PAGE 8
Diamonds And Hearts
by
“M. Dupleisis, I regret my inability to be present at the Assembly; but, really, I am engaged.”
Dupleisis looked at her in astonishment.
Edgar Fay, pale and trembling, was standing behind them. He must have heard every word; for he sunk helplessly and faint on the floor, hiding his face in the depth of his degradation.
Why should we follow them any further? Can I tell how the miserable man, cringing at the feet of that pure woman, narrated his dreary history of folly, extravagance, and dishonor? Need it be said that, through all his dissipation, frivolity, and crime, his gentle sister clung to him, and, smiling through her tears, bade him go and sin no more? She stole upon him like a shadow in the night, and, her labor of love ended, faded away. No entreaty of the generous diamond-dealer dissuaded her; no apology of the detective turned her from the one fixed purpose. The star of the Alcasar rose, culminated, and disappeared in two weeks.
O woman! I have seen you in the brilliant whirl of society, where all was gayety, gallantry, and splendor. I have seen your eyes flash triumphant, and daintily gaitered feet move fast and furious to the music of les pieces d’or. I have seen brave men stand fascinated at your side, and careless youth overflow the bumper of Johannisberger to health, and youth, and beauty. I have heard the stern cynic jingle his Napoleons in unison with the frantic strains, and sneer out, “Vive la bagatelle!” Daughters of marble! daughters of marble! Turn your snowy arms to the glittering gorgeous, scatter the golden heaps, deluge the world with champagne. Diamonds, diamonds must win hearts. I have watched you in a deeper, darker, madder whirl, while I have seen fair, blooming flowers wither in the hot hands of drunken licentiousness. Oh, Becky Sharp! Oh, Dame aux Camellias! you are but single dandelions in a parterre of heliotropes!
* * * * *
There was hurrying to and fro on the broad decks. Bustling cabin-boys rushed hither and thither with great baskets of stores; the jauntily-arrayed stewardess chatted saucily with her friends in the shore-boats; sailors slipped quietly over the bulwarks with their secretly-collected menageries of pets; watermen contended stoutly at the gangway for a landing near the steps; and dusky cameradas cursed, in broken French and Portuguese, at the weight of the trunks. Here a naturalist trembled with anxiety for the fate of a coral; there a bird-fancier worked himself into a small frenzy at the jostling of big parrots. Bones, fossils, plants, bottled fish, bananas, oranges, and mangoes, were mingled in one promiscuous heap. Monkeys of all tribes and shades of complexion, from the golden Mumasitte to the fierce Machaca, were crowded pell-mell into passages; and forcing them against the bulkheads were boxes of wine, jellies, and doces in their infinitesimal variety. Men and women, crouching in retired places, hurried through their few broken words of parting, and eyes were dried for the great heart-throb left for the very last. Off in the painted boats, ship-chandlers smilingly bowed their bon voyage, and faces pallid with grief gazed with swollen eyes at loved ones convulsed with emotion. The gorgeous custom-house officer has smoked his last cigarette and taken his last “dispatch;” the belated passenger, whose agonizing shrieks and spasmodic contortions finally attracted the attention of the captain, is at length, carpet-bag in hand, on board, and the sharp crash of the gong severs the lingering groups.
Who ever made an ocean voyage undismayed by the knell! It is the trumpet-tongue of reality, awakening the mind from the lethargy of its distress. The woe of separation, the terror of the journey, the vague apprehension of the future, meeting, burst upon you in the fullness of their stern reality. The bewildered mortal turns to gaze at the companions of his danger, casts a lingering look on those he has left behind; the groaning paddles, with reluctant plunges, begin their weary labor; the faces of the cheering crowd, one by one, drop out of the picture, until distance swallows the whole, and those nearer and dearer than all earth beside become a memory.
Far aft, under the waving tricolor, stood the woman of our story. Her fingers twined carelessly through the glittering necklace thrust into her hand as Percy Reed clambered into his boat, and her eyes rested sadly on an ungainly transport, already freighting with its cargo of mortality for the sacrifice at Humaita. The golden glow of the harbor was lost in the chilly mist; the bare mountain-tops loomed bleakly through the piles of cloudy haze. White waves curled dismally at the base of the Pao de Assucar, and the weird shrieks of the sea-gulls on the rocks that jutted around it made the dreariness more desolate. Far out in the trackless waste the sky lowered gloomily over the weary waters. Fit emblem of her path through life–dark was the picture, threatening the surroundings.
Pray for the woman doomed to a calling she cannot but despise! Pray for the being overflowing with good thoughts toward all mankind, sentenced to “tread the wine-press alone!” God have mercy upon us miserable sinners!