On reaching the floor below he was afforded a view through an open door into a large room, lighted with many lamps, where a quadroon dance, or “society ball,” was in progress. After a moment’s hesitation he entered and stood in the glare, watching the waltzers. Around the wall were dusky chaperons, guarding their charges with the watchfulness of old dowagers protecting their daughters from the advances of younger sons. Soft eyes flashed invitingly, graceful figures passed, and the revelry momentarily attracted Mauville, as he followed the movements of the waltzers and heard the strains of music. Impulsively he approached a young woman whose complexion was as light as his own and asked her to dance. 410 The next moment they were gliding to the dreamy rhythm around the room.
By a fatal trick of imagination, his thoughts wandered to the dark-haired girl he had met in the Shadengo Valley. If this now were she, the partner he had so unceremoniously summoned to his side. How light were her feet; what poetry of motion was her dancing; what pleasure the abandonment to which she had resigned herself! Involuntarily he clasped more tightly the slender waist, and the dark eyes, moved by that palpable caress, looked not unkindly into his own. But at the glance he experienced a strange repulsion and started, as if awakening from a fevered sleep, abruptly stopping in the dance, his arm falling to his side. The girl looked at him half-shyly, half-boldly, and the very beauty of her eyes––the deep, lustrous orbs of a quadroon––smote him mockingly. He felt as though some light he sought shone far beyond his ken; a light he saw, but could never reach; ever before him, but always receding.
“Monsieur is tired?” said the girl, in a puzzled tone.
“Yes,” he answered bluntly, leading her to a seat. “Good-night.”
“Good-night,” she replied, following his retreating figure with something like regret.
The evening bells, distinct and mysterious, were sounding as he emerged from New Orleans’ Mabille, and their crystalline tones, rising and falling on the solemn night, brought to mind his boyhood. Pictures 411 long forgotten passed before him, as his footsteps led him far from the brightly-lighted streets to a sequestered thoroughfare that lay peacefully on the confines of the busy city; a spot inviting rest from the turmoil yonder and in accord with the melancholy vibrations of the bells. He stood, unseen in the shadow of great trees, before a low rambling mansion; not so remote but that the perfume from the garden was wafted to him over the hedge.
“A troubadour!” he said scornfully to himself. “Edward Mauville sighing at a lady’s window like some sentimental serenader! There’s a light yonder. Now to play my despairing part, I must watch for her image. If I were some one else, I should say my heart beats faster than usual. She comes––the fair lady! Now the curtain’s down. All that may be seen is her shadow. So, despairing lover, hug that shadow to your breast!”
He plucked a rose from a bush in her garden, laughing at himself the while for doing so, and as he moved away he repeated with conviction:
“A shadow! That is all she ever could have been to me!”