Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/144

140 been but the faintest elevation of one white shoulder, prouder, perhaps, than its fellow)—had your hair been tinged with even a suspicion of the ardent hue which prejudice condemns, it would have been a wonderful advantage to me. Vain hope to win you by flattery, when even the truth must sound like flattery. And then, again, one glance told me that you were no pretty simpleton, to be won by a stratagem, or bewildered by romantic speeches. And yet, mademoiselle, I did not despair. You were beautiful; you were impassioned. In your veins ran the purple blood of a nation whose children's love and hate are both akin to madness! You had, in short, a soul, and you might have a secret!"

"Monsieur!"

"At any rate it would be no lost time to watch you. I therefore watched. Two or three gentlemen were talking to you; you did not listen to them; you were asked the same question three times, and on the second repetition of it you started, and replied as by an effort. You were weary, or indifferent. Now, as I have told you, mademoiselle, in the science of mathematics we acknowledge no effect without a cause; there was a cause, then, for this distraction on your part. In a few minutes the curtain rose. You were no longer absent-minded. Elvino came on the stage—you were all attention. You tried, mademoiselle, not to appear attentive; but your mouth, the most flexible feature in your face, betrayed you. The cause, then, of your late distraction was Elvino, otherwise the fashionable tenor, Gaston de Lancy."

"Monsieur, for pity's sake" she cried imploringly.

"This was card number one. My chances were looking up. In a few minutes I saw you throw your bouquet on the stage I also saw the note. You had a secret, mademoiselle, and I possessed the clue to it. My cards were good ones. The rest must be done by good play. I knew I was no bad player, and I sat down to the game with the determination to rise a winner."

"Finish the recital of your villany, monsieur, I beg—it really becomes wearisome." She tried as she spoke to imitate his own indifference of manner; but she was utterly subdued and broken down, and waited for him to continue as the victim might wait the pleasure of the executioner, and with as little thought of opposing him.

"Then, mademoiselle, I have little more to say, except to claim my reward. That reward is—your hand." He said this as if he never even dreamt of the possibility of a refusal.

"Are you mad, monsieur?" She had for some time anticipated this climax, and she felt how utterly powerless she was in the hands of an unscrupulous villain. How unscrupulous she did not yet know.