the party took place in john’s rooms. first there was a dainty supper; then dancing. it was a heart breaking failure. everyone tried to save it. a party that needs to be saved is already hopeless. the more everyone tried the worse it was until the lovely, dark-eyed little matron who chaperoned it was on the verge of tears, the girls were divided between sulks and hysterics and the men wondered vaguely what was wrong. it was inevitable. the fluids were perverse.
in the first place, the guest of honor flatly declined the r?le of cinderella. she was not in the least grateful. the little matron on receiving her said: “we’ve tried so long to get you.”
what could be more innocent.
she replied, “oh-h!” with ascending accent.
the wreck began there. the matron’s tone and manner revealed to her the light in which she was regarded. she was an object of curiosity and a subject of commiseration. one figure she hated as much as the other. to be pitied—particularly that,—was intolerable. she was stung with chagrin and humiliation. it was nobody’s fault,—at least, no more theirs than her own. she might have known it would be so; she had placed herself in this position. none the less, or perhaps all the more for that reason, she could not help behaving in that way which is meant when one[141] says she took it out of them. she took it out of her own sex of course. her power to do that was extraordinary.
the matron did not know what next to say. that was generally the trouble. none of the women knew how to talk to her. there was nothing in common to talk about, except the circumstances, and these could not be mentioned. at the slightest reference to them she coldly cut the conversation.
“if she couldn’t get into the spirit of it why did she come at all?” one girl asked another.
“that’s easy to see, i should think,” the other said.
what was easy to see was that she was too good looking. no other girl was anywhere near so attractive to the male principle. that was why she could carry off a reckless part. she became more heedless and dangerous about it as the psychic tension increased. she did not care in the least what happened.
it was nothing she did,—nothing you could isolate as an example and criticise. her behavior was basically na?ve. it was what she was. it was what she had been for thousands of threaded years. it was life at a pitch of intensity, life of a certain quality, looking out of her eyes, seeking itself.
“don’t you see what she is doing?” asked a feline girl, speaking to john in the dance.
“no,” he said. “i don’t see what she is doing. i see only that you are treating her badly. i suppose it can’t be helped.”
“she’s having a very good time, all the same,” the girl retorted.
[142]
most of the young men felt as john did and took pains to keep her supplied with attention. she received it not ungraciously, but lightly, with an amused and cynical smile. she seemed to be saying to herself: “all grapes are a little sour.”
the party was rapidly approaching a state of distress when a call for mr. breakspeare was handed in from the office. he went out. a feeling of suspense went all around. it seemed only at that moment to have occurred to anyone that there might reasonably be some sort of sequel. john returned in ten minutes, claimed his partner and entered the dance as if nothing had happened. but there was an uneasy look on his face. when the dance was over he went about looking for someone. then he began to ask.
no one had seen her go. she had taken no leave. she had simply vanished.
when the fact was definitely established john excused himself and went in pursuit. he hoped to overtake her on the road home, supposing, as was true, that she had scented trouble and wished to meet it alone. that much of her character he understood. his anxiety was real.
the man who had called for him at the inn was no other than his corrupted gardener. and what he had come to say was that whoever brought the young lady home had better be careful. he would do much better not to bring her at all. for enoch gib, in waiting with a blunderbuss, yearned to abate his existence.
“an’ he is after findin’ out who be takin’ th’ young[143] laday away,” the news bringer said at the end of his tidings.
all that had happened might have been foreseen if anyone had been thinking of consequences.
when the gaoler woman discovered that agnes was gone the first thing she did was to go to her room and search it. she found john’s notes—all of them. as the whole exhibit made too strong a case against her gaolership she destroyed all but the last two. these, which referred only to the surreptitious meetings at the boxwood, she took to enoch, saying she was sure from certain other evidence that it was not an elopement but an escapade. agnes would return before daylight.
the result upon enoch may be imagined.
this was aaron again,—the same aaron who stole esther away from him. the terrible wound fell wide open. the pain of it wrecked his mind. it would have killed him, perhaps, but for the solacing thought that revenge was near.
so john pursued agnes, agnes was lost, and enoch, waited with death in his heart.
