Out in the World CHAPTER 3.
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They were silent along the way — he, from a brooding, questioning, bound state of feeling; she, partly from the intrusion of his unhappy condition of mind, and partly, because she knew that to speak of her pleasant anticipations would meet with no cheerful response.
Mrs. Woodbine's elegant suite of drawing-rooms, from the last of which opened her choicely stocked conservatory, were almost filled with guests when Carl Jansen and his wife arrived. They had entered, Madeline leaning on her husband's arm; been received by Mr. and Mrs. Woodbine; and were moving down the room, amid richly attired women and their attendants, when Mr. Guyton presented himself with a face all smiles and courtesy, and said, with the assured familiarity of a favored friend —
"Ah, Mrs. Jansen! I've been looking for you! Good evening, Mr. Jansen! Let me take the care of your lady off of your hands."
And before Jansen had time to think, Madeline's hand had been withdrawn from his arm, and she was moving away, leaning on the arm of the very man whom of all living men, he at that time most detested. What was to be done? Anything, or nothing? For once in his life, there were red stains of passion in his cheeks. He knew it by their burning glow; and, in fear lest he should betray the almost maddening strife of feeling that seemed as if it would bear him beyond self-control, he moved out of the circle of observation as far as possible. But, he did not lose sight of his wife. How perfectly at home she was with Mr. Guyton! How familiarly did she lean towards him, looking up into his face, and answering him with sunny smiles and bright laughing eyes! He was an attractive man; taller in stature than Mr. Jansen, and altogether of a more imposing exterior. His manners were polished — his tastes cultivated; and he had fine conversational powers. Altogether he was a man to shine in society — one that fascinated women.
As Jansen's eyes followed them — a cold, dull sense of fear, that hurt as it stealthily intruded, crept through his heart. "What did this mean? The unhappy man looked inward, searchingly, and found a new sensation, full of pain. Love had taken the alarm; and, suddenly, an armored knight was by her side, with sword unsheathed! Under the half shut visor, you saw the gleam of a cruel eye. It was Jealousy!
Now, in most cases, jealousy sees through an obscuring medium, and gives a false report of every act. The purest smile — is an invitation to step aside from paths of virtue; the simplest motion — is a betrayal of design; a foregone admission of evil — distorts and changes everything.
Like a dissolving view, almost suddenly — yet by a strange, gradual blending with, and substitution of one thing for another — the scene before Carl Jansen put on new features, and a new significance. There was a dangerous tempter beside his wife — she was in peril. There was safety only in her withdrawal from his alluring sphere. This idea took entire possession of Jansen's mind. But, how was this withdrawal to be effected? He was yet in the midst of his perplexed and troubled thoughts, when he observed Madeline and her companion pass from one of the drawing rooms, into the conservatory. As he was moving to follow them, he found himself face to face with a lady acquaintance, who said, as they recognized each other —
"I've been looking at your wife, Mr. Jansen. She is lovely!"
The lady was not a flatterer; but a frank outspoken friend, well enough acquainted to assume liberties of speech.
"I've never seen her look better than she does tonight," she continued. "Perfectly charming. Everybody is in love with her! I wonder you are not jealous. I would be, were I a man and had such a beautiful, fascinating creature for a wife."
"A poor compliment to both yourself and wife that would be, taking the supposed case as real," said Jansen, trying to answer indifferently. But, his voice had no music in it. The tones were dull and husky.
"I believe you are jealous!" said the lady in playful banter, passing her fan lightly before his face. "For shame!"
Once more, a rare thing for Jansen, the color rose to his cheeks, and he felt that he was betraying himself.
A third person joining them at the moment, there was opportunity for dropping a theme which to him had proved almost painfully embarrassing. Fully twenty minutes elapsed before he could disengage himself from these two ladies. During this time, his watchful eyes had been upon the door leading into the conservatory; but his wife had not yet reappeared.
Jealousy moves, always, with circumspection — has stealthy — but quick-seeing eyes. It veils alertness under forms of indifference. It pretends not to observe, when every sense is acute. Jansen entered the conservatory with the air of a half absent-minded person, and stood near the door, in pretended admiration of a flowering cactus. He bent to the curious, irregular mass of vegetation — touched its fluted sides — felt of its prickly spines, and stooped to its crimson blossoms as if to find some odors there; yet, thought was scarcely noticing the plant, and his eyes, as he leaned over it, were looking between its branches, and along the green-house alleys. But their search was not satisfactory. A little farther away from the entrance hung a basket, in which an air plant was imitating a butterfly; and so perfect, at first sight, was the semblance, that Jansen was half deceived, and stepped closer to solve the illusion. The bright eyes and painted wings were but the coloring of a leaf.
"Isn't it exquisite, Carl?" Jansen startled to find his wife near him. She was still in the company of Guyton. Her face was alive with beauty and feeling. She looked more lovely than she had ever appeared. "You will find some rare and beautiful things here," she added. "I have enjoyed them so much. Be sure to look at Mrs. Woodbine's pansies, at the lower end. Such richness and variety in the coloring, I have never seen."
In the next moment, she had vanished with her attendant, passing again to the drawing-rooms, and leaving her husband to the companionship of flowers. For a short time, he stood bewildered; then advanced a little way down the conservatory — stood, apparently, in admiration of a large orange tree; and then, turning, went back to the parlors. Through these, he searched in vain for his wife. She was nowhere to be seen. Presently music was heard. It came from one of the upper rooms. A few, who loved music, left the crowded rooms below, and went upstairs. Jansen stood in the hall, near the stairway, in a state of indecision. A voice, clear and sweet, stole out on the air above, and came floating down. There was a pause in the movement about Jansen — a pause to listen.
"That's your wife," said one who happened to be near the young man.
At this moment, another voice, rich and deep, swelled out, in accord with the fine soprano.
"And that's Guyton," added the same person. "He's a glorious singer. Come!"
The speaker moved to the stairs, and Jansen accompanied him. They went up, and following the rich sounds, entered a large front chamber, which had been arranged as a music room for the occasion. The sight which there met the eyes of Jansen was in no respect calculated to soothe his disturbed feelings. The piano was so arranged that you could see the performers' faces.
Madeline was seated at the instrument, and Guyton standing beside her. They were singing a duet. Guyton turned the music, and in doing so, bent, with a closeness of contact, and a familiarity of manner, that struck the husband as an outrage; sometimes dropping, during a pause in his part, a word in the ear of Mrs. Jansen. At the conclusion of the piece, Madeline, who seemed to be conscious of no presence but that of her companion — lifted to his her bright eyes and glowing face, and received, with evident signs of pleasure, the compliments he lavished.
Jansen was on fire! With difficulty he restrained an impulse prompting him to cross the room to where the performers were engaged, and invite his wife to accompany him downstairs. The act would have been an outrage; and he was able to see this clearly enough to prevent the folly. For nearly half an hour, he was doomed to the sufferings of a purgatory. The singers were enchanted with the music, and as he read their feelings in their countenances, with each other also. Madeline had never looked to him moreravishingly beautiful. Light flashed from her face and eyes, and floated around her glossy curls and gemmed hairpiece, like a halo.
Dancing had commenced in the parlors; and this was gradually diminishing the company gathered in the music room. Jansen was among those who lingered. A brilliant little Italian song had been sung by Madeline, and she was sitting quietly for a moment in the pause that followed, when Guyton bent down and said something. Smiles of consent and pleasure danced over her face, and she arose from the music stool and took his offered arm. They were half across the room, when Jansen stood in their way, and looking coldly, almost sternly at his wife, said, in an undertone —
"I need to speak to you for a moment." Then bowing with an excess of formality to her companion, he said to him —
"Please excuse her, Mr. Guyton."
Madeline looked seriously annoyed. Guyton was surprised, and stared at Mr. Jansen with falling brows, like one offended by a rudeness. He returned the bow quite as formally as it had been given, and left the young husband and his wife in the now almost deserted room.
"You are forgetting yourself, Madeline," said Jansen, as soon as they were sufficiently alone to escape particular notice. His eyes were riddles to his wife. What new, strange, dark meanings were looking out of them? They were full of accusation; were sharp with anger.
"I do not understand you," she replied — and she did not. The color had almost all gone out of her face, which was as rosy as blushing May scarcely a moment back.
Jansen was excited and in mental obscurity.
"Perhaps I can make it clear," he said, speaking in a tone of irony.
"Do, if you please!" His hardness was communicating itself. Madeline looked at him with shut lips, and cold eyes. He had broken upon her happiness too suddenly, and in a way that stirred her anger. She felt that there was something of outrage in his inexplicable conduct.
"There are some men with whom it is not prudent for a young wife to be seen in too close familiarity."
"Carl Jansen! Is it possible!" She was startled and indignant.
"I speak soberly!" he returned.
"So much the worse," was answered quickly, and with a hot flushing of the face, which had grown so pale a little while before. "Your wife appreciates the compliment!"
"Don't make light of things that I regard as serious, Madeline; and, particularly, don't make light of this." He spoke in a warning way. "I am in no temper for trifling tonight. What I have seen and heard, justifies me in all I am saying and doing."
"And please, sir, what have you seen and heard tonight?" demanded Mrs. Jansen, drawing a little away from her husband, and looking at him with flashing eyes.
"Enough," he said," to warn me of danger to your good name."
She turned from him with an offended air, and had receded a pace or two, when he moved forward to her side, and bending close to her ear, whispered —
"I am going home, and desire you to accompany me."
Madeline stood still instantly. She did not turn her face, nor look at him. Only a moment to reflection was given — no, not to reflection — but to the hindering of quickly springing impulse. Passion had sway; but passion hiding itself from common observation. She answered in a firm low voice —
"At one o'clock, I shall be ready to accompany you — not before."
"Madeline!" The tone was in warning.
"At one! Not a minute before." And she left him and went downstairs.
It was fully twenty minutes before Jansen had sufficient possession of himself to venture into the drawing-rooms again. There was dancing, and his wife was on the floor — her partner, Mr. Guyton. He stood looking at them, as if under a spell. Every time the hand of his wife touched that of her handsome partner, a fiery thrill would run along his nerves, and strike on his brain with a shock. She moved before him, an image of surpassing loveliness — an embodiment of pleasure. There was nowhere to be read, on her joyous countenance, the faintest sign of troubled thought. It seemed as if the memory of what had passed a little while before, was wholly obliterated from her consciousness.
"Is she heartless! Does she defy me! O jealousy! Blind, suspicious, cruel — how quickly do you lead the soul astray! Jansen moved back, and went into the hall, where he was out of sight of the dancers.
"I said that I was going home," he spoke with himself, "and what I say I mean. She made light of it. Very well! She shall know me better. My word is the law of my actions. I speak — and do. I said that I was going — and I shall go."
It was one o'clock. Half the company had retired. The drawing-rooms were no longer crowded, as few except the dancers remained. For all the sunny face, and light, joyous manner of Mrs. Jansen, even as her husband looked at her in anger of this very joyousness — there was the weight, as of a leaden hand, lying on her bosom. And this had grown heavier and heavier, as the hours passed, until its pressure was almost suffocating. She had been dancing a set. The figures were completed, and the music ceased.
"I must find my husband," she said, partly aloud, and partly to herself, gliding away from her partner, and moving from room to room. Not seeing him, she passed to the hall, and then upstairs.
"Have you seen anything of my husband, Mrs. Woodbine?" she asked of the lady hostess, as she met her on the landing.
"No. Isn't he downstairs?"
"I think not."
"Perhaps you will find him in the music room. There are several gentlemen there."
But he was not in the music room. Mrs. Jansen went gliding downstairs, almost holding her breath. The pressure which lay on her bosom grew heavier and heavier. Through the glass door of the conservatory, she saw figures moving among the plants. She went in, and along the fragrant aisles — but failed to meet the object of her search.
"Have you seen anything of my husband?" The question was asked of a friend whom she met on coming out of the conservatory.
"Not lately. Perhaps he is in the gentlemen's dressing room."
"If you see him, please say that I have gone for my cloak and hood, and will be down in a few moments."
"Certainly." And the gentleman bowed.
It took Mrs. Jansen only a few minutes to get ready for departure. Cloaked and hooded she came downstairs, eagerly searching with her eyes among the gentlemen who waited in the hall for her husband. But he was not among them. Disappointed she drew back, up the stairs.
"Have you seen anything of my husband?" Again this question was repeated. She spoke to Mr. Woodbine.
"Indeed I have not, Mrs. Jansen."
"Won't you be kind enough to ascertain for me if he is in the gentlemen's dressing-room?"
"With pleasure."
"Say, if you please, that I am all ready."
A sofa stood in the upper hall. Mrs. Jansen was feeling very weak. Her limbs trembled. She went up from the landing, on which she had met Mr. Woodbine, and sat down on the sofa.
"Why, how pale you are, Mrs. Jansen!" exclaimed a lady who had come up at the moment. "Don't you feel well?"
"Not very," Madeline answered, faintly.
"You have danced too much. I feared you would overdo yourself." The lady friend drew a bottle of smelling salts from her pocket, and handed it to Mrs. Jansen. The pungent odor, stimulating her brain, partly revived her.
"You should have been more prudent. It was on my lip to suggest this two or three times. Where is your husband?"
"I am expecting him every moment. Mr. Woodbine has gone to the dressing-room to tell him I am ready."
Two or three ladies by this time stood before Madeline.
"What's the matter?" "Is she sick?" "How very white she is!" These short sentences passed from one to another.
"I can't find anything of your husband," said Mr. Woodbine, joining, soon after, the group. One of my servants says that he went out nearly three hours ago, and that he doesn't remember having seen him since. And now that I think of it — " His tone and manner changed instantly. "Catch her! She's falling!"
Madeline's head had dropped suddenly on her bosom, and she was slipping to the floor. Eager arms caught her, and laid her back on the sofa. She was as colorless as marble, and insensible!
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