Geraldine, with her golden fluff of hair, bright brown eyes, and shining white attire, was the cynosure of all eyes, and many a gallant fireman envied Harry Hawthorne, who was her partner so often in the joyous dance.
True, she would dance with any of them to whom he introduced her, but each one saw by the wandering glances of her brown eyes that Hawthorne was first in her heart and thoughts.
So the first two hours passed by like a dream of bliss.
Geraldine loved music and dancing and gayety, with all her heart. She loved, too, the congenial new friends she had made, and lost in the delightful present, she forgot for a time her feverish ambition to become an actress and shine upon the stage.
What exquisite rapture may be crowded into two hours—rapture that will linger in the memory till death blots out all. So it was with Geraldine.
When Hawthorne pressed her hand in the dance, and looked into her eyes, drinking in deep draughts the intoxication of her beauty and sweetness, the girl thrilled with a rapture akin to pain, and those moments of dizzy, subtle bliss so dazzling in their brightness, returned to Geraldine through all her life as her happiest hours—that hour in a woman's life when First Love "is a shy, sweet new-comer, and Hope leads it by the hand."
"New hopes may bloom, and days may come,
Of milder, calmer beam;
But there's nothing half so sweet in life
As love's young dream."
How sad that a shadow should fall so suddenly over Geraldine's happiness!
But as she stood at a window, panting from the dance, rosy and smiling, as she talked to Harry Hawthorne, a shadow suddenly came between her and the light, pausing by her side till she looked up and saw—Clifford Standish!
Alas! that his shadow should ever come between her and the dawning happiness of her life!
Alas! that she had ever met him, the handsome, unscrupulous actor, who stood there scowling at his splendid rival!
"Mr. Standish!" she exclaimed, with a violent start, and a strange feeling of annoyance, and he answered, impressively:
"How glad I am that I have found you at last!"
"Have you been looking for me?" she asked, coldly.
"Everywhere! And I beg ten thousand pardons for my seeming desertion of you. It was wholly an accident, and the fault of my friend, who detained me talking one minute too long. I followed you on the next steamer, but it was several hours late, and all the time my mind was distracted over what would become of you. Of course I knew you would find friends—a beautiful girl alone in a crowd will always find a protector; but," sneeringly, "not always a safe one!"
"I beg your pardon. It was I who protected Miss Harding," began Harry Hawthorne, wrathfully, and the girl started, and exclaimed:
"Mr. Standish, this is Mr. Hawthorne, a very kind gentleman who paid my fare on the boat after you left me without a ticket, and afterward jumped into the river and saved my life when I fell overboard. I owe him a debt of gratitude that I can never repay."
They bowed coldly, trying not to glare, each seeing in the other a dangerous rival.
Clifford Standish was not pleasant to look at with that steely glare in his large, light-blue eyes, and that angry compression of his shaven lips as he said, coldly:
"I thank you, sir, for your care of my friend during my enforced absence from her side. I will repay you the boat fare, and remain deeply indebted to you for saving her life. Of course it goes without saying that I shall now be honored with her company again, thus relieving you of her care."
Harry Hawthorne, with a dangerous flash in his dark-blue eyes, retorted, calmly:
"I beg your pardon. Her engagement with me for this evening gives me a right that I shall not relinquish unless at her desire."
Both looked at the beautiful, flushed face of the girl. She comprehended the sudden hate between them, and said, tremblingly, but with the sweet tones of the peacemaker:
"I think Mr. Hawthorne is right. My engagement with you was for to-day, and we were to have returned to-night, you know. But after you left me alone on the boat, I made new friends, and a very sweet, kind lady, well-known to Mr. Hawthorne, took charge of me and invited me to be her guest while I staid in Newburgh. It was under her chaperonage I came to the ball, and, with her consent, I accepted the escort of Mr. Hawthorne. I cannot break my engagement with him, and I have promised, also, to go back to New York in his care to-morrow."
Every word she uttered maddened him with secret fury. His face was livid as he almost hissed:
"I should like to see this lady who chaperoned you here. How do I know that she is a proper person!" he began, insolently, but at that moment a lady tapped him smartly on the arm with her fan, exclaiming:
"Ha, ha, ha! I like that, Mr. Standish! A proper person indeed. Well, I'm the person, and if you have any fault to find with me, my husband, Captain Stansbury, will settle it with you."
"Miss Odell!" he exclaimed, recoiling in surprise from the sight of the face of an old acquaintance.
"Mrs. Stansbury, please," she corrected him, then went on, gayly: "Do you remember our flirtation at Asbury Park three years ago? I haven't seen you since, have I? Well, I've been married two years now to the finest man in New York. But my sisters are single yet. Come with me and pay your respects to them before the german begins."
She dragged him reluctantly away, and then Hawthorne said, angrily:
"That fellow was inclined to be insolent, and I could scarcely refrain from pitching him neck and heels through this window!"
"Oh, please, please, do not get into any trouble with him on my account!" pleaded Geraldine. "He has been very kind to me, really, and I should not wish to offend him!"
"Do not tell me he is your lover—that you care for him!" exclaimed the young man, jealously.
"N-n-o, he is only a friend!" she faltered, and was glad when her partner for the next dance came to claim her hand.
She knew in her heart that Clifford Standish regarded her with more than a friendly liking, but she was not prepared to own it to impetuous Harry Hawthorne, so she was glad to get away from his inquisitive looks and words.
But the joy of the evening was ended now for pretty Geraldine.
Clifford Standish soon escaped from the Odell girls, and haunted Geraldine the rest of the time, not offensively, but with the assurance of a favored lover, torturing the poor girl who could not bear to wound his feelings, but whose reserved and distrait manner did not discourage his persistent gallantry, for he stood his ground, debarring the lovers from any pleasure in each other's society.
Once Hawthorne whispered to her, fiercely:
"There comes that cad back. He is annoying you. I see it by your altered looks. Will you not allow me to pitch him out of the window?"
"No—oh, no, you must not make a scene!" she shuddered, apprehensively.
"Then tell him yourself that you are weary of his persistent following," he urged.
"Oh, no, I cannot wound him so. He has been kind to me, and means no harm," she said, trying to make excuses that she felt he did not deserve.
But she escaped from the ball as soon as she could, glad to be rid of him, and spent a restless night, repenting the encouragement she had given Standish before she met Hawthorne.
"They both love me, and I can see that they will be bitter foes," she thought, in terror of some unknown evil.
The next morning Standish came at an early hour to call. He was acquainted with the girls,