The Sword of Damocles Part 18

"You can, nothing appeals to the heart of crime like the glance of perfect innocence. If evil walks the world, G.o.d's ministers walk it also, and none can tell in what glance of the eye or what touch of the hand, that ministry will speak."

It was her turn now to take his hand in hers. "O how good, how thoughtful you are; you have comforted me and you have taught me. I thank you very much."

With a look she did not perceive, he drew his hand away. "I am glad I have helped you, Paula; there is but one thing more to say, and this I would emphasize with every saddened look you have ever met in all your life. Great sins make great sufferers. Side by side came the two dreadful powers of vice and retribution into the world, and side by side will they keep till they sink at last into the awful deeps of the bottomless pit. When you turn your back on a man who has committed a crime, one more door shuts in his darkened spirit."

The tears were falling from Paula's eyes now. He looked at them with strange wistfulness and involuntarily his hand rose to her head, smoothing her locks with fatherly touches. "Do not think," said he, "that I would lessen by a hair's breadth your hatred of evil. I can more easily bear to see the shadow upon your cup of joy than upon the banner of truth you carry. These eyes must lose none of their inner light in glancing compa.s.sionately on your fellow-men. Only remember that divinity itself has stooped to rescue, and let the thought make your contact with weary, wicked-hearted humanity a little less trying and a little more hopeful to you. And now, my dear, that is enough of serious talk for to-day. We are bound for a reception, you know, and it is time we were dressing. Do you want me to tell you a secret?" asked he in a light mysterious tone, as he saw her eyes still filling.

She glanced up with sudden interest.

"I know it is treason," resumed he, "I am fully aware of the grave nature of my offence; but Paula I hate all public receptions, and shall only be able to enjoy myself to-night just so much as I see that you are doing so. Life has its dark portals and its bright ones. This is one that you must enter with your most brilliant smiles."

"And they shall not be lacking," said she. "When a treasure-box of thought is given us, we do not open it and scatter its contents abroad, but lay it away where the heart keeps its secrets, to be opened in the hush of night when we are alone with our own souls and G.o.d."

He smiled and she moved towards the door. "None the less do we carry with us wherever we go, the remembrance of our hidden treasure," she smilingly added, looking back upon him from the stair.

And again as upon the first night of her entrance into the house, did he stand below and watch her as she softly went up, her lovely face flas.h.i.+ng one moment against the dark background of the luxurious bronze, towering from the platform behind, then glowing with faint and fainter l.u.s.tre, as the distance widened between them and she vanished in the regions above.

She did not see the toss of his arm with which he threw off the burden that rested upon his soul.

XVII.

GRAVE AND GAY.

"No scandal about Queen Elizabeth I hope."

--SHERIDAN.

"Stands Scotland where it did?"

--MACBETH.

"Who is that talking with Miss Stuyvesant?" asked Mr. Sylvester, approaching his wife during one of the lulls that will fall at times upon vast a.s.semblies.

Mrs. Sylvester followed the direction of his glance and immediately responded, "O that is Mr. Ensign, one of the best _partis_ of the season. He evidently knows where to pay his court."

"I inquired because he has just requested me to honor him with a formal introduction to Paula."

"Indeed! then oblige him by all means; it would be a great match for her. To say nothing of his wealth, he is _haut ton_, and his red whiskers will not look badly beside Paula's dark hair."

Mr. Sylvester frowned, then sighed, but in a few minutes Paula observed him approaching with Mr. Ensign. At once her hitherto pale cheek flushed, but the young gentleman did not seem to object to that, and after the formal introduction which he had sought was over, he exclaimed in his own bright ringing tones,

"The fates have surely forgotten their usual role of unpropitiousness. I did not dare hope to meet you here to-night, Miss Fairchild. Was the ride all that your fancy painted?"

"O," said she, speaking very low and glancing around, "do not allude to it here. We had an adventure shortly after you parted from us."

"An adventure! and no cavalier at your side! If I could but have known!

Was it so serious?" he inquired in a moment, seeing her look grave.

"Ask Miss Stuyvesant;" said she. "I cannot talk about it any more to-night. Besides the music carries off one's thoughts. It is like a joyous breeze that whirls away the thistle-down whether it will or no."

He gave her a short quick look grave enough in its way, but responded with his usual graceful humor, "The thistle-down is too vicious a sprite to be beguiled away so easily. If I were to give my opinion on the subject, I should say there was method in its madness. If you have been brought up in the country, as I suspect from your remark, you must know that the white floating ball is not as harmless as it would lead you to imagine. It is a meddlesome n.o.body, that's what it is, and like some country gossips I know, launches forth from a pure love of mischief to establish his p.r.i.c.kers in his neighbor's field."

"_His!_ I thought it must be feminine at least to fulfill the conditions you mention. A male gossip, O fie! I shall never have patience with a thistle-ball after this."

"Well," laughed he, "I did start with the intention of making it feminine, but I caught a glimpse of your eyes and lost my courage. I did what I could," added he with a mirthful glance.

"So do the thistles," cried she. Then while both voices joined in a merry laugh, she continued, "But where have we strayed? For a moment it seemed as if we were on the hills at Grotewell; I could almost see the blue sky."

"And I," said he, with his eyes on her face.

"I am sure the brooks bubbled."

"I distinctly heard a bird singing."

"It was a whippowill."

"But my name is Clarence?"

And here both being young and without a care in the world, they laughed again. And the crowded perfumed room seemed to freshen as with a whiff of mountain air.

"You love the country, Miss Fairchild?"

"Yes;" and her smile was the reflection of the summer-lands that arose before her at the word. "With the right side of my heart do I love the spot where nature speaks and man is dumb."

"And with the left?"

"I love the place where great men congregate to face their destiny and control it."

"The latter is the deeper love," said he.

She nodded her head and then said, "I need both to make me happy.

Sometimes as I walk these city streets, I feel as if my very longing to escape to the heart of the hills, would carry me there. I remember when I was a child, I was one day running through a meadow, when suddenly a whole flock of birds flew up from the gra.s.s and surrounded my head. I was not sure but what I should be caught up and carried away by the force of their flight; and when they rose to mid heaven, something in my breast seemed to follow them. So it is often with me here, only that it is the rush of my thoughts that threatens such a Hegira. Yet if I were to be transported to my native hills, I know I should long to be back again."

"The mountain la.s.sie has wandered into the courts of the king. The perfume of palaces is not easily forgotten."

Her eye turned towards Mr. Sylvester standing near them upright and firm, talking to a group of attentive gentlemen every one of whom boasted a name of more than local celebrity. "Without a royal heart to govern, there would be no palace;" said she, and blushed under a sudden sense of the possible interpretation he might give to her words, till the rose in her hand looked pallid.

But he had followed her glance and understood her better than she thought. "And Mr. Sylvester has such a heart, so a hundred good fellows have told me. You are fortunate to see the city from the loop-hole of such a home as his."

"It is more than a loop-hole," said she.

"Of that I shall never be satisfied till I see it?"