"Come now; what masks, what dances shall we have
To wear away this long age of three hours
Between our after-supper and bed-time."
Perhaps it was owing to Honor's apparent indifference that Henry Rayne
refrained from giving a full account of Guy Elersley's disappearance
from among them. He had insinuated something about the misunderstanding
that had arisen between his nephew and himself, but the subject was a
painful one, and unless pressed for further information, he preferred to
remain silent altogether about it.
Honor had taken counsel with herself and had acted very wisely in
consequence. She assured herself that it was presumption to suppose that
Guy loved her. She had no direct proof of such a sentiment existing.
Their whole period of acquaintance and companionship had been tinged
with romance, but it would have been the same, had she been any one
else. It was almost the certain fate of two young people thrown together
as they had been to "fall in love." Yet he had given her no definable
cause to count on him as an admirer or lover. He had not even gone to
the depôt on the morning of her departure, or shown himself in any
marked way, concerned about her; so she resolved to quietly stow away
the items of her past that wound themselves around his name or memory,
and to begin another life strengthened by this new experience. There is
something of a Spartan endurance in a heroic woman. She can carry inside
the fairest face, the battered wreck of the fondest heart, and even if
we must call this deception, surely it is a virtue. She adopts her sad
misfortune as a responsibility akin to duty, and it is a gratification
and a solace to herself to know that she suffers alone and in silence.
Honor did not allow this strange turn of things to influence her life
visibly. She had learned a new chapter of that mysterious volume that
destiny holds open to all men, but it did not seem new to her. She was
one of those people who, from acute observation on those who have
gathered the fruit of a long experience, or from a study of those
authors whom we know as direct interpreters of the human heart, had
acquired that inner knowledge and experience of things which, in its
moral effect on the system, is equivalent to the actual tasting of the
same phases of life. She had prepared herself to meet trials and
disappointments in the very heart of her comforts. What other fruit can
be born of a selfish, scheming world? But she thought she had discovered
a sympathetic bond between her own and this other young soul. Guy did
not seem to her as the rest of his kind. At times, when his better
nature was aroused, he gave expression to the noblest and most exalted
feeling. He had the one failing, however, of being easily led--and there
are so many persons to lead astray in Ottawa city, and so many places to
lead to, that it takes a very strong arm or a very eloquent voice or a
very subtle influence to counteract the effect of evil company on one we
love. Honor could not encourage thoughts of distrust towards Guy. The
memory of their happy friendship always stood between her and her
censure of him, but still she could not cancel the thoughts of all he
might have done and did not do. No word, no sign, no message to assure
her that he had clung to her memory as a bright spot in his misfortune;
and she would lay back in her bed at night, thinking, wondering and
puzzling herself about the strange, mysterious things that could
transpire while this big, revolving machine of ours turned once around.
There was a kind of subdued excitement in the upper front rooms of Henry
Rayne's house to-night. It had been decided to go to the Bellemare's,
and all this extra confusion was only about the toilets. Nanette was
showering ejaculations of the profoundest admiration on Honor, who,
robed in black satin, stood before a tall mirror adjusting her skirt.
It was almost provoking to see the cool, calm way in which she went
through the different stages of "dressing." Her brocaded satin fitted
exquisitely to her slender waist, and ended over her shoulders in a
sqnare cut, whose gatherings of such Spanish lace lay in dazzling
contrast to her snowy neck and arms.
A pair of diamond screws were fastened in her ears, but apart from these
she wore no other jewel. Before leaving her room, however, she plucked
the bursting bud of a white rose that grew in a dainty pot on the window
sill, and with a spray of its leaves fastened it at her breast. She was
ready before aunt Jean or Mr. Rayne, so she stole down to the dimly-
lighted drawing-room to while away the waiting moments in playing
dreamy chords and half-remembered snatches of pensive airs.
Aunt Jean was a most fastidious woman, and dressed according to certain
rules and regulations, any aberration from which was a gross mistake not
to be tolerated. Henry Rayne, for an old man, was also uncommonly
exacting. He spoiled, on an average, a dozen white ties nightly when he
decided on going out, and it was a task to insert his shirt studs in a
way that would satisfy him. When Honor had time to arrange things in the
afternoon, all went smoothly enough; but for him to dress on a short
notice meant a good deal of trouble to his household.
* * * * *
The brilliant light of a dozen chandeliers is flooding the ball-room at
Elmhurst. The walls of the spacious apartment are decked with festive
decorations. The air is heavy with rich perfumes, soft, sweet strains of
dance music float through the crowded rooms, and women, the fairest,
richest and noblest are gliding by on the arms of their interested
partners. Every face is smiling, some are perfectly happy, some are
perfectly wretched, some are perfectly indifferent--but all are smiling,
all look pleased. Even Miss Dash and a few other friends, who look
suspiciously like wall-flowers, smile broadly at the least amusing
remark, just as though they were not being consumed with jealousy and
disappointment. They talk eagerly and gladly to deaf old members of
Parliament and stuffy bachelors, whom they hate more intensely than ever
after the evening is over. Fans are waving in every direction, the
great, broad, heavy "coolers" of the fat mammas, who are just dying from
heat and exhaustion; and the pretty, feathery, spangled things, behind
which is whispered many a coquettish word by the pretty lips of gay
young girls; and the poor, ill-used one's of the wall-flowers, that are
either being bitten viciously at the safest end, or that fly impatiently
through the air, cooling the puckered brows of disappointed belles.
Everyone is there who is "anything." The Bellemares are very well known
in Ottawa. Strangers point to their splendid mansion, situate a little
way outside the city limits, and ask, "Who can live there?" And the
resident of Ottawa tells all he knows. Mr Joseph Bellemare, one of our
great lumber merchants, is the proprietor of that grand residence. He
has plenty of money and comfort, a small family--a marriageable daughter
and two sons--who help to diminish very considerably the family
treasure. The house is finely adapted for large entertainments, having
immense rooms for reception, and dancing and refreshments. Then there
was the handsome library, the conservatory and billiard room, all with
little _tête-a-tête_ nooks and corners in which spoony lovers might take
refuge for hours, without being noticed.
There were lawns and groves, and boats and fishing for the delightful
summer-time. In fact, nature and art had both contributed largely
towards rendering this superb dwelling-place one of the finest, and most
attractive in the whole country around.
Nature however, with characteristic inconsistency, had never intended
Miss Louise Bellemare, for a beauty. But nature proposes, and art
disposes.
There are those among that crowd of beauty and _éclat_ to-night, who
would not attempt to dispute the omnipotence of Belladonna, or
_blanc-de-perle_, or any other item of the homely girl's toilet
repertoire, for it would have gladdened the eyes of the inventors of
these cosmetics, if they could have beheld for an instant the charming
effect produced, by the skilful use of their Helps to Beauty.
It is now quite on the late side of nine o'clock, and the night's sport
has fairly begun. Young men, pencils in hands are standing before their
favorite acquaintances, soliciting the favor of "at least one 'dance,'
for me, you know." The first waltz is in full progress. The inviting
strains of the "Loved and Lost," are floating through the air, and the
room is alive with the "poetry of motion." Just at this moment Honor
Edgeworth passes from the Reception Room, across the Hall, leaning on
Mr. Rayne's arm, and into the Ball-room. No one makes any pronounced
interruption to their occupation as she enters, but somehow the buzz
seems to abate considerably, and the voices seem to dwindle into a
whisper.
There are different reasons for this proceeding. The girls' reason is a
natural one. She is new in society, very attractive, and her presence
thrusts itself on them as a warning. They don't see what she wants among
Ottawa _coteries_, born and bred, no one knows where. But the men's
reason is also a very natural one. They are a little tired of
continually meeting the same fair faces wherever they go. A woman is to
them like a good thing that won't wear out. They do not wish to give up
either altogether, but they weary at the sight of them, and so long as
they can substitute them for any other--whether inferior in merit, or
not so provokingly durable, they are happy, with the knowledge of
course, that the other is always on hand when they require it. This
flattering opinion that fashionable men entertain of most fashionable
women is what is richly deserved by them, for women who flatter and
spoil men as they are flattered, and spoiled in Ottawa, can expect
nothing else. A suit of clothes of respectable tweed, or broadcloth, is
the object of more spare enthusiasm than a whole collection of moral
qualities in a rival woman.
This explains why the male element of Ottawa society is extremely
gratified to hail such an interesting acquisition to their circle as
Honor Edgeworth. The other girls are "dreadfully disgusted" to note the
sensation she creates, and instead of looking at her openly, they
pretend to be a million times better occupied while they are peeping at
her behind each others' backs, and over each others' heads. There is
something to look at after all. Honor is surrounded immediately and
those who have not met her before, flock around the hostess, and Mr.
Rayne, in the hope of obtaining an introduction. But Honor displays no
more sign of gratification at this lavish display of admiration, than if
it had been an every day occurrence of her life. She gives each anxious
solicitor a dance without any of the condescending airs of other ladies,
and her programme is almost full when some one brushes through the crowd
and addresses her hastily.
"Miss Edgeworth, not too late am I?"
She looks up and sees Vivian Standish before her, as handsome a picture
as ever riveted any one's gaze. She smiles a bewitching smile of assumed
despair.
"What am I to do," she asks in perplexity, "I have only one dance to
divide between two of you," and she turns to another importunate
claimant, a diminutive man, very well inclined to _embonpoint_ who wears
red whiskers and spectacles, "I think you were first Mr Vernon" she
says, smiling graciously, as she confronts his homely face.
Vivian's face was clouding perceptibly when some one laid his hand on
Vernon's arm, and drew him aside, apparently not noticing that he was
engaged, Vivian had a friend around that time.
"Mr. Vernon does not evidently appreciate my partiality for him," Honor
says laughingly, looking straight into Vivian's eyes.
"And yet you would throw away on him, the favors I crave to obtain."
He said this half reproachfully, half eagerly. She placed her dainty
little programme in his hand, and smiled when he returned it, to find he
had written, "Lucky Vivian S." opposite the promised waltz.
I wonder if any realization in life thrusts itself so forcibly upon us,
as that of the flight of time. Our dearest and most precious moments do
not dare to linger with us an added instant, but hasten on with
ceaseless flow to lose themselves in eternity's gulf. Only the hours of
sorrow seem to halt in their flight. The clock never ticks so slow and
measured a stroke as during the night of waiting, or watching. Then the
rules of time become reversed, and in a lonely vigil one counts by
heart-throbs, sixty hours in every slow, slow minute. The very moments,
laden with gaiety and pleasure, that are dropping so quickly into the
lap of the forever from out the Bellemare's lighted halls, are surely
dragging painfully and slowly, for the weary watcher of death-beds, for
the poor and shivering, for the deserted wife, for the orphan child, for
the chained prisoner. This is the mystery of life, this is the
many-sided picture of existence, and yet, this strange world is a
masterpiece of a just and merciful Creator.