“So it seemed to me—an eccentric and interesting story—but pray do not wound me by speaking of trouble. I only wish you knew half the pleasure it has been to me to get it to show you. May I hold the lamp near for a moment while you look at it?” he said, indicating a tiny lamp which stood on a pier-table, showing a solitary gleam, like a lighthouse, through the gloom; “you could not possibly see it in this faint twilight.”
The lady assented. Had Mr. Longcluse ever felt happier?
CHAPTER XI.
THE TELEGRAM ARRIVES.
Mr. Longcluse placed the little oval enamel, set in gold, in Miss Arden's fingers, and held the lamp beside her while she looked.
“How beautiful!—how very interesting!” she exclaimed. “What suffering in those thin, handsome features! What a strange enthusiasm in those large hazel eyes! I could fancy that monk the maddest of lovers, the most chivalric of saints. And did he really suffer that incredible fate? Did he really die of love?”
“So they say. But why incredible? I can quite imagine that wild shipwreck, seeing what a raging sea love is, and how frail even the strongest life.”
“Well, I can't say, I am sure. But your own novelists laugh at the idea of any but women—whose business it is, of course, to pay that tribute to their superiors—dying of love. But if any man could die such a death, he must be such as this picture represents. What a wild, agonised picture of passion and asceticism! What suicidal devotion and melancholy rapture! I confess I could almost fall in love with that picture myself.”
“And I think, were I he, I could altogether die to earn one such sentence, so spoken,” said Mr. Longcluse.
“Could you lend it to me for a very few days?” asked the young lady.
“As many—as long as you please. I am only too happy.”
“I should so like to make a large drawing of this in chalks!” said Alice, still gazing on the miniature.
“You draw so beautifully in chalks! Your style is not often found here—your colouring is so fine.”
“Do you really think so?”
“You must know it, Miss Arden. You are too good an artist not to suspect what everyone else must see, the real excellence of your drawings. Your colouring is better understood in France. Your master, I fancy, was a Frenchman?” said Mr. Longcluse.
“Yes, he was, and we got on very well together. Some of his young lady pupils were very much afraid of him.”
“Your poetry is fired by that picture, Miss Arden. Your copy will be a finer thing than the original,” said he.
“I shall aim only at making it a faithful copy; and if I can accomplish anything like that, I shall be only too glad.”
“I hope you will allow me to see it?” pleaded Longcluse.
“Oh, certainly,” she laughed. “Only I'm a little afraid of you, Mr. Longcluse.”
“What can you mean, Miss Arden?”
“I mean, you are so good a critic in art, every one says, that I really am afraid of you,” answered the young lady, laughing.
“I should be very glad to forfeit any little knowledge I have, if it were attended with such a misfortune,” said Longcluse. “But I don't flatter; I tell you truly, a critic has only to admire, when he looks at your drawings; they are quite above the level of an amateur's work.”
“Well, whether you mean it or not, I am very much flattered,” she laughed. “And though wise people say that flattery spoils one, I can't help thinking it very agreeable to be flattered.”
At this point of the dialogue Mr. Vivian Darnley—who wished that it should be plain to all, and to one in particular, that he did not care the least what was going on in other parts of the room—began to stumble through the treble of a tune at the piano with his right hand. And whatever other people may have thought of his performance, to Miss Alice Arden it seemed very good music indeed, and inspired her with fresh animation. Such as it was, Mr. Darnley's solo also turned the course of Miss Arden's thoughts from drawing to another art, and she said—
“You, Mr. Longcluse, who know everything about the opera, can you tell me—of course you can—anything about the great basso who is coming?”
“Stentoroni?”
“Yes; the newspapers and critics promise wonders.”
“It is nearly two years since I heard him. He was very great, and deserves all they say in ‘Robert le Diable.’ But there his greatness began and ended. The voice, of course, you had, but everything else was defective. It is plain, however, that the man who could make so fine a study of one opera, could with equal labour make as great a success in others. He has not sung in any opera for more than a year and a half, and has been working diligently; and so everyone is in the dark very much, and I am curious to hear the result—and nobody knows more than I have told you. You are sure of a good ‘Robert le Diable,’ but all the rest is speculation.”
“And now, Mr. Longcluse, I shall try your good-nature.”
“How?”
“I am going to make Lady May ask you to sing a song.”
“Pray don't.”
“Why not?”
“I should so much rather you asked me yourself.”
“That's very good of you; then I certainly shall. I do ask you.”
“And I instantly obey. And what shall the song be?” asked he, approaching the piano, to which she also walked.
“Oh, that ghostly one that I liked so much when you sang it here about a week ago,” she answered.
“I know it—yes, with pleasure.” And he sat down at the piano, and in a clear, rich baritone, sang the following odd song:—
“The autumn leaf was falling
At midnight from the tree,
When at her casement calling,
‘I'm here, my love,’ says he.
‘Come down and mount behind me,
And rest your little head,
And in your white arms wind me,
Before that I be dead.
“‘You've stolen my heart by magic,
I've kissed your lips in dreams:
Our wooing wild and tragic
Has been in ghostly scenes.
The wondrous love I bear you
Has made one life of twain,
And it will bless or scare you,
In deathless peace or pain.
“‘Our dreamland shall be glowing,
If you my bride will be;
To