A moment after, light, airy music was heard in the front parlor, followed by the rhythmical cadence of light feet and the rustle of silks like a breeze through a forest.
For some reason as she went away Dennis's heart sank within him. Reaction followed the strong excitements of the day, and a strange sense of weariness and despondency crept over him. The gay music in the other room seemed plaintive and far away, and the tripping feet sounded like the patter of rain on autumn leaves. The very lights appeared to burn dimmer, and the color to fade out of his life. Mechanically he packed up the few remaining articles, to be called for in the morning, and then leaned heavily against a pillar, intending to rest a moment before going out into the night alone.
Some one pushed back the sliding-door a little and passed into the room. Through the opening he caught a glimpse of the gay scene within. Suddenly Christine appeared floating lightly through the waltz in her gauzy drapery, as if in a white, misty cloud. Through the narrow opening she seemed a radiant, living portrait. But her partner whirled her out of the line of vision. Thus in the mazes of the dance she kept appearing and disappearing, flashing in sight one moment, leaving a blank in the crowded room the next.
"So it will ever be, I suppose," he said to himself, bitterly; "chance and stolen glimpses my only privilege."
Again she appeared, smiling archly on the man whose arm clasped her waist.
A frown black as night gathered on Dennis's brow; then a sudden pallor overspread his face to his very lips. The revelation had come! Then for the first time he knew—knew it as if written in letters of fire before him—that he loved Christine Ludolph.
At first the knowledge stunned and bewildered him, and his mind was a confused blur; then as she appeared again, smiling upon and in the embrace of another man, a sharp sword seemed to pierce his heart.
Dennis was no faint shadow of a man who had frittered away in numberless flirtations what little heart he originally had. He belonged to the male species, with something of the pristine vigor of the first man, who said of the one woman of all the world, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh"; and one whom he had first seen but a few short months since now seemed to belong to him by the highest and divinest right. But could he ever claim his own?
In his morbid, wearied state, there seemed a "great gulf fixed" between them. For a moment he fairly felt faint and sick, as if he had received a wound. He was startled by hearing Miss Winthrop say at his side: "Mr. Fleet, you will not leave yet. I have many friends wishing an introduction to you. What is the matter? You look as if you were ill."
At her voice he flushed painfully. He was so vividly conscious of his love himself that he felt that every one else must be able to see it, and darkness and solitude now seemed a refuge. Recovering himself by a great effort he said, "Pardon me, I do—I am not well—nothing is the matter—a little rest and I shall be myself again."