CHAPTER XII
Paul Verdayne had many acquaintances and friends in New York, and much against their inclination he and the Boy soon found themselves absorbed in the whirl of frivolities. They were not very favorably impressed. It was all too extravagant for their Old World tastes—not too magnificent, for they both loved splendor—but it shouted its cost too loudly in their ears, and grated on their nerves and shocked their aesthetic sense.
The Boy was a favorite everywhere, even more so, perhaps, than in London. American society saw no mystery about him, and would not have cared if it had. If his face seemed somewhat familiar, as it often had to Opal Ledoux, no one puzzled his brains over it or searched the magazines to place it. New York accepted him, as it accepts all distinguished foreigners who have no craving for the limelight of publicity, for his face value, and enjoyed him thoroughly. Women petted him, because he was so witty and chivalrous and entertaining, and always as exquisitely well-groomed as any belle among them; men were attracted to him because he had ideas and knew how to express them. He was worth talking to and worth listening to. He had formed opinions of his own upon most subjects. He had thought for himself and had the courage of his convictions, and Americans like that.
Naturally enough, before many days, at a fashionable ball at the Plaza he came into contact with Opal Ledoux again.
It was a new experience, this, to see the girl he loved surrounded by the admiration and attention of other men. In his own infatuation he had not realized that most men would be affected by her as he was, would experience the same maddening impulses—the same longing—the same thirst for possession of her. Now the fact came home to him with the force of an electric shock. He could not endure the burning glances of admiration that he saw constantly directed toward her. What right had other men to devour her with their eyes?
He hastened to meet her. She greeted him politely but coldly, expressing some perfunctory regret when he asked for a dance, and showing him that her card was already filled. And then her partner claimed her, and she went away on his arm, smiling up into his face in a way she had that drove men wild for her. "The wicked little witch!" Paul thought. "Would she make eyes at every man like that? Dare she?"
A moment after, he heard her name, and instantly was all attention. The two men just behind him were discussing her rather freely—far too freely for the time and the place—and the girl, in Paul's estimation. He listened eagerly.
"Bold little devil, that Ledoux girl!" said one. "God! how she is playing her little game to-night! They say she is going to marry that old French Count, de Roannes! That's the fellow over there, watching her with the cat's eyes. I guess he thinks she means to have her fling first—and I guess she thinks so too! As usual, it's the spectator who sees the best of the game. What a curious girl she is—a living paradox!"
"How's that?"
"Spanish, you know. Ought to have black hair instead of red—black eyes instead of—well, chestnut about expresses the color of hers. I call them witch's eyes, they're so full of fire and—the devil!"
"She's French, too, isn't she? That accounts for the eyes. The beauté du diable, hers is! Couldn't she make a heaven for a man if she would—or a hell?"
"Yes, it's in her! She's doomed, you know! Her grandmothers before her were bad women—regular witches, they say, with a good, big streak of yellow. Couldn't keep their heads on their shoulders—couldn't be faithful to any one man. Don't know as they tried!"
"I'll bet they made it interesting for the fellow while it did last, anyway! But this one will never be happy. She has a tragedy in her face, if ever a woman had. But she's a man's woman, all right, and she'd make life worth living if a fellow had any red blood in him. She's one of those women who are born for nothing else in the world but to love, and be loved. Can't you shoot the Count?"
"The Count!—Hell! He won't be considered at all after a little! She'll find plenty of men glad to wake the devil in her—just to keep her from yawning! But she's not very tractable even now, though her sins all lie ahead of her! She's altogether too cool on the surface for her make-up, but—well, full of suggestion, and one feels a volcano surging and steaming just below the mask she wears, and has an insane desire to wake it up! That kind of woman simply can't help it."
A third voice broke in on the conversation—an older voice—the voice of a man who had lived and observed much.
"I saw her often as a child," he said, "a perilously wilful child, determined upon her own way, and possessed of her own fancies about this, that, and the other, which were seldom, if ever, the ideas of anyone else. There was always plenty of excitement where she was—always that same disturbing air! Even with her pigtails and pinafores, one could see the woman in her eyes. But she was a provoking little creature, always dreaming of impossible romances. Her father had his hands full."
"As her husband will have, poor devil! If he's man enough to hold her, all right. If he is not," with a significant shrug of the shoulders, "it's his own lookout!"
"That old French roué hold her? You're dreaming! She won't be faithful to him a week—if he has a handsome valet, or a half-way manly groom! How could she?" And they laughed coarsely.
The Boy gave them a look that should have annihilated all three, but they weren't noticing the Boy. He could have throttled them! How dared such lips as these pollute his darling's name! And yet these were society men—they could dance with her, clasp her to them, and look into those "witch eyes"—oh, the ignominy of it!
He looked across at Opal. How beautiful she was in her pale green gown, her white shoulders and arms glistening beneath the electric light with the sheen of polished marble, her red-brown hair glowing with its fiery lure, while even across the room her eyes sparkled like diamonds, lighting up her whole face. She was certainly enjoying herself—this Circe who had tempted him across the seas. She seemed possessed of the very spirit of mischief—and Paul forgot himself.
The orchestra was playing a Strauss waltz—it fired his blood. He walked across the room with his masterful, authoritative air—the manner of a man born to command. "Miss Ledoux," he said, and the crowd around her instinctively made way for him, "this is our waltz, I believe!" and whirled her away before she could answer.
Ah! it was delicious, that waltz! In perfect rhythm they clung together, gliding about the polished floor, her bare shoulder pressing his arm, her head with its bewildering perfume so near his lips, their hearts throbbing fiercely in the ecstasy of their nearness—which was Love.
Oh to go on forever! forever!
The sweet cadence of the music died away, and they looked into each other's eyes, startled.
"You seem to be acquiring the habit," she pouted, but her lips quivered, and in response he whispered in her ear, "Whose waltz was it, sweetheart?"
"I don't know, Paul—nor care!"
That was enough.
They left the room together.