F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
Chapter 60
closing the door quickly after him, "you will be discovered and
exposed. I am not surprised at your passion for her, nor the means
by which you seek to destroy the relations existing between her and
George Mullholland. It is an evidence of taste in you. But she is
proud to a fault, and, this I say in friendship, you so wounded her
feelings, when you betrayed her to the St. Cecilia, that she has
sworn to have revenge on you. George Mullholland, too, has sworn to
have your life.
"I tell you what it is, Judge, (the accommodation man assumes the
air of a bank director,) I have just conceived-you will admit I have
an inventive mind!--a plot that will carry you clean through the
whole affair. Your ambition is divided between a passion for this
charming creature and the good opinion of better society. The
resolution to retain the good opinion of society is doing noble
battle in your heart; but it is the weaker vessel, and it always
will be so with a man of your mould, inasmuch as such resolutions
are backed up by the less fierce elements of our nature. Put this
down as an established principle. Well, then, I will take upon
myself the betrayal. I will plead you ignorant of the charge,
procure her forgiveness, and reconcile the matter with this
Mullholland. It's worth an hundred or more, eh?"
The venerable man smiles, shakes his head as if heedless of the
admonition, and again covers his face with his domino.
The accommodation man, calling him by his judicial title, says he
will yet repent the refusal!
It is ten o'clock. The gentleman slightly colored, who represents a
fussy beadle, makes a flourish with his great staff. The doors of
the dancing hall are thrown open. Like the rushing of the gulf
stream there floods in a motley procession of painted females and
masked men-the former in dresses as varied in hue as the fires of
remorse burning out their unuttered thoughts. Two and two they jeer
and crowd their way along into the spacious hall, the walls of which
are frescoed in extravagant mythological designs, the roof painted