There was one heart she had long since won which answered her every
movement. Flushed, rapturous, eyes sparkling, cheeks aglow, the small head
weaving through the throng like a golden shuttle--ah, did she know how
adorable she was! Was Tom right: is it the attainable unattainable to one
man and given to some other that leaves a deeper mark upon him than
success? At all events the unattainable was now like a hot sting in the
heart, but yet a sting more precious than a balm. The voice of Brainard
Macauley broke in: "A white brow and a long lash, a flushing cheek and a soft eye, a voice
that laughs and breaks and ripples in the middle of a word, a girl you
could put in your hat, Mr. Harkless--and there you have a strong man
prone! But I congratulate you on the manner your subordinates operate the
'Herald' during your absence. I understand you are making it a daily."
Macauley was staring at him quizzically, and Harkless, puzzled, but
without resentment of the other's whimsey, could only decide that the
editor of the Rouen "Journal" was an exceedingly odd young man. All at
once he found Meredith and the girl herself beside him; they had stopped
before the dance was finished. He had the impulse to guard himself from
new blows as a boy throws up his elbow to ward a buffet, and, although he
could not ward with his elbow, for his heart was on his sleeve--where he
began to believe that Macauley had seen it--he remembered that he could
smile with as much intentional mechanism as any wornout rounder of
afternoons. He stepped aside for her, and she saw what she had known but
had not seen before, for the thickness of the crowd, and this was that he
limped and leaned upon his stick.
"Do let me thank you," he said, with a louder echo of her manner of
greeting him, a little earlier. "It has been such a pleasure to watch you
dance. It is really charming to meet you here. If I return to Plattville I
shall surely remember to tell Miss Briscoe."
At this she surprised him with a sudden, clear look in the eyes, so
reproachful, so deep, so sad, that he started. She took her flowers from
Macauley, who had the air of understanding the significance of such
ceremonies very well, and saying, "Shan't we all go out on the terrace?"
placed her arm in Harkless's, and conducted him (and not the others) to
the most secluded corner of the terrace, a nook illumined by one Japanese
lantern; to which spot it was his belief that he led her. She sank into a
chair, with the look of the girl who had stood by the blue tent-pole. He
could only stare at her, amazed by her abrupt change to this dazzling, if
reproachful, kindness, confused by his good fortune.