CHAPTER IX.
BLUE EYES AND BROWN.
Senator Bonair’s palatial home in the magnificent city of San Francisco was ablaze with light and gayety that night.
Though the millionaire owner himself was absent, in attendance on the session of Congress at Washington, his two handsome daughters, with their aunt, who chaperoned them since the death of their mother, had preferred remaining at home this winter, and were entertaining a house party. On this night they were giving a grand ball, and neither time nor money had been spared to make it a great success.
To make it more notable, the dancing was to be preceded by a theatrical treat, a play given by actors employed for the occasion. The private theater of the mansion had been refitted for the event, and a superb orchestra engaged.
To add to the pleasure of the evening, the manager assured his employers that an entirely new play would be given—one written by a member of his own company, a lovely young girl, who would herself play the leading part in her clever production, “A Wayside Flower.”
All the invited guests were on the qui vive, for the entertainments of the Bonairs always surpassed any other given in the city, and hundreds of hearts of gay young girls and happy swains fluttered in anticipation.
As the time approached for the curtain to rise, not a seat in the small theater was vacant. Exquisite ball gowns and jewels gleamed everywhere, while the bright eyes of their wearers flashed upon their black-coated companions with swift coquetry.
Conspicuous among all, in a gown of white lace over azure satin, with rare pearls clasping her slender throat, and binding her thick waves of flax-gold hair, was Rosalind Montague, the honored guest of the house, the betrothed of the senator’s only son.
Rosalind had never looked more beautiful, and one who was gazing at her from an obscure seat, an uninvited, unexpected guest, could not help but acknowledge it in his heart with a thrill of pride.
“Poor Rosy, I don’t see why I cannot love her better! She will make a bride to be proud of when I conclude to settle down and become a benedict.”
Why was it, as he gazed at her brilliant blue eyes and sunny hair, that dark brown eyes and curly chestnut locks came between him and Rosalind so persistently? Why would not memory down, when it was torture to remember!
She never could be his, the little brown-eyed cottage maiden, who had scorned him for his light love, and flung his roses back into his face. How the thorns had stung, as well as the lash of her little tongue, as she had berated him so soundly. Then when she had flung herself so desperately from his vehicle to almost certain death, could he ever forget that tragic hour? He stifled a groan, and shrank back farther into the shade of the tall palm near the door, where he had slipped into an irregular seat not in the rows. Oh, Heaven, what had been the mystery of her fate? Since he could not fathom it, why could he not forget? He must forget, he vowed, passionately to himself, for by and by, when he became Rosalind’s husband, it would be a sin to his blue-eyed bride for those haunting brown orbs to come between.
When he landed first in the city a whim had made him go first to a hotel, where, hearing of the entertainment going on at home, he had gotten himself into evening dress and arrived at the last moment, when his sisters, already in the box with Rosalind and other guests, were waiting, momently, for the curtain to rise on the first act in the play. It would not do to interrupt them now. Greetings must wait.
Anyhow, they were not missing him. Several men were in the box with them, giving attention and receiving it. He remembered he had told Rosalind he should not care how much she flirted, and she was taking him at his word.
The blue eyes as they looked upward to the dark-eyed man bending so eagerly to them, were very tender and languishing, and many a lover might have been jealous, but Charley Bonair was not conscious of a pang. Although he felt a certain pride and sense of proprietorship in her beauty, he did not mind the other fellow’s palpable admiration.
The chief thing that worried him now was that he was haunted by other eyes—brown eyes, soft with love, brown eyes, flashing with anger, always brown eyes! “Eyes it were wiser by far to forget.”
Again he stifled a long-drawn sigh, and glanced at the curtain, for the blare of the orchestra had begun, and presently the play would be on. He remembered just then to look at the elegant program the usher had thrust into his hand.
He had barely time to see that the play was entitled “A Wayside Flower,” when the orchestra ceased, and the curtain rolled up, showing the first scene.
He caught his breath with a gasp, and rubbed his eyes with a bewildered hand, then looked again to see if his vision had played him false.