"That is not enough. I have calculated the chances, and mustered all our available force. We shall have no support among the 'better class,' since we are disgraced with the 'millionnaires.'"
At this moment Denslow came in.
"Ah! Dalton,--like you! I have been looking for you to show the pictures. Devil a thing I know about them. The Duke wondered at your absence."
"Where is Honoria?"
"Ill, ill,--fainted. The house is new; smell of new wood and mortar; deused disagreeable in Honoria. If it had not been for the Duke, she would have fallen. That's a monstrous clever fellow, that Rosecouleur. Admires Honoria vastly. Come,--the pictures."
"Mr. John Vanbrugen Denslow, you are an ass!"
The large, smooth, florid millionnaire, dreaming only of senatorial honors, the shouts of the multitude, and the adoration of a party press, cowered like a dog under the lash of the "man of society."
"Rather rough,--ha, De Vere? What have _I_ done? Am I an ass because I know nothing of pictures? Come, Dalton, you are harsh with your old friend."
"Denslow, I have told you a thousand times never to concede position."
"Yes, but this is a duke, man,--a prince!"
"This from you? By Jove, De Vere, I wish you and I could live a hundred years, to see a republican aristocrat. We are still mere provincials," added Dalton, with a sigh.
Denslow perspired with mortification.
"You use me badly,--I tell you, Dalton, this Rosecouleur is a devil. Condescend to him! be haughty and--what do you call it?--urbane to him! I defy _you_ to do it, with all your impudence. Why, his valet, that shadow that glides after him, is too much for me. Try him yourself, man."
"Who, the valet?"
"No, the master,--though I might have said the valet."
"Did I yield in Paris?"
"No, but you were of the embassy, and--and--_no one really knew us_, you know."
Dalton pressed his lips hard together.
"Come," said he, "De Vere, let us try a fall with this Titan of the carpet."
Denslow hastened back to the Duke. I followed Dalton; but as for me, bah! I am a cipher.
The room in which we were adjoined Honoria's boudoir, from which a secret passage led down by a spiral to a panel behind hangings; raising these, one could enter the drawing-room unobserved. Dalton paused midway in the secret passage, and through a loop or narrow window concealed by architectural ornaments, and which overlooked the great drawing-rooms, made a reconnaissance of the field.
Nights of Venice! what a scene was there! The vine-branch chandeliers, crystal-fruited, which depended from the slender ribs of the ceiling, cast a rosy dawn of light, deepening the green and crimson of draperies and carpets, making an air like sunrise in the bowers of a forest. Form and order were everywhere visible, though unobtrusive. Arch beyond arch, to fourth apartments, lessening in dimension, with increase of wealth;-- groups of beautiful women, on either hand, seated or half reclined; the pure or rich hues of their robes blending imperceptibly, or in gorgeous contrasts, with the soft outlines and colors of their supports; a banquet for the eyes and the mind; the perfect work of art and culture;--gliding about and among these, or, with others, springing and revolving in that monarch of all measures, which blends luxury and purity, until it is either the one or the other, moved the men.
"That is my work," exclaimed Dalton, unconsciously.
"Not _all_, I think."
"I mean the combinations,--the effect. But see! Honoria will again accept the Duke's invitation. He is coming to her. Let us prevent it."
He slipped away; and I, remaining at my post of observation, saw him, an instant later, passing quickly a
