The Christmas festivities were to close on
New Year's Eve with a grand ball at Shirley.
It was to be a sumptuous affair with unlimited
Chinese lanterns, handsome decorations, a
magnificent supper, and a band from Washington.
The Smiths were going to requite the neighborhood's
hospitality with the beating of drums, the
clashing of cymbals, and the flowing of
champagne. This cordial friendly people had
welcomed them kindly, and must have their courtesy
returned in fitting style. Mrs. Smith suggested a
simpler entertainment, fearing contrast, and any
appearance of ostentation, but the general gauged
his neighbors better. They were at once too well
bred, and too self-satisfied for any idea of
comparison to occur to them. They would eat his
fruit-cake, or make him welcome to their
corn-bread with the same hearty unconcern. His
wealth, and their own poverty troubled them
equally little; they were abstract facts with
which hospitality had nothing to do. But in their
way they were proud; having given their best
without grudge or stint, they would expect his
best in return, and the general was determined
that they should have it. The risk of offense lay
in simplicity, not grandeur.
Mrs. Royall Garnett came over to Lanarth a day
or so before the grand event, bearing her family
in her train, to assist in the weighty matter of a
suitable toilet for Pocahontas. She was a tall,
handsome woman, with a noble bearing, and great
decision of character; and on most matters--notably
those pertaining to the sacred mysteries
of the wardrobe, her word with her family was
law. Grace's taste was admitted to be perfect.
After an exhaustive discussion of the subject, at
which both Berke and Royall ignorantly and
gratuitously assisted, and were flouted for their
pains, it was irrevocably decided that Pocahontas
should appear in pure white unrelieved by a
single dash of color.
"She looks cheap and common in any thing but
dead black, or pure white, at a party," pronounced
Grace with sisterly frankness, and of course that
settled the matter, although Mrs. Mason did
venture on the modest protest that it would look
"bride-like and unusual."
"I want her to look unusual," declared Grace;
"to make her so, is at present the object of my
being. I shall hesitate at nothing short of cutting
off her nose to secure that desirable result. To
be admired, a woman must stand out distinctly
from the throng; and I've set my heart on
Princess's being the belle of the ball. Have you
plenty of flowers, dear? As flowers are to be
your sole garniture, you must have a profusion.
I can't tolerate skimpy, rubbishing bouquets."
"None at all, Grace," confessed Pocahontas,
ruefully, "except a single calla. I cut my last
white rosebuds and camellias to send to Nina
Byrd Marion the very day before I heard about
the Shirley ball. Isn't it provoking?"
"Then somebody must get you some," Grace
responded promptly, pausing in her preparations,
and regarding her sister with the air of an autocrat;
"if the men are not lost to all sense of honor and
decency, you'll have plenty. Of course you _must_
have plenty. If only they will have sufficient
intellect to select white ones! But they won't.
I'd better instruct Roy and Berkeley at once."
On the morning of the ball, Berkeley entered
his mother's room, where the three ladies sat in
solemn conclave regarding with discontent a
waiter full of colored flowers which a thoughtful
neighbor had just sent over to Pocahontas. He
held in his hand a good-sized box which he
deposited in his sister's lap with the remark:
"Look, Princess! Here's a New Year's gift
just come for you. I don't know the writing. I
wonder what it is!"
"A subtle aroma suggests--fruit," hazarded
Grace, sniffing curiously.
"Perhaps flowers," suggests Mrs. Mason, who
that morning was a woman with one idea.
Pocahontas wrestled with the cords, unfolded
the wrappers, and lifted the cover. Then she
uttered a long drawn "oh" of satisfaction.
"What is it?" demanded the others with lively impatience.
Pocahontas lifted a card and turned it in her
hand, and a smile broke over her face as she
answered: "Flowers; from Jim Byrd."
Then she removed the damp moss and cotton,
and lifted spray after spray of beautiful snowy
jasmin--Cape Jasmin, pure and powerful, and
starry wreaths of the more delicate Catalonian.
Only white flowers--all jasmin, Jim's favorite
flower; and with them were tropical ferns and
grasses. As she held the exquisite blossoms in
her hands and inhaled their rich perfume, the girl
was conscious that when her old friend penned
the order for the fragrant gift, his heart had been
full of home, and of the evening beside the river
when she had worn his flowers in hair and dress,
and had bidden him farewell.
"How beautiful they are!" exclaimed Grace,
excitedly, "and just in time for to-night. To
think of the way I've made that wretched
husband of mine charge through the country since
day-break, this morning, in pursuit of white
flowers, and here they come like a fairy story. It was
very nice of Jim. I'd no idea there was so poetical
an impulse in the old fellow; as the selection
of these flowers appears to indicate."
"You don't appreciate Jim, Grace. You do
him injustice. If thought and care and love for
others, combined with tenderness, and delight
in giving pleasure, constitutes poetical impulses,
then Jim Byrd is the noblest poet we are
likely ever to meet." Pocahontas spoke warmly,
the color flushing to her cheeks, the light
coming to her eyes. Poor Jim!--so far away.
Was it disloyal to her old friend to go that
night to dance among strangers in the rooms
that had been his,--that were full of associations
connected with him? At all events, no flowers
would she wear save his; no other ornaments of
any kind. It would seem, then, as though he
participated in her pleasure; rejoiced in her joy.
Jim loved always to see her happy. For reasons
of their own, the two elder ladies had decided on
remaining at home, so that Pocahontas repaired
to the ball in male custody alone. Blanche, who
was on the watch for the Lanarth party, came
forward the instant of their arrival, accompanied
by her father, to welcome them, and to bear
Pocahontas away to the upper regions to warm
herself and remove her wrappings. The rooms
were a little chill, she explained, with a shiver,
in spite of the splendid fires the general had
kept roaring in them all day. Pocahontas must
remain where she was and warm herself
thoroughly, and she would send one of the boys for
her presently. And after a little girlish gossip
and mutual admiration of each others' appearance,
the small maiden tripped away to her duties below.
Soon there was a knock at the door, and
Pocahontas, catching up fan, bouquet and handkerchief,
opened it and stepped into the hall. Nesbit
Thorne, slender and distinguished looking, was
awaiting her, Blanche having encountered and
dispatched him immediately on her return to the
parlors. As the girl stood an instant framed by
the open door, thrown into relief by the soft
glowing background of the warmly lighted room,
Thorne's heart swelled with mingled gladness and
impatience. Joy in the pure perfection of her
beauty; impatience at the restraint circumstances
forced him still to put upon his love.
At the foot of the stairs they were pounced
upon by Percival, who had selected that coigne of
vantage as least likely to attract his mother's
attention, there to lay in wait for the cards of the
unwary. He had been strictly forbidden to
importune grown young ladies for dances unless
they happened to be wall-flowers, and the injunction
lay heavy on his soul. "I _will_ ask girls other
men ask," he muttered, darkly, "I hate putting
up with refuse and leavings. I'm going to ask
the ones I want to ask," and he intrenched
himself beside the stairway with intent to black-mail
such girls as he should fancy.
Pocahontas, who had a natural affinity for boys,
and a great fondness for Percival, yielded to his
demand readily enough, surrendering her card to
him in gay defiance of Thorne's outspoken
reprobation, and laughing mischievously as the boy
scrawled his name triumphantly opposite a waltz.
"B.M.! Who's B.M., Miss Princess?" he
questioned, as he dextrously avoided Thorne's
extended hand, and placed the card in Pocahontas's.
"You've got him down just above me, and you
wrote it yourself. Who is he? Benevolent
Missionary? Brother Mason?"
"Exactly!" she answered, smiling, and watching
Thorne scribble his name in several places on
her card. "It is Berkeley. The Byrd girls and I
always saved a waltz for him to prevent his feeling
left out. He don't like to ask girls generally;
his one arm makes it look awkward, and he knows
they wouldn't like to refuse, because they all feel
sorry for him. _We_ put a hand on each shoulder,
and don't care how it looks. Berke is adroit, and
manages quite nicely. Often, too, it's an
advantage to have a dance you can dispose of later
on, so I continue to put the initials, although
Berke seldom dances now. He liked waltzing
with the Byrd girls best."
"You were very intimate with the Byrds, I
think you said," Thorne remarked idly, bowing
to an acquaintance as he spoke.
"Very intimate. See what came to me this
morning; all these exquisite flowers, just when I
needed them for to-night. Roy searched the
neighborhood through for white flowers without
success, and then these came. Aren't they
beautiful?" And she lifted her bouquet toward his face.
"Extremely beautiful!" he assented, bending
his head to inhale their fragrance. "It was very
kind and thoughtful of your friends to send them.
I suppose, from the connection, that they are a
Byrd offering."
Pocahontas laughed softly. "Yes," she said,
"but they did not come from Belle, or Nina, and
Susie is in California. Jim ordered them for me.
I am so pleased."
Thorne instantly raised his head and stiffened
his back as though the delicate perfume were
some noxious poison, and moved on with her
toward the parlors in silence.
"I wish you knew Jim, Mr. Thorne," pursued
the happy voice at his side; "he's such a good
fellow, so noble, generous, and unselfish; we're all
so fond of Jim. I wish he were here to-night to
tread a measure with me in the old rooms. You
would be sure to fraternize with Jim. You could
not help liking him."
Thorne drew in his lips ominously. He could
help liking Jim Byrd well enough, and felt not
the faintest desire for either his presence or his
friendship. The intervention of a woman with
whom two men are in love has never yet established
amity between them; the very suggestion
of such a thing on her lips is sufficient to cause
an irruption of hatred, malice and all unkindness.
Moreover, Thorne was in a fury with himself.
He had thought of sending for flowers for
Pocahontas at the same time he dispatched the order
to the Richmond florist for his aunt. He had
feverishly longed to do it, and had pondered the
matter fully half an hour before deciding that he
had better not. He had not scrupled to pay
Pocahontas attentions _before_ he realized that he
was in love with her, but that fact, once established
in his mind, placed her in a different
position in regard to him.
She was no longer the woman he wished to
draw into a flirtation _pour passer le temps_; she was
the woman he wished to marry--was determined
to marry, if possible. The instinct, common to
every manly man, to hold in peculiar respect the
woman whom he wishes to make his wife, led
Thorne to feel that, until he should be free from
the fetter that bound him, he should abstain from
paying Pocahontas marked attention; to feel that
she would have cause of complaint against him if
he did not abstain.
So he argued the case in cold blood; but now
his blood was boiling and he dubbed himself fool
in language concise and forcible. See what had
come of his self-denial? Another man had done
what he had left undone; another hand had laid
in hers the fragrant offering it should have been
his to bestow. Fool that he had been, to
stand aside and let another man seize the opportunity!
Jasmin, too! Pah! The heavy perfume made
him ill. He was conscious of a fierce longing to
snatch the blossoms from her hand and crush
them down into the heart of the fire and hold
them there--the pale, sickly things. _He_ would
have given her roses, passionate, glorious roses,
deep-hearted and crimson with the wine of love.
Pocahontas had small time for wondering over
her cavalier's sudden moroseness, for no sooner
had she entered the parlors than old friends
crowded forward to speak to her and claim a
dance; the girl was popular among the young
people of the vicinity. She was a wonderful
success that night. Not even Norma, for all her rich
tropical beauty, was more admired.
"Our little squaw is smashing things, Berke,"
remarked Roy Garnett, later in the evening, as he
joined his brother-in-law in the recess by the
fireplace. "The men all swear she's the handsomest
woman in the room--and on my soul I believe
they're right."
"She does look well," responded Mason with
all a brother's calm moderation. "Her dress
is in good taste, and she moves gracefully. But
she isn't the handsomest woman in the room by
long odds. Look at Norma Smith."
"I have looked at her," retorted Roy shortly,
"and so I suppose have the other men. There's
no more comparison between her and Princess
than there is between a gorgeous, striped tulip, and
a white tea rose." (For some inscrutable reason
Roy had never been able to endure Norma, and
even grudged acknowledgment of her undeniable
beauty). "Look at that fellow Thorne, now!"
he added, with the pleased alacrity of one producing
an unexpected trump, "I should say that _he_
shared my opinion. He hasn't danced voluntarily
with another woman in the room, nor left her side
a moment that he could help. It looks as though
he were pretty hard hit, doesn't it?"
Garnett was right; for after the episode with Jim
Byrd's flowers, Thorne had thrown self-control to
the winds. He danced with Pocahontas as
frequently as she would allow him, hovered constantly
in her vicinity, and only lost sight of her when
dragged off by his aunt for duty dances. Twice
during the evening--and only twice--did he leave her
voluntarily, and then it was to dance with Norma,
whose suspicions he did not wish to arouse. The
instinct of rivalry had overthrown all restraint and
for this evening he was madly determined to let
things take their course. They were here, he and
his family, in Jim Byrd's place; living in the
house that had been his, entertaining the friends
that had been his, in the very rooms that so short
a time ago had echoed to his footsteps and
resounded with his laugh. He had been thrust
aside, and must continue to stand aside; the past
had been his, let him keep out of the present;
let him beware how he marred the future.
And for the bond that held himself, Thorne had
forgotten all about it. In his passion and
excitement it was a thing without existence.
Later in the evening, there came a gleam of
brightness for little Blanche; a blissful hour which
indemnified her for the boredom so unflinchingly
endured. As Norma only did what pleased her,
most of the drudgery of entertaining fell upon
Blanche, whose grievous portion it was to attend
to the comfort of dowagers; to find partners for
luckless damsels unable to find them for
themselves, and to encourage and bring out bashful
youths. As the latter considered that the true
expression of their gratitude lay in devoting
themselves exclusively and eternally to their
pretty little preceptress, Blanche had lately come
to hold this part of her duty a wearisome affliction.
She was seated on a tiny sofa surrounded by a
band of uneasy and enamored youths ranging in
age from sixteen to twenty, when Mason caught
sight of her pretty, fatigued, but resolutely
courteous face, and came instantly to her rescue. He
was very fond of Blanche, and teased and petted
her with almost cousinly freedom. He felt
himself a middle-aged man beside her, and admired
her sweet face, and gentle unselfishness as
unreservedly as he would have done those of a child.
Moving her draperies aside with a kindly, if
unceremonious hand, he ensconced himself beside
her right willingly and devoted his best energies
to her amusement, and that of her small court;
lifted the burden of their entertainment from her
shoulders with ready tact, and waked the boys up
vigorously, causing them to enjoy themselves, and
forget that they were _young_; and lonesome, and
foolish. Kind, thoughtful Berkeley! No wonder
the silly little heart beside him fluttered joyously,
and the shy blue eyes were raised to his grave
handsome face with full measure of content.
And so the hours sped, golden-footed,
silver-footed; and the pipers piped and the men and
maidens danced and the elders gossiped, drank
champagne, and reveled in the fleshpots, yawning
surreptitiously behind fans and handkerchiefs as
the evening waned.
Pocahontas, roused from a dream of enjoyment
by Roy's mandate, sped lightly up stairs to the
dressing-room, and arrayed herself hastily in her
mufflings. At the stairway Thorne joined her, and
as her foot touched the lowest step he took her
unresisting hand and raised it to his lips murmuring
softly; "A happy New Year to you--my darling! my queen!"
Then good-night to host and hostess, a swift,
impulsive kiss to Blanche, and Berkeley put her
into the carriage; Roy tightened the reins and
they drove rapidly away in the chill gray of the
January dawn. The ball was over; the New Year begun.
Thorne, standing by the steps watching the
receding carriage, noticed the bouquet of
half-faded jasmin blossoms, which had slipped
unheeded from the girl's hand, and lay neglected
and forgotten on the frozen ground. The impulse
came to him to raise them tenderly because her
hands had touched them, and then the thought
of who had given them arose and struck down the
impulse. He set his heel upon them.
For him also, the New Year had begun.