I. THE WOMAN WITH THE DIAMOND
II. THE GLOVES
III. ANSON DURAND
IV. EXPLANATIONS
V. SUPERSTITION
VI. SUSPENSE
VII. NIGHT AND A VOICE
VIII. ARREST
IX. THE MOUSE NIBBLES AT THE NET
X. I ASTONISH THE INSPECTOR
XI. THE INSPECTOR ASTONISHES ME
XII. ALMOST
XIII. THE MISSING RECOMMENDATION
XIV. TRAPPED
XV. SEARS OR WELLGOOD
XVI. DOUBT
XVII. SWEETWATER IN A NEW ROLE
XVIII. THE CLOSED DOOR
XIX. THE FACE
XX. MOONLIGHT—AND A CLUE
XXI. GRIZEL! GRIZEL!
XXII. GUILT
XXIII. THE GREAT MOGUL
I.
THE WOMAN WITH THE DIAMOND
I was, perhaps, the plainest girl in the room that night. I was also the
happiest—up to one o’clock. Then my whole world crumbled, or, at least,
suffered an eclipse. Why and how, I am about to relate.
I was not made for love. This I had often said to myself; very often of late.
In figure I am too diminutive, in face far too unbeautiful, for me to cherish
expectations of this nature. Indeed, love had never entered into my plan of
life, as was evinced by the nurse’s diploma I had just gained after three years
of hard study and severe training.
I was not made for love. But if I had been; had I been gifted with height,
regularity of feature, or even with that eloquence of expression which redeems
all defects save those which savor of deformity, I knew well whose eye I should
have chosen to please, whose heart I should have felt proud to win.
This knowledge came with a rush to my heart—(did I say heart? I should
have said understanding, which is something very different)—when, at the
end of the first dance, I looked up from the midst of the bevy of girls by whom
I was surrounded and saw Anson Durand’s fine figure emerging from that quarter
of the hall where our host and hostess stood to receive their guests. His eye
was roaming hither and thither and his manner was both eager and expectant.
Whom was he seeking? Some one of the many bright and vivacious girls about me,
for he turned almost instantly our way. But which one?
I thought I knew. I remembered at whose house I had met him first, at whose
house I had seen him many times since. She was a lovely girl, witty and
vivacious, and she stood at this very moment at my elbow. In her beauty lay the
lure, the natural lure for a man of his gifts and striking personality. If I
continued to watch, I should soon see his countenance light up under the
recognition she could not fail to give him. And I was right; in another instant
it did, and with a brightness there was no mistaking. But one feeling common to
the human heart lends such warmth, such expressiveness to the features. How
handsome it made him look, how distinguished, how everything I was not
except—
But what does this mean? He has passed Miss Sperry—passed her with a
smile and a friendly word—and is speaking to me, singling me out,
offering me his arm! He is smiling, too, not as he smiled on Miss Sperry, but
more warmly, with more that is personal in it. I took his arm in a daze. The
lights were dimmer than I thought; nothing was really bright except his smile.
It seemed to change the world for me. I forgot that I was plain, forgot that I
was small, with nothing to recommend me to the eye or heart, and let myself be
drawn away, asking nothing, anticipating nothing, till I found myself alone
with him in the fragrant recesses of the conservatory, with only the throb of
music in our ears to link us to the scene we had left.
Why had he brought me here, into this fairyland of opalescent lights and
intoxicating perfumes? What could he have to say—to show? Ah in another
moment I knew. He had seized my hands, and love, ardent love, came pouring from
his lips.
Could it be real? Was I the object of all this feeling, I? If so, then life had
changed for me indeed.
Silent from rush of emotion, I searched his face to see if this Paradise, whose
gates I was thus passionately bidden to enter, was indeed a verity or only a
dream born of the excitement of the dance and the charm of a scene exceptional
in its splendor and picturesqueness even for so luxurious a city as New York.
But it was no mere dream. Truth and earnestness were in his manner, and his
words were neither feverish nor forced.
“I love you I! I need you!” So I heard, and so he soon made me believe. “You
have charmed me from the first. Your tantalizing, trusting, loyal self, like no
other, sweeter than any other, has drawn the heart from my breast. I have seen
many women, admired many women, but you only have I loved. Will you be my
wife?”
I was dazzled; moved beyond anything I could have conceived. I forgot all that
I had hitherto said to myself—all that I had endeavored to impress upon
my heart when I beheld him approaching, intent, as I believed, in his search
for another woman; and, confiding in his honesty, trusting entirely to his
faith, I allowed the plans and purposes of years to vanish in the glamour of
this new joy, and spoke the word which linked us together in a bond which half
an hour before I had never dreamed would unite me to any man.
His impassioned “Mine! mine!” filled my cup to overflowing. Something of the
ecstasy of living entered my soul; which, in spite of all I have suffered
since, recreated the world for me and made all that went before but the prelude
to the new life, the new joy.
Oh, I was happy, happy, perhaps too happy! As the conservatory filled and we
passed back into the adjoining room, the glimpse I caught of myself in one of
the mirrors startled me into thinking so. For had it not been for the odd color
of my dress and the unique way in which I wore my hair that night, I should not
have recognized the beaming girl who faced me so naively from the depths of the
responsive glass.
Can one be too happy? I do not know. I know that one can be too perplexed, too
burdened and too sad.
Thus far I have spoken only of myself in connection with the evening’s
elaborate function. But though entitled by my old Dutch blood to a certain
social consideration which I am happy to say never failed me, I, even in this
hour of supreme satisfaction, attracted very little attention and awoke small
comment. There was another woman present better calculated to do this. A fair
woman, large and of a bountiful presence, accustomed to conquest, and gifted
with the power of carrying off her victories with a certain lazy grace
irresistibly fascinating to the ordinary man; a gorgeously appareled woman,
with a diamond on her breast too vivid for most women, almost too vivid for
her. I noticed this diamond early in the evening, and then I noticed her. She
was not as fine as the diamond, but she was very fine, and, had I been in a
less ecstatic frame of mind, I might have envied the homage she received from
all the men, not excepting him upon whose arm I leaned. Later, there was no one
in the world I envied less.
The ball was a private and very elegant one. There were some notable guests.
One gentleman in particular was pointed out to me as an Englishman of great
distinction and political importance. I thought him a very interesting man for
his years, but odd and a trifle self-centered. Though greatly courted, he
seemed strangely restless under the fire of eyes to which he was constantly
subjected, and only happy when free to use his own in contemplation of the
scene about him. Had I been less absorbed in my own happiness I might have
noted sooner than I did that this contemplation was confined to such groups as
gathered about the lady with the diamond. But this I failed to observe at the
time, and consequently was much surprised to come upon him, at the end of one
of the dances, talking With this lady in an animated and courtly manner totally
opposed to the apathy, amounting to boredom, with which he had hitherto met all
advances.
Yet it was not admiration for her person which he openly displayed. During the
whole time he stood there his eyes seldom rose to her face; they lingered
mainly-and this was what aroused my curiosity—on the great fan of ostrich
plumes which this opulent beauty held against her breast. Was he desirous of
seeing the great diamond she thus unconsciously (or was it consciously)
shielded from his gaze? It was possible, for, as I continued to note him, he
suddenly bent toward her and as quickly raised himself again with a look which
was quite inexplicable to me. The lady had shifted her fan a moment and his
eyes had fallen on the gem.
The next thing I recall with any definiteness was a _tête-à-tête_
conversation which I held with my lover on a certain yellow divan at the end of
one of the halls.
To the right of this divan rose a curtained recess, highly suggestive of
romance, called “the alcove.” As this alcove figures prominently in my story, I
will pause here to describe it.
It was originally intended to contain a large group of statuary which our host,
Mr. Ramsdell, had ordered from Italy to adorn his new house. He is a man of
original ideas in regard to such matters, and in this instance had gone so far
as to have this end of the house constructed with a special view to an
advantageous display of this promised work of art. Fearing the ponderous effect
of a pedestal large enough to hold such a considerable group, he had planned to
raise it to the level of the eye by having the alcove floor built a few feet
higher than the main one. A flight of low, wide steps connected the two, which,
following the curve of the wall, added much to the beauty of this portion of
the hall.
The group was a failure and was never shipped; but the alcove remained, and,
possessing as it did all the advantages of a room in the way of heat and light,
had been turned into a miniature retreat of exceptional beauty.
The seclusion it offered extended, or so we were happy to think, to the
solitary divan at its base on which Mr. Durand and I were seated. With possibly
an undue confidence in the advantage of our position, we were discussing a
subject interesting only to ourselves, when Mr. Durand interrupted himself to
declare: “You are the woman I want, you and you only. And I want you soon. When
do you think you can marry me? Within a week—if—”
Did my look stop him? I was startled. I had heard no incoherent phrase from him
before.
“A week!” I remonstrated. “We take more time than that to fit ourselves for a
journey or some transient pleasure. I hardly realize my engagement yet.”
“You have not been thinking of it for these last two months as I have.”
“No,” I replied demurely, forgetting everything else in my delight at this
admission.
“Nor are you a nomad among clubs and restaurants.”
“No, I have a home.”
“Nor do you love me as deeply as I do you.”
This I thought open to argument.
“The home you speak of is a luxurious one,” he continued. “I can not offer you
its equal Do you expect me to?”