The Bacillus of Beauty Part 28

"I hope you waltz better than you used."

"I'm afraid I don't," said he dryly.

And he didn't. I simply couldn't dance with him. He never thought about what he was doing or where he was going. I looked back despairingly at the General, grimacing involuntarily as I gathered my skirts from under his feet; and I had an odd notion that she smiled with malicious satisfaction.

Could she have reckoned upon weaning me from him by a display of his awkwardness? I felt nettled at both of them.

"Helen," he said abruptly, as we laboured along the crowded floor, "do you remember our last dance--at the Commencement ball?"

The night of our betrothal! What a time to remind me of it! I had just seen Ned and Milly join the group we had left; and as they, too, began to dance, I felt a stab of pain that made me answer angrily--we were barely escaping collision with another couple:--

"If it's only at Commencement that you care to dance--"

He tightened his grip upon me almost roughly, then took me back to my Aunt without a word.

I tried to reason myself out of my pettishness, to atone to John, poor fellow! But my eyes followed Ned and Milly among the graceful, flying figures, and my feet tapped the floor impatiently until, presently, the music stopped and they came to us. Then Ned's parted lips said something, and then--as the music recommenced, I was in his arms and, almost without my own knowledge or volition, was moving around the room.

Moving, not dancing--floating in a rosy light, away and away from them all, into endless s.p.a.ce, my hand in his, his breath on my cheek; always to go on, I felt; on and on, to the dim borderland between this earth and Heaven.

Presently his eyes told me that something was happening. The dancers had been too busily engaged to pay much heed to my first brief adventure, but in the intermission of the music I had been noticed, and now I saw that there was an open s.p.a.ce about us. Here and there a couple stood as they had risen from their seats, while others, who had begun to dance, had come to a pause. Slender girls in clouds of gauze and fat matrons panting in satins were gazing in our direction. In the doorway were gathered people from the parlours.

"Are they looking at us? We must stop," I whispered.

"Looking at you, not us. But don't stop; not yet--Helen!"

"Helen!" He had called my name! My eyes must have shown with bliss and terror. I had an almost overmastering desire to whisper his name also, to answer the entreaty of his voice, the clasp of his fingers. But I forced myself to remember how many eyes were watching.

"I--we must stop," I said.

"Not yet; unless--we shall dance together again?"

I scarcely heard the "yes" I breathed. I shouldn't have known what I had said but for the sudden light in his eyes, the firmer pressure of his arm.

My feet didn't seem to touch the floor, as he gently constrained me when I would have ceased to dance, and kept me circling round with him until we came opposite my seat; then he put me into it as naturally as if I had been tired.

Tired! Our faces told--they must have told our story. But the others were blind--blind! John had risen as if to meet us, but if he took note at all of my flushed face, he doubtless thought me frightened.

It was exultation, not fright. I did not heed the following eyes, when, as gliding figures began to cover the floor again, John took me back to the parlours. I went with him submissively; I thought of nothing but the joy of my life, the love of my lover. I shall think of nothing else to the end of my days.

Ned went with me, confused and impulsive and ardent as John was attentive and curiously formal. But I wasn't allowed to remain with either of them.

I didn't wish to do so. I was glad that people crowded about me--men in black coats all alike, whose talk was as monotonous as their broad expanses of shirt front or their cat's eye finger rings. But I tried to listen and answer that I might hide from John my tumult.

Before long I danced again--this time with some black coat; then with another and another and another; and, at last, once more with Ned.

We scarcely spoke, but he did not hide from me the fervour of his look, nor I from him the wild joy of mine. There was no need of words when all was understood, but as he put his arm around me, the tinkling music receded until I could hardly hear it, the figures about us grew indistinct--and in all the world there were left only he and I.

"Once there was another Helen," he said. His voice caressed my name.

"There have been many; which Helen?"

I so loved the word as he had spoken it that I must repeat it after him.

"_The_ Helen; there was never another--until you. She was terrible as an army with banners; fair as the sea or the sunset. Men fought for her; died for her. She had hair that meshed hearts and eyes that smote.

Sometimes I think--do you believe in soul transmigration?"

My heart beat until it choked me. Some voice far in the depths of my soul warned me that I must check him--we must wait until I--he--Milly--

"Sometimes; who does not? But Prof. Darmstetter would say that it was nonsense," I whispered, and waited without power to say another word.

"It is true; Helen is alive again, and all men worship her."

His eyes were so tenderly regardful that--I could not help it. Once more I raised mine and we read each other's souls. And the music seized us and swept us away with its rapture and its mystery.

The rest of the evening comes to me like a dream, through which I floated in the breath of flowers and the far murmur of unheeded talk. I saw little, heard little, yet was faintly conscious that I was the lodestar of all glances and exulting in my triumph. It was marvellous!

I didn't dance much. People don't at New York b.a.l.l.s. But whether I danced or talked with tiresome men, my heart beat violently because he would see the admiration I won--he would know that I, who was Helen, a Queen to these others, lived only for him, was his slave.

There was supper, served at an endless number of little tables; there was a cotillon which I danced with Mr. Bellmer. John stayed in the parlours with Aunt, and Ned danced with Milly, but I was not jealous.

Jealous of Milly, with her thin shoulders rising out of her white dress, her colourless eyes and her dull hair dressed like mine with roses?

Jealous, when his glance ever sought me; when, as often as we approached in a figure, if I spoke, his eyes answered; if I turned away my face, his grew heavy with pain?

Once in the dance I gave a hand to each of them. His burned like my own; hers was cold.

"Tired, Milly?" I asked, and indeed I meant kindly.

"No," she said sulkily, turning to the next dancer.

I couldn't even pity her, I was so happy.

I couldn't bear to have the beautiful evening end, and yet I was glad to go home--to be alone.

When John lifted me from the carriage, his clasp almost crushed my hand; poor John, how he will feel the blow! I didn't wait to say good-night to Aunt; I didn't look at Milly, but ran away to my room.

Oh, indeed, the child doesn't love him! Milly knows no more about Love than I did two months ago. She's bloodless, cold; I do not wrong her. Some day she will learn what Love is, as I have learned, and will thank me for saving her from a great mistake. I hope she will!

I have saved myself from the error of my life. I'm not the same woman I was yesterday. It makes me blush to think how I looked forward to the adulation of the n.o.bodies at that dance. I care for no praise but his.

Why, I'll go in rags, I'll work, slave--I'll hide myself from every eye but his, if that will make him love me better. Or I will be Empress of beautiful women, if that is his pleasure, and give him all an Empress's love.

I couldn't sleep last night. I know that he could not. I know that he has been watching, waiting, as I have, for to-day, when he must come to me.

CHAPTER VIII.

A LITTLE BELTED EARL.

Feb. 4.