"I never knew a woman to look and speak as she did to-night.If you don't manage better she'll make us trouble yet.""Oh,I'm used to Ida's tantrums.They don't last.Nothing does with her.Time and another admirer will bring her around.""Well,you ought to know,"said Stanton with a shrug;"but I retire from the management.I can't help saying,however,that something in her looks and words makes me uneasy.I regret exceedingly Ispoke as I did,and shall apologize at the first opportunity.""You'll have that in the morning.Things are so much better than I feared that I am greatly relieved.She'll come around now if nothing more is said.Roiled water always settles when kept quiet;"and Mrs.Mayhew returned to the parlor in much better spirits.
Stanton followed his aunt and joined a small group that had gathered around Miss Burton.Van Berg gave him a quick,questioning look,but gathered the impression only that he had been subjected to a very painful interview.
"She has evidently realized his worst fears,"he thought;"curses on her!"and his face grew fairly black for a moment with anger and disgust.
But Jennie Burton's silver tongue soon charmed away the evil spirits from both the young men.
She had fine conversation powers,and her keen intuition and her controlling passion to give pleasure enabled her to detect and draw out the best thoughts of others.Her evident sympathy put every one at ease,and gave people the power of such happy expression that they were surprised at themselves,and led to believe that they not only received but gave something better than average.
Therefore,under the magic of her good-will,both eyes and minds kindled,and even common-place persons became almost brilliant and eloquent.
Stanton's was the only clouded face in her circle that evening;and true to her instinct,she set about banishing his trouble,whatever it might be--an easy task with her power over him.
Since it daily became more evident to her that she must wound his vanity,and perhaps his heart a little,she tried to make amends by showing him such public consideration as might rob his disappointment of humiliation and bitterness.
Stanton,therefore,soon forgot Ida's desperate face,and was enjoying himself at his best.
Yet Ida's face but faintly revealed her heart.It seemed that the end had now come in very truth,and she was conscious chiefly of a wild impulse to escape from her shame and suffering.There was also a bitter sense of wrong and a wish to retaliate.
"I'll teach them all a lesson,"she muttered,as she paced her room swiftly to and fro."This proud artist thinks he can look at me as if I were empty air;that he can forget me as he has the rose-bud he tossed away.I will insure that he looks at me once with a face as white as mine will then be,and that he remembers me to his dying day."After becoming more calm,and as if acting under a sudden impulse,she hastily made a simple but singular toilet.
When completed,her mirror reflected a plain,close-fitting,black gown,which left her neck and arms bare.Around her white throat she placed a black velvet band,and joined it by a small jet poniard studded with diamonds.Her sunny hair was wound into a severely simple coil,and also fastened with a larger poniard,from the haft and guard of which glistened diamonds of peculiar brilliancy.She took off all her rings,and wore no other ornaments.Then taking from her table a book,bearing conspicuously as its title the word "Misjudged,"she went down to the parlor.
She paused a moment on the threshold before she was noticed.Her mother was eagerly gossiping with two or three fashionable women about a scandal that she hoped might cause her own family's short-comings to be forgotten in part.Miss Burton was telling a story in her own inimitable style,and ripples of smiles and laughter eddied from her constantly.Stanton's and Van Berg's faces were aglow with pleasure,and it was plain the speaker absorbed all their thoughts.
"In the same way he will forget me,after I am dead,"said the unhappy girl to herself,and the thought sent a colder chill to her heart,and a deeper pallor to her face.
Her gaze seemed to draw his,for he looked up suddenly.On recognizing her his first impulse was to coldly avert his eyes,but in a second her unusual appearance riveted his attention.She saw the impulse,however,and would not look towards him again.She entered as quietly and as unexpectedly as a ghost,and the people seemed as much surprised and perplexed as if she were a ghost.
She took a seat somewhat apart from all others,and apparently commenced reading.She was not so far away but that Van Berg could decipher the title,"Misjudged,"and having made out the significant word,its letters grew luminous like the diamonds in her hair.