“Why should I think of her at all?”
“For my sake.”
“That plea is worn out.” She smiled as she spoke and then some exigency of the ball separated them.
Miss De Burg was not a pretty woman and yet people generally looked twice at her. She had a cold, washed-out face, a great deal of very pale brown hair and her hair, eyebrows, and eyes were all the same color. There was usually no look in her eyes and her mouth told nothing. It was a firm and silent mouth and if her face had any expression it was one of reserve or endurance. And Katherine in the very flush of her own happy excitement divined some tragedy below this speechless face, and she held Agatha’s hand and looked into her eyes with that sympathy which is one of youth’s kindest moods. This feeling hesitated a moment between the two women; then Agatha surrendered, and took it into her heart and memory.
Now balls are so common and so natural an expression of humanity that they possess both its sameness and its variability. They are all alike and all different, all alike in action, all different in the actors; and the only importance of this ball to Katherine Annis was that it introduced her to the mere physical happiness that flows from fresh and happy youth. In this respect it was perhaps the high tide of her life. The beautiful room, the mellow transfiguring light of wax candles, the gayly gowned company, the intoxicating strains of music, and the delight of her motion to it, the sense of her loveliness, and of the admiration it brought, made her heart beat high and joyfully, and gave to her light steps a living grace no artist ever yet copied. She was queen of that company and took out what lovers she wished with a pretty despotism impossible to describe; but
Joy’s the shyest bird,
Mortals ever heard.
And ere anyone had asked “What time is it?” daylight was stealing into the candle light and then there was only the cheerful hurry of cloaking and parting left, and the long-looked-for happiness was over. Yet after all it was a day by itself and the dower of To-morrow can never be weighed by the gauge of Yesterday.
“Right! There is a battle cry in the word. You feel as if you had drawn a sword. A royal word, a conquering word, which if the weakest speak, they straight grow strong.”