Page:The Smart Set (Volume 52, Number 4).djvu/5

Vol. LII AUGUST, 1917 No. 4

PERFUMES

By Helen Woljeska

MADAME La Comtesse lay dying. Beyond a doubt, the end was near. Mournfully, noiselessly, her companion busied herself about the lace and satin of the bed, or, like a shadow, slipped away through deserted rooms, fulfilling some order of the fragile, faded, flowerlike creature whose eyes still blazed so vividly, while the ivory features already seemed as carved in death.

Madame la Comtesse wanted violets, many violets, to be smothered in violets! Her little, emaciated hands crushed the flowers, while, pulsating, the fine nostrils drank in their perfume. And that perfume, like some magic po- tion, conjured up the vision of a night at the Paris Opera—the night when she first had danced herself into fame and all Paris lay delirious at her feet. Violets . . . when all the flowers of all the climes had been showered upon her. The little passionately purple bunch had outshone them all. For Gas- ton had pressed it into her hand, to her breast, while his burning lips were upon hers. And that night the wild, black- eyed boy had seemed more important than a prince of blood royal. . . .

Enough.

Albine had to bring the curiously enameled golden casket containing a mixture of patchouli and sandal wood —and, at oncc, beside her bed stood the man who had raised her to be his countess. Elderly, effeminate, ultra- exquisite, he yet had been a true man, and truly a gentleman. The high-bred repose of his personality enveloped her once more. Proudly she basked in the consciousness of belonging to the highest caste of civilization, the flower of the world—she, a child of the gutter! Ah—he had been a good man—A little tear stole down the withered cheek. She closed her heavy lids and lay motionless. Was she asleep?

Once more she opened her eyes. They were hot and defiant. She called for the crystal bowl of sea water in which wonderfully colored shells and bits of deep red seaweed were floating. But she did not look at their iridescent beauty. The whiff of salt air brought back the beach of Trouville of the late eighties—the glittering crowd, the blaz- ing sky, and him—him—straight as an arrow, blond as a Viking, fascinating as only a Lord Melville could be—him— who had nearly cost her title and life! The pale, proud face was exultant.