Puzzled, Daunt took it and the boy withdrew. It bore no address. He tore it open. It contained some folded sheets of paper. A tense whiteness sprang to his face as he unfolded them. It was his letter—the only love-letter he had ever written—torn across.
Now he knew! It had been true—what he had imagined of the yacht! The cherry-trees seemed to writhe about him, bizarre one-legged dancers waving pink draperies, and a tide of resentment and grief rose in his breast as hot as lava. Had she been only playing with him, then? When she had lain panting in his arms in Ben-ten's cave—when her lips had quivered to his kisses—had it all been acting? Was this what she really was, his "Lady of the Many-Colored Fires?" He, poor fool! had deemed it real, when it had been only a week's amusement. He had almost guessed the truth that night at the tea-house, and how cleverly she had fooled him! His jarring laugh rang out across the tinkle of the fountain. Then, Austen Ware's telegram! It was he who had danced with her to-night, no doubt—Phil's brother. For her the little play was over. The curtain had to be rung down, and this was how she did it.
Dim thoughts like these went flitting through the gap of his racked senses. He dropped on the bench and bowed his head between his hands. It had been real enough to him. Painted on his closed eyelids he seemed to see, with a chill, numb certainty, his future unrolling like a gray panorama, incoherent and unwhole, its colors lack-luster, its purpose denied, its meaning missed. Pain lifted its snake-head from the shadows and hissed in his ear, like the jubilant serpent that coiled its bright length by the gate of Eden when the flaming sword drove forth the first man to the desert of despair.
Daunt did not know that Patricia, pausing in the corridor, had seen the letter delivered and opened. She went back to her mother with a slow step.
"You look worn, dear," said Mrs. Dandridge, as they entered the ball-room. "Are you tired?"
"Yes," she said. "I think I won't dance any more, mother."
The host had entered before them and now stood at the end of the room with the Admiral of the Squadron and the Ambassador of the latter's nation. Suddenly a young man pushed hastily through the press. He handed his chief a telegram. The Ambassador scanned it, changed color, and held it out to the Admiral with shaking hand. The Secretary who had brought it said something to the Foreign Minister, who turned instantly to give a quick order to a servant. The orchestra stopped with a crash.
There was a dead hush over the brilliant room-full, broken only by the movement of the Squadron's officers as they came hurriedly forward beside their Admiral. All looked at the white-haired diplomatist who stood, his eyes full of tears, the pink telegram in his hand.
He addressed the grave group of naval men. "Gentlemen," he said, in a low voice, "I have the great grief to announce the sudden death to-day of His Majesty, the King."
He bowed to his host, and, followed by the Admiral and his officers, left the house. The Ambassadors and Ministers of the other powers, in order of their precedence, each with his glittering staff and their ladies about him, followed. The gaiety was over; it had ceased at the far-away echo of a nation's bells, tolling half a world away.