CHAPTER XXX.

A THORN IN THE GARDEN OF ROSES.

"I do not think anything could have been more cleverly managed," said Lord Vivianne. "You have brought nothing with you?"

"No," she replied; and the thought rose in her mind, "I have left all I ought to value most behind;" but prudently enough refrained from speaking.

"I do not see how it can be possible to trace us," he continued, "even should any one try."

"Earle will try," she said, with a slight shudder. "He will look the world through, but he will find me in the end."

Her face grew slightly pale as she spoke, and Lord Vivianne drew near to her.

"You are not frightened at Earle, nor any one else, while you are with me, Dora?" He preferred this name to Doris, and the fanciful change pleased her greatly. "You need not be frightened, Dora," He continued. "You do not surely imagine that I am unable to take care of you?"

"I was not thinking of you, but of Earle," she said, simply. "I am always rather frightened when I think of him: he loved me so very much, and losing me will drive him mad."

An expression of impatience came over Lord Vivianne's face; he was passionately in love with the beautiful girl before him, but he had no intention to play the comforter in this the moment of his triumph.

"Say no more of Earle, Dora; if he annoys you, so much the worse for him. Now we will order breakfast, then take the ten o'clock express for London. I had even thought of crossing over to Calais to-day, if you are not too tired."

Her face brightened at the thought--Earle was already forgotten.

"That will be charming," she replied, all graver thoughts forgotten in the one great fact that she was going where she would be admired beyond all words.

Then, for the first time in her life, Doris sat down to a dainty and sumptuous breakfast. It was all novel to her, even this third-rate splendor of a Liverpool hotel. The noiseless, attentive servants--the respect and deference shown to them delighted her.

"After all," she thought to herself, "this is better than Brackenside."

Then Lord Vivianne turned to her with a smile.

"You are so sensible Dora," he said, "that I can talk to you quite at my ease; and that is a great treat after listening to the whims and caprices of the women of the fashionable world."

With artful sophistry he stated that for family reasons it would be inadvisable, if not really rash, to have a marriage ceremony--that at the present time it would utterly blight his prospects. When two loving hearts were joined by their own free consent, and vowed to live for each other, the union was just as binding, he argued, as though a clergyman had united them. To prevent recognition and gossip, it would be necessary for him to change his name; "and for the future," he added, "we shall travel and be known as Mr. and Mrs. Conyers."

This plan did not please Doris. It was not what she had anticipated.

"Being a farmer's daughter," she thought, "he thinks me unfit to associate with his titled friends. But, for all that, I shall show him that I am their equal. Yes, he shall change his mind. I shall so fascinate him that he will yet be glad to proclaim me his wife, the Lady Vivianne."

She now began to realize that she had made the first false steps in deceiving the trusting poet, Earle Moray, and in consenting to a secret departure from her humble home and loving parents. Yet the die was cast; ambition and a determination to accomplish her wishes forced her forward. She had great confidence, as we have seen, in the influence of her beauty. Therefore, after some half-hearted objections, which he adroitly overcame by his specious arguments, she consented to all his plans.

"Trust me, dear Dora," he said, delightedly, "and you shall have everything your heart can desire."

By this time breakfast was over, and it was time to leave the hotel, if they wished to catch the morning train for London. With no fuss or excitement, just as if he was paying for a cigar; Lord Vivianne settled his bill, gave a liberal fee to the waiter--a golden guinea--and half an hour later "Mr. and Mrs. Conyers" were in a first-class compartment, on the train for the great metropolis.

When they reached London, Lord Vivianne said, looking with a smile at his companion's plain dress:

"You cannot go to Paris in that fashion, Dora. You must have some suitable dresses. It will not be too late for Madame Delame's; you had better go there at once."

She desired nothing better. She held out her white hand to him with a charming gesture.

"You must advise me," she said; "I shall not know what to buy. This was the most extensive purchase of my life," and she pointed to a plain, dark silk dress which Mrs. Brace thought much too good for a farmer's daughter.

"I know what will suit your fair style of beauty," he said; "a rich costume of purple velvet."

Her eyes shone with delight--purple velvet! her ambition was realized. For a few moments she was speechless with joy. She forgot altogether, in that, the first realization of her dream, the price she had paid for it.

In the next hour Doris was standing, flushed and beautiful, in Madame Delame's room. If madame had any idea who her aristocratic customer was she made no sign. When he said that Mrs. Conyers was going abroad, and that she wanted to begin with an elegant traveling costume, the lady blandly acquiesced. Even Madame Delame, accustomed as she was to aristocratic beauty, marveled at the high-bred loveliness of the girl before her. Very young to be Mrs. Conyers--very young to be married.

She looked involuntarily at the small white hand; a gold ring shone there--was it a wedding-ring? Madame Delame knew the world pretty well, but she sighed as she gazed.

Her artistic talents were called into play; she had not often so lovely a patron to dress, nor _carte blanche_ as to the number and price of the dresses. She took a positive pleasure in enhancing the girl's beauty, in finding rich, delicate lace for the white neck and rounded arms, in finding shining silks and rich velvets; and when Doris stood arrayed in marvelous costume, the graceful, slender figure shown to the greatest advantage by the dress--the dainty coloring of the face made more beautiful by contrast with the rich purple, then madame raised her hands in silent admiration, then trusted she should again have the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Conyers.

Lord Vivianne said to Doris in a low voice:

"I think you have all that you require here; you can get more in Paris, when you have a maid."

Madame Delame said to herself, as they left the place, that no matter how long she lived, she should never forget the face of Mrs. Conyers.

Once more they were driving through London streets, and this time Doris was too happy to think of anything except her dresses. Lord Vivianne could not take his eyes off that beautiful face. He congratulated himself, over and over again on his wonderful good fortune.

"Who could have thought," he said to himself, "that so fair a flower blossomed in that obscure place."

And while he looked at her, it seemed to him, as it had done to Gregory Leslie, that there was something familiar in the face; that he had either seen that or one very like it before.

A few more days, and they were settled in one of the most luxurious mansions near the Tuileries. Then, indeed, was every wish of Doris' heart fulfilled. Well-trained servants waited upon her; the magnificent rooms were carpeted with velvet pile, the hangings were of the richest silks and lace; wherever she went large mirrors showed the beautiful figure from head to foot; she had a carriage and a pair of horses that were the admiration of all Paris; she had jewels without number, and more dresses than she could wear; she had a maid whose business it seemed to be to anticipate every wish. What more could she desire?

Lord Vivianne was kind, but he did not treat her with any great amount of deference. There was, however, one very good characteristic, as she thought it--he was unboundedly generous; if she expressed a wish he never hesitated about gratifying it; he never counted either trouble or expense.

Enhanced by the aid of dress, of perfume, by the skill of a Parisian maid, her beauty became dazzling. He was very proud of her; he liked to drive out with her, and see all the looks of admiration cast upon her; he liked to feel himself envied. She was, without exception, the fairest woman in Paris; and his pride in her was proportionately great.

The opera was then in full tide of success, and Doris never wearied of going there. It was not that she was particularly fond of music, but she enjoyed the triumph of her own bright presence; she was the observed of all observers. The sensation that her fair loveliness created was not to be surpassed.

One asked another, "Who is it?"

"The beautiful Englishwoman, Mrs. Conyers."

"Who is Mrs. Conyers?"

No one knew, and there lay the sting; there was the one thorn in her garden of roses; she drained the cup of pleasure to the dregs; she missed no _fete_, no opera; she was introduced to gentlemen, but never to ladies; she had pleasant little dinners, where some of the wittiest conversation took place, but no ladies came near; and she would fain have seen herself envied by women as well as admired by men; that was the one thing she desired above all others. But there was no one to envy her.

She asked Lord Vivianne one day why it was. He looked at her and laughed a most peculiar laugh.

"I am afraid, Dora, that you must learn to be content with the society of gentlemen."

She understood, then, it was one of the penalties of her sin.

Another thing annoyed her and made the gayeties of Paris unpleasing to her. She was walking with Lord Vivianne in the Champs Elysees, and suddenly she saw him start, and looking at him, his face flushed hotly.

"How unfortunate!" he muttered to himself.

Then she saw in the distance a little group of English people; a young gentleman, who was talking to an elderly lady, with a mild, sad face, and a tall, dark girl with proud, bright eyes. The gentleman saw Lord Vivianne first, but instead of stopping to speak his lordship turned quickly away, much to Doris' disappointment.

"I would not have missed seeing these people on any account," he said impatiently.

"Why did you not speak to them?" she asked wonderingly.

"How could I," he retorted, "while you were here?"

She made no reply, but the words struck her with a terrible pain.

She, the fairest woman in Paris, she whom Earle called his queen--it was not to be borne.

She went home, resolved if possible, to alter this state of things, and if she could not, to go away from Paris.

"We will go to Italy," she thought, "where he will not meet English people whom he knows."

Her desire was granted. Five days after that little scene she was with Lord Vivianne in one of the prettiest villas near Naples.