<h2><SPAN name="chap11"></SPAN>XI.<br/> The Story</h2>
<p>With all my heart,” said the General, with an effort; and after a short
pause in which to arrange his subject, he commenced one of the strangest
narratives I ever heard.</p>
<p>“My dear child was looking forward with great pleasure to the visit you
had been so good as to arrange for her to your charming daughter.” Here
he made me a gallant but melancholy bow. “In the meantime we had an
invitation to my old friend the Count Carlsfeld, whose schloss is about six
leagues to the other side of Karnstein. It was to attend the series of fetes
which, you remember, were given by him in honor of his illustrious visitor, the
Grand Duke Charles.”</p>
<p>“Yes; and very splendid, I believe, they were,” said my father.</p>
<p>“Princely! But then his hospitalities are quite regal. He has
Aladdin’s lamp. The night from which my sorrow dates was devoted to a
magnificent masquerade. The grounds were thrown open, the trees hung with
colored lamps. There was such a display of fireworks as Paris itself had never
witnessed. And such music—music, you know, is my weakness—such
ravishing music! The finest instrumental band, perhaps, in the world, and the
finest singers who could be collected from all the great operas in Europe. As
you wandered through these fantastically illuminated grounds, the moon-lighted
chateau throwing a rosy light from its long rows of windows, you would suddenly
hear these ravishing voices stealing from the silence of some grove, or rising
from boats upon the lake. I felt myself, as I looked and listened, carried back
into the romance and poetry of my early youth.</p>
<p>“When the fireworks were ended, and the ball beginning, we returned to
the noble suite of rooms that were thrown open to the dancers. A masked ball,
you know, is a beautiful sight; but so brilliant a spectacle of the kind I
never saw before.</p>
<p>“It was a very aristocratic assembly. I was myself almost the only
‘nobody’ present.</p>
<p>“My dear child was looking quite beautiful. She wore no mask. Her
excitement and delight added an unspeakable charm to her features, always
lovely. I remarked a young lady, dressed magnificently, but wearing a mask, who
appeared to me to be observing my ward with extraordinary interest. I had seen
her, earlier in the evening, in the great hall, and again, for a few minutes,
walking near us, on the terrace under the castle windows, similarly employed. A
lady, also masked, richly and gravely dressed, and with a stately air, like a
person of rank, accompanied her as a chaperon.</p>
<p>Had the young lady not worn a mask, I could, of course, have been much more
certain upon the question whether she was really watching my poor darling.</p>
<p>I am now well assured that she was.</p>
<p>“We were now in one of the salons. My poor dear child had been dancing,
and was resting a little in one of the chairs near the door; I was standing
near. The two ladies I have mentioned had approached and the younger took the
chair next my ward; while her companion stood beside me, and for a little time
addressed herself, in a low tone, to her charge.</p>
<p>“Availing herself of the privilege of her mask, she turned to me, and in
the tone of an old friend, and calling me by my name, opened a conversation
with me, which piqued my curiosity a good deal. She referred to many scenes
where she had met me—at Court, and at distinguished houses. She alluded
to little incidents which I had long ceased to think of, but which, I found,
had only lain in abeyance in my memory, for they instantly started into life at
her touch.</p>
<p>“I became more and more curious to ascertain who she was, every moment.
She parried my attempts to discover very adroitly and pleasantly. The knowledge
she showed of many passages in my life seemed to me all but unaccountable; and
she appeared to take a not unnatural pleasure in foiling my curiosity, and in
seeing me flounder in my eager perplexity, from one conjecture to another.</p>
<p>“In the meantime the young lady, whom her mother called by the odd name
of Millarca, when she once or twice addressed her, had, with the same ease and
grace, got into conversation with my ward.</p>
<p>“She introduced herself by saying that her mother was a very old
acquaintance of mine. She spoke of the agreeable audacity which a mask rendered
practicable; she talked like a friend; she admired her dress, and insinuated
very prettily her admiration of her beauty. She amused her with laughing
criticisms upon the people who crowded the ballroom, and laughed at my poor
child’s fun. She was very witty and lively when she pleased, and after a
time they had grown very good friends, and the young stranger lowered her mask,
displaying a remarkably beautiful face. I had never seen it before, neither had
my dear child. But though it was new to us, the features were so engaging, as
well as lovely, that it was impossible not to feel the attraction powerfully.
My poor girl did so. I never saw anyone more taken with another at first sight,
unless, indeed, it was the stranger herself, who seemed quite to have lost her
heart to her.</p>
<p>“In the meantime, availing myself of the license of a masquerade, I put
not a few questions to the elder lady.</p>
<p>“‘You have puzzled me utterly,’ I said, laughing. ‘Is
that not enough?</p>
<p>Won’t you, now, consent to stand on equal terms, and do me the kindness
to remove your mask?’</p>
<p>“‘Can any request be more unreasonable?’ she replied.
‘Ask a lady to yield an advantage! Beside, how do you know you should
recognize me? Years make changes.’</p>
<p>“‘As you see,’ I said, with a bow, and, I suppose, a rather
melancholy little laugh.</p>
<p>“‘As philosophers tell us,’ she said; ‘and how do you
know that a sight of my face would help you?’</p>
<p>“‘I should take chance for that,’ I answered. ‘It is
vain trying to make yourself out an old woman; your figure betrays you.’</p>
<p>“‘Years, nevertheless, have passed since I saw you, rather since
you saw me, for that is what I am considering. Millarca, there, is my daughter;
I cannot then be young, even in the opinion of people whom time has taught to
be indulgent, and I may not like to be compared with what you remember me.</p>
<p>You have no mask to remove. You can offer me nothing in exchange.’</p>
<p>“‘My petition is to your pity, to remove it.’</p>
<p>“‘And mine to yours, to let it stay where it is,’ she
replied.</p>
<p>“‘Well, then, at least you will tell me whether you are French or
German; you speak both languages so perfectly.’</p>
<p>“‘I don’t think I shall tell you that, General; you intend a
surprise, and are meditating the particular point of attack.’</p>
<p>“‘At all events, you won’t deny this,’ I said,
‘that being honored by your permission to converse, I ought to know how
to address you. Shall I say Madame la Comtesse?’</p>
<p>“She laughed, and she would, no doubt, have met me with another
evasion—if, indeed, I can treat any occurrence in an interview every
circumstance of which was prearranged, as I now believe, with the profoundest
cunning, as liable to be modified by accident.</p>
<p>“‘As to that,’ she began; but she was interrupted, almost as
she opened her lips, by a gentleman, dressed in black, who looked particularly
elegant and distinguished, with this drawback, that his face was the most
deadly pale I ever saw, except in death. He was in no masquerade—in the
plain evening dress of a gentleman; and he said, without a smile, but with a
courtly and unusually low bow:—</p>
<p>“‘Will Madame la Comtesse permit me to say a very few words which
may interest her?’</p>
<p>“The lady turned quickly to him, and touched her lip in token of silence;
she then said to me, ‘Keep my place for me, General; I shall return when
I have said a few words.’</p>
<p>“And with this injunction, playfully given, she walked a little aside
with the gentleman in black, and talked for some minutes, apparently very
earnestly. They then walked away slowly together in the crowd, and I lost them
for some minutes.</p>
<p>“I spent the interval in cudgeling my brains for a conjecture as to the
identity of the lady who seemed to remember me so kindly, and I was thinking of
turning about and joining in the conversation between my pretty ward and the
Countess’s daughter, and trying whether, by the time she returned, I
might not have a surprise in store for her, by having her name, title, chateau,
and estates at my fingers’ ends. But at this moment she returned,
accompanied by the pale man in black, who said:</p>
<p>“‘I shall return and inform Madame la Comtesse when her carriage is
at the door.’</p>
<p>“He withdrew with a bow.”</p>
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