Jonkin and the waiters, arriving with dishes and plates, burst into the room, ushered in by Gaston Latour, gloomily blaring fantastic joy upon the French horn, and all further conversation was impossible until the cloth was laid....
CHAPTER L
Wherein the Spring comes a-frolic into the Court
Betty’s young blood danced to the blithe promise of Spring that was in the March winds; and her heart leaped to the quickening whisper of the awakening world.
The winter was over. Her sweet body sang to her of the gladness of the world. Her light step spoke of the gaiety of young womanhood; and her laughing eyes knew no fear of destiny—her quick ears caught no echo, no whisper of the crack of doom, and had she heard it she would still have gone with the calm effrontery of youth to meet it. She skipped down the highway of life, all dainty and delighted and unafraid. The orchestral universe made music for her feet. She was alive. All nature smiled upon her, even through tears.
The rain that pelted with sharp icy particles or chill admixture of snow upon the window-panes, and the gusts that thundered against the shutters and plucked at their bolts, played but the castanets for her dancing blood, sounded but the drums for her ready feet; she took her walks abroad in frank ecstasy of health, and lifting her dear face to the buffeting winds she breathed into her glowing body the emotional air that rocked the tall trees against the swinging firmament, pulsing the sluggish life-sap to their uttermost whistling twigs.
She was become a part of the motherhood of the world.
The protecting care that she had aforetime spent upon her disreputable old father, she now wound about this youth. Her mother-heart was no longer starved; forgot the suffering of rebuff; flinched no longer, scared by dread of Shame. ’Tis true, at a sudden noise she would start fearfully still, and her heart flutter sickeningly; yet, for the love of a youth, she would have plucked the beard of a sulphur-stinking devil, though the splendid insolence had scorched her sweet fingers to the bone.