"Count, I beg to decline," laughed the dramatist. "I should hardly dare to tell my plot before two such military experts as we have here. I should be told to write the play all over again, and now it is too late."
Whenever Betty's glance fell on her father's face, the gladness in her own was somewhat dimmed. What was making that loved face so care-worn, the mind so listless, the attitude so weary? But she was young; the spirits of youth never flow long in one direction. The repartee, brilliant and at the same time with every sting withdrawn, flashed up and down the table like so many fireflies on a wet lawn in July, and drew her irresistibly.
As the courses came and passed, so the conversation became less and less general; and by the time the ices were served the colonel had engaged his host, and the others divided into twos. Then coffee, liqueurs and cigars, when the ladies rose and trailed into the little Turkish room, where the "distinguished-looking butler" supplied them with the amber juice.
A dinner is a function where everybody talks and nobody eats. Some have eaten before they come, some wish they had, and others dare not eat for fear of losing some of the gossip. I may be wrong, but I believe that half of these listless appetites are due to the natural confusion of forks.
After the liqueurs my butler concluded that his labor was done, and he offered up a short prayer of thankfulness and relief. Heavens, what mad, fantastic impulses had seized him while he was passing the soup! Supposing he had spilled the hot liquid down Karloff's back, or poured out a glass of burgundy for himself and drained it before them all, or slapped his late colonel on the back and asked him the state of his liver? It was maddening, and he marveled at his escape. There hadn't been a real mishap. The colonel had only scowled at him; he was safe. He passed secretly from the house and hung around the bow-window which let out on the low balcony. The window was open, and occasionally he could hear a voice from beyond the room, which was dark.
It was one of those nights, those mild November nights, to which the novelists of the old regime used to devote a whole page; the silvery pallor on the landscape, the moon-mists, the round, white, inevitable moon, the stirring breezes, the murmur of the few remaining leaves, and all that. But these busy days we have not the time to read nor the inclination to describe.
Suddenly upon the stillness of the night the splendor of a human voice broke forth; the prima-donna was trying her voice. A violin wailed a note. A hand ran up and down the keys of the piano. Warburton held his breath and waited. He had heard Tosti's Ave Maria many times, but he never will forget the manner in which it was sung that night. The songstress was care-free and among persons she knew and liked, and she put her soul into that magnificent and mysterious throat of hers, And throbbing all through the song was the vibrant, loving voice of the violin. And when the human tones died away and the instruments ceased to speak, Warburton felt himself swallowing rapidly. Then came Schumann's Traumerei on the strings, Handel's Largo, Grieg's Papillon, and a ballade by Chaminade. Then again sang the prima-donna; old folksy songs, sketches from the operas grand and light, Faust, The Barber of Seville, La Fille de Madame Angot. In all his days Warburton had never heard such music. Doubtless he had—even better; only at this period he was in love. The imagination of love's young dream is the most stretchable thing I know of. Seriously, however, he was a very good judge of music, and I am convinced that what he heard was out of the ordinary.
But I must guide my story into the channel proper.
During the music Karloff and Colonel Annesley drifted into the latter's study. What passed between them I gathered from bits recently dropped by Warburton.
"Good God, Karloff, what a net you have sprung about me!" said the colonel, despairingly.