Part 27 (2/2)
Very soon Sybil saw him whirling around the room with some one of the many unknown flower girls that const.i.tuted so large a portion of the company.
Soon after this she saw both her husband and her rival among the waltzers; but they were not waltzing together. Edith the Fair was whirling around and around the room in the arms of a hermit, while Harold the Saxon was engaged with a pretty nun.
”They know me! they are cautious!” muttered Sybil, biting her lips with suppressed fury; for their forbearance, which she called duplicity, enraged her more than all their flirting had done.
And now she immediately put in execution the resolution that she had formed in the earlier part of the evening. Seeing her new acquaintance Death standing unemployed, she beckoned him to approach.
He came promptly.
”King of Terrors!” she said with a.s.sumed levity, ”I do not waltz, but I am tired of sitting here. Give me your arm to the other end of the room, and even all around the room, perhaps.”
”Spirit of Fire! it will not be the first time that I have had the honor of waiting on you or following in your track,” said Death, gallantly.
”True; Fire has often preceded Death as his agent,” a.s.sented Sybil.
”Say rather, that Death has often followed Fire as her servant.”
”Enough of this. We seem to be well paired, at least. Let us get up and walk.”
Death bowed and offered his arm, and Fire arose and took it. And they walked around the room, keeping outside the circle of the waltzers and near the seats by the walls. But as they walked, many exclamations of admiration, wonder, and awe struck their ears.
”Splendid creature! She moves like a spirit or a flame,” exclaimed one.
”What a contrast to her companion! She all life and light, he all darkness and death.”
”It looks, as they walk side by side, as if she had burned him up and consumed him to a skeleton of charred bones,” said another.
”Horrible! Hus.h.!.+” imperatively commanded a young lady, whose will, if it did not enforce silence, modified expression.
Meanwhile Fire and Death went three times around the room. Then Fire paused near a little corner _tete-a-tete_ sofa, on which a young girl, dressed as Janet Foster the little Puritan, was seated quite alone; and turning to her escort, she said:
”I am tired and thirsty. I will take this vacant seat for a while and trouble you to go and fetch me a gla.s.s of lemonade.”
”With pleasure!” gallantly a.s.sented Death, starting off promptly and zealously to execute her commands.
Sybil seated herself beside the young girl on the sofa, and laying her hand upon her shoulder, whispered:
”Trix.”
”There!” exclaimed the girl, starting. ”Every one knows me, even you.”
”Well, everybody knows me also, even you,” said Sybil.
”It is very provoking.”
”Very.”
”When I had taken so much pains to disguise myself too.”
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