Life — December 28, 1893 — page 42: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

20 and there a finishing touch, He complimented Clem on his promptness and good taste. “And now, Clem,” he said, glancing at the tall clock in the corner of the room, “ you may go to bed. And remem- ber you are not to return to-night, or even look into the room.” Seeing upon the black h for being excluded from such an un- usual festivity, he laid a hand affectionately upon his shoulder and added : “T may tell you about it sometime, but this little party to-night is to be so terribly select that not even the supper itself can be ad- mitted. So go to bed, old fellow, and I wish you in ad- vance a Merry Christmas.” “Same to you, sah: same to you, and a good many of ‘em! Good-night, sah.” Alone in the room, Mr. Valentine filled the eight little glasses with the old Madeira. He then took seven cards from his pocket. On every card was a lady's name, which he touched reverently with his lips before laying beside its proper plate, Then with a thoughtfulness and care that indicated a familiarity with the preferences of his guests he transposed all the bunches of flowers. The last one to be laid in position was composed entirely of old-fashioned pinks. Ashe placed it on the table a sudden idea seemed to strike him, and taking one of these pinks from the bunch he went back into his chamber to the chimney-piece and stood before the miniature of a young girl about eighteen, in a white dress of a fashion long gone by. The brown hair, parted in the middle and drawn down in straight lines across the forehead, covered the ears with a prim severity in striking contrast to the plump lips and laughing eyes. At her breast was a little bunch of the same old-fashioned pinks. For Mr. Valentine there were evidently sad associations with this cheerful face, for his eyes were moist as he inserted his one little flower in the carving of the frame. Returning to the dining-room, he stopped a moment upon the threshold, looking with boyish pleasure upon the dainty supper table and the blazing fire. He then stepped to his ownarm-chair at the head of the table, bowed his head in salutation to the absent guests, and took his seat. The red spots were again in his checks. The flush of youth came and went more fitfully than before as he looked along the vacant places and allowed his fancy to fill the seats with those who at different epochs had been so very dear to him. Verily he seemed again in the presence of the seven beings whose hearts had once been his. And they were not idle flirtations he looked back upon, but serious passions; for Mr. Valentine, although impressionable, was a steadfast man, and these seven loves of his life had been honest and face a repro: at the opera.” loyal. Moreover, there had always been a reasonable space When his heart went out to a new love it still held firmly to the earlier idols and never weakened in its devotion. These memories gave him an ex- quisite pleasure, and for twenty years he had taken every care to keep them alive and fresh. They were the sanctities of a heart that could never grow old, And now, as he sat with the empty chairs about him, he was drifting back into the years of his victorious youth. He seemed again in the presence of those whose memories were more, precious than life. There, on the right, with the quaint little curls each side of her face, is the one for whom he fought that laughable duel and got a bullet in his ribs; then lost her through a hot little quarrel for which “That night he sat waiting for her behind one of the fies he has cursed himself off and on for more than half a century. But the kind eyes smile pleasantly at him now. And beside her is the dear, familiar maiden on the bobtail horse, she who wrote the letters in his secretary drawer. The blood flows quicker through his veins as she, too, sends a loving greeting. He laughs to see the same old toss of the head he knows so well. But that foreign tempestuous beauty with the pearls in her black hair, and the heavy cyclids—why is she here among these Americans? Has she also a corner in the old beau's heart? Of that there is little doubt. As her gaze meets his he leans forward with an eager smile and his eyes drop to a necklace where he sees, with a thrill of pleasure, a jewelled locket upon her throat. He knows well what lies within. And /a diva! She, too, is here! What a different life her ,face recalls! A life of music, flowers, applause. It recalls stolen interviews in those delicious days before she was famous and before she was given to that short, little brute with the very long title. It also recalls that night he sat waiting for her behind one of the flies in the opera at Genoa when she, coming off the stage in her regal robes, took his head in both her hands and kissed him! All the joy and tragedy of fifty years seemed crowded in a single moment. He leans back in his chair, his handsome face radiant with unspeakable happiness. But the strain is almost too great and he raises a trembling hand to his heart as if to keep it in its place. He suddenly leans forward, however, with a bright wel- come in his eyes as another place is occupied. This time by a little figure—a girl of ten or thereabouts—who lifts the flowers from beside her plate and smiles timidly over them, His thoughts fly back into a far-away past when he and this maid were all the world to one another. It was his first pas- sion, his boyish love. Dogs she remember the day he dragged her up the hill upon his sled, and when at the very top he slipped and, falling in her lap, they sped like comicbooks.com