84. CHAPTER LXXXIV.
PROSPECTS OF HAPPINESS.
The Honorable Abel Newt was the lion of the hour. The
days of dinner invitations and evening parties suddenly returned.
He did not fail to use the rising tide. It helped to
float him more securely to the fulfillment of his great work.
Meanwhile he saw Mrs. Jones every day. She no longer tried
to play a game.
The report of his speech was scattered abroad in the papers.
General Belch rubbed his hands and expectorated with an
energy that showed the warmth of his feeling. Far away in
quiet Delafield, when the news arrived, Mr. Savory Gray lost
no time in improving the pregnant text. The great moral
was duly impressed upon the scholars that Mr. Newt was a
great man because he had been one of Mr. Gray's boys. The
Washington world soon knew his story, the one conspicuous
fact being that he was the favorite nephew of the rich merchant,
Lawrence Newt. All the doors flew open. The dinner
invitations, the evening notes, fell upon his table more
profusely than ever.
He sneered at his triumph. Ambition, political success, social
prestige had no fascination for a man who was half imbruted,
and utterly disappointed and worn out. One thing
only Abel really wanted. He wanted money—money, which
could buy the only pleasures of which he was now capable.
“Look here, Delilah—I like that name better than Kitty, it
means something—you know Belch. So do I. Do you suppose
a man would work with him or for him except for more
advantage than he can insure? Or do you think I want to
slave for the public—I work for the public? God! would I
be every man's drudge? No, Mrs. Delilah Jones, emphatically
not. I will be my own master, and yours, and my revered
uncle will foot the bills.”
The woman looked at him inquiringly. She was a willing
captive. She accepted him as master.
“It isn't for you to know how he will pay,” said Abel,
“but to enjoy the fruits.”
The woman, in whose face there were yet the ruins of a
coarse beauty, which pleased Abel now as the most fiery liquor
gratified his palate, looked at him, and said,
“Abel, what are we to do?”
“To be happy,” he answered, with the old hard, black light
in his eyes.
She almost shuddered as she heard the tone and saw the
look, and yet she did not feel as if she could escape the spell
of his power.
“To be happy!” she repeated. “To be happy!”
Her voice fell as she spoke the words. Her life had not
been a long one. She had laughed a great deal, but she had
never been happy. She knew Abel from old days. She saw
him now, sodden, bloated—but he fascinated her still. Was
he the magician to conjure happiness for her?
“What is your plan?” she asked.
“I have two passages taken in a brig for the Mediterranean.
We go to New York a day or two before she sails.
That's all.”
“And then?” asked his companion, with wonder and doubt
in her voice.
“And then a blissful climate and happiness.”
“And then?” she persisted, in a low, doubtful voice.
“Then Hell—if you are anxious for it,” said Abel, in a
sharp, sudden voice.
The poor woman cowered as she sat. Men had often
enough swon at her; but she recoiled from the roughness of
this lover as if it hurt her. Her eyes were not languishing
now, but startled—then slowly they grew dim and soft with
tears.
Abel Newt looked at her, surprised and pleased.
“Kitty, you're a woman still, and I like it. It's so much
the better. I don't want a dragon or a machine. Come, girl,
are you afraid?”
“Of what?”
“Of me—of the future—of any thing?”
The tone of his voice had a lingering music of the same kind
as the lingering beauty in her face. It was a sensual, seductive
sound.
“No, I am not afraid,” she answered, turning to him.
“But, oh! my God! my God! if we were only both young
again!”
She spoke with passionate hopelessness, and the tears dried
in her eyes.
Later in the evening Mrs. Delilah Jones appeared at the
French minister's ball.
“Upon the whole,” said Mr. Ele to his partner, “I have
never seen Mrs. Jones so superb as she is to-night.”
She stood by the mantle, queen-like—so the representatives
from several States remarked—and all the evening fresh comers
offered homage.
“Ma foi!” said the old Brazilian embassador, as he gazed
at her through his eye-glass, and smacked his lips.
“Tiens!” responded the sexagenarian representative from
Chili, half-closing one eye.
