Beauly. "At last," I thought to myself, "the Major's little dinner will bring me my reward!"And what a reward it was, when it came! My heart sinks in me again--as it sank on that never-to-be-forgotten evening--while Isit at my desk thinking of it.
"So Dexter really spoke to you of Mrs. Beauly!" exclaimed Lady Clarinda. "You have no idea how you surprise me.""May I ask why?"
"He hates her! The last time I saw him he wouldn't allow me to mention her name. It is one of his innumerable oddities. If any such feeling as sympathy is a possible feeling in such a nature as his, he ought to like Helena Beauly. She is the most completely unconventional person I know. When she does break out, poor dear, she says things and does things which are almost reckless enough to be worthy of Dexter himself. I wonder whether you would like her?""You have kindly asked me to visit you, Lady Clarinda. Perhaps Imay meet her at your house?"
"I hope you will not wait until that is likely to happen," she said. "Helena's last whim is to fancy that she has got--the gout, of all the maladies in the world! She is away at some wonderful baths in Hungary or Bohemia (I don't remember which)--and where she will go, or what she will do next, it is perfectly impossible to say.--Dear Mrs. Woodville! is the heat of the fire too much for you? You are looking quite pale."I _felt_ that I was looking pale. The discovery of Mrs. Beauly's absence from England was a shock for which I was quite unprepared. For a moment it unnerved me.
"Shall we go into the other room?" asked Lady Clarinda.
To go into the other room would be to drop the conversation. Iwas determined not to let that catastrophe happen. It was just possible that Mrs. Beauly's maid might have quitted her service, or might have been left behind in England. My information would not be complete until I knew what had become of the maid. Ipushed my chair back a little from the fire-place, and took a hand-screen from a table near me; it might be made useful in hiding my face, if any more disappointments were in store for me.
"Thank you, Lady Clarinda; I was only a little too near the fire.
I shall do admirably here. You surprise me about Mrs. Beauly.
From what Mr. Dexter said to me, I had imagined--""Oh, you must not believe anything Dexter tells you!" interposed Lady Clarinda. "He delights in mystifying people; and he purposely misled you, I have no doubt. If all that I hear is true, _he_ ought to know more of Helena Beauly's strange freaks and fancies than most people. He all but discovered her in one of her adventures (down in Scotland), which reminds me of the story in Auber's charming opera--what is it called? I shall forget my own name next! I mean the opera in which the two nuns slip out of the convent, and go to the ball. Listen! How very odd! That vulgar girl is singing the castanet song in the second act at this moment. Major! what opera is the young lady singing from?"The Major was scandalized at this interruption. He bustled into the back room--whispered, "Hush! hush! my dear lady; the 'Domino Noir'"--and bustled back again to the piano.
"Of course!" said Lady Clarinda. "How stupid of me! The 'Domino Noir.' And how strange that you should forget it too!"I had remembered it perfectly; but I could not trust myself to speak. If, as I believed, the "adventure" mentioned by Lady Clarinda was connected, in some way, with Mrs. Beauly's mysterious proceedings on the morning of the twenty-first of October, I was on the brink of the very discovery which it was the one interest of my life to make! I held the screen so as to hide my face; and I said, in the steadiest voice that I could command at the moment, "Pray go on!--pray tell me what the adventure was!"Lady Clarinda was quite flattered by my eager desire to hear the coming narrative.