As I moved off a little from the dancers, and watched cheeks flush and bright eyes grow brighter at the call of voluptuous music, I could not but wonder at the inconsistency of fate and fortune that had brought into this ultra-fashionable gathering a lady, certainly young, and probably beautiful, who "did not dance the round dances."
I passed into the adjoining room. Several of the waltzers, tired and heated, had left the crowded salon before me; here and there a stray wall-flower tried to look unconscious and happy in the midst of desolation; but my eye psychological wandered in vain up and down, seeking a face that would seem to indicate the owner of the voice heard a few moments before. At length a very young girl issued from a group that had been standing near an open window, and, as I marked the expression of her faultless mouth and soft blue eyes, I said to myself, "That is the one." But at the moment a gay young West-Pointer stepped forward to meet her, and in another instant my Madonna was whirling through the giddy maze.
"Pshaw!" I ejaculated half aloud, disappointed to find my intuitiveness at fault, and turned as I did so to encounter an old friend, not seen for some time, who entered from the conservatory in company with a lady.
Surprise and pleasure caused us momentarily to forget politeness, so that several sentences were interchanged before Armitage recollected himself, and said, "Allow me, Helen. My friend, Mr. Moray, Miss Foster." I muttered something—the young lady bowed; that was all. The couple passed on; and I am bound to confess that I did not notice the color of the lady's eyes or hair, and never once thought of her expression, psychologist as I was.
I recognized no kinship of feeling or sympathy as we stood within the circle of each other's magnetism; and yet my "destiny" had come to me, and the soul within me, that was to have risen and grown conscious at the approach, stood mute and made no sign.
After that, Fred Armitage called at my rooms several times, and succeeded in winning me away from my exclusiveness, in so much that I promised to be at his disposal for New Year's day, on condition that his visits of congratulation would be few and well chosen. He laughed at my conceit, as he was pleased to call it. "I don't fancy every body any more than you do, Ed," he said; "but one must make allowances and be sociable with the world. There's a difference between friends and acquaintances. One need not have the former if one doesn't wish; but the latter are indispensable, unless you give up the amenities of civilization at once." After which remark we sallied forth.
Toward evening, and when I had vowed for the fourth time that each successive call would be my last, Fred paused before a handsome house on Fifth Avenue.
"I am not going in," I said, almost savagely, as he announced his intention of entering.
"Only here," he answered, "and I promise I'll go home with you. I must call. I should have made this one first; but I wanted to save the best morsel for the last. Come; Helen would never forgive me if I neglected her to-day."
"And what claim has the young lady on your time and affections?" I asked, somewhat more quietly than before, "you are not in love, or engaged, or any thing of that kind?"