Part 126 (1/2)

”That is true. And the social side has risen with it. Do you know what an impudent thing the managers did the other night in protesting against the raising of the lights by which the house was made brilliant and the cheap illusions of the stage were destroyed? They wanted to make the house positively gloomy for the sake of a little artificial moonlight on the painted towers and the canvas lakes.”

As the world goes, the scene was brilliant, of course with republican simplicity. The imagination was helped by no t.i.tled names any more than the eye was by the insignia of rank, but there was a certain glow of feeling, as the gla.s.s swept the circle, to know that there were ten millions in this box, and twenty in the next, and fifty in the next, attested well enough by the flash of jewels and the splendor of attire, and one might indulge a genuine pride in the prosperity of the republic.

As for beauty, the world, surely, in this later time, had flowered here --flowered with something of Aspasia's grace and something of the haughty coldness of Agrippina. And yet it was American. Here and there in the boxes was a thoroughbred portrait by Copley--the long shapely neck, the sloping shoulders, the drooping eyelids, even to the gown in which the great-grandmother danced with the French officers.

”Who is that lovely creature?” asked Margaret, indicating a box opposite.

I did not know. There were two ladies, and behind them I had no difficulty in making out Henderson and--Margaret evidently had not seen him Mr. Lyon. Almost at the same moment Henderson recognized me, and signaled for me to come to his box. As I rose to do so, Mrs. Morgan exclaimed: ”Why, there is Mr. Lyon! Do tell him we are here.” I saw Margaret's color rise, but she did not speak.

I was presented to Mrs. Esch.e.l.le and her daughter; in the latter I recognized the beauty who had flashed by us in the Park. The elder lady inclined to stoutness, and her too youthful apparel could not mislead one as to the length of her pilgrimage in this world, nor soften the hard lines of her worldly face-lines acquired, one could see, by a social struggle, and not drawn there by an innate patrician insolence.

”We are glad to see a friend of Mr. Henderson's,” she said, ”and of Mr.

Lyon's also. Mr. Lyon has told us much of your charming country home. Who is that pretty girl in your box, Mr. Fairchild?”

Miss Esch.e.l.le had her gla.s.s pointed at Margaret as I gave the desired information.

”How innocent!” she murmured. ”And she's quite in the style--isn't she, Mr. Lyon?” she asked, turning about, her sweet mobile face quite the picture of what she was describing. ”We are all innocent in these days.”

”It is a very good style,” I said.

”Isn't it becoming?” asked the girl, making her dark eyes at once merry and demure.

Mr. Lyon was looking intently at the opposite box, and a slight shade came over his fine face. ”Ah, I see!”

”I beg your pardon, Miss Esch.e.l.le,” he said, after a second, ”I hardly know which to admire most, the beauty, or the wit, or the innocence of the American women.”

”There is nothing so confusing, though, as the country innocence,” the girl said, with the most natural air; ”it never knows where to stop.”

”You are too absurd, Carmen,” her mother interposed; ”as if the town girl did!”

”Well, mamma, there is authority for saying that there is a time for everything, only one must be in the fas.h.i.+on, you know.”

Mr. Lyon looked a little dubious at this turn of the talk; Mr. Henderson was as evidently amused at the girl's acting. I said I was glad to see that goodness was in fas.h.i.+on.

”Oh, it often is. You know we were promised a knowledge of good as well as evil. It depends upon the point of view. I fancy, now, that Mr.

Henderson tolerates the good--that is the reason we get on so well together; and Mr. Lyon tolerates the evil--that's the reason he likes New York. I have almost promised him that I will have a mission school.”

The girl looked quite capable of it, or of any other form of devotion.

Notwithstanding her persistent banter, she had a most inviting innocence of manner, almost an ingenuousness, that well became her exquisite beauty. And but for a tentative daring in her talk, as if the gentle creature were experimenting as to how far one could safely go, her innocence might have seemed that of ignorance.

It came out in the talk that Mr. Lyon had been in Was.h.i.+ngton for a week, and would return there later on.

”We had a claim on him,” said Mrs. Esch.e.l.le, ”for his kindness to us in London, and we are trying to convince him that New York is the real capital.”

”Unfortunately,” added Miss Esch.e.l.le, looking up in Mr. Lyon's face, ”he visited Brandon first, and you seem to have bewitched him with your simple country ways. I can get him to talk of nothing else.”

”You mean to say,” Mr. Lyon replied, with the air of retorting, ”that you have asked me about nothing else.”

”Oh, you know we felt a little responsible for you; and there is no place so dangerous as the country. Now here you are protected--we put all the wickedness on the stage, and learn to recognize and shun it.”