Here, leaning modestly on the arm of a tall figure in military uniform,
and advancing slowly up the hall, is a girl of some sixteen summers.
Her finely-rounded form is in harmony with the ravishing vivacity of
her face, which is beautifully oval. Seen by the glaring gaslight her
complexion is singularly clear and pale. But that freshness which had
gained her many an admirer, and which gave such a charm to the
roundness of early youth, we look for in vain. And yet there is a
softness and delicacy about her well-cut and womanly features-a
child-like sweetness in her smile-a glow of thoughtfulness in those
great, flashing black eyes-an expression of melancholy in which at
short intervals we read her thoughts-an incessant playing of those long
dark eyelashes, that clothes her charms with an irresistible, a
soul-inspiring seductiveness. Her dress, of moire antique, is
chasteness itself; her bust exquisite symmetry; it heaves as softly as
if touched by some gentle zephyr. From an Haidean brow falls and floats
undulating over her marble-like shoulders, the massive folds of her
glossy black hair. Nature had indeed been lavish of her gifts on this
fair creature, to whose charms no painter could give a touch more
fascinating. This girl, whose elastic step and erect carriage contrasts
strangely with the languid forms about her, is Anna Bonard, the
neglected, the betrayed. There passes and repasses her, now
contemplating her with a curious stare, then muttering inaudibly, a man
of portly figure, in mask and cowl. He touches with a delicate hand his
watch-guard, we see two sharp, lecherous eyes peering through the
domino; he folds his arms and pauses a few seconds, as if to survey the
metal of her companion, then crosses and recrosses her path. Presently
his singular demeanor attracts her attention, a curl of sarcasm is seen
on her lip, her brow darkens, her dark orbs flash as of fire,—all the
heart-burnings of a soul stung with shame are seen to quicken and make
ghastly those features that but a moment before shone lambent as summer
lightning. He pauses as with a look of withering scorn she scans him
from head to foot, raises covertly her left hand, tossing carelessly
her glossy hair on her shoulder, and with lightning quickness snatches
with her right the domino from his face. “Hypocrite!” she exclaims,
dashing it to the ground, and with her foot placed defiantly upon the
domino, assumes a tragic attitude, her right arm extended, and the
forefinger of her hand pointing in his face. “Ah!” she continues, in
biting accents, “it is against the perfidy of such as you I have
struggled. Your false face, like your heart, needed a disguise. But I
have dragged it away, that you may be judged as you are. This is my
satisfaction for your betrayal. Oh that I could have deeper revenge!”
She has unmasked Judge Sleepyhorn, who stands before the anxious gaze
of an hundred night revellers, pressing eagerly to the scene of
confusion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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