Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 132.djvu/475

Rh shrouded the whole figure of the goddess, leaving only the outline: and the form of the worshipping youth had vanished utterly: where he had stood, the tessellated pavement, with the serpent of life twining through it, and the sculptured walls of the temple, shone out clear and bare, as if Hyacinth had walked out into the desert to return no more. Again the tears gushed from the heart of Florimel: she had sinned against her own fame — had blotted out a fair memorial record that might have outlasted the knight of stone under the Norman canopy in Lossie church. Again she sobbed, again she choked down a cry that had else become a scream.

Arms were around her. Never doubting whose the embrace, she leaned her head against his bosom, stayed her sobs with the one word "Cruel!" and slowly opening her tearful eyes, lifted them to the face that bent over hers. It was Liftore's. She was dumb with disappointment and dismay. It was a hateful moment. He kissed her forehead and eyes, and sought her mouth. She shrieked aloud. In her very agony at the loss of one to be kissed by another! and there! It was too degrading! too horrid!

At the sound of her cry some one started up at the other end of the room. An easel with a large canvas on it fell, and a man came forward with great strides. Liftore let her go, with a muttered curse on the intruder, and she darted from the room into the arms of Caley, who had had her ear against the other side of the door. The same instant Malcolm received from his lordship a well-planted blow between the eyes, which filled them with flashes and darkness. The next the earl was on the floor. The ancient fury of the Celt had burst up into the nineteenth century and mastered a noble spirit. All Malcolm could afterward remember was, that he came to himself dealing Liftore merciless blows, his foot on his back and his weapon the earl's whip. His lordship, struggling to rise, turned up a face white with hate and impotent fury. "You damned flunkie!" he panted. "I'll have you shot like a mangy dog."

"Meantime I will chastise you like an insolent nobleman," said Malcolm, who had already almost recovered his self-possession. "You dare to touch my mistress!" And with the words he gave him one more stinging cut with the whip. "Stand off, and let it be man to man!" cried Liftore, with a fierce oath, clenching his teeth in agony and rage.

"That it cannot be, my lord; but I have had enough, and so I hope has your lordship," said Malcolm; and as he spoke he threw the whip to the other end of the room and stood back. Liftore sprang to his feet and rushed at him. Malcolm caught him by the wrist with a fisherman's grasp. "My lord, I don't want to kill you. Take a warning, and let ill be, for fear of worse," he said, and threw his hand from him with a swing that nearly dislocated his shoulder.

The warning sufficed. His lordship cast him one scowl of concentrated hate and revenge, and leaving the room hurried also from the house.

At the usual morning hour Malcolm had ridden to Chelsea, hoping to find his friend in a less despairing and more companionable mood than when he left him. To his surprise and disappointment, he learned that Lenorme had sailed by the packet for Ostend the night before. He asked leave to go into the study. There on its easel stood the portrait of his father as he had last seen it disfigured with a great smear of brown paint across the face. He knew that the face was dry, and he saw that the snear was wet: he would see whether he could not, with turpentine and a soft brush, remove the insult. In this endeavor he was so absorbed, and by the picture itself was so divided from the rest of the room, that he neither saw nor heard anything until Florimel cried out.

Naturally, those events made him yet more dissatisfied with his sisters position. Evil influences and dangers were on all sides of her, the worst possible outcome being that, loving one man, she should marry another, and him such a man as Liftore! Whatever he heard in the servants' hall, both tone and substance, only confirmed the unfavorable impression he had had from the first of the bold-faced countess. The oldest of her servants had, he found, the least respect for their mistress, although all had a certain liking for her, which gave their disrespect the heavier import. He must get Florimel away somehow. While all was right between her and the painter he had been less anxious about her immediate surroundings, trusting that Lenorme would ere long deliver her. But now she had driven him from the very country, and he had left no clew to follow him up by. His housekeeper could tell nothing of his purposes. The gardener and she were left in charge as a matter of course. He might be back in a week or a year: she could not even conjecture.

Seeming possibilities, in varied mingling 