Ethel went early to the opera house the morning after the eventful night
of the pageant. The flowers would need freshening, and the girl was
determined that the matinee should give full satisfaction to those who
had been denied the excitement of the opening night. She knew that many
delicate persons and children would attend in the afternoon. There would
also be critical ones, who, having failed to secure tickets in time for
the evening performance, would come to the matinee, perhaps with
ungenerous spirits. For these reasons Ethel desired that the decorations
of the house and stage should both delight and astonish, as they had
done upon the previous evening.
Afterward the girl told how she had felt almost like weeping when she
entered alone the dark, chilly opera house.
"It seemed like a great tomb, with its thousands of wilting roses," she
said. "Until joined by others, I was filled with a horrible depression.
I felt as if something miserable was about to happen. The flowers really
looked no worse than I had expected, for the gorgeous band was still
effective; but its first, perfect freshness was gone, its roses were
dying, and I was alone at their death. Of course," she continued, "I
felt better when we covered the withered places with fresh roses, but I
was still restless and foolishly apprehensive."
Yet, with all the girl's uneasiness, she had little time for indulging
nervous presentiments. There was much work to be done, and the time was
short. Even when the decorations had been satisfactorily freshened, her
unreliable performers would have to be looked after.
One girl had left a candlestick, which must be retrimmed; another had
forgotten to take home her hoop, which had to be twined with fresh Gold
of Ophir roses. Last of all she must collect and sort carefully all the
necessary articles that would be called for by fair irresponsibles at
the very last moment.
When I joined her in the green room at one o'clock, she looked anything
but dejected, as she dabbed energetically the contents of a rouge pot
onto the cheeks of a procession of maidens, filing in turn before her.
"There! go in peace, and dance your best," she cried, flinging away the
ruddy rag as the last of the file passed on to the artist who was doing
the eyes.
"Everything moves anxiously to-day," the girl said, pathetically, while
she rested a moment against the wall. "I suppose I am a simpleton, but I
feel as if the crack of doom were at hand. Mariposilla is late, although
I told them to send her at half past twelve, and the Harlequin's wife
has forgotten his cap," she said, almost hysterically, as she turned
from my side to answer a volley of unnecessary questions.
"Where shall we go, Miss Walton?"
"Miss Walton, can't I have some paint on my cheeks?"
"Please, Miss Walton, my slipper is untied!"
"Miss Walton, my sister has lost her hat."
"Go directly onto the stage and stay, in readiness for your positions,"
the girl answered, distractedly.
"Come," I said, hoping to take her a moment out of herself, "Come with
me into one of the flies; I have something to tell you."
"Dear me," she exclaimed, "what can have become of Mariposilla?"
"She is safe to-day," I answered, as we entered the fly. "She is safe
to-day! But what will become of her to-morrow? The Sandersons have
gone!"
"The Sandersons gone!" the girl repeated, in excitement. "Where have
they gone?"
"They left to-day at noon for New York, to enable Sidney to marry, if
possible, Gladys Carpenter. Her father has just died. With his death the
daughter inherits three millions."
The words had but escaped my lips when a commotion in the adjoining fly
betokened some catastrophe. In a second we had pushed through a crowd of
frightened girls, to bend in horror over the prostrate form of
Mariposilla.
"She is dead," cried Ethel. "She heard what we said and our words have
killed her."
"Hush!" I whispered, "she has only fainted. Get water quickly."
Ethel flew at my bidding, while I unfastened the little bodice that but
a moment before had heaved so lightly with the pulsations of a happy
heart. Dear little Butterfly, I thought, how cruelly have your poor
little wings been crushed!
Hot, indignant tears rained from my eyes, as I superstitiously unclasped
the opal necklace, once worn by the beautiful, unfortunate Lola.
Ethel had now returned with the water, and the crowd, still pressing
about us, was creating a panic.
"Stand back," I cried. "Don't you see you are taking every breath of the
air?" As I spoke, the excited, curious, theatrical throng fell away.
Enveloped in her mother's wedding lace, that in the fall had shrouded
her with prophetic significance, Mariposilla lay like one dead,
unconscious of a miserable awakening. As I bent beside her I almost
dreaded to see the heavy fringes lift from the beautiful eyes that I
feared would never shine again with their old happy light.
"Dear child!" I whispered, as I applied the water, "what can we do to
mend your poor little broken heart?"
While I yet spoke, the delicate eyelids began to quiver, and a little
hand to tremble. A tired sigh and then a stifled sob burst from the
lips.
"Darling, be brave, you have only fainted. I will take you home to the
dear Dona Maria," I said, as naturally as I could.
Mariposilla lifted her great sorrowful eyes in mute entreaty; then two
heavy tears rolled to her cheeks, imploring me to fulfill my promise. I
knew that it was best to take her home while she wished it.
In her weakness she had not the strength to realize her sorrow. She
seemed almost to have forgotten the occasion of her shock, for she
closed her eyes at once, and submitted almost unconsciously to her
transportation to the carriage. Tenderly we placed her on the very
cushions from which she had sprung, but a few hours before, radiant and
expectant.
Would she not see Sidney! The cruel night, and the long, uneventful
forenoon were at last over. Now she could dance again for her lover.
When it was all over, she would ride away with him in the gay trap. He
would tell her once more how fondly he loved her. Tell her how beautiful
she was--how much more beautiful than the cold, wise Gladys. Then she
would go again to the dear, bright hotel for dinner. She would sit by
Sidney. He would watch her every desire, and when dinner was ended they
would go to the pretty sitting-room, where she would look fearlessly
into the silver shrine; for never again would she be jealous and weep.
No, no! not when her lover had sworn that he loved not the cold,
beautiful Gladys; that he cared not for her riches or accomplishments.
Then, after a while, all would go to the ball-room; Sidney would lead
her to dance, and Mrs. Wilbur would be unhappy. But she--she,
Mariposilla, would be joyful!
Poor, foolish little Butterfly, flitting eagerly from flower to flower,
drinking, unconsciously, deadly poison with honey, how cruelly different
from the sweet dreams of the morning would be the realities of the
evening!
While she ran gaily from the carriage at noon, full of sweet, innocent
visions, the ironic interpretation of her pitiful fate was even then
decided. For, flying from rash promises, flying from the distractions of
her beauty, flying from the tardy entreaties of conscience--Sidney
Sanderson and his mother had gone.
With every intervening mile they were outstripping her ruined love, were
nearing the selfish goal of the mother's ambitions; nearing the desolate
Gladys, who, bowed with grief, and ignorant of all, would take, at the
entreaty of her dead mother's friend, the reluctant lover who could
never make her happy.
Poor Gladys! Poor Mariposilla!
Even before I allowed myself to acknowledge the perfidy of the woman
with whom I had been so intimately associated, I began to understand
her, when, early in the morning, a groom from the hotel brought me a
note, asking me to drive over at once, as they were to leave that day at
noon for the East.
"Duty compels us to go," Mrs. Sanderson wrote, shamelessly.
The word "duty" aroused at once my suspicions. I felt with a creeping
certainty that Gladys Carpenter was the woman's prey. I believed that
some unexpected turn of fortune had revived Mrs. Sanderson's ambitions.
I was sure that she had at one time relinquished all hope of obtaining
the heiress for her son; but I felt on my way to the hotel a sudden
presentiment that, on account of some unlooked-for occurrence, she was
going to New York to revive her abandoned schemes.
I felt an uncomfortable stiffness as I entered the once familiar
sitting-room, now in a state of wild disorder.
Mrs. Sanderson was on her knees, packing the last trunk. Upon the floor
were piles of clothing and innumerable trifles, which she had torn from
the wall.
"Dear child! How good of you to come!" she said, extending her hand with
brazen determination. "It would have broken our hearts to have left
without seeing you. And dear Mariposilla! and Pet Marjorie, and the good
Dona Maria--how can we ever be reconciled to leave them?"
"Why is your departure compulsory?" I asked, coldly.
The woman perceived instantly that I understood her, but her control was
perfect. Her will was diabolical, yet for a moment a gleam of anger
darkened her eyes. Then she answered naturally:
"Dear Gladys has lost her father. She is perfectly crushed, and has
wired us to come at once."
I stood like a stone, while she told again of the intimate relations
that had always existed between the families.
"Gladys is just like my own child," she continued, turning away her face
with the pretense of forcing a protruding Indian basket into the trunk.
"We are so disappointed to miss the matinee," she said, with her face
still in profile. "Sid begged to stay until to-morrow, just to see
Mariposilla dance, but I persuaded him that it would be brutal to
neglect Gladys one moment longer than the necessary time for our
miserable journey."
Before I could reply she had crossed the room to her son, who was
fumbling over a finished trunk.
"Don't touch the things in the tray," she cried, nervously. "I never saw
such a boy. This morning he actually packed books on top of my best
tea-gown."
I knew that the insolence of the woman had cowed me. She was sublime in
her villainy.
I stood helplessly rooted to the spot which I had first selected upon
entering the room. Too weak to stand unsupported, I leaned against the
table. My perverse silence must have astonished the woman, but she
talked on loquaciously, appearing not to notice my lack of interest.
How I despised her! How hard she looked to-day, when only the night
before I had thought her charming and humane.
Doubtless she had slept but little since she left the box in the
Pasadena opera house. In the strong morning light she looked old and
strangely haggard. Dark circles defined more clearly the faint network
of wrinkles beneath her eyes. Her whole countenance was drawn with the
tension of her anxious night.
Her aristocratic nose seemed elongated with the avaricious thinness
noticeable in grayhounds when the chase is at its height. Even the
delicate, shapely hands appeared parched and old.
Never again would I think of the woman as beautiful.
I saw her now for the first time in her true, deplorable character.
With but one object to accomplish, her masterful selfishness had taken
possession of her soul. Closing tightly its chamber, she refused to hear
the entreaties of the outraged voice that plead in vain. For Mrs.
Sanderson, retribution was the ghost of the cowardly; repentance, a
science to be skillfully ignored.
I could endure my thoughts no longer.
"Good bye," I said, coldly, as I walked mechanically to the door.
As I spoke, the woman raised herself with decision from the floor. With
outstretched hands she attempted a fraudulent embrace; but I anticipated
the movement in time to escape.
"No, no!" I cried, in childish tremolo; "you must not touch me. I will
not pretend that I am sorry that I will never see you again. I will
never forget what you have done. Now I will go away, despising you, to
the unhappy child whose life you have ruined for selfish amusement and
the idle entertainment of your son!"
At last I had spoken, and at last she recoiled before me.
Without waiting to hear what she would attempt to say, I fled like Lot
from the City of Destruction. But fatal curiosity I had not, and I cared
not how the Sandersons writhed in the fire of my indignation.
My only desire was to get out of the house and never see them again.
As I left the hotel the groom in waiting advanced to drive me home.
"I will walk," I said curtly, spurning even this last attention from the
woman I had left.
Later in Pasadena, when I heard the departing shriek of the Overland,
with its echo flung fatefully back from the mountains as the train
rounded a curve, I knew that the Sandersons had cut loose forever from
the complications of their San Gabriel episode.
In justice to Sidney, I believe him to have been the better of two bad
people. I believe that in his sensual selfishness he would willingly
have resigned his mother's ambitions in regard to a marriage with Gladys
Carpenter, glad to enjoy, for a time at least, the simple fascinations
and marvelous beauty of Mariposilla.
The man was so perfectly carnal, so easily bored by the least
intellectual superiority in a woman, that I believe he would have
remained true to his own choice, had it not been for his mother's
threats and positive command to marry, if possible, the three millions
at hand.
I know that the thought of the classic, high-bred, sorrow-bowed Gladys
must have been a cold shock, after his recent associations with
Mariposilla. He must have remembered long how the Spanish girl adored
him openly with all her young heart. Perhaps even as he went away the
man held in cowardly reserve the possibilities of a refusal from the
heiress.
I knew without being told that the conflict between the mother and son
had been bitter. The mother had conquered, but Sidney had managed to
write a parting note to his abandoned sweetheart, which the poor child
unfortunately received. His slender promises only delayed her final
despair, making it hopeless for those about her to arouse her pride or
to graft in her trusting heart a proper disdain for the false lover.
I afterwards read his cowardly note, and saw clearly its import.
Now that Mrs. Sanderson had at last wearied of her infatuation, the
proud, high-born Gladys, with her millions, would eclipse a dozen
Spanish beauties. Soon she would laugh and jest over the affair with her
New York friends, describing Mariposilla delightfully, while she
enlarged upon the poor child's passion for her son.
I have since wondered if the Spanish girl would have been happy had Fate
consented to her choice. I sometimes believe that eventually the
restraints and requirements of the untried life would have wearied her.
I also believe that with a nature so true, so simple and affectionate,
she would have done her best to excel in the eyes of those she loved. In
a responsive atmosphere her proud ambition would have fulfilled her
will. With the cold and critical she would have lost her subtile charm.
Away from her mountains and unconventional life she might have learned
sad lessons. She could never have conned them alone without an aching
heart; for, like her rose, she would have grown pale and dejected away
from the sunlight of love.