Some fifteen minutes after the appointed hour I called with a carriage
for Fraulein Hildegard, whom, to my wonder, I found standing in all
the glory of her ball-toilet (for she was evidently afraid to sit
down) in the middle of the sombre drawing-room. I had been prepared to
wait for a good half-hour, and accordingly felt a little provoked at
myself for my seeming negligence.
"I do not mind telling you," she said, as I sat compressed in a
corner of the carriage, striving to reduce myself to the smallest
practicable dimensions, "that this is my first ball. I don't know any
of the gentlemen who will be there to-night, but I know two or three
Milwaukee ladies who have promised to come, so, even if I don't dance
much, I shall not feel lonely."
"Of course you will give me the first chance at your card," I
answered. "How many dances will you grant me?"
"As many as you want. Uncle was very explicit in impressing upon me
that I am to obey you unquestioningly and have no will of my own."
"That was very unkind of him. I shall be unwilling to claim any
privilege which you do not of your own free will bestow upon me."
"I didn't mean it so," she answered, impulsively, and by the passing
light of a gas-lamp I caught a glimpse of her beaming, innocent face.
"I shall not be apt to forget that I am indebted to your kindness for
all the pleasure I shall have to-night, and if you wish to dance with
me, of course it is very kind of you."
"Well, that is not much better," I murmured, ruefully, feeling very
guilty at heart. "On that ground I should be still more reluctant to
assert my claim on you."
"Oh, what a bungler I am!" she exclaimed with half-amused regret.
"The truth is, I am so glad, and when I am very happy I always make
blundering speeches."
As we entered the magnificently lighted and decorated hall, I noticed,
to my dismay, that the company was a little more mixed than I had
anticipated. I had, therefore, no scruples in putting down my name for
four waltzes and a quadrille. I observed, too, that my fair partner
attracted much attention, partly, perhaps, on account of her beauty,
and partly on account of her superb toilet. Her dress was of satin, of
a cool, lucid, sea-green tint, such as one sees in the fjords of
Norway on a bright summer's day; the illusion was so perfect that in
dancing with her I expected every moment to see sea-weeds and
pale-green things sprouting up along its border, and the white bunches
of lilies-of-the-valley in her hair, as they wafted their faint
fragrance toward me, seemed almost an anomaly. She danced, not with
vehement abandon, but with an airy, rhythmical grace, as if the music
had entered into her soul and her limbs were but obeying their innate
tuneful impulse. When we had finished the first waltz, I left her in
the company of one of her Milwaukee friends and started out in quest
of some acceptable male partner whose touch of her I should not feel
to be a positive desecration. I had reached about the middle of the
hall when an affectionate slap on my shoulder caused me to turn
around.
"Dannevig!" I exclaimed, with frigid amazement "By Jove! Where do you
come from? You are as unexpected as a thunderclap from a cloudless
sky."
"Which was a sign that Jupiter was wroth," replied Dannevig, promptly,
"and required new sacrifices. Now the sacrifice I demand of you is
that you shall introduce me to that charming little girl you have had
the undeserved luck of securing."
"You choose your metaphors well," I remarked, calmly. "But, as you
know, even the Romans with all their reputed hardness of heart, were
too conscientious to tolerate human sacrifices. And I, being, in the
present instance, the _pontifex_, would never be a party to such an
atrocity."
The transformation which Dannevig's face underwent was almost
terrible. A look of perfectly animal savageness distorted for a brief
moment his handsome features; his eyes flashed, and his brow was one
mass of wrinkles.
"Do you mean to say that you refuse to introduce me?" he asked, in a
hoarse whisper.
"That is exactly what I mean to say," I answered, with well-feigned
coolness.
"And do you really suppose," he continued, while his brow slowly
relaxed, "that you can prevent me from making that girl's
acquaintance, if I have made up my mind to thwart you?"
"I don't suppose anything of the kind," was my reply. "But you know me
well enough to be aware that you cannot browbeat me. She shall, at all
events, not owe your acquaintance to me."
Dannevig stood for a while, pondering; then with one of those sudden
transitions of feeling which were so characteristic of him, he
continued in a tone of good-fellowship:
"Come, now; this is ridiculous! You have been dining on S----'s
leathery beef-steak, which I have so frequently warned you against,
and, what is worse, you have had mince pie for dessert. Your digestion
is seriously deranged. For old friends like you and me to quarrel over
a little chit of a girl, is as absurd as committing suicide because
you have scratched your hand with a pin. If your heart is really
engaged in this affair, then I wont interfere with you. I wish you
luck, although judging by what I have seen, I should say you might
have made a better choice. _Au revoir_."
He skipped lightly down the floor, and was lost in the crowd. Having
selected some journalistic friends as partners for Fraulein Hildegard,
and listened with great patience to their rhapsodies over her beauty
and loveliness, I stationed myself at the upper end of the hall, and
in philosophic discontent watched the dancers. Dannevig's parting
words had filled me with vague alarm; I knew that they were insincere,
and I suspected that he was even now at work to accomplish some
disastrous intention. At this moment a couple came whirling straight
toward me; a pale-green satin, train swept over my feet, and the cross
of the order of Dannebrog sent a swift flash into my very eyes. A
fierce exclamation escaped me; my blood was in tumult. I began to feel
dangerous. As the usual accelerated rush of violins and drums
announced that the dance was near its end, I did not dare to seek my
fair partner, and I had no pleasure to feign when I saw her advancing,
with a light and eager step, to where I was standing. She was
evidently too preoccupied to notice the change I had undergone since
our last parting.
"Now," she said, with as near an approach to archness as a woman of
her type is capable of, "you must not think me odd if I do something
that may seem to you a little bit unconventional. It is only your own
kindness to me which encourages me to ask a favor, which I shouldn't
wonder if you would rather grant than not. The fact is, there is a
gentleman who wishes very much to dance with me, and my card is
already full. Now, would you mind giving up one of yours? I know, in
the first place, that it was from a sense of duty that--that--that you
took so many," she finished desperately, as I refused to come to her
aid.
"We will not discuss my motives, Fraulein," I said, with as much
friendliness as I had at my command. "But, before granting your not
unreasonable request, you must be good enough to tell me who the
gentleman is who is to profit by my sacrifice."
"His name is Mr. Dannevig. He is a knight of Dannebrog, and moreover,
as he tells me, an intimate friend of yours."
"Tell him, then, Fraulein, that he might have presumed sufficiently
upon our friendship to prefer his request in person, instead of
sending you as his messenger."
The color sprang to her cheeks; she swept abruptly around, and with an
air of outraged majesty, marched defiantly down the hall.
The night wore on. The hour for supper came, and politeness forced me
to go and find Miss Pfeifer. Then we sat down in a corner, and ate and
chattered in a heedless, dispirited fashion, dwelling with feigned
interest on trifling themes, and as by a tacit agreement avoiding each
other's glances. Then some gentleman came to claim her, and I was
almost glad that she was gone. And yet, in the very next moment a
passionate regret came over me, as for a personal loss, and I would
fain have called her back and told her, with friendly directness my
reasons for interfering so rudely with her pleasure.
I do not know how long I sat thus idly nursing my discontent, and now
and then, as my anger blazed up, muttering some fierce execration
against Dannevig. What was this girl to me, after all? I was certainly
not in love with her. And if she chose to ruin herself, what business
had I to prevent her? But then, she was a woman, and a sweet and pure
and true-hearted woman; it was, at all events, my duty to open her
eyes, and I vowed that, even though she should hate me for it, I would
tell her the truth. I looked at my watch; it was a few minutes past
two. With a sting of self-reproach, I remembered my promise to Mr.
Pfeifer, and resolved not to shirk the responsibility I had
voluntarily assumed. I hastened up the hall, then down again, surveyed
the dancers, sent a girl into the dressing-room with a message; but
Fraulein Hildegard was nowhere to be seen. A horrible thought flashed
through me. I seized my hat, and rushed down into the restaurant.
There, in an inner apartment, divided from the public room by drooping
curtains, I found her, laughing and chatting gayly with Dannevig over
a glass of Champagne and a dish of ice-cream.
"Fraulein," I said, approaching her with grave politeness, "I am sorry
to be obliged to interrupt this agreeable _tête-à-tête_. But the
carriage has arrived, and I must claim the pleasure of your company."
"Now, really," she exclaimed, with impulsive regret, while her eyes
still hung with a fascinated gaze on Dannevig's face, "is it, then, so
necessary that we should go just now? Do you really insist upon it?
Mr. Dannevig was just telling me some charming adventures of his life
in Denmark."
"I am happy to say," I answered, "that I am so well familiar with Mr.
Dannevig's adventures as to be quite competent to supplement his
fragmentary statements. I shall be very happy to continue the
entertainment--"
"_Sacr--r-r-e nom de Dieu_!" Dannevig burst forth, leaping up from his
seat. "This is more than I can bear!" and he pulled a card from his
portmonnaie and flung it down on the table before me. "May I request
the honor of a meeting?" he continued, in a calmer voice. "It is high
time that we two should settle our difficulties in the only way in
which they are capable of adjustment."
"Mr. Dannevig," I replied, with a cool irony which I was far from
feeling, "the first rule of the code of honor, to which you appeal,
is, as you are aware, that the combatants must be equals in birth and
station. Now, you boast of being of royal blood, while I have no such
claim to distinction. You see, therefore, that your proposition is
absurd."
Miss Hildegard had in the meanwhile risen to take my proffered arm,
and with a profound bow to the indignant hero we moved out of the
room. During our homeward ride hardly a word was spoken; the wheels
rattled away over the uneven pavement and the coachman snapped his
whip, while we sat in opposite corners of the carriage, each pursuing
his or her own lugubrious train of thought. But as we had mounted
together the steps to Mr. Pfeifer's mansion, and I was applying her
latchkey to the lock, she suddenly held out her hand to me, and I
grasped it eagerly and held it close in mine.
"Really," she said in a tone of conciliation, "I like you too well to
wish to quarrel with you. Won't you please tell me candidly why you
objected to my dancing with Mr. Dannevig?"
"With all my heart," I responded warmly; "if you will give me the
opportunity. In the meanwhile you will have to accept my reasons on
trust, and believe that they were very weighty. You may feel assured
that I should not have run the risk of offending you, if I had not
felt convinced that Dannevig is a man whose acquaintance no young lady
can claim with impunity. I have known him for many years, and I do not
speak rashly."
"I am afraid you are a very severe judge," she murmured sadly.
"Good-night."