Lawrence Newt looked at his friend as he imagined the condescending
Diana. The artist's face was a little raised as he spoke, as if he saw
a stately vision. It was rapt in the intensity of fancy, and Lawrence
knew perfectly well that he saw Hope Wayne's Endymion before him. But at
the same moment his eye fell upon his nephew Abel sitting with a choice
company of gay youths at another table. There was instantly a mischievous
twinkle in Lawrence Newt's eye.
"Eureka! I have Endymion."
Arthur started and felt a half pang, as if Lawrence Newt had suddenly
told him of Miss Wayne's engagement. He came instantly out of the clouds
on Latinos, where he was dreaming.
"What did you say?" asked he.
"Why, of course, how dull I am! Abel will be your Endymion, if you can
get him."
"Who is Abel?" inquired Arthur.
"Why, my nephew, Abel Don Juan Pelham Newt, of Grand Street, and Boniface
Newt, Son, & Company, Dry Goods on Commission, Esquire," replied Lawrence
Newt, with perfect gravity.
Arthur looked at him bewildered.
"Don't you know my nephew, Abel Newt?"
"No, not personally. I've heard of him, of course."
"Well, he's a very handsome young man; and though he be dark, he may
also be Endymion. Why not? Look at him; there he sits. 'Tis the one just
raising the glass to his lips."
Lawrence Newt bent his head as he spoke toward the gay revelers, who sat,
half a dozen in number, and the oldest not more than twenty-five, all
dandies, all men of pleasure, at a neighboring table spread with a
profuse and costly feast. Abel was the leader, and at the moment Arthur
Merlin and Lawrence Newt turned to look he was telling some anecdote to
which they all listened eagerly, while they sipped the red wine of
France, poured carefully from a bottle reclining in a basket, and
delicately coated with dust. Abel, with his glass in his hand and the
glittering smile in his eye, told the story with careless grace, as if
he were more amused with the listeners' eagerness than with the anecdote
itself. The extreme gayety of his life was already rubbing the boyish
bloom from his face, but it developed his peculiar beauty more strikingly
by removing that incongruous innocence which belongs to every boyish
countenance.
As he looked at him, Arthur Merlin was exceedingly impressed by the air
of reckless grace in his whole appearance, which harmonized so entirely
with his face. Lawrence Newt watched his friend as the latter gazed at
Abel. Lawrence always saw a great deal whenever he looked any where.
Perhaps he perceived the secret dissatisfaction and feeling of sudden
alarm which, without any apparent reason, Arthur felt as he looked at
Abel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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