CHAPTER IV.

LA BLONDE AUX YEUX NOIR.

“Your lithe hands draw me--your face burns through me, I am swift to follow you, keen to see, But love lacks might to redeem or undo me, As I have been--I shall surely be.”

So, while all London talks of Trixy’s elopement with Carlton Conway, Lord Delaval carries his wife off to Paris, and, in sumptuous apartments at the Bristol, little Lord Vernon makes his appearance on the arena of life.

Zai adores her first-born to absurd adoration, but she has not the very faintest idea how to take care of him, or the smallest conception what to do with him.

She loves to hear, as well as to know, that God has given her a living child, and little Vernon does not disappoint her, for he screams away the first weeks with a pertinacity which is fortunately rather rare.

He seems to have not only the germ of a lachrymose disposition, but is in actual fright at the new world in which he finds himself.

According to the tenets of ideality and poetry, he ought to be like his father, a large, fair, serene-eyed boy, born out of mystic hours and moonlight dreaming. In reality he is the antipodes of serene, and is acutely organised. He is tiny, and timid, and tearful too, but Zai, after the fashion of most young mothers, considers him a cherub, a lump of perfection.

Whether he screams or whether he crows, she fancies they are warblings of the angelic choir, but notwithstanding half the time she does not know what to do for him. Long before she can manage to hold him tight in her slender arms, without letting him drop on the floor, her big, wistful grey eyes follow the obese proportions of the French nurse from hour to hour to learn what she does to keep “Baby” quiet. And when at last nature overpowers her prudence and she rashly insists on taking charge of him herself, her fear lest he should come to grief gives him a feeling of insecurity which makes him scream louder than ever.

Nevertheless mother and child make such a charming Madonna-like picture that Lord Delaval, who has always gone in for lust of the eye, likes to look upon it. Nothing, in fact, can exceed his devotion for the first six weeks of paternal experience. He may have been fickle and unstable, but he now spends his whole time with his wife, his strong arms carry her about, he reads to her, and gazes on her with eyes through which the passionate fervour of the honeymoon shines out.

Never has Zai had him so completely to herself. Never has he been so gentle, so unselfish, so loving. And no matter what happens, she has this period to look back upon with unmarred sensations of content. Maybe if wrong or trouble come to her, these hours will be green oases in life’s desert, landmarks in memory, which will soften resentment into regret. But when a couple of months have gone by, Paris has begun her season, and it is at Zai’s own solicitation that her husband begins to go and look about him a little.

“You’ll get quite ill, darling, unless you have a little distraction,” she says, tenderly, as her white hand, smaller and thinner than ever, plays with his fair hair. “And you need not mind leaving me, for I shan’t be dull now I’ve got Baby.” Yes, she has got Baby to keep her company and to take up all her attention, and he is not at all loth for a little distraction, especially as she urges it.

The next evening, sauntering down the Boulevard des Italiens, he runs against old London pals, men of the same rank, and something of the same calibre as himself, Shropshire and Silverlake, men who have formed _mésalliances_, and whose morals are not too strict for a “spree.”

“Hallo, Delaval, come over on French leave?” Shropshire asks. “There are a lot of pretty women at the theatres now. Silverlake and I are off to the Alcazar presently, and you might as well join us.” He hesitates--the Alcazar--it does not sound so respectable as the Folies Dramatiques, or the Opera Lyrique. Delaval has a dim sense that music-halls in London are not quite the thing for newly married men, but he salves his conscience by the thought that in Paris these kind of places are on a more respectable footing.

So after an excellent dinner at Bignon’s, washed down by Röederer, the trio stroll to the Alcazar.

“It’s a long time since I’ve been at a place like this,” Delaval says, “but I suppose I must try and do some of the Parisian things, unless I want to be taken for a regular savage.”

“Things are rather changed since you were here, eh,” Silverlake asks.

“Well, yes. It’s incredible how a year or so changes all the people and places in Paris. I have scarcely seen one of the faces that used to be familiar in the Bois two winters ago.”

“Paris isn’t as bad as London for change,” Silverlake remarks. “In town there’s a lot of cads who suddenly appear--no one knows whence--make a great flare up with carriages, horses, opera boxes, powdered footmen, and as suddenly disappear, goodness knows where, and sink into utter oblivion. Cads who speculate, you know, make fortunes by some species of swindling, and then lose them again.”

“People who are not cads manage to get through their money pretty well,” drawls Shropshire.

At which Delaval laughs.

“Does it hit home, Silverlake?”

“Well, it’s a consolation he and I are in the same coach!”

And then the three men enter a box, the next but one to the stage.

The Alcazar is crowded to suffocation, there is no moving in the body of the house, where they sit at the little tables smoking and drinking, and as Delaval looks round, he says--

“What on earth do the people flock here for like this?”

“For Marguerite Ange. Her singing has made this place an unheard of success, you know.”

“Marguerite Ange! I haven’t even heard of her!”

“Don’t say so, my dear fellow, unless you want to argue yourself unknown! Hi!”

This last ejaculation is to a pretty coquettish little Marchande des Fleurs, and Shropshire invests in a bouquet of Parma violets, as big as his own head.

“What a monster posy, who’s that for?” asks Delaval. “I pity its recipient, it will almost crush her I should think.”

“It’s for Mademoiselle Ange, of course,” Silverlake joins in, searching in his pocket for a five-franc piece to buy a bunch of camellias, but without success, “everyone throws the Ange a bouquet, it’s _la mode_.”

“Wonder she isn’t like the fellow, you remember? the Roman fellow, who was smothered by a shower of cloaks,” Delaval says, with a feeble reminiscence of some old story learnt long ago in his cramming days. “Eh, what?” Silverlake asks, “No! don’t know any Roman fellows, know plenty of Jews, I am sorry to say.”

“There’s an awful Jew fellow in that stage-box opposite,” whispers Shropshire, “fingers blazing with diamonds, and all that sort of thing. He’s after the Ange, comes here every night and ogles her. I wouldn’t touch him for all the world.”

“I shouldn’t mind touching his shekels of gold. I----”

But Silverlake stops short, for just at this moment the shouts and thunder of applause, the cries and calls for “Marguerite” grow terrific, and Delaval, raising his glass, curiously eyes a woman advancing slowly towards the footlights. It is Marguerite Ange, the woman who has turned the heads of all Paris.

She is beautiful, this Marguerite Ange, this singer at the Alcazar, this child of the people, beautiful with a regal beauty any queen might envy.

The patrician carriage of her grand head, the pride of her bearing, her slow and stately step, the very swirl of her skirt as she sweeps forward, all strike Delaval, who gazes at her with a momentary astonishment that is not altogether born of her loveliness. “Is she an empress in disguise,” he wonders; but at the second glance, he takes in the whole splendid physique, the flesh and blood magnificence of Mademoiselle Ange, and decides that she is of the earth, earthy, that there is no semi-divine light in the slumbrous eyes over which droop heavy white lids, no purity about the make of the warm full blooded lips, no unfleshly refinement about her face and figure; but there is rare perfection of form, and tropical brilliance of colouring about her, and her vivid pink and white tints, her rich masses of golden hair form a strange and almost _bizarre_ contrast to her immense eyes, black as midnight skies, and of a velvety softness.

Delaval remarks the peculiarity just as an inflammable French officer near him remarks with enormous enthusiasm:

“_Elle est belle à faire peur, cette blonde aux yeux noir!_”

Strangely enough, the more Delaval looks at her the more he is reminded of someone he has seen. To a certain extent her face appears really quite familiar to him--but only to a certain extent--beyond this he is quite in a fog, and searches vainly in the caverns of memory for an elucidation of the mystery.

Mademoiselle Ange stands for a moment or two perfectly motionless, with her eyes fixed on the ground, while the clapping of hands and yelling applause goes on, and the bright light falls full on a face of marvellous, almost weird beauty, on perfectly moulded round white limbs, revealed rather than hidden by clouds of diaphanous drapery, on a shapely arm supporting a much ornamented guitar--(which by the way she does not use).

Then amidst a hush, in which the fall of a pin could be heard, she begins her song in a deep rich contralto.

There is none of the noise, or clap-trap, or glitter of the Alcazar about her or her vocalisation.

She sings her two first verses, without the quiver of a long black lash, or the falter of a note, poetically, dreamily, entrancingly. Then she pauses a second, stretches out one arm tragically towards the audience, and commences the last verse in a soft, low, thrilling voice that appeals to the roughest man there, while her huge black eyes seem to burn and scintillate, firing the manly bosoms under broadcloth and blouse with irrepressible ardour.

“Je vis le lendemain non plus au bord de l’onde Mais assise au chemin la jeune fille blonde! Je vis qu’ils étaient deux--A! deux âmes sont joyeuse! Comme il était heureux! Comme elle était heureuse! Et moi, dans mon bonheur--de les voir si content Je me mis a pleurer! Comme on pleure à vingt ans! Et moi! dans mon bonheur--de les voir si content Je me mis a pleurer! Comme on pleure à vingt ans!”

Lord Delaval--_fanatico per la musica_--listens enthralled as the last sweet, sad, soft notes die away on his ear.

Once more shouts of “Marguerite _la Blonde aux yeux noir_!” fill the house with deafening roar, and coming closer to the footlights with a beaming smile on her scarlet lips, for the first time her eyes fall on the box where Delaval sits leaning forward.

Her glance rests an instant upon him. She utters a sharp cry, her face through its rouge turns ghastly white, and Marguerite Ange drops senseless on the floor.

In a moment, however, the curtain falling, hides her from view.

“What ails her?” cries Shropshire, as much concerned as if he had not his Countess--(for whom he has gone through a good deal)--demanding his allegiance and fidelity.

“It’s the infernal excitement of all the noise that’s done her up,” Silverlake says. “Isn’t she more like a witch than a woman? She’d take the heart out of a man whether he would or no!”

But Delaval answers nothing. His face is very pale, and there is a queer dazed look in his eyes which is foreign to them, and a shiver passes over his whole frame as the manager comes forward, announcing that Mademoiselle Ange having recovered her indisposition, will sing again.

After a few minutes she comes forward and sings a short but passionate love song, in which her voice falters, and tears glitter in her magnificent eyes.

The cheers and cries from the motley audience would have gladdened the ears of the greatest Diva that ever lived. And they bring triumph to the heart of this woman, a mighty triumph that gleams from her glance as she fixes one long look on Delaval’s face when she makes her final curtsey and retires.

“What sort of a woman is this Marguerite Ange?” Lord Delaval asks carelessly, though he is conscious that his heart throbs a little faster than usual as he awaits the answer. “She’s not over particular, is she?”

“Particular,” laughs Shropshire, “did you ever know an Alcazar songstress particular? You might as well expect prudery from Rose Stanley at the Holborn, or from little Kitty Mortimer at the Pavilion. Do you imagine her salary at the Alcazar pays for her charming _au premier_ in the Rue Tronchet, her carriage and _haute ecole_ cattle, the jewels and laces and velvets that are the very soul and essence of the beautiful Marguerite. Sapristi! You must have forgotten the world and its ways.”

“And the parable of the lamb and the wolves,” Silverlake adds. “I defy any woman making head against the current of lovers that Marguerite has.”

“I might have known it! They are all alike, these women,” Delaval mutters savagely through his set teeth.

“Understand, I don’t mean to hint a word against her morals, in fact, the Ange is extra proper. She always goes about with the most hideous of duennas. But she’s the very devil with men--twists them round her fingers--fools them to any extent--cleans them out and then throws them overboard. Young Valentin de Brissac blew his brains out about her last week, and not very long ago Jules de Grammont Charleville, a capital fellow, and one of the Faubourg St. Germain Charleville’s, went to the bad--took to drinking like a madman--tried to shoot her, and has got five years for it. The Ange is as hard as granite, as calculating as a Jew, and as vain as--well--I really can’t find anything to compare with her vanity.”

“Where did you say she lived, Shropshire?”

Shropshire looks at him and elevates his eyebrows, while Silverlake bursts out laughing.

This is the model Benedict all London has talked about!

“I thought you’d soon tire of domestic bliss and look out for pastures new,” Shropshire says. “Well--well--Marguerite won’t have anything to say to me, so I won’t be a dog in the manger, but wish you success. She lives at Number 17 Rue de Tronchet, just close to the Madelaine, you know.”

“Thanks.”

* * * * *

And Delaval, leaving his companions, saunters towards the Champs Elysèes instead of going home.

It is a lovely night. There is no moon, but myriads of stars cluster overhead, and somehow the quiet and the stillness of midnight are pleasant to him. He has quite made up his mind to see Marguerite Ange again.

It is not because he has fallen in love with her, far from it. The feeling she has inspired in him has at present, at any rate, no particle of love in it, but something draws him on to seeing her--to speaking to her--to saving her from a path that _must_ lead to perdition.

And he smiles almost bitterly at such a feeling possessing him about a singing woman at the Alcazar!

By and by, when the air has cooled his hot temples a little, and the oppressive sort of spell this evening has brought him disperses somewhat, he goes back to the hotel and enters the room where Zai lies fast asleep. How pretty she looks to his feverish eyes! The purity and sweetness of her face come like a glimpse of blue sky after a storm. She is happy, too, for her red lips part in a smile as she clasps her child close to her heart.

Lord Delaval stoops down and kisses her so softly that she never stirs. He is a worshipper of female beauty, and here before him--within his grasp--lies as fair a woman as ever was made to please the eyes of man. His wife--his own! a legitimate object for love and passion and admiration.

But men’s hearts are perverse things.

Noiselessly as he entered he steals away again to the adjoining room, and without undressing, flings himself into an armchair.

Here the break of dawn finds him--still sleepless, but lost in a waking dream of “_La Blonde aux yeux noir_.”