The Soul of Countess Adrian. Rosa Campbell Praed

a little lower than the other—and his spare frame, he made one think somehow of an ill-balanced obelisk; whereas his sister, Mrs. Cubison, resembled nothing so much as a fat pouter pigeon, so short was she, so plump and so commonplace and comforting.

      "Oh, she's always sure of herself," said Mrs. Cubison. "There's no fear of Beaty's breaking down. They always carry her through."

      "Then why should there be so much fuss?" said Mrs. Walcot Valbry. "You are going to do it, Beatrice?"

      "Yes," replied the girl, composedly; "I am going to do it."

      "That's right. Now you'll astonish us all. I'll leave you to look after her, Mr. Lendon—you and the Professor, for I see some new people coming," and she hurried of to her station at the door.

      The Professor was not thinking just now of Beatrice. "Why, it's Maddox Challis,' he said, craning his head.

      "Maddox Challis!" repeated Lendon. "I thought he was in Palestine."

      "I mean the Occultist," said the Professor, with the deepest interest. "Do you know him?"

      "No—yes," Lendon answered. "Every one knows Maddox Challis—in one sense. In another, no one knows him."

      "That is true," assented the Professor. "The ordinary London diner-out would not know Maddox Challis."

      "Mr. Lendon is not the ordinary London diner-out," said Beatrice Brett.

      "Thank you," he said. A glance of sympathy passed between them. "Did you mean," he asked, "that you are really going to play the Improvisatrice; and since Mr. Walcot Valbry put you in my charge, tell me what I am to do."

      "Take me to some place where I can be quiet for a few minutes," she answered.

      He gave her his arm, and piloted her across the room. "I may talk to you some time this evening?" he asked. "I have so much I want to say to you, and then there's the visit to my studio, we must arrange that."

      She looked troubled and preoccupied and withdrew her arm, standing still before him. "I can't think of anything now, but what I am going to do. I don't know why I want to do it, but I can't help it; it's been in me all day, making me so restless."

      Mrs. Walcot Valbry, who had rejoined the Professor, came up with him at that moment and put Beatrice's arm within hers as she whispered something in the girl's ear.

      "Yes, I will come," said Beatrice. She turned to Lendon with a look he had never yet seen on her face—a hushed, breathless, awed look, and said in a very low voice:

      "I made sure I wouldn't act to-night, but it's stronger than I am. Wait; I'll talk to you by and by."

      She moved on, led by Mrs. Walcot Valbry, and passed between the heavy velvet curtains that divided a farther room from that in which most of the guests were assembled. The crowd was very dense; and on Mrs. Valbry's reappearance, there was a momentary silence, and presently the word went round that the Improvisatrice was about to do one of the inspirational scenes for which she was already celebrated in America. The dramatic stars who were present looked at each other, at once interested and contemptuous. Two actor-managers simultaneously changed their positions and crossed to where they would be more advantageously placed for seeing the performance. Miravoglia, who had helped to train Aimée Deselées, said aloud, "I know her; she is my pupil. Inspiration! Dead spirits! Bah! I say that is living genius."

      As the assemblage stood waiting, with eyes bent towards the closed curtain, there was a rustle of heavy brocade near the door, an announcement distinctly audible, "Countess Adrian," and then that sudden stir of heads and shoulders which tells of an instantly diverted curiosity. Lendon turned too, and for the first time saw the woman whom, somewhat less than a year ago, a cause célèbre had made famous.

      Was she beautiful? No. He remembered vaguely to have heard her described as "La belle Laide." She was far too large, too tall, too bounteously made for beauty. But then, how perfectly she was proportioned, and what a graceful snake-like way she had of moving, and what a grand carriage of head and magnificence of bust! Her eyes were too close together. But the eyes! Surely they might have illustrated Professor Viall's theory of Magnetic Dynamics. They were all pupil and yellow light. When the pupil dilated, there was nothing else; when it contracted, the iris showed queer golden gleams, like those in the eyes of some savage animal, Her features were too irregular. But what matter of that, when they were so full of power and passion? And who cared that the rich red lips, parted so as to show a double row of small glistening teeth, were so red and so ripe as to suggest sense rather than soul? Soul somehow was the last attribute one would associate with Countess Adrian. A glorious creature certainly—an intellectual creature—a creature with will, emotion, force of diameter, noble instinct it might be; but always of the flesh, and not of the spirit. Countess Adrian a disembodied thing! That splendid, glowing vitality quenched for ever! Impossible!

      She was dressed peculiarly in a gown of some stiff red, expensive fabric, that hung in massive folds about her. The jewels she wore were barbaric looking—a great uncut ruby at her breast, and valuable cats-eyes, set in diamonds, on her neck and in her black hair. She carried a big fan of deep yellow ostrich feathery, with glittering sticks.

      "It isn't really safe to come to houses like this, though they are amusing," observed a thin woman in a tiara, on Lendon's right. She was a great lady, to whom the Improvisatrice had acted as a "draw." "I used to know her in Paris—every one did, till it was discovered that she was a fraud—no more married to Count Adrian than I am. Of course, nobody can know her now."

      Lendon murmured something about her being a victim to circumstances.

      "Victim to fiddlesticks!" pursued the irate great lady. "Do you suppose she didn't know that sham ceremony meant nothing? Does she look as if a nincompoop like Adrian could bamboozle her?"

      The argument seemed unanswerable. Just then there was a cry of "Silence, please!" and the drawn curtains disclosed Beatrice Brett.

      Is this Beatrice Brett—this strange woman, cowering in the stillness of absolute misery, unconscious of herself, unconscious of her surroundings—blank despair in her eyes, blank despair on her white mask-like features, despair and doom in the rigid lips and the tense limbs? She is alone in the condemned cell. Death on the scaffold to-morrow, or death to-night by the poison which was her lover's last gift—which? And now she moves—memory awakes. The past comes back. The drama is re-enacted. She lives again through dead days—the convent, the marriage—a lamb led to slaughter—one more maiden sacrificed to the elderly debauchee. Then, love—white in its bud, red passion in its growth. Temptation. Crime. She secretly kills the loathed husband. And now there is no barrier between her and the man of her heart—the man who, honouring her, will not gain her through dishonour … All this in broken soliloquy and gesture—quiet at first, girlishly tender, piteously human; and then, always repressed, reaching the climax of a tragedy, than which no tragedy could be more grim. It is the moment in which her lover's arms first clasp her as his promised bride. His kiss is on her lips. She trembles with a holy ecstasy … Ah! … It is Hell, not Heaven! Rapture becomes horror unimaginable. The punishment is from beyond the grave. A ghost has come forth to be its own avenger. The arms which encircle her are dead arms. The lips that press hers are the lips of a corpse, It is her murdered husband who, embodied in her living lover, claims her for his wife. … She kneels. She cries for mercy. In her agony, the horrible confession is made. And now, silence …

      A long breath of pent emotion heaved through the audience. Lendon became conscious of a movement behind him. A woman's voice whispered in an audible sibilant whisper, "She shall feel me." He turned involuntarily. Countess Adrian was standing with her head bent a little forward, and her eyes fixed in a gaze of the most extraordinary intensity on the young actress's face.

      There was nothing malignant in the look. It expressed thoughtful curiosity and eager desire of dominance, such as might be seen in some wrestler, not certain of mastery, who, calculating his resources, calls will-force to his aid in a supreme effort for victory.

      If Countess Adrian's object were to test her power by quenching the girl's inspiration and