl-who was known at the court of Belgium as the Lady Althea Demaire-a
distant relative and protegee of the queen-arose at those last bitter words,
and gliding to the side of the princess, knelt upon an ottoman there.
Laying one white hand gently upon her shoulder, she said,
pleadingly:
“Marie, you and I have loved each other too fondly during
the years that we have lived together, to quarrel and be at enmity during
this, the last one that we shall probably ever spend in each other’s society.
What has come over you?-you are not wont to be so unjust, so unkind!
Never before have you taunted me with the unhappy mystery surrounding my
birth. But you are excited, and I will not mind it, dear; only I pray
you let nothing come between us now. I declare to you that I have had
no thought of wrong in my heart toward you-that I have never dreamed of striving
to usurp your place in the favor of his grace, the Arch-duke of Austria.
How could you imagine such a thing?”
“I have not imagined it,” interrupted the princess sullenly.
“Hear me out, dear , please,” returned the Lady Althea
gently, “I have rejoiced with you over your promising future, and that your
hand had been solicited of the king by one so noble and worthy as the duke,
and I have prayed-I do pray daily-for your happiness. Dearest Marie,
believe me, and let us be at peace.”
“At Peace!” was the bitter reply; “you are trying to cheat
me even now, with your soft glances and your smoothly spoken words;” and
the young princess shrugged that white hand rudely from her shoulder.
“I know you are false to me,” she resumed, but avoiding
those sweet, reproachful eyes; “yes, to me but for whom, since my royal mother’s
death, you would have been homeless and alone in the world and now your treachery-“
“Marie, I swear-“
“You need not swear; for I have the evidence of my own
eyes. I saw you engaged in earnest, private conversation with his grace,
the duke, at the entrance to the witches’ grotto last night.”
The Lady Althea colored, and a slight start betrayed the
surprise that this information caused her.
“Yes, we did stop for a moment before the grotto last
night, but only for a moment; we had been to see the illumination of the
palm-house with some of the royal guests, as you know, and on our way back
we lingered to look at the fountain-“
“To look at the fountain!” interrupted the princess with
a scornful laugh.
“Yes, it was very pretty with the colored lights from
the palm-house shining on it,” Lady Althea replied, quietly, although the
deepening flush upon her cheek betrayed that she was not wholly at her ease.
“Do you suppose that I believe this absurd story, Althea
Demaire? I was in the witches’ grotto when you paused before it with
your noble escort last night,” said the young princess, bending toward her
companion, her eye s ablaze with anger.
“You, Marie,” cried the girl at her side, with a startled
look; “ but you sent me word, when I dispatched a servant to ask you to accompany
us, that you were unable to go out into the evening air.”
“That is very true; but my recovery was very rapid when
I saw you leave the palace accompanied by my lover-why does he always seek
you when I am out of sight? I stole out- I followed you, and hid in
the witches’ grotto until your return. I heard his grace speak to you
of his gift, asking you to accept it as a slight token of his appreciation
of the great service you had rendered him and for the favor which you were
yet to grant him. I heard him, too, charge you that it should remain
a secret from me. Have I not the right to believe you false, treacherous,
double-tongued, when you will meet my lover in secret, and connive against
me? What is this secret between you two? I demand it of you now,
and unless you are the cheat and coquette that I believe you, you will tell
me what it means.”
“Marie, this is very unfortunate-I am sorry that you should
be so annoyed and disturbed when there is no occasion,” the Lady Althea said,
regretfully. “His grace did confide a harmless little secret to me,
and I would gladly relieve your mind regarding it, but I have pledged my
word to him, and I do not feel at liberty to tell you what he requested me
not to reveal.”
“Then I denounce you as a traitress,” began the exasperated
princess, who was fast losing all control over herself.
She was naturally kind-hearted and generous, and she had
always dearly loved this beautiful girl, whom she now so unjustly abused.
But she possessed a passionate and jealous temperament, which had not been
improved by unlimited indulgence, and this had now been aroused beyond all
reason, by the belief that the lovely Lady Althea was winning the regard
of her royal lover away from her.
“Don’t, Marie,” the maiden interrupted, in a deeply pained
tone; “believe me, dear, there is no wrong intended you-you will know all
in time. I entreat, let nothing disturb our friendship.”
“Then tell me-I command you,” was the imperious reply.
“And break my word!” Althea Demarie said, a grave surprise
in her uplifted eyes.
The princess colored.
Truthfulness and honor were virtues that had been strenuously
impressed upon every member of King Leopold’s household.
“What right have you to share a secret with my betrothed?”
she demanded, and evading her companion’s glance.
“None, if it was a secret in which there was even a shadow
of wrong,” the maiden returned, adding: “And since this is likely to prove
so disastrous to our mutual peace, I will go at once to the duke and ask
him to release me from my promise; then I will come and tell you all, Marie.”
She half arose from the ottoman, where she had been kneeling,
as she spoke, as if to put her word into execution. But the princess
seized her rudely by the arm.
“Never!” she cried, fiercely; “do you suppose I wish him
to think that I am jealous of you? It is a very little thing that I
ask of you, and if there is no harm in what you know, there can be none in
your telling it to clear yourself from my suspicions.”
“I cannot tell you, Marie, without first consulting the
duke,” the lovely girl said, firmly but sadly, though she winces with pain
from the rude grasp upon her arm.
“Then leave my presence and never enter it again,” she
commanded haughtily. “I forbid you ever to address me again until you
will tell me.”
“It cannot be that your royal highness really means the
words that you utter?” Lady Althea returned, growing very pale, and speaking
with a sharp pain in her voice.
“There is but one alternative-you can choose.”
“I cannot compromise my truth and my honor.”
“Then I withdraw my favor and friendship from you, from
this time forth,” the princess answered, coldly, adding, as she pointed toward
the door:
“Go! My trust, my confidence in you has departed.”
“Marie, you are unjust,” pleaded Lady Althea, with quivering
lips and heaving bosom, as she arose from the ottoman.
“And you are untrue,” was the cruel retort.
“I am not untrue,” the fair girl said, proudly, drawing
herself to her full height, her eyes meeting those of the princess unfalteringly,
while a vivid scarlet sprang into her cheeks. “I am not untrue; I have
never wronged you by so much as a single thought, and some day you will realize
it and repent of your injustice to me.”
She turned as she spoke, and walked proudly across the
room.
As her white hand swept aside the portiere, she turned
again, with a beseeching glance in her dark eyes.
“Do you relent?” demanded the young princess, who was
closely watching her movement.
“I cannot, Marie.”
“Then do not forget that you are under sentence of banishment.
Do not look at me, do not speak to me, do not come to me, until you will
tell me what I wish to know."
The Lady Althea bowed and moved on, the draperies fell
softly between her and the angry princess, the door opened and closed, and
then her royal highness, finding herself alone, threw herself back in her
chair and gave vent to her feelings in a passionate burst of tears.
Chapter VII. TRIFLES
After leaving the room of the young princess, the Lady
Althea stood thoughtfully outside for a few moments. Then lifting her
head with an air of resolution, she swept onward through the lofty corridor,
down the grand staircase, and through the grand hall below, to the great
library of the palace.
It was a magnificent room, its vaulted ceiling frescoed
in richest designs and colors, and furnished in olive brown and gold; while
its ebony book-cases reaching from floor to arching roof, and inlaid with
mother-of-pearl and gold, were filled with elegantly bound books of every
description.
Here, in a luxurious chair, deeply engrossed by a popular
review, sat a fine-looking young man of apparently twenty-five years.
Lady Althea’s sad face lighted a trifle as she saw him,
and she crossed the room with rapid steps, going directly to his side.
The young duke-for it was he-looked up at her approach
with a smile of pleasure.
He arose and bowed, as she stopped, a few paces from him,
and then, as he saw by her troubled face that something had grieved her,
he respectfully waited for her to speak.
“My lord duke,” she began with averted eyes and scarlet
cheeks, “I have come to ask you to release me from the agreement which I
made with you last evening. I find that circumstances will not admit
my keeping it.”
“Ah, you cannot accompany me to assist in the selection
of suitable jewels as a gift to my royal betrothed!” the young duke said,
with a smile, yet wondering at her embarrassment, and what circumstances
had combined to prevent her from keeping the engagement that she had made.
Lady Althea bowed.
“So be it, then, fair lady,” he said, lightly, as if to
reassure her. “I shall be obliged to grant your request if such
be your desire; but I shall deeply regret not being able to avail myself
of your faultless taste and judgement in the matter. Do not be disturbed,”
he added, half-laughing, as he feared she was over-sensitive at being obliged
to refuse what he had asked, “I absolve you from all your vows.”
“Thanks, your grace!” she said looking up now, and giving
him a bright look, as if her mind was greatly relieved, :and allow me to
suggest that the Marchioness of Earlescliff has exquisite taste and rare
judgement in the selection of jewels.”
“Your suggestions shall not go unheeded, my lady; the
services of the marchioness shall be secured if possible,” he answered, while
he searched her lovely face, for he had discovered the little quiver about
her lips; he had noted the slight sparkling eyes. “Will you be seated?”
he asked, pointing to the chair from which he had just risen.
“Thanks, no,” she answered, with the constraint still
in her tones. “I have some writing to do, if your grace will excuse
me.”
She made him a graceful obeisance and then retired from
the room.
The young duke’s face clouded as she disappeared.
“The beautiful Lady Althea is in trouble, I fear; if she
would but confide in me, I should delight to do her service. I can
never repay her for the gift of my life, which but for her would have been
destroyed, and I cut off from the earth at the very beginning of my career.”
The event to which he referred, and which had so aroused
his gratitude and esteem for the fair Lady Althea Demaire, was this:
A small party from the royal household had been, one day,
to visit some noted ruins a few miles from the palace.
They were on horseback, and when about to return
they were overtaken by a heavy shower, and they sought refuge in a small
hostelry of a village near by.
Night came on, and the storm raged unabated.
The duke, who was among the party, and who was suffering
from a violent headache, brought on by the electricity in the atmosphere,
proposed that they should send a servant back to the palace to relieve all
fears on their account , and remain where they were until morning.
The proposition was favorably received, and the party,
feeling somewhat forlorn in the cheerless place, retired early to court sleep
and escape the noise and din of the elements.
All save Lady Althea, who, always exhilarated by a thunder-storm,
remained below alone in the small parlor of the inn, where, extinguishing
the candles, she sat down by a window to watch the lightening.
A couple of hours later, as she was proceeding to her
room, she was startled by the smell and sight of smoke issuing from that
occupied by his grace, the duke.
Half of the door was composed of glass, across which a
curtain of some crimson stuff had been hung.
This was in flames!
Without a thought, save that the life of the duke was
in danger, she dashed her hands against the glass, broke it into atoms, and
tearing the curtain from its place, drew it forth and trampled out the flames
with her feet.
The noise of the breaking glass aroused the household
and the royal guests, who hastened from their rooms to discover the cause
of the disturbance.
The tableau which met their astonished gaze was, to say
the least, striking, and one not easily to be forgotten.
The beautiful girl stood in the midst of the hall, her face and lips as colorless
as marble, a frightened but determined expression in her eyes, her hands
cut and bleeding from their violent contact with the broken glass, but all
unheeded in their eagerness to trample to death the fire-fiend that had threatened
all their lives.
The curtain had probably been ignited by the candle of
a careless servant, who half-dazed by the unexpected presence of royalty,
had attended the duke to his chamber.
No further damage was done, but his grace’s room was filled
with smoke, and he declared that but for the Lady Althea and her presence
of mind he should have probably been smothered to death, for he had taken
a powerful anodyne to quiet his nerves and aching head, and in a little while
it would have been too late to save him.
“You have saved my life, Lady Althea,” he had said taking
her bleeding hands and wrapping then in his fine handkerchief, while his
voice trembled with suppressed feelings. “Every drop of this blood
shed for me will be a burden on my heart while I live. I cannot be
too grateful to you.”
And the Lady Althea looked up into his eyes, her own shining
like two stars from excitement, and though her nerves were strained to their
utmost tension, she gave a clear, sweet laugh, full of graceful joy.
“It is nothing,” she said, merely glancing at her hands;
“they will soon heal and they have performed a deed for which I shall never
need to blush.”
“I should say not,” returned the duke, feelingly, and
bending to touch them with his lips.
And thus having learned something of the history of the
beautiful girl-that she was an orphan and a dependent, although she had been
reared in the household of the king, and almost upon an equal footing with
the young princess-he had felt privileged to make out a deed to her and ask
her acceptance of a lovely little villa upon the banks of the Rhine, together
with a handsome annuity that would render her independent during the remainder
of her life.
After leaving the presence of the duke, the Lady Althea
slowly reascended the stairs, passing through the upper hall with bent head
and thoughtful mein until she reached her own apartments.
Entering, she walked to the center-table, picked up a
card which was lying there, and drawing a jeweled pencil from her pocket,
hastily wrote something upon it. She then rang her bell.
“Take this to her royal highness, the princess,” she said
to the servant who appeared in answer to her summons as she handed him a
small golden salver with the card upon it.
The man bowed low and retired.
He returned ere five minutes had elapsed, and replacing
the slaver upon the table, the card undisturbed upon it, he said: “Her royal
highness is engaged, and can admit no one at present.”
“Did she not read the message?” Lady Althea asked pointing
to the card.
“No, my lady; she simply glanced at it and remarked that
her mind-her commands were unchanged.”
Lady Althea’s beautiful lips quivered slightly at this
reply, but she motioned to the servant to retire, and when she was once more
alone she bowed her bright head upon the table and gave way unrestrained
to her grief.
Half an hour passed, and there was no sound but the low
sobbing and long-drawn sighs in that lofty and elegant room.
At length the maiden grew more composed, and rising, went
to a window, pushed aside the rich draperies, and looked out.
The daylight was beginning to fade and it would soon be
dark.
A sad, wistful look came into those dark eyes gazing out
upon the varied landscape-upon the beautiful surrounding of the palace,
the lofty and picturesque hills beyond, and the broad river, that she could
discern among the heavy foliage, and which under the soft gray of the sky
seemed like a sheet of silver.
“There remains nothing else for me to do,” she murmured,
with a sobbing sigh, then turning quickly away from the fair scene without,
as if the sight was too much for her, she passed into a room beyond, where
she hastily exchanged her silken robes and filmy laces for darker and simpler
clothing.
That evening a company assembled in the grand salon of
the palace, but the beautiful Lady Althea-she who had always been the life
of the household-was not among them, and many inquiries as to the cause of
her absence.
“She is indisposed,” briefly explained the Princess Marie,
when questioned upon the subject, while she cast a suspicious, resentful
glance at the duke, her betrothed, who was standing a short distance from
her, beside on the magnificent Sevres vases that were placed on either side
of the archway leading into an antechamber.
He noted the glance, marked the cold, hard tomes of her
voice, and remembering his recent interview with Lady althea, her sadness
and embarrassment, and her strange request, he instantly drew his own conclusions
regarding the matter.
The princess had doubtless observed that he had sought
her out several times of late, and realizing the vast difference in their
personal appearance, feared that his regard might be won from her, and becoming
jealous, had perhaps unjustly censured the lovely girl for what she was in
no way to blame.
Later in the evening he approached the princess as she
sat by the marble fire-place, which at this season was always a mass of flowers
artistically arranged.
“Will your royal highness promenade with me in the great
hall for a while?” he asked, bowing respectfully before her, and speaking
with his most winning smile.
She instantly arose and placed her hand upon his arm,
and the royal couple passed quietly from the room.
“I trust the Lady althea is not seriously indisposed,”
the arch-duke remarked, after they had taken one or two turns through the
hall, and conversed upon indifferent topics, while as he spoke he bent a
searching glance upon his companion’s face.
The princess’ brow darkened, and her lip curled instantly.
“Not so seriously but that she will survive, I imagine,”
she answered, ungraciously.
“I tryst that her ladyship has done nothing to incur your
royal highness’ displeasure,” the duke pursued, quietly.
“My displeasure! In what way?” the princess said, in assumed
surprise.
“In no way, I hope,” he answered, with his frank smile,
that disarmed her again immediately.
Then he added: “By the way, perhaps I should have mentioned
to your highness that I have solicited the assistance and advice of the Lady
Althea in a delicate little matter, about which I am very particular.”
As he concluded, his eyes dropped critically to the hand
that rested upon his arm, as if he were taking the dimensions of its small
fingers.
The young princess started.
In an instant she comprehended everything.
It was her own betrothal gift that he referred to, and
which he had asked Althea to help him select, knowing her faultless taste
and judgement, and also that she would best understand what would please
her.
This was the innocent little secret that she had tried
ruthlessly to wrest from her, and which every feeling of her sensitive nature
revolted against betraying, until the duke should have the pleasure of putting
into her own hands his gift.
How cruel and unjust she had been to her!
How coarsely and heartlessly she had taunted her with
her misfortune, her dependence, and her poverty, and driven on by her excitable
temper and jealousy, of seeking to win the regard of her noble lover away
from her.
She was covered with shame and confusion, and tortured
with remorse for what she had done and said.
She dearly loved her beautiful relative-they had , as
the Lady Althea said, grown up together in confidence and affections, and
although there was something of a mystery overshadowing the fair girl’s birth,
yet never before had any one ever breathed of the fact in a way to wound
her.
Althea’s mother had been a gay, wild, though beautiful
and accomplished girl. She was the daughter of an impoverished nobleman,
and had been educated with and by the generosity of the princess Louise,
her cousin, and who was afterward Queen of Belgium. Thus they also
grew up together, a deep affection ripening with the years they spent in
each other’s society.
Afterward the family of Lady Helen, Althea’s mother, removed
to Florence, where she became acquainted with a handsome and promising artist.
He was to all appearances poor and without position in the world, and the
young girl’s parents forbade all intimacy between them.
The result was what might have been expected. Opposition
only increased their interest in each other, until it ended in an elopement,
the lovers fleeing to Naples.
Here they lived happily for a year, when the little Althea
was born.
Three months later the young artist, Arthur Demarie, received
a letter which threw him into a fever of excitement although he did not confide
to his young wife the nature of his trouble. “It was business,” he
said, “which would call him away for a while,” and with professions of tenderest
love for his dear ones, and promises to return very soon, he left them, and
they never saw him again.
Months passed, and the young apparently deserted wife
was wild with agony. She could not write, for her husband had not said
where he was going, except that his business called him to England, and she
knew not where to direct a letter to him.
Her money began to give out, her health failed beneath
the load of her grief, and heart-broken, world-weary, she took her babe and
returned to her parents.
Arriving at her home she found that her mother was dead,
and her proud father, hard-hearted, and unforgiving refused to receive her
back again.
In despair, and not knowing what else to do, she turned
to the friend of her childhood, the Princess Louise, now Queen of Belgium.
Her appeal was not in vain. The queen loved her
tenderly even yet, and though grieved at her misfortunes and the apparent
blight resting upon her life, she graciously befriended her relieved her
necessities.
Th Lady Helen, however, could not rally; her strength
was gone, her heart broken.
On her dying bed she told the queen all her sad history,
solemnly declaring that she believed herself to be a lawfully-wedded wife,
although she had nothing by which to prove it, save the ring which Arthur
Demarie had placed on her hand day they were married.
The ring of course, proved nothing, but it was all she
had, unless a little trinket, which Arthur had given her before their marriage,
would help to identify him as the father of her child, if at any time in
the future the queen to interest herself in the matter.
This the queen promised to do, and also that the unfortunate
little Althea should become, for her mother’s sake her especial charge.
She faithfully kept this promise while she lived, taking
the child into her own household and rearing her among her own children;
and thus she became the companion of the young princess, and although there
was three years’ difference in their ages, yet they were almost inseparable,
and the affection which they manifested for each other was often the subject
of remark by those who witnessed it.
Nothing had been heard from the man who called himself
Arthur Demarie during all these years, and the few who knew the secret of
Lady Althea’s birth became convinced that her mother had been the victim
of a bad man’s duplicity.
Before the queen died she had confided her history to
the young girl; had given into her keeping her mother’s ring and the strange
little trinket before mentioned; and then the subject had never been referred
to again, until the young princess, in her jealousy and anger, had so unkindly
twitted her about it.
The trinket which the Lady Helen had given to the queen
looked like a portion of a cross.
It was of Roman gold, very heavy, and with something which
appeared to be a serpent twined about it.
She had found it one day while looking over a box of broken
jewelry and ornaments that she had discovered in the young artist’s studio,
where he had taken her to show her a picture that he was painting.
“What is this?” she asked, examining it closely.
Arthur Demarie’s brow darkened as he saw it.
“It is part of an ornament,” he said, “that once belonged
to my grandfather. It was an heirloom, he told me. He gave it
to me when I was a boy, and told me to keep it always as a talisman against
evil.”
“Why do you throw it aside in this box of rubbish, then?
Why do you not wear it? Here is a ring by which it can be suspended,” Lady
Helen said, deeply interested in it.
“I am not superstitious; I have no faith in such things,
although I would not care to lose it,” he answered, indifferently.
“The queer thing possesses a strange charm for me,” the
young girl had said, regarding it thoughtfully.
“Does it? Then you shall wear it, if you wish.
I will test its efficacy upon you,” the artist returned, as he took a slender
chain from a drawer in his desk, and passing it through the ring of which
she had spoken, clasped it around her neck.
He laughed to see her pleased with such a “trifle,” as
he termed it.
“Trifle!” she said archly, a little reproach in her tone;
“you forget what Young says,”
“What does he say?” the artist asked, looking fondly into
her face.
“ ‘Think naught a trifle, though it small appears;
Lands the mountain, moments make the year,
And trifles, life.’ ”
“Do you imagine that this ‘trifle’ can ever influence
in any way your life?” Arthur Demarie asked, regarding her curiously.
“Perhaps-who knows?” she answered, lightly, adding ”Whether
it does or not, I shall keep it.”
Chapter VIII. THE SUDDEN FLIGHT
As soon as the princess comprehended the injury that she had done her fair
kinswoman she was conscience-smitten. As soon as it was practicable,
she excused herself to the duke, and with tears of sorrow in her eyes she
sped up to Lady Althea’s room to confess her fault and make her peace with
her.
But Althea was not to be seen. In none of her apartments
was she visible. Upon a desk in her boudoir the princess saw a package
addressed to herself.
With trembling hands, she tore it open.
A legal-looking document fell out, and a small slip of
paper fluttered to the floor.
She picked it up and read:
DEAR MARIE:- I am going away-if I am forbidden to come
into your presence, or to speak to you- if I am denied your favor and your
confidence, I cannot abide in the same house with you. Do not think
that I go in anger; it is only in sorrow that you should be so unjustly suspicious
of me; that you have ceased to love me. Besides- although, through
unvarying kindness which I have always received from you, I had almost
ceased to remember the fact until today- if, as you say, there is a blight
upon my birth and reputation, it is not fitting that I should remain longer
as the companion of the daughter of the king of Belgium.
May God bless you, my darling, and make you happy in the
brilliant future awaiting you. I have received the king’s permission
to go away on a visit, and you can explain my absence in this way to save
all unpleasant remark. Please return the inclosed document to
his grace the duke, with my most grateful thanks for his kindness.
With the knowledge of your displeasure ever before me, the appropriations
of this gift would afford me only pain. Let him bestow it upon one
more worthy.
“As ever fondly yours,
A.N.F.D.”
The princess sat down and wept bitterly after reading
this sad yet uncomplaining epistle.
There was no bitterness, no resentment in it, and she
realized how cruel and unjust she had been to drive her to this extremity
with reproaches and stinging taunts.
When comparative calmness had succeeded her first passion
of tears, she sought an interview with the king, and from him had learned
that lady Althea had requested and obtained permission to visit some friends
at Antwerp. The princess tearfully made a full confession of her base
accusation, and begged that a telegram be sent to her at Antwerp, beseeching
her to return.
The hours slowly passed, and then a telegram was received
at the palace, stating that Lady Althea had not arrived in Antwerp.
This news confirmed two days afterward by letters from the same city.
/to his grace, the duke, the Princess charlotte also fully
explained her reprehensible conduct, with expressions of the deepest contrition.
With tear-dimmed eyes she returned to him the gift received by Lady Althea
from the duke.
Her noble lover, sympathizing with her distress, freely
forgave her all, and really entertained a deeper respect and esteem for her
on account of her frankness.
Affairs of state called him soon after to his own country,
whence he was not to return until the time appointed for the royal wedding-a
full year hence.
The day before his departure he sought a private interview
with the princess.
“This is what I have had in mind during the last week
or two,” he said, as he slipped a magnificent ring upon the betrothal finger.
“And,” he added, as he fastened a beautiful bracelet upon her arm, “if your
royal highness is ever tempted to doubt again, let this remind you that Maximillian
cannot change.”
The bracelet was exquisite in both design and workmanship-the
former representing a cluster of violets, composed entirely of jewels, and
set in the richest possible manner.
The princess understood his meaning the moment her glance
fell upon those modest flowers that always bespeak fidelity and truth, and
the tears rushed into her eyes.
“Your grace is very kind,” she answered tremulously.
“the violet shall henceforth be a sacred flower to me.”
Nothing was heard from the Lady Althea, although constant
but secret inquiry was being made, while only those of the king’s household
knew anything of the mystery shrouding hr movements. Those of her friends
who frequented the palace, although somewhat surprised at her sudden departure,
accepted the explanation which they received concerning it, and believer
her to among friends in Antwerp.
Chapter IX. LADY HOLBORN’S RUDENE [sic]
Lord Holborn and his friend, Count Beauharnis, remained
in Brussels nearly three weeks after their visit to the lace factory of Monsieur
La Fort, which had been described in a previous chapter.
A few days after those events they were joined by the
mother and sister of Lord Holborn, of whom he had spoken to monsieur.
The Lady Adelaide Holborn was a dame after the most approved
English pattern-very honorable, very haughty, and very hard-hearted except
where the immediate interest of her own family were concerned.
Her daughter, named after herself, but called Addie, was
just the reverse in character-sunny and sweet tempered, lovable, and gracious
toward every one, high and low alike. Indeed she was very much like
her brother in temperament, and whom she admired and lobed above any one
else in the world. They had been traveling upon the Continent all summer,
and had now come “to do” Brussels.
The party had not separated at all, until upon visiting
the Rhine, Lady Holborn and her daughter had been persuaded to extend their
visit a little, while Lord Holborn went forward to engage their rooms and
be ready to receive them in Brussels.
This was how he happened to be alone in that city with
his friend, who by the way was an ardent admirer of the sunny-haired, sweet-tempered
Addie, although as yet the young people had come to no verbal understanding
regarding their sentiments toward each other.
The young count, Henri Beauharnais, belonged to an ancient
and illustrious French family.
He was a chum of Lord Holborn, having been at Oxford with
him, and during the interchange of visits had made the acquaintance of his
lordship’s lovely sister, who it was evident reciprocated the admiration
which he evinced for her.
When he had been told of their intention to spend the
summer traveling, he had begged the privilege of acting as their escort,
and of showing them the lions in his own country, and then of accompanying
them upon their more extended tour through Germany, the Alps of Switzerland,
Belgium, and Holland.
Thus it is that we now find them in Brussels, the beautiful
and attractive capital of Belgium, and the province of Brabant.
Here they found much of interest; among other things the
Hotel De Ville, that vast and magnificent structure whose graceful Gothic
tower rises to the enormous height of three hundred and sixty-four feet,
and which is surmounted by a vane of gilded copper seventeen feet high, and
represents the figure of St. Michael.
They visited the palace of fine arts and that of the Duke
D’Aremberg, the famous galleries of painting and sculpture, including that
weird collection of the so-called “mad –painter,” Wiertz, the church of St.
Gudule, so noted for its wonderful oak-carving, and many other objects of
interest.
Last but not least, in the estimation of one of the party,
they turned their attention to the art of lace-making.
“The manufactory of Monsieur La Fort is considered the
best in the city, and we will go there first. He is said to make the
finest needle-point in the world,” Lord Holborn had tried to say in a careless
tone, when in reality he had been consumed with impatience to make this visit,
that he might have the opportunity to feast his eyes once more upon the pretty
little lace-maker or designer, in whom he felt an unaccountable and absorbing
interest, and whose pretty name still lay snugly tucked away, in the left
pocket of his vest, and which he regarded as a precious souvenir.
Lady Holborn carefully looked over the illustrated catalogue
which monsieur had sent her son, thought it promised well, and so to Monsieur
La Fort’s they went little thinking what great events would hinge upon that
visit.
But laces appeared to be in great demand that day, for there were an unusual
number of customers in his salesroom when they arrived, and the polite Frenchman
was thrown into a state of excitement by the appearance of so many, particularly
as the only girl whom he had ever allowed to assist him in that department
was absent that day.
He rushed into the room where Tina was engaged upon her
designs, his face flushed with nervousness, and cried:
“Mademoiselle must come and assist me-the room is full
of people. Mademoiselle Julie is not here, and the ladies and gentlemen
will tire and go away if there is no one to attend to them.”
“But monsieur, I know not the prices.” Tina answered,
instinctively shrinking from the service.
“The price is marked on everything, mademoiselle will
have no difficulty. Come,” he returned.
The young girl flushed, and glanced anxiously toward the
room from which there came the hum of many voices, then rising reluctantly,
she followed her perplexed and nervous employer.
He led her directly to Lady Holborn and her party.
“Pardon, messieurs, mesdames,” he said, with his inimitable
bow, “there are many to buy today. I am engaged at present; Mademoiselle
Florienz will attend to the ladies’ wants.”
With another polite bow, monsieur went back to his other
customers, leaving Tina to the tender mercies of madame and her party
One glance into Ernest Holborn’s fine eyes had caused
her white lids to droop, and the color to deepen in her round smooth cheeks.
Then she turned to Lady Holborn, asking what she could
show her.
Her ladyship cast a supercilious glance at the girl’s
fresh, charming face; then without replying, coolly put up her eye-glass,
after the approved (?) English fashion, and began to inspect her as if she
was some natural curiosity.
With the utmost coolness and impudence, she surveyed her
from the top of her pretty head to the tip of the tiny boot peeping from
beneath her simple dress; while Tina stood modestly awaiting her orders,
with down cast eyes, one white hand, with its rosy-tipped fingers, resting
lightly upon the table by which she was standing.
“What a lovely girl! What a pretty hand!” Addie
Holborn whispered to her brother.
He simply nodded assent, while a look of annoyance passed
over his handsome face at his mother’s act.
After a moment of awkward silence, and somewhat surprised
at receiving no answer to her query,
Tina looked up again to find herself being stared out of countenance by this
self-sufficient specimen of English aristocracy.
A bright flush of indignation shot to her very brow, then
receded, leaving her with a trifle less color than before. But with
her clear eyes fixed full upon her ladyship’s, she settled her dainty shoulders,
the merest trifle in the world, and the proud little head was elevated an
atom as she said, in the purest of French accents:
“It was needle-point, I believe that madam asked to see”
“Ahem!” was Lady Holborn’s reply to this, her glass still
in its obnoxious position, astride her nose, and her hard eyes still staring
at the young girl.
But if she expected to see the object of her persistent
observation cringe before her, she was disappointed, for Tina, without changing
her position, stood regarding her with all the serenity imaginable, politely
awaiting madam’s own time to reply, until the color began to rise in Lady
Holborn’s face also.
“Mother, what will you look at first? The young
lady is waiting,” Lord Ernest said, with an accent of impatience in his tone.
He had never fully realized, until this moment, how extremely
uncivil the English custom of inspecting everybody through an eye-glass could
be made.
“The young lady is waiting!” she repeated, turning toward
him with an expression of displeasure, and glad of anything for an excuse
to turn from that calm, self-possessed look, which would not waver beneath
hers, while the marked emphasis of those two words betrayed the sudden spite
that had taken possession of her, and which some natures always feel at beholding
such wondrous loveliness in persons whom they consider their inferiors, socially.
“Yes, mademoiselle is waiting to show you whatever you
wish to see,” he returned, the displeasure deepening upon his face.
“Mamma, let her show you a shawl first, then something
pretty and fancy for party wear for me,” Addie interposed, with ready tact.
The, advancing to Tina’s side, she continued sweetly:
“You have nice shawls, haven’t you, and those new, pretty
fichus that are being worn?”
“Yes, mademoiselle-I will show you,” and Tina turned with
alacrity to get the desired articles.
More than an hour was spent in deciding what they would
purchase; then Lady Holborn, apparently well satisfied with her bargains,
drew her costly camel’s-hair shawl about her shoulders, and arose to go.
She had been extremely rude and overbearing to Tina during
the transaction of her business, but the fair girl had maintained her lady-like
and unruffled manner throughout the interview, and her politeness and grace
were all the more noticeable from madame’s ill-breeding.
Lord Holborn was in a fever of indignation on account
of it. The girl’s beauty, grace, and refinement won upon him more and
more, and he was deeply ashamed that his mother should be so ungracious.
Once, when Tina was trying to replace a box upon a high
shelf, it slipped from her hands, and would have fallen to the floor had
he not sprung forward and saved it, taking it gently from her and putting
it in its place.
His companions had not noticed the act, being intently
engaged in discussing the merits of the laces they were intending to buy.
“Thanks, monsieur!” Tina said, in a low tone, and giving
him a grateful glance.
“Thank you Mademoiselle Florienz, for your kindness somewhat
over a week ago,” he replied, significantly, and touching the seal that hung
from his watch-chain, and which her quick eyes had recognized the moment
he had entered the room.
She colored vividly at his words, her heart thrilling
strangely at his low, confident tone, while she wondered how he could have
known that she had been the one to return his lost treasure to him.
He saw the perplexity in her face, and smiled; but his
mother claimed his attention just then, and there was no time to explain
anything, even if he had wished to do so.
Chapter X. VANQUISHED
Lady Holborn had selected a lace shawl at Monsieur La
Fort’s that was not quite completed’ there were a few overlaid leaves of
heavy needle-point to be yet attached to it, and it was accordingly left
behind to be finished.
“We leave Thursday morning, and I shall expect you to
send it without fail by tomorrow evening,” she had said, while settling with
monsieur for her purchases.
The errand-boys had left the establishment at the usual
quitting hour the next evening, and the proprietor was in a dilemma for a
messenger to convey Lady Holborn’s shawl to her. Tina volunteered her
services; she needed a walk, she said and would be glad of the opportunity.
She donned her jacket and hat., took the box containing the precious shawl,
and sped forth upon her errand, rejoiced to find herself at liberty for a
little while.
It was a long walk to the Hotel d’Europe, but she did
not mind the distance, and thought she knew the way perfectly.
But she missed the turn that she ought to have taken,
and passing on and taking the next one, found herself wrong, and was obliged
tore trace her steps.
It was rapidly growing dark, and this delay did not contribute
to her comfort, for she had never been accustomed to being out alone after
daylight had departed. It was rapidly growing dark, and this delay did not
contribute to her comfort, for she had never been accustomed to being out
alone after daylight had departed.
A young man had been standing on the corner when she discovered
her mistake, and marked instantly her extraordinary beauty, her perplexity
and hesitation, and when she had turned back, he followed close upon her.
Tina was not long in becoming conscious of this.
Fear lent speed to her steps, and she only breathed freely
when she found herself within the court of the great hotel.
Going directly to the office, she gave the clerk her package,
asking that it might be sent immediately to Lady Holborn’s room.
Then, feeling weak and almost faint from the fear she
had experienced upon discovering that she was followed, she crossed the court
and entered a small reception or waiting room, and sat down to rest and recover
herself.
She found a couple of ladies there, evidently waiting
for some one.
She recognized at once Lady Holborn and her daughter,
but she had drawn her veil over her face upon leaving the office, and as
she now sat down in the shadow of the half-open door, they did not appear
to know her.
A few minutes later, a gentleman entered, and, seating
himself at the table, opened a directory that lay there, and began to study
its pages.
He was very nicely clad (although Tina saw at once that
he was a foreigner), and evidently belonged to the better class of society,
of whatever nationality he might be.
Lady Holborn appeared to be interested now, though she
had bestowed only a passing glance upon the modest little lace-maker.
She brought forth her eye-glass, carefully adjusted it,
and glancing forward, began a critical inspection of the stranger.
“American,” she murmured, in an audible and rather scornful
aside to her daughter.
An amused smile began to tremble about the mouth of the
stranger, but he appeared not to heed, only turning over the leaves of the
directory, with an “ahem!” of somewhat louder emphasis than was agreeable
to one, at least of his companions.
“Yes, a thoroughbred Yankee, I am sure,” pursued her ladyship,
in the same tone that she had used before.
“Don’t, mamma, please,” whispered her sensitive daughter,
flushing.
But madame only sniffed contemptuously, and seemed more
interested than ever in the rara avis.
The thoroughbred now looked up, and an innocent (?) smile
relaxed his features.
“How d’ye do, marm?” he said, with an accent that was
somewhat broad, but in a perfectly respectful tone, and with a not ungraceful
bow.
My lady drew herself haughtily erect, but made no reply,
although she did not lower her glass, nor remove her eyes from the object
of curiosity.
“Yes, marm,” he continued returning her gaze with one
of the blandest good nature, “I’m and American. I own to being a thoroughbred
Yankee, too, for I come from a town in the State of Massachusetts-you may
have possibly heard of it, marm-not far from Boston, which, according to
my way of thinking, can’t be beat fir a city; and where we once gave the
English red-coats such a peppering. We don’t mean to be too set up
on account of that, though, marm; we think the English may be very good sort
of people, though rater slow, and-I beg pardon, marm-I’m a plain spoken sort
of man-all Yankees are-and a trifle stupid. I’ve been traveling in
England a good deal this summer, and I’ve studied up the John Bull character
pretty thoroughly. They think they can’t be beat, with their titles
of ‘my lord’ and ‘my lady.’ But what’s in a title? ‘That which
we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet,’ you know marm-rather
a worn-out quotation, I own, but it expresses my meaning just as well.”
He paused a moment, and then resumed, beautifully unconscious
of Lady Holborn’s freezing stare and haughty bearing.
“One thing I feel really concerned about regarding the
English people, they all seem to be giving out in the eyes. I see you
have the same trouble, marm, and it appears to be a peculiarity belonging
to your nation. I can tell an Englishman, woman or child, as far as
I can see them, just by looking at their eyes; they all carry a thing just
like yours to look through, and help them see. The spectacle business
must be a flourishing one over on this side of the water; but I’ll be blessed
if I ain’t afraid that the next generation will be totally blind. I’m
puzzled, too, for they all seem able to read the finest print in the newspapers;
but take a stranger-an American, for instance-who is right under their nose,
and they can’t seem to see him, unless they up with their everlasting spyglass
and look with all their might.
“It must be a great affliction,” he continued, shaking
his head gravely, “and it is a matter which, according to my way of thinking,
the queen ought to look into-I’ve heard that there were some good doctors
over here, and I think she ought to stir them up to investigate it.
I’ve made a study of it, and I shall try and get the subject before the medical
board just as soon as I get back to Boston. If you’ll give me your
address, marm, I’ll let you know what conclusions they arrive at. I
hope it isn’t catching,” he pursued, with an expression of alarm, as if the
thought had but just occurred to him, “for there are lots of Americans over
here this summer, and it would nigh about break my heart to have such a blight
fall upon my smart countrymen. I-I hope I haven’t frightened you, marm,
but really I am quiet concerned,” he concluded as she arose from her seat.
For the first time in her life, Lady Holborn was vanquished.
For once she had met her match.
During the first half of this rapid tirade she had sat
staring through her fold-bowed glasses at the communicative stranger in the
coolest and most supercilious manner imaginable.
But he was so calm and unperturbed, so perfectly at his
ease, while his glib tongue ran on so smoothly and uninterruptedly, and he
sat regarding her with such a look of concern and sympathy upon his honest
(?) face, that she began to feel very uncomfortable.
The color rushed into her face, her eyes wavered beneath
his fixed but passionate gaze, until finally dropping her glass, and nearly
bursting with indignation, though too proud to betray it, she arose from
her chair and swept majestically from the room, followed by her amused daughter,
who tried hard not to allow the dimples to play around her lovely mouth.
As the last sound of their trailing robes died away in
the distance, the stranger sat back in his chair and gave vent to a quiet,
gentlemanly laugh of amusement which was instantly echoed by a low, silvery
sound behind him.
He sprang from his seat and looked around the room in
dismay, which only increased when he discovered Tina sitting behind the half-opened
door. He had not dreamed there was any one else there.
“I beg pardon madame,” he said, remorsefully, and bowing
to her with courtly grace. “I was wholly unsuspicious of having a third
listener; I trust I have said nothing to wound you.”
Tina laughed loud again-a sweet, clear, mellow laugh,
that sounded very pleasant in the ears of her companion.
She had been infinitely amused by the farce that had been
enacted before her, but she now regarded the stranger with surprise.
He was an entirely different person from what he had been
while Lady Holborn was in the room.
His manner and expression were wholly changed. He
had dropped his broad accent, his :Yankee” bearing had entirely disappeared,
while his speech and carriage betrayed him the polished and cultivated gentleman
that he was.
“I sincerely hope I have wounded you in no way,” he repeated,
as he tried to read the face half-concealed before him.
“No, monsieur,” Tina responded, in French.
“Ah, you are French!” He said in a relieved tone, and
speaking that language with ease himself.
“I am very glad,” he continued, “for it is not kind to
wound the feelings of any one; but I have no patience with the impudence
of these so-called English nobility, who go about, each carrying his or her
national spyglass, and staring decent people out of countenance.
I have seen this woman several times to-day on the street
and in the art galleries, and everywhere it has seemed to be her business
and delight to make every one as uncomfortable as possible with that fixed
rude stare.”
“It may be the custom with the English, monsieur,” Tina
said charitably.
“It is a custom, and a very uncivil one among a certain
class,” her companion replied, with a note of impatience in his tones; “nowhere
in all Europe have I met with such vulgar rudeness as among a certain class
of the English, who, in their pompous self-sufficiency, imagine, or seem
to imagine, themselves exempt from all rules of courtesy and good breeding.
Pardon me, mademoiselle, for my homily on etiquette, but a righteous indignation
called it forth; and,” with a little twinkle of merriment in his fine eyes,
“I trust the little lesson which madame has received may do her no harm;
at least, I hope that if we ever meet again I shall not become a target for
her to shoot her inquisitive arrows at.”
“I think monsieur need have no fear,” Tina said, with
a merry little laugh.
His own laugh rang out clear and hearty again, as, taking
his hat from the table, the stranger bowed to her with courtly grace, and
then quietly left the room.
Chapter XI. a SUDDEN ILLNESS
Tina followed the stranger almost immediately, for she
had a long walk before her, and it was nearly time for the evening meal at
Monsieur La Fort’s pension.
On her way home through the dimly-lighted streets, Tina
soon became conscious that she was followed by a flashily-dressed young man
of twenty-five! /the fellow tried in various ways to make her aware
of his desire to form her acquaintance, and he at last laid his hand upon
her shoulder and insolently desired the pleasure of escorting her home.
Tina trembled like a leaf, but her fear was only momentary.
In an instant a heavy hand grasped the shoulder of the
offender, and he was violently hurled into the middle of the street.
He made no effort to defend himself against his powerful assailant, but crept
to the opposite curbstone, where he sat down to recover himself.
The rescuer probed to be Lord Ernest Holborn, who delightedly
availed himself of the chance to see Tina safely to her habitation.
As they parted at the lace manufactory, after a pleasant
walk, and a most agreeable interchange of thoughts and opinion he held out
his hand to her, and she laid hers frankly, trustfully in hit. As his
fingers closed over hers in a strong, tender clasp, each instinctively felt
that they were more to each other than either dared to acknowledge.
Lord Holborn stood irresolute a moment, then bowing his
proud head, he touched her hand with his lips, and lifting his hat in a last
salutation, turned, and passed into the darkness and our of her sight.
A little tremulous sob broke from Tina’s lips as she also
turned and disappeared within the lace manufactory.
A figure stole from behind the trunk of a tree that overshadowed
the building as the door closed after her, and then stood still in the full
glare of the lamp and peered down the street after the retreating form of
Ernest Holborn.
The figure of Barbara Beza; but her yellow wrinkled face
was almost convulsed with pain, and almost ghastly in its pallor.
“I should know one of that race anywhere,” she muttered,
in a shaking voice. “What is he doing here, and what can he want of my gentle
little dove? I told her she was too pretty to be working for her living,
and it seems that more than I have discovered the fact. But Barbara
Beza is her friend, and she will see to it that no harm befalls her, if it
is in her power to avert it.
Lord Holborn, with his mother, sister, and friend, left
Brussels the next day; and Tina resumed her duties in the manufactory of
Monsieur La Fort.
The design for the wonderful veil was at last completed,
and, having been copied upon cloth to be reserved for exhibition, the holes
were pricked in the parchment, which was divided into sections, and given
to the experienced lace-makers, who were deemed fitted to work upon it
One day, on opening his mail, Monsieur La Fort found one
letter which seemed to throw him into a state of great excitement.
“The princess and some friends are coming to see the design
for the royal veil,” he said to Tina, a little while after, when he had recovered
something of his usual composure.
“When will they come, monsieur?” she had asked, in a low, constrained tone,
and her voice sounded so strangely that he turned around in his chair to
look at her.
“Tomorrow at three,” he replied, and watched her narrowly
to see the effect of his words.
She made no answer, but he noticed that she gave a sudden
gasp, as if something had pained or oppressed her, and then she tried to
resume her work.
When the royal visitors called, according to appointment,
Tina was not present to exhibit the designs. A sudden illness confined
her to her room.
The princess was charmed with the delicate and artistic
work, and she earnestly said to the proprietor of the establishment:
“Monsieur, I am in ecstasies! These lilies and tiny
rock ferns, surrounding the royal crest, are my favorites in
