The Lady of the Ice | Page 6

at me. Then he looked down, and frowned. Then he looked at me again; and then he said, slowly, and with powerful effort:
CHAPTER IV.
"IT'S--THE--THE WIDOW! IT'S MRS.--FINNIMORE!!!"
Had a bombshell burst--but I forbear. That comparison is, I believe, somewhat hackneyed. The reader will therefore be good enough to appropriate the point of it, and understand that the shock of this intelligence was so overpowering, that I was again rendered speechless.
"You see," said Jack, after a long and painful silence, "it all originated out of an infernal mistake. Not that I ought to be sorry for it, though. Mrs. Finnimore, of course, is a deuced fine woman. I've been round there ever so long, and seen ever so much of her; and all that sort of thing, you know. Oh, yes," he added, dismally; "I ought to be glad, and, of course, I'm a deuced lucky fellow, and all that; but--"
He paused, and an expressive silence followed that "but."
"Well, how about the mistake?" I asked.
"Why, I'll tell you. It was that confounded party at Doane's. You know what a favorite of mine little Louie Berton is--the best little thing that ever breathed, the prettiest, the--full of fun, too. Well, we're awfully thick, you know; and she chaffed me all the evening about my engagement with Miss Phillips. She had heard all about it, and is crazy to find out whether it's going on yet or not. We had great fun--she chaffing and questioning, and I trying to fight her off. Well; the dancing was going on, and I'd been separated from her for some time, and was trying to find her again, and I saw some one standing in a recess of one of the windows, with a dress that was exactly like Louie's. Her back was turned to me, and the curtains half concealed her. I felt sure that it was Louie. So I sauntered up, and stood for a moment or two behind her. She was looking out of the window; one hand was on the ledge, and the other was by her side, half behind her. I don't know what got into me; but I seized her hand, and gave it a gentle squeeze.
"Well, you know, I expected that it would be snatched away at once. I felt immediately an awful horror at my indiscretion, and would have given the world not to have done it. I expected to see Louie's flashing eyes hurling indignant fire at me, and all that. But the hand didn't move from mine at all!"
Jack uttered this last sentence with the doleful accents of a deeply-injured man--such an accent as one would employ in telling of a shameful trick practised upon his innocence. "It lay in mine," he continued. "There it was; I had seized it; I had it; I held it; I had squeezed it; and--good Lord!--Macrorie, what was I to do? I'll tell you what I did--I squeezed it again. I thought that now it would go; but it wouldn't. Well, I tried it again. No go. Once more--and once again. On my soul, Macrorie, it still lay in mine. I cannot tell you what thoughts I had. It seemed like indelicacy. It was a bitter thing to associate indelicacy with one like little Louie; but--hang it!--there was the awful fact. Suddenly, the thought struck me that the hand was larger than Louie's. At that thought, a ghastly sensation came over me; and, just at that moment, the lady herself turned her face, blushing, arch, with a mischievous smile. To my consternation, and to my--well, yes--to my horror, I saw Mrs. Finnimore!"
"Good Lord!" I exclaimed.
"A stronger expression would fail to do justice to the occasion," said Jack, helping himself to a glass of beer. "For my part, the thrill of unspeakable horror that was imparted by that shock is still strong within me. There, my boy, you have my story. I leave the rest to your imagination."
"The rest? Why, do you mean to say that this is all?"
"All!" cried Jack, with a wild laugh. "All? My dear boy, it is only the faint beginning; but it implies all the rest."
"What did she say?" I asked, meekly.
"Say--say? What! After--well, never mind. Hang it! Don't drive me into particulars. Don't you see? Why, there I was. I had made an assault, broken through the enemy's lines, thought I was carrying every thing before me, when suddenly I found myself confronted, not by an inferior force, but by an overwhelming superiority of numbers--horse, foot, and artillery, marines, and masked batteries--yes, and baggage-wagons--all assaulting me in front, in flank, and in the rear. Pooh!"
"Don't talk shop, Jack."
"Shop? Will you be kind enough to suggest some ordinary figure of speech that will give an idea of my situation? Plain language is quite useless. At least, I find