THE night of the ball arrived. Olivia and her father, the De Peysters and Pembroke had all agreed to go in one party. The De Peysters had been very kind and attentive to Olivia. Her gentle ways had captivated Mrs. De Peyster, and the fun innate in her had done the same for Helena. They had asked Olivia to receive with them on their reception day, and she had made quite a little success on her first appearance in Washington society. She sat behind a cosy tea table in an alcove, and poured tea with much grace. She was a good linguist, and put two or three young diplomatists, struggling with the English tongue, at ease by talking to them in their own language. She possessed the indefinable charm of good breeding, never more effective than when contrasted with the flamboyant, cosmopolitan Washington society. The women soon found out that the men flocked around her. She had half a dozen invitations before the day was out. Helena, a soft, blonde, kittenish young thing, was in raptures over her, admiring her as only a very young girl can admire and adore one a little older than herself. Pembroke was among the later callers, and, strange to say, Miles was with him. There were but few persons there by that time, and these Mrs. De Peyster was entertaining in the large drawing-room. Helena brought Miles into the little alcove and plied him with soft speeches, tea and cakes. Pembroke and Olivia sitting by exchanged smiles at the two enjoying themselves boy and girl fashion. Helena was but nineteen, and Miles had not yet passed his twenty-third birthday. The horror of his wound was added to by the youth of his features.
“Now take this little cake,” said Helena, earnestly. “I made these myself. Do you know that I can make cakes?”
“What an accomplished girl! I shall be afraid of you. I learned to make ash cakes during the war,” answered Miles as gravely.
“What is an ash cake, pray?”
“Why, it’s—it’s—corn bread baked in the ashes.”
“Oh, how funny! And how do you get the ashes off?”
“Wash them off.”
In the course of the discussion Miles had quite forgotten a piteous and ineffective little stratagem of his to turn the uninjured side of his face toward whom he was addressing. He leaned forward, gazing into Helena’s pretty but somewhat meaningless face, just as any other youngster might have done, and Helena, with youthful seriousness, had plunged into the sentimental discussion wherein the American girl is prone to fall. Pembroke would have gone after ten minutes, but Miles was so evidently enjoying himself, that the elder brother stayed on. It was like the afternoon at Olivia’s house—so home-like and pleasant—Olivia and himself keeping up a desultory conversation while they sipped tea and listened half-amused to the two youngsters on the other side of the round table. Olivia glanced at the clock over the mantel—it was half-past six.
“I must go,” she said. “I shall just have time for my dinner and for an hour’s rest before I dress for the ball.”
Mrs. De Peyster and Helena urged her to remain and dine, but Olivia declined, and the servant announced her carriage. Pembroke put her white burnous around her in the hall, and handed her to her carriage. They were all to meet at the Russian Legation at half-past ten.
At that hour the broad street in front of the Legation was packed with carriages. An awning for the waiting footmen extended on each side of the broad porte cochére. Half a dozen policemen kept the carriages in line and the coachmen in order—for this was the great ball of the season, a royal grand duke was to be present, and the fame of Madame Volkonsky’s beauty had gone far and wide. The vast house blazed with lights, and amid the rolling of wheels, and the hubbub of many voices could be heard the strains of an orchestra floating out.
Almost at the same moment the carriages containing Olivia and her father, Pembroke and the De Peysters drove up, and the party vanished upstairs.
“How beautiful you are!” cried Helena delightedly, up in the dressing room, as Olivia dropped her wraps and appeared in her dainty white toilette, Olivia blushed with gratified vanity. Her dress was the perfection of simplicity, soft and diaphanous, and around her milk white arms and throat were her mother’s pearls.
As the three ladies came out into the brilliant corridor to meet their escorts, Pembroke received a kind of thrill at Olivia’s beauty—a beauty which had never struck him very forcibly before. She was undoubtedly pretty and graceful, and he had often admired her slight and willowy figure—but she had grown beautiful in her solitary country life—beautiful with patience, courage and womanliness. The Colonel, in a superb swallow-tail of the style of ten years past, his coat-tails lined with white satin, his snowy ruffle falling over the bosom of his waistcoat, his fine curling white hair combed carefully down upon his velvet collar in the old fashion, offered his arm like a prince to Mrs. De Peyster, herself a stately and imposing matron, and proud to be escorted by such a chevalier. Pembroke walked beside Olivia and Helena down the broad staircase.
Is there any form of social life more imposing than a really splendid ball? The tall and nodding ferns and palms, the penetrating odor of flowers, the clash of music, the brilliant crowd moving to and fro through the great drawing-rooms and halls, brought a deeper flush to Olivia’s cheek. She felt like a débutante.
They made their way slowly toward the upper end of the last of a noble suite of rooms. Pembroke was just saying in low tone to the two girls, “I have looked out for your interests with the Grand Duke. My friend Ryleief has promised to present both of you—an honor I waived for myself, as being quite beneath the Grand Duke’s notice, and—”
“Colonel and Miss Berkeley, Mrs. and Miss de Peyster; Mr. Pembroke—” was bawled out by Pembroke’s friend, Ryleief who was making the introductions to the new Minister and his wife—and the party stood face to face with Ahlberg and Madame Koller.
The rencontre was so staggering and unexpected that Pembroke quite lost his self-possession. He gazed stupidly at the pair before him—M. and Madame Volkonsky, who had formed much of his life five years before as Ahlberg and Elise Koller. He saw Ahlberg’s breast covered with orders, and he wore an elaborate court suit. Madame Koller, or Madame Volkonsky, blazed with diamonds. Her hair was as blonde and as abundant as ever, and far behind her streamed a gorgeous satin train of the same golden hue as her hair.
Olivia, too, felt that sudden shock at meeting people who rise, as it were, like the dead from their graves. She felt also that repulsion that came from a knowledge of both of them. She could only silently bow as they were presented. But both M. and Madame Volkonsky expressed more than mere surprise at the meeting. Ahlberg or Volkonsky as he now was, turned excessively pale. His uncertain glance fell on Pembroke, and turned again on his wife. As for her, the same pallor showed under the delicate rouge on her cheek, but women rally more quickly under these things than men do. Besides, she had contemplated the possibility of meeting some of these people, and was not altogether unprepared for it.
If, however, the blankness of amazement had seized upon Olivia and Pembroke, and if the De Peysters were also a little unnerved by the strangeness of what was occurring before them, Colonel Berkeley was as cool as a cucumber. He held out his hand warmly. He rolled out his salutations in a loud, rich voice.
“Why, how do you do Eliza. You’ll excuse an old man, my dear, for calling you by your first name, won’t you? And my friend Ahlberg that was. This is delightful,” he added, looking around as if to challenge the whole party.
In the midst of the strange sensations which agitated him, Pembroke could scarcely forbear from laughing at the Colonel’s greeting, and the effect it produced. Madame Volkonsky flushed violently, still under her rouge, while Volkonsky’s face was a study in its helpless rage. Poor Ryleief, with a mob of fine people surging up to be introduced, was yet so consumed with curiosity, that he held them all at bay, and looked from one to the other.
“Does Madame understand that gentleman?” he asked in French, eagerly—
“Of course she does, my dear fellow,” heartily responded Colonel Berkeley in English. “She spoke English long before she learned Rooshan, if she ever learned it. Hay, Eliza?”
The Colonel’s manner was so very dignified, and although jovial, so far removed from familiarity, that Madame Volkonsky did not know whether to be pleased by the recognition or annoyed. If, as it was likely, it should come out that she was an American, here were people of the best standing who could vouch at least for her origin. She held out her hand to the Colonel, and said rapidly in French:
“I am very glad to meet you. I cannot say much here, but I hope to see you presently.” When Pembroke made his bow and passed, Volkonsky called up all his ineffable assurance and gave him a scowl, which Pembroke received with a bow and a cool smile that was sarcasm itself. Madame Volkonsky did not look at him as she bowed, nor did he look at her.
In a moment they were clear of the press. The De Peysters were full of curiosity.
“Who were they? Who are they?” breathlessly asked Helena.
“My dear young lady,” responded the Colonel, smoothing down his shirt-frill with his delicate old hand, “Who they were I can very easily tell you. Who they are, I am blessed if I know.”
While the Colonel was giving a highly picturesque account of Eliza Peyton through all her transformations until she came to be Elise Koller, since when Colonel Berkeley had no knowledge of her whatever, Pembroke had given his arm to Olivia, and they moved off into a quiet corner, where the spreading leaves of a great palm made a little solitude in the midst of the crowd, and the lights and the crash of music and the beating of the dancers’ feet in the distance. Pembroke was alternately pale and red. Madame Volkonsky was nothing to him now, but he hated Volkonsky with the reprehensible but eminently human hatred that one man sometimes feels for another. Volkonsky was a scoundrel and an imposter. It made him furious to think that he should have dared to return to America, albeit he should come as the accredited Minister of a great power. It showed a defiance of what he, Pembroke, knew and could relate of him, that was infuriating to his self-love. For Elise, he did not know exactly what he most felt—whether pity or contempt. And the very last time that he and Olivia Berkeley had discussed Madame Koller was on that April night in the old garden at Isleham—a recollection far from pleasant.
“Papa’s remark that this meeting was delightful, struck me as rather ingeniously inappropriate,” said Olivia, seeking the friendly cover of a joke. “It is frightfully embarrassing to meet people this way.”
“Very,” sententiously answered Pembroke. He was still in a whirl.
Then there was a pause. Suddenly Pembroke bent over toward her and said distinctly:
“Olivia, did you ever doubt what I told you that night in the garden about Madame Koller? that she was then, and had been for a long time, nothing to me? Did you ever have a renewal of your unjust suspicions?”
“No,” answered Olivia, as clearly, after a short silence.
In another instant they were among the crowd of dancers in the ball room. Neither knew exactly how they happened to get there. Pembroke did not often dance, and was rather surprised when he found himself whirling around the ball room with Olivia, to the rhythm of a dreamy waltz. It was soon over. It came back to Olivia that she ought not so soon to part company with the De Peysters, and she stopped at once, thereby cutting short her own rapture as well as Pembroke’s. Without a word, Pembroke led her back to where the Colonel and Mrs. De Peyster and Helena were. Helena’s pretty face wore a cloud. She had not yet been asked to dance, and was more puzzled than pleased at the meeting which she had witnessed in all its strangeness. Pembroke good naturedly took her for a turn and brought her back with her card half filled and the smiles dimpling all over her face.
Meanwhile, the ball went on merrily. Ryleief escaped from his post as soon as possible and sought Pembroke.
“So you knew M. Volkonsky?” he said eagerly, in a whisper.
“Yes,” said Pembroke—and his look and tone expressed volumes.
Ryleief held him by the arm, and whispered:
“This is confidential. I suspected from the first that our new chief was—eh—you know—not exactly—”
“Yes,” answered Pembroke, “not exactly a gentleman. An arrant knave and coward, in short.”
Ryleief, a mature diplomatic sprig, looked fixedly at Pembroke, his hard Muscovite face growing expressive.
“Speaking as friends, my dear Pembroke—and, you understand in my position the necessity of prudence—M. Volkonsky is not unknown among the Russian diplomats. He has been recalled once—warned repeatedly. Once, some years ago, it was supposed he had been dismissed from the diplomatic corps. But he reappeared about five years ago under another name—he was originally an Ahlberg. He certainly inherited some money, married some more, and took the name of Volkonsky—said it was a condition of his fortune. He has been chargé d’affaires at Munich—later at Lisbon—both promotions for him. What his power is at the Foreign Office I know not—certainly not his family, because he has none. It is said he is a Swiss.”
“He will not be long here,” remarked Pembroke. Then Pembroke went away and wandered about, feeling uncomfortable, as every man does, under the same roof as his enemy. He felt no compunction as to being the guest of Volkonsky. The legation was Russian property—the ball itself was not paid for out of Volkonsky’s own pocket, but by his government. Pembroke felt, though, that when it came out, as it must, the part that he would take in exposing the Russian Minister, his presence at the ball might not be understood, and he would gladly have left the instant he found out who Volkonsky really was but for the Berkeleys and the De Peysters.
He stood off and watched the two girls as they danced—both with extreme grace. There was no lack of partners for them. Mrs. De Peyster, with the Colonel hovering near her, did not have her charges on her hands for much of the time. The truth is, Olivia, although the shock and surprise of meeting two people who were connected with a painful part of her life was unpleasant, yet was she still young and fresh enough to feel the intoxication of a ball. The music got into her feet, the lights and flowers dazzled her eyes. She was old enough to seize the present moment of enjoyment, and to postpone unpleasant things to the morrow, and young enough to feel a keen enjoyment in the present. She would never come to another ball at the Russian Legation, so there was that much more reason she should enjoy this one.
As Pembroke passed near her once she made a little mocking mouth at him.
“Your friend, Ryleief, promised that I should be introduced to the Grand Duke—and—”
“Look out,” answered Pembroke, laughing, “he is coming this way. Now look your best.”
At that very instant Ryleief was making his way toward them with the Grand Duke, a tall, military looking fellow, who surveyed the crowd with very unpretending good humor. Pembroke saw the presentation made, and Olivia drop a courtesy, which Helena De Peyster, at her elbow, imitated as the scion of royalty bowed to her. The Grand Duke squared off and began a conversation with Olivia. She had the sort of training to pay him the delicate flattery which princes love, but she had the American sense of humor which the continental foreigners find so captivating. Pembroke, still smiling to himself, imagined the platitudes his royal highness was bestowing upon the young American girl, when suddenly the Grand Duke’s mouth opened wide, and he laughed outright at something Olivia had said. Thenceforth her fortune was made with the Grand Duke.
The next thing Pembroke saw was Olivia placing her hand in the Grand Duke’s, and the pair went sailing around the room in the peculiar slow and ungraceful waltz danced by foreigners. Olivia had no difficulty in keeping step with her six-foot Grand Duke, and really danced the awkward dance as gracefully as it could be done. Mrs. De Peyster’s face glowed as they passed. Olivia was chaperoned by her, and as such she enjoyed a reflected glory. The great maternal instinct welled up in her—she glanced at Helena—but Helena was so young—a mere chit—and Mrs. De Peyster was not of an envious nature. Colonel Berkeley felt a kind of pride at the success Olivia was making, but when a superb dowager sitting next Mrs. De Peyster asked, in a loud whisper, if he was “the father of Miss Berkeley,” the Colonel’s wrath rose. He made a courtly bow, and explained that Miss Berkeley was the daughter of Colonel Berkeley, of Virginia.
Not only once did the Grand Duke dance with Olivia, but twice—and he asked permission to call on her the next afternoon.
“With the greatest pleasure,” answered Olivia gayly—“and—pray don’t forget to come.”
At which the Grand Duke grinned like any other man at a merry challenge from a girl.
At last the ball was over. Toward two o’clock Pembroke put the ladies of his party in their carriages and started to walk home. Madame Volkonsky had not been able to spoil the ball for Olivia.
“Good-bye,” she cried to Pembroke, waving her hand. “To-morrow at four o’clock he comes—I shall begin making my toilette at twelve.”
“Very pretty ball of Eliza Peyton’s,” said the Colonel, settling himself back in the carriage and buttoning up his great-coat. “Volkonsky—ha! ha! And that fellow, Ahlberg—by Gad! an infernal sneaking cur—I beg your pardon, my dear, for swearing, but of all the damned impostors I ever saw M. Volkonsky is the greatest, excepting always Eliza Peyton.”