Through the perfumed air and the garish light tore the crashing notes of the great band. The loud hum of voices ceased, and all eyes turned to the leaders of the grand march, as they stepped forth at one end of the great auditorium. Then an involuntary murmur arose from the multitude––a murmur of admiration, of astonishment, of envy. The gigantic form of Ames stood like a towering pillar, the embodiment of potential force, the epitome of human power, physical and mental. His massive shoulders were thrown back as if in haughty defiance 134 of comment, critical or commendatory. The smile which flitted about his strong, clean-shaven face bespoke the same caution as the gentle uplifting of a tiger’s paw––behind it lay all that was humanly terrible, cunning, heartless, and yet, in a sense, fascinating. His thick, brown hair, scarcely touched with gray, lay about his great head like a lion’s mane. He raised a hand and gently pushed it back over the lofty brow. Then he bent and offered an arm to the slender wisp of a girl at his side.
“Good God!” murmured a tall, angular man in the crowd. “Who is she?”
“I don’t know, Hitt,” replied the friend addressed. “But they say she belongs to the Inca race.”
The graceful girl moving by the side of her giant escort seemed like a slender ray of light, a radiant, elfish form, transparent, intangible, gliding softly along with a huge, black shadow. She was simply clad, all in white. About her neck hung a string of pearls, and at her waist she wore the rare orchids which Ames had sent her that afternoon. But no one saw her dress. No one marked the pure simplicity of her attire. The absence of sparkling jewels and resplendent raiment evoked no comment. The multitude saw but her wonderful face; her big eyes, uplifted in trustful innocence to the massive form at her side; her rich brown hair, which glittered like string-gold in the strong light that fell in torrents upon it.
“Hitt, she isn’t human! There’s a nimbus about her head!”
“I could almost believe it,” whispered that gentleman, straining his long neck as she passed before him. “God! has she fallen into Ames’s net?”
Immediately behind Carmen and Ames strode the enraptured Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, who saw not, neither heard, and who longed for no further taste of heaven than this stupendous triumph which she had won for herself and the girl. Her heavy, unshapely form was squeezed into a marvelous costume of gold brocade. A double ballet ruffle of stiff white tulle encircled it about the hips as a drapery. The bodice was of heavy gold net. A pleated band of pale moire, in a delicate shade of pink, crossed the left shoulder and was caught at the waist in a large rose bow, ambassadorial style. A double necklace of diamonds, one bearing a great pendant of emeralds, and the other an alternation of emeralds and diamonds, encircled her short, thick neck. A diamond coronet fitted well around her wonderful amber-colored wig––for, true to her determination, she had anticipated the now passée Mrs. Ames and had boldly launched the innovation of colored wigs among the smart set. An ivory, hand-painted fan, of great value, dangled from her thick wrist. And, as she lifted her skirts to an unnecessary 135 height, the gaping people caught the glitter of a row of diamonds in each high, gilded heel.
At her side the young Duke of Altern shuffled, his long, thin body curved like a kangaroo, and his monocle bent superciliously upon the mass of common clay about him. “Aw, beastly crush, ye know,” he murmured from time to time to the unhearing dame at his right. And then, as she replied not, he fell to wondering if she fully realized who he was.
Around and across the great hall the gorgeous pageant swept. The big-mouthed horns bellowed forth their noisy harmony. In the distant corridors great illuminated fountains softly plashed. At the tables beyond, sedulous, touting waiters were hurriedly extracting corks from frosted bottle necks. The rare porcelain and cut glass shone and glittered in rainbow tints. The revelers waxed increasingly merry and care-free as they lightly discussed poverty over rich viands and sparkling Burgundy. Still further beyond, the massive oak doors, with their leaded-glass panes, shut out the dark night and the bitter blasts of winter. And they shut out, too, another, but none the less unreal, externalization of the mortal thought which has found expression in a social system “too wicked for a smile.”
“God, no––I’d get arrested! I can’t!”