The Black Bag | Page 8

an unusual degree. Yet it was the
same as ever; its walls tinted a deep rose, with their hangings of dull
cloth-of-gold, its lights discriminatingly clustered and discreetly shaded,
redoubled in half a hundred mirrors, its subdued shimmer of plate and
glass, its soberly festive assemblage of circumspect men and women
splendidly gowned, its decorously muted murmur of voices penetrated
and interwoven by the strains of a hidden string orchestra--caressed his
senses as always, yet with a difference. To-night he saw it a room
populous with lovers, lovers insensibly paired, man unto woman
attentive, woman of man regardful.
He had never understood this before. This much he had missed in life.
It seemed hard to realize that one must forego it all for ever.
Presently he found himself acutely self-conscious. The sensation
puzzled him; and without appearing to do so, he traced it from effect to
cause; and found the cause in a woman--a girl, rather, seated at a table
the third removed from him, near the farther wall of the room.
Too considerate, and too embarrassed, to return her scrutiny openly,
look for look, he yet felt sure that, however temporarily, he was
become the object of her intent interest.

Idly employed with his cigar, he sipped his coffee. In time aware that
she had turned her attention elsewhere, he looked up.
At first he was conscious of an effect of disappointment. She was
nobody that he knew, even by reputation. She was simply a young girl,
barely out of her teens--if as old as that phrase would signify. He
wondered what she had found in him to make her think him worth so
long a study; and looked again, more keenly curious.
With this second glance, appreciation stirred the artistic side of his
nature, that was already grown impatient of his fretted mood. The
slender and girlish figure, posed with such absolute lack of intrusion
against a screen of rose and gilt, moved him to critical admiration. The
tinted glow of shaded candles caught glistening on the spun gold of her
fair hair, and enhanced the fine pallor of her young shoulders. He saw
promise, and something more than promise, in her face, its oval
something dimmed by warm shadows that unavailingly sought to blend
youth and beauty alike into the dull, rich background.
In the sheer youth of her (he realized) more than in aught else, lay her
chiefest charm. She could be little more than a child, indeed, if he were
to judge her by the purity of her shadowed eyes and the absence of
emotion in the calm and direct look which presently she turned upon
him who sat wondering at the level, penciled darkness of her brows.
At length aware that she had surprised his interest, Kirkwood glanced
aside--coolly deliberate, lest she should detect in his attitude anything
more than impersonal approval.
A slow color burned his cheeks. In his temples there rose a curious
pulsing.
After a while she drew his gaze again, imperiously--herself all unaware
of the havoc she was wreaking on his temperament.
He could have fancied her distraught, cloaking an unhappy heart with
placid brow and gracious demeanor; but such a conception matched
strangely her glowing youth and spirit. What had she to do with Care?

What concern had Black Care, whose gaunt shape in sable shrouds had
lurked at his shoulder all the evening, despite his rigid preoccupation,
with a being as charmingly flushed with budding womanhood as this
girl?
"Eighteen?" he hazarded. "Eighteen, or possibly nineteen, dining at the
Pless in a ravishing dinner-gown, and--unhappy? Oh, hardly--not she!"
Yet the impression haunted him, and ere long he was fain to seek
confirmation or denial of it in the manner of her escort.
The latter sat with back to Kirkwood, cutting a figure as negative as his
snug evening clothes. One could surmise little from a fleshy thick neck,
a round, glazed bald spot, a fringe of grizzled hair, and two bright red
ears.
Calendar?
Somehow the fellow did suggest Kirkwood's caller of the afternoon.
The young man could not have said precisely how, for he was
unfamiliar with the aspect of that gentleman's back. None the less the
suggestion persisted.
By now, a few of the guests, theater-bound, for the most part, were
leaving. Here and there a table stood vacant, that had been filled, cloth
tarnished, chairs disarranged: in another moment to be transformed into
its pristine brilliance under the deft attentions of the servitors.
Down an aisle, past the table at which the girl was sitting, came two,
making toward the lobby; the man, a slight and meager young
personality, in the lead. Their party had attracted Kirkwood's notice as
they entered; why, he did not remember; but it was in his mind that
then they had been