University of Virginia Library

22. CHAPTER XXII.
A LAUGH AND A LOOK.

In the lobby of the Opera-House was the usual
throng, — fat dowagers, quite warm enough with
their fat, and wretchedly red-hot under a grand
exhibition of furs; pretty girls, in the prettiest of
opera-cloaks, white and pink and blue, and with
downy hoods; anxious papas, indifferent brothers,
bored husbands, eager lovers, ineligible young
men taking out mamma, while her daughter
hung on the arm of the eligible.

Such was the scene within the Quatorze Street
lobby. Without, in a raw, drizzly March night,
was a huddle of coaches, and on every box a
coachman, swearing his worst.

It was some time before, in the confusion, I
could find the Denman carriage. At last I discovered
it, and went up-stairs for Emma.

As I ran up the stairs, and was just at the top
steps, whence I should turn into the corridor
where the lady was waiting, I heard the ominous
sound of Densdeth's laugh.

It came from where she stood. I paused.

Instantly, in answer, and in thorough sympathy
with that hateful tone, I heard another laugh.
It seemed even baser, more cynical and false, than
Densdeth's; for threaded in it, and tarnished by
the contact, were silver notes I had often heard
in genuine merriment.

“Emma Denman!” I thought, with a shiver.
“How dares she let herself respond to his debasing
jests? How can she echo him, — and echo
that jarring music familiarly, as if she had long
been a pupil of the master?”

The pang of this question drove me forward.
I turned into the corridor.

Only those two were standing there, — Densdeth
and she. His back was turned toward me.
The glare of a gas-light overhead fell full upon
her.

The languor caused by that enfeebling music
was visible in her posture and expression. Her
manner, too, to a sensitive observer like myself,
betrayed a certain drowsy recklessness.

And then, as I entered the corridor by a
side-door, before she was conscious of my presence,
she gave Densdeth a look which curdled
my blood.

I may live long. I am not without a share
of happiness. I am at peace. God has given
me much that is good and beautiful. The atmosphere
of my existence is healthy. But there is

one memory in my heart which I have never
ventured to recall until this moment, — which I
bear down upon and crowd back whenever it
stirs and struggles to burst up into daylight.
There is one memory which has power to burn
away my earthly bliss with a single touch, and
to throw such a ghastly coloring over all the
world, that my neighbor seems a traitor and
my Creator my foe. That memory is the look
I saw Emma Denman give to Densdeth.

It was my revelation of evil in the woman I
had honestly and earnestly resolved to love and
trust. It showed to me first, by the fiery pang
of a personal experience, the curse of sin.

Sin, — I fancied that I knew it well enough.

Sin, — I had been wont to class myself lightly
among its foes; to feel a transitory gloom when
I heard of its harm; to wonder and protest,
nonchalantly, at its existence; to believe that
its power was broken, with the other ancient
tyrannies, and that it would presently accept a
banishment and leave the world to a better day.

Ah no! I had never dreamed a dream of
what is sin. But now the revelation came to me.

I am a stalwart man. This blow aged and
enfeebled me as might a sorrowful lifetime. The
weight of the thousands of ill-doing years, all the
accumulated evil of the old bad centuries, rose
suddenly, like a mountain, and fell upon me.

I cannot describe this look of hers. I do not
wish to. It is enough to say that it told me
of a dishonorable secret between the two. It
told me that at this moment, however it might
be in a mood of stronger self-possession, she
felt no compunction, no remorse, no agony, that
such a secret existed, — nothing but an indolent
acquiescence in the treason.

And this was the interpretation of so much
mystery. This justified my instinctive suspicions.
This punished my generosity and my resolve to
quell the warnings of nature. This explained
the inexplicable. In that one instant I learned
my capacity for an immortal misery.

They heard my step. Densdeth turned, and
bowed to me politely enough, smiling also, as
if to himself, behind his black moustache.

It was not the first time that his scornful
smile had seemed to me to take a cast of triumph
as he regarded me. But such fleeting
expression had always disappeared, stealing back
like an assassin who has peered out too soon,
and may awake his drowsy victim. I too had
always had my own covert smile. For I was
quite satisfied that Densdeth was never to win
any very substantial victory over me. I could
seek his society in perfect safety, so I fancied,
against its debasing influence. He never should
wield me as he did Raleigh, nor master me as

he did that swinish multitude at the club, or
those wolves in Wall Street.

But now his vanishing smile of triumph chilled
me. This harm was a more deadly harm than
aught I had dreamed of as in any man's power.
If I was so wronged in my faith, what would
hinder me henceforth from losing all faiths, and
so becoming the hateful foe of my race, and
being forced into detested alliance with this unholy
spirit — this corruption — Densdeth!

I wrapped the lady's cloak about her. In
this duty I by chance touched her arm. My
hands had become icy cold, — so this touch revealed
to me, — and I shivered. She felt the
shock, and shivered also. Then she took my
arm, and moved forward hastily, as if the spot
had become hateful to her.

Densdeth bowed, and left us.

We walked down stairs. She clung to my
arm wearily.

I pitied her with such deep and sorrowful
pity for the seeming discovery of this evening,
that I felt that I must speak kindly; I spoke,
and my voice sounded to me like the voice of
one unknown, so desolate it was.

“Emma, you are tired. Poor child!”

“Emma!” — there was no withdrawing into
forms again. Ah, nevermore! Nothing done
could be undone.

“You are very kind,” she said, with an altered
manner, — sadness instead of languor. “No one
has ever been so tender with me. O Robert!
why did you not come years ago?”

While my answer to this pleading question
lingered, we entered the lobby.

A young lady, standing there alone and forlorn,
pounced upon Emma Denman.

“Dear Emma!” cried Miss Matilda Mildood,
“I 'm so glad you are here. Do take me home.
Our coachman is wild with drink, and my brother
Pursy is in danger of his life.”

“I shall be most happy,” said Emma.

I put the ladies into the Denman carriage,
rescued Pursy from his scuffle, and we drove off
together.

Pursy Mildood was a compliment-box, Matilda
a rattle-box. Pursy played his little selection of
compliments to Miss Denman. Matilda rattled
to me. They filled time and space, as it was
their business to do. Triflers have their office in
this world of racking passions and exhausting
purposes.

I needed this moment's pause. I could not
have endured the tête-à-tête with Emma in the
carriage. The interval, while Matilda sprinkled
me with a drizzle of opera talk and fashionable
gossip, gave me time to bethink myself.

What must I do and say?

To-night, nothing.

To-night, if I spoke in my agony, I must accuse.
Let me wait for a calmer moment. Let
me reflect, and assure myself that my thought
was not doing a pure heart a cruel and irreparable
wrong.

The Mildoods' house was opposite the Denmans'.
Compliments and prattle came to an
end, unconscious of the emotions they had for a
time diverted. We dropped brother and sister at
their door, and drove across.

I handed Emma out, unlocked the door with
her key, and stepped within to say good night.