University of Virginia Library

7. VII.
AN INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION.

AT the celebrated Oldport ball for the
French officers, the merit of each
maiden was estimated by the number of foreigners
with whom she could talk at once, for
there were more gentlemen than ladies, and
not more than half the ladies spoke French.
Here Emilia was in her glory; the ice being
once broken, officers were to her but like so
many school-girls, and she rattled away to the
admiral and the fleet captain and two or three
lieutenants at once, while others hovered behind
the circle of her immediate adorers, to
pick up the stray shafts of what passed for wit.
Other girls again drove two-in-hand, at the
most, in the way of conversation; while those
least gifted could only encounter one small
Frenchman in some safe corner, and converse
chiefly by smiles and signs.

On the whole, the evening opened gayly.
Newly arrived Frenchmen are apt to be so
unused to the familiar society of unmarried

girls, that the most innocent share in it has for
them the zest of forbidden fruit, and the most
blameless intercourse seems almost a bonne
fortune. Most of these officers were from the
lower ranks of French society, but they all
had that good-breeding which their race wears
with such ease, and can unhappily put off with
the same.

The admiral and the fleet captain were soon
turned over to Hope, who spoke French as
she did English, with quiet grace. She found
them agreeable companions, while Emilia
drifted among the elder midshipmen, who
were dazzling in gold lace if not in intellect.
Kate fell to the share of a vehement
little surgeon, who danced her out of breath.
Harry officiated as interpreter between the
governor of the State and a lively young
ensign, who yearned for the society of dignitaries.
The governor was quite aware that
he himself could not speak French; the
Frenchman was quite unaware that he himself
could not speak English; but with Harry's
aid they plunged boldly into conversation.
Their talk happened to fall on steam-engines,
English, French, American; their comparative
cost, comparative power, comparative cost

per horse power, — until Harry, who was not
very strong upon the steam-engine in his
own tongue, and was quite helpless on that
point in any other, got a good deal astray
among the numerals, and implanted some
rather wild statistics in the mind of each.
The young Frenchman was far more definite,
when requested by the governor to state in
English the precise number of men engaged
on board the corvette. With the accuracy of
his nation, he beamingly replied, “Seeshundredtousand.”

As is apt to be the case in Oldport, other
European nationalities beside the French were
represented, though the most marked foreign
accent was of course to be found among
Americans just returned. There were European
diplomatists who spoke English perfectly;
there were travellers who spoke no
English at all; and as usual each guest sought
to practise himself in the tongue he knew
least. There was the usual eagerness among
the fashionable vulgar to make acquaintance
with anything that combined broken
English and a title; and two minutes after
a Russian prince had seated himself comfortably
on a sofa beside Kate, he was vehemently

tapped on the shoulder by Mrs.
Courtenay Brash with the endearing summons:
“Why! Prince, I did n't see as you was
here. Do you set comfortable where you be?
Come over to this window, and tell all you
know!”

The prince might have felt that his summons
was abrupt, but knew not that it was
ungrammatical, and so was led away in triumph.
He had been but a month or two in
this country, and so spoke our language no
more correctly than Mrs. Brash, but only with
more grace. There was no great harm in
Mrs. Brash; like most loquacious people, she
was kind-hearted, with a tendency to corpulence
and good works. She was also afflicted
with a high color, and a chronic eruption of
diamonds. Her husband had an eye for them,
having begun life as a jeweller's apprentice,
and having developed sufficient sharpness of
vision in other directions to become a millionnaire,
and a Congressman, and to let his wife
do as she pleased.

What goes forth from the lips may vary in
dialect, but wine and oysters speak the universal
language. The supper-table brought
our party together, and they compared notes.

“Parties are very confusing,” philosophized
Hope, — “especially when waiters and partners
dress so much alike. Just now I saw an
ill-looking man elbowing his way up to Mrs.
Meredith, and I thought he was bringing her
something on a plate. Instead of that, it was
his hand he held out, and she put hers into it;
and I was told that he was one of the leaders
of society. There are very few gentlemen
here whom I could positively tell from the
waiters by their faces, and yet Harry says the
fast set are not here.”

“Talk of the angels!” said Philip. “There
come the Inglesides.”

Through the door of the supper-room they
saw entering the drawing-room one of those
pretty, fair-haired women who grow older up
to twenty-five and then remain unchanged till
sixty. She was dressed in the loveliest pale
blue silk, very low in the neck, and she seemed
to smile on all with her white teeth and her
white shoulders. This was Mrs. Ingleside.
With her came her daughter Blanche, a pretty
blonde, whose bearing seemed at first as innocent
and pastoral as her name. Her dress
was of spotless white, what there was of it; and
her skin was so snowy, you could hardly

tell where the dress ended. Her complexion
was exquisite, her eyes of the softest blue;
at twenty-three she did not look more than
seventeen; and yet there was such a contrast
between these virginal traits, and the worn,
faithless, hopeless expression, that she looked,
as Philip said, like a depraved lamb. Does it
show the higher nature of woman, that, while
“fast young men” are content to look like
well-dressed stable-boys and billiard-markers,
one may observe that girls of the corresponding
type are apt to addict themselves to white
and rosebuds, and pose themselves for falling
angels?

Mrs. Ingleside was a stray widow (from New
Orleans via Paris), into whose antecedents it
was best not to inquire too closely. After
many ups and downs, she was at present up.
It was difficult to state with certainty what bad
deed she had ever done, or what good deed.
She simply lived by her wits, and perhaps by
some want of that article in her male friends.
Her house was a sort of gentlemanly clubhouse,
where the presence of two women
offered a shade less restraint than if there had
been men alone. She was amiable and unscrupulous,
went regularly to church, and needed

only money to be the most respectable and
fastidious of women. It was always rather a
mystery who paid for her charming little dinners;
indeed, several things in her demeanor
were questionable, but as the questions were
never answered, no harm was done, and everybody
invited her because everybody else did.
Had she committed some graceful forgery to-morrow,
or some mild murder the next day,
nobody would have been surprised, and all her
intimate friends would have said it was what
they had always expected.

Meantime the entertainment went on.

“I shall not have scalloped oysters in heaven,”
lamented Kate, as she finished with
healthy appetite her first instalment.

“Are you sure you shall not?” said the
sympathetic Hope, who would have eagerly
followed Kate into Paradise with a supply of
whatever she liked best.

“I suppose you will, darling,” responded
Kate, “but what will you care? It seems hard
that those who are bad enough to long for
them should not be good enough to earn
them.”

At this moment Blanche Ingleside and her
train swept into the supper-room; the girls

cleared a passage, their attendant youths collected
chairs. Blanche tilted hers slightly
against a wall, professed utter exhaustion, and
demanded a fresh bottle of champagne in a
voice that showed no signs of weakness. Presently
a sheepish youth drew near the noisy
circle.

“Here comes that Talbot van Alsted,” said
Blanche, bursting at last into a loud whisper.
“What a goose he is, to be sure! Dear baby,
it promised its mother it would n't drink wine
for two months. Let's all drink with him. Talbot,
my boy, just in time! Fill your glass.
Stosst an!”

And Blanche and her attendant spirits in
white muslin thronged around the weak boy,
saw him charged with the three glasses that
were all his head could stand, and sent him
reeling home to his mother. Then they looked
round for fresh worlds to conquer.

“There are the Maxwells!” said Miss Ingleside,
without lowering her voice. “Who is
that party in the high-necked dress? Is she
the schoolmistress? Why do they have such
people here?. Society is getting so common,
there is no bearing it. That Emily who is
with her is too good for that slow set. She's

the school-girl we heard of at Nice, or somewhere;
she wanted to elope with somebody,
and Phil Malbone stopped her, worse luck.
She will be for eloping with us, before long.”

Emilia colored scarlet, and gave a furtive
glance at Hope, half of shame, half of triumph.
Hope looked at Blanche with surprise, made a
movement forward, but was restrained by the
crowd, while the noisy damsel broke out in a
different direction.

“How fiendishly hot it is here, though!
Jones junior, put your elbow through that
window! This champagne is boiling. What a
tiresome time we shall have to-morrow, when
the Frenchmen are gone! Ah, Count, there
you are at last! Ready for the German?
Come for me? Just primed and up to anything,
and so I tell you!”

But as Count Posen, kissing his hand to her,
squeezed his way through the crowd with Hal,
to be presented to Hope, there came over
Blanche's young face such a mingled look of
hatred and weariness and chagrin, that even
her unobserving friends saw it, and asked with
tender commiseration what was up.

The dancing recommenced. There was the
usual array of partners, distributed by mysterious

discrepancies, like soldiers' uniforms, so
that all the tall drew short, and all the short
had tall. There were the timid couples, who
danced with trembling knees and eyes cast
over their shoulders; the feeble couples, who
meandered aimlessly and got tangled in corners;
the rash couples, who tore breathlessly
through the rooms and brought up at last
against the large white waistcoat of the violoncello.
There was the professional lady-killer,
too supreme and indolent to dance, but sitting
amid an admiring bevy of fair women, where
he reared his head of raven curls, and pulled
ceaselessly his black mustache. And there
were certain young girls who, having astonished
the community for a month by the lowness
of their dresses, now brought to bear their
only remaining art, and struck everybody dumb
by appearing clothed. All these came and went
and came again; and had their day or their
night, and danced until the robust Hope went
home exhausted and left her more fragile cousins
to dance on till morning. Indeed, it was
no easy thing for them to tear themselves
away; Kate was always in demand; Philip
knew everybody, and had that latest aroma of
Paris which the soul of fashion covets; Harry
had the tried endurance which befits brothers
and lovers at balls; while Emilia's foreign
court held out till morning, and one handsome
young midshipman, in special, kept revolving
back to her after each long orbit of separation,
like a gold-laced comet.

The young people lingered extravagantly
late at that ball, for the corvette was to sail
next day, and the girls were willing to make the
most of it. As they came to the outer door,
the dawn was inexpressibly beautiful, — deep
rose melting into saffron, beneath a tremulous
morning star. With a sudden impulse, they
agreed to walk home, the fresh air seemed so
delicious. Philip and Emilia went first, outstripping
the others.

Passing the Jewish cemetery, Kate and Harry
paused a moment. The sky was almost
cloudless, the air was full of a thousand scents
and songs, the rose-tints in the sky were deepening,
the star paling, while a few vague clouds
went wandering upward, and dreamed themselves
away.

“There is a grave in that cemetery,” said
Kate, gently, “where lovers should always be
sitting. It lies behind that tall monument; I
cannot see it for the blossoming boughs. There

were two young cousins who loved each other
from childhood, but were separated, because
Jews do not allow such unions. Neither of
them was ever married; and they lived to be
very old, the one in New Orleans, the other at
the North. In their last illnesses each dreamed
of walking in the fields with the other, as in
their early days; and the telegraphic despatches
that told their deaths crossed each other
on the way. That is his monument, and her
grave was made behind it; there was no room
for a stone.”

Kate moved a step or two, that she might
see the graves. The branches opened clear.
What living lovers had met there, at this
strange hour, above the dust of lovers dead?
She saw with amazement, and walked on quickly
that Harry might not also see.

It was Emilia who sat beside the grave, her
dark hair drooping and dishevelled, her carnation
cheek still brilliant after the night's excitement;
and he who sat at her feet, grasping
her hand in both of his, while his lips poured
out passionate words to which she eagerly listened,
was Philip Malbone.

Here, upon the soil of a new nation, lay a
spot whose associations seemed already as old

as time could make them, — the last footprint
of a tribe now vanished from this island forever,
— the resting-place of a race whose very
funerals would soon be no more. Each April
the robins built their nests around these crumbling
stones, each May they reared their broods,
each June the clover blossomed, each July the
wild strawberries grew cool and red; all around
was youth and life and ecstasy, and yet the
stones bore inscriptions in an unknown language,
and the very graves seemed dead.

And lovelier than all the youth of Nature,
little Emilia sat there in the early light, her
girlish existence gliding into that drama of
passion which is older than the buried nations,
older than time, than death, than all things
save life and God.