Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories - Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen (reading well TXT) 📗

been prepared to wait for a good half-hour, and accordingly felt a little provoked at myself for my seeming negligence.

"I do not mind telling you," she said, as I sat compressed in a corner of the carriage, striving to reduce myself to the smallest practicable dimensions, "that this is my first ball. I don't know any of the gentlemen who will be there to-night, but I know two or three Milwaukee ladies who have promised to come, so, even if I don't dance much, I shall not feel lonely."

"Of course you will give me the first chance at your card," I answered. "How many dances will you grant me?"

"As many as you want. Uncle was very explicit in impressing upon me that I am to obey you unquestioningly and have no will of my own."

"That was very unkind of him. I shall be unwilling to claim any privilege which you do not of your own free will bestow upon me."

"I didn't mean it so," she answered, impulsively, and by the passing light of a gas-lamp I caught a glimpse of her beaming, innocent face. "I shall not be apt to forget that I am indebted to your kindness for all the pleasure I shall have to-night, and if you wish to dance with me, of course it is very kind of you."

"Well, that is not much better," I murmured, ruefully, feeling very guilty at heart. "On that ground I should be still more reluctant to assert my claim on you."

"Oh, what a bungler I am!" she exclaimed with half-amused regret. "The truth is, I am so glad, and when I am very happy I always make blundering speeches."

As we entered the magnificently lighted and decorated hall, I noticed, to my dismay, that the company was a little more mixed than I had anticipated. I had, therefore, no scruples in putting down my name for four waltzes and a quadrille. I observed, too, that my fair partner attracted much attention, partly, perhaps, on account of her beauty, and partly on account of her superb toilet. Her dress was of satin, of a cool, lucid, sea-green tint, such as one sees in the fjords of Norway on a bright summer's day; the illusion was so perfect that in dancing with her I expected every moment to see sea-weeds and pale-green things sprouting up along its border, and the white bunches of lilies-of-the-valley in her hair, as they wafted their faint fragrance toward me, seemed almost an anomaly. She danced, not with vehement abandon, but with an airy, rhythmical grace, as if the music had entered into her soul and her limbs were but obeying their innate tuneful impulse. When we had finished the first waltz, I left her in the company of one of her Milwaukee friends and started out in quest of some acceptable male partner whose touch of her I should not feel to be a positive desecration. I had reached about the middle of the hall when an affectionate slap on my shoulder caused me to turn around.

"Dannevig!" I exclaimed, with frigid amazement "By Jove! Where do you come from? You are as unexpected as a thunderclap from a cloudless sky."

"Which was a sign that Jupiter was wroth," replied Dannevig, promptly, "and required new sacrifices. Now the sacrifice I demand of you is that you shall introduce me to that charming little girl you have had the undeserved luck of securing."

"You choose your metaphors well," I remarked, calmly. "But, as you know, even the Romans with all their reputed hardness of heart, were too conscientious to tolerate human sacrifices. And I, being, in the present instance, the _pontifex_, would never be a party to such an atrocity."

The transformation which Dannevig's face underwent was almost terrible. A look of perfectly animal savageness distorted for a brief moment his handsome features; his eyes flashed, and his brow was one mass of wrinkles.

"Do you mean to say that you refuse to introduce me?" he asked, in a hoarse whisper.

"That is exactly what I mean to say," I answered, with well-feigned coolness.

"And do you really suppose," he continued, while his brow slowly relaxed, "that you can prevent me from making that girl's acquaintance, if I have made up my mind to thwart you?"

"I don't suppose anything of the kind," was my reply. "But you know me well enough to be aware that you cannot browbeat me. She shall, at all events, not owe your acquaintance to me."

Dannevig stood for a while, pondering; then with one of those sudden transitions of feeling which were so characteristic of him, he continued in a tone of good-fellowship:

"Come, now; this is ridiculous! You have been dining on S----'s leathery beef-steak, which I have so frequently warned you against, and, what is worse, you have had mince pie for dessert. Your digestion is seriously deranged. For old friends like you and me to quarrel over a little chit of a girl, is as absurd as committing suicide because you have scratched your hand with a pin. If your heart is really engaged in this affair, then I wont interfere with you. I wish you luck, although judging by what I have seen, I should say you might have made a better choice. _Au revoir_."

He skipped lightly down the floor, and was lost in the crowd. Having selected some journalistic friends as partners for Fraulein Hildegard, and listened with great patience to their rhapsodies over her beauty and loveliness, I stationed myself at the upper end of the hall, and in philosophic discontent watched the dancers. Dannevig's parting words had filled me with vague alarm; I knew that they were insincere, and I suspected that he was even now at work to accomplish some disastrous intention. At this moment a couple came whirling straight toward me; a pale-green satin, train swept over my feet, and the cross of the order of Dannebrog sent a swift flash into my very eyes. A fierce exclamation escaped me; my blood was in tumult. I began to feel dangerous. As the usual accelerated rush of violins and drums announced that the dance was near its end, I did not dare to seek my fair partner, and I had no pleasure to feign when I saw her advancing, with a light and eager step, to where I was standing. She was evidently too preoccupied to notice the change I had undergone since our last parting.

"Now," she said, with as near an approach to archness as a woman of her type is capable of, "you must not think me odd if I do something that may seem to you a little bit unconventional. It is only your own kindness to me which encourages me to ask a favor, which I shouldn't wonder if you would rather grant than not. The fact is, there is a gentleman who wishes very much to dance with me, and my card is already full. Now, would you mind giving up one of yours? I know, in the first place, that it was from a sense of duty that--that--that you took so many," she finished desperately, as I refused to come to her aid.

"We will not discuss my motives, Fraulein," I said, with as much friendliness as I had at my command. "But, before granting your not unreasonable request, you must be good enough to tell me who the gentleman is who is to profit by my sacrifice."

"His name is Mr. Dannevig. He is a knight of Dannebrog, and moreover, as he tells me, an intimate friend of yours."

"Tell him, then, Fraulein, that he might have presumed sufficiently upon our friendship to prefer his request in person, instead of sending you as his messenger."

The color sprang to her cheeks; she swept abruptly around, and with an air of outraged majesty, marched defiantly down the hall.

The night wore on. The hour for supper came, and politeness forced me to go and find Miss Pfeifer. Then we sat down in a corner, and ate and chattered in a heedless, dispirited fashion, dwelling with feigned interest on trifling themes, and as by a tacit agreement avoiding each other's glances. Then some gentleman came to claim her, and I was almost glad that she was gone. And yet, in the very next moment a passionate regret came over me, as for a personal loss, and I would fain have called her back and told her, with friendly directness my reasons for interfering so rudely with her pleasure.

I do not know how long I sat thus idly nursing my discontent, and now and then, as my anger blazed up, muttering some fierce execration against Dannevig. What was this girl to me, after all? I was certainly not in love with her. And if she chose to ruin herself, what business had I to prevent her? But then, she was a woman, and a sweet and pure and true-hearted woman; it was, at all events, my duty to open her eyes, and I vowed that, even though she should hate me for it, I would tell her the truth. I looked at my watch; it was a few minutes past two. With a sting of self-reproach, I remembered my promise to Mr. Pfeifer, and resolved not to shirk the responsibility I had voluntarily assumed. I hastened up the hall, then down again, surveyed the dancers, sent a girl into the dressing-room with a message; but Fraulein Hildegard was nowhere to be seen. A horrible thought flashed through me. I seized my hat, and rushed down into the restaurant. There, in an inner apartment, divided from the public room by drooping curtains, I found her, laughing and chatting gayly with Dannevig over a glass of Champagne and a dish of ice-cream.

"Fraulein," I said, approaching her with grave politeness, "I am sorry to be obliged to interrupt this agreeable _tête-à-tête_. But the carriage has arrived, and I must claim the pleasure of your company."

"Now, really," she exclaimed, with impulsive regret, while her eyes still hung with a fascinated gaze on Dannevig's face, "is it, then, so necessary that we should go just now? Do you really insist upon it? Mr. Dannevig was just telling me some charming adventures of his life in Denmark."

"I am happy to say," I answered, "that I am so well familiar with Mr. Dannevig's adventures as to be quite competent to supplement his fragmentary statements. I shall be very happy to continue the entertainment--"

"_Sacr--r-r-e nom de Dieu_!" Dannevig burst forth, leaping up from his seat. "This is more than I can bear!" and he pulled a card from his portmonnaie and flung it down on the table before me. "May I request the honor of a meeting?" he continued, in a calmer voice. "It is high time that we two should settle our difficulties in the only way in which they are capable of adjustment."

"Mr. Dannevig," I replied, with a cool irony which I was far from feeling, "the first rule of the code of honor, to which you appeal, is, as you are aware, that the combatants must be equals in birth and station. Now, you boast of being of royal blood, while I have no such claim to distinction. You see, therefore, that your proposition is absurd."

Miss Hildegard had in the meanwhile risen to take my proffered arm, and with a profound bow to the indignant hero we moved out of the room. During our homeward ride hardly a word was spoken; the wheels rattled away over the uneven pavement and the coachman snapped his whip, while we sat in opposite corners of the carriage, each pursuing his