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Norcross shot a glance of quick suspicion at her as he rose, reached for the old-fashioned gas chandelier, and turned the jets down to tiny points. "Oh, dear no!" spoke Mrs. Markham, "not so low as that this is no dark seance. I merely meant that the lights are too strong for a pair of sensitive eyes. I feel everything when I am in this condition. Would you mind sitting a little further away?
No workman, no craftsman or artisan can be significant without it.... However, as I thought of the chandelier and the sumptuous flesh beneath, I talked of writing something of what writing means to me. When I stopped, he said: "'I didn't know you were so religious.... But about this writing matter and opened the subject again.... "He's all right. Nature will doubtless take care of him.
I picked myself up, bursting into a fit of laughter, as if the affair had been a good joke. "I beg your pardon, old fellow," I said; "but if you had had a chandelier burning in this place of yours it would not have happened. How do you all manage to see down here?" "As cats do we're accustomed to it," said another voice; and I now began to distinguish objects around me.
A chandelier of crystal, hanging by a chain from the remote ceiling, with a frosted sparkle like an illuminated wedding cake, unaffected by prismatic green and red flashes, filled the interior with a chilly brightness.
Such storms of applause broke out as set the lustres of the chandelier jingling. Then some murmurs made themselves heard, and the voice of a citizen in a round hat answered from the pit with the hymn of the Marseillaise: Allons, enfants de la patrie.... The voice was drowned by howls, and shouts were raised: "Down with the Terrorists! Death to the Jacobins!"
Some red Japanese bird-kites were stuck about in the necks of spelter vases, a crimson Jap umbrella hung opened beneath the chandelier, and each globe had a shade of yellow silk. March, when he had recovered his self-command a little in the presence of the agglomeration, comforted himself by calling the bric-a-brac Jamescracks, as if this was their full name.
Even Jethro, as he ate his crackers and milk, had a new coat with bright brass buttons, and Cynthia, who wore a fresh gingham which Miss Sukey Kittredge of Coniston had helped to design, so far relented in deference to Jethro's taste as to tie a red bow at her throat. The middle table under the chandelier was the immediate firmament of Miss Cassandra Hopkins.
By the table, the chairs that had been pushed back or overturned showed the number of drinkers to have been about ten. An acrid smell of tobacco and wine hung about this scene of an overnight orgy. One thing I specially remember: the sight of an officer's cap, with a red band, hanging from one of the branches of the large chandelier in the centre of the room.
The dinner was a simple one, but to Randy the room with its fine furnishings, the rare flowers in the centre of the table, the noiseless tread of the servant with his silver salver, the soft light from the great chandelier, all seemed a part of the fairyland of which she had so often read in the old volume of "Grimm's Tales" at home.
"'Ting-ting! and the little iron chandelier suddenly rose at least half a yard and disappeared in the tub; and that was the sign that the play was going to begin. A young nobleman and his lady, who happened to be passing through the little town, were present at the performance, and consequently the house was crowded.
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