Chapter 26

LOVE is ALL!

Thursday, Jan. 30.

I've been trying to read, but I can't. Pale heroines in books are so dull!

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 assurance 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 élevée_ 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," pronounced 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 snatches 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 passionate 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 passed 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 spacious 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 masses 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 passed. 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 lustrous 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 God!--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:--

"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 space, 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 space 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 balls. 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 nobodies 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.