Chapter 27

A LITTLE BELTED EARL.

Feb. 4.

Five wasted days; and nothing more to tell, though some women mightn't think so; nothing but--another triumph!

I've been to the Charity Ball. I've danced with a Lord--such a little fellow to be a belted Earl! I have scored over brilliant women of Society.

It isn't the simple country girl of a few weeks ago whom Ned loves, but a wonderful woman--a Personage; and I am glad, glad, glad! Though no woman could be good enough for him. I'm not; I am only beautiful enough. And oh, so feverishly happy, except that waiting is hard, so hard. I'm so restless that I scarcely know myself.

If I might tell him that I love him--as other Queens do! I am afraid of his glance when he is here, because he knows. But when he's not here, I imagine that he does not know, that he will never come again unless he learns the truth, and I say it over and over: "I love him! I love him!" and am glad and panic-stricken as if he had heard.

I have never had any other secret, but the Bacillus, I would sooner die than tell that, to Ned. My love I would cry aloud, but I cannot until he speaks, and he cannot speak until--has Milly no pride?

I thought--I thought that the very day after the dance--why, I could have rubbed my eyes, when I went down to a late breakfast, to find Mrs. Baker chirping with sleepy amiability, and Milly doling out complacent gossip to Ethel. The very sky had fallen for me to gather rainbow gold--and here we were living prose again, just as before.

I had struggled with my joy through all the short night, for I had imagined them suffering and angry; but I do believe that on the whole Milly had enjoyed the dance, and liked to shine even by her reflected importance as the beautiful Miss Winship's cousin. She had been vexed by Ned's admiration for me; and yet--and yet she didn't understand. The stupid! Didn't see that his love is mine.

There may have been a pause as I came, dazzling them like a great rosy light; but then my aunt stifled a yawn as she said, "Here's Nelly," and the chatter went on as before.

But I didn't hear it. Gliding confusedly into a seat, I had opened a note from John. "--Called West on business; start to-day," it said; and then indeed I began to feel the tangle, the terrible tangle--my cousins blind, John gone, when I was counting the minutes until I could see him. Oh, I must be free! It is his right to know the truth, and--what can Ned say while I'm affianced? I am Milly's cousin, and he John's friend.

I hurried to escape. I longed to be by myself that I might recall Ned's every look and word. Without reason--against reason--I felt that at any minute Ned might come, and waves of happiness and dread and impatience swept over me, and kept me smiling and singing and running anxiously to my glass.

Ned loves my beauty; I pulled down my hair and reknotted it and pulled it down again, fearful--so foolish have I grown--lest I might fail to please him; and frowned over my dresses and rummaged bureau drawers for ribbons, until Milly, who had tapped at my door and entered almost without my notice, asked abruptly:--

"Who's coming?"

"No one; John--no, he's out of town."

I flushed to see her regard the litter about me with calm deliberateness.

"Oh, you don't have to take pains for John," she said with a short laugh. "But come; Meg's down stairs."

The General had followed Milly up; she whisked into the room, showering me with congratulations on my success at the dance, she claimed me for a dinner, a concert--half a dozen engagements.

"Oh, by the way," she said, checking her flood of gossip. "Who d'you suppose is to be at the Charity Ball? Lord Strathay. You'll talk with a real Earl, Nelly--for of course he'll ask to be introduced."

"Another dance!" groaned my aunt, who had trotted panting in the General's wake; "I'm sure I wish I'd never said she might go; I'm as nervous as a witch after last evening."

Poor Aunt; she looked tired. She's really becoming the great objector.

Such a day as it was! I started at every footstep; my heart gave an absurd jump at every movement of the door hangings. Of course I knew that Ned couldn't--that we mustn't see each other until--but Ned is mine; it's so wonderful that he loves me. If I were Milly, I wouldn't remain an hour--not a minute!--in such a false position.

Yet the next day passed just like that day, and the next and the next and the next; every morning a note from John, scrawled on a railway train, and begging for a line from me. I wrote, poor fellow; so that's settled, and I'm very sorry for him.

I got rid of one morning by calling on Prof. Darmstetter. It was three weeks since I had seen him, and he was testy.

"I see much in t'e newspapers about t'e beautiful Mees Veensheep, but v'y does she neglect our experiment?" he demanded, following me across the laboratory to my old table. "V'ere are my records, my opportunities for observation? Has t'e beautiful Mees Veensheep no regard for science?"

"You've always said she hadn't, and pretended to be glad of it; I won't contradict," I returned. "But hurry up with your records; it doesn't need science or the newspapers, does it, to tell you that the beautiful Miss Winship cannot go about very freely?"

"Ach, no," said he humbly; for he could not look upon my face and hold his anger. "If I haf not alreaty gifen to Mees Veensheep t'e perfect beauty t'at I promised, I cannot conceive greater perfection. You are satisfied vit' our vork--vit' me?"

"Yes, I'm satisfied," I said coolly.

Just as soon as I could, I left him. Oh, I ought to be grateful, more than ever grateful now that the Bacillus has won for me the most blessed of earth's gifts--the gift of love. But I'm not; I wish I might never again see Prof. Darmstetter; he reminds me--he makes me feel unreal. As for his records, the experiment is finished. We have succeeded, and I want to enjoy our success and forget its processes. And why not? He knows in his heart that we have no further need of each other.

My real records now are public; the Charity Ball last night added a brilliant chapter.

The Charity Ball! How calmly I write that! I hope it may be the last triumph I need to win in public without Ned; but I enjoyed it. There was no awkward John to spoil my dancing, no jealous Milly, no over-anxious Aunt. I had Mrs. Marmaduke Van Dam for my chaperon--more the great lady, with all her thin rigidity, than Mrs. Henry; and for companion the General, almost as young and light-hearted as I.

And I was mistress of myself, strong and self-contained. Instead of being confused when all eyes were bent upon me, I had a new feeling of glad self-command. I felt the rhythm of my flawless beauty, my pure harmonies of face and form, and found it natural that fine toilets should be foils to my cheap white dress, and that I should be the centre around which the great assembly revolved. I'm really getting used to myself.

I danced constantly, danced myself tired, holding warm at my heart this one thought: that in the morning Ned would read of my triumphs and be proud of them, and rejoice because she about whom the whole city is talking thinks only of him.

My partner in the march was "Hughy" Bellmer, as the General calls him; I begin to know him well. He's harmless, with his drawl and his round pink face that shines with admiration. Deliciously he patronized the ball.

"Aw, Miss Winship," he said, "too large, too public. People prefer to dawnce in their own houses."--The ball was at the Waldorf-Astoria.--"The smaller a dawnce is, the greater it is, don't ye see."

"But aren't any great people here?" I asked demurely. "I am just a country mouse, and I've really counted on seeing one or two great people, Mr. Bellmer--besides you, of course."

"The Charity Ball is--aw, y'know, Miss Winship, an institution," he explained, fairly strutting in his complacency at my deference; "and as an institution, not as a Society event, ye understand, it is patronized by the most prominent ladies in the city."

"How good of them!" I cried, laughing.

He was so funny! But he was useful, too; he knew about everybody.

Some of the women I shall remember--Mrs. Sloane Schuyler, leader of the smallest and most exclusive of Society's many sets--a handsome woman with well-arched eyebrows; and Mrs. Fredericks, of the same group; sallow, with great black eyes, talking with tremendous animation; and Mrs. Terry--of the newly rich; Mr. Bellmer's aunt; dumpy, diamonded and disagreeable-looking.

"But where are the famous beauties?" I asked eagerly. "Won't they dance, even for charity, except in their own houses?"

Some of them were there; tall, pale, stylish girls, or women whose darkened eyes and faces mealy with powder told of a bitter fight with time. Why, I haven't seen a woman whom I thought beautiful since--since I became so.

"Aw, Miss Winship, really, y'know, you have no rivals," said my partner.

I hadn't supposed him clever enough to guess what I was thinking.

"Oh, yes I have--one," I said; "isn't there somewhere here a real live Lord?"

But just then we joined Meg, and it was she who pointed out to me "The Earl of Strathay--the Twelfth Earl of Strathay," in a whisper of comical respect and deference.

He wasn't very impressive--just a thin, pale young fellow with a bulbous head, big above and small below; but I was glad to do Meg a service; for of course she wished to meet him, and of course Lord Strathay was presented to the beautiful Miss Winship and her chaperons.

Then I danced with him. I felt as if I were amusing a nice boy; he hardly came to my shoulder. I asked him if he liked America.

He wasn't too much of a boy to reply:--

"Like is a feeble word to voice one's impressions of the land of lovely women."

And then he looked at me. Oh, he did admire me immensely, and I took quite a fancy to him in turn, though it seemed pathetic that such a poor little fellow--I don't believe he's twenty-one--should carry the weight of his title. I danced with his cousin, too, a Mr. Poultney; and wherever I went Strathay's eyes followed me wistfully.

Meg danced with Strathay and amused me by her elation. She hadn't really recovered from it to-day.

To-day! Blessed to-day! Lord Strathay's only an Earl; to-day there came to me--Ned! Oh, this has been the gladdest, most provoking day of my life, for I had only a moment with him.

It was Mrs. Baker's "afternoon," and we had a good many callers; the fame of my beauty has spread. They gazed furtively at me as they talked and sipped their tea, and it was all very stupid until--oh, I didn't know how perturbed, how unhappy I'd been, until--I glanced up for a word with the General, who came late, and behind her I saw--Him. He came to me as if there were no one else in the room.

Ah, I have been unhappy! I have known that he would try to keep away from me. Useless! Useless to fight with love! It's too strong for us. At sight of him joy like a fire flashed through my veins.

But there were my cousins; there was Meg--she looked at him impatiently, I fancied, as she has sometimes looked at John. Poor John, it didn't need her surveillance to break his feeble hold upon my heart. And there they stayed. They wouldn't go. They stayed, and talked, while I shivered and grew hot with fear and gladness and the excitement of his presence; they talked--of all senseless topics--about the ball.

"Why, Mr. Hynes, we've missed you," said Ethel carelessly, at sight of him. "Oh, Meg, tell us about last night, won't you? Helen's said nothing; almost nothing at all."

"Oh, what is there to tell?"

It made me impatient. How could I chatter nothings when Ned was by my side, smiling down at me so confusedly?

"Most girls would find enough! You should have heard the dowagers cluck, Ethel!" exclaimed the General, her face losing its vexed look at the thought. "It was bad weather for their broods. You never saw such a scurrying, pin feathers sticking every which way. The proudest hour of Hughy Bellmer's life was when the march started, and he walked beside Helen--same parade as always--through that wide hall between the Astor gallery and the big ball room; committeemen and patronesses at the head and the line tailing. You may believe the plumes drooped and the war paint trickled. Nelly was the only girl looked at. Milly, you should have been there? Headache? You look pale beside Helen."

"Oh, I don't hope to rival Nelly's colour; she looks like--like somebody's '_Femme Peinte par Elle-même_.'" said Milly with a laugh that might have been innocent. Since Ned's entrance she had grown white and my cheeks had burned, until there was reason for her jest.

"Is Mr. Bellmer handsome--handsome enough to be Nelly's partner?" persisted Ethel, impatient for her gossip--to her it's all there is of gayety. "And is Lord Strathay--nice?"

"Mr. Bellmer's an overgrown cherub with a monocle," I laughed. Ned shall not think me one of those odious, fortune-hunting girls.

"Hughy's pretty good-looking, Ethie," said Meg, amiably; "and the best fellow in the world; but probably not of a calibre to interest a college girl. And Lord Strathay"--the name rolled slowly from her tongue, as if she were loth to let it go--"is a charming fellow. Just succeeded to the title. He's travelling with his cousin, the Hon. Stephen Allardyce Poultney. Nelly danced with him. And did she tell you that Mrs. Sloane Schuyler begged to have her presented? Sister to a Duchess, you know. We'll have Helen in London next. Nobody there to compare with her. Just what Strathay said, I do assure you."

London! Men of title, and great ladies and the glitter of a court! Once I may have dreamed of power and place and the rustle of trailing robes, and being admired of all men and hated of all women, but now in my annoyance I longed to cry out: "Why can't you talk sense? Why babble of such silly things?"

To make matters worse, Uncle came just in time to hear the General's last remark.

"I do not think our Princess would leave us," he said, "even if--

'at her feet were laid The sceptres of the earth exposed on heaps To choose where she would reign.'"

It was scarcely to be borne. I knew he was thinking of John, and I caught myself looking down at my hand, praying that Ned might see that I no longer wore the opal ring.

Then came Aunt Frank with a headache, looking ill enough, indeed; and I was glad to jump up and serve her some tea.

"Milly has a headache, too," I said; and she looked from Milly's vexed, cold face to mine, almost peevishly replying:--

"Nothing ever seems to ail you, child."

After all the weary waiting, Ned and I exchanged only a word. But the word was a delight and a comfort.

More than once the Judge has suggested for me a short absence from the city to win a respite from the newspapers; and this morning, when he saw that the _Echo_ had smuggled an East Side girl into the ballroom last night to tell the Bowery, in Boweryese, how the other half lives, her descriptions of me so incensed him that he almost insisted upon Aunt's packing for Bermuda at once. Ned must have heard of that.

"You will not go away?" he said when he took leave of me.

"You know that Uncle--"

"You will not?"

"No."

I couldn't speak steadily. The low, passionate entreaty told me that he had come to receive that pledge, and I gave it.

Oh, now, now, I cannot be unhappy! I know that he has tried to stay away from me, and why he has not succeeded. Love has been too mighty for us both. Love has conquered us, and I--I shall never again be unhappy!