Red Masquerade | Page 9

life again ... at last!
She lifted up arms that might have been a dream of Phidias chiselled in Parian marble, and stretched them luxuriously. She was superbly alive, indeed--and henceforth she meant to live. Only she must be careful to retain her looks ... If Youth must surely go, Beauty must linger and reign long in its stead.
A maid, a comely creature, trim and smart in black and white, with that vividly coloured prettiness which is too often the omen of premature decline into the fat and florid thirties, fetched a wrap and settled it upon Sofia's shoulders.
Long and dark, it disguised her figure as completely as it covered her toilette. She nodded her satisfaction, and accepted the veil which she had desired to complete her disguise, a thing of Spanish lace, black and ample, like a mantilla. But before donning it she delayed one minute more before the mirror.
"Th��r��se! Am I still beautiful?"
"Madame la princesse is always beautiful."
"As beautiful as I used to be?"
"But madame la princesse grows more lovely every day."
"Beautiful enough to-night, to keep out of jail, do you think?"
To the mirth in the voice of her mistress the maid responded with a smile demure and discreet.
"Oh, madame!" was all she said; but the manner of her saying it was rarely eloquent.
Sofia laughed lightly, and affectionately pinched the cheek of the maid.
"And you, my little one," she said in liquid French--"you yourself are too ravishingly pretty to keep out of trouble. Do you know that?"
Her little one looked more than ever demure as she enquired after the hidden meaning of madame la princesse.
"Because you will marry too soon, Th��r��se--too soon some worthless man will persuade you to dedicate all those charms to him alone."
"Oh, madame!"
"Is it not so?"
"Who knows, madame?" said Th��r��se, as who should say: "What must be, must."
"Then there is a man! I suspected as much."
"But, madame la princesse, is there not always a man?"
"Then beware!"
"Madame la princesse need not fear for me," Th��r��se replied. "Me, my head is not so easily turned. There is always some man, naturally--there are so many men!--but when I marry, rest assured, it will be for something more."
With the compressed lips of self-approbation she deftly assisted her mistress to swathe her head in the mantilla-like veil.
"Something more than a man?" Sofia enquired through its folds. "What then?"
"Independence, madame la princesse."
"What an idea! Marriage and independence: how do you reconcile that paradox?"
"Madame la princesse means love, I think, when she speaks of marriage. But love--that is all over and done with when one marries. One is then ready to settle down; one has put by one's dot, and marries a worthy, industrious man with a little fortune of his own. With such a husband one collaborates in the maintenance of the m��nage and the management of a small business, something substantial if small. And so one ends one's days in comfortable companionship. That, madame la princesse, is the marriage for Th��r��se! It may not sound romantic, madame, but it has this rare virtue--it lasts!"

VII
FAMILY REUNION
The London night was normal: that is to say, wet. Darkness had transformed the streets into vast sheets of black satin shot with golden strands and studded with lamp-posts like sturdy stems for ethereal blooms of golden haze. Within their areas of glow the air teemed with atoms of liquid gold. The ring of hoofs on wet pavements was at once disturbing and inspiriting.
Alone in her hired hansom the Princess Sofia sat with the window raised, drinking deep of the soft damp air, finding it as heady as strange wine. Under cover of the veil her eyes were brilliant with awareness of her audacity, her lips were parted with the promise of a smile.
She loved it all, she adored this mood of London: its nights of rain were sheer enchantment, arabesque, nights of secrecy and stealth, mystery, and romance under the rose. On nights such as this lovers prospered, adventures were to the venturesome, brave rewards to the bold.
For herself she was unafraid, she foretasted entire success. How should it be otherwise? Consider how famously chance had prospered her designs, playing into her hands the information that this Monsieur Lanyard was not at home, might not return till very late, and was expecting a call from somebody whom he desired to await his return in his rooms!
With such an open occasion, how could one fail?
Sofia asked only three minutes alone with the painting....
And if by any mishap she were caught, still she would not be dismayed. The letters were hers, were they not? They had been stolen from her, he had no right title to them who had purchased only the picture which had served as their hiding-place. By all means, let him keep that stupid canvas; he could hardly refuse to let her have her