"Do you feel faint again?" he asked, anxiously, thinking to himself that she was really far from well. "Can I get you anything?"
"No, thank you," said Elizabeth. "I felt faint for a moment, but it is over." It took all the strength that she possessed to speak these words so clearly and distinctly. In making the effort she was not conscious of any plan of deception. She was merely bearing up, instinctively, to the end.
She never doubted that it _was_ the end. It had fallen at last--that sword of Damocles, which she had learned to dread as the winter wore on, of which she had always been vaguely conscious even in her gayest moments, and had only forgotten, quite forgotten, in that short, delicious hour when she had allowed herself to float off in a dream of happiness never to be realized, from which she was awakened so soon and so rudely. And yet, though it was over, she was not sorry that she had dreamed it. It had been very sweet, worth even, she thought, the bitterness of the awakening.
Meanwhile the musicale progressed. A man with long, floating hair and fingers of steel thundered out a piano solo. Elizabeth shut her eyes and leaned back in her chair. How fortunate that there was so much music to prevent conversation! But at the first pause she opened her eyes and looked up at Gerard.
"I was wrong when I told you that you know the worst of me," she said, faintly. "You"ll know it, soon."
"What a terrible prospect!" said Gerard, bending over her and the jesting words had a soft intonation, which thrilled her like a caress.
"I really don"t think I can stand it--quite."
Had she intended to tell him the truth? The moment was not propitious. The music had stopped, and there was a murmur of conversation all over the room. People began to move about, and in the general shifting of position, Paul Halleck, for the first time, caught sight of Elizabeth.
She had had some vague, childish idea of what would happen when he saw her. She had pictured him in her unreasoning terror, as stepping forward before them all and claiming her as his wife, like a scene in a play. Nothing of the kind took place. She saw at once how absurd her expectations had been. Paul merely started and looked at her, recognition and it seemed, pleasure sparkling in his eyes; but with a sudden, uncontrollable impulse, she turned her own eyes away, as if she did not know him.
"Do you see that man in the door-way?" said Gerard, who, standing as he was behind her could not note the changes in her face,--"that handsome fellow with the light curls? He has a very fine voice, and has just been engaged as soloist at St. Chrysostom"s."
"Indeed. Is he to sing this afternoon?" She brought out the question with difficulty.
"I hope so," said Gerard. "I"d like you to hear him. But perhaps you know him," he went on. "He is looking at you as if he expected you to bow."
"No," said Elizabeth. "I don"t know him." She told him this, her second lie that afternoon, without deliberate intention, in sheer lack of presence of mind. It was a piteous, involuntary staving-off of the inevitable. The next moment that fascination which leads us to our own undoing made her look in Paul"s direction, and this time she could not avoid his eager gaze and bent her head mechanically.
"After all, I believe I must have met him somewhere," she said hastily. Mrs. Bobby, who for the last quarter of an hour, had been determinedly ignoring them both, apparently giving her whole attention to the music and the people, now turned towards them.
"Who is that handsome man who bowed to you, Elizabeth?" she asked. "I never saw him before."
"His name is Halleck. I--I knew him in the country," said Elizabeth, who had no natural talent for deception and entangled herself at once in contradictory statements. Gerard"s face darkened, and he glanced across at Halleck, whose eyes were fixed on Elizabeth with a look that seemed, to the jealous, fastidious man by her side, an intolerable presumption; a look that was not only one of admiration, but, or Gerard imagined so, held in it a curious touch of proprietorship.
"Confound the fellow," chafed Gerard--he who would fain have kept the woman he loved, as he certainly would have kept her picture, shut out from all profane eyes, even admiring ones. "He looks at her as if he had discovered her and she belonged to him. Where can she have met him, and why did she say she hadn"t."
Mrs. Bobby, too, looked across at Paul.
"He is certainly very good-looking," she said. "And do you mean to tell me, my dear, that such an Adonis flourished in our Neighborhood, and I never saw him. Pray, where did you keep him hidden?"
Before Elizabeth could reply, and to her great relief, D"Hauteville came up with the long-haired musician, whom he introduced to them, and who proved to be, at last, one of the celebrities upon whom Mrs. Bobby had counted. In the diversion that ensued Halleck seemed forgotten.
But a few minutes later, he sat at the piano and sang songs by Schubert and Franz, which she had heard him sing before, at the time when she had thought his voice the most beautiful voice in the world.
Now, as she listened it left her cold. She had changed so much, and he--no, he had not changed. His voice was not so wonderful as she had thought it, but still it was a fine barytone voice. His art no longer seemed to her remarkable, but it had, if anything, improved, and he was as handsome as ever, in his fair, effeminate style. It was not the voice nor the art that was lacking. It was the answering thrill in herself. It was not his beauty which had failed him, it was she who no longer cared for it.
His success with the audience was instantaneous. Even Mrs. Bobby was impressed. "Your friend sings well," she whispered to Elizabeth, "and yet his hair is short. You may introduce him to me if you get a chance."
And this chance immediately presented itself, as Paul, amid the applause that followed his song, walked over to Elizabeth and quietly shook hands with her. It was the moment that she had dreaded all the time that he was singing, yet now that it had come, she met it in apparent unconcern, and smiling, though with white lips.
"I thought at first," Paul said, "that you had quite forgotten me."
"Oh, no," she said, "my memory is not so short." Then she turned and introduced him to Mrs. Bobby, and went on herself quietly talking to Mr. D"Hauteville. Nothing could have been more simple. Not even Julian Gerard, who from a distance watched their meeting, could have imagined any secret understanding between them.
The handsome young singer made a very favorable impression upon Mrs.
Bobby, who went so far as to ask him to call, in that impulsive way of hers, which sometimes led to consequences that she regretted. In this case she realized, almost as soon as the words had left her lips, that she had done a rash thing, or what Bobby would consider rash. Still, the invitation was given and eagerly accepted, even though Elizabeth, standing cold and indifferent, said not a word to second it. By this time the music was over. They were about to leave, when some one claimed Mrs. Bobby"s attention, and she turned aside for a moment.
Paul seized the opportunity, for which he had been anxiously waiting, to whisper in Elizabeth"s ear.
"Darling, don"t go. I must see you for a moment."
"You can"t speak to me here," she said, impatiently, trying to escape from him.
"But I must see you. Can"t you see that I must?"
"You have done without it," said Elizabeth, without turning her head, "some time."
"Because I couldn"t help myself."
"There is such a thing as writing," she said, in the same low, bitter tone. Yet even as she spoke her conscience misgave her. It was not his neglect that she resented so bitterly, it was his return. But Paul, not understanding this was rather flattered than otherwise by the reproach.
"Darling, I will explain when I see you," he said, hurriedly. "There"s no time now. Meet me to-morrow morning--at the Fifty-ninth street entrance to the Park, at eleven o"clock."
"To-morrow! Impossible! I have a hundred things to do."
"Ah, but you must," he pleaded. "I must see you. Darling you look so beautiful--fifty times more beautiful than before."
"Hush," said Elizabeth. "How dare you? Some one will hear you."
"Give me a chance of seeing you, then," he said. "It is necessary. You will meet me--will you not?--to-morrow morning?"
"If you insist upon it--yes."
"At the west entrance of the Park--you understand?"
"Oh, yes," said Elizabeth impatiently, and hastened to rejoin Mrs.
Bobby, who was waiting at the door.
Julian Gerard came up gloomily. The whispered conference had not escaped his notice.
"We shall see you to-night at the Lansdownes" ball," said Mrs. Bobby.
"It is the night for it, isn"t it, Elizabeth? I never can keep track of these things."
Gerard looked reproachfully at Elizabeth. "You promised me," he said, "that you would stay at home for a night or two."
She smiled back at him with the old touch of wilfulness. "Did I really make such a rash promise," she said, lightly. "Ah, I"m afraid I can"t keep it--not to-night. I must be amused. A quiet evening would be unendurable." Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes glittered with feverish gaiety, there was an odd, strained note in her voice. Mrs.
Bobby looked at her in some perplexity, then she glanced up deprecatingly at Gerard.
"It is her first season, you see Julian," she said, as if in apology.
"You can"t expect her to give up things."
"No," he repeated, mechanically. "I can"t expect her to--give up things." He fell back silently, in increased gloom. Elizabeth glanced towards him involuntarily as she left the room.
"Now," she said to herself, "I have disappointed him again and he won"t come near me this evening. But it is better so--far, far better," she repeated to herself, with a little sob, as she followed her hostess to the carriage.