What Dreams May Come | Page 3

a man
entered. He closed the door and pushed the hanging back into place,
then went swiftly forward and stood before her. She held out her hand
and he took it and drew her further within the room. The twilight had
gone from the window, the shadows had deepened, and the darkness of
night was about them.
* * * * *
In the great banqueting-hall the stout mahogany table upheld its weight
of flashing gold and silver and sparkling crystal without a groan, and
solemn, turbaned Turks passed wine and viand. Around the board the
diplomatic colony forgot their exile in remote Constantinople, and wit
and anecdote, spicy but good-humored political discussion, repartee
and flirtation made a charming accompaniment to the wonderful variety
displayed in the faces and accents of the guests. The stately, dignified
ministers of the Sultan gazed at the fair faces and jewel-laden shoulders
of the women of the North, and sighed as they thought of their dusky
wives; and the women of the North threw blue, smiling glances to the
Turks and wondered if it were romantic to live in a harem.
At the end of the second course Sir Dafyd raised a glass of wine to his
lips, and, as he glanced about the table, conversation ceased for a
moment.
"Will you drink to my wife's health?" he said. "It has caused me much
anxiety of late."

Every glass was simultaneously raised, and then Sir Dafyd pushed back
his chair and rose to his feet. "If you will pardon me," he said, "I will
go and see how she is."
He left the room, and the wife of the Spanish Ambassador turned to her
companion with a sigh. "So devot he is, no?" she murmured. "You
Eenglish, you have the fire undere the ice. He lover his wife very
moocho when he leaver the dinner. And she lover him too, no?"
"I don't know," said the Englishman to whom she spoke. "It never
struck me that Penrhyn was a particularly lovable fellow. He's so
deuced haughty; the Welsh are worse for that than we English. He's as
unapproachable as a stone. I don't fancy the Lady Sionèd worships the
ground he treads upon. But then, he's the biggest diplomate in Great
Britain; one can't have everything."
"I no liker all the Eenglish, though," pursued the pretty Spaniard. "The
Señora Dar-muth, I no care for her. She looker like she have the
tempere--how you call him?--the dev-vil, no? And she looker like she
have the fire ouside and the ice in."
"Oh, she's not so bad," said the Englishman, loyally. "She has some
admirable traits, and she's deuced clever, but she has an ill-regulated
sort of a nature, and is awfully obstinate and prejudiced. It's a sort of
vanity. She worries Dartmouth a good deal. He's a born poet, if ever a
man was, and she wants him to go into politics. Wants a salon and all
that sort of thing. She ought to have it, too. Political intrigue would just
suit her; she's diplomatic and secretive. But Dartmouth prefers his
study."
The lady from Spain raised her sympathetic, pensive eyes to the
Englishman's. "And the Señor Dar-muth? How he is? He is nice fellow?
I no meeting hime?"
"The best fellow that ever lived, God bless him!" exclaimed the young
man, enthusiastically. "He has the temperament of genius, and he isn't
always there when you want him--I mean, he isn't always in the right
mood; but he's a splendid specimen of a man, and the most likeable
fellow I ever knew--poor fellow!"
"Why you say 'poor fel-low'? He is no happy, no?"
"Well, you see," said the young man, succumbing to those lovely,
pitying eyes, and not observing that they gazed with equal tenderness at
the crimson wine in the cup beside her plate--"you see, he and his wife

are none too congenial, as I said. It makes her wild to have him write,
not only because she wants to cut a figure in London, and he will
always live in some romantic place like this, but she's in love with him,
in her way, and she's jealous of his very desk. That makes things
unpleasant about the domestic hearthstone. And then she doesn't
believe a bit in his talent, and takes good care to let him know it. So,
you see, he's not the most enviable of mortals."
"Much better she have be careful," said the Spanish woman; "some day
he feel tire out and go to lover someone else. Please you geeve me
some more clarette?"
"Here comes Sir Dafyd," said the Englishman, as he filled her glass. "It
has taken him a long time to find out how she is."
The shadow had wholly disappeared from Sir Dafyd's mouth, a faint
smile hovering