Henry got away from this class of spectators, and took up his station right across the road. He leaned against the lamp-post, and watched the drawing-room windows for Grace.
The windows were large, and, being French, came down to the balcony.
Little saw many a lady's head and white shoulders, but not the one he sought.
Presently a bedroom window was opened, and a fair face looked out into the night for a moment. It was Jael Dence.
She had assisted Miss Carden to dress, and had then, at her request, prepared the room, and decked it with flowers, to receive a few of the young lady's more favored friends. This done, she opened the window, and Henry Little saw her.
Nor was it long before she saw him; for the light of the lamp was full on him.
But he was now looking intently in at the drawing-room windows, and with a ghastly expression.
The fact is, that in the short interval between his seeing Jael and her seeing him, the quadrilles had been succeeded by a waltz, and Grace Carden's head and shoulders were now flitting at intervals, past the window in close proximity to the head of her partner. What with her snowy, glossy shoulders, her lovely face, and her exquisite head and brow encircled with a coronet of pearls, her beauty seemed half-regal, half-angelic; yet that very beauty, after the first thrill of joy which the sudden appearance of a beloved one always causes, was now passing cold iron through her lover's heart. For why? A man's arm was round the supple waist, a man's hand held that delicate palm, a man's head seemed wedded to that lovely head, so close were the two together. And the encircling arm, the passing hand, the head that came and went, and rose and sank, with her, like twin cherries on a stalk, were the arm, the hand, and the head of Mr. Frederick Coventry.
Every time those two heads flitted past the window together, they inflicted a spasm of agony on Henry Little, and, between the spasms, his thoughts were bitter beyond expression. An icy barrier still between them, and none between his rival and her! Coventry could dance voluptuously with her before all the world; but he could only stand at the door of that Paradise, and groan and sicken with jealous anguish at the sight.
Now and then he looked up, and saw Jael Dence. She was alone. Like him, she was excluded from that brilliant crowd. He and she were born to work; these butterflies on the first floor, to enjoy.
Their eyes met; he saw soft pity in hers. He cast a mute, but touching appeal. She nodded, and withdrew from the window. Then he knew the faithful girl would try and do something or other for him.
But he never moved from his pillar of torture. Jealous agony is the one torment men can not fly from; it fascinates, it holds, it maddens.
Jael came to the drawing-room door just as the waltz ended, and tried to get to Miss Carden; but there were too many ladies and gentlemen, especially about the door.
At last she caught Grace's eye, but only for a moment; and the young lady was in the very act of going out on the balcony for air, with her partner.
She did go out, accompanied by Mr. Coventry, and took two or three turns. Her cheek was flushed, her eye kindled, and the poor jealous wretch over the way saw it, and ascribed all that to the company of his rival.
While she walked to and fro with fawn-like grace, conversing with Mr. Coventry, yet secretly wondering what that strange look Jael had given her could mean, Henry leaned, sick at heart, against the lamp-post over the way; and, at last, a groan forced its way out of him.
Faint as the sound was, Grace's quick ear caught it, and she turned her head. She saw him directly, and blushed high, and turned pale, all in a moment; for, in that single moment, her swift woman's heart told her why he was so ghastly, and why that sigh of distress.
She stopped short in her walk, and began to quiver from head to foot.
But, after a few moments of alarm, distress, and perplexity, love and high spirit supplied the place of tact, and she did the best and most characteristic thing she could. Just as Mr. Coventry, who had observed her shiver, was asking her if she found it too cold, she drew herself up to her full height, and, turning round, kissed her hand over the balcony to Henry Little with a sort of princely grandeur, and an ardor of recognition and esteem that set his heart leaping, and his pale cheek blushing, and made Coventry jealous in his turn. Yes, one eloquent gesture did that in a moment.
But the brave girl was too sensitive to prolong such a situation: the music recommenced at that moment, and she seized the opportunity, and retired to the room; she courtesied to Little at the window, and this time he had the sense to lift his hat to her.
The moment she entered the room Grace Carden slipped away from Mr. Coventry, and wound her way like a serpent through the crowd, and found Jael Dence at the door. She caught her by the arm, and pinched her. She was all trembling. Jael drew her up the stairs a little way.
"You have seen him out there?"
"Yes; and I--oh!"
"There! there. Think of the folk. Fight it down."
"I will. Go to him, and say I can't bear it. Him to stand there--while those I don't care a pin for--oh, Jael, for pity's sake get him home to his mother."
"There, don't you fret. I know what to say."
Jael went down; borrowed the first shawl she could lay her hand on; hooded herself with it, and was across the road in a moment.
"You are to go home directly."
"Who says so?"
"She does."
"What, does she tell me to go away, and leave her to him?"
"What does that matter? her heart goes with you."
"No, no."
"Won't you take my word for it? I'm not given to lying."
"I know that. Oh, Jael, sweet, pretty, good-hearted Jael, have pity on me, and tell me the truth: is it me she loves, or that Coventry?"
"It is you."
"Oh, bless you! bless you! Ah, if I could only be sure of that, what wouldn't I do for her? But, if she loves me, why, why send me away? It is very cruel that so many should be in the same room with her, and HE should dance with her, and I must not even look on and catch a glimpse of her now and then. I won't go home."
