So, already, Miss Wood was prime favorite and prime minister at the home-court of the confiding Blanche, who, spite of brave heart and strong will of her own, fluttered not unnaturally in the unwonted buzz and glare of her new life. But most particularly had Rose Wood warned her against the flirts and “unsafe men” of their set; including, of course, Vanderbilt Morris and her present partner of the ball in the ranks of both.
That partner, Andrew Browne, was avowedly the best parti of the entire set. Handsome, fun-loving, and well-cultivated, he was that rara avis among society beaux, a thorough gentlemen by instinct; but he was lazily given to self-indulgence, and had the prime weakness of being utterly incapable of saying “no,” to man or woman. The intimate friend and room-mate of Van Morris for many years, Browne had never lost a sort of reverence for the superior force and decision of the other’s character; and, though but a few years his junior, in all serious social matters he literally sat at his feet.
And Morris had always grown restive when Miss Rose Wood made one of her “dead sets” at Andy’s face and fortune; for a far-away experience of his own, in that quarter, had taught him how small an objection to that maiden would be a fortune with the man whom she blessed with her affection.
“And that brand of the wine of the heart,” he had once cautioned Andy, “does not improve with age.”
Doubtful of that young gentleman’s confident response, that “he was not to be caught with chaff,” Van still kept watch and ward. So, leaving the elegant book-room of the elegant avenue mansion – converted, for the nonce, into an elegant bar-room for Mr. Trotter Upton and his friends – Morris sauntered through knots of pretty women and of pretty vacuous-looking men, resting on seats half-hidden in potted plants, and approached the pair interesting him most.
Neither glowed with delight at his advent, although Andy seemed only to be rattling off common-places, in peculiarly voluble style. Morris asked for the next waltz; Miss Wood glanced shyly up at her companion, dropped her eyes demurely, and believed she would rest until the cotillon. Then, after a few more small necessaries of social life about the beauty of the girls, the heat of the rooms, and the elegance of the flowers, she permitted Andy to drift easily towards the door that opened on the dim-lit coolness of the conservatory.
As they turned away, Rose Wood sent one sharp glance of her gray eyes glinting into Morris’s; then hers fell, and even he could find only bare common-place in her words:
“So many little dangers, you know, Mr. Morris – at a ball. One cannot be too prudent.”
He did not answer; but the look that followed her graceful figure had very little of flattery in it.
“Curse that Chambertin!” he muttered in his moustache. “I warned him against the second pint at dinner. Andy couldn’t be fool enough, though,” he added, with a shrug, and moved slowly towards the dancing-room.
The critical group, still around the big punch-bowl, looked after him curiously.
“He’s not soft on the old girl, is he?” queried Mr. de Silva Street.
“Never!” chuckled Mr. Wetherly Gage. “Morris is too well up in Bible lore to marry his grandmother!”
“And he don’t have to,” put in Mr. Trotter Upton, with a sage wink. “I’d back Van against the field to win the Allmand purse, hands down, if he’d only enter. But he won’t; so you’re safe, Silvey, if you’ve got the go in you. But Lord! Van’s too smart to carry weight for age! Why, you may land me over the tail-board, if the woman that hitches him double won’t have to throw him down and sit on him, Rarey fashion!”
And the speaker, remarking sotto voce, that here was luck to the winner, drained his glass with a smack, set it down, and lounged into the smoking-room. There he lazily lit one of Mr. Allmand’s full-flavored Havanas, and thoughtfully stored his breast pocket with several more.
Meanwhile, the horsey pundit’s offered odds seemed not so wisely laid.
In the great room a crowded waltz was in progress; and Morris saw Blanche Allmand standing on the opposite edge of the whirling circle. Her head and her dainty slipper were keeping time to the softly accented music; while a comical expression – half anger, half mischief – emphasized the nothing she was saying to her companion.
Van caught her eye and, adept that he was in the social signal-service, took in the situation at a glance. He slightly raised his eyebrows and barely moved his lips; she assented with the smallest of nods and a happy flush; and, a moment later, he had edged around the masses of bumping humanity and offered his arm.
“My waltz, I believe,” he said, with the ease of the heir-apparent of Ananias. “I was unlucky enough, in losing the first turn, not to grudge Major Bouncey the rest.”
“You deserve to lose the whole for coming late,” the girl answered, drawing her arm from her partner’s with that pretty reluctance which makes society’s stage-business seem born in woman. “It was just too good of Major Bouncey to take your place and save my being a wall-flower.” And, not pausing for that gallant soldier’s labored disclaimer, the graceful pair glided away to the graceful time of ‘La Gitana’ waltz.
“Horrid bore, that Bouncey,” Blanche panted in the first pause. “Don’t stop near him! He does all his dancing on my insteps; and I dare not stop for fear of his still more dreadful spooning.”
“You would not have me blame him? A better balanced brain might well lose its poise, with such temptation!” And the man looked down on her with very eloquent eyes.
There was a pause. Then Van Morris bent his head, and the eyes still more strongly emphasized the words:
“Blanche, do you know how dangerously lovely you are?”
The girl’s frank eyes dropped beneath the strong light in his; but there was not a shade of consciousness in the soft laugh that prefaced her reply:
“Ah! I’ve a cheval-glass and this is my first ball. So I suppose I know how ‘dangerous’ I am! Then, too, that awful Bouncey called me a lily of the valley!”
“It is the purest flower made by God’s hand,” were Morris’s simple words; but the vibrant tone came from deeper than the lips, now close pressed together.
“But I know I’m not,” Blanche retorted, merrily, “for they drink only dew, and I am quite wild for Regent’s punch!”
They were at the refreshment room, now nearly deserted. Once more the man’s eyes grew darker and deeper, as they met the girl’s frank blue ones.
“And yet, not purer,” he said, unheeding the interruption, “than the heart you, little girl, will soon give to some – ”
He stopped abruptly; but the eyes added more than the words left unsaid.
Again Blanche dropped her eyes quickly; but her color never heightened, nor did the soft laces nestling over the graceful bust move at all quicker than the waltz might warrant. Van’s face still bent over her with earnest expression, as she sipped the glass of punch he handed her; but neither spoke until they had crossed the corridor and passed another door into the conservatory.
The soft, warm air, heavy with the breath of the “Grand Duke” and of orange blossoms; the tremulous half-light from colored lamps hung amid the leaves; the dead stillness of the place, broken only by the plash of the fountain falling back into its moss-covered basin, all contrasted deliciously with the hot, dusty atmosphere and giddy buzzing under the flaring gas-jets left behind.
They strolled slowly down the gravelled walk, between rows of huge tubs, moist and flower-laden with the products of almost every clime. Here gleamed the glossy leaves of the Southern grandiflora;