The Squaw Man. Faversham Julie Opp

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СКАЧАТЬ loveliness of an English Duchess. The crowd noticed the famous rubies that shone like tiny flames against the white gown.

      Here and there a Dowager gleamed like a shelf in a Bond Street jeweller's shop, so promiscuous was her array of gems. The younger school of beauties with more wisdom employed their jewels differently, using them as an added tone of color or a touch of brilliance to a costume. In the stalls the art world was well represented. Painters and writers with a sprinkling of actors and actresses, who were not playing, were on hand to-night to greet the new-comer. From the gallery rail a crowd of eager, swarthy faces peered, impatiently gesticulating to one another, because of the failure of the curtain to ascend at the given time. It was known that the prima-donna was a capricious creature, often swayed by a mere whim from making her appearance. Once the death of a mocking-bird had postponed her début as Marguerite. Would she really appear?

      As the royalties entered the box, the excitement was at fever-heat. Henry with his mother impatiently awaited Diana's arrival.

      The overture began its sensuous, stirring appeal, and before the cigarette-girl crossed the bridge in the street scene, every seat and box was occupied.

      The singer made the ill-starred Carmen a bewitching and compelling wanton. Who that saw her will ever forget her delicious cajolery as she urged the bewitched Don José to loosen the ropes that bound her? With her Habanera she eclipsed all predecessors and made the role irrevocably hers. The first act ended with a storm of bravas from the gallery and vociferous applause from the rest of the house.

      It was not until the tumultuous ovation over the first act had ceased that Diana's presence was noticed by the audience. Accompanied by her father, she had arrived at the close of the overture, and had only time to slip into her place before the curtain arose. The walk in the rain had given her delicate skin a touch of color and heightened the beauty of her tender eyes, "so deeply blue that they were black," as Lord Patrick Illington described them on his first meeting at her presentation at Court. Her bands of straight hair were wound around her head; pale-green draperies encircled her lithesome body, and the gardenia blossoms in her hair gave her a fleeting likeness to the water-sprite Undine. In the horseshoe of fashionable mondaines the fragrance of her beauty was like that of a dew-sprayed rose.

      Mrs. Hobart Chichester Chichester Jones, with her usual common-sense of seeing things as they were, leaned towards the man beside her.

      "That is a beauty – the real thing; no chic, no gowning, no Paris wisdom of make-up, but a beauty. I'm glad I've seen it." She sank back as though philosophically preparing for a Waterloo.

      From his box the Prince noticed the daughter of Sir Charles Marjoribanks whose services in diplomacy in his youth were not forgotten. Forthwith an equerry was sent to Sir Charles and Diana inviting them to visit the royal presence.

      Diana was the social novelty of the season. The Prime-Minister remembered his classics as he dreamily gazed at her and murmured, "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?"

      From the back of the box, Henry watched Diana's impression on the house. His eyebrows were drawn into horns of suppressed temper and there was an air of brutal determination in his bearing. Gradually his expression cleared. Diana's beauty that night stirred the best in him. He tried to dismiss the events of the afternoon; he would be worthy of this child-woman. He set his shoulders square as though preparing to fight unseen forces.

      "Lucky fellow, Kerhill," one man confided to another as they watched the crowd's sweeping glasses pause constantly at Diana Marjoribanks's box and saw the triumphant look on Henry's face.

      The sinuous, commanding Carmen had reached her triumphant entry with the toreador when the mad Don José's dagger drew the purple stain on the gold-embroidered gown. Over the house a spell-bound silence reigned. As from an animal wounded to the death, low sounds of agonized pain came from the great actress – she forgot to sing, and the house forgot that she was a singer in an opera comique. For the moment it faced the realistic truth of a grim tragedy.

      Excited and intoxicated by the sensuous music, Diana was hardly conscious that the opera was over. She was like a child with the world for a great, colored balloon. As she came down the winding staircase she was almost happy, and turned to smile at Henry, who was by her side. As she did so she saw him frown. They reached the foot of the staircase, and found their way half-barred by a dark, foreign-looking woman robed in a spun-gold gown. Diana noticed the insolent, amused expression on her handsome face, but at that moment her attention was diverted by some one who spoke to her, and she only vaguely noticed Henry's constrained bow, and the sudden brutal flame in his eyes.

      Only later, as she sleepily looked over at the park in the dim light, did she remember that the woman in cloth of gold at the bottom of the staircase was strangely like the vivid, foreign-looking woman who had flashed past her in the park as the storm broke.

      The wedding took place at St. George's, Hanover Square. It was the first brilliant wedding of the season and royalty honored it, not by sending a deputy, but by its personal presence. Diana passed through the gay pageant and heard the conventional words of well-wishers like one in a dream. She remembered being changed into a going-away frock – the curious street crowd gathering around her as she left the reception at the Park Lane house. Then as she entered the brougham she was conscious of Henry's face drawn close to hers, and the old frightened instincts that her father only a week ago had soothed and quelled again took possession of her. A great wall of fear closed in about her.

      At last the carriage reached the station.

      Diana leaned back in their compartment in the train northbound for Scotland. The bustle of the outgoing crowds was holding Henry's attention as she glanced over the afternoon paper, which gave a prominent position to the brilliant wedding that had taken place at St. George's only a few hours ago.

      Suddenly she espied a name that made her heart leap. A brief paragraph told of the reward to be conferred on Captain James Wynnegate, but a longer account followed, giving details of his gallant work in the Northwestern Hills.

      A great longing to see the friend of her childhood came over her. She was ashamed that she had forgotten him so long.

      Henry entered the compartment, the guard closed the door, and the train started on its journey. Her husband spoke to her and she answered him in an absent manner. The sudden remembrance of her old playmate grew vividly and seemed to blot out all else, as, following on her self-reproach for forgetting him, came the thought, growing more poignant; "Did Jim remember her?"

      CHAPTER IV

      Jim lay in the hospital ward convalescing. Of the march back to the nearest hospital post, after the fight which has taken place three months before in the Northwestern Hills, when his name had been flashed over Europe in praise of his magnificent service to his flag, his mind held no memory.

      Night after night in his delirium he lived again through the scenes of the fight that had brought glory to his name. Now it was the evening before the battle, when, acting upon information brought by the spy Rham-shi, he and his men kept their long vigil, sitting silently in their saddles the entire night awaiting the onslaught of the fanatical natives across the hill. Again it was early dawn, and in his fever-tossed dreams he heard the roar of the voices as the assault began; again he climbed to the summit of the hill and saw the dreaded gun of the enemy that was riddling his men. On – on he mounted. He felt the warm blood ooze down his body, the mists swim before his eyes, and the stinging pain pierce his side. In despair that he might not reach the monster in time to prevent it from completing its deadly work, his cry of agony often rang out in the silent room.

      "Oh, God, God, my men – my splendid men – give me courage!"

      Then his thoughts would wander to the hours when he lay on СКАЧАТЬ