The Unseen Bridegroom | Page 2

strode straight to the majestic
presence of the mistress of the house, with outstretched hand and a cool
"How are you, mother?"

And Mrs. Walraven knew her son. He had left her a fiery, handsome,
bright-faced lad, and this man before her was gray and black-bearded
and weather-beaten and brown, but she knew him. She had risen with a
shrill cry of joy, and held open her arms.
"I've come back, you see, mother," Mr. Carl said, easily, "like the
proverbial bad shilling. I've grown tired knocking about this big world,
and now, at nine-and-thirty, with an empty purse, a light heart, a
spotless conscience, and a sound digestion, I'm going to settle down
and walk in the way I should go. You are glad to have your
ne'er-do-well back again, I hope, mother?"
Glad! A widowed mother, lonely and old, glad to have an only son
back! Mrs. Walraven had tightened those withered arms about him
closer and closer, with only that one shrill cry:
"Oh, Carl--my son! my son!"
"All right, mother! And now, if there's anything in this house to eat, I'll
eat it, because I've been fasting since yesterday, and haven't a stiver
between me and eternity. By George! this isn't such a bad harbor for a
shipwrecked mariner to cast anchor in. I've been over the world, mother,
from Dan to--What's-her-name! I've been rich and I've been poor; I've
been loved and I've been hated; I've had my fling at everything good
and bad under the shining sun, and I come home from it all, subscribing
to the doctrine: 'There's nothing new and nothing true.' And it don't
signify; it's empty as egg-shells, the whole of it."
That was the story of the prodigal son. Mrs. Walraven asked no
questions. She was a wise old woman; she took her son and was
thankful. It had happened late in October, this sudden arrival, and now,
late in November, the fatted calf was killed, and Mrs. Walraven's dear
five hundred friends bidden to the feast.
And they came. They had all heard the story of the widow's heir, so
long lost, and now, dark and mysterious as Count Lara, returned to lord
it in his ancestral halls. He was a very hero of romance--a wealthy hero,
too--and all the pretty man-traps on the avenue, baited with lace and

roses, silk and jewels, were coming to-night to angle for this dazzling
prize.
The long-silent drawing-rooms, shrouded for twenty years in holland
and darkness, were one blaze of light at last. Flowers bloomed
everywhere; musicians, up in a gilded gallery, discoursed heavenly
music; there was a conservatory where alabaster lamps made a silver
moonlight in a modern Garden of Eden; there was a supper-table spread
and waiting, a feast for the gods and Sybarites; and there was Mrs.
Walraven, in black velvet and point lace, upright and stately, despite
her sixty years, with a diamond star of fabulous price ablaze on her
breast. And there by her side, tall, and dark, and dignified, stood her
only son, the prodigal, the repentant, the wealthy Carl Walraven.
"Not handsome," said Miss Blanche Oleander, raising her glass, "but
eminently interesting. He looks like the hero of a sensation novel, or a
modern melodrama, or one of Lord Byron's poems. Does he dance, and
will he ask me, I wonder?"
Yes, the dusky hero of the night did dance, and did ask Miss Blanche
Oleander. A tall, gray-eyed, imperious sort of beauty, this Miss
Blanche, seven-and-twenty years of age, and frightfully _passée_, more
youthful belles said.
Mr. Walraven danced the very first dance with Miss Oleander, to her
infinite but perfectly concealed delight.
"If you can imagine the Corsair, whirling in a rapid redowa with
Medora," Miss Oleander afterward said, "you have Mr. Walraven and
myself. There were about eighty Guinares gazing enviously on, ready
to poniard me, every one of them, if they dared, and if they were not
such miserable little fools and cowards. When they cease to smell of
bread and butter, Mr. Walraven may possibly deign to look at them."
It seemed as if the dashing Blanche had waltzed herself straight into the
affections of the new-found heir, for he devoted himself to her in the
most _prononcé_ manner for the first three hours, and afterward led her
in to supper.

Miss Blanche sailed along serene, uplifted, splendidly calm; the little
belles in lace, and roses, and pearls, fluttered and twittered like angry
doves; and Mme. Walraven, from the heights of her hostess-throne,
looked aslant at her velvet and diamonds with uneasy old eyes.
"The last of all you should have selected," she said, waylaying her son
after supper. "A woman without a heart, Carl--a modern Minerva. I
have no wish to interfere with you, my son; I shall call the day