United States or Isle of Man ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
When time has somewhat assuaged the poignancy of your affliction, I will again call on you to tender my respectful sympathies." Time wore on, and with it brought those alleviations it affords to even the keenest sorrow. The assiduity of friends compelled Madame Lioncourt to lay aside her widow's weeds, and reappear in the great world of fashion.
She dwelt upon the diseases they had suffered, and at the thought of his death, so unnecessary in view of the good that the air was already doing her in Europe, she shed tears. Lord Lioncourt was very polite, but there was no resumption of the ship's comradery in his manner.
His meditations were interrupted by the return of Madame Lioncourt, who motioned her visitor to be seated, and sank into a fauteuil herself. She was pale as marble, and her eyes were red with recent tears, but her voice was calm and firm as she said, "I need hardly ask you, sir, if my poor husband has fallen. I could read ill news in your countenance as soon as you appeared.
And I hope you understand about that old affair, too, by this time. It was a complication. I had to get back at Lioncourt somehow; and I don't honestly think now that his admiration for a young girl was a very wholesome thing for her. But never mind. You had that Boston goose in Florence, too, last winter, and I suppose he gobbled up what little Miss Milray had left of me. But she's charming.
He may never see his bride again. He is venturesome and rash. We have sharp work before us, or I'm very much mistaken, and Colonel Eugene Lioncourt may figure in the list of killed in the first general engagement. Then I renew my suit, and if Leonide again reject me, there's no virtue in determination."
She rose and rushed him to the other end of the saloon. Lord Lioncourt came in looking about. "Ah, have you found her?" he asked, gayly. "There were twenty pounds in your cap, and two hundred dollars." "Yes," said Clementina, "she's over the'a." She pointed, and then shrank and slipped away. At breakfast Mrs.
She added, in careless acknowledgement of her own failure to direct her choice, "I see you didn't need my help after all," and the thorny point which Clementina felt in her praise was rankling, when Lord Lioncourt began to introduce her. He made rather a mess of it, but as soon as he came to an end of his well-meant blunders, she stood up and began her poses and paces.
"God will give me strength to bear good tidings," cried the lady. "Then arm yourself with all your energy," said the stranger. "Lioncourt lives." "Lives!" said Leonide, faintly, grasping the arm of the stranger to support herself from falling. "Courage, madame; I tell you the truth. He lives." "Then take me to him. The crisis is past.
The theatrical people thought none the worse of her for her simple-hearted ness, apparently; they were both very sweet to her, and wanted her to promise to come and see them in their little box in St. John's Wood. Once, indeed, Clementina thought she saw relenting in Mrs. Milray's glance, but it hardened again as Lord Lioncourt and Mr. Ewins came up to her, and began to talk with her.
Lord Lioncourt talked on until he had used up the incidents of the night before, and the probabilities of their getting into Queenstown before morning; then he and Mr. Ewins went to the smoking-room together, and Clementina was left alone with Milray. "Clementina," he said, gently, "I don't see everything; but isn't there some trouble between you and Mrs. Milray?"
Word Of The Day