The Lady Paramount | Page 4

London without a chaperon? And books--French
novels--gr-r-r! I wish you had never been taught to read. I think it is
ridiculous to teach women to read. What good will they get by reading?
You deserve--upon my word you deserve . . . Well, never mind. Oh,
body of Bacchus!"
He wrung his hands, as one in desperation.
"A young girl, a mere child," he cried, in a wail to Heaven; "a
mere"--he paused, groping for an adequate definition--"a mere
irresponsible female orphan! And nobody with power to interfere."
Susanna drew herself up.

"Young?" she exclaimed. "A mere child? I? Good gracious, I 'm
twenty-two."
She said it, scanning the syllables to give them weight, and in all good
faith I think, as who should say, "I 'm fifty."
"You really can't accuse me of being young," she apodictically
pronounced. "I 'm twenty-two. Twenty-two long years--aïe, Dio mio!
And I look even older. I could pass for twenty-five. If," was her
suddenly-inspired concession, "if it will afford you the least atom of
consolation, I 'll tell people that I am twenty-five. There."
She wooed him anew with those melting eyes, and her tone was soft as
a caress.
"It is n't every man that I 'd offer to sacrifice three of the best years of
my life for--and it is n't every man that I 'd offer to tell fibs for."
She threw back her head, and stood in an attitude to invite inspection.
"Don't I look twenty-five?" she asked. "If you had n't the honour of my
personal acquaintance, would it ever occur to you that I 'm what you
call 'a young girl'? Would n't you go about enquiring of every one,
'Who is that handsome, accomplished, and perfectly dressed woman of
the world?'"
And she made him the drollest of little quizzical moues.
In effect, with her tall and rather sumptuously developed figure, with
the humour and vivacity, the character and decision, of her face, with
the glow deep in her eyes, the graver glow beneath the mirth that
danced near their surface,--and then too, perhaps, with the unequivocal
Southern richness of her colouring: the warm white and covert rose of
her skin, the dense black of her undulating abundant hair, the sudden,
sanguine red of her lips,--I think you would have taken her for more
than twenty-two. There was nothing of the immature or the unfinished,
nothing of the tentative, in her aspect. With no loss of freshness, there
were the strength, the poise, the assurance, that we are wont to

associate with a riper womanhood. Whether she looked twenty-five or
not, she looked, at any rate, a completed product; she looked
distinguished and worth while; she looked alive, alert: one in whom the
blood coursed swiftly, the spirit burned vigorously; one who would
love her pleasure, who could be wayward and provoking, but who
could also be generous and loyal; she looked high-bred, one in whom
there was race, as well as temperament and nerve.
The Commendatore, however, was a thousand miles from these
considerations. He glared fiercely at her--as fiercely as it was in his
mild old eyes to glare. He held himself erect and aloof, in a posture that
was eloquent of haughty indignation.
"I will ask your Excellency a single question. Are you or are you not
the Countess of Sampaolo?" he demanded sternly.
But Susanna was incorrigible.
"At your service--unless I was changed at nurse," she assented,
dropping a curtsey; and an imp laughed in her eyes.
"And are you aware," the Commendatore pursued, with the tremor of
restrained passion in his voice, "that the Countess of Sampaolo, a
countess in her own right, is a public personage? Are you aware that
the actions you are proposing--which would be disgraceful enough if
you were any little obscure bourgeoise--must precipitate a public
scandal? Have you reflected that it will all be printed in the newspapers,
for men to snigger at in their cafes, for women to cackle over in their
boudoirs? Have you reflected that you will make yourself a nine-days'
wonder, a subject for tittle-tattle with all the gossip-mongers of Europe?
Are you without pride, without modesty?"
Susanna arched her eyebrows, in amiable surprise.
"Oh?" she said. "Have I omitted to mention that I 'm to do the whole
thing in masquerade? How stupid of me. Yes,"--her voice became
explanatory,--"it's essential, you see, that my cousin Antonio should
never dream who I really am. He must fancy that I 'm just anybody--till

the time comes for me to cast my domino, and reveal the fairy-princess.
So I travel under a nom-de-guerre. I 'm a widow, a rich, charming,
dashing, not too-disconsolate widow; and my name . . . is Madame
Fregi."
She brought out the last words after an instant's irresolution, and
marked them by