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Updated: September 1, 2025
I see by your face, Miss Brewer, that you are growing impatient, and are disposed to wonder what the family history of the Dales, and the troubles of Lady Verner, have to do with Paulina Durski and our designs for her future. Bear with my explanation a little longer, and you will perceive the importance of the connection between them."
"Yes, I understand that," said Miss Brewer, as plainly as before; "but I don't understand how Paulina is to be served in the affair, and I don't understand what my part is to be in it." "I am coming to that," he said. "You cannot be unaware of the impression which Madame Durski has made upon Sir Reginald's cousin, Douglas Dale."
"That is all possible," replied Miss Brewer, as calmly as before; "but what am I to do towards bringing about so desirable a state of affairs." "You have to use the influence which your position aupres de Madame Durski gives you. You can keep her situation constantly before her, you can perpetually harp upon its exigencies they are pressing, are they not? Yes then make them more pressing.
It was a secret chamber, hidden in the very centre of the house; and only an architect or a detective officer would have been likely to have discovered its existence. The walls were hung with red cloth, and Madame Durski always spoke of this apartment as the Red Drawing-room.
I was so utterly helpless, so desolate, so despairing, that it is scarcely strange if I accepted the fate my father pressed upon me, careless as to a future which held no joy for me, beyond the pleasure of the gaming-table. I left the house of one gambler to ally myself to the fortunes of another, for Leopold Durski was my father's companion and friend, and the same master-passion swayed both.
To advance this purpose, he had industriously circulated reports of the most injurious character respecting her; so that Douglas Dale, if he had not been blinded and engrossed by his love, must have seen that he was regarded by the men whom he was in the habit of meeting even more coldly and curiously than when he had first boldly announced his engagement to Madame Durski.
Victor Carrington was one of the first persons whom Reginald Eversleigh introduced to Madame Durski after her arrival in England. She was pleased with the quiet and graceful manners of the Frenchman; but she was at a loss to understand Sir Reginald's intimate association with a man who was at once poor and obscure. She told Sir Reginald as much the next time she saw him alone.
"Ah, me! these are idle words, are they not?" said Madame Durski, with a weary sigh. "And now I have told you my history, Reginald Eversleigh, and it is for you to judge whether there is any excuse for such a creature as I am." Sir Reginald pitied this hopeless, friendless, woman as much as it was in him to pity any one except himself, and tried to utter some words of consolation.
They knew of Paulina Durski only as a beautiful, but dangerous, syren, whose fatal smiles lured men to their ruin. That Douglas Dale should unite himself to such a woman seemed to them little short of absolute madness. Love must be strong indeed which will face the ridicule of mankind unflinchingly.
"She's on with the new love, beyond a doubt," said he to himself, as he read Miss Brewer's letter; "whether she's off with the old is quite another question, and rests with him rather than with her, I fancy." Victor Carrington's first move was to present himself before Madame Durski on the following day, at the hour at which she habitually received visitors.
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