The Choir Invisible

He was kept waiting for some time. More than once he heard in the next room

the sounds of smothered laughter and two voices, pitched in a confidential

tone: the one with persistent appeal, the other with persistent refusal. At

last there reached him the laughter of a merry agreement, and Amy entered

the room, holding Kitty Poythress by the hand.

She had been looking all day for her lost bundle. Now she was tired; worried

over the loss of her things which had been bought by her aunt at great cost

and self-sacrifice; and disappointed that she should not be able to go to

the ball on Thursday evening. It was to be the most brilliant assemblage of

the aristocratic families of the town that had ever been known in the

wilderness and the first endeavour to transplant beyond the mountains the

old social elegance of Williamsburg, Annapolis, and Richmond. Not to be seen

in the dress that Mrs. Falconer, dreaming of her own past, had deftly

made--not to have her beauty reign absolute in that scene of lights and

dance and music--it was the long, slow crucifixion of all the impulses of

her gaiety and youth.

She did not wish to see any one to-night, least of all John Gray with whom

she had had an engagement to go. No doubt he had come to ask why she had

broken it in the note which she had sent him that morning. She had not

given him any reason in the note; she did not intend to give him the reason

now. He would merely look at her in his grave, reproachful, exasperating way

and ask what was the difference: could she not wear some other dress? or

what great difference did it make whether she went at all? He was always

ready to take this manner of patient forbearance toward her, as though she

were one of his school children. To-night she was in no mood to have her

troubles treated as trifles or herself soothed like an infant that was

crying to be rocked.

She walked slowly into the room, dragging Kitty behind her. She let him

press the tips of her unbending fingers, pouted, smiled faintly, dropped

upon a divan by Kitty's side, strengthened her hold on Kitty's hand, and

fixed her eyes on Kitty's hair.

"Aren't you tired?" she said, giving it an absorbed caressing stroke, with a

low laugh. "I am."

"I am going to look again to-morrow, Kitty," she continued, brightening up

with a decisive air, "and the next day and the next." She kept her face

turned aside from John and did not include him in the conversation. Women

who imagine themselves far finer ladies than this child was treat a man in

this way--rarely--very rarely--say, once in the same man's lifetime.