Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/103

99 of carved oak, studded with great iron nails, and almost hidden in the heavy masonry of the wall which frames it. The house in early times has been a convent, and is now the property of the Marquis de Cevennes. Elvino, with one more glance up and down the dimly-lighted street, approaches this doorway, and stooping down to the key-hole whistles softly three bars of a melody from Don Giovanni—La ci darem la mano.

"So!" says the lounger, standing in the shadow of a house opposite, "we are getting deeper into the mystery; the curtain is up, and the play is going to begin."

As the clocks of Paris chime the half-hour after eleven the little door turns on its hinges, and a faint light in the courtyard within falls upon the figure of the fashionable tenor. This light comes from a lamp in the hand of a pretty-looking, smartly-dressed girl, who has opened the door.

"She is not the woman I took her for, this Valerie," says the lounger, "or she would have opened that door herself. She makes her waiting-maid her confidante—a false step, which proves her either stupid or inexperienced. Not stupid; her face gives the lie to that. Inexperienced then. So much the better."

As the spy meditates thus, Elvino passes through the doorway, stooping as he crosses the threshold, and the light disappears.

"This is either a private marriage, or something worse," mutters the lounger. "Scarcely the last. Hers is the face of a woman capable of a madness, but not of degradation—the face of a Phaedra rather than a Messalina. I have seen enough of the play for to-night."

the next morning a gentleman rings the bell of the porter's lodge belonging to the mansion of the Marquis de Cevennes, and on seeing the porter addresses him thus—

"The lady's-maid of Mademoiselle Valerie de Cevennes is perhaps visible at this early hour?"

The porter thinks not; it is very early, only eight o'clock; Mademoiselle Finette never appears till nine. The toilette of her mistress is generally concluded by twelve; after twelve, the porter thinks monsieur may succeed in seeing Mademoiselle Finette—before twelve, he thinks not.

The stranger rewards the porter with a five-franc piece for this valuable information; it is very valuable to the stranger, who is the lounger of the last night, to discover that the name of the girl who held the lamp is Finette.