Part 21 (1/2)

Tuesday morning, Jan. 14.

I am writing before breakfast. They told me to lie quietly in bed this morning, but I'm not tired, not excited. Nothing more happened than I might have expected. I couldn't have supposed that in my presence people would be stocks and stones!

But oh, it was beautiful, terrible! How can I write it? If I could only flash last night--every glorious minute of it--upon paper!

And I might have lost it--they didn't want to let me go! There was a full family council beforehand. John had taken quietly enough the cancelling of our half engagement for the evening, but he had strong objections to my going to the Opera.

”If you prefer that--” he said; ”but do you think it wise to appear in such a public place with strangers?”

”But why not?”

I was impatient at so much discussion and discretion. My mind was made up.

”There's no reason why you shouldn't, I suppose.” John drew a great sigh.

”But I shall feel easier if--I think I'll go too.”

”We'll all go,” cried Aunt Frank--it was so funny to have them sit there debating in that way the problem of Her--”we'll enjoy it of all things-- the Judge and I, and especially Ethel.”

And so, when the great night came, Milly and I left the others in the midst of their preparations, and went off to dine with Mrs. Van Dam; we were to go with her afterwards to see Mascagni's ”Christofero Colombo.”

It seems impossible now, but I was excited even about the dinner. I thought it the beginning of recognition--and it was!--to be seized upon by this splendid, masterful young General.

She lives not far from us--on Sixty-seventh Street near Fifth Avenue, while we are on Seventy-second Street near Madison. The wall of her house near the ground looks like that of a fortress; there are no high steps in front, but Milly and I were shown into a hall, oak finished and English, right on the street level; and then into a room off the hall that was English, too--oak and red leather, with branching horns above the mantel and on the floor a big fur rug; and, presently, into a little brocade- lined elevator that took us to Mrs. Van Dam's sitting-room on the third floor.

”You ought to see the whole house,” Milly whispered, as we were slowly ascending.

I had eyes just then for nothing but the General herself, who met us, a figure that abashed me, swis.h.i.+ng a gleaming evening dress, her neck and hair a-glitter with jewels, more dominant and possessive and---yes, even more interested in me than when I had first seen her.

When we went down to dinner, I did see the house; for at a word from Milly, partly in good nature and partly in pride, Mrs. Van Dam led the way through stately rooms that kept me alternating between confusion and delight, until she paused in a gilded salon, with stuccoed ceiling and softest of soft rose hangings, where I scarcely dared set foot upon the s.h.i.+ning floor.

Less in jest than wonder, I asked if Marie Antoinette didn't walk there o'

nights.

”It's _Diane_, isn't it, who walks here this night?” she said, linking her arm in mine and leading me to a tall mirror. Then she changed colour a little, took her arm away hastily and walked from the great gla.s.s. Kind and friendly as she was, she couldn't quite like to see her own image reflected there--beside mine!

”_Diane_ and the Queen of Sheba!” exclaimed Milly, for beside our simple frocks the General was indeed magnificent.

Her brow cleared at this, and she laughed with satisfaction. When I blurted out something about having once run off to a shop parlour, before I came to Aunt, for a peep at a full-length gla.s.s, she laughed again at the confession and called me ”a b.u.t.tercup, a perfect _Diane_.”

At dinner we met Mr. Van Dam--a small man who doesn't talk much; and it seemed so exciting to have wine at table, though of course I did not taste it, or coffee.

And it was delightful to lean back in the carriage, as we drove to the Opera House, and remember how Kitty and I used to pin up our skirts under our ulsters and jog about in street cars. Mrs. Van Dam wore a wonderful hooded cloak of lace and fur, and her gloves fastened all the way to her elbows with silk loops that pa.s.sed over silver b.a.l.l.s.

I had been so impatient during dinner, because they didn't sit down until eight o'clock, and then dawdled as if there were no Opera to follow; but I needn't have worried, for although the performance had begun when we arrived, there were still many vacant places in the great house. I drew closer about my face the scarf that Ethel had lent me until we had pa.s.sed through the dazzling lobby, up the stairway and through the corridors, and until the red curtains of the box had parted, and I had slipped into the least conspicuous chair. m.u.f.fled as I was, I trembled at the first glance at the great, brilliantly lighted house, from which rose the stir of a gathering audience and a rustle of low voices.

”Why, you're not nervous, are you?” the General asked. ”I've brought you here early on purpose; you'll be comfortably settled before anybody notices.”

And she good-naturedly pushed me into a front place. The music was all the while going on, but no one seemed to pay much attention.

”Who'll notice me in this big building?” I asked with a shaky little laugh.