24 MOTHS. early,—noon-day. The château was quite still. At nightJhe great ball was Jto be given to the English princes, but the household was too well trained to make any disturbance with their preparations. Down the steps of the great ter- race there was stretched scarlet cloth, and all the face of the building was hung with globes and cressets of oil, to be lit at dark. These were the only outward signs that anything more brilliant than usual was about to take place. "You will come to breakfast?" said Lady Dolly, pausing at the threshold of her room. It was the first word she had said to Vere since the dawn, when they had parted, and her own voice sounded strange to her. Vere shuddered as with cold. "I cannot. Make some excuse." " What is the use of putting off?" said her mother, fretfully. " You will be ill; you are ill. If you should be ill to-night, what will every one say? what will he think? what shall I do?" Vere went into her chamber and locked her door. She locked out even her maid ; flung her hat aside, and threw herself forward on the bed, face downward, and there lay. Lady Dolly went into her chamber, and glanced at her own face with horror. Though made up, as weU as usual for the day, she looked yellow, worn, old. " /must go down!" she thought: how selfish youth was, and how hard a thing was mother- hood ! She had herself dressed beautifully and took some ether. She had sunk her drowned conscience fath- oms deep, and began once more to pity herself for the obstinacy and oddness of the child to whom she had given birth. Why could not the girl be like any others? The ether began to move in her veins and swim in her head; her eyes grew brighter. She went out of her room and along the corridor to the staircase, fastening an autumn-rose or two in her breast, taken from the bouquet of her dressing-table. As she glanced down the staircase into the hall where the servants in the canary-colored liveries of the house were going to ana fïo, she thought of all the rank and riches of whicli Félicité was only one trifling portion and symbol, and thought to herself that —after all—any mother would have done as she had done, and no maiden surely could need a higher reward for the gift of her innocence to the minotaur of a loveless marriage. " If I had been married like th at !" she thought. and felt that she had been cruelly wronged by destiny; if she had been married like that, how easy it would have been lo have become a good woman ! What could Vere complain of?—the marriage was perfect in a worldly sense, and in any other sense—did it matter what it was? So the ether whispered to her. She began to taste the sweets of her victory and to forget the bitter, as the ether brought its consoling haze over all painful memories and lent its stimulating brightness to all personal vanities. After all, it was very delightful to go down those stairs, knowing' that when she met all those dear female friends whom she detested, and who detested her, no one could pity her and every one must envy her. She had betrothed her daughter to one of the richest and best-born men in all Europe. Was it not the crown of maternity, as maternity is understood in society? So down she went, and crossed the great ves- tibule, looking young, fair, and bewitching with the roses in her bosom, and an admirably chosen expression on her face, half glad and half plaintive, and with a flush under her paint that made her look prettier than ever; her eyes sparkled, her smile was all sunshine and sweet- ness, she pressed the hands of her most intimate friends with an eloquent tenderness, she was ex- quisitely arrayed with cascades of old Mechlin falling from her throat to her feet. ""A mother only lives to be young again in her child!" she said, softly,—and knew that she looked herself no more than twenty years old as she said it. Sergius Zouroff, profuse in delicate compli- ment to her aloud, said to himself,— " Brava, naughty Dolly ! Bis-bis! Will she ever be like you, I wonder? Perhaps. The world makes you all alike after a little while." He was ready to pay a high price for inno- cence, because it was a new toy that pleased him. But he never thought that it would last, any more than the bloom lasts on the peach. He had no illusions. Since it would be agree- able to brush it off himself, he was ready to purchase it. There was a sense of excitement and of dis- appointment in the whole house-party; and Princess Nelaguine ran from one to another, with her little bright Tartar eyes all aglow, murmuring, " Charmée, charmée, charmée!" to impatient ears. "Such a beast as he is!" said the men who smoked his cigars and rode his horses. "And she who looked all ice and innocence!" said the women, already in arms against her. Vere did not come down to taste the first fruits of her triumph. At the great midday breakfast, where most people assembled, she was absent. Zouroff him- self laid another bouquet of orchids by her plate, but she was not there to receive the deli- cate homage. "Mademoiselle Vera has not risen?" he asked now, with an angry contraction of his low brows, as no one came where the orchids were lying. "Vera had a headache," said Lady Dolly se- renely, aloud. "Or said so," she murmured to his ear alone. "Don't be annoyed. She was shy. She is a little farouche, you know, my poor darling. " Zouroff nodded, and took his caviare. "What did I predict, love?" murmured Lady Stoat, of Stitchley, taking her friend aside after breakfast. "But how quickly you succeeded! Last evening only you were in despair! Was the resistance only a feint? Or what persuasions did you bring to bear?" " I threatened to send her to Bulmer Chase!" said Lady Dolly, with a gay little laugh. Lady Stoat laughed also. "I wonder what you did do," she reflected, however, as she laughed. " Oh, naughty little pussy—foolish, foolish, little pussy!—to have any secrets from me!" The day wore away, and Vere Herbert re- mained unseen in Félicité The guests grew surprised, and the host an- Princess Nelaguine herself had ascended to the girl's room and had been denied. People began to murmur that it was odd. " Go and fetch her," said Zouroff, in a fierce whisper, "It is time that I, at least, ¦should see her,—unless you have told me a lie." "Unless she be really ill, I suppose you mean, you cruel creature!" said her mother, reproach- ' dngly; but she obeyed him and went. "„Girls are so fond of tragedy!" reflected Lady Stoat, recalling episodes in the betrothal of her own daughter, and passages that had preceded it. It was five o'clock. The day had been chilly, as it is at times along the Channel shores, even in summer. Several persons were in the blue- room, so called because of its turquoise silk walls and its quantities of Delft, Nankin, Sa- vona, and other blue china ranged there. It was the room for afternoon tea. Several of the ladies were there in tea-gowns of the quaintest and prettiest, that allowed them to lie about in the most gracefully-tired attitudes. The strong summer sun found its way only dimly there, and the sweet smells of the flowers and of the sea were overborne by the scent of the pastilles burning in the bodies of blue china monsters. Zouroff, who at times was very negligent of his guests, was pacing up and down the long dim chamber impatiently, and every now and then he glanced at the door. He did not look once at the pretty groups, like eighteenth-cen- tury pictures tinged with the languor of oda lisques that were sipping tea out of tiny cups in an alcove lined with celadon and crackling. The tinkle of the tea-cups and the ripple of the talk ceased as the door at the father end opened, and Vere entered, lea by her mother. She was white, and cold, and still; she did not raise her eyelids. Zouroff approached with eager steps, and bowed before her with the dignity that he could very well assume when he chose. "Mademoiselle," he said, softly, "is it true that you consent to mate the most unworthy of men the most happy?" He saw a slight shudder pass over her as if some cold wind had smitten her. She did not lift her eyes. "Since you wish, monsieur— swered, very low, and then paused. "The adoration of a life shall repay you," he murmured, in the conventional phrase, and kissed her hand. she an- has made you do this, and you hate m«. Never- mind." Then he drew her hand on his arm, and led her to the Princess Nelaguine. ^ " My sister, embrace your sister. I shall have two angels henceforth instead of one, to watch and pray for my erring soul \'2~ Princess Nelaguine did not smile. She kissed the cold cheek of the girl with a glistenjof tears in her eyes. " What a sacrifice ! What a martyrdom!" she thought. "Ah, the poor child!—but perhaps he will ranger,—let us hope." All the while Vere might have been made of marble, she was so calm and so irresponsive, and she never once lifted her eyes. " Will you not look at me once?" he entreat- ed. She raised her lids and gave him one fleet- ing, hunted glance. Cruel though he was, and hardened, Sergius Zouroff felt that look go to his soul. "Bah! how she loathes me!" he said in his teeth. But the compassion in him died out al- most as it was born, and the base appetites in him were only whetted and made keener by this- knowledge. Lady Stoat glided towards them and lifted her lips to Vere's cheek. " My sweet child! so charmed, so delighted!"" she whispered. "Did I not say how it would be when your first shyness had time to fold its tents, as the poem says, and steal away?" "You are always a prophetess of good,—and my mother's friend," said Vere. They were al- most the first words she had spoken, and they chilled even the worldly breast of her mother s friend. There was an accent in them which told of a childhood perished in a night,—of an innocence and a faith stabbed, and stricken, and buried for evermore. "You are only sixteen, and you will never- be young any more!" thought Princess Nela- guine, hearing the cold and bitter accent of those pregnant words. But the ladies that made the eighteenth-cen- tury picture had broken up and issued from the alcove, and were offering congratulations and compliments in honeyed phrases; and no one heeded or had time for serious thought. Only Lady Dolly, in a passionate murmur,, cried, unheeded by any, in her daughter's ear,— " For heaven's sake smile, blush, seem happy t What will they say of you to look at you like this?—they will say that I coerce you!" " I do my best!" answered Vere, coldly. " My lovely mother-in-law." muttered Prince Zouroff, bending to Lady Dolly, as he brought her a cup of tea, " certainly you did not lie to me this morning when you told me that your Vere would marry me; but did you not lie— just a little lie, a little white one—when you said she would love me?" "Love comes in time," murmured Lady Dolly, hurriedly. Sergius Zouroff laughed grimly. " Does it? I fear that experience rather that with time—it goes." "Yours may; hers will come: the woman's always comes last." ' ' Ma chère, your new theories are astound- ing. Nevertheless, as your son-in-law, I will give in my adhesion to them. Henceforth all the sex of your Vere—and yourself—is purity and perfection in my sight!" Lady Dolly smiled sweetly in his face. " It is never too late to be converted to the truth," she said, playfully, whilst she thought, " Oh, you beast! If I could strangle you!" Meanwhile Princess Nelaguine was saying, with kindness in her tone and gaze,— " My sweet child, you look chilly and pale. Were you wise to leave your room out of good- ness to us?" "I am cold," murmured Vere, faintly. "I should be glad if I might go away—for a little." "Impossible," said the princess; and added, " Dear, reflect: it will look so strange to people. My brother------" "I will stay, then," said Vere, wearily; and she sat down, and received the homage of one and the felicitations of another, still with her eyes always cast downward, still with her young face passionless and chill as a mask of marble. " An hour's martyrdom more or less,—did it matter?" she said to herself. All her life would be a martyrdom, a long mute martyrdom, now. A few hours later her maid dressed her for the ball. She had no need of her mother's pearls, for those which had been ordered from, tells one In his own thoughts he said, " Your mother I Paris'jewelers were there,—the largest and.