The two friends walked through a sort of opera-bouffe to find her; music
playing, a swaying crowd, bright lights, bright eyes, pretty women, a
glimpse of dancers footing it over a polished floor in a room beyond--a
hundred colors flashing and changing, as the groups shifted, before the
eye could take in the composition of the picture. A sudden thrill of
exhilaration rioted in John's pulses, and he trembled like a child before
the gay disclosure of a Christmas tree. Meredith swore to himself that he
would not have known him for the man of five minutes agone. Two small,
bright red spots glowed in his cheeks; he held himself erect with head
thrown back and shoulders squared, and the idolizing Tom thought he looked
as a king ought to look at the acme of power and dominion. Miss Hinsdale's
word in the hallway was the geniuses touch: a bent, gray man of years--a
word--and behold the Great John Harkless, the youth of elder days ripened
to his prime of wisdom and strength! People made way for them and
whispered as they passed.
It had been years since John Harkless had been
in the midst of a crowd of butterfly people; everything seemed unreal, or
like a ball in a play; presently the curtain would fall and close the
lights and laughter from his view, leaving only the echo of music. It was
like a kaleidoscope for color: the bouquets of crimson or white or pink or
purple; the profusion of pretty dresses, the brilliant, tender fabrics,
and the handsome, foreshortened faces thrown back over white shoulders in
laughter; glossy raven hair and fair tresses moving in quick salutations;
and the whole gay shimmer of festal tints and rich artificialities set off
against the brave green of out-doors, for the walls were solidly adorned
with forest branches, with, here and there amongst them, a blood-red droop
of beech leaves, stabbed in autumn's first skirmish with summer. The night
was cool, and the air full of flower smells, while harp, violin, and
'cello sent a waltz-throb through it all.
They looked rapidly through several rooms and failed to find her indoors,
and they went outside, not exchanging a word, and though Harkless was a
little lame, Tom barely kept up with his long stride. On the verandas
there were fairy lamps and colored incandescents over little tables, where
people sat chatting. She was not there. Beyond was a terrace, where a
myriad of Oriental lanterns outlined themselves clearly in fantastically
shaped planes of scarlet and orange and green against the blue darkness.
Many couples and groups were scattered over the terrace, and the young men
paused on the steps, looking swiftly from group to group. She was not
there.