"Mr. Reed, you certainly are the most old-maidish man I ever saw in my life."
The room did appear old-maidish, as Mademoiselle Milan stood looking in. The balmy breeze fluttered pleasantly past the little French curtains, the glowing sunshine warmed the delicate tracery of the walls and lighted up the flowers on a huge rug spread on the bare floor. A tiny bouquet of Spanish violets, in a wonderful little vase, filled the room with a dreamy perfume, such as one sometimes imagines he would find in those far-off little islands in the South seas. There were crayon sketches hung between the windows, here and there a statuette filled a niche, and out on the glass-floored gallery was a perfect bower of flowers. There were several easy-chairs placed about in comfortable positions, as if they were all made to sit on, and a great lounge, covered with green marine, stood, like a small grass-mound, under one of the windows.
Percy Reed, seated near a table loaded with needle-books, silk-winders, and a hundred little trinkets, with a cigar in his mouth, and a sock, with a little round gourd shoved into the foot of it, in his hand, was intently occupied in darning a hole in the toe.
"There! don't throw away your cigar.
Mon Dieu! can a person never see you without being overpowered at your grand politeness?"
"Mademoiselle, I make no apologies. Buttons will come off, and stockings will contract holes. Washer-women are heartless. The mountain will not come to Mahomet: therefore I darn 'em myself."
"A philosopher under all circumstances. And pray what have you done with your pupil in morality and economy?"
"Oh, Dupleisis? I have started him out in a carriage to view the wonders of this 'River of January.' By-the-by, if you ever hope to attract, don't dream of mentioning figures in the presence of our mysterious Frenchman."
"Why?"
"The branch of mathematics known as simple addition seems to be the crowning glory of his intellect. He knows to a
milreis the value of this building, from chimney-pot to cellar."
"Blessed with curiosity," said Mademoiselle, significantly.
"Mathematics entirely. If Armand Dupleisis were entering the pearly gates of Paradise, amid the resounding hallelujahs of cherubim and seraphim, he would deliberately count the cost of the entire wardrobe, before he thought of receiving the waters of eternal life."
"Mr. Reed," said Mademoiselle, earnestly, "who
did you ever see of whom you
could not speak lightly?"
"One person in the world--my mother. Sometimes in my dreams of the 'auld lang syne' I almost see that dear little lady; she had a window just like that, with the foliage rustling over it just as this does. Never, mademoiselle, does that little morning-wrapper come up before my eyes without making me a better and a purer man."
Both were silent for some minutes after this. Mademoiselle Milan sat leaning her face against the crimson lining of her chair, apparently lost in thought.
At length she said, "Would to God that all men understood women as well as you!"
"But
your mother; where is she, mademoiselle?"
The lady's face turned as pale as marble, and her little white hands grasped the arms of her chair, until they seemed almost imbedded in the ebony. She attempted an utterance, but her voice failed her, and there was a dead silence.
Reed was a man of feeling. He did not talk, nor persuade her to talk. He did not even sit doing nothing. He went out on the balcony to examine the flowers. He climbed noiselessly up the lattice-work for jasmines fluttering in the evening breeze. Finally, he took up a violin and played.
He always played well, but now the music was low and soft,--old Scotch ballads, wild and mournful, touching little German songs, plaintive romances full of subdued passion. Mademoiselle Milan did not notice him; but in her heart she felt grateful for his consideration. Gradually the color returned to her face, and, soothed by the sad, sweet strains, she sunk into dreamy reverie.
"When we have reached another sphere, where emotion governs instead of thought, I think that man will speak in splendid music."
Reed looked at her earnestly for a moment, and then said, "Mademoiselle, why did you never write?"
"The public treats authors very much as drill-sergeants do recruits,--drunk the first day, and beaten the rest of their lives."
"Great minds
rule the public."
"And yet I fear your courage would ooze away when you came to lay a lance at rest against such a windmill as the common sense of the nineteenth century, whirling its rotary sails under the steady breeze of ridicule. I am a woman, and know a woman's place. I have had dreams in my time,--'dreams like that flower that blooms in a single night, and dies at dawn;' but they are passed. You see, I carry the glare of the foot-lights even here." And a bitter smile curled from her lip.
"Mademoiselle," said Percy, solemnly, "the foot-lights enable you to move man to a hundred passions."
"Yes; it reduces me to the level of a harlequin, to be laughed with, and laughed
at. Who are
my friends? Are they the idle boys who send me bouquets and never mention my name without looking unutterable things? Have I no tastes, no likings, no feelings, no emotions? In the name of God, was I created only to memorize so many lines of Racine, Corneille, or Voltaire per diem?"
It was a tone of almost ferocity with which she spoke, and the trembling lip, the flashing eye, and the swollen veins on her temple betrayed the self-scorn racking her heart within her.
A bang at the hall-door, and heavy footsteps on the marble pavement, forced her to composure.
"Old-maidish to the last!" (the lady commenced picking the dead leaves off a geranium). "This geranium looks as if you had watched it a year; and this old gray hat, I suppose, you have hung above it for good luck."
"The hat belongs to a friend abroad, and is not to be moved until his safe return; but the geranium was presented not a week ago by my ever-faithful money. You see the magic charm. Here are careful watching, weeks of anxiety, and, no doubt, a modicum of affection (for I
have heard people say they loved flowers), bartered away for one
milreis."
"Apropos of money,--I thought I was to have a view of the treasures of Aladdin, locked up in the vaults below."
"Of a surety you shall."
Reed excused himself, and in a short time reappeared, bearing a large iron casket. Mademoiselle Milan's face turned a shade or two paler when she saw him; for he was accompanied by Edgar Fay. It had now become quite dark, and Percy Reed lighted the gas-jet before opening the casket. It was made in imitation of the ordinary iron safe, but opening at the top.
When the glare of the gas struck the dark recesses of the velvet lining, a gleam of radiance shot up that fairly dazzled. Great grains of light, large as peas, shimmered and glittered with an unearthly brilliancy. Blue, purple, violet, and a gorgeous white that combined the whole, sparkled in their turn with weird splendor. It looked like a flash from heaven turned suddenly on a startled world. Both Mademoiselle Milan and Fay stood breathless with astonishment, and it was many minutes before they regained their composure.
Hearing the heavy rumbling caused by the lowering of the iron shutters in the counting-room, Mademoiselle urged Mr. Reed to return the gems to the vault before it closed.
He assured her it was entirely unnecessary, saying that larceny was a crime unknown to Brazilians, and that he had provided for exigencies such as this. Moving the piles of thread and embroidery silk to the side of the table, he touched a spring, and a lid flew up. The table, though presenting the appearance of fragility itself, was really of iron, and contained a vault that would puzzle the most expert of burglars.
Just then Dupleisis called from the street, and both Reed and Edgar Fay went out on the gallery to see him. He had made arrangements to spend the night with a friend, and the three stood chatting for some minutes, the Frenchman giving an amusing description of his adventures among the
Brazileiros.
Shortly afterward, Mademoiselle Milan and Fay took their leave. The wind by this time was blowing so fiercely that no taper could live in the gusts; so both were compelled to grope their way through the hall, which was dark as Erebus.
The door was faithfully bolted, and the casket carefully placed in the secret vault; but when Percy Reed awoke in the morning he found both open, and the diamonds, worth a million, missing.