Anna Lombard | Page 6

thoughts rushed through my brain as I leaned over her, smiling and exerting myself to the utmost to please her, and the time flew by and we neither of us heeded what was being played .or what dances danced in the room behind us till suddenly "Home, Sweet Home," in the guise of a waltz, reached us, and we realized suddenly the evening our evening! was over. We both looked at each other with a quick glance, and both knew that we wanted this dance with each other. How little stiffness, how little formality there seems to be from the first when two people meet who are going to feel a great passion one for the other, even before the passion can be said to be lighted, and certainly is not recognized.
Nature's own hand seems to slip loose some bandage which is usually before our eyes, and we act with a certain tenderness, earnestness, and simplicity that is foreign to our usual life and other relations.
As we heard the first sounds of the waltz, Anna looked at me and then slipped that soft, slender, white arm through mine with a little, happy smile, and I, with a sudden sense of happiness and delight in life that I had never known, pressed it close, and we joined the moving circle within. As we danced, and when, at the corners of the room, her weight was thrown on me slightly and I caught, a breath from her lips that reminded me of the scent oi the tea-rose, and the same faint tea-rose scent came from the laces on her breast, this feeling of happiness merged into an ecstasy. It seemed I had never known life before, and, in fact, I had never known love, not even any of its base counterfeits. The soft waist yielded the more ] pressed it, and filled me with an infinitely tender impulse toward her, the gentle arm against my shoulder seemed oi delicious weight. I met her soft, half-wondering, innocenfeyes with their pleased smile, and I knew I was really alivo at last.
The waltz ended somewhat abruptly. It was three m the morning and the musicians were. tired.
"Would you go and try and find my father?" Anna asked me. "He does not dance, and I am afraid he maj be getting tired waiting for me somewhere."
Just as she spoke, General Lombard came toward us. We knew each other well, though his daughter, only having just come out, I had not seen before to-night.
He greeted me pleasantly, and when I asked if I mighl call on the following day he assented with a smile. Their in a half-dream-like state of feeling I escorted them to their carriage, and a murmured "Good-night "and & glance from two beautiful, passionate eyes out of the darkness of the carriage closed the evening for me.
That night I had a curious and horrible dream horrible because it was filled with that nameless, causeless, baseless horror and fear that only visits us in dreams. Whatever may happen in our waking life, we never feel that same peculiar dread which seems reserved for our brains to know only in sleep. I felt I was standing in a garden, in the center of which a large and beautiful white rosebud was unfolding itself before me, as I stood and watched it with an increasing sense of delight. It was the only flower in the garden and dominated the whole scene. At last the final and most lightly closed petals were opening and spreading, and in an ecstasy I leaned forward to see the heart disclosed, when suddenly, instead of a heart, a great rent was revealed a jagged, cruel chasm in the beauty of the flower and I fell back shuddering, a prey to that groundless, reasonless fear of dreams. I awoke abruptly, feeling cold in the sultry tropic night, and turned and tossed uneasily, and fell asleep to dream the same dream again. When I awoke the second time I had a confused feeling, such as troubles the half-wakened brain in the darkness of night, that my dream was connected with Anna. Then I d ^-d iny own foolishness, and went to sleep for the third time, and then into blank silence and rest. The next morning, waking late, with the brilliant sunlight rushing like water through all the cracks of the closed jilmils, I felt in excellent spirits, dressed quickly, and descended to the dining-room of my bungalow in the best of humors. My plans for that day and many days to follow were distinctly laid. I would go to Anna, be with her, talk with her, ride with her, and then and then and the rest seemed one bright flame of light and happiness.
How strange it was, I thought; how life seemed