CHAPTER XXVIII.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1216, 23 January 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

CHAPTER XXVIII.

" PICTURES FROM THE MASQUERADE."

Picture the first, in a group of tall, slender palms in the background, nestling at their feet a group of rich Indian blossoms, scaxlet in colour, shaped like a bell, fragrant with rich odours, that belong to flowers of the East. A group of tall white orchids on one side, a magnificent mass of stephanotis on the other, between a prettily covered iron Eeat. On it sit the beautiful figure already known through the room aa Dawn, in the charming blush of pale rose and gold, and a tall, aristocratic figure in the dre&s of a Venetian nobleman.

Lord Castlemaine not only had no taste for flirtation, but he despised it ; he considered it, and had the frankness to say so, always the refuge of a weak mind. " When a woman has few charms of mind," Lord Castlemaine was accustomed to observe — " when she lacks intelligence, wit, and poetry, she takes to flirtation, because she can do no better. When a man lacks brightness and intellect, he does the same." Flirtation was a fault of which he had never been guilty, and for which he had little toleration. There was no trace of it in bis manner now, as he leaned over tbe seat, talking earnestly to Dawn. A faint light reached them, and it came filtered through the white orchids; sweet soundsreached them, the " Sweetheart Waltz " was being played in the ball-room, and from the fernery came the sound of the rippling water as it fell from the rocky stones to the moes-green below. " I cannot imagine who you are," he said, " that you can say such a thing to me, above all other men!" "Have you no idea who I am?" asked a low voice, the sweetness of which was disguised by a faint whisper. ' •' Not the least, but I should say from your observation to me that you cannot know much of me, and that you know still less about my affairs." "So you imagine," said beautiful Dawn. " Is there nothing familiar either in my face or figure ? " He looked at her curiously. " The light is so faint," ho said, " and you speak in a whisper. No, I have not the least idea who you are." "I am surprised," she said ;v"; v " yet I have lived- in the world long enough not to be surprised at anything. Do you think any disguise would prevent you from knowing your own wife ? " "No, none," he replied. But then, you Bee, she it my wife. That just makes the difference." "And I ought to have been," thought beautiful Dawn to herself, " I, and no other." " If you do not know me," he said, " it was a startling remark to make ; "if you do not know me, the remark is even more strange." " I am not quite Bure," she said, "if I remember what my remark was." "So much the better," he answered. "It shows, at least, there was no meaning in it." " Will you mind telling me what it was ? " she asked, slowly. «« Yon said that I was happily married — yet I had not married the one woman in ,the world who loved me bast." She drew a beautiful bough of the white orchids to herself trad bent her face over them. " How sweet they are !" she said. '* lam sure that orchids must have grown in the garden of Eden." " Never mind the orohids," he said, drawing the white bloom from her. What did yon mean?"

" Give me your hand," she said. " Nay, draw off jour golden broidered glove, or it will be of little use to mer." He did so, and placed before her a strong, supple white hand — the clean, honest hand of an upright man. She touched it with hers. "Let me see it- more plainly," she said, parting with the other hand the branches of the orchids. She looked at it long and steadily. The Bweet, sad music of the* ' Sweetheart Waltz" : came from the ballroom, and the ripple of water from the fernery ; there were no other sounds. It seemed to her that he must hear the quick beating of her heart. She had never held his hand in her own so long before. While she held it, she repeated the vow that she had whispered to (he white lilacs. Then suddenly she let it fall. "lama fortune-teller, alter a fashion," she said, " a fashion that holds, good in the Moorish camp, and among the gipsies of Spain." '♦ She cannot possibly be a Spaniard— she speaks English too well'" he thought. " And what has that to do with my foxtune ?" he asked. She looked at him thoughtfully. " Your fortune has interested me. I know you, although you do not recognize me, and what I read*in your face I have read now in your hand. My ideas are confirmed." JFrom the white orchid and the stephanotis came a great gusli of perfume ; the ripple of the water was sweeter and stronger' " And your ideas are " " Just what I said," Bhe interrupted. " First that you did not marry the one woman in the world who loved you best ; and now in your hand I read all. It is better not to speak about it." " I should like to know," he persisted. " Well if the old Moorish teaching be right, it is not good fortune that lies in that strong white hand of yours." He smiled. " What fortune does lie there ?" he asked. « Tell me." " A sad one," she replied ; " There is a sudden and violent termination to tbe line of love, and there are some terrible lines of pain." "What do you deduce from that?" he asked. "Nothing," she replied; it is for you to draw what deductions you will." " I draw none," he replied ; " I have firm faith." • His heart beat and his face flushed as it always did when he thought of his beautiful Gertrude, whom he should Jove unto death. " You will remember my words some day," "I hope it will be only to laugh at them, 1 he replied. Just then the music ceased, and several people came into the conservatory. Dawn suddenly rose and shook, her long skirts oi pale pink and fleoks of gold, and before he oould say more, she had vanished from among the slender green palms and left him there. Picture the second.— The pale crescent moon is rising in dark sky, and its light penetrates into the cool green fernery, where the lamps, like pale golden stars, are half hidden by the green leaves, where the ferns grow strong and moist, and the rippling water falls from the stones to the soft springing moss. A subdued light, as of pale gold, lingers there. In the midst of the rook-work there stands a tall fountain, the spray of which' rises high in the air, the music of which, as the spray falls into the marble basin, is soft and sweet to the ear. By the fountain stand some elegant bamboo chairs, easy and luxurious as chairs oan be. , In one of them sits the white and radiant Snow Queen. She looked bright and attractive enough in the ball-room ; but here, in the soft light, among the tall feathery ferns and the ripple of running water, she looks dazzling, the one centre of white and light in that ocean of green.

She lies back thoughtfully in her chair ; the snowy robes form graceful billows around her and sweep the ground ;?the light falls on the diamond stars, and trembles in the diamond icicles; her lovely face is pale ; Bhehas removed her glove, and laid her hand_ in the dimpling, reßtless water of the fduntain. A shadow falls over the green ferns and the water, and the tall figure of tbe Knight Templar draws near. He stands for a few minutes in silent contemplation of what seems to him the most charming picture he has ever beheld.

" Eve in the Garden of Eden was never onehalf so fair," he said to himself. Then he went up to the bright white figure. " The Queen of Snow," he said, with a profound bow. " Would that I were a Knight of the Frost and the Ice." " You look much better as you are," replied a laughing voice. " Supposing," he said, " that you had some very fragrant roses, and you tried to hide them between green leaves, so that no one could discover them, the perfume would be sure to steal through the leaves and betray the roses." " Quite sure ? " was the laughing reply. 11 If a bright, golden star was shining, yon conld not, unless you closed your eyes, help seeing it ? " " Certainly not," was the answer. "-If the sweetest music was stealing softly round, you could not help Bearing; while your eara were open and your senses alive. So, so," he continued, passionately, " you may hide the fair lovelinessof your face, you may disguise the tone of your voice, but I should know you among ten thousand. You are Lady Castlemaine, and you have rightly called yourself the Snow Queen." " Just as you have called yourself a Knight Templar ; you are Colonel Lennox." •' You make me the proudest man in the world," he said. " I have not given you much reason for suddenly occupying such a very exalted position," she said. " You are always satirical to me," he said. " And you will persist in being sentimental with me" she replied. " You are cruel to me," he said. " The flowers that lie on your heart are happy beoause you breathe on them; they love the fresh, sweet water dimpling round your fingers; they must be happy' because you caress them, while I, who would give my life for a smile, or a kind word, oan never win either." She rose from her Beat, a dazzling white figure, tall, haughty, and erect. " I am Lady Castlemaine," she said, " and you are Colonel Lennox, tyit I am half-in-clined to forbid you ever to enter my presence again." "Why?" he cried, despairingly. . " Because Ido no not like those labored compliments of yours. I decline to be compared to roses, or music, or stars." " I will never do it again," he said : " never." "You promise me most faithfully?" she aßked. " I promise, on my word," he replied. " Then you oan sit down here, and we will go on talking." And with a careless grace she resumed her seat.

Picture the Third.— ln the great drawingroom of white and gold Lady Heathers, as Flora Mao Donald, sits leaning languidly on a dark velvet chair. She was talking most confidentially to a handsome man who wore the> dress of Sir Walter Ealeigh.

11 Yes," she was saying, " I have enjoyed .the first part of the evening better than I shall the second. We are to unmask at supper, then, so far as I am concerned all the pleasure of the night is over. I have enjoyed some things exceedingly." "Yon always extract plenty, of amusement from everybody," said her companion. " That is one happy faculty I envy you. " I have been talking to the poet, and he did not know me. I had the pleasure of abusing

his poems, his themes, and his ideas to his face, which, you will admit was a treat to me." " I can well imagine that it was so," he answered, slowly, "He will never suspect. Poor- Oswald! We are very good friends to all outward appearanoes; but I have often longed to give him a bit of my mind, and now he has had it."

And Lady Heathers began to discuss the characters of the evening. "I have found out the Knight Templar," she said. " That handsome, brave, graceless Lennox. How the poet hates him !" "He is sure to do so. The man who wrote " The Loves of the Lilies" wonld nover tolerate a man of the Colonel's stamp." . Then Sir Walter KUeigh bent his head, and whispered to her. Lady Heathers listened with a sorrowful expression of face. 11 No^' she replied, " I had not heard."" " Not a whisper ?"' asked her companion. •'No not even a whisper," said Lady Heathers, " and I am with her 6very day." II Have you seen him with her ?" he asked. " Yes, continually. I have been at Neath House onoe with him." " And you saw nothing ?" " Less than nothing. Lady Castlemaine is too proud and too cold. She will never be talked about." " But she is talked about. Lord Merton told me." 11 1 do not believe a word about it. Eeraember," she added, raising one white finger warningly to him, " no scandal about Queen Elizabeth." He laughed, and moved away. Picture tha fourth, and the last. — Beautiful Dawn, standing in her room alone, still flushed with triumph. "He did not know me," she was ssying to herself. I came from under the same roof. True I did not go there ia the same carriage. I have pierced his heart, and he will never suspect me. lam nearer— to the end."