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Updated: June 10, 2025
But the fog remained an actual clouding of his physical vision, blurring all he looked upon. It was horribly uncomfortable. He wished he was alone. Then he might have slipped down from his chair and, according to his poor capacity of locomotion, sought relief in movement. Meanwhile, silently, mechanically, Helen de Vallorbes continued her breakfast.
She could not displeasing reflection afford to quarrel with Zélie. The woman knew too much. Therefore Madame de Vallorbes took refuge in lofty abstraction, while the tiresome uncertainties, the conflicting inclinations of the past day, quick to seize their opportunity, as is the habit of such discourteous gentry, returned upon her with redoubled importunity and force.
It followed perhaps unreasonably enough that Richard, some five minutes later, drove round the angle of the house and drew the mail-phaeton up at the foot of the gray, griffin-guarded flight of steps whereon Madame de Vallorbes, wrapped in furs, the cavalier hat and its trailing plumes shadowing the upper part of her face and her bright hair, awaited his coming in a rather defiant humour.
"I think it can't last. It is too intangible, too fantastic." "I admit that to keep it intact needs an infinity of precautions. For instance, I can make no near acquaintance with Naples. I cannot permit myself to see the town at close quarters. I only look at it from here. If I want to go to or from the yacht, I do so at night and in a closed carriage. I took on de Vallorbes' box at the San Carlo.
Then, moreover, you have to rise early to-morrow or rather to-day. You have a long journey before you and should secure all the rest you can." Madame de Vallorbes gathered her silken draperies about her absently. For a moment she looked down at the tiger-skin, then back at Lady Calmady. "Ah yes!" she said, "it is thoughtful of you to remind me of that. To-day I start on my homeward journey.
And among the captives of Naples, on the brilliant morning in question in the early spring of the year 1871, open-eared and open-eyed to its manifest and manifold incongruities, relishing alike the superficial beauty and underlying bestiality of it, was very certainly Helen de Vallorbes.
But the reply took four days in reaching Madame de Vallorbes, and during those days it rained incessantly. The said reply came in the form of a letter. Sir Richard Calmady was at Constantinople, so the writer Bates, his steward had reason to believe. But it was probable he would return to Naples shortly.
And he knew the fair woman it came forth from for Helen de Vallorbes, herself, in her crocus-yellow gown sewn with seed pearls. And he knew it for the immortal soul of her. And he perceived, moreover, as it smiled on and beckoned him with lascivious gestures, that its hands and its lips were bloody, since it had broken the hearts of living women and torn and devoured the honour of living men.
A little ardour, indeed, heightened the charm of her manner an ardour of delicate battle, as of one whose honour has been ever so slightly touched. "Certainly, I am your cousin, Helen de Vallorbes," she replied. "You are not sorry for that, Richard, are you? At this moment I am increasingly glad to be your cousin though not perhaps so very particularly glad to be Helen de Vallorbes."
Not till the gray of a rain-washed, windy morning had come, and Naples had put off its merry sinning, changing from a city of pleasure to a city of labour and, too often, of callously inflicted pain, did Helen de Vallorbes leave the cedar-scented library. The fire of logs had burnt itself out upon the hearth, and other fires, perhaps, had pretty thoroughly burnt themselves out likewise.
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