"Gomez?" ventured Meredith.
"Helen Sherwood!" she cried. "Go and present Mr. Harkless before Brainard
Macauley takes her away to some corner."
CHAPTER XVI
PRETTY MARQUISE
The two friends walked through a sort of opera-bouffe to find her; music
playing, a swaying crowd, bright lights, bright eyes, pretty women, a
glimpse of dancers footing it over a polished floor in a room beyond--a
hundred colors flashing and changing, as the groups shifted, before the
eye could take in the composition of the picture. A sudden thrill of
exhilaration rioted in John's pulses, and he trembled like a child before
the gay disclosure of a Christmas tree. Meredith swore to himself that he
would not have known him for the man of five minutes agone. Two small,
bright red spots glowed in his cheeks; he held himself erect with head
thrown back and shoulders squared, and the idolizing Tom thought he looked
as a king ought to look at the acme of power and dominion. Miss Hinsdale's
word in the hallway was the geniuses touch: a bent, gray man of years--a
word--and behold the Great John Harkless, the youth of elder days ripened
to his prime of wisdom and strength! People made way for them and
whispered as they passed. It had been years since John Harkless had been
in the midst of a crowd of butterfly people; everything seemed unreal, or
like a ball in a play; presently the curtain would fall and close the
lights and laughter from his view, leaving only the echo of music.
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