[CHAPTER XIII.]
Our youthful débutantes were plunged into the maelstrôm of a fashionable season; a whirl which, in its outermost circles, was as gratifying to the feverish energy of Ida as to the vanity of her more grovelling-minded associate. The rapidly shortening days seemed longer instead, so uneventful and wearisome were they. Life commenced when the evening's thousand lamps were lit. The mingling perfumes; the crush and flutter; the wave-like roar of the assembly-room, were delicious excitement to the emancipated school-girl; and to the astonishment of those who had known her then, the reserved student bloomed into the dashing wit and belle; beauties and heiresses sitting, uncourted by, while "eligibles" contended for the honor of her preference. Her newness was a part of the secret. The spectacle of a wild Zingara, unreined, and glorying in the fullness of its freedom, scorning bit and spur, amongst a pack of jaded hackneys, who have been trotted and paced and galloped, year after year, until their factitious animation and oft-repeated gambols create pity and contempt, would cause a sensation akin to that awakened by her appearance. Her lightest words were jeux d'esprit; her laugh, a chime of silver wedding-bells; (things by the way, of which every body talks, but nobody we have questioned, ever heard,) her singing seraphic; her ballads lyric gems; herself a Corinne. Josephine was latest to perceive, first to resent this sudden accession of popularity. Rivalry from this source was as unexpected as unbearable. Her glass showed her a form, airy as a summer cloud; a set of features more delicate and regular than Ida's characteristic-physiognomy; and in dress, she certainly bore off the palm; her maid being invariably rung up an hour and a half before Rachel's services were demanded. She fought, as long as she could, with the conviction that this pre-eminence was as though it had not been to the world; and when it made a violent entrance into her circumscribed intellect, how was the milk of her nature curdled to vinegar! And how like nitre to vinegar, were the happily-chosen congratulations of her attendant beaux, upon her good fortune in inhabiting the same house with "her charming friend, Miss Ross;" or, "Miss Ida even surpasses herself to-night;" "A remarkable girl! such vivacity! and I hear, quite as much profundity of mind; is this so, Miss Read?" And the writhing dissembler had to assent, and corroborate, and smile, while the yeasty waves frothed and bubbled furiously in their confinement. To expose her envy would damage her prospects, hinged as they were, in part, upon her sweetness of disposition.
It might have been a salvo to her wounded vanity had she guessed by what a length of time her jealousy outlived the triumph which aroused it; how the feast of adulation, so daintily spread, ceased to tempt, then nauseated; how, from the jewelled robe of society the gloss wore away, and threadbare tatters were all that remained of what was cloth of gold; how prevarications and oaths refused longer to shelter falsehood; and the garlands withered and shrank from manacles which heated with the wearing; how the earth itself was a thin, hollow ball, that one could puff away with a breath; how, ere the fire the revel had infused into her veins cooled, the coronal was plucked from the brow, the costly attire crushed petulantly, a worthless rag! And at that window, the freezing air not chilling her heated blood—the envied one wept blistering tears of self-abhorrence and despondency—and the night-wind sighed to the moan—"Not this! not this!" and the old prayer for "liberty and love!" We say, had she known this, she might have felt avenged; but the public, nor she, saw any alteration in its fondling and her detestation. It was the middle of December. Balls, concerts, and soirées had been given in breathless succession, and Ellen Morris issued tickets for yet another. The appointed hour saw the house overflowing. Ida was near the centre of the front parlor, radiant and flattered as usual. One gentleman, with an air of easy assurance, was inspecting her bouquet; a second, pushing a mock flirtation with all his might; a third, a callow youngster, afraid to speak to the "bright particular," he had so panted to behold, staring into her face in sheepish agony; and a fourth peered over the shoulder of number one.
"The camelia, Miss Ida, what is its emblem?" asked the bouquet holder.
"Beauty without wit;" rejoined she, but half hearing him, and then finishing a sentence to No. 2.
"Without amiability, you mean," corrected No. 4.
"Without wit!" said Ida. "I relish an active perfume, which can be detected without effort of mine, and do not prize a flower that must be bruised to extract its sweetness; amiability is, at best, a passive virtue."
"But what is a beautiful woman without softness, tenderness, effeminacy?" said No. 2, whose stock of words exceeded that of ideas. "She wins us by her yielding submissiveness, her gentle mildness. Destitute and devoid of these, she is to me without charm or attraction. Do not understand me, however, as depreciating or undervaluing wit in your presence!" recollecting himself, with a salaam.
"No apologies are necessary. We all agree that such depreciation would come with a bad grace from Mr. Talbot," said Ida, pointedly, returning a still deeper curtsey.
No. 1 nodded, as he laughed, to some one beside her. "Good evening," said Mr. Lacy, as she looked around.