The Sword of Damocles Part 20

"A little talk with a little girl will not hinder you too much, will it?" she queried, glancing at the group of gentlemen that had shrunk back at her approach.

"Do you call that hindrance which relieves one from listening to quotations of bank stock at an evening reception?"

She shook her head with a confused movement, and led him up before a stand of flowering exotics.

"I want to tell you something," she said eagerly but with a marked timidity also, the tall form beside her looked so imposing for all its encouraging bend. "I beg your pardon if I am doing wrong, but papa regards you with such esteem and--Mr. Sylvester do you know a man by the name of Stadler?"

Astonished at such a question from lips so young and dainty, he turned and surveyed her for a moment with quick surprise. Something in her aspect struck him. He answered at once and without circ.u.mlocution. "Yes, if you refer to that spry keen-faced man, just entering the supper-room."

"Do you know his companion?" she proceeded; "the portly, highly pompous-looking gentleman with the gold eye-gla.s.ses? Look quickly."

"No." There was an uneasiness in his tone however that struck her painfully.

"He is a stranger in town; has not the honor of your acquaintance he says, but from the questions he asked, I judge he has a great interest in your affairs. He spoke of being connected with mines in Colorado. I was sitting behind a curtain and overheard what was said."

Mr. Sylvester turned pale and regarded her attentively. "Might I be so bold," he inquired after a moment, "as to ask you what that was?"

"Yes, sir, certainly, but it is even harder for me to repeat than it was for me to hear. He inquired about your domestic concerns, your home and your income," she murmured blus.h.i.+ng; "and then said, in what I thought was a somewhat exulting tone, that in two months or so we should see you go South for your health or--Is not that enough for me to tell you, Mr.

Sylvester?"

He gave her a short stare, opened his lips as if to speak, then turned abruptly aside and began picking mechanically at the blossoms before him.

"I, of course, do not know what men mean when they talk of possessing points. But the leer and side glance which accompanies such talk, have a universal language we all understand, and I felt that I must warn you of that man's malice if only because papa regards you so highly."

He shrank as if touched on a sore place, but bowed and answered the wistful appeal of her glance with a shadow of his usual smile, then he turned, and looking towards the door through which the two men had disappeared, made a movement as if he would follow. But remembering himself, escorted her to a seat, saying as he did so:

"You are very kind, Miss Stuyvesant; please say nothing of this to Paula."

She bowed and a flitting smile crossed her upturned countenance. "I am not much of a gossip, Mr. Sylvester, or I should have been tempted to have carried my information to my father instead of to you."

He understood the implied promise in this remark and gave the hand on his arm a quick pressure, before relinquis.h.i.+ng her to the care of the pale-complexioned youth who by this time had returned to her side.

In another moment Paula came up on the arm of a black-whiskered gentleman all s.h.i.+rt front and eye-gla.s.ses. "O Cicely," she cried, (she called Miss Stuyvesant, Cicely now) "is it not a delightful evening?"

"Are you enjoying yourself so much?" inquired that somewhat agitated little lady, with a glance at the countenance of her friend's attendant.

"I fear it would scarcely seem consistent in me now to say no," returned the radiant girl, with a laughing glance towards the same gentleman.

But when they were alone, the gentleman having departed on some of the innumerable errands with which ladies seem to delight in afflicting their attendant cavaliers at b.a.l.l.s or receptions, she atoned for that glance by remarking,

"I do not find the average partner that falls to one's lot in such receptions all that fancy paints." And then finding she had repeated a phrase of Mr. Ensign's, blushed, though no one stood near her but Cicely.

"Fancy's brush would need to be dipped in but two colors to present to our eye the ma.s.s of them," was Cicely's laughing reply. "A streak of black for the coat, and a daub of white for the s.h.i.+rt front. _Voila tout._"

"With perhaps a dash of red in some cases," murmured a voice over their shoulders.

They turned with hurried blushes. "Ah, Mr. Ensign," quoth Cicely in unabashed gaiety, "we reserve red for the exceptions. We did not intend to include our acknowledged friends in our somewhat sweeping a.s.sertion."

"Ah, I see, the black streak and the white daub are a symbol of, 'Er--Miss Stuyvesant--very warm this evening! Have an ice, do. _I_ always have an ice after dancing; so refres.h.i.+ng, you know.'"

The manner in which he imitated the usual languid drawl of certain of the young scapegraces heretofore mentioned, was irresistible. Paula forgot her confusion in her mirth.

"You are blessed with a capacity for playing both roles, I perceive,"

cried Cicely with unusual abandon. "Well, it is convenient, there is nothing like scope."

"Unless it is hope," whispered Mr. Ensign so low that only Paula could hear.

"But I warn you," continued Cicely, with a sweet soft laugh that seemed to carry her heart far out into the pa.s.sing throng, "that we have no fondness for the model beau of the period. A dish of milk makes a very good supper but it looks decidedly pale on the dinner table."

"Yes," said Paula, eying the various young men that filed up and down before them, some pale, some dark, some handsome, some plain, but all smiling and dapper, if not debonair, "some men could be endured if only they were not _men_."

Mr. Ensign gave her a quick look, and while he laughed at the paradox, straightened himself like one who could be a man if the occasion called.

She saw the action and blushed.

But their conversation was soon interrupted. Mr. Sylvester was seen returning from the supper-room, looking decidedly anxious, and while Paula was ignorant of what had transpired to annoy him, her ready spirit caught the alarm, and she was about to rush up to him and address him, when one of the waiters approached, and murmuring a few words she did not hear, handed him a card upon which she descried nothing but a simple circle. Instantly a change crossed his already agitated countenance, and advancing to the ladies with a word or two that while seemingly cheerful, struck Paula as somewhat forced, excused himself with the information that a business friend had been so inconsiderate as to importune him for an interview in the hall. And with just a nod towards Mr. Ensign, who had drawn back at his advance, left them and disappeared in the crowd about the door.

"I do not like these interruptions from business friends in a time of pleasure," cried Paula, looking after him with anxious eyes. "Did you notice how agitated he seemed, Cicely? And half an hour ago he was the picture of calm enjoyment."

"Business is beyond our comprehension, Paula," returned her friend evasively. "It is something like a neuralgic twinge, it takes a man when he least expects it. Have you told Mr. Ensign of our adventure?"

"No, but I informed Mr. Sylvester, and he said such good, true words to me, Cicely. I can never forget them."

"And I told papa; but he only frowned and made some observation about the degeneracy of the times, and the number of scamps thrown to the top by the modern methods of acquiring instantaneous fortunes."

"Your papa is sometimes hard, is he not, Cicely?"

With a flush Miss Stuyvesant allowed her eye to rest for a moment on the crowd s.h.i.+fting before her. "He was dug from a quarry of granite, Paula.

He is both hard and substantial; capable of being hewn but not of being moulded. Of such stuff are formed monuments of enduring beauty and solidity. You must do papa justice."

"I do, but I sometimes have a feeling as if the granite column would fall and crush me, Cicely."

"You, Paula?"

Before she could again reply, Mr. Sylvester returned. His face was still pale, but it had acquired an expression of rigidity even more alarming to Paula than its previous aspect of forced merriment. Lifting her by the hand, he drew her apart.

"I shall have to leave you somewhat abruptly," said he. "An important matter demands my instant attention. Bertram is somewhere here, and will see that you and Ona arrive home in safety. You won't allow your enjoyment to be clouded by my hasty departure, will you?"

"Not if it will make you anxious. But I would rather go home with you now. I am sure Cousin Ona would be willing."

"But I am not going home at present," said he; and she ventured upon no further remonstrance.

But her enjoyment was clouded; the sight of suffering or anxiety on that face was more than she could bear; and ere long she said good-night to Cicely, and accepting the arm of Mr. Ensign, who was never very far from her side, proceeded to search for her cousin.

She found her standing in the midst of an admiring throng to whom her diamonds, if not her smiles, were an object of undoubted interest. She was in the full tide of one of her longest and most widely rambling speeches, and to Paula, with that stir of anxiety at her breast, was an image of self-satisfied complacency from which she was fain to drop her eyes.

"Mrs. Sylvester shares the honors with her husband," remarked Mr. Ensign as they drew near.

"But not the trials, or the pain, or the care?" was Paula's inward comment.