The Sword of Damocles Part 16

"But if you don't know his name and don't know his face, how in the name of all that's mischievous are you going to know your man?"

"Leave that to me! If I once meet him and hear him talk, one more rich man goes down and one more poor devil goes up, or I've not the wit that starvation usually teaches."

The nature of these sentences together with the various manifestations of interest with which they were received, had for a moment deterred the two girls in their hurried advance, but now they put away every thought save that of the poor little creature awaiting his Dad, and lifting up her voice, Paula said,

"Are either of you the father of a little lame lad--"

Instantly and before she could conclude, the taller of the two, who had also been the chief speaker in the above conversation, turned, and she saw his hand begrimed though it was with dirt and dark with many a disgraceful trick, go to his heart in a gesture too natural to be anything but involuntary.

"Is he hurt?" gasped he, but in how different a tone from that of the woman who had used the same words a few minutes before. Then seeing that the persons who addressed him were ladies and one of them at least a very beautiful one, took off his hat with an easy action, that together with what they had heard, proved him to be one of that most dangerous cla.s.s among us, a gentleman who has gone thoroughly and irretrievably to the bad.

"I am afraid he is, sir," said Paula. "He was attempting to cross the road, and a horse advancing hurriedly, struck him." She had not courage to say her horse in face of the white and trembling dismay that seized him at these words.

"Where is he?" cried he. "Where's my poor boy?" And he bounded up the steps, his hat still in his hand, his long unkempt locks flying, and his whole form expressive of the utmost alarm.

"Down by the carriage road," called out Paula, finding it impossible for them to keep up with such haste.

"But is he much injured?" cried a smooth voice at their side.

They turned; it was the short thickset man who had been the other's companion in the conversation above recorded.

"We trust not," answered Cicely; "his arm received the blow, and he suffers very much, but we hope it is not serious;" and they hurried on.

They found the father seated on the gra.s.s holding the little fellow in his arms. The look on his once handsome but now thoroughly corrupt and dissipated face, made their hearts melt within them. However wicked he might be--and that sly treacherous eye, that false impudent lip, that settling of the whole face into the mould which Vice applies to all her votaries, left no doubt of his complete depravity--he dearly loved his child, and love, no matter how it is expressed, or in what garb it appears, is a sacred and beautiful thing, and enn.o.bles for the time being any creature who displays it.

"'Twas a hard knock up, Dad," came from the white lips of the child as he felt his father's trembling hand feel up and down his arm, "but I guess the 'little fellar' can stand it." "Little feller" was evidently the name by which his father was accustomed to address him.

"There are no bones broken," said the father. "To be lame and maimed too would be--"

He did not finish, for a delicately gloved hand was here laid on his sleeve, and a gentle voice whispered, "Money cannot pay for an injury like that, but please accept this;" and Paula thrust a purse into his hand.

He clutched it eagerly, but at her next request that he should tell her where he lived that they might inquire after the boy, he shook his head with a return of his old emphasis.

"The haunts of bats and jackals are not for ladies." Then as he caught sight of her pitiful face bending in farewell over the little urchin, some remembrance perhaps of the days when he had a right to stoop to the ear of beautiful women and walk unrebuked at their side, returned to him from the past, and respectfully lowering his voice, he asked her name.

She gave it and he seemed to lay it away in his mind; then as the ladies turned to remount their horses, rose and began carrying the little fellow off. As he vanished in the turn of the path that led towards the main entrance, they perceived a tall dark figure arise from a seat in the distance and stand looking after him, with a leer on its face and a malicious hugging of itself in a long black cloak, that proclaimed her to be the same ominous being who had before so grievously startled them.

XVI.

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES.

"And my imaginations are as foul As Vulcan's smithy."

--HAMLET.

"Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once; And He that might the vantage best have took Found out the remedy."

--MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

Mrs. Sylvester reclining on the palest of blue couches, in the slanting sunlight of an April afternoon, is a study for a painter. Not that such inspiring loveliness breathed from her person, conspicuous as it was for its rich and indolent grace, but because in every att.i.tude of her large and well formed limbs, in every raise of the thick white lids from eyes whose natural brightness was obscured by the mist of aimless fancies, she presented such an embodiment of luxurious ease, one might almost imagine they were gazing upon the favorite Sultana of some eastern court, or, to be for once poetical as the subject demands, a full blown Egyptian lotos floating in hushed enjoyment on the placid waters of its native stream. Indeed for all the blonde character of her beauty, there was certainly something oriental about the physique of this favored child of fortune. Had the tint of her skin been richened to a magnolia bloom instead of reminding you of that description accorded to the complexion of one of Napoleon's sisters, that it looked like white satin seen through pink gla.s.s, she would have pa.s.sed in any Eastern market, for a rare specimen of Circa.s.sian beauty.

But Mr. Sylvester coming home fatigued and hara.s.sed, cared little for Circa.s.sian beauties or Oriental odalisques. It was a welcome that he desired, and such refreshment as a quick eye and ready hand can bestow when guided by a tender and loving heart; or so thought the watchful Paula as she glided from her room at the sound of his step in the hall, and met him coming weary and disheartened from the side of Ona's couch.

The sight of her revived him at once.

"Well, little one, what have you been doing to-day?"

Instantly a shade fell over her countenance. "I hardly know how to tell you. It has been a day of great experiences to me. I am literally shaken with them. I have been wanting to talk to Ona about what I have seen and heard, but thought I had best wait till you came home, for I could not repeat the story twice."

"What! you look pale. Nothing has happened to frighten you I hope,"

exclaimed he, leading her back to Ona's side, who stirred a little, and presently deigned to take an upright position.

"I do not know if it is fear or horror," cried Paula, shuddering; "I have seen a fearful woman--But first I ought to tell you that I took a ride with Miss Stuyvesant in the Park this morning--"

"Yes, and persisted in going for that lady on horseback instead of sending the groom after her, and all starting from the front of our house," murmured Mrs. Sylvester with lazy chagrin.

Paula smiled, but otherwise took no notice of this standing topic of disagreement.

"It was a beautiful day," she proceeded, "and we enjoyed it very much, but we were so unfortunate as to run over a little boy, at that place where the equestrian road crosses the foot path; a lame child, Mr.

Sylvester, who could not get out of our way; poor too, with a ragged jacket on which seemed to make it all the worse."

Ona gave a shrug with her white shoulders, that seemed to question this.

"Did you injure him very much?" queried she, with a show of interest; not sufficient however to impair her curiosity as to the cut of one of her nails.

"I cannot say; his little arm was struck, and when I went to pick him up, he lay back in my lap and moaned till I thought my heart would break. But that was not the worst that happened. As we went hurrying up the walk to find the child's father, we were met by a woman wrapped in a black cloak whose long and greasy folds seemed like the symbol of her own untold depravity. Her glance as she encountered the child writhing in pain at my feet, made my heart stand still. It was more than malignant, it was actually fiendish. 'Is he hurt?' she asked, and it seemed as if she gloated over the question; she evidently longed to hear that he was, longed to be told that he would die; and when I inquired if she was his mother, she broke into a string of laughter, that seemed to darken the daylight. 'His mother! O yes, we look alike, don't we!' she exclaimed, pointing with a mocking gesture frightful to see, first at his eyes which were very blue and beautiful, and then at her own which were dark as evil thoughts could make them. I never saw anything so dreadful. Malignancy! and towards a little lame child! what could be more horrible!"

Mr. Sylvester and his wife exchanged looks, then the former asked, "Did she follow you, Paula?"

"No; after telling me that I--But I cannot repeat what she said,"

exclaimed the young girl with a quick shudder. "Since I came home," she musingly continued, "I have looked and looked at my face in the gla.s.s, but I cannot believe that what she declared is true. There is no similarity between us, could never have been any: I will not have it that she ever saw in all the days of her life such a picture as that in her gla.s.s." And with a sudden gesture Paula started up and pointed to herself as she stood reflected in one of the tall mirrors with which Ona's boudoir abounded.

"And did she dare to make any comparison between you and her own degraded self?" exclaimed Mr. Sylvester, with a glance at the exquisite vision of pure girlhood thus doubly presented to his notice.

"Yes, what I am, she was once, or so she said. And it may be true. I have never suffered sorrow or experienced wrong, and cannot measure their power to carve the human face with such lines as I beheld on that woman's countenance to-day. But do not let us talk of her any more. She left us at last, and we found the child's father. Mr. Sylvester," she suddenly asked, "are there to be found in this city, men occupying honorable positions and as such highly esteemed, who like Damocles of old, may be said to sit under the constant terror of a falling sword in the shape of some possible disclosure, that if made, would ruin their position before the world forever?"

Mr. Sylvester started as if he had been shot. "Paula!" cried he, and instantly was silent again. He did not look at his wife, but if he had, he would have perceived that even her fair skin was capable of blanching to a yet more startling whiteness, and that her sleepy eyes could flash open with something like expression in their lazy depths.

"I mean," dreamily continued Paula, absorbed in her own remembrance, "that if what we overheard said by the father of that child to-day is true, some one of our prominent men, whose life is not all it appears, is standing on the verge of possible exposure and shame; that a hound is on his track in the form of a starving man; and that sooner or later he will have to pay the price of an unprincipled creature's silence, or fall into public discredit like some others of whom we have lately read." Then as silence filled the room, she added, "It makes me tremble to think that a man of means and seeming honor should be placed in such a position, but worse still that we may know such a one and be ignorant of his misery and his shame."

"It is getting time for me to dress," murmured Ona, sinking back on her pillow and speaking in her most languid tone of voice. "Could you not hasten your story a little Paula?"

But Mr. Sylvester with a hurried glance at the closing eyes of his wife, requested on the contrary that she would explain herself more definitely. "Ona will pardon the delay," said he, with a set, strained politeness that called up the least little quiver of suppressed sarcasm about the rosy infantile lips that he evidently did not consider it worth his while to notice.

"But that is all," said Paula. However she repeated as nearly as she could just what the boy's father had said. At the conclusion Mr.

Sylvester rose.