By common consent the Countess Elisabeth was pronounced beautiful. As a rule the beauty of really beautiful women is so marked in certain particulars that it excites criticism, and opinions will differ concerning it. But there is another kind of beauty, not so perfect, not comparable with any recognized standard, which nevertheless has something in it which appeals to all opinions. Countess Elisabeth was such a woman. She was fair, delicate-looking, and her coloring was wonderful; yet there was strength behind this seemingly fragile beauty—strength of purpose, strength of endurance. No one considered her of much importance in Vayenne. She seemed to live a retired life in the faded house in the Place Beauvoisin, her chief companion being a young girl, a distant relative, usually spoken of as Mademoiselle Lucille. Those who were inclined to be romantic gave the Countess a lover, some one in the past who had died or perchance proved faithless. They might have remodelled their ideas of her romance had they seen the color in her cheeks as she spoke to Felix.
"Does not the news spell fortune for you?" she went on after a pause. "All obstacles are removed by it."
"Yes. It seems so."
"Seems! What difficulty can remain?" And then she said suddenly, "You had no hand in his death, Felix?"
"No," he answered; "and yet your very question should show you something of the difficulty which still surrounds me. Others in Vayenne will ask that question, too, since the death occurs so opportunely for me."
"Why manufacture troubles?" she said. "Did ever a man yet step to a place of power without making enemies? I have always held that Maurice was not the man to reign in Montvilliers. His own father delivered the kingdom to you. Have I not urged you to take it when the time came, and chance a rising in Maurice's favor? It would never have come. Vayenne has looked upon you as the old Duke's successor too long."
"The way has always seemed easy when you have pointed it out to me," said Felix.
"Yes. I have been strangely generous," the Countess answered. "For your sake I have made no complaint when prudence suggested your marriage with Christine de Liancourt."
"You know, Elisabeth, that it is prudence alone which suggests it."
"Yes; I have vanity enough to believe that." And there was the suspicion of a long sigh in her answer.