The Golden House | Page 6

Oriental as I
thought it would be."
"I cannot say as to that. I know Edith thinks I've gone into the depths of
the Orient. But, on the whole, I'm glad--" Jack stopped on the verge of
speaking out of his better nature.
"Now don't be rude again. I quite understand that she is not here."
The dialogue was cut short by a clapping of hands. The spectators took

their places again, the lights were lowered, the illumination was turned
on the white canvas, and the dancer, warmed with wine and adulation,
took a bolder pose, and, as her limbs began to move, sang a wild
Moorish melody in a shrill voice, action and words flowing together
into the passion of the daughter of tents in a desert life. It was all
vigorous, suggestive, more properly religious, Mavick would have said,
and the applause was vociferous.
More wine went about. There was another dance, and then another, a
slow languid movement, half melancholy and full of sorrow, if one
might say that of a movement, for unrepented sin; a gypsy dance this,
accompanied by the mournful song of Boabdil, "The Last Sigh of the
Moor." And suddenly, when the feelings of the spectators were melted
to tender regret, a flash out of all this into a joyous defiance, a wooing
of pleasure with smiling lips and swift feet, with the clash of cymbals
and the quickened throb of the drum. And so an end with the dawn of a
new day.
It was not yet dawn, however, for the clocks were only striking three as
the assembly, in winter coats and soft wraps, fluttered out to its
carriages, chattering and laughing, with endless good-nights in the
languages of France, Germany, and Spain.
The streets were as nearly deserted as they ever are; here and there a
lumbering market-wagon from Jersey, an occasional street-car with its
tinkling bell, rarer still the rush of a trembling train on the elevated, the
voice of a belated reveler, a flitting female figure at a street corner, the
roll of a livery hack over the ragged pavement. But mainly the noise of
the town was hushed, and in the sharp air the stars, far off and
uncontaminated, glowed with a pure lustre.
Farther up town it was quite still, and in one of the noble houses in the
neighborhood of the Park sat Edith Delancy, married not quite a year,
listening for the roll of wheels and the click of a night-key.

II
Everybody liked John Corlear Delancy, and this in spite of himself, for
no one ever knew him to make any effort to incur either love or hate.
The handsome boy was a favorite without lifting his eyebrows, and he
sauntered through the university, picking his easy way along an
elective course, winning the affectionate regard of every one with

whom he came in contact. And this was not because he lacked quality,
or was merely easy- going and negative or effeminate, for the same
thing happened to him when he went shooting in the summer in the
Rockies. The cowboys and the severe moralists of the plains, whose
sedate business in life is to get the drop on offensive persons, regarded
him as a brother. It isn't a bad test of personal quality, this power to win
the loyalty of men who have few or none of the conventional virtues.
These non-moral enforcers of justice--as they understood it liked Jack
exactly as his friends in the New York clubs liked him--and perhaps the
moral standard of approval of the one was as good as the other.
Jack was a very good shot and a fair rider, and in the climate of
England he might have taken first-rate rank in athletics. But he had
never taken first-rate rank in anything, except good-fellowship. He had
a great many expensive tastes, which he could not afford to indulge,
except in imagination. The luxury of a racing-stable, or a yacht, or a
library of scarce books bound by Paris craftsmen was denied him.
Those who account for failures in life by a man's circumstances, and
not by a lack in the man himself, which is always the secret of failure,
said that Jack was unfortunate in coming into a certain income of
twenty thousand a year. This was just enough to paralyze effort, and
not enough to permit a man to expand in any direction. It is true that he
was related to millions and moved in a millionaire atmosphere, but
these millions might never flow into his bank account. They were not
in hand to use, and they also helped to paralyze effort--like black
clouds of an impending shower that may pass around, but meantime
keeps the watcher indoors.
The best thing that Jack Delancy ever