The Bacillus of Beauty Part 27

Last night came the Van Dams' dance and my triumph--and a greater triumph still; for to-day I have a wonderful, beautiful chapter to add to my own book, to the story of the only woman whose life is worth while.

I see the vista of my future, and--ah, little book, my eyes are dazzled! A rich woman would be a beggar, a clever woman a fool, an empress would leave her throne to exchange with me. Nothing, nothing is impossible to the most beautiful woman that ever lived, whose life is crowned by love.

Love is all; all! In a palace without Ned I'd weep myself blind; with him a desert would be Eden. Love is all!

That blessed dance!

The General invited me ten days ago, the afternoon when--when John Burke-- poor John!---scolded me about the photographs.

"Just a 'small and early,'" she said, broaching her errand as soon as she had fairly driven John off the field--there was just the faintest suggestion of relief in her tone--"Peggy's mother's giving it--Mrs. Henry Van Dam."

She looked at Aunt with an a.s.surance as calm as if there were no interdict upon social experiments.

"Impossible!" gasped Aunt, glancing despairingly in the direction in which her ally had disappeared. "Why, Nelly doesn't leave the house; I've stopped her attendance even at Barnard."

"And quite right; but a private house isn't a big school, nor yet the Opera. Of course you say yes, don't you, Helen?"

"Yes, yes! A dance! Oh, I'm going to a dance! Play for me, Milly; play for me!"

Humming a bar of a waltz, I caught Aunt Frank in my arms, and whirled her about the room until she begged for mercy.

"Oh, you dear people, I'm so happy!" I cried as I stopped, my cheeks glowing, and, falling all about me, a flood of glistening hair; while the General, whose creed is to wonder at nothing, gazed at me in delighted amazement.

"You splen--did creature!" she cried.

"I--I would like to go; Aunt Frank, you will let me?" I said meekly, as too late I realised how differently a New York girl _bien elevee_ would have received the invitation. But, indeed, my heart jumped with rapture.

Without John, Mrs. Baker really didn't know how to refuse me.

"But--but--but--" she stammered.

"Surround her with a bodyguard, if you like," said the General. "You'll have Judge Baker and Hynes, of course; and that--what's the name of that shy young man who's just gone? He looks presentable."

"But--but--" protested Aunt; "Bake'd never go; and--Nelly--has--do you suppose Mr. Burke has evening clothes?"

"Naturally," I said with nonchalance, though my quick temper was fired. I was as sure he hadn't as I was that Mrs. Van Dam knew his name, and that he would oppose the dance even more strongly than did Aunt; and I wished that I could go without him. But it was useless to think of this, with even the General suggesting a bodyguard. I resolved that he should at least consult a decent tailor.

"Why not have detectives as guards--as if I wore a fortune in diamonds?" I grumbled.

"Let us at least have Mr. Burke. Now, Helen, what do _you_ propose to wear?" concluded the General.

Mrs. Van Dam took an extraordinary interest in my toilette. She even came to see my new evening dress fitted, and put little Mrs. Edgar into such a flutter that she prodded me with pins. I'll simply have to ask Father to increase my allowance; cheap white silk, clouded with tulle, was the best I could manage.

"H'm--Empire; simple and graceful," p.r.o.nounced Oracle. "Square neck, Helen, or round?"

"Why--I've never worn a low dress--not really low," I said, longing but dubious. "Pa says--"

"Nonsense!"

"A shame!" chimed Mrs. Edgar.

And it would have been a shame to hide my neck and arms. I laughed when they cut away their interfering linings from the white column of my throat, and left across my shoulders only wisps of tulle. And last night, when I came to dress, I laughed again, and kissed the entrancing flesh, so firm and soft and gleaming faintly pink, and then I blushed because Aunt Marcia saw me do it. I worship the miracle of my own fairness. I could scarcely bear to put gloves on, even.

Miss Baker gathered all my shining hair into the loose knot that suits me, and put roses at my girdle and into the misty tulle about my shoulders.

Ethel fitted on my slippers, and brought her fan and her lace handkerchief, and when I had smiled for one last time at the parted scarlet lips and the brilliant eyes that smiled back at me from the mirror, and had turned reluctantly from my dressing table, I was still joyous at remembrance of the light, the grace, the marvel of the vision I had seen reflected, that had seemed fairly to float in the dancing rose light of its own happiness.

Down in the hall the family were waiting, with John and Mr. Hynes; and, as I glided into sight on the stairway, Milly behind me, the Judge looked up at us, quoting with heavy playfulness:--

"She seizes hearts, not waiting for consent, Like sudden death that s.n.a.t.c.hes unprepared.

"How many conquests will satisfy you to-night, fair Princesses? Milly, will two young men answer instead of one old one?" He had been exempted from serving on my bodyguard.

"Bake! Death! How can you," sputtered Aunt. "Come, girls, the carriage is waiting.

"Wish I could dance," whispered Ethel, reaching up to touch my flowers--a pathetic little figure poised on her best foot.

"Oh, I wish you could! I wish you were going," I replied hastily, bending to kiss the little creature, the better to hide my sudden consciousness of my bared shoulders.

All in the room were looking at me as if never before had they beheld my beauty. John's strained eyes seemed to plead with me for an answering glance of affection, and I knew that Ned--though I wasn't conscious of looking at him at all--was alternately white and red as I was myself. I felt his glance so confused and pa.s.sionate and withal so impetuous that, as Aunt Marcia lifted my wrap and I went down to the carriage, my heart beat violently, and I sank back into my corner in a frightful, blissful maze of fear and ecstasy.

But even then I didn't know what had happened to me.

We had but a few blocks to go, and before I had recovered, a man in livery was opening the carriage door at the mouth of a canvas tunnel which seemed to dive under a great house that towered so far above the street as to look almost narrow. We pa.s.sed through the tunnel, another man opened a door almost at the street level, and we advanced into a hall extending the entire width of the house, so brilliantly lighted and so s.p.a.cious that I caught my breath at thought of our errand, seeing that the size of the place and its splendour so far exceeded what I had supposed.

I clutched at Aunt's hand as if to stop her in front of the huge fireplace, where logs, crackling on tall "firedogs" of twisted iron, gave out a yellow blaze; but then quickly such a different terror and wonder and joy came again upon me that I lost consciousness of everything but Ned; and the ma.s.ses of ferns and palms through which we were moving--the doll-like servants in silk stockings and knee breeches, their scarlet coats emblazoned with the monogram of the Van Dams--faded out of sight.

Yet I never once glanced in his direction.

We had to go to the third floor for the dressing rooms; but in spite of those minutes of grace, when a maid had removed my wraps--she started with amazement as she did so--my cheeks were still aflame.

Mrs. Baker and Milly fussed with my dress, and Aunt became incoherent in her efforts to soothe and encourage me; for she feared the ordeal before us, and thought that I feared it also. And I was afraid, but not of meeting any person in that house, save one. I quivered at the thought that outside the door Ned was waiting, that we must go out to him, that I might even be obliged to speak to him. And yet I longed to see him again, to be with him--somewhere, away from them all.

Perhaps at last I was beginning to understand.

The General had been sent for, and I kept close to her and to Peggy, when they went down with our party to the parlours on the second floor. There, at our entrance, groups of people seemed to divide with an eager buzz that at any other time would have been ravishing music. Last night I didn't know that I heard it, though now I remember how splendidly apparelled women and sombre-coated men turned their heads as we pa.s.sed. Of course word had spread that the beautiful Miss Winship was expected.

It was almost in a dream that I stood before Mrs. Henry Van Dam--a short, heavy woman, in purple velvet, flashing with diamonds. Without a vestige of awkwardness or timidity I answered her effusive welcome, and the greetings of her grayish wisp of a husband, and of Mr. and Mrs. Marmaduke Van Dam--both thin and grave; her neck cords standing out under her diamond collar. And of little Mr. Robert Van Dam. And of Mr. Bellmer--a pink, young, plump thing, all white waistcoat and bald head, just as I remembered him at the Opera.

I held a reception of my own. I did it easily. After the first moments Ned's presence excited me. I was always conscious of his nearness; I felt that whether I talked or was silent--though I was never allowed to be that--to whatever part of the room he went, his glowing eyes never left me. And there came to me a thrilling confidence that he understood. He knew that to me all these people were so much lace, so many blotches of white complexion, so many pincushions of silk or l.u.s.trous satin stuck through with jewels. He knew that I cared for no one of them; for nothing; not even for my beauty, except that--thank G.o.d!--it pleasured him.

I knew that perfect beauty had come to me last night--had come because I loved and was loved; and because Love was not the pale shadow I had called by its name, but a rapture that was in my heart and in my face and in the faces 'round me and in the music that swelled from the great ballroom!

I had no idea of time, but perhaps it wasn't long before the General manoeuvred me from the sitting-out rooms and across the hall to join the dancers. Mrs. Baker and John were with us; Ned was not, but I knew that he would follow.

It was a big apartment that we entered, occupying the entire end of the second floor towards the street, perhaps thirty feet by forty and twenty high; for an instant I was dazzled by the gleam of white and gold, the rise of pilasters at door and window, the shimmer of soft, bright hangings and everywhere the cheat of mirrors. I breathed delight at sight of the lovely ceiling all luminous--no lights showed anywhere, yet the air was transfused by a rosy glow. The next minute I had forgotten this in the pulse of the music and the blur of moving figures; my favourite waltz was sounding, and the scene was one of fairyland.

"Shall we dance?" asked John, and I came to myself in a panic. Dance with John--there? I hadn't thought of that. Of course I must, but--why, his step is abominable! It always was!

"As you please," I said with the best grace I could muster, glancing nervously up at him. He looked well in his new evening clothes, but his face was set in grim lines of endurance, and I went on with guilty haste to forestall question or reproach:--