Cruel As The Grave Part 30

The waltz of which they were speaking came now to an end. Sybil saw Beatrix led to a seat near her own. She also saw her partner bow and leave her. She seized the opportunity and glided up to Beatrix, and whispered:

"There will be but one more quadrille, and then supper will be served. I am going to my room. Do not dance in the next quadrille, but follow me, that we may change our dresses again. We have to be ready to unmask at supper, you know."

"Very well! I will be punctual. I really have enjoyed myself in your dress. And you?"

"As much as I expected to. I am satisfied."

At this moment the music for the quadrille struck up, and gentlemen began to select their partners. Two or three were coming towards Sybil and Beatrix. So with a parting caution to Beatrix to be careful, Sybil left the saloon.

She glided up to her chamber, where she was soon joined by Beatrix.

They began rapidly to take off their dresses, to exchange them.

"Oh, I have had so much amus.e.m.e.nt!" exclaimed Beatrix, laughing.

"Everybody took me for you. And oh, I have received so many flattering compliments intended for you; and I have heard so much wholesome abuse of myself! That I was fast; that I was eccentric; that I was more than half-crazy; that I had a dreadful temper. And you?"

"I also received some sweet flattery intended for the pretty little Puritan maiden, and learned some bitter truths about myself," answered Sybil.

"How hollow your voice is, Sybil! Bosh! who cares for such double-dealing wretches, who flatter us before our faces and abuse us behind our backs?" exclaimed Beatrix, as she quickly finished her Puritan toilet, and announced herself ready.

Sybil was also dressed, and they went down stairs and entered the drawing-room together.

The last quadrille before supper was over, the supper-rooms were thrown open, and the company were marching in.

Captain Pendleton hastened to meet Sybil, and another gentleman offered his arm to Beatrix, and thus escorted, they fell in the line of march with others.

As each couple pa.s.sed into the supper-room, they took off their masks, and handed them to attendants, placed for that purpose, to the right and left of the door. Thus, when the company filled the rooms, every face was shown.

There were the usual surprises, the usual gay recognitions.

Among the rest, "Harold the Saxon" and "Edith the Fair" stood confessed as Mr. Berners and Mrs. Blondelle, and much silent surprise as well as much whispered suspicion was the result.

"Is it possible?" muttered one. "I took them for a pair of lovers, they were so much together."

"I thought they were a newly married pair, who took advantage of their masks to be more together than etiquette allows," murmured a second.

"I think it was very improper; don't you?" inquired a third.

"Improper! It was disgraceful," indignantly answered a fourth, who was no other than Beatrix Pendleton, who now completely understood why it was that Sybil Berners wished to change dresses with her, and also how it was that Sybil's voice was so hollow, as she spoke in the bed-chamber. "She wished to put on my dress that she might watch them unsuspected, and she was right. She detected them in their sinful trifling, and she was wretched," said Beatrix to herself. And she looked around to catch a glimpse of Sybil's face. Sybil was sitting too near her to be seen. Sybil was on the same side with herself, and only two or three seats off. But Beatrix saw Mr. Berners and Mrs. Blondelle sitting immediately opposite to herself, and with a recklessness that savored of fatuity, still carrying on their sentimental flirtation.

Yes! Rosa was still throwing up her eyes to his eyes, and cooing "soft nonsense" in his ears; and Lyon was still dwelling on her glances and her tones with lover-like devotion. Suddenly a.s.suming a gay tone, she asked him:

"Where is our ghastly friend, Death! I do not see him anywhere in the room, and I was _so_ anxious to see him unmasked, that I might find out who he is. Where is he? Do you see him anywhere?"

"No; he is not here yet; but doubtless he will make his appearance presently," answered Mr. Berners.

"Do you really not know who he is?"

"Not in the least; nor does any one else here know," replied Mr.

Berners.

Suddenly Rosa looked up, started, and with a suppressed cry, muttered:

"Good heavens! Look at Sybil!"

Mr. Berners followed the direction of her gaze across the table, and even he started at the sight of Sybil's face.

That face wore a look of anguish, despair, and desperation that seemed fixed there forever; for in all its agony of pa.s.sion that tortured and writhen face was as still, cold, hard, and lifeless as marble, except that from its eyes streamed glances as from orbs of fire.

Mr. Berners suddenly turned his eyes from her, and looked up and down the table. Fortunately now every one was too busily engaged in eating, drinking, laughing, talking, flirting, and gossiping to attend to the looks of their hostess.

"I must go and speak to her," said Lyon Berners in extreme anxiety and displeasure, as he left Rosa's side, and made his way around the table, until he stood immediately behind his wife. He touched her on her shoulder to attract her attention. She started as if an adder had stung her, but she never looked around.

"Sybil, my dearest, you are ill. What is the matter?" he whispered, trying to avoid being overheard by others.

"Do NOT touch me! _Do not_ speak to me, unless you wish to see me drop dead or go mad before you!" she answered in tones so full of suppressed energy, that he impulsively drew back.

He waited for a moment in dire dread lest the a.s.sembled company should see the state of his wife, and then he ventured to renew his efforts.

"Sybil, my darling, you are really not well. Let me lead you out of this crowded room," he whispered, very gently, laying his hand upon her shoulder.

She dashed it off as if it had been some venomous reptile, and turned upon him a look flaming with fiery wrath.

"Sybil you will certainly draw the attention of our guests," he persisted, with much less gentleness than he had before spoken.

"If you touch me, or speak to me but once more--if you do not leave me on the instant, I _will_ draw the attention of our guests, and draw it with a vengeance too!" she fiercely retorted, never once removing from him her flaming eyes.

CHAPTER XVIII.

LYING IN WAIT.

"He is with her; and they know that I know Where they are, and what they do; they believe my tears flow While they laugh, laugh at me, at me left in the drear Empty hall to lament in, for them!--I am here."--BROWNING.

"You are a lunatic, and fit only for a lunatic asylum!" was the angry comment of Lyon Berners, as he turned upon his heel and left his wife.

It was the first time in his life that he had ever spoken angrily to Sybil, or even felt angry with her.

Hitherto he had borne her fierce outbursts of jealousy with "a great patience," feeling, perhaps, that they flamed up from the depths of her burning love for him; feeling, also, that his own thoughtless conduct had caused them.

Now, however, he was thoroughly incensed by the deportment of his wife, and deeply mortified at the effect it might have upon their company.

He went around to the opposite side of the table. He did not again join Rosa, for he dreaded a scene, and even a catastrophe; but he mingled with the crowd, and stood where he could see Sybil, without being seen by her.

Her face remained the same--awful in the marble-like stillness of her agonized features; terrible in the fierceness of her flaming eyes!