Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/231

Rh Just as Signor Mosquetti is about to take his place at the piano, the Count and Countess de Marolles advance through the crowd about the doorway.

Valerie, beautiful, pale, calm as ever, is received with considerable empressement by her hostess. She is the heiress of one of the most ancient and aristocratic families in France, and is moreover the wife of one of the richest men in London, so is sure of a welcome throughout Belgravia.

"Mosquetti is going to sing," murmurs Lady Londersdon; "you were charmed with him in the Lucia, of course? You have lost Fitz-Bertram's duet. It was charming; all the chandeliers were shaken by his lower notes; charming, I assure you. He'll sing again after Mosquetti: the Duchess of C. is éprise, as you see. I believe she is perpetually sending him diamond rings and studs; and the Duke, they do say, has refused to be responsible for her account at Storr's."

Valerie's interest in Mr. Fitz-Bertram's conduct is not very intense; she bends her haughty head, just slightly elevating her arched eyebrows with the faintest indication of well-bred surprise; but she is interested in Signor Mosquetti, and avails herself of the seat her hostess offers to her near Erard's grand piano. The song concludes very soon after she is seated; but Mosquetti remains near the piano, talking to an elderly gentleman, who is evidently a connoisseur.

"I have never heard but one man, Signor Mosquetti," says this gentleman, "whose voice resembled yours."

There is nothing very particular in the words, but Valerie's attention is apparently arrested by them, for she fixes her eyes intently on Signor Mosquetti, as though awaiting his reply.

"And he, my lord?" says Mosquetti, interrogatively.

"He, poor fellow, is dead." Now indeed Valerie, pale with a pallor greater than usual, listens as though her whole soul hung on the words she heard.

"He is dead," continued the gentleman. "He died young, in the zenith of his reputation. His name was—let me see—I heard him in Paris last; his name was"

"De Lancy, perhaps, my lord?" says Mosquetti.

"It was De Lancy; yes. He had some most peculiar and at the same time most beautiful tones in his voice, and you appeal to me to have the very same."

Mosquetti bowed at the compliment. "It is singular, my lord," he said; "but I doubt if those tones are quite natural to me. I am a little of a mimic, and at one period of my life I was in the habit of imitating poor De Lancy, whose singing I very much admired."

Valerie grasps the delicate fan in her nervous hand so tightly that the group of courtiers and fair ladies, of the time of Louis