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Had I stopped at Wildbad with the party of orpheonists, I should have encountered rather sooner the fatal beauties of Mary Ashburleigh. It was to meet her that Fortnoye had paused at that resort, considering her introduction to Frau Kranich almost indispensable to the success of his scheme. She had no hesitation in following the protecting angel of her lost child.
At the head walked Mr. Cookson & Jenkinson. He still wore that species of shooting-costume which he had made his uniform, but it was decked with roses, and his hands were encased in milk-white gloves: on his hands, besides the gloves, he had the two grammatical ladies from the Rhine steamboat in guise of bridesmaids. Behind him walked Mary Ashburleigh.
Young Kranich has written her a letter confessing his lies. Don't you know? The very same day when you were determined to fight him in a duel " "Certainly, certainly," I said, a little confused. "We will change the subject and leave my ferocity alone. Let us understand one another. In regard to Fortnoye's marriage, was there not some talk of a Madame Ashburleigh?" "I believe you.
Ashburleigh, to whom he was guided by the sculptor, and who was now taking the waters at Wildbad, soon put the whole tangled story to rights.
To light upon Mary Ashburleigh in these festal throngs, perhaps wanting assistance, perhaps calling upon my name even now through her velvet lips, was a chance the mere notion of which made my blood leap. When Brussels gives herself over to holiday-making, she does it in a whole-souled and self-consistent way that has plenty of attractiveness.
Madame Ashburleigh is the very key of the manoeuvre. Madame Ashburleigh don't you perceive? lost a child." "For that matter, she has lost four. I know the lady confidentially, and she told me their histories and present address. Lucia lies in Glasgow, Hannibal at Nice, and Waterloo sleeps somewhere hereabout, as well as another nameless little dear." "She is a good woman.
You are as full of information as an oracle, but you are not coherent. This month past I have been hunting down a chimaera, a hydra with a dozen heads: each head shows me by turn the portrait of Fortnoye, or Francine, or yourself, or Kranich, or Mrs. Ashburleigh. Ever since Noisy I have been meandering through the folds of a mystery. My head is turning with it.
It happened that the little keepsake I had found for Francine consisted of wheat-ears in pearls and gold, adapted for brooch and eardrops; so I only had to drop them in beside the chickens and the present was appropriate and complete. I cannot tell of the effect as Mary Ashburleigh swept into that splendid banqueting-room, one long pyramid of velvet pierced with webbed interstices of light.
In the carriage she said, "I brought you away because I am devoured with uneasiness. Mrs. Ashburleigh wrote me that she would certainly be here for at least the principal part of the ceremony. I do not know what to make of it. It may be of no use, but we will scour the city. These throngs, this noise, make me uneasy.
From one of the little costumers' shops, Charles with a higher evincement of antiquarian taste than I should have expected managed to bear away a pattern of wall-paper, which I afterward conferred on Mary Ashburleigh with great applause: it was Parisian of 1824, the epoch of Charles Dix, and was entirely covered with giraffes in honor of that puissant and elegant monarch.
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