LITMIR.BIZ

      “Ah, madam!” said he, softly; “there is one error, if it be so, that never can cost me shame.”

      “Indeed!” said Valerie with an unaffected start, for she was not aware he was so near her. As she spoke she began plucking (it is a common woman’s trick) the flowers from the vase between her and Ernest. That small, delicate, almost transparent hand!—Maltravers gazed upon the hand, then on the countenance, then on the hand again. The scene swam before him, and, involuntarily and as by an irresistible impulse, the next moment that hand was in his own.

      “Pardon me—pardon me,” said he, falteringly; “but that error is in the feelings that I know for you.”

      Valerie lifted on him her large and radiant eyes, and made no answer.

      Maltravers went on. “Chide me, scorn me, hate me if you will. Valerie, I love you.”

      Valerie drew away her hand, and still remained silent.

      “Speak to me,” said Ernest, leaning forward; “one word, I implore you—speak to me!”

      He paused—still no reply; he listened breathlessly—he heard her sob. Yes; that proud, that wise, that lofty woman of the world, in that moment, was as weak as the simplest girl that ever listened to a lover. But how different the feelings that made her weak!—what soft and what stern emotions were blent together!

      “Mr. Maltravers,” she said, recovering her voice, though it sounded hollow, yet almost unnaturally firm and clear”—the die is cast, and I have lost for ever the friend for whose happiness I cannot live, but for whose welfare I would have died; I should have foreseen this, but I was blind. No more—no more; see me to-morrow, and leave me now!”

      “But, Valerie—”

      “Ernest Maltravers,” said she, laying her hand lightly on his own; “there is no anguish, like an error of which we feel ashamed!”

      Before he could reply to this citation from his own aphorism, Valerie had glided away; and was already seated at the card-table, by the side of the Italian princess.

      Maltravers also joined the group. He fixed his eyes on Madame de Ventadour, but her face was calm—not a trace of emotion was discernible. Her voice, her smile, her charming and courtly manner, all were as when he first beheld her.

      “These women—what hypocrites they are!” muttered Maltravers to himself; and his lip writhed into a sneer, which had of late often forced away the serene and gracious expression of his earlier years, ere he knew what it was to despise. But Maltravers mistook the woman he dared to scorn.

      He soon withdrew from the palazzo, and sought his hotel. There, while yet musing in his dressing-room, he was joined by Ferrers. The time had passed when Ferrers had exercised an influence over Maltravers; the boy had grown up to be the equal of the man, in the exercise of that two-edged sword—the reason. And Maltravers now felt, unalloyed, the calm consciousness of his superior genius. He could not confide to Ferrers what had passed between him and Valerie. Lumley was too hard for a confidant in matters where the heart was at all concerned. In fact, in high spirits, and in the midst of frivolous adventures, Ferrers was charming. But in sadness, or in the moments of deep feeling, Ferrers was one whom you would wish out of the way.

      “You are sullen to-eight, mon cher,” said Lumley, yawning; “I suppose you want to go to bed—some persons are so ill-bred, so selfish, they never think of their friends. Nobody asks me what I won at ecarte. Don’t be late to-morrow—I hate breakfasting alone, and I am never later than a quarter before nine—I hate egotistical, ill-mannered people. Good night.”

      With this, Ferrers sought his own room; there, as he slowly undressed, he thus soliloquised: “I think I have put this man to all the use I can make of him. We don’t pull well together any longer; perhaps I myself am a little tired of this sort of life. That is not right. I shall grow ambitious by and by; but I think it a bad calculation not to make the most of youth. At four or five-and-thirty it will be time enough to consider what one ought to be at fifty.”