Page:Peterson Magazine 1869B.pdf/102

DEATH IN LIFE 107 fair man, with cold, steel-gray eyes and glittering white teeth.

Vivienne turned. with a bewildered look toward her husband, who said in measured, distinct tones, ‘‘Madame, this is my cousin, my nearest kinsman, Monsieur Philip, de Saint Evremonae, the elder brother of Monsieur Leon de Saint Evremonde, whom I believe you met in Paris.”

Ah! she knew now who it was. Philip, the half-brother of the noble young Leon—Philip, who was the coldest, cruelest, most remorseless man in France. She shrunk back, shuddering, from his extended hand; but in a moment recovering herself, she advanced, laid her cold palm in his, and with a dignity that was almost hauteur, pronounced a few formal words of welcome.

“Madame, I fear, would rather have welcomed ny brother,” said Saint Evremonde, in: a soft, languid tone, gazing at her with his cruel eyes slightly closed, yet expressing an amount of half-insolent admiration, that Brought the quick Beranger blood hotly to her cheek, ‘Ah! I am very unhappy in not having met my fair kins- woman before. May I.not hope my past negligence will be effaced from memory by the devotion I shall manifest in future, madame?”

Vivienne met that evil, half-sneering, half- admiring glance with the.cold, steady glitter of her scornful eyes, and she answered with increasing hauteur,

“Monsieur may be assured that his negligence has not offended ms, and that he need make no atonement.”

Philip bowed as if her haughtiness had been the blandest, warmest welcome, and said, in the same silky tones, ‘Such graciousness, madame, is beyond my desert. I may hope, then, in time to hold as high a place in your esteem as that occupied by my fortunate brother?”

Vivienne’s rapid glance had flown, for one instant, from the fair, cruel, face before her to that of her husband, who stood silent and motionless beside her, his keen, dark eyes fixed upon her, his thin lips wreathed with a cynical, malicious smile.

Good heavens! Could he see and endure the insolent gaze with which Saint Evremonde’s cruel eyes were fastened on his wife’s face? Could he hear the taunting accent with which the young man spoke, the evident meaning with which he uttered his brother’s name? Ah! six months ago, how his eyes would have flashed, and his sword sprung from its sheath, to punish such insolence! What did it mean? Was he mad? Had he no sense of honor, or of pity left? That sneering smile, those mocking eyes, told the young wife that her husband was no longer her protector; nay, that he was her bitter enemy, and looked on with pleasure while her cheek burned, and her eyes flashed with in- sulted dignity. She was alone, with those two cruelly smiling faces bent toward hers, and Leon’s name throbbing in her heart. Leon, who was so noble, so pure! How dared that bad man even utter his name?

A thousand tumultuous thoughts had rushed thus through the mind of the marquise in the fieeting moment, during which she had paused after Saint Evremonde’s question; but last, and strongest of all, came the conviction that she was to battle alone with these two men, who seemed, trying to’ look into her very heart, and ‘to find the means by which the deadliest tor- ture could be inflicted upon her; and then a sudden resolve nerved her frame, and glittered in her eyes.

Her beautiful face changed, and brightened, and softened. A smile parted her lips; her figure lost its air of haughty dignity; and with her old careless grace, she swept a laughing courtesy, and answered lightly, ‘«Monsieur does me too much honor. He may have'in my esteem any place that he can win.”

Then, with the same airof ease and gayety, she, went on to ask him questions about the court:he had just left, and her numerous friends there, including his brother as one of these; and hearing with apparently merely a polite inte- rest that Leon had that week left Paris, having been appointed captain in a regiment going to the seat of war.

She listened, and asked careless questions, and passed on to other-things. They need not know, she scarcely' dared acknowledge to herself, the deep interest she felt in hearing anything. concerning the young soldier. ‘And yet,’ he reasoned, “I am surely not wrong in wishing all good for my husband's. kinsman— it is but Christian charity. It can be nothing else, for Leon disliked and shunned me—I know not.why. I did not think at first that he hated me.”

She thought of .those sweet, happy days, the fairest. in her life, when Leon first came to Paris, and they strayed. together through the enchanted gardens'of the palace, she thinking, poor child! that she had found a friend and brother in her young cousin, and learning to love and trust him with all her innocent heart. Then he had changed suddenly, and grown cold and distant; and there were no more walks in the gay gardens, no more quiet talks, and she