So he went with his cousin to hear Calvé, and in the opposite box he
saw his old love sitting--Daisie, in her white silk and misty lace and
costly jewels, and that crown of golden hair--golden hair that had once
lain on his breast, in that time that seemed so far away. And people
kept going in and out of the box to speak to the three beauties; but
he saw quickly that she attracted always the most admiration. She must
enjoy it, too; for her face wore the most enchanting smiles, as if no
care disturbed her mind.
“Yet she pretended that it grieved her to give me up. Was it not true?
Has she forgotten so soon? Is she happy?” he mused angrily.
In his heart he was bitterly angry that she could be happy without him,
though that was selfishness, he knew.
By and by he saw Mrs. Fleming looking over at their box, and the start
she gave as she recognized him.
“Who is the young man in the box with Mrs. Hill-Dixon?”
“Her cousin, Lord Werter, a regular swell,” he replied.
Annette Janowitz brought her opera glass into play, exclaiming:
“What! a real live lord? Let me have a good look at him. Oh, dear me;
he’s the living image of Dallas Bain! Do look, Daisie!”
Daisie looked, and Dallas met her glance and waited for recognition,
but none came; and he could not see how pale she grew as her eyes
wavered and fell.
“Snubbed!” he said to himself indignantly; and it aroused the keenest
anger in his breast. What had he done, that neither of the three would
recognize him?
And, to add to his injury, Daisie never even looked at him again,
though the eyes of the other two strayed to him often in wonder at his
likeness to one they had known in the past.
He wondered cynically if Mrs. Fleming had got over her fancy for him as
easily as Daisie seemed to have done.
“I will go to the Morton ball and see,” he resolved, in a spirit of
audacity.
So, when the opera was over and they were in the crush of the ball, he
asked the hostess for an introduction to Mrs. Fleming, and the little
blonde beamed with delight when he asked her to dance.
“Lord Werter, I could not keep my eyes off you at the opera. You must
have noticed it, and thought it strange. But I was almost certain you
were an old friend of mine named Dallas Bain. When Major Mays told me
your name, I could hardly believe it,” she twittered.
So that explained her failure to bow? It lifted something from his
heart; but he took a whim not to undeceive her yet, not to own his
identity, to masquerade under his new splendor.
So he danced with the gay little widow, but his eyes wandered often to
Daisie, who was Major Mays’ partner, and danced divinely. It vexed him
that she would not even look at him, though she might have done that
much for the sake of the likeness to her old love.
“She is heartless. Prosperity has spoiled her,” he thought bitterly, as
he leaned against the wall and watched the clear-cut, smiling face so
fair and flowerlike.
He felt as if he hated her for forgetting so soon.