ANGELIQUE DES MELOISES.
"Come and see me to-night, Le Gardeur." Angelique des Meloises drew the bridle sharply as she halted her spirited horse in front of the officer of the guard at the St. Louis Gate. "Come and see me to- night: I shall be at home to no one but you. Will you come?"
Had Le Gardeur de Repentigny been ever so laggard and indifferent a lover the touch of that pretty hand, and the glance from the dark eye that shot fire down into his very heart, would have decided him to obey this seductive invitation.
He held her hand as he looked up with a face radiant with joy. "I will surely come, Angelique; but tell me--"
She interrupted him laughingly: "No; I will tell you nothing till you come! So good-by till then."
He would fain have prolonged the interview; but she capriciously shook the reins, and with a silvery laugh rode through the gateway and into the city. In a few minutes she dismounted at her own home, and giving her horse in charge of a groom, ran lightly up the broad steps into the house.
The family mansion of the Des Meloises was a tall and rather pretentious edifice overlooking the fashionable Rue St. Louis.
The house was, by a little artifice on the part of Angelique, empty of visitors this evening. Even her brother, the Chevalier des Meloises, with whom she lived, a man of high life and extreme fashion, was to-night enjoying the more congenial society of the officers of the Regiment de Bearn. At this moment, amid the clash of glasses and the bubbling of wine, the excited and voluble Gascons were discussing in one breath the war, the council, the court, the ladies, and whatever gay topic was tossed from end to end of the crowded mess-table.
"Mademoiselle's hair has got loose and looks like a Huron's," said her maid Lizette, as her nimble fingers rearranged the rich dark- golden locks of Angelique, which reached to the floor as she sat upon her fauteuil.
"No matter, Lizette; do it up a la Pompadour, and make haste. My brain is in as great confusion as my hair. I need repose for an hour. Remember, Lizette, I am at home to no one to-night except the Chevalier de Repentigny."
"The Chevalier called this afternoon, Mademoiselle, and was sorry he did not find you at home," replied Lizette, who saw the eyelashes of her mistress quiver and droop, while a flush deepened for an instant the roseate hue of her cheek.
"I was in the country, that accounts for it! There, my hair will do!" said Angelique, giving a glance in the great Venetian mirror before her. Her freshly donned robe of blue silk, edged with a foam of snowy laces and furbelows, set off her tall figure. Her arms, bare to the elbows, would have excited Juno's jealousy or Homer's verse to gather efforts in praise of them. Her dainty feet, shapely, aspiring, and full of character as her face, were carelessly thrust forward, and upon one of them lay a flossy spaniel, a privileged pet of his fair mistress.
The boudoir of Angelique was a nest of luxury and elegance. Its furnishings and adornings were of the newest Parisian style. A carpet woven in the pattern of a bed of flowers covered the floor.
Vases of Sevres and Porcelein, filled with roses and jonquils, stood on marble tables. Grand Venetian mirrors reflected the fair form of their mistress from every point of view--who contemplated herself before and behind with a feeling of perfect satisfaction and sense of triumph over every rival.
A harpsichord occupied one corner of the room, and an elaborate bookcase, well-filled with splendidly bound volumes, another.
Angelique had small taste for reading, yet had made some acquaintance with the literature of the day. Her natural quick parts and good taste enabled her to shine, even in literary conversation. Her bright eyes looked volumes. Her silvery laugh was wiser than the wisdom of a precieuse. Her witty repartees covered acres of deficiencies with so much grace and tact that men were tempted to praise her knowledge no less than her beauty.
She had a keen eye for artistic effects. She loved painting, although her taste was sensuous and voluptuous--character is shown in the choice of pictures as much as in that of books or of companions.
There was a painting of Vanloo--a lot of full-blooded horses in a field of clover; they had broken fence, and were luxuriating in the rich, forbidden pasture. The triumph of Cleopatra over Antony, by Le Brun, was a great favorite with Angelique, because of a fancied, if not a real, resemblance between her own features and those of the famous Queen of Egypt. Portraits of favorite friends, one of them Le Gardeur de Repentigny, and a still more recent acquisition, that of the Intendant Bigot, adorned the walls, and among them was one distinguished for its contrast to all the rest--the likeness, in the garb of an Ursuline, of her beautiful Aunt Marie des Meloises, who, in a fit of caprice some years before, had suddenly forsaken the world of fashion, and retired to a convent.
The proud beauty threw back her thick golden tresses as she scanned her fair face and magnificent figure in the tall Venetian mirror.
She drank the intoxicating cup of self-flattery to the bottom as she compared herself, feature by feature, with every beautiful woman she knew in New France. The longer she looked the more she felt the superiority of her own charms over them all. Even the portrait of her aunt, so like her in feature, so different in expression, was glanced at with something like triumph spiced with content.
"She was handsome as I!" cried Angelique. "She was fit to be a queen, and made herself a nun--and all for the sake of a man! I am fit to be a queen too, and the man who raises me nighest to a queen's estate gets my hand! My heart?" she paused a few moments.
"Pshaw!" A slight quiver passed over her lips. "My heart must do penance for the fault of my hand!"