The Incendiary Part 29

"The t.i.tle is very old?" asked Rosalie, to blunt the edge of his impertinence.

"Not very old," answered Count L'Alienado, gently, but looking full at Marmouth. "Before Columbus set out from Palos my ancestor was knighted by Ferdinand the Great--for honorable services."

"We are moving at last," growled the earl, as if personally grieved at the delay. His own t.i.tle was less than 200 years old and the services for which it was granted, by the second Charles, though historic, could not possibly be called honorable.

"Ah, this is joyous!" cried the Violet, as the sensuous pleasure of the ride stole over her. A quick-step, taken from the start, gave the party a gentle jolting, just sufficiently softened by the padded carriage upholstery. Up hill and down dale, through the riches of midsummer, the route chosen wound. Forest and meadow sailed leisurely by them. Handkerchiefs waved from piazza and window wherever they pa.s.sed a dwelling house, and at every cross-road stood a group of the fresh-faced country-folk to give them greeting. At the end of an hour the road recurved on itself along a hillside overlooking the valley of the racing park and the pageant bent its length into the form of a letter S, so that without the delay of a formal review each carriage was permitted to inspect the others.

Count L'Alienado saw barges filled with maidens, like living flowers, four-in-hand tally-hos, crowded with sportive collegians, odd jaunting-cars and donkey-carts got up by the wags, staid family coaches with footmen faced rearward to enjoy the retrospect, and open drags like his own without number, all brilliant with lovely womanhood.

The Violet stood apart from the others, sensuous and exotic--like an orange lily in a garden of snowdrops. But, supreme over all, like a bright light, enhanced by reflectors, shone the loveliness of Rosalie March--pure, placid and faultlessly costumed as ever. The jockeys whispered to one another when her vehicle entered the racing park. An eager look at that moment chased away the slight hauteur of her expression--not unbecoming in one so clearly removed from the common order, and far from approaching disdain. She turned her head toward the stables expectantly.

"Paradise," said the Violet, when they had entered and the carriages circled around the great oval.

"This is something like England," said the earl.

"None the worse for that," smiled Rosalie.

"No. Most of the good things I have seen here are derived from the mother country."

"Do you agree, Count L'Alienado?" asked Rosalie, appealing to the stranger.

"Candor is too sharp a sword to carry about unsheathed," answered Count L'Alienado.

Mme. Violet smiled archly, bringing her Gainsborough brim close to the earl's great face and caressing her spaniel with provoking abandon.

Rosalie's little abstraction since they pa.s.sed through the gate might easily be understood, for Harry Arnold was entered in the steeplechase for gentlemen riders.

"There they come!" she cried, but it was only a group of motley jockeys for the ring race. This pa.s.sed off quietly enough.

"Now for the steeplechase," cried Rosalie. "There's Harry!" She instinctively plucked the Violet's hand. Then, remembering they were not alone, she colored. Harry led the group of riders who came from the stables, mounted on strong-limbed steeplechasers. His uniform was of the bulrush brown velvet he liked, and his horse a bright chestnut, which pranced as if proud to carry such a master. Even at a distance his splendid seat gave presage of victory.

"Mr. Arnold is the favorite," said Count L'Alienado.

"Although he gives away forty pounds to Leroy," added Rosalie, the technical terms of the track coming strangely from her lips. It was fortunate for her peace of mind Tristram was not there to hear them.

"Now they start!" she cried, alive with interest; but it was only Harry Arnold who spurted his curvetting chestnut across the turf, then reined him up on his haunches with a sudden jerk, as you may have seen an old cavalry sergeant perform the trick. But Leroy, who, as Rosalie said, weighed nearly half a hundred less, wisely reserved his white horse's strength.

"Now!" repeated Rosalie, unconsciously clasping the flag, as if eager to bestow it. The horses, six in number, had started in a bunch and kept together easily till the pistol flash. Then each bounded as if cut with a whip, and rider and horse bent forward.

"Hurrah!" shouted the ring of onlookers about the inclosure, as all six took the first low wall together. The course led straightway across the oval, up a hill at one end, then out of sight for a circuit of a mile, and back by another route, over ditch and mound. Harry Arnold's chestnut and Leroy's white could be seen a length in the lead of the others and neck and neck, as they struggled up the hill and sunk to view on the other side.

"How glorious! How delightful!" cried the Violet, in the interim of suspense. "It is better than the wild Indians that rode in the coliseum last year. Your full-blooded racers, they are too lean, like gra.s.shoppers. Oh, the steeplechase is better. I believe, after all, you owe something to old England, which bequeathed you this legacy."

"You remember the horse-race in 'Anna Karenina?'" asked his lords.h.i.+p, much mollified. "One of the most ethical of books, in the broader sense of the word."

His question seemed addressed to Count L'Alienado.

"I have not read the Russians," he answered.

"You are behind the world, senor. And where may your diversions lie?"

"My favorites," he answered, "are the Persian poets."

Rosalie desisted for a moment from scanning the black crest of the distant hill with her great eyes full of eagerness. Then she recovered herself suddenly, and cried out, in a piercing voice: "They are coming!"

"Who is ahead?"

"The chestnut and the white are even," said the count.

"Oh, I hope he will win!" prayed Rosalie, clutching the prizes she was to award. Down the slope they strained, heading toward the goal. Only a close side view could have disclosed the advantage in favor of either.

"Harry Arnold will win," said Count L'Alienado. "Leroy is whipping his horse."

The count's judgment proved correct. Almost immediately the chestnut began drawing away from the white. A nose, a neck, half a length, and the clear ground intervened. Harry did not touch whip or spur to the sides of his mount, until the last leap, when a high wall and a long ditch had to be taken together. On the very rise of the jump he switched his chestnut's flanks, and just as the conductor's baton seems a wand visibly producing the swell of the orchestra, so this light motion seemed to give the impulse to the horse's spring. The clatter of his feet on the hard turf beyond announced him the winner amid cheers. Leroy's white took the ditch gallantly, too, but the blood showed red in its nostrils.

Instead of reining up at the goal, Harry executed a characteristic caprice. The fence surrounding the race-track was nearly five feet high. Careering on at full gallop, the victor urged his animal toward this obstacle. A great shout greeted him as he cleared it, the chestnut's hind hoofs grazing the boards. Then, swiftly turning to the right, he cantered up to Rosalie's carriage, gracefully backed his horse and saluted. Leroy joined him through the gate, and stood at his side, while the losers straggled in, haphazard and blown.

"That was for you, Rosalie," said Harry in her ear as she laid the flagstaff in his hand. It was meant for a whisper, but others heard it, and on the morrow the news had spread all over Lenox that Harry Arnold and the beautiful Rosalie March were definitely betrothed. When it reached Mrs. Arnold in Hillsborough, as though by special messenger, she retired at once to her room.

The coaching party paraded out and dispersed amid merrymakings freer than before. Mme. Violet was bewitching during the journey home, making up by a double stream of effortless prattle for Rosalie's unwonted silence.

"But Poe," protested the girl, as if waking suddenly, when the earl, who had got back to book talk again, inveighed against the poverty of our literature.

"Ting-a-ling," said his n.o.ble lords.h.i.+p. The carriage had just stopped to leave Count L'Alienado at his hotel.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

THE PURPLE TEA.

"The Earl of Marmouth sends his regards. He will be unable to join us." Tristram March held a coroneted note in his hands while he made this announcement to the company. There was a faint salvo of regrets, meant for the Violet's ears. Only Miss Milly Mills was heard remarking, sotto voce: "I'm glad the old bear is chained for once."

"But the grizzly is grand in its den, dear," chided Dorothea Goodbody, a little louder.

"True. We do not fit everywhere," said the Violet, who had overheard them. "Imagine Th.o.r.eau in a salon."

"Or Talleyrand in the Walden woods," added Count L'Alienado.

More than one of the company had noted this as the third occasion on which his n.o.ble lords.h.i.+p avoided a meeting with the count. Was it that in the reserved Spaniard he had encountered a force which he could not overbear? Or was he jealous of the count's attention to the Violet? Twice at the Ryecroft's hop she had inadvertently answered the slender foreigner and turned her smooth, brown shoulder to the Englishman.

"Well," said Tristram, "the menagerie must perform without its lion."

"How flattering, brother!" cried Rosalie. Harry Arnold was leaning over her chair. "You compare us to wolves and panthers."

"Not unhappily," said the Violet. "Mine host is clever. He will put us all in an apologue like Aesop's. I am curious to see how I shall be transformed."

"The mood is wanting," cried Tristram, while the young ladies seconded the suggestion. "I am savage. I should affront you all with some furious satire."

"Imagine Tristram furious," said Harry.

"A smothered volcano. I have committed to-day the sin against the Holy Ghost. Guess what that is?"

"Success," said the Violet.

"Candor," the count.

"Bachelorhood," Miss Milly Mills.

"Punning," his sister Rosalie.

But Tristram shook his head drearily at each response.

"Well, then, tell us," cried a chorus of impatient voices.

"I have prost.i.tuted art to lucre--having disposed of my great design of Ajax's s.h.i.+eld--for what purpose, do you think?"

All the guesses were wild again.

"For a bed-spread," said Tristram, and there was a chorus of laughter, amid which the circle broke up into little moving knots, all electrically united, however, so that the talk flew from one part of the room to another.

It was one of Tristram's soirees, which were the events of the season in Lenox. The flavor of art was subst.i.tuted for that of artificiality, and usually some souvenir, bearing the touch of the host's own fanciful hand, was carried away by each of the guests. The coveted invitation for this night's affair announced "a purple tea," and the furnis.h.i.+ngs verified the description. Rich muslin shades over the chandeliers (Rosalie's work) purpled all the atmosphere of the parlors. Purple hangings here and there carried out the suggestion, but not too obtrusively, and each of the guests appeared with some purple garment.

Among the ladies these generally verged toward the wine-colored shades, for they were all too young to carry well the full warmth of the Tyrian. Thus the Violet's mantilla, Rosalie's cloud, Harry Arnold's sash, were all steeped to the same dye, now the crimson, now the blue element prevailing in the mixture. Count L'Alienado alone appeared to have evaded the rule until, raising his right hand to smell a rose, he scattered a pencil of purple light from an opalescent stone which none present were learned enough in lapidary science to name.

"Let's have tableau charades!" cried Miss Milly Mills, who flitted from person to person, from subject to subject, like a b.u.t.terfly, and was accused of a partiality for spruce gum. The suggestion was taken up with approval, and nearly every one present acted out the first word that came to him on the spur of the moment.

Tristram gave what he called a definition of himself in lengthy pantomime which no one could fathom. So he was obliged to explain that meed--eye--ochre--tea, summed up "mediocrity," at which one and all protested. Most of the other attempts were quite as laborious. But when the Violet stepped forward and trilled an upper C, then buzzed like an insect and put her right foot forward, there was a unanimous cry of "Trilby!" and the flatness began to be taken out of the game.

Then the pleasures grew more miscellaneous and Count L'Alienado found himself for a time alone on the outer balcony with Mme. Violet. The sky was starlit above, the shadows lay deep in the garden bushes below, and the diamonds burned amid her braids. They talked of the Persian poets till the light voice of Tristram within interrupted them and a ripple of laughter from the purple interior reached their ears.

"Ah, this is not fair; that our wisest and wittiest should impoverish the company by their absence. Your places are waiting and the bell is tired of tinkling to you."

"We were lost among the stars," replied Count L'Alienado.

Opposite the count sat Harry Arnold; opposite the Violet, Rosalie. Waiters were serving refreshments, and a purple tea was poured into the wine-colored cups. On each table lay a souvenir containing verse or prose by Tristram March, with fantastic decorations in the border. Harry Arnold was just pa.s.sing the souvenir of their table to Rosalie. It contained a caricature in profile of Tristram himself, and a brief "Autobiography," which Harry read aloud: "I went to school To Ridicule. He taught me civility, The peac.o.c.k humility, Depth and subtility Feste, the fool.

Meeker and meeker becomes my mood From studying Conscious Rect.i.tude; And if my speech be firm and pat, Madam Garrulity taught me that."

"Oh, I hate sarcasm," burst out Rosalie. "Why won't you be literal, commonplace, something positive, if it's only a woman-hater?"

"An abominable fault, brother Tristram," said Harry, sternly.

"Hideous!" cried the others, drowning poor Rosalie's homily in a flood of irony more heartless than Tristram's own.

Then Rosalie gave him up as incorrigible.

"I wonder if Count L'Alienado's jewel has not a legend attached to it?" said some one.

"It is an alamandine ruby from Siam," began the count.

"Oh, do go on," cried Miss Milly Mills from the rear, who had been listening over her shoulder. "Tell us the story. I'm sure it will be better than Cleverly's last book."

"Oh, if it isn't better than that----"

"But the setting was fresh," said Tristram, who was Cleverly's friend. "He rehangs his gallery well, even if the portraits are familiar."

"This talisman of mine has indeed a story attached to it," said Count L'Alienado at last, "but you may read hundreds better in any book of oriental tales. Its quality, however, is curious. You know that mesmerism has long been known in the east, and that many of the occult feats of the Hindoo magicians are ascribed to that power. It was an Arab caliph who first attributed to this stone the quality of securing immunity to its possessor from the magic trance. As a matter of fact, I have never been hypnotized while I wore it."

"A challenge, Harry," said Tristram.

"You possess the power?" asked the count.

"So I am told," laughed Harry.

"People go to sleep at his bidding," said Tristram. "He is the surest recipe I have seen for insomnia."

"Except the Rev. Dr. Fourthly," whispered Miss Milly Mills, but at this Dorothea Goodbody looked shocked.

"Shall I hypnotize you, Rosalie?" smiled Harry to his sweetheart.

But Rosalie shook her head with a little shudder.

"The count," said the Violet.

"The count! Hypnotize the count!" a chorus echoed.

"Very well," said the Spaniard; "a moment till I invoke the genii of the carbuncle. Now."

"Are you ready?" said Harry, laughing a little awkwardly. He made one or two cabalistic pa.s.ses with his hands, looking straight into the eyes of the count. They were large burning eyes, the like of which Harry had never met before. Gazing into their depths, he seemed to feel a new spell. They were drawing him, drawing his soul away. Other objects disappeared. Rosalie, Tristram, the Violet--he clutched at them, but they were gone. The count himself grew shadowy. Only his eyes--fixed, haunting, luminous--remained, centering a vast drab vault, which was all that was left of the populous world and its occupants. What could Harry do but surrender his faculties and be absorbed like the rest?

"It is Harry who is hypnotized," cried Tristram. Rosalie fixed her gaze on her lover's face.

"Raise your right hand," said the count. Harry obeyed. His stare was gla.s.sy, his lower lip stupidly dropped.

"Do you know this glove?" asked the count, raising a lemon-colored kid.

"I do," came the answer, mechanical, monotonous.

"Try it on."

Harry drew the glove on his right hand, his eyes never leaving those of the count.