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　　CHAPTER II.

　　"I say, my pretty one! Dear! Dear! young man! Oh, love, you are in a vast hurry, aint you? Can't you stop a bit, now, my dear: do—there's a sweet fellow."

　　Pierre turned; and in the flashing, sinister, evil cross-lights of a druggist's window, his eye caught the person of a wonderfully beautifully-featured girl; scarlet-cheeked, glaringly-arrayed, and of a figure all natural grace but unnatural vivacity. Her whole form, however, was horribly lit by the green and yellow rays from the druggist's.

　　"My God!" shuddered Pierre, hurrying forward, "the town's first welcome to youth!"

　　He was just crossing over to where a line of hacks were drawn up against the opposite curb, when his eye was arrested by a short, gilded name, rather reservedly and aristocratically denominating a large and very handsome house, the second story of which was profusely lighted. He looked up, and was very certain that in this house were the apartments of Glen. Yielding to a sudden impulse, he mounted the single step toward the door, and rang the bell, which was quickly responded to by a very civil black.

　　As the door opened, he heard the distant interior sound of dancing-music and merriment.

　　"Is Mr. Stanly in?"

　　"Mr. Stanly? Yes, but he's engaged."

　　"How?"

　　"He is somewhere in the drawing rooms. My mistress is giving a party to the lodgers."

　　"Ay? Tell Mr. Stanly I wish to see him for one moment if you please; only one moment."

　　"I dare not call him, sir. He said that possibly some one might call for him to-night—they are calling every night for Mr. Stanly—but I must admit no one, on the plea of the party."

　　A dark and bitter suspicion now darted through the mind of Pierre; and ungovernably yielding to it, and resolved to prove or falsify it without delay, he said to the black:

　　"My business is pressing. I must see Mr. Stanly."

　　"I am sorry, sir, but orders are orders: I am his particular servant here—the one that sees his silver every holyday. I can't disobey him. May I shut the door, sir? for as it is, I can not admit you."

　　"The drawing-rooms are on the second floor, are they not?" said Pierre quietly.

　　"Yes," said the black pausing in surprise, and holding the door.

　　"Yonder are the stairs, I think?"

　　"That way, sir; but this is yours;" and the now suspicious black was just on the point of closing the portal violently upon him, when Pierre thrust him suddenly aside, and springing up the long stairs, found himself facing an open door, from whence proceeded a burst of combined brilliancy and melody, doubly confusing to one just emerged from the street. But bewildered and all demented as he momentarily felt, he instantly stalked in, and confounded the amazed company with his unremoved slouched hat, pale cheek, and whole dusty, travel-stained, and ferocious aspect.

　　"Mr. Stanly! where is Mr. Stanly?" he cried, advancing straight through a startled quadrille, while all the music suddenly hushed, and every eye was fixed in vague affright upon him.

　　"Mr. Stanly! Mr. Stanly!" cried several bladish voices, toward the further end of the further drawing-room, into which the first one widely opened, "Here is a most peculiar fellow after you; who the devil is he?"

　　"I think I see him," replied a singularly cool, deliberate, and rather drawling voice, yet a very silvery one, and at bottom perhaps a very resolute one; "I think I see him; stand aside, my good fellow, will you; ladies, remove, remove from between me and yonder hat."

　　The polite compliance of the company thus addressed, now revealed to the advancing Pierre, the tall, robust figure of a remarkably splendid-looking, and brown-bearded young man, dressed with surprising plainness, almost demureness, for such an occasion; but this plainness of his dress was not so obvious at first, the material was so fine, and admirably fitted. He was carelessly lounging in a half side-long attitude upon a large sofa, and appeared as if but just interrupted in some very agreeable chat with a diminutive but vivacious brunette, occupying the other end. The dandy and the man; strength and effeminacy; courage and indolence, were so strangely blended in this superb-eyed youth, that at first sight, it seemed impossible to decide whether there was any genuine mettle in him, or not.

　　Some years had gone by since the cousins had met; years peculiarly productive of the greatest conceivable changes in the general personal aspect of human beings. Nevertheless, the eye seldom alters. The instant their eyes met, they mutually recognized each other. But both did not betray the recognition.

　　"Glen!" cried Pierre, and paused a few steps from him.

　　But the superb-eyed only settled himself lower down in his lounging attitude, and slowly withdrawing a small, unpretending, and unribboned glass from his vest pocket, steadily, yet not entirely insultingly, notwithstanding the circumstances, scrutinized Pierre. Then, dropping his glass, turned slowly round upon the gentlemen near him, saying in the same peculiar, mixed, and musical voice as before:

　　"I do not know him; it is an entire mistake; why don't the servants take him out, and the music go on?—— As I was saying, Miss Clara, the statues you saw in the Louvre are not to be mentioned with those in Florence and Rome. Why, there now is that vaunted chef d'œuvre, the Fighting Gladiator of the Louvre——"

　　"Fighting Gladiator it is!" yelled Pierre, leaping toward him like Spartacus. But the savage impulse in him was restrained by the alarmed female shrieks and wild gestures around him. As he paused, several gentlemen made motions to pinion him; but shaking them off fiercely, he stood erect, and isolated for an instant, and fastening his glance upon his still reclining, and apparently unmoved cousin, thus spoke:—

　　"Glendinning Stanly, thou disown'st Pierre not so abhorrently as Pierre does thee. By Heaven, had I a knife, Glen, I could prick thee on the spot; let out all thy Glendinning blood, and then sew up the vile remainder. Hound, and base blot upon the general humanity!"

　　"This is very extraordinary:—remarkable case of combined imposture and insanity; but where are the servants? why don't that black advance? Lead him out, my good Doc, lead him out. Carefully, carefully! stay"—putting his hand in his pocket—"there, take that, and have the poor fellow driven off somewhere."

　　Bolting his rage in him, as impossible to be sated by any conduct, in such a place, Pierre now turned, sprang down the stairs, and fled the house. Pierre: Or， The Ambiguities