I had to be satisfied, therefore, with the conviction that I was doomed to spend the greater part of the evening alone; and what was more consoling still, this being my first appearance at a ball, I was sure to be closely watched by many a fair rival. Already the music for the opening dance was sounding. I was engaged for this one, and had for my vis-a-vis my step-mother and an imposing gentleman in heavy regimentals. My partner was an ordinary man of the period, of medium height, with common-place moustache and neatly trimmed side-whiskers, who made several differently worded remarks of the same meaning upon the same subject.
I was disposed not to enjoy this evening for many reasons, and I was conscious of going through the figures of the dance automatically and tastelessly. I came back after each lady"s chain to my tiresome partner, wishing earnestly that it would soon be over. My step-mother detected my listless manner, and came to me later, when the dance was ended and I had been left by the amiable Mr. Fawcett standing before a picture of Siddons which I was ostensibly admiring with enthusiasm.
There was a becoming smile on the lace of my step-mother, as there always was in fashionable company, but there was no sweetness in the anger which was interpreted by the quick, impatient words that flashed from behind the glittering plumes of her splendid fan into my ear:
"Don"t make an idiot of yourself," she said, hoa.r.s.ely, coming up to me, and standing in a well-studied att.i.tude before the picture I was looking at. "It is unpardonable vulgar and rude of you to take exception to any dances on the programme, as if Mrs. Hartmann would allow any impropriety where her own daughters are concerned." She went on fanning herself briskly, showing nothing of her indignation in her face.
Without raising my eyes I answered quietly: "Do not excite yourself for nothing, you may be sure I shall not disgrace you, but I am determined not to get into the arms of any of these men to-night."
She moved away while I was speaking and I saw no more of her until we were preparing to leave. During the dances that intervened between the quadrille and the lancers, that I had given to Mr. Haliburton, I had amused myself as best I could, talking to some prosy relatives of the family who stood around the walls, and turning over the leaves of an artistic sc.r.a.p-book that lay upon the broad window-sill at one end of the room.
I was grateful when Mr. Haliburton came and took me away into the crowd. I was beginning to feel tired of the situation and to wish I were safely at home.
The second dance, however, was livelier than the first. My partner was a vivacious flirt who made every one feel merry for a while, and I began to enjoy it after we had gone through the first figure. We were slower than the dancers next to us, who had finished and were waiting for us, to change the music. I was advancing to my vis-a-vis, looking around the room at the same time, when my eyes suddenly fell. I saw someone in the distance watching my movements, someone who had evidently just come in. He was not a young man, and yet he was hardly old. I had not time to take further notice of his appearance, for the music ceased and we began the last frolicsome figure of our dance. As I pa.s.sed into the conservatory later on Mr. Haliburton"s arm I stole a glance towards the end of the room where this "somebody" had been standing, but he was gone. I need not have felt concerned and yet I did. More than that, I was disappointed, and it was with an unfeigned weariness and impatience that I threw myself into the low, basket rocking-chair under a canopy covered with ivy to which Mr. Haliburton conducted me.
I was glad to see him go from me, though it was but for a moment; I would have time to reason with myself before he came back with the ices.
When I found myself alone, I no longer checked the heavy sigh that had lain heavy in my breast all night. I leaned my head back against the vine-clad pillar behind me and almost sobbed. I was feeling miserable.
A footfall somewhere made me spring into an erect, sitting posture again. I took an ivy leaf between my fingers and toyed nervously with it I waited for a confirmation of my worst fears, that my step-mother had followed me and heard me sigh, but there was no one. When all was quiet again I ventured to look carefully around. The secret was out, on a rustic bench at the other side of my graceful canopy "somebody"
was sitting alone. His profile met my full view, his pensive half-sad profile. I looked at it for a moment and, springing up, I moved aside my rocking chair and rushed towards him.
"Mr. Dalton!" I cried out impulsively, and then stopped suddenly short--what if it were not he at all?
He turned and caught me in my att.i.tude of suppressed excitement, the bench was between us. He held out both hands over its curved back saying:
"Amey, is it you?"
There was a strange look as of a misty uncertain pleasure in his eyes.
I gave him my small hands, for they were small when he had gathered them into his, and we looked at one another in silence for a few moments.
"Come here and sit down beside me little one," he said in his old affectionate way. "How you have grown!" he exclaimed, moving one end of the rustic seat to let me pa.s.s. I had forgotten all about Mr.
Haliburton or any one else but Mr. Dalton; the glad surprise of seeing him absorbed every other consideration.
"Yes, but not changed, am I?" I put in, eagerly, sitting down beside him and looking earnestly into his gravely glad face.
"Yes, you are very much changed Amey," he said in a serious yet tender voice, "but," he continued slowly, "I should recognize you all the better for the change." His words were meaningless to me, but then they had always been so when we were friends long ago. "You are changed too Mr. Dalton," I retorted reciprocatingly. "At first I did not know you at all, and it was only by rude staring that I managed to remember you. Where have you been all this time, that I have never seen you?" I asked.
"Rambling all over the world," he answered dreamily. "And so you missed me, did you?" he added, changing his tone to one of playful enquiry. "Well, Amey, so have I missed you, at least I have often thought of you in my travels and wondered how you were getting on. I need not tell you," he continued teasingly, "how often I have been haunted by the dreadful threat you made when I saw you last about--"
"Now, don"t say any more," I interrupted, "I remember all that well enough. We are all a little silly sometime in our lives," I alleged in self defence.
"Poor Amey!" he said almost in a whisper, "you do not know how p.r.o.ne human nature is to folly--yet, when you are as old as I, you will have learned something of it."
"You speak as if you were very ancient," I exclaimed, making little of his serious talk.
"Well," he broke in slowly, "I can"t be very young now, when I had Amey Hampden on my knee some fifteen years ago, but do not tell that of me, like a good child," he added in playful eagerness "for, being a bachelor yet, you see, it might harm me."
"Do you mean that it would excite formidable jealousies?" I asked rising, and laughing carelessly, and then, half sorry for having uttered these words I diverted his attention from them by announcing my wish to go inside.
He arose, and accompanied me, with as much active gallantry as if he had been twenty-five years younger. Leaning on his strong, stalwart arm, I pa.s.sed into the crowded and confused ball-room feeling peculiarly revived, and strangely happier than when I had left it a short half-hour before. But I could not get rid of a suspicion that was forcing itself into my mind with regard to Mr. Dalton. There was certainly some restraint over him, and the look in his clear, soft blue eyes was not so steady as it used to be. And yet, what could I expect from him more than he had given me? I did not know, but it seemed that after our long, long separation, he ought not to be so quiet and silent. It is true that our place of meeting was a rather unpropitious one, but this did not satisfy me. He was not quite the Mr. Dalton that I remembered, that, as a child I had loved, and still I felt proudly happy to lean on his powerful arm and exchange occasional glances and remarks with him.
We walked through the ball-room where amus.e.m.e.nt was now at its zenith, and when we had reached the upper end Mr. Dalton paused and looked at the gay scene before us. He had seemingly forgotten me, while his thoughts were busy with their own weaving. We had only been there a moment when my father advanced towards me accompanied by another gentleman.
"Amey," he began before he had quite reached me, "have you forgotten our friend Dr. Campbell."
I was sensibly confused as I withdrew my hand from Mr. Dalton"s arm to give it to Dr. Campbell. I bowed and smiled as at our first introduction in the library at home, and I fear I was guilty even of blushing, too.
Mr. Dalton, seeing my attention diverted, bowed himself gracefully away. My father had vanished before him, and thus was I left completely at the mercy of a trying circ.u.mstance.
Dr. Campbell broke the awkward silence happily, saying:
"It cannot be for want of an introduction, Miss Hampden, that you and I are not friends."
"No indeed," I answered stupidly, not knowing very well what to say.
"Are you dancing this evening," he next asked, in a most composed tone which made me envy him.
"Very little," said I. "I am exclusive on that subject."
"Which means that you will not honour me," he interrupted blandly, looking questioningly into my face.
"Oh, no!" I exclaimed seeing how misinterpreted my words were. "I mean with regard to the dances, not the people. I do not like fast dances."
"Neither do I particularly," he answered, offering me his arm, "except when I sit them out. May I?" he asked in such a graceful deferential way that I know I smiled approvingly as I slipped my hand within his arm and went with him into the little ante-room opposite, where coals glowed in the open fire-place and a soft rose-coloured light fell over all the delicate splendor of the furnishings.
There were two heavy plush arm-chairs already drawn up to the fender, and Dr. Campbell moving one gently towards me, smilingly remarked that "we were evidently expected."
I took one and he sank into the other with a gesture of p.r.o.nounced ease. The light from the fire was full upon his face and form, and feeling secure in the shadow of a fancy screen that had been shoved beside my chair, I set myself earnestly to work to a.n.a.lyse this wonderful man.
He was pa.s.sively handsome, with a large brow and very large, expressive eyes. They were blue, too, but not like Mr. Dalton"s. They were dreamier and more attractive. His face was quite bronzed, and his fine mouth was admirably set off by well-curved brown moustaches. His chin was bare but for one little bit under the lower lip. He was caressing this seeming favorite with one white, slender hand, almost fine enough for a lady"s, while I observed him with keen scrutiny. He was an English Canadian, I learned that before I ever saw him, born and bred under Canadian skies, but this implies little of his bias or disposition.
Canada has not yet shaken off the fetters of her great grandparents sufficiently to bring out in a clear, marked way her own individuality. Her native sons and daughters inherit too faithfully the English, Irish, Scotch or French tenor of the characters of their predecessors to be able to grant to our ambitious country the national peculiarities and idiosyncracies which she covets, in order to a.s.sert herself freely, as the mother of a people who bear her resemblance stamped upon their mental and moral features. When a country has succeeded in fixing a seal upon the brow of every son that is born to her, she has secured the right of being paralleled, at least in one respect, with the greatest nations of the world. In time, Canada will accomplish this, for Canadians should be wonderful people. It baffles her to-day, because it is a question of time, and in her incapacity to influence time, Canada is only equal to Caesar"s Rome, or Victoria"s Great Britain.
There was a look of keen intelligence in Dr Campbell"s countenance that pleased me particularly, something so refreshing to see, after all the vapid expressions of uneducated men. I could easily understand now, how he gained that _prestige_ which made conquests for him wherever he went. Truly, I did not believe him a very widely informed man, but he was a man of fixed principles and a man of ambition.
Moreover he had a wonderful _savoir-faire_ that carried him through all sorts of advent.i.tious circ.u.mstances gracefully. It is a clear counterfeit of genuine ac.u.men, and, with a world that knows no better, gets just as much favor and praise.
During the fifteen minutes that we pa.s.sed together in Mrs. Hartmann"s cosy morning-room, with our feet on her polished bra.s.s fender, we learned much of one another"s hidden selves, that people who had known us both for years had failed to gather.
I went to supper on Dr. Campbell"s arm and gave him a rose from my bouquet. He saw us to our carriage when we were leaving, and promised to call on the following Tuesday.
This is a lengthy and tedious summary of my first and last ball.
For I never went to another. What was the use? I was essentially out of place with my principles about dancing. My step-mother stormed and raged after the Hartmann"s At Home, declaring that I had disgraced myself and her; that such guests as I, were a burden to a hostess and an infliction on the rest of the company. All this, along with my own private conclusions, went far towards helping me to make up my mind, once for all, that I had gone to my last "dance." And to be candid I must admit that it was no effort whatever for me to abstain from these would-be pleasures. They were literally not worth the fuss and trouble and expense of getting to them. But I went to other gatherings which were infinitely more enjoyable. I had many another _tete-a-tete_ with Arthur Campbell before the winter was out. The last attraction before Parliament closed was a "Musical" at the Merivales.