The supper bell now rang through the vast corridors of the Mountain View Hotel, crowded with tourists from all parts of the continent. Ladies, gorgeously dressed, commenced to take their seats at the supper tables in the dining room, escorted by elegantly garbed gentlemen; some of them in full evening dress, others again in black cutaway. The clatter of knives and forks had already begun. The spacious dining room was brightly illuminated. At the further end a carpet-covered platform was visible, whose edges were a bank of flowers. Everything was tastefully arranged. A pianist was already hammering away at a waltz of one of the latest operatic successes, with frightful execution, as an introduction to the interesting program of the evening, anxiously awaited by the patrons of the house.
The clatter, the bustling noise, had suddenly stopped and all eyes were riveted expectantly on the man who had just entered. Our humorist, suffering in mind and body alike, pale and haggard, with restless eyes, made his appearance in the borrowed clothes which hung loosely about his emaciated form, tossing back his long locks with his right hand, while holding the cherished book tightly in the other, he came down to the very edge of the platform and smiled and bowed in all directions.
He looked exhausted and weary, as he was. But the room was crowded and he had to go on, whether he wanted or not, so he commenced: "Ladies and gentlemen."
He got no further. A mist swam suddenly before his eyes. A shiver shook his emaciated frame, his face became flushed and bloated and he stared and stared.
A side door had been opened a few minutes before and Mr. Ogden entered with the much admired Cleopatra on his arm.
They passed through the crowded dining room, close to the speaker's platform. She had changed her dazzling costume for a simpler, but an extremely stylish dress of blue silk. She still wore some of the lilies in the marvelous golden hair, which was now fastened with a gold comb into a plain Greek knot. She was all aglow with excitement. The triumph of the afternoon was still lingering on her handsome face. She felt like shouting it out to everybody. Such conquest does not come often to a woman in the ordinary walks of life.
She walked proudly, with a queenly step to her seat, nodding to some casual acquaintances with a charming smile. And then she took her seat and turned a glance of curiosity upon the famished face of the entertainer. Their eyes met—and for a few seconds sank into each others' like sharp daggers. A red tinge covered her startled face, then she turned away, whiter than the lilies on her breast. She trembled visibly and looked frightened, casting down her eyes.
Mr. Ogden did not seem to have noticed any change in her appearance and gazed with a shocked countenance and great pity at the reduced exterior of the poor humorist. Suddenly a great excitement was noticeable among all the guests sitting around the small tables. Several gentlemen had left their seats, rushed towards the place where the poor entertainer had collapsed after recognizing his faithless wife garbed in that splendor, so shamefully acquired, of which the wicked gnomes were whispering so constantly into his ears.
He still believed in her then; but now—the dark, threatening expression in his livid face was frightful to behold. He murmured something about the gnomes that nobody could understand, staring with hatred in his dilated eyes in the direction where she sat—she, the mother of his innocent child, now disgraced forever!
"God! What have I done to deserve such a punishment?" he murmured once more, pressing his bloodless lips tightly together as a cold perspiration broke out on his deathlike face.