She leaned trustingly on
the arm of some one, but Leopold never even looked at him. He slid
the note into her hand, which hung ungloved as inviting confidences.
With an instinct quickened and sharpened tenfold by much practice,
her fingers instantly closed upon it, but, not a muscle belonging to
any other part of her betrayed the intrusion of a foreign body: I do
not believe her heart gave one beat the more to the next minute. She
passed graceful on, her swan's-neck shining; and Leopold hastened
out to one of the windows of the ball-room, there to feast his eyes
upon her loveliness. But when he caught sight of her whirling in the
waltz with the officer of dragoons whose name he had heard coupled
with hers, and saw her flash on him the light and power of eyes
which were to him the windows of all the heaven he knew, as they
swam together in the joy of the rhythm, of the motion, of the music,
suddenly the whole frame of the dream wherein he wandered, trembled,
shook, fell down into the dreary vaults that underlie all the airy
castles that have other foundation than the will of the eternal
Builder. With the suddenness of the dark that follows the lightning,
the music changed to a dissonant clash of multitudinous cymbals, the
resounding clang of brazen doors, and the hundred-toned screams of
souls in torture.
Pages:
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186