Part 21 (1/2)

Mrs. Sylvester was not easily wooed away from a circle in which she found herself creating such an impression, but at length she yielded to Paula's importunities, and consented to accept young Mr. Sylvester's attendance to their home. The next thing was to find Bertram. Mr. Ensign engaged to do this. Leaving Paula with her cousin, who may or may not have been pleased at this sudden addition to her circle, he sought for the young man who as Mr. Mandeville was not unknown to any of the fas.h.i.+onable men and women of the day. It was no easy task, nor did he find him readily, but at last he came upon him leaning out of a window and gazing at a white lily which he held in his hand. Without preamble, Mr. Ensign made known his errand, and Bertram at once prepared to accompany him back to the ladies.

”By Jove! I didn't know the fellow was so handsome!” thought the former, and frowned he hardly knew why. Bertram was not handsome, but then Clarence Ensign was plain, which Bertram certainly was not.

It was to Mr. Ensign's face however that Paula's eyes turned as the two came up, and he with the ready vivacity of his natural temperament observed it, and took courage.

”I shall soon wish to measure that loop-hole of which I have spoken,”

said he.

And the soft look in her large dark eye as she responded, ”It is always open to friends,” filled up the measure of his cup of happiness; a cup which unlike hers, had not been darkened that day by the falling of earth's most dismal shadows.

XVIII.

IN THE NIGHT WATCHES.

”Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?”

--HEN. IV.

”What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight?”

--HEN. IV.

”It has been the most delightful evening I have ever pa.s.sed,” said Mrs.

Sylvester, as she threw aside her rich white mantle in her ample boudoir. ”Sarah, two loops on that dolman to-morrow; do you hear? I thought my arms would freeze. Such an elegant gentleman as the Count de Fra.s.sac is! He absolutely went wild over you, Paula, but not understanding a word of English--O there, if that horrid little wretch didn't drop his spoon on my dress after all! He swore it never touched a thread of it, but just look at that spot, right in the middle of a pleating too. Paula, your opinion in regard to the lavendar was correct.

I heard Mrs. Forsyth Jones whisper behind my back that lavendar always made blondes look _fade_. Of course I needed no further evidence to convince me that I had entirely succeeded in eclipsing her pale-faced daughter. Her daughter!” and the lazy gurgle echoed softly through the room, ”As if every white-haired girl in the city considered herself ent.i.tled to be called a blonde!” She stopped to listen, examining herself in the gla.s.s near by. ”I thought I heard Edward. It was very provoking in him to leave us in the cavalier manner in which he did. I was just going to introduce him to the count, not that he would have esteemed it much of an honor, Edward I mean, but when one has a good-looking husband--Sarah, that curtain over there hangs crooked, pull it straight this instant. Did you try the oysters, Paula? They were perfection, I shall have to dismiss Lorenzo without ceremony and procure me a cook that can make an oyster frica.s.see. By the way did you notice--” and so on and on for five minutes additional. Presently she burst forth with--”I do believe I know what it is to be thoroughly satisfied at last. The consideration which one receives as the wife of the president of the Madison bank is certainly very gratifying. If I had known I would feel such a change in the social atmosphere, I would have advocated Edward's dropping speculation long ago. Beauty and wealth may help one up the social ladder, but only a settled position such as he has now obtained, can carry you safely over the top. I feel at last as if we had reached the pinnacle of my ambition and had seen the ladder by which we mounted thrown down behind us. If I get my costume from Worth in time, I shall give a German next month.”

Paula from her stand at the door--for some minutes she had been endeavoring to escape to her room--surveyed her cousin in wonder. She had never seen her look as she did at that moment. Any one who speaks from the heart, acquires a certain eloquence, and Ona for once was speaking from her heart. The unwonted emotion made her cheeks burn, and even her diamonds, ten thousand dollars worth as we have heard declared, were less brilliant than her eyes. Paula left her station on the door-sill and glided rapidly back to her side. ”O Ona,” said she, ”if you would only look like that when--” she paused, what right had she to venture upon giving lessons to her benefactor.

”When what?” inquired the other, subsiding at once into her naturally languid manner. Then with a total forgetfulness of the momentary curiosity that had prompted the question, held out her head to the attendant Sarah, with a command to be relieved of her ornaments. Paula sighed and hastened to her room. She could not bring herself to mention her anxiety in regard to the still absent master of the house, to this lazily-smiling thoroughly satisfied woman.

But none the less did she herself sit up in the moonlight, listening with bended head for the sound of his step on the walk beneath. She could not sleep while he was absent; and yet the thoughts that disturbed her and kept her from her virgin pillow could not have been entirely for him, or why those wandering smiles that ever and anon pa.s.sed flitting over her cheek, awakening the dimples that slumbered there, until she looked more like a dreamy picture of delight than a wakeful vision of apprehension. Not entirely for him--yet when somewhere towards three o'clock, she heard the long delayed step upon the stoop, she started up with eager eyes and a nervous gesture that sufficiently betrayed how intense was her interest in her benefactor's welfare and happiness. ”If he goes to Ona's room it is all right,” thought she; ”but if he keeps on upstairs, I shall know that something is wrong and that he needs a comforter.”

He did not stop at Ona's room; and struck with alarm, Paula opened wide her door and was about to step out to meet him, when she caught a sight of his face, and started back. Here was no anxiety, that she could palliate! The very fact that he did not observe her slight form standing before him in the brilliant moonlight, proved that a woman's look or touch was not what he was in search of; and shrinking sensitively to one side, she sat down on the edge of her dainty bed, dropping her cheek into her hand with a weary troubled gesture from which all the delight had fled and only the apprehension remained. Suddenly she started alertly up; he was coming down again, this time with a gliding m.u.f.fled tread. Sliding past her door, he descended to the floor below. She could hear the one weak stair in the heavy staircase creak, and--What! he has pa.s.sed Ona's room, pa.s.sed the bronze figure of Luxury on the platform beneath, is on his way to the front door, has opened it, shut it softly behind him and gone out again into the blank midnight streets. What did it mean? For a moment she thought she would run down and awaken Ona, but an involuntary remembrance of how those lazy eyes would open, stare peevishly and then shut again, stopped her on the threshold of her door; and sitting down again upon the side of her bed, she waited, this time with opened eyes eagerly staring before her, and quivering form that started at each and every sound that disturbed the silence of the great echoing house. At six o'clock she again rose; he had just re-entered and this time he stopped at Ona's room.

XIX.

A DAY AT THE BANK.

”There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.”

--HAMLET.

There are days when the whole world seems to smile upon one without stint or reservation. Bertram Sylvester wending his way to the bank on the morning following the reception, was a cheerful sight to behold.

Youth, health, hope spake in every lineament of his face and brightened every glance of his wide-awake eye. His new life was pleasant to him.