For only this night, as they whispered, I brought
My own eyes to bear on her so, that I thought,
Could I keep them one half-minute fixed--she would fall
Shrivelled!--She fell not; yes, this does it all.--BROWNING As the circle revolved before them, Sybil saw no one but Lyon Berners
and Rosa Blondelle, and these she saw always--with her eyes, when they
were before them; with her spirit, when they had revolved away from
them. She saw him hold close to his heart the arm that leaned on his
arm; she saw him press her hand, and play with her fingers, and look
love in the glances of his eyes, and speak love in the tones of his
voice, although no word of love had been uttered as yet.
At last--oh! deliverance from torture!--the music ceased, the
promenaders dispersed to their seats.
The relief was but short! The band soon struck up a popular quadrille,
and the gentlemen again selected their partners and formed sets. Lyon
Berners, who had conducted his fair companion to a distant seat, now led
her forth again, and stood with her at the head of one of the sets.
"There! you see! they are lovers! I wonder who he is?" whispered
Death, leaning to Sybil's ear.
Sybil bit her lip and answered nothing.
"Ah! you do not know, or will not tell! Well, will you honor me with
your hand in this quadrille?" requested the stranger, with a bow.
Scarcely knowing what she did, for her eyes and thoughts were still
following her husband and her rival, Sybil bowed assent, and arose from
her seat.
Death took her hand and led her up to the same quadrille, at the head
of which Harold the Saxon and Edith the Fair stood, and he placed
himself and his partner exactly opposite to, and facing them.
Thus Lyon Berners for the first time in the evening was obliged to see
his wife, for of course he knew her by her dress, as she knew him by his
dress. She saw him stoop and whisper to his partner, and she surmised
that he gave her a hint as to who was their vis-a-vis, and gave it as
a warning. She fancied here that her confidence had been betrayed in
small matters as well as in great, and even in this very small item of
divulging the secret of her costume to her rival. And at that moment she
took a resolution, which later in the evening she carried out. Now,
however, from behind her golden mask she continued to watch her husband
and her rival. She noticed, that from the instant her husband had
observed his wife's presence, he modified his manner towards his
partner, until there seemed nothing but indifference in it.