CHAPTER XV

THE MASKED BALL

That night much noise and confusion reigned outside the Grand Opera House. Torches flared, linkmen shouted, horses plunged, backed, and clattered; oaths flew here and there, whips were plied, carriage-wheels grated, coachmen swore, and, at short intervals, tall figures of the Black Musketeers were called in to keep order, a duty they fulfilled in a summary manner, with little forbearance to the public, dealing kicks, cuffs, and such remonstrances freely around, and clearing a space, wherever space was required, by dropping the butts of their heavy weapons on the feet of the recoiling crowd. With such powerful assistance, coach after coach deposited its load at the grand entrance, around which were congregated valets and lackeys wearing the liveries of the noblest families in France.

Beautiful and gorgeous were the dresses thus emerging for an instant under the red glare of torchlight, to disappear through the folding-doors within. Shimmering the satin, and sparkling with jewels, the loveliest women of the capital passed in review for three paces before the populace, little loth, perhaps, to submit their toilets to the scientific criticism of a Parisian crowd, a criticism that reached, however, no higher than the chin, for every one of those fair French faces was hidden in a black mask. Their gallants, on the contrary, came unprovided with these defences, and the male bird, indeed, though without question the uglier animal, was on the present occasion equal in brilliancy of plumage to his mate.

It is, however, with the interior that we have to do; behind the folding-doors that swallowed up these radiant visions in succession so greedily. That interior was flooded in a warm yellow light. A hundred glittering lustres shone and twinkled at narrow intervals, to stud the curves of white and gold and crimson that belted the ample circle of the building, while high in the centre of its dome an enormous chandelier flashed and gleamed and dazzled, like some gigantic diamond shivered into a thousand prismatic fragments. From roof to flooring fresh bright colours bloomed in the boxes, as bloom the posies on a flower-stall; while pit, stage, and orchestra, boarded to a level, had become a shifting sea of brilliant hues, whirling, coiling, undulating, ebbing, flowing, surging into a foam of light and snowy plumes, bearing in turn each colour of the rainbow to its surface—flashing and glistening through all its waters with a blaze of gems and gold.

Captain George was wading about in it, more preoccupied and less inclined to take advantage of its gaieties than a musketeer usually found himself in such a scene of revelry. His distinguished air and manly bearing drew on him, indeed, gibes and taunts, half-raillery, half-compliment, from many a rosy mouth smiling under its black mask; but to these he answered not a word.

He was unlike himself to-night—dull, abstracted, and out of spirits. Even Bras-de-Fer, he felt, would have composed and propounded his heaviest retorts in less time than it took his captain to understand any one of the jests levelled at a taciturnity so out of place. He was in no mood for banter, nor intrigue, nor amusement—not even for supper. He wanted to see Cerise; he confessed it to himself without reserve, yet he neither expected nor wished to find her in such a scene as this.

An attachment between two young persons, if of a nature to arrive at maturity, seems to gain growth and vigour in an inverse proportion to the amount of care bestowed on its cultivation. The plant is by no means an exotic, scarce even a garden-flower. Nay, I think a chance seedling of this tribe comes to fuller perfection than either graft or cutting. It is good for it also to be crushed, mangled, mown over, or trodden down. Storms and snows and bitter frosts bring it rapidly into flower, and it is astonishing, though a tropical blaze could not satisfy its wants, how little sunshine is required to keep it alive.

Captain George’s meetings with Cerise were indeed as numerous as five or six in the week; but they took place at an interval of twenty feet, and consisted of low bows and eager glances from a gentleman on a gravel walk, returned by the formal reverence and deep blush of a young lady in a window-seat. On the principle that half a loaf is better than no bread, I presume crumbs are acceptable when crusts are not to be obtained. So the Musketeer had felt ill at ease all day, and was now in the most unsuitable frame of mind possible for a masquerade, because the girl had been absent from her window when he passed, which was indeed his own fault, since, in his impatience, he had crossed the gardens of the Hôtel Montmirail a quarter of an hour before his usual time, and had thus perhaps inflicted as much disappointment as he sustained.

Now people in the irritable frame of mind caused by a little anxiety, a little disappointment, and a good deal of uncertainty, seldom betake themselves to solitude, which is indeed rather the resort of real happiness or the refuge of utter despair. The simply discontented are more prone to rush into a crowd, and Captain George had no idea of abstaining from the Great Masked Ball at the Opera House, but rather made his appearance somewhat earlier than his wont at this festivity, though when there, he roamed about in a desultory and dissatisfied manner, first dreading, then faintly hoping, and lastly ardently desiring to meet Mademoiselle de Montmirail amongst that brilliant, shifting, bantering, and mysterious throng. Disguised indeed! He would know her, he felt sure, by her pretty feet alone, if she were masked down to her very ankles.

He was not so well versed in feminine arts but that he had yet to learn how a lady who really wished to remain unknown at these gatherings would alter her voice, her gestures, her figure, her gait—nay, the very shape of her hands and feet, to deceive those on whom she wished to practise.

The majority, on the contrary, were most unwilling thus to sink their identity, and only wore masks, I imagine, to hide the absence of blushes at such direct compliments as were sure to be addressed to them, also as an excuse for considerable freedom of speech in return.

The orchestra was pealing out a magnificent “Minuet de la Cour,” and that stately measure, performed by a few couples of the handsomest gallants and ladies of the Court, was eliciting the applause of a large and critical circle, amongst whom Captain George made one, when a voice thrilled in his ear, the tone of which brought the blood to his cheek, while a masked figure beside him passed her hand lightly through his arm. A tremendous flourish of brass instruments rendered the moment well-chosen for secret communication; but the mask had apparently nothing more confidential to say than this—

“_Qui cherche trouve!_ You seek something, fair Musketeer. If you are in earnest, you shall find what you require!”

The voice reminded him almost painfully of Cerise, yet was it deeper and fuller than the girl’s in tone. He scanned the figure at his side with a quick penetrating glance; but she was so shrouded in a black satin cloak reaching to the flounces of her ball-dress, that he gathered but little from her inspection. He noted, however, a leaf of the stephanotis, peeping from under the folds that concealed her bouquet, and recollecting the events of the morning, made a shrewd guess at his companion.

Perhaps she would have thought him very stupid had it been otherwise. All this elaborate artifice of disguise may have been for her own deception, not his. She might talk to him more freely under protest, as it were, that he had no right to know her; and she was, moreover, so well enveloped and altered, that she could scarcely be identified by passing acquaintances, or, indeed, by any one with whom she refused to converse.

“I seek only amusement,” answered the Musketeer, with the natural instinct of mankind to disavow sentiment. “I have not yet found much, I confess, though Point d’Appui’s airs and graces in the dance there would afford it to any one who had not seen them as often as I have.”

She laughed scornfully, leaning on his arm. “And they call that thing _a Man_!” said she, with an accent on the substantive extremely uncomplimentary to Count Point d’Appui, who was indeed a handsome, conceited, pleasant, young good-for-nothing enough; “and these are the objects women break their hearts about—dress for them, dance for them, die for them; nay, even come to masked balls, disfigured and disguised for their unworthy sakes. What fools you must think us, Captain George; and what fools we are!”

“You know me, madame,” exclaimed the Musketeer, affecting surprise, rather as entering into the spirit of the scene than with any deeper motive. “You must know, then, that I am amongst the most devoted and respectful admirers of your sex.”

She laughed again the low soft laugh that was one of her greatest charms, and lost, moreover, none of its attraction from her disguise.

“Know you!” she repeated, still leaning on his arm perhaps a little heavier than before. “What lady in Paris does not know you as the citadel to resist all her efforts of attack?—as the Orson, the woman-hater, the man of marble, who has no vanity, no feelings, no heart?—the only creature left in this uninteresting town worth conquering? And all those who have tried it, no small number, vow that victory is impossible.”

“It shows how little they comprehend me,” he replied, in a tone of jest, and still pretending not to recognise his companion, who held her head down and took refuge studiously beneath her mask. “If you, madame, would condescend to become better acquainted with me, you would soon learn the falsehood of these ladies’ reports to my discredit!”

“Discredit!” she echoed, and to his surprise, nay, to his dismay, a tear fell on the gloved hand within his arm. What could he do but dry it with a kiss? “Discredit!” she said again, in a tone of increasing emotion. “How little you must understand us if you can make use of such a term! Who would care to possess that which half the town has worn and thrown away? What is the value of a heart that has been cut into little scraps and shreds, and left in portions at different friends’ houses like gifts on New-year’s-day? No, monsieur, if I must give all I am worth for a diamond, let it be such a diamond as the Regent’s—large, clear, and entire—not a collection of fragments only held together by their golden setting, like a necklace of Madame de Sabran or Madame de Parabére.”

Captain George did not quite follow out the metaphor, his attention being at this moment somewhat distracted by a figure that reminded him of Cerise, yet that he felt was as unlike Cerise as possible. The Musketeer was also a very moderate proficient in the lighter accomplishments of gallantry, being of a self-contained though energetic nature, that was disposed to do its work thoroughly or not at all. He was one of those men, of whom there are more in the world than ladies suppose, whose respect for the sex restrains them from taking that initiative which they forget the latter are especially privileged to decline. Unless, therefore, a woman throws herself at their heads, they make no advances at all, and then these wretches are just the sort of characters with which such a course, repugnant to their instinctive sense of fitness, is least likely to succeed, after all. They are consequently very difficult birds to tame, and either escape altogether, or are lured into the cage, accidentally as it were, by a pretty face, a shy manner, and some rare combination of circumstances which nobody on earth could have foreseen. When a lady has fairly started, however, and got warmed to her subject, I imagine little is to be gained by interrupting her, and that no efforts of eloquence find so much favour as the forbearance of a good listener.

The Marquise thought she had turned her last phrase very prettily, and applied the image of the necklace with considerable art, so she continued, without waiting for an answer, “You do not know me, Captain George, though I know _you_. Also, I mention no names, therefore I break no confidences. Do you remember the day the late king was taken ill, and brought home, never to recover?”

His English blood stirred at the recollection of that gallant stag-hunt, and his eye brightened. She observed it, and not sharing the insular passion for an _innocent_ pursuit, drew her conclusions accordingly.

“I have not forgotten it,” he replied, calmly, “nor the beautiful Marquise and her barb!”

She trembled with pleasure, but commanded her voice, and repeated indifferently, “Ah! the beautiful Marquise! I fancy she nearly rode the poor barb to death that day. What will a woman not do when her heart is interested? Well, monsieur, have you ever spoken since to the beautiful Marquise, as you call her, doubtless in ridicule?”

He began to think he _had_ been somewhat remiss, and that to prosecute his intimacy with the mother would have been the easiest way of obtaining access to the daughter. He was not given to self-examination, and did not perceive that his very love for Cerise had prevented him yet entering the house. “Do you know the Marquise de Montmirail?” was all he could find at the moment to say.

“A little!” answered the mask, nodding her head. “But I have an intimate friend who is very intimate with her indeed. You think women cannot be friends, monsieur; you think they have no hearts; you little know the lady of whom we speak. You see her as the world does, and you judge her accordingly. How blind men are! If your eyes are not dazzled by self-conceit, they are bandaged by an impenetrable and cold egotism. A thing must touch your very noses, close like that,” and she thrust her pretty hand up within an inch of his face, “or you will not believe in its existence. Nevertheless, I could sometimes find it in my heart to envy you your callousness, your stupidity, your indifference, and to wish that I had been born a man.”

I think at the moment he almost wished it too, for although the voice was very fascinating, and the situation not without its charm, she encumbered him sadly in his search for the young lady whom yet he did not the least expect to find.

The Marquise, however, was quite satisfied with her position, and disposed to improve the occasion.

“A woman can have no _friends_,” she proceeded, speaking in a low tone that the music rendered inaudible to all but her companion. “How I wish she could! I know the sort of one I should choose—brave, steadfast, constant, self-controlled; a gallant soldier, a loyal gentleman; above all, a man uninfluenced by every eye that flashes, every lip that smiles. And yet—and yet,” she added, while her soft voice sank to a whisper as the music rose and swelled, “such an one would soon cease to be a friend. Because—because―”

“Because why?” he asked, bending tenderly over her, for it was not in man’s nature to remain uninfluenced by such words now spoken.

The dark eyes flashed through their mask, and the hand that rested on his arm clenched tight while she replied—

“Because I should love him foolishly, madly, if he cared for me; and if not—I should hate him so fiercely that―”

“You come with me from here!” said a loud good-humoured voice at this interesting juncture, while a man’s hand was laid familiarly on the Musketeer’s shoulder. “In a quarter of an hour my coach will be waiting at the stage entrance. Not one of my _roués_ dare face it! I want a fellow like you, who fears neither man nor devil!”

Captain George bowed low, with the mask, still leaning on his arm curtsied to the ground.

“Highness,” said he, “I shall have the honour! It is a mere duty to serve under his orders but it becomes _a pleasure_ when Monsieur le Duc commands in person.”

“And to supper afterwards, of course,” added very graciously a lady who was hanging on the Regent’s arm, and who carried her mask in her hand. “Captain George is always welcome, as he knows, and we shall not be more than a half-a-dozen at the outside.”

Again the Musketeer bowed low, and the Marquise, scanning the last speaker intently, could not but acknowledge that to-night Madame de Parabére looked more than usually beautiful. The _brunette_, too, probably overrated the charms of the _blonde_, the exceeding delicacy of complexion, the softness of skin, and the innocent baby face which so fascinated the Regent. Also she thought she detected on that baby face a decided preference for the Musketeer, and Madame de Montmirail was not a woman to entertain the strongest passions of her sex and leave out jealousy.

Had it not been for these suspicions, the bouquet of stephanotis might have remained all night innocuous beneath her cloak, to be consumed in the stove that warmed her chocolate when she got home. But the Marquise allowed no one to cross her designs with impunity, and watching her new enemy narrowly, began to handle her weapons and prepare for action.

The Regent had been traversing the throng of revellers with Madame de Parabére on his arm; the latter, proud of her disgrace, and exulting in her infamous position as his acknowledged mistress, had bared her face, in order to receive the full tribute of admiration which her beauty really deserved. Now, while the Duke stood still for a moment, and exchanged a few jesting compliments and well-bred sarcasms with the passing maskers, an encounter in which he acquitted himself with considerable tact and ingenuity, his companion, dearly loving mischief, turned all her batteries on Captain George.

The Marquise was, therefore, left planted as one too many; a situation to which she, the spoiled child of society, was so unaccustomed, that she could have cried with vexation, but for the revenge now literally within her grasp.

So she peered, and watched, and waited, like a Grey Musketeer skirmishing.

Madame de Parabére, observing the Regent’s attention engaged elsewhere, whispered something to George, looking insolently the while at his companion, and laughed.

Then the Marquise primed her weapon, as it were, and shook the powder well up in the pan. A leaf of the rare bouquet peeped from under its covering.

Madame de Parabére, flirting and ogling outrageously, as was her custom, whispered again in Captain George’s ear, with a little affected laugh. It seemed to the eager watcher that her lips shaped the hated syllables—“Mulatto.”

It was time to take aim now, sure and deadly, preparatory to giving fire. A cluster of stephanotis showed out like ivory against the smooth black satin.

Madame de Parabére clapped her hands, and exclaimed with a child’s glee, “But madame, what a bouquet! Madame is indeed fortunate! Such flowers are not to be procured within leagues of Paris. How exquisite! How ravishing! Madame is so good. Madame will permit me to have one little breath of their fragrance. Only one!”

The Marquise hesitated. An instinct of womanly forbearance prompted mercy even to another woman. Vindictive as she felt, and with her finger on the trigger, she would yet spare her, she thought; but the insolent creature should know her enemy, and should be taught that even the Regent’s favourite could not command such bouquets as the acknowledged beauty of the Court.

“They were sent me as a gift, madame,” she observed, haughtily, and withholding the flowers. “I value them because ours are not yet blown at the Hôtel Montmirail.”

“Pardon, madame!” retorted the other, unable, now that she knew her, to forego this opening for a thrust. “Tropical, of course! From an admirer, madame? or perhaps a kinsman? Very dark, no doubt, and with close curled hair. I offer you my compliments from the bottom of my heart!”

No quarter now. She had rushed upon her fate, and must be shot down without the least compunction. “If madame will deign to accept my bouquet,” said the Marquise, “she will do me the highest honour.” And she displayed the whole of it, a wonder of nature, brought to perfection by art.

Madame de Parabére, giddy, thoughtless, fond of flowers, stretched her hand out eagerly, and Captain George, whose attention the Regent’s conversation had diverted from this passage of arms between the ladies, turned round while she was in the act of putting them enthusiastically to her face.

He saw the situation at a glance, and his promptitude served him as usual.

“I must be ready for your Highness!” he exclaimed hurriedly, addressing the Regent, but with his eye fixed on the treacherous flowers. “Madame, I have the honour of wishing you a good-night!” he added in the same breath; while with an energetic flourish of his cocked hat he knocked them clean out of the lady’s hands to a few paces’ distance on the floor, letting the hat follow; and as he recovered the latter, crushing the bouquet to pieces, as if inadvertently, beneath his foot. It was the second time he had practised this manœuvre within twelve hours, and he was perfect in his lesson.

Rising with an affectation of great confusion, he made his excuses to Madame de Parabére, contriving, amongst a torrent of phrases, to convey, unobserved, the single word “Beware!” And she understood him, contenting herself with a glance of intense gratitude, and an inward vow she would never rest till she had found opportunity to repay both friend and foe.

The Regent laughed heartily at the joke. “You must have supped already, my friend,” said he, “and not spared the wineflask. So much the better; you are all the fitter for your night’s work. Come! let us be moving. It is time we were off!”

Madame de Montmirail stood a while, stupefied, paralysed, as it were, at the failure of an attack thus foiled by the last person in whom she expected to find an opponent. The first instant she could have hated him with all the fierceness of baffled rage. The next, she felt she had never loved him half so well as now. He had thwarted her; he had tamed her; he had saved her from crime, from ruin, from _herself_! All in one glance of the keen eye, one turn of the ready hand. She acknowledged him for her master, and to her such a sentiment was as fascinating as it was new. She would have liked to burst out crying, and kneel at his feet, imploring to be forgiven, had time and place permitted so romantic an exhibition. At least, she could not let him go without another word, and Captain George, following the Regent through the crowd towards the door, felt a hand laid timidly on his arm, heard a broken voice whispering softly in his ear.

She trembled all over. Her very lips shook while she murmured, “Forgive me, monsieur! I must explain all. I _must_ see you again. Where do you go to-night?”

“To sup with his Highness,” answered the Musketeer, keeping the Duke’s figure in sight as it threaded the jostling, shifting throng of noisy revellers.

“But that is not till midnight,” she urged. “He said something about duty. You are brave! You are rash! For heaven’s sake, promise you will not rush into needless danger!”

He laughed good-humouredly, and reassured her at once. “Danger! madame! Nothing of the kind. I can trust you not to gossip. It is a mere frolic. We are going a league or two out of Paris, _to raise the devil_!” And observing the Duke turning back for him, he escaped from her and was lost in the crowd.

She looked longingly after him, and sighed. “To raise the devil!” she repeated, pressing both hands on her heart. “And not the only one to-night. Alas! you have raised one here that none but yourself can lay!”

Then the Marquise, still retaining her disguise, passed hastily through the ball, till she reached the street, and gaining her carriage, was driven straight home to the Hôtel Montmirail, weeping, softly and patiently, behind her mask.