CHAPTER XVIII

It seems strange and painful to Lauraine to go back to the gaiety and brilliance of Baden after the quiet and rest of pretty, picturesque little Bingen.

A large party of her old friends and acquaintances are at the Badischer Hof, and her husband meets her at the station. Lady Etwynde has returned to England.

"You are not looking well," says Sir Francis. "And how thin you have become."

"I have not been very strong; this hot weather tries me so," she answers; and then they enter their carriage and drive to the hotel in the cool, sweet September twilight. Lauraine forces herself to talk, to try and appear interested in the forthcoming race; but the sense of strangeness produced by long absence and utter want of sympathy with each other's tastes and pursuits makes itself felt again and again. It is a relief when she finds herself alone in her own room. But with Lady Etwynde's words ringing in her ears, with her new resolves firm and close to her heart, she will not listen to whispers of distaste and discontent. She enters more into the business of her toilette than she has done since her child's death. She astonishes her maid by her critical objections. When she descends she looks like the Lauraine of old. Her cheeks are flushed with excitement, her eyes burn with feverish brilliancy. Her soft, snowy robes seem to make her beauty more fair, more young, more pathetic. The first person to greet her is the Lady Jean--Lady Jean, handsomer, if a little louder and stouter than ever, arrayed in a wonderful Louis Quatorze costume, with glittering steel buttons and ornaments. Consistent with her new _rôle_, Lauraine greets her very cordially, and even smiles with less repugnance on "Jo," who is one of her special detestations, and who looks even uglier, and more Jewish than of yore.

They are a very brilliant party assembled here, and the theme on every tongue is the coming race, and the wonderful English racer owned by Sir Francis. Lauraine wonders a little to find the women apparently as conversant with racecourse slang as the men--at the fluency with which Lady Jean discourses on "training," and "hedging," and "running form," and "hard condition." It seems so long since she was with women of this sort, women who ape the "lords of creation" in manners, dress, and morals, that she feels bewildered and out of place amidst them all.

When dinner is over they saunter out to the Kursaal. The band is playing, the _salons_ are crowded. The lights sparkle amid the trees, and fall on fair faces and lovely toilettes, on sovereigns of the _demi-monde_, supreme and defiant; on other sovereigns and celebrities, quite unobtrusive, undistinguished. They mingle with the crowd. Lady Jean, Sir Francis, and Lauraine are walking on a little in advance of the others. A fountain is throwing up showers of silver spray, the white gleam of a statue shines through the foliage; on the chairs beneath the trees two people are sitting--a man and a woman.

The light falls on her face: it is very lovely, though owing much to art. Her hair is of too vivid a gold to be quite natural; the great grey eyes are swept by lashes many shades darker than their original hue. She is talking and laughing loudly. The man leans carelessly back on his seat, tilting it to an angle that threatens its upset and his own. Perhaps it is that fact, reminding her so of a trick of Keith's, that makes Lauraine look a second time. Her heart gives a wild throb, she feels cold and sick with a sudden shame.

She sees it is Keith himself....

Just as they pass, the tilted chair is pulled back to its level with a ringing laugh.

"I declare to you it's impossible to speak when you will not look," says a shrill French voice.

His eyes go straight to that passing figure. He starts, and his face grows darkly red. The eyes meet for a second's space. In hers is pained rebuke, in his--shame. There is no word, no sign of recognition. But all the night seems full of dizzy pain to Keith.

"It is very annoying," murmurs Lady Jean the next morning, as she sits at the breakfast-table. "Why could they not have gone somewhere else?"

"What is annoying?" questions Lauraine, looking up from her chicken cutlets at the clouded, handsome face opposite.

"Why, those Americans; one meets them everywhere! Hortense tells me they arrived last night--that Woollffe woman, you know, and her niece; and they have the next rooms to mine; and, of course, we will meet them everywhere; and oh! I am so sick of them, you can't imagine!"

"Mrs. Woollffe is a very kind-hearted woman," murmurs Lauraine. She is pale and languid, and her eyes have a weary, sleepless look in them that tells of many hours of wakefulness. She and Lady Jean are alone.

"Kind-hearted!" echoes Lady Jean. "My dear, so is our greengrocer's wife, or our dressmaker, for all we know; but that is no reason why we should receive them in our drawing-rooms. Now, I have done my best to avoid this dreadful woman, for two seasons, and here she is, next door to me!"

"You are not bound to associate with her, if you are so exclusive," says Lauraine, a little contemptuously. "But there are many women received in society who have not half the honesty and sterling worth of Mrs. Bradshaw Woollffe."

"Of course," laughs Lady Jean, with unfeigned amusement; "but honesty and sterling worth are rather humdrum things, don't you think? And she is _so_ vulgar!"

"That should be a recommendation, I fancy," says Lauraine. "Almost every one is vulgar nowadays."

"Ah, but there is a distinction! When a woman is really well born, and has an established position, she may do what she likes. It is these mushroom millionaires, these _nouveaux riches_, with their lined pockets and their 'piles,' made out of every imaginable horror, adulterating, swindling, coal-mining, shoe-blacking, heaven only knows what, that are so odious and yet so formidable a power! They push, they struggle, they scheme, they spend their money like water, they have a craze for society, the very highest, the very best. They take our snubs and insults, and flatter and fawn just the same only for a card in their halls, a half-hour passage through their drawing-rooms, the honour and glory of a 'name' to figure in a society journal as one of their guests. Faugh! it is sickening!"

"But the society who eats and drinks and amuses itself at their expense is alone to blame," says Lauraine calmly. "If people had sufficient dignity and self-respect to oppose such innovations, to keep these people at a distance, they could not force themselves in."

"But they are always so abominably rich," laughs Lady Jean. "That excuses so much, you see; and then they let us treat them pretty much as we please. It is a case of get all you want, give what you like."

"To me that always seems a very mean doctrine," says Lauraine gravely.

"Do you treat Mrs. Bradshaw Woollffe as an equal, then?" asks Lady Jean ironically.

"If you mean do I know her one day and cut her the next, do I go to her balls and be blind when we pass in the Row, I must say--no. She comes to my house, I go to hers. She was extremely kind to me in Rome, and I never forget kindness. She is not very ladylike, I acknowledge, but I should be sorry to hurt her feelings because of that. I do not consider a lady can ever affect her own dignity by her behaviour to those whom society counts her inferiors. For my