I clutched at Aunt's hand as if to stop her in front of the huge fireplace, where logs, crackling on tall "firedogs" of twisted iron, gave out a yellow blaze; but then quickly such a different terror and wonder and joy came again upon me that I lost consciousness of everything but Ned; and the masses of ferns and palms through which we were moving--the doll-like servants in silk stockings and knee breeches, their scarlet coats emblazoned with the monogram of the Van Dams--faded out of sight. Yet I never once glanced in his direction.
We had to go to the third floor for the dressing rooms; but in spite of those minutes of grace, when a maid had removed my wraps--she started with amazement as she did so--my cheeks were still aflame.
Mrs. Baker and Milly fussed with my dress, and Aunt became incoherent in her efforts to soothe and encourage me; for she feared the ordeal before us, and thought that I feared it also. And I was afraid, but not of meeting any person in that house, save one. I quivered at the thought that outside the door Ned was waiting, that we must go out to him, that I might even be obliged to speak to him. And yet I longed to see him again, to be with him--somewhere, away from them all.
Perhaps at last I was beginning to understand.
The General had been sent for, and I kept close to her and to Peggy, when they went down with our party to the parlours on the second floor. There, at our entrance, groups of people seemed to divide with an eager buzz that at any other time would have been ravishing music. Last night I didn't know that I heard it, though now I remember how splendidly apparelled women and sombre-coated men turned their heads as we passed. Of course word had spread that the beautiful Miss Winship was expected.
It was almost in a dream that I stood before Mrs. Henry Van Dam--a short, heavy woman, in purple velvet, flashing with diamonds. Without a vestige of awkwardness or timidity I answered her effusive welcome, and the greetings of her grayish wisp of a husband, and of Mr. and Mrs. Marmaduke Van Dam--both thin and grave; her neck cords standing out under her diamond collar. And of little Mr. Robert Van Dam. And of Mr. Bellmer--a pink, young, plump thing, all white waistcoat and bald head, just as I remembered him at the Opera.