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"Gunther awaits me," said she, musing. But why where? that she could not say. But she felt that she must free herself from prison, and that her fate now lay in her own hands. At that moment she stood before a large round table which was just under the principal chandelier of her superb reception-room. Here lay dainty boxes containing laces, and caskets enclosing jewels.
The salon, hung with blue and white damask, formerly the curtains of the state-bed, was draped with ample portieres and window curtains lined with white silk. Pictures, evidently from old panels, plant-stands, various pretty articles of modern upholstery, handsome lamps, and a rare old cut-glass chandelier, gave a grandiose appearance to the room. The carpet was a Persian rug.
But neither Rouget, nor his son, nor the cook, took the slightest care of all these treasures. They spat upon a hearth of exquisite delicacy, whose gilded mouldings were now green with verdigris. A handsome chandelier, partly of semi-transparent porcelain, was peppered, like the ceiling from which it hung, with black speckles, bearing witness to the immunity enjoyed by the flies.
She was not going to throw it away unless he forced her, and hitherto he had made no attempt to lead the conversation out of the usual channels. It was the first time that they were alone together since the eventful evening at the club, and in the intervening week enough had happened to give them food for intercourse. By mutual consent, the accident of the chandelier was not touched upon.
Instantly divining who it was, Ella sprang up, and when Henry entered the parlor, he found her standing in the centre of the room, where the full blaze of the chandelier fell upon her childish features, lighting them up with radiant beauty. "And so my little pet is alone," said he, coming forward, and raising to his lips the dainty fingers which Ella extended towards him.
The great chandelier had been dragged from the ceiling, pictures were slashed and cut to ribbons, the arras had been torn from the walls and the costly furniture was reduced to fire-wood; the double-windows opening to the balcony stood wide, and not a pane of glass left whole, the fragments lying all about the place.
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.
A thin strip of it wrapped around the end of a candle and fastened in a cleft stick makes a practicable chandelier. A basket for berries, a horn to call the lovelorn moose through the autumnal woods, a canvas on which to draw the outline of great and memorable fish all these and many other indispensable luxuries are stored up for the skilful woodsman in the birch bark.
"I've played with Abe Mitchell often, and I was partnered with Harry Vardon in last year's Open." The great Russian uttered a cry that shook the chandelier. "You play in ze Open? Why," he demanded reproachfully of Mrs. Smethurst, "was I not been introducted to this young man who play in opens?" "Well, really," faltered Mrs. Smethurst. "Well, the fact is, Mr. Brusiloff " She broke off.
The huge chandelier was unlighted.... It was even as Gilder, in an increasing irritation over the delay, had thrown himself down on a couch which stood just a little way within an alcove, that he heard the outer door open and shut. He sprang up with an ejaculation of satisfaction. "Dick, at last!" he muttered. It was, in truth, the son.
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