50. CHAPTER L.
WINE AND TRUTH.
The conversation takes a fresh turn. Corlaer Van Boozenberg
is talking of the great heiress, Miss Wayne. He has
drunk wine enough to be bold, and calls out aloud from his
end of the table,
“Mr. Abel Newt!”
That gentleman turns his head toward his guest.
“We are wondering down here how it is that Miss Wayne
went away from New York unengaged.”
“I am not her confidant,” Abel answers; and gallantly adds,
“I am sure, like every other man, I should be glad to be so.”
“But you had the advantage of every body else.”
“How so?” asks Abel, conscious that Grace Plumer is
watching him closely.
“Why, you were at school in Delafield until you were no
chicken.”
Abel bows smilingly.
“You must have known her.”
“Yes, a little.”
“Well, didn't you know what a stunning heiress she was,
and so handsome! How'd you, of all men in the world, let
her slip through your fingers?”
A curious silence follows this effusion. Corlaer Van Boozenberg
is slightly flown with wine. Hal Battlebury, who
sits near him, looks troubled. Herbert Octoyne and Mellish
Whitloe exchange meaning glances. The young ladies—Mrs.
Plumer is the only matron, except Mrs. Dagon, who sits below—smile
pleasantly. Sligo Moultrie eats grapes. Grace
Plumer waits to hear what Abel says, or to observe what he
does. Mrs. Dagon regards the whole affair with an approving
smile, nodding almost imperceptibly a kind of Freemason's
sign to Mrs. Plumer, who thinks that the worthy young Van
Boozenberg has probably taken too much wine.
Abel Newt quietly turns to Grace Plumer, saying,
“Poor Corlaer! There are disadvantages in being the son
of a very rich man; one is so strongly inclined to measure
every thing by money. As if money were all!”
He looks her straight in the eyes as he says it. Perhaps it
is some effort he is making which throws into his look that
cold, hard blackness which is not beautiful. Perhaps it is
some kind of exasperation arising from what he has heard
Moultrie say privately and Van Boozenberg publicly, as it
were, that pushes him further than he means to go. There
is a dangerous look of craft; an air of sarcastic cunning in his
eyes and on his face. He turns the current of talk with his
neighbors, without any other indication of disturbance than
the unpleasant look. Van Boozenberg is silent again. The
gentle, rippling murmur of talk fills the room, and at a moment
when Moultrie is speaking with his neighbor, Abel says,
looking at the engraving of the Madonna,
“Miss Grace, I feel like those cherubs.”
“Why so, Mr. Newt?”
“Because I am perfectly happy.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes, Miss Grace, and for the same reason that I entirely
love and admire.”
Her heart beats violently. Sligo Moultrie turns and sees
her face. He divines every thing in a moment, for he loves
Grace Plumer.
“Yes, Miss Grace,” he says, in a quick, thick tone, as if he
were continuing a narration—“yes, she became Princess of
Este; but the fiery eyes burned her, and the sweet tongue
stung her forever and ever.”
Mrs. Plumer and Mrs. Dagon are rising. There is a rustling
tumult of women's dresses, a shaking out of handkerchiefs,
light gusts of laughter, and fragments of conversation.
The handsome women move about like birds, with a plumy,
elastic motion, waving their fans, smelling their bouquets, and
listening through them to tones that are very low. The Prince
of the house is every where, smiling, sinuous, dark in the eyes
and hair.
It is already late, and there is no disposition to be seated.
Sligo Moultrie stands by Grace Plumer, and she is very glad
and even grateful to him. Abel, passing to and fro, looks at
her occasionally, and can not possibly tell if her confusion is
pain or pleasure. There is a reckless gayety in the tone with
which he speaks to the other ladies. “Surely Mr. Newt was
never so fascinating,” they all think in their secret souls; and
they half envy Grace Plumer, for they know the little supper
is given for her, and they think it needs no sibyl to say why,
or to prophesy the future.
It is nearly midnight, and the moon is rising. Hark!
A band pours upon the silent night the mellow, passionate
wail of “Robin Adair.” The bright company stands listening
and silent. The festive scene, the hour, the flowers, the luxury
of the place, the beauty of the women, impress the imagination,
and touch the music with a softer melancholy. Hal
Battlebury's eyes are clear, but his heart is full of tears as he
listens and thinks of Amy Waring. He knows that all is in
vain. She has told him, with a sweet dignity that made her
only lovelier and more inaccessible, that it can not be. He is
trying to believe it. He is hoping to show her one day that
she is wrong. Listening, he follows in his mind the song the
band is playing.
Sligo Moultrie feels and admires the audacious skill of Abel
in crowning the feast with music. Grace Plumer leans upon
his arm. Abel Newt's glittering eyes are upon them. It is
the very moment he had intended to be standing by her side,
to hold her arm in his, and to make her feel that the music
which pealed in long cadences through the midnight, and
streamed through the draped windows into the room, was the
passionate entreaty of his heart, the irresistible pathos of the
love he bore her.
Somehow Grace Plumer is troubled. She fears the fascination
she enjoys. She dreads the assumption of power over
her which she has observed in Abel. She recoils from the
cold blackness she has seen in his eyes. She sees it at this
moment again, in that glittering glance which slips across the
room and holds her as she stands. Involuntarily she leans
upon Sligo Moultrie, as if clinging to him.
There is more music—a lighter, then a sadder and lingering
strain. It recedes slowly, slowly up the street. The company
stand in the pretty parlor, and not a word is spoken. It
is past midnight; the music is over.
“What a charming party! Mr. Newt, how much we are
obliged to you!” says Mrs. Godefroi Plumer, as Abel hands
her into the carriage.
“The pleasure is all mine, Madame,” replies Mr. Newt, as
he sees with bitterness that Sligo Moultrie stands ready to
offer his hand to assist Miss Plumer. The footman holds the
carriage door open. Miss Plumer can accept the assistance
of but one, and Mr. Abel is resolved to know which one.
“Permit me, Miss Plumer,” says Sligo.
“Allow me, Miss Grace,” says Abel.
The latter address sounds to her a little too free. She feels,
perhaps, that he has no rights of intimacy—at least not yet
—or what does she feel? But she gives her hand to Sligo
Moultrie, and Abel bows.
“Thank you for a delightful evening, Mr. Newt. Good-night!”
The host bows again, bareheaded, in the moonlight.
“By-the-by, Mr. Moultrie,” says the ringing voice of the
[ILLUSTRATION]
Which?
[Description: 538EAF. Page 307. In-line Illustration. Image of a couple leaving a room while another man bows.]
clear-eyed girl, who remembers that Abel is listening, but who
is sure that only Sligo can understand, “I ought to have told
you that the story ended differently. The Princess left the
villa. Good-night! good-night!”
The carriage rattles down the street.
“Good-night, Newt; a very beautiful and pleasant party.”
“Good-night, Moultrie—thank you; and pleasant dreams.”
The young Georgian skips up the street, thinking only of
Grace Plumer's last words. Abel Newt stands at his door for
a moment, remembering them also, and perfectly understanding
them. The next instant he is shawling and cloaking the
other ladies, who follow the Plumers; among them Mrs. Dagon,
who says, softly,
“Good-night, Abel. I like it all very well. A very proper
girl! Such a complexion! and such teeth! Such lovely little
hands, too! It's all very right. Go on, my dear. What a
dreadful piece of work Fanny's made of it! I wonder you
don't like Hope Wayne. Think of it, a million of dollars!
However, it's all one, I suppose—Grace or Hope are equally
pleasant. Good-night, naughty boy! Behave yourself. As
for your father, I'm afraid to go to the house lest he should
bite me. He's dangerous. Good-night, dear!”
Yes, Abel remembers with singular distinctness that it was
a word, only one word, just a year ago to Grace Plumer—a
word intended only to deceive that foolish Fanny—which had
cost him—at least, he thinks so—Hope Wayne.
He bows his last guests out at the door with more sweetness
in his face than in his soul. Returning to the room he
looks round upon the ruins of the feast, and drinks copiously
of the wine that still remains. Not at all inclined to sleep, he
goes into his bedroom and finds a cigar. Returning, he makes
a few turns in the room while he smokes, and stops constantly
to drink another glass. He half mutters to himself, as he addresses
the chair in which Grace Plumer has been sitting,
“Are you or I going to pay for this feast, Madame? Somebody
has got to do it. Young woman, Moultrie was right,
and you are wrong. She did become Princess of Este. I'll
pay now, and you'll pay by-and-by. Yes, my dear Grace,
you'll pay by-and-by.”
He says these last words very slowly, with his teeth set, the
head a little crouched between the shoulders, and a stealthy,
sullen, ugly glare in the eyes.
“I've got to pay now, and you shall pay by-and-by. Yes,
Miss Grace Plumer; you shall pay for to-night and for the
evening in my mother's conservatory.”
He strides about the room a little longer. It is one o'clock,
and he goes down stairs and out of the house. Still smoking,
he passes along Broadway until he reaches Thiel's. He hurries
up, and finds only a few desperate gamblers. Abel himself
looks a little wild and flushed. He sits down defiantly
and plays recklessly. The hours are clanged from the belfry
of the City Hall. The lights burn brightly in Thiel's rooms.
Nobody is sleeping there. One by one the players drop away
—except those who remark Abel's game, for that is so careless
and furious that it is threatening, threatening, whether he
loses or wins.
He loses constantly, but still plays on. The lights are
steady. His eyes are bright. The bank is quite ready to
stay open for such a run of luck in its favor.
The bell of the City Hall clangs three in the morning as a
young man emerges from Thiel's, and hurries, then saunters,
up Broadway. His motions are fitful, his dress is deranged,
and his hair matted. His face, in the full moonlight, is dogged
and dangerous. It is the Prince of the feast, who had told
Grace Plumer that he was perfectly happy.
