Only a girl's love
As she spoke the curtains were withdrawn and the gentlemen came
sauntering in.
No one rests long over the wine, nowadays; the earl scarcely drank
a glass after the ladies left; he would fill his glass--fill two
perhaps, but rarely did more than sip them. Lord Leycester would
take a bumper of claret--the cellars were celebrated for the Chateau
Margaux. To-night it seemed as if he had taken an additional one, for
there was a deeper color on his face, and a brighter light in his eyes
than usual; the light which used to shine there in his school-days,
when there was some piece of wildness on, more mad than usual. Lord
Guildford came in leaning lightly upon his arm, and he was talking to
him in a low voice.
"One of the most beautiful faces I have ever seen, Ley: not your
regular cut-out-to-pattern kind of face, but fresh and--and--natural.
The sort of face Venus might have had when she rose from the sea that
fine morning----"
"Hush!" said Lord Leycester, with a slight start, and he thought of the
picture in his room, the picture of the Venus with the pale, fair face,
across which he had drawn the defacing brush that night he had come
home from his meeting with Stella. "Hush! they will hear you! Yes, she
is beautiful."
"Yes, beautiful! Take care, take care, Ley!" muttered Lord Charles.
Leycester put his hand from him with a smile.
"You talk in parables to-night, Charlie, and don't provide the key. Go
and get some tea."
He went himself toward the table and got a cup, but his eyes wandered
round the room, and the old countess and Lady Wyndward noticed the
searching glance.
"Leycester," said his mother, "will you ask Lenore to sing for us?"
He put down his cup and went down the room to where she was sitting
beside the earl.
"My mother has sent me as one of her ambassadors to the queen of
music," he said. "Will your majesty deign to sing for us?"
She looked up at him with a smile, then gave her cup to one of the
maids, and put her hand upon his arm.
"Do you know that this is the first time you have spoken to me
since--since--I cannot remember?"
"One does not dare intrude upon royalty too frequently; it would be
presumptuous," he said.
"In what am I royal?" she asked.
"In your beauty!" he said, and he was the only man in the room who
would have dared so pointed a reply.
"Thanks," she said, with a calm smile; "you are very frank to-night."
"Am I? And why not? We do not hesitate to call the summer sky blue
or the ocean vast. There are some things so palpable and generally
acknowledged that to be reserved about them would be absurd."
"That will do," she said. "Since when have you learnt such eloquent
phrases? What shall I sing, or shall I sing at all?"
"To please me you have but to sing to please yourself!" he said.
"Find me something then," she said, and sat down with her hands folded,
looking a very queen indeed.
He knelt down beside the canterbury, and, as at a signal, there was
a general gathering round the piano, but she still sat calm and
unconscious, very queen-like indeed.
Leycester found a song, and set it up for her, opened the piano, took
her bouquet from her lap, and waited for her gloves, the rest looking
on as if interference were quite out of the question.
Slowly she removed her gloves and gave them to him, touched the piano
with her jeweled fingers, and began to sing.
At this moment Stella, who had been wandering round the fernery, came
back to the entrance, and stood listening and absorbed.
She had never heard so beautiful a voice, not even in Italy. But
presently, even while a thrill of admiration was running through
her, she became conscious that there was something wanting. Her
musical sense was unsatisfied. The notes were clear, bell-like, and
as harmonious as a thrush's, the modulation perfect; but there was
something wanting. Was it heart? From where she stood she could see the
lovely face, with its dark violet eyes upturned, its eloquent mouth
curved to allow the music vent, and the loveliness held her inthralled,
though the voice did not move her.
The song came to an end, and the singer sat with a calm smile receiving
the murmurs of gratitude and appreciation, but she declined to sing
again, and Stella saw Lord Leycester hand her her gloves and bouquet
and stand ready to conduct her whither she would.
"He stands like her slave, to obey her slightest wish," she thought.
"Ah! how happy she must be," and with a something that was almost
a sigh, she turned back into the dim calm of the fernery; she felt
strangely alone and solitary at that moment.
Suddenly there was a step behind her, and looking up she saw Lord
Leycester.
"I have found you!" he said, and there was a ring of satisfaction and
pleasure in his voice that went straight to her heart. "Where have you
been hiding?"
She looked up at the handsome face full of life and strong manhood, and
her eyes fell.
"I have not been hiding," she said. "I have been here."
"You are right," he said, seating himself beside her; "this is the best
place; it is cool and quiet here; it is more like our woods, is it not,
with the ferns and the primroses?" and at the "our" he smiled into her
eyes.
"It is very lovely here," she said. "It's all lovely. How beautifully
she sings!" she added, rather irrelevantly.
"Sings?" he said. "Oh, Lenore! Yes, she sings well, perfectly. And that
reminds me. I have been sent to ask you to make music for us."
Stella shrank back with a glance of alarm.
"I? Oh, no, no! I could not."
He smiled at her.
"But your uncle----"
"He should not!" said Stella, with a touch of crimson. "I could not
sing. I am afraid."
"Afraid! You?" he said. "Of what?"
"Of--of--everything," she said, with a little laugh. "I could not sing
before all these people. I have never done so. Besides, to sing after
Lady Lenore would be like dancing a hornpipe."
"I should be content if you would dance a hornpipe," he said. "I should
think it good and wise."
"Are you laughing at me?" she said, looking up at the dark eyes. "Why?"
"Laughing at you?" he repeated. "I! I could not. It is you who laugh at
me; I think you are laughing at me most times. You will not sing, then?"
"I cannot," she said.
"Then you shall not," he responded; "you shall not do anything you do
not like. But some time you will sing for us, will you not? Your uncle
has been telling us about your voice, and how you came by it," and his
own voice grew wonderfully gentle.
"My father, he meant," said Stella, simply. "Yes; he could sing. He was
a great musician, and when I think of that, I am inclined to resolve
never to open my lips again."
There was a moment's pause. Stella sat pulling a piece of maidenhair
apart, her eyes downcast; his eyes were reading her beautiful face,
and noting the graceful turns of the white neck. Someone was playing
the grand piano, and the music floated in and about the tall palms. It
was an intoxicating moment for him! The air was balmy with perfumes
from the exotics, the warm blood was running freely in his veins, the
beauty of the girl beside him seemed to entrance him. Instinctively his
hand, being idly near her, went toward hers, and would have touched it,
but suddenly one of the maids entered, and with a slow, respectful air
approached them. She held a silver salver, on which lay a small note,
folded in a lover's knot.
Lord Leycester looked up; the interruption came just in time.
"For me?" he said.
"For Miss Etheridge, my lord," replied the maid, with a courtesy.
"For me?" echoed Stella, taking the note.
"I can guess who it is from," he said, with a smile. "Lilian is growing
impatient--if she is ever that."
Stella unfolded the note. This was it: "Will you come to me now, if you
care to?"
"Oh, yes, I will go at once," she said, standing up.
He rose with a sigh.
"It is the first time I have envied Lilian anything," he said, in a
low voice.
"This way, if you please, miss," said the maid.
"A moment--a moment only," said Lord Leycester, and as Stella stopped,
he gathered a few sprays of maidenhair from the margin of the fountain.
"It is a peace-offering. Will you take it to her? I promised that I
would ask you to go directly after dinner," he said, softly.
"Yes," said Stella, and as she took it there rose once more in her mind
the word Jasper Adelstone had spoken--"infamous." This man who sent his
sister such a message in such a voice!
"Thanks," he said. "But it was scarcely necessary. I have sent her
something more beautiful, more precious."
Stella did not understand far a moment, then as her eyes met his, she
knew that he meant herself, and the color flooded her face.
"You should not say that," she said, gravely, and before he could
answer she moved away, and followed the maid.
The maid led her through the hall and up the broad stairs, across the
corridor and knocked at Lady Lilian's door.
Stella entered, and a grave peace seemed to fall upon her.
Lady Lilian was lying on the couch by the window, and raised herself to
hold out her hand.
"How good of you to come!" she said, eagerly, and as the voice broke on
Stella's ear, she knew what Lady Lenore's voice wanted. "You think me
very selfish to bring you away from them all do you not?" she added,
still holding Stella's hand in her white, cool one.
"No," said Stella, "I am very glad to come. I would have come before,
but I did not know whether I might."
"I have been waiting, and did not like to send for you," said Lady
Lilian, "and have you had a pleasant evening?"
Stella sank into a low seat beside the couch, and looked up into the
lovely face with a smile.
"I have had a wonderful evening!" she said.
Lady Lilian looked at her inquiringly.
"Wonderful," said Stella, frankly. "You see I have never been in such
a place as this before; it all seems so grand and beautiful--more
beautiful than grand indeed, that I can scarcely believe it is real."
"It is real--too real," said Lady Lilian, with a smile and a little
sigh. "I daresay you think it is very nice, and I--do you know what I
think?"
Stella shook her head.
"I think, as I look down at your little cottage, how beautiful, how
nice your life must be."
"Mine!" said Stella. "Well, yes, it is very nice. But this is
wonderful."
"Because you are not used to it," said Lady Lilian. "Ah! you would soon
get tired of it, believe me."
"Never," breathed Stella, looking down; as she did so she saw the
maidenhair, and held it up.
"Lord Leycester sent these to you," she said.
A loving light came into Lady Lilian's eyes as she took the green,
fragrant sprays.
"Leycester?" she said, touching her cheek with them. "That is like
him--he is too good to me."
Stella looked across the room at a picture of the Madonna rising from
the earth, with upturned, glorious eyes.
"Is he?" she murmured.
"Oh, yes, yes, there never was a brother like him in all the wide
world," said Lady Lilian, in a rapt voice. "I cannot tell you how
good he is to me; he is always thinking of me--he who has so much to
think of. I fancy sometimes that people are apt to deem him selfish
and--and--thoughtless, but they do not know----"
"No," said Stella again. The voice sounded like music in her ears--she
could have listened forever while it sung his song; and yet that word
suddenly rang out in discord, and she smiled. "He seems very kind," she
said--"he is very kind to me."
Lady Lilian looked at her suddenly, and an anxious expression came into
her eyes. It was not many nights ago that she had implored Leycester to
see no more of the girl with the dark eyes and silky hair; and here was
the girl sitting at her feet, and it was her doing! She had not thought
of that before; she had been so fascinated by the fresh young beauty,